It has been hot here today, Scandinavian hot that is, 28C (82,4F) and it isn’t nice at all. No problem at the beginning of it though because we had a strong and cool wind blowing but when the wind died out so did our energy 🙂 Alma tried to be full of energy for as long as she could but even she had to give up in the end 🙂 🙂 🙂 Tomorrow we’ll most likely reach 34C (93,2F) so I’m not looking forward to that at all. It’ll only last for three days, on Friday it’ll get much cooler and we’ll have loads of rain if they are guessing it right.
Like on me Novas joints don’t like the hot weather at all, she has problems walking up the stairs now, while she in the cool and early morning had no problems at all. She has been a bit spoiled now when she has been feeling bad because of her ear so I’ve added something she likes (well both the others likes it too), Tuna 🙂 Now she refuses to eat at all unless I put in tuna or something else she really likes 🙂 🙂 🙂 So this morning when there wasn’t anything extra in the food she just sniffed at it and walked away, she ate almost twice as much as she usually do when I had added tuna to the food this afternoon. Hot temperatures really didn’t affect her appetite for something she likes 🙂 🙂 🙂
Fewer and fewer birds sing during the days now, they are doing what they can to secure the future for the younglings they have now rather than prepare for another batch of them, instead katydids have started playing, and loud as well especially in the evening. I do like to fall asleep to the sound of playing katydids. Especially hot days like this one can pretend that they are rather quiet cikadas 🙂 🙂 🙂 We don’t have cikadas here so it’s easy to let the imagination fly free 🙂 🙂
22 new species are added to the list of invasive and forbidden species here in the EU. From the previous forbidden species we already had around half of them growing in the wild but so I’m not sure if forbidding them actually will help anything. My guess is that since we have problem enough as it is, like the drought most likely will reduce the harvesting to around half of what they normally can harvest and the war in Ukraine will reduce that perhaps even more, the will of killing of plants and animals that shouldn’t be here might be a bit low. I was surprised that the The African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) actually is seen as a threat here, our winters are after all still quite chilly in periods.
Lots of garden plants are also forbidden now, even though we seems to be allowed to still have them in our gardens but they are not allowed to be sold or spread by humans. Last year they tried to have a “Kill all Lupins” day here in Sweden and I think zero people cared about it 🙂 🙂 🙂 We love our lupins and really don’t care what authorities says about them. Do You know why they are seen like a problem? It’s because they start growing in places where very few other plants will grow due to really bad soil. When they start to grow someplace they actually make the ground much better and plants that can’t compete with other plants where the ground is good will then die instead.
I’ve baked another bread in the slow cooker and it turned out even better than the first one. I really can’t understand how people can fail baking bread in a slow cooker. Just do as always but instead of letting it rise the second time just put the dough in the cooker. The temperature is so low that it’ll have time enough to rise before it starts to being baked. For once I even took a photo of the bread. It is up side down so the top is pointing downwards and that paret is very light but the rest is just as brown and crispy as one wishes 🙂 the “folds” on the surface of it are prints from the baking paper (parchment paper).
Have a great day!
The Cottage by the crane lake. 
Hi Christer,
Do you bake the bread on high or low setting of the slow cooker? If you want the pale part to be brown, you could run it under the broiler for a bit. Or use a blow torch. 😄
I was surprised to learn that lupine are native to USA. Well some of them are at any rate. I always thought they were European. Trying to kill them all at this point is probably wishful thinking. Besides, they’re pretty.
Some birds still sing here, notably there 4AM Mockingbird and the 4:15 AM American Robin outside my window every morning.
Out heat wave will last into next week at least. It’s nasty.
Have a great day.
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Hi Caryn!
On the low setting and I really don’t care about that the top, later on bottom when I’m slicing the bread, doesn’t get brown. It was mostly a reflexion about lots of disappointed comments on the net about it. The rest of the bread is brown though 🙂 Too hot to use a blow torch but if I want that surface brown I will think about it when it’s getting colder 🙂 🙂 🙂
The beautiful ones are American, the less beautiful ones originates from here though and who wants them 🙂 🙂 🙂 We like our lupines too much to get rid of them and besides since the climate change most likely will wipe out those rare species anyway I think we just should keep our lupines so that bees will have something to eat later on as well.
It isn’t sure we’ll get the rain they guessed we should. The swedish site has removed those guessing but the norwegian still says it might come but that it depends on where the showers and thunder will pass during tomorrow night. Today might be even hotter than yesterday and we’ll most likely break the heat record in some parts of this country, I’m not looking forward to that.
Have a great day despite the heat!
Christer.
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