Emjay's place, Delft, Netherlands - 28th March 2014
By: Emjay
It's a nice springday in Emjay's garden.
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Posted Mar 28, 2014, 3:41 pm
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Emjay's place, Delft, Netherlands - 28th March 2014
By: Emjay
This flower is called Forget-me-not. That's appropriate. I'm leaving today to Finland, but... I won't forget my friends, my granny or Delft!
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Posted Mar 28, 2014, 3:43 pm
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Emjay's place, Delft, Netherlands - 28th March 2014
By: Emjay
Bye, bye, everyone!
Hello, Henna!!!
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Posted Mar 28, 2014, 3:44 pm
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Nuuksio, Finland - 14th April 2014
By: Eohippus
Hi, dear mom!
I'm in Finland and Everything is allright,
nyt we Still don't have internet
connection.
I'm writing this trough smartphone,
and that is pretty difficult!
See you soon, I hope!
Your little donkey
Many kisses!
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Posted Apr 14, 2014, 11:34 am
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Emjay's place, Delft, Netherlands - 14th April 2014
By: Emjay
Hi dear Racko,
I'm glad you're fine. I'm sure Henna takes good care of you. Give my best wishes to her and enjoy yourself!
Love,
your mum Emjay and granny Bep
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Posted Apr 14, 2014, 7:07 pm
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Nuuksio, Finland - 30th April 2014
By: Eohippus
Hooray, mom!
We got the internet connection back yesterday!
How are you?
I've been here already almost a month, and seen the late winter
turn into spring.
When I arrived to Finland in the beginning
of April, there was still a bit of snow in the shadier places.
I had to loan a scarf and a shirt from Orkku Orava´s closet,
because it was still rather cool!
But my new friends were feeling even more
cold, because they had just came from Portugal, where it was
already full summer (from my point of view).
Anyway, we run her and run there, in hurry to see everything (and to keep warm)
and helping the spring to come by singing couraging songs to
it - songs mentioning sun and green foliage, flowers and
birdsong and other summery things.
I have learned to make coffee on a pot over fire, oh, and the fire too!
That´s very usefull skill here, because it seems we are making a lot of trips into the nature, bushes and woods all the time.
The coffee tastes wonderfull outside
in nature, especially when it is as cold as it was!
(I don´t mean the coffee was cold but the weather!
The coffee was hot! )
We sat in front of the fire, but it was
still cold, and so we decided to go on with our calling of spring.
The sand was getting a bit warmer under
our paws, and we started to engourage the spring even
more fervently to come.
We sang and shouted and coaxed, until Henna said that if we get on making
that kind of larm, the spring would flee totally somewhere else!
Maybe to Africa, like the cranes.
But we showed our tongues to her and climbed
over a hill with a great view over the forest and lakes, and
felt that it was the perfect spot to reach the spring.
There
we did The Big Spring Dance and Sing, you know, like the indians
asking for rain.
And it worked!
Because soon we found the first spring flowers!
Wonderfull crocuses popped up and opened in front of our eyes!
"Wellcome, beauties!" we shouted to them and danced round them.
We were hopefully searching for more
everywhere.
And soon they walked towards us, radiant blue anemones!
"Ooooo, hello, wellcome, little miracles!" we shouted.
"Hello to your self, you little voyagers!" they answered.
Also the weather was turning warmer,
the sun itself wanted to greet us, and we were really enjoying
her appearance! Wonderfull, wonderfull spring!
See you very soon again, mom and gran!
Thousands of kisses from Racko!
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Posted Apr 30, 2014, 11:01 pm Last edited Apr 30, 2014, 11:13 pm by Eohippus
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Emjay's place, Delft, Netherlands - 1st May 2014
By: Emjay
Hello Racko & friends,
Wow, that is beautiful! Thanks for sharing the arrival of spring with us!
Give our warm regards to Henna.
Stor kram,
Mom & Gran
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Posted May 1, 2014, 5:32 am
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Making soup in Nuuksio, Finland - 11th May 2014
By: Eohippus
Hello, dear mom and gran!
One morning we woke up the winter had come back!
The fields and forests were totally white, and it was raining fleet and little ice balls whole day, but happily it only lasted one day and the next morning the spring came back and everything started to grow.
The birches started push out tiny, tender new leafs. Oooh they are so cute!
Henna told us to go and find wild vextables to make soup with!
I found soon young nettles.
They have to be picked in a certain way to avoid burning your paws!
Then I found deer droppings!
I didn´t pick them!
We found many many different vegetables,and Zoe helped us recognizing them if we weren´t quite sure of the species. Luckily Tuli was teaching her well before plunging into the frog orgies.
