Wild herbs, mushrooms and berries!

My hobbies are around nature. Finns relation to nature is functional and it fits to me, too. My hobby in nature can be dialed with three parts. First part of it is utilization. How nature can be useful for me? That part consists mainly to summer and autumn. The waking summer rises up a lot of different kind of herbs which can be used a part of food or just for refreshment. During the summer forests and wet lands give pure and full of vitamin berries. Mushrooms can be picked up mainly on autumn. I will tell you about this part on this time. Things can be done now at the beginning of the summer. The other parts are activities in nature and photographing in nature. I think I will present some works later about my favorite photos and processing them.
Wild herbs are very close to my heart. I think it was 1988 when I was involved with herbs and especially with wild herbs. Using mushrooms as a food has come to me by mother’s milk. In Northern Carelia, where I have born, it is very normal to use mushrooms as a part of every day’s food. So for a long time I have been interested in herbs and mushrooms. I have to just go out from house and look around what I could pick up and cook for something.
On this spring I found some brain mushrooms and cooked from them very delicious souse. The brain mushroom is a different kind of mushroom. It rises up only on spring. If you think to have similar mushrooms on autumn you have to leave them alone. They are definitely mortally poisoned. The brain mushroom is also poisoned, but it can be cooked three times five minutes at least and change the water for every cooking. But one thing you can be sure, taste is gorgeous. I will link a web page which tells more about brain mushrooms.
There are a lot of wild herbs which are possible to use now but I will show you what to do with black currant’s leaves. Herbs have a lot of good influences to human being. It is said that black currant promotes food digestion, prohibits flue and is good for piles. If you are going to use black currant’s leaves for health reasons you have to check all details somewhere. Information of herbs, berries and mushrooms you can find here .

So you have to know what you are picking up. Pick up only fresh and young leaves. Don’t pick them up just beside of the road, nearby towns and subareas or factories. This is black currant.

Pick the leaves airy, open cup. The weather should be sunny and the time of the day should be early on the morning. The leaves form sugar inside of cells. They taste better.


Put the leaves to a tee pan and cook the water and turn it over the leaves.


Let it stay for a 15 minutes.


And enjoy delicious taste.


One thing you have to remember. If you think to go out now and pick up wild herbs, you have to be sure which of them are suitable to use for food. Don’t pick up poisoned herbs, berries and mushrooms!

Next time we will be on a river and on a boat, I think.
See you
Taru

Free choice studies in Rovaniemi

I have told a lot of about the vocational teacher education. Now I will tell something about Tourism studies at RAMK. The studies consist with 210 units and they are divided in seven parts. Parts are basic studies (15 units), professional studies (108 units), advanced professional studies (18 units), optional advanced professional studies (15 units), free choice electives (15 units), practical training (30 units) and bachelor’s thesis (15 units).
I do one part of my free choice studies as a student tutor. It is very practical course and for it I have been involved in International Summer School here in Rovaniemi last week and will be this week. We have a small group and we arrange free time actives to the students.
Both of them Tourist degree and Summer School you will find more detailed information on Rovaniemi Applied Sciences sites.
ROVANIEMI APPLIED SCIENCES
Summer School is a co-operation project with Satakunta and Rovaniemi Applied Sciences and the participants will come around the world from Europe, USA, Asian and of course some also from Finland.
Last week we were on a river boat called Satakieli. We left from campus and walked though the city and arrived to the harbor of the Kemijoki River. It was blowing heavily and we were wondering how the river boat will survive on waves. But our worry was unnecessary our journey was calm and steady on the waves.
There was a DJ at boat and he arranged karaoke for the passengers. We heard some upcoming stars, Idols, and Angel Choir singing there. There was a teacher coming from Kansas, Arkansas or somewhere there and every met him last year waited his singing. He kept us in a tension until the end of cruising and after his sang with male choir I said to him I don’t wonder anymore that the others waited and scared of his singing at the same time. He laughed of it. It was an unforgettable experiment. Anyway students seem to have fun and enjoyed singing and sailing on the river.
I met also another teacher from Arkansas and her students were wondering why the water of the river is so dark. I explained that the rivers (the Ounasjoki River and the Kemijoki River) on the upper river flow among the swamps and wet lands. And the swamps has a lot of decomposed organic matter and especially on Spring when the snow melts and the rivers are over flowing, there is a lot of moss in the water. It is not dangerous; it is not a chemical and does not pollute the river and its ecology more than it bears normally.
Some photos of our sailing on the river.

