Celebrating the 500th View of my Post

I baked a small cake in order to celebrate the 500th view of my post 'Only in Kaskinen'.  I'm really happy and amazed that so many people have been interested in an English-language homestead blog telling about the smallest town in Finland.  Some other of my posts are close to the same amount of reads. Thanks to all readers for your interest and encouragement!

Seems that all trees, bushes and flowers are blooming at the same time. It's really been the spring of a lifetime!  A cold wind from the north blows the minute I leave our yard, but the yard, being surrounded by fences and various buildings, has a relatively favourable micro-climate.  My daughter and her fiancé brought me a pear tree as a surprise gift. It was planted close to the greenhouse, and we'll see if it will be able to survive the harsh winters of our town.  With a lot of plants it's not the cold that actually kills them but the quick variation of temperature that goes on throughout most of the year.

The petals of our cherry tree are already scattering from the tree forming white spots in the boxes where the onions have grown long green stems.  I made some traditional Finnish summer soup using those onion stems and chives from my garden.  Also pea sprouts to replace peas.  And of course potatoes, carrots, and some garlic.  It turned a real success and what I had thought to be enough for two days was finished in the course of one meal.  Not many people make summer soup any longer. One of the forgotten gems of the past.

There's recently been a great deal of discussion on Facebook about the way our public areas are being cared for in our town.  Many writers have expressed their dissatisfaction with the way action is taken (like trees are being cut) before anyone is notified and town-dwellers opinions are not being asked. Without going into too much detail I would say the problem might not only be the lack of money but also time.

There's really much going on in the technical department with planning, building and other urgent matters and there's no expert on gardening and landscaping recruited at all.  The environment and landscape section of our technical board only meets once a year to complain about overgrown hedges or branches and stuff.  Maybe they could take a bigger role in planning the outlook of our streets and parks. I wish the problem to be solved in a sensible way.  Many of us live in this town because we like the look of it!