Purje

I'm also going to introduce a place or two we've visited this summer, but first let's spend a few more moments in our yard. It can't be called a garden, it's more like the remains of a forest, a little lawn here and there, and a lovely patio my husband has been skillfully repairing. For the time being the wild character of our yard is fine with me, because I have zero time for gardening right now! In Finland June and July were among the hottest in 50 years with long periods around 25-30 C (around 80 F), some days even above. It's also been a great deal more humid than what we are used to, and we've enjoyed frequent, spectacular thunderstorms. During the past summers we have grown tomatoes in buckets (we used to call them our babies), but since this year we have a real baby and are too busy as it is, we decided to skip the tomatoes. What a shame - they would have loved these greenhouse conditions! At the beginning of the summer my husband put up this triangle-shaped canvas (we call it a sail, purje) to provide some shade on the otherwise very sunny patio. It's simply stretched out between two poles and a hook on the house. I've been loving it! There have been plenty of days when it would have been unbearable, even dangerous, to sit or play outside in the sun.