looduskalender.ee

But there is only more and more water coming down, liquid as well as solid. And already some time ago there was no more space for it in the ground. Good if it just results in jumping splish-splash in ankle-deep puddles on the grass outside the house. But most of Estonia’s forest rivers have been transformed into forest lakes. And this has not only happened in Soomaa (Bogland!) where the water according to Aivar Ruukel is 4 meters above its summer level, but also here in Northeast Estonia, where the Avi River happily wallows in the forest up to the road. If now winter cold were to come, going to the Peipus Lake for skating marathons would not be necessary – it could be done criss-cross all through Estonia. But this beautiful skating weather seems to be disappearing under soft white snow, which of course is wonderful for Christmas-time. Only pity that there are just six and a half hours of daylight.

During the week many plants succeeded nicely in getting growing again – I even found the salad-green leaves of the marsh marigold (Caltha palustris) together with its yellow flower buds in a ditch. And in my neighbour’s yard a beautiful red rose had several blooms. Our own New England asters (A: novae-angliae), that were bowing to the ground in the snowfall, got themselves upright again and the purple buds shine again against the snow. Before Friday’s snowfall there were marigolds, tansies (Tanacetum), purple deadnettles (Lamium), wild pansies in flower. „Well, but that is quite common in December here!“ commented Mikk Sarv, when I wonderingly showed him the rose blooms. „’Lo a rose e’er blooming (Üks roosike on tõusnud)... is after all a traditional Christmas choral!“ A sleepy fly on the house wall is not really a unique sight either. But that a copse snail (Ariantha) would be greedily munching on chickweed (Stellaria) – well, no! And Enn Vilbaste tells that the earthworms were all busy above-ground at their place on Thursday.