A Saturday Lifestyle Post

My wife wanted to have some pictures taken of the flowers in our backyard and front yards as long as they look good enough to be photographed.

This is rose is a Dame de Coeur or Queen of Hearts.

These pelargonies grow in the front of the house.

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On Saturdays, we clean the house and go to the sauna in the evening. Practically every house in the country has a sauna adjacent to the main bathroom. Most flats have saunas, too, if they were built in the late eighties or later. According to the estimate of the Finnish Sauna Society, there are 3.2 million saunas in the country including all unofficial ones. According to official records, there are two million saunas in the country. [1] I think that's pretty remarkable.

The reason why saunas are so popular here is the fact that Finland is sparsely populated and entirely in the northern coniferous forest zone. Saunas in homes are pretty common in Sweden, too, from what I've heard, but I suspect there are fewer of them there per capita.

Saunas used to be popular in Central Europe until the 17th century. By the end of the medieval period, public saunas begun to be associated with vice and their numbers dwindled. [2] In the Nordic countries and Russia this was never the case. Here, there is no such association and has never been.

This one is ours.

This was my sauna beer. I usually have one while in the sauna and another one afterwards. Pale lager preferably having less than 5% alcohol is ideal. I do like IPA as sauna beer, too. (Technically, IPAs are ales and not beer but that's nit picking.)

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