"Leppis Bug" Travelling Eastward

This ladybug (leppäkerttu, "leppis") wants always travel eastward, no matter how north or south. Hopefully it would someday meet with her twin, whose mission is to go westward around the magnificent globe of ours.

The trackable ladybug is painted on a wood block cut and shaped from resinous pine stump. The ladybug, "leppis" as well as our username is derived from a nickname and our family's lastname.

In the earlier times especially in areas from which our family's ancessors are from in Finland, in Southern Ostrobothnia tar mabufacturing was important source of income. Tar was manufactured in tar burning pit by turning resinous pine wood and stumps into tar and coal in oxygenless "burning" pit. Tar in those times was needed to protect wood in sailing ships as well as other wooden objects. Later tar was used for example to base the skis.

The smell of the tar has its own kind of odor, which some might even call good and aromatic. The ladybug (and her twin) made from resinous stump had that tar odor when released. It would be nice if comments of the scent of the ladybug would be shared along its journey with maybe some memories which the odor might bring into ones mind. Gallery images from her travel would be nice to have also!

In case of emergency the material is an excellent tinder and could be used as so but only in the case of real need.

In some cases when lighting up a fireplace in our house or in our summer cabin we use shingles carved from the same big resinous pine stump which was digged out near our house some twenty years ago and from which the ladybugs are made from.