River boat Satakieli and views


Have fun


Multi cultural connections


Now some replies to the commentors:
Sreenadh from India: You are lucky to find Rovaniemi from Google Earth I have good news for you. I read from a local news paper that they will update Rovaniemi and some other towns in Finland during this summer.

You wondered also that Scandinavians are the happiest people in the world. Yes you are right. All those who are unhappy are died. Suicide keeps statistics clean. All of our health care research you will find here
National institute of health and welfare

And many of you commentators wondered how it is possible to do all study, have family, and take care of children and so on. Well I have to admit that sometimes it is really like a play on a high wire but I have given up some points which I think are not so important in my life. One is give up watching TV. I try to look the news at least once in a day and once or twice some actual program in a week. And second thing that I have not given up is that I have a good husband. He takes care of the house and the children when I am busy. We don’t have a lot of separated works to a wife and a husband. We try to cope from ordinary life by helping each other and doing works and duties together. Maybe we are quite equal front of life and realities here.
My mother is in a surgery now. They will change a knee to her and hope she will not dance traditional dances like tango and humppa for a while.
See you
Taru

3rd photo to the blog below

Reason or an other the 3rd photo has problems to become a visible.

I try once again

Have fun

To those who are interested in cultures and their differences
Hofstede would give answers.

He gives a lot of thinking of his ideas and researches among cultures

Hofstede

regards Taru

Last part of Free Choice Studies

This is the last part of free choices in my Bachelor’s degree. This is also a photo cavalcade from the afternoon with Summer School students.
We were first in Sport school which is also a part of Applied Sciences. Students were able to familiar with indoor playground. It is a playground which is planned to serve also adults and especially ageing people. It has made a research that people over 60 years have become much more better conditions and been able to fetch and carry their every day’s life more easily. It has also refreshed them and accidents like broken legs have degreased. So why we would not start it now, have playgrounds for adults and let’s have fun.

Indoor playground

After that funny moment we went to Ranua Zoo. It is located 80 km south-east from Rovaniemi. The fauna of the Zoo is mainly collected from the animals of Lapland but there is also one animal of which I have to say it is from arctic areas and not exist in Lappish nature. It is Pola bear. Anyway it is interesting and dangerous animal. I hope we will have them in Polar Arctic still next 100 000 years.

Ranua Zoo











The Zoo in on a hill and it is mainly beach of very old lake. Actually it is the beach of Lake Ancylus. The Baltic See was a lake about 10 000 years ago when Scandinavia was covered by Ice Age. We have a treat of global warming now and Polar Arctic would melt away. We can imagine that the water high of sees will rise some hundred meters who knows. My sister who is geophysicist advised to buy a plot beside the Ancylus beach. I think that it will be really far-reaching view. I have started to collect money for it.

Lake Ancylus



Summer School seems to be tiring and for myself I am happy to end this course to the rapport. I will enclose some photos you have seen and describe the whole process.



At the end of this blog I would like to tell my best regards to the students and teachers who joined in Summer School. I think it was a good experiment and raised our experience of cultures, learning and teaching.
See you,
Taru

Processing Photos

It has been raining and blowing on resent days. Weather service will not promise anything better. It has become warmer and it means we have a lot of mosquitoes now. I have a good reason to stay at home and beyond the table and write the next blog.

Photographing has been my hoppy very long time. The most creative period of my hobby was about ten or fifteen years ago. Taken photos presented people, children and nature. I tried to catch a moment and insert a message. I tried to impress something with perspective, details, shadows and rhythms of objects. I had (still have) a system camera (Nikon 601) and smaller pocket camera. I used DX code films (25, 50, 100, 200, 1000), slide films and black-and-white films. The system camera was for the main situations and the pocket camera was for occasional purposes. The first problem to develop photos was with B/W photos. I have not my own laboratory and I used a photography shops laboratory. The quality of handmade photos was good but it was extremely expensive. After a while the developing fee had degreased but the quality was poor. The photos were made with the same development process machines as the color photos were done. There were not gray scale separation. I concentrated to color photos wholly and developed my skills to create fiction and sort of self-made reality. I had extra objectives and a tripod to help work. Then something happened and I lost my creativity and interest in photographing.
Two years ago I bought a new digital system camera (Nikon 80D) and Adobes programs to process photos. On the web graphic course I learned the technique and some tips to process the photos. It should be careful with one thing. It is eagerness to using Photoshop program instead of looking a photo. What do you think about following pictures? Have I done too much or not? What kind of purpose they will fit best in your mind?