Here are the soup vegetables we picked:
- Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
- Sheep´s sorrel (Rumex acetosella)
- Common wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella )
- Ground elder (Aegopodium podagraria )
- Ground-ivy (Glechoma hederacea )
- Velvet Lady´s mantle (Alchemilla monticola )
- Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale )
- Nettle (Urtiga dioica )
- Cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris )
Can this be eaten? Do I pick these too?
- Oh no, let them be! They´re Kingcups (Caltha palustris) and they´re
poisonous!
It´s good to have Zoe around, although it is a bit irritating, her snobbing around with the Latin names of the plants..
Can you imagine, mom, when we are eating cucumber-cheese sanwiches, Zoe tells us to "enjoy the bread made of Secale cereale and covered with Cucumis sativus and milk given to us by a female Bos taurus!"
Of course we then tell her to go and spend some quality time with a swarm of Culicidae.
We found the remnants of a lost civilization from the forest. It must be a relic of that period when people were black and white and moved around jerkily and in odd clothes. I have seen that in some old films they left behind before they disappeared.
We sat resting for awhile in the shore of lake Sahajärvi, and then we absconded into a café to have some buns, because we had some doubts about the quality of the soup Henna was going to make with the stuff we had just picked.
Mums mums, we ate approximately six and half buns each.
After thus strengthening ourselves, we returned to the little cottage with our vegetables.
We put all the vegetables into a big cattle.
Henna added there some potatoes, carrots, garlic, water and spices and we put it to boil over the fire on the yard.
In summertime (when it is not raining) we make often food outside over the fire - it is fun and gives the food a bit different taste than when it is done on a electric stove.
Here is our ready soup!
Believe me or not - it was simply delicious!
I wish you could have tasted it!
Kisses from your little donkey!
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Posted May 11, 2014, 10:00 am
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Emjay's place, Delft, Netherlands - 11th May 2014
By: Emjay
Hi Racko!
Gosh, that looks wonderful! Give Henna and your friends a big hug from me!
I'm off to celebrate Mother's Day with gran and I will tell her all about you!
Bye! Stor kram,
Emjay
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Posted May 11, 2014, 10:23 am
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Kuusian Jätinpöytä, Finland - 21st May 2014
By: Eohippus
Hellurei, dear mom and gran!
I wish you are as well as I´m here!
We have been making many small trips to see some places
near by, and now I´m going to make a series of many little
updates to tell you about them.
One day we drowe in Henna´s friend´s car to see an archaeologically interesting place in Kuusia, Lohja.
Well, it is not this old barn, anyway, I´m talking about.
The barn just looked pittoresque to me and I wanted a pic of it.
Besides, it was like it wanted to say something to us. It started to make
odious, ghost-house-door-opening -sounds just as we were passing it.
Otherwise it was silent.
This is an archaeological thing. Yes, the stone
heap behind me. Actually, it is what is left of an Iron Age
burial mound.
Inside, there was originally a chamber built of timber or stone, and it was then
covered with a heap of stones.
In later times most of the mounds have been destroyed when people have
been dismantling them, searching for treasures - ornaments and weapons
put inside the graves.
There was many of these old grave mounds in the forest area in Kuusia.
In middle of the mounds was this big stone
table, called "jätinpöytä" = the giant´s table.
It is propable that the Iron Age people have come to lay the stone table
with food and mead for the dead people inside the mounds, during some annual feasts,
very possibly during the Marraskuu = November = The month of the death.
Or maybe they were themselves sitting around it, eating and drinking, and memorizing the people passed away.
Who knows.
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Posted May 21, 2014, 7:51 pm Last edited May 21, 2014, 7:56 pm by Eohippus
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Siikajärven kolmiomittaustorni, Finland - 21st May 2014
By: Eohippus
This is the update number 2 on my "little things" series.
On another day we walked trough Nuuksio,
admiring the nature. (Like we weren´t doing that every day!)
By the way, here is our little cottage.
Of course you have already seen it in Cuty´s pics (tell him my greetings!), but anyway, here it is, just woken up from it´s
winter hibernation too.
Besides forest and more forest, there is field areas in nuuksio.
Between the fields run typical little village roads, in hurry to
get back to the forest, I´m sure!
The narrow stripe of earth between the shy road and the fields was full of bright yellow dandelions, like
little suns.
We saw the lake Sahajärvi glimmering behind the fields.
And then we hopped into the forest again
(haha, what else!).
I met a ladybird who was trying to hide inside a small crack in a
branch of a bush. But it was too small (the crack) or she was too
big (the ladybird). Anyway, her bottom was left outside.
"Hello, ladybird, that doesn´t look very ladylike!" I said.
