When the eye first

View

The photograph was taken on February 2nd.

(Posting title is from the poem The Third Hour of the Night by Frank Bidart.)

Slowly it trims distances with eyes

Garden

The photograph was taken on September 9th.

(Posting title is from the poem Apple by John Peck.)

Speak, and my eyes failed

View

The photograph was taken on December 5th.

Today I commuted by bicycle through the central park in Helsinki, which is nice because there are few people and no traffic lights. We had -6 °C in the morning and -3 °C in the afternoon.

(Posting title is from the poem The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot.)

Because not one in a million

Garden 1

Garden 2

The photographs were taken at Kaisaniemi botanic garden in Helsinki on November 1st.

This morning I walked for over two hours, enjoying the snowy landscape. The length of day is now 6 hours 19 minutes. I started walking well before sunrise, but because of the snow it didn't feel dark.

I took quite a lot of photographs, trying to adjust to the snowy conditions. Two LX100 batteries got drained, as well as the iPhone SE battery.

I'm flabbergasted at what is happening in the USA. Those in power seems to be keen on destroying themselves.

(Posting title is from the poem The Price is Right: A Torture Wheel of Fortune by Edward Dorn.)

Could this ticket be what you ordered, could it?

View 1

View 2

The photographs were taken at Kaisaniemi botanic garden in Helsinki on November 1st.

The depth of snow is now 9 cm, and apparently snow will remain until Sunday when there will be plenty of rain.

(Posting title is from the poem Blood on the Wheel by Juan Felipe Herrera.)

There, in a never-ceasing round

View 1

View 2

The photographs were taken at Kaisaniemi botanic garden in Helsinki on November 1st.

They are promising quite a lot of snow for tomorrow. The bicycle needs repairs, and not only the flat tire needs to be fixed, so I'll commute by car and train.

(Posting title is from the poem The Old Water-Wheel by Clark Ashton Smith.)

Till the light is gone

Blur

The photograph was taken at Kaisaniemi botanic garden in Helsinki on November 1st.

This morning there was a little bit of snow on the road when I started riding the bicycle. During the day the snow melted away. On the way home I noticed that the tire pressure is going down. I'm not sure whether there is a puncture or a problem with the valve.

The length of day is now less than 6 1/2 hours. The weather has been rainy and clouded, so it has been dark indeed.

(Posting title is from the poem The Wheel King by Howard Nemerov.)

None of us will ever take the transiberian train

View 1

View 2

View 3

On September 10th I visited Hatanpää Arboretum in Tampere.

(Posting title is from the poem Cordelia, or ‘A Poem Should Not Mean, But Be’ by Veronica Forrest-Thomson.)

You should see the things we do, baby

Park 1

Park 2

Park 3

Park 4

The photographs were taken at Hyde Park in London on August 3rd.

Today on the way home cars were stuck on the road for 1 1/2 kilometers, because of an accident. I rode the bicycle past the traffic jam, enjoying backwind.

(Posting title is from the song Ready For It? by Taylor Swift.)

And we know what we want

Garden 1

Garden 2

Garden 3

The photographs were taken at Dutch garden in London's Holland Park on August 2nd.

This morning I walked two hours at Tremanskärr, going across swamps. There were no deer fly. I tasted raspberries and lingonberries. The cranberries are not yet ripe.

While walking I did a little bit of thinking about Trump. The United States doesn't have a president after Obama, just a creature that can simulate a human being for a short while if he is tightly controlled and scripted.

(Posting title is from the song Road to Nowhere by David Byrne.)

I see it all, I see it now

Garden 1

Garden 2

Garden 3

Garden 4

The photographs were taken at Kyoto Garden in London on August 2nd.

I have got 4,358 km riding the bicycle this year, of which 2,488 km since the beginning of May. This week the weather was rather variable, in the beginning cold and dry, and then warm and wet.

(Posting title is from the song Roar by Katy Perry.)

Is always repeating itself

View 1

View 2

The photographs were taken on July 20th in Helsinki.

Is there much else to say except that racism is a cancer that needs to be removed? The same applies to Trump.

(Posting title is from the song Waterloo by ABBA.)

Like a flowering tree and smelled sweet

Garden 1

Garden 2

Garden 3

Garden 4

Garden 5

Garden 6

The photographs were taken at the Winter Garden in Helsinki on December 29th.

(Posting title is from the poem Mount Street Gardens by Frederick Seidel.)

Holds in perfection but a little moment

Snow 1

Snow 2

Snow 4

Snow 5

Snow 3

The weather forecast for today is somewhat discouraging, rain (and a little bit of snow mixed in) most of the day. The depth of snow is decreasing, yesterday it was 18 cm, today 17 cm, and going down further.

These photographs were taken on February 1st when we got some new snow.

(Posting title is from Sonnet 15 by William Shakespeare.)

I had the idea that the world’s so full of pain

Colors 1

Colors 2

Well, here is some late autumn colors for you to enjoy.

(Posting title is from the poem Faint Music by Robert Hass.)

All night I ached for her and for myself

Rose 1

Rose 2

Rose 3

Rose 4

Rose 5

Today was a clouded, rainy day. And busy one, too. I'm very tired. Maybe that is why I got the urge to show some red color here at Light Scrape.

(Posting title is from the poem Her Life Runs Like a Red Silk Flag by Bruce Weigl.)

I was small, there was too much to remember

Fallen

Yellow

I commuted by bicycle today, but that probably wasn't a good idea, as I got a headache at work before noon, and that didn't ease during afternoon. One shouldn't engage in exercise when one is sick (even if the sickness is light; I don't have any fever). Tomorrow I'll commute by bus or by car.

(Posting title is from the poem Yellow Glove by Naomi Shihab Nye.)

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost

Frost 1

Frost 2

Frost 3

We had cold weather earlier in October, but recently the temperature has hovered around +10 °C. Here are photographs from the colder period, of frost in the garden.

(Posting title is from the poem October by Robert Frost.)

For I am the keeper of the zoo

Hedgehog 1

Hedgehog 2

Here you see an eager little thing that is spending time in our garden, nosing the grass, looking for things to eat, and snuffling rather loudly when doing this.

I don't think it has good eyesight, and it doesn't know how to count. I and my three children had a look at it and talked aloud, and then it went hiding into the bushes. But when the two oldest daughters went inside, it came out and didn't seem to realize that I and the youngest daughter were watching quietly right beside.

On Wednesday I had seriously bad cramps in the big leg muscles. I was sitting in a seminar, and first I got cramps in the left feet, so painful that I almost shouted out loudly. And when that eased, the same happened with the right leg. And this happened again when I got back home, after commuting by bicycle.

I think I have been exercising a bit too much this week. First 4 1/2 hours of walking in forests and swamps, and then commuting by bicycle, 1 1/2 hours daily. Thus on Thursday I'm not using the bicycle but instead commuting by bus.

(Posting title is from the poem Wilderness by Carl Sandburg.)