The background layer is a back side of a wooden puzzle. I had some photos of our journey to Northernmost Lapland and made from them by vector graphic puzzle forms. Added shadow with red tinge and color glide with outer glow upper part of picture. The gray background color is for readable colors of letters.



The islet on Lake Rahajärvi (Money) pictured in the middle of the night and on the early morning. We were in Inari in Northernmost Lapland some years ago and spend Mid Night Festival there. As you see the sun did not go down at mid night at all it shines behind the islet and made the Islet black. The topmost layer is made by the pattern which is one to three black white.



The colors of the texts should be in a balance with another part of photo. The colors are fixed with the parts of flower here. You can also see the difference to use shadow or not with a text.
Lady’s Slipper orchid is a protected plant here in Finland. It grows in our village forests.




And the same with Beverly emboss.



This is made by vector graphic. The parts of Northernmost Lapland and Lake Inari are made with color glides. The lines are effected with shadow.



Ice sculptures were quite light and not very visible at the origin picture. Blue color changes the spirit of sculptures.



It is a real blue moment. I was coming back from Muonio and Olostunturi (Fjell Olos) to Rovaniemi on February. Just before the sun fell down I drove a car beside the road and took this. I have not done anything to this photo just and the text.



Two layers and Beverly emboss cone. Nice harmony colors on later autumn.



As I told I had taken a lot of details. This chain is actually a chain of a tractor wheel. The wheels are covered with iron chains to drive on a slippery road and ground. Anyway the chain can be taken where ever. The chain has a shadow which is the same item but it is turn to black and is situated to another back side layer. The ground layer is a color glide and the upper layer is made with pattern.

This world is very visual. We are more and more targets of visual messages. Marketing consists in visual commercials. This is an informal part of learning photographic process. I don’t do this often but for me it is a way of learning something new by looking commercials. How they are made? What kind of colors they use? What kind of effect they have? If it is something very impressing I will try to create similar.
For those who are interested in photos and processing them there is made a lot of books and web sites. You may search free programs and tutorials from internet if you just get addicted with it. This is a good hobby and takes all of your extra free time.
Best Regards,
Taru

Informal learning and reflecting

This is a bit funny thing for me when I do my studies in pedagogic sciences and write this blog. The studies are mostly concentrated to the adult education. It can be divided to three parts: formal, non-formal and informal learning. Formal learning is the educational learning at institutes, universities and other official structures which admit a degree. Non-formal learning happens at organized situations according some kind of leading and it is possible to have a document or a certificate of learning and participating but it is not a degree. F. ex. associations and sport clubs have such kind of courses which are useful and is related to their values and purposes. Informal learning happens nearly all the time and it is called everyday-learning. It has as many aspects as the human life has. It happens at work, home, hobbies, shops, banks, busses, schools and in internet. It can be coincidental learning and it means that there is no plan and it happens and usually through the error it is possible to realize that now they will teach me. It is very experimental way of learning as you see.
What is funny? When I have read these theories and try to apply them to practice I realize that actually I (and you) am doing it here. This way of learning English is a good example of everyday-learning. We use modern elements, internet and programs, and its form social media to be in contact to people around the world and learn not only to use the tool, the language, but also our lives, societies, countries and ourselves. And now I will come to the most interesting part. To make that all conscious it has to reflect. Reflecting has many meanings and it depends on the way of approaching the experiment. One way might be looking backwards, asking yourself what it was then what it is now, make unclear things clearer, give names to steps or to parts of the process on so on.
Learning has fascinated me time to time and it was 2002 when I took this photo. It is named “Reflection”. It tells my understanding of reflection seven years ago. It is like looking forward to window and there you see what is behind. To make shivery picture clear you have to reflect what you have actually behind.

So this is fascinating way of learning and big question is how this way of learning will be indicated to formal learning?
See you,
Taru