"I´m not here!" she answered. How odd.
We climbed a rock to see Siikajärven
kolmiomittaustorni.
It is an old wooden tower built and used by the 19th century surveyors.
They used them in their geometrical measurements, which they
needed to draw maps.
Henna told us that some years ago she still climbed to the tip
of the tower with a friend, and they were having tea and cookies up there.
Now the tower was too badly collapsed.
Just imagine! It has been standing here since the 1880s!
I can see in my minds eye the scientists (certainly with beards and baggy trousers and odd equipments!) climbing the tower with serious faces, and the
village people thinking them total lunatics.
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Posted May 21, 2014, 8:27 pm Last edited May 21, 2014, 8:29 pm by Eohippus
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Kasvihuoneilmiö, Nummi-Pusula, Finland - 22nd May 2014
By: Eohippus
Hip hei again!
I´m going on with my little updates, this being the number 3.
Now I´m going to show you pics from Kasvihuoneilmiö, a totally crazy
shop we visited one evening.
It´s name means "Greenhouse Effect", and I guess the name has
been given to it, because it is inside an old greenhouse.
Here it is!
The shop is in Nummi-Pusula, about 40 kilometers from where we live, and we went there in Henna´s friend´s car.
He is a very nice friend, taking us to places. Otherwise we would
only see places we can easily reach by buses.
Inside the old greenhouse there is a café,
in which people sit under the enormous creepers climbing in the roof, and a shop, in which they sell almost anything possible.
I fancied the sarcophagus a lot.
Actually, if you open it has shelves inside and you can use it as
a wardrobe.
Or you can take the shelves off, and sleep in it, if that happens
to make you happy.
This simpanzee, and the pigs too, are meant to be
serving as decoration in your home or garden or where ever.
I can see many practical jokes been done with them.
Ask your friend to stay overnight, and make sure he or she drinks one
beer too much, and while he/she is sleeping, organize all
the decorative animals around the bed, staring at him/her the
first thing in the morning.
The kangaroo fits into the pic very well too.
Some people come here to spend a whole day
in the shop - just wandering around.
It is not a very big shop, but there certainly is many things to see.
I guess it´s charm is based on the fact that
there really is whatsoever, and all mixed up so that very valuable
antique furniture nest next to plastic dinosaurs and old army
clothing.
There is also two big rabbits living there.
They are the directors of the shop, and have their own office
with writing desk and writing machine and other nessessary apparatuses.
What about refurnishing our home with THIS
stuff?
After some time the place started to feel a bit suffocating. So we left home before our eyes started to rotate in our heads.
Yours, Racko
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Posted May 22, 2014, 7:32 pm
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Espoo Church, Finland - 23rd May 2014
By: Eohippus
Heipä hei taas!
This time I´ll show you some pics we took while walking to the bus stop
from Henna´s work place.
It is a rather nice area. Lots of greenery and
little parks for people to spend time in.
This is an old school, which works nowadays
as a school museum.
This little stream is Espoonjoki = Espoo river.
It is hard to believe, but in earlier times it was an important waterroute. Now you cqn hardly row in it with a boat.
This is Espoo church, a medieval stone church.
It is the oldest existing building in Espoo.
I´m sure the people, living in their woodhouses, were very impressed
by it in the medieval times!
In medieval times there of course were no benches. The people were standing during the hours it lasted.
The church was originally designed in the late 15th century by an unknown "Espoo master" and built between 1485 and 1490 under his supervision.
The most remarkable thing in the church are, anyway, the medieval murals.
The paintings were covered in the 18th century as they were thought to be "crude and superstitious" but uncovered again and conserved during renovations in 1931
The murals picture scenes from Bible and from people´s everyday life, and also common beliefs and teachings
about the moral the church wanted the people to learn.
I´m imagining the medieval people coming here
on sundays, maybe even 50 kilometers away, and there was no
roads on those times, so they came either by boats (along the river Espoo) or skiing at wintertime.
Here in Finland people believed that the dead people were having their own mass going on at midnight.
If you went to the church in midnight and walked three times round the
church and then went backwards trough the door into the church,
you could see the dead people, who had risen from their graves,
filling the church, and a dead priest preaching.
Uh huh, better to concentrate into this beautiful syained glass window!
See you soon again! Kisses from Racko!
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Posted May 23, 2014, 9:34 pm
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Nuuksio, Finland - 4th January 2015
By: Eohippus
Hello again after a long long time! It is your favorite little donkey writing from Finland again.
It is like the eight months had just slipped away, and it is great to be here!
I'll put here just few of the latest photos we have been taking, because I don't think my mom and granny have seen me sking before.
No, not sking yet.
Here we are walking in the forest, following animal tracks.
