We have two grand themes here: one is global warming, and the other is children / family. I've been pondering about writing about both of these, but I'm afraid they would make lengthy posts, so I've stayed on easier-to-write diary-entries. But maybe some other day =) For now, I try to comment briefly;

Personally, I'm very happy about being 41 years old and a father to an adult son. As a father, I tried to avoid force-feeding my own values to my son, or at least, not to mock him if he was not interested in the things I'm interested in. I thought that as a father my mission is to support my son when he grows up, explores the world and his own personality, help him to find and to pursue things he is himself interested in. And after that kind of liberal raising my adult son comes up with suggestions like "hey dad, what if I come visit you and we go camping in the Hell's Lake natural park?"

I forgot to tell one little detail: before he left back to Tampere, I asked my son to help with cleaning the processor fan of my laptop. One of those tasks I've been postponing, just listening the increasing noise of the fan, imagining a growing layer of dust building up, and then thinking that "well, someday I have to clean the fan..." - my son agreed to help. And while he was opening the laptop, we noticed that two of my neighbours are standing on the yard. I went to talk with them, they had come to take a closer look at my house now when it is painted red. As I was answering their questions, my son got most of the work done, I returned in and helped him with holding a spotlight so that he can see what he is doing. Hmm, it is things like these which give a very fundamental sense of peaceful happiness; after the long adult - child phase we have switched to adult - adult relationship; there are things my son knows better than I do, and we can share our experiences and we can both learn from each other.

Ah, and my son has that kind of sock-like thing made of an old sleeping bag. But he said that the problem is that a sleeping bag is too short when worn around the hammock - it is not convenient to sleep in the reduced space. So, the extra insulation layer under / over the hammock should be nearly as long as the hammock itself, loose enough not to restrict the position and movement of the person sleeping. Maybe just a big enough piece of felt, either sewn to a form of tube, or some other system to wrap it around the hammock?

Yeah, when I was kid, the first snow was in late October or during November. Around Christmas we always had a proper winter with a lot of snow. But it is not like that anymore - nowadays everything is much more unpredictable. The global climate change here has the effect of local climate change. Or, yes, the yearly average temperatures have been rising, but here it doesn't necessarily mean longer growing season. For example, we have had extremely rainy springs, which turns the fields to mud - the temperature might be warmer than usual, but still the farmers get to sow later than usual. Or, if the winters are dramatically warmer than usual, then the summers can be less warm and more rainy - it still makes the yearly average temperature higher than usual, but the summer less favourable for growing anything. Things like that.