We saw pawprints of hares, foxes, squirrels, ravens, deer, elk and a yeti.
Weeell.. about the yeti I'm not sure sure, although they sure were BIG footprints.
Maybe it just was one of the village lunatics.
We found fantastical icicles.
They looked so delicious I HAD to lick one a bit.
And then I was trying the skis!
I was actually rather good at it!
Cannot say the same about Mr Shaun, hi hi!
Then we went to the sleighing hill!
It was wonderful to slide down on a fast speed, the wind making my ears to flap.
When the sun set, we lit the candle in our ice lantern. Isn't it beautiful!
I send you many kisses! See you soon again!
Racko
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Posted Jan 4, 2015, 10:36 pm
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Sightseeing in Lisbon 1., Portugal - 14th January 2015
By: Eohippus
Bom dia, dear mom and granny, and all others!
We flew from Finland to Portugal last friday.
It took us couple of days to adaptate ourselves to the 30 Celsius degrees warmer temperatures here in the Atlantic coast of Portugal.
At first it felt like we had been in a sauna all the time, although the locals are talking about harsh winter temperatures.
Here we are in the "harsh Portuguese winter temperatures" as you can see.
The flowers are blooming and the butterflies are flappety flapping around them..
On our first day here we went for a little nature walk.
It was really amazing to see all the greennes and the summerlike conditions of the midwinter around us!
We didn´t walk much, we were mainly just sitting on different meadows, enjoying the sun and the fresh smells.
Suddenly I saw some distance away a figure which made my heart to beat faster!
Could it be?
Yes it was! It was!
It certainly was another donkey!
I called him, and when he saw me he came closer.
"Hello, cousin! I´m Racko from Netherlands! Who are you?" asked I.
"Uau! Olá, primo!" he answered, "I´m Bento de Burro and I live here!"
We were then exchanging information about our lives (as well as juicy bits of grass and clover).
I told him about the toyvoyaging, and he told me about his job as an entertainer in a model farm for urban kids.
It was nice to know he was happy with his life and always treated well. All donkeys are not so lucky.
Then it was time for us to continue our walk, and we said farewell to each other.
Goodbye, sweet Bento!"
We went on, and found a very odd carbage heap on the bushes.
Someone had get rid of a big collection of different saints and angels and whatnot, but there was also one Santa Claus figure and some artificial fruit on the heap.
We didn´t quite know what to make out of it.
On the second day we had gained enough energy to go for our first sightseeing walk in Lisbon.
We started the walk from Praça do Município (Municipal Square).
The building in the middle is the City Hall.
We then continued to Praça do Comércio (Commerce Square).
On the middle of the square is the Statue of King José I, by Machado de Castro (1775). The King on his horse is symbolically crushing snakes on his path, which I, personally, think a very disgusting habit.
Snakes are usually quite nice fellows!
This is a triumphal arch, usually called the Arco da Rua Augusta.
It has a clock and statues of the Glory, Ingenuity and Valour, Viriatus, Nuno Álvares Pereira, Vasco da Gama and, of course, the Marquis of Pombal, who built the square and most of the whole town anew after the big earthquake 1755.
Before the earthquake one of the royal palaces was on the square, and it was also used as a hanging place and for other nasty purposes.
There was also a shipyard next to it, and the Portuguese ships set sail from it towards the new lands to invade.
This is Cais das Colunas ,Columns Wharf, the actual spot from which the ships set sail, and to which they returned, loaded with treasures.
We took a little ride in one of the wonderful, old Lisbon trams.
Here I´m inside the tram.
Although the trams are taken good care of, they´re technically still the same vehicles from the 1930´s - 1950´s, and they make wonderful loud noices when they push trough the streets.
We saw still one square, called Rossio.
On top of the column stands one of Portuguese kings, Pedro IV.
i don´t know why. One would imagine a king to have better things to do than to stand on the top of a column.
He could, for example, plunge into this fountain, populated by mermaids.
We were then walking on the shore of river Tejo.
This is the memorial of Amália Rodrigues, the biggest ever fado singer of Portugal.
Here is river Tejo, which the Romans new as Tagus.
Until 1980´s the river was in really sad condition - many towns used it as a sewage and dumped all their trash straight into it.
But since there has been a huge cleaning program, and the river is again celan enough for the dolphins to visit it every now and then!
Here you can see the Ponte 25 de Abril bridge, which is named after the 1974 Carnation Revolution, which ended the long period of dictatorship in Portugal.
The sun was setting, and it was time for all obedient toyvoyagers to go to bed.
The rest of us didn´t.
See you soon again!
Racko
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Posted Jan 14, 2015, 5:27 pm
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