One can still see where the road once were when this was a forest.

Sunny and cool early in the morning while we have our morning walks and mixed for the rest of the day, kind of perfect really 🙂 A bit on the chilly side during the day, below 20C (68F) but warmer days will come they’re guessing 🙂

I got tired of walking the same way every morning today so I took a chance and walked out to the bog. The grass is high and ticks just loves grass, especially if it isn’t too wet. Yarrow is a very common flower here and I’ve heard  that ticks don’t like the smell of them so I picked some and rubbed them towards the dogs bodies. I didn’t find a single tick on them when we came home (plus I checked them after passing the first part of high grass as well). I can’t say it really works but no ticks when the environment is right for them sort of say it does work.

So the dogs were happy to finally get out there and so was I 🙂 We heard deer jumping away from us in the forest and a raven warned about us walking around there but besides that it was really quiet. For once we didn’t see nor hear any wild hogs and that’s always nice. Last summer this area was full go lingonberries but now there’s only a few so the drought reached them as well even though there’s water in the bog.

Yesterday when I was removing some stinging nettles I found some raspberry bushes, I thought the more invasive plants around them finally killed them but they’re still there. So they had some ripe berries that I’ve now placed in the freezer together with the other berries I’ve picked, those berries weren’t many enough to use by themselves so when I finally make jam of them it’ll be interesting to taste it 🙂 I also have lots of plums in the freezer from last autumn so I better clean up some jars and make jam from them.

I’m about to remove as best as I can my Japanese quince bush. I’ve had it for almost 15 years and it never gives any bigger fruits and suddenly last year it started to spread via its roots, so I felt it was time to do something about it. I’ve cut it down to the ground and started to remove as many smaller roots I can. I think it might be impossible to remove the bigger roots totally but it will at least be easier to keep it so small that It won’t spread anywhere else, easier than with the Blackthorn since the quince is planted in a flowerbed in a sea of grass around it.

To my rather big surprise the peach tree still lives and actually looks almost healthy 🙂
The darker green blob is the Japanese quince or was to be honest.
Now I’ve cut it down to the ground, getting those roots up will not be fun.
I sowed Dahlias from a package that says it contains many colours. It looks like all will have yellow flowers 🙂 I had wished for other colours since so many flowers in my garden is yellow.

It is time for that last cup of tea and perhaps a sandwich or two. I doubt there will be anything on tv that I haven’t watched since all they do now is showing re-runs 🙂

Have a great day!

13 responses to “”

  1. Poppy_Celeste Avatar
    Poppy_Celeste

    On the last photo, Alma really looks like she’s laughing at Malkolm 😆

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. Christer. Avatar
      Christer.

      Hi Poppy_Celeste!

      I think she is 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply
  2. Caryn O'Keefe Avatar
    Caryn O’Keefe

    And here I am trying to get my quince to grow. It’s been in the ground for 7 or 8 years. It’s still under 2 feet tall and only had 2 flowers last year. Of course it didn’t help that the rabbits chewed it down to the ground two years in a row.

    I was going to say that the peach tree looked rather good and then I realized that I was only judging it on half its height. I thought it ended at the top of the hedge behind it but then I saw all the growth above that was also peach tree. It looks really good.

    The weather’s been fine here. We had a small wind storm and some soaking rain at the end of last week. This week we’ve had Canadian wildfire smoke which caused heavy haze and bad air but kept things a bit cool. Most of it should pass by today. The sun is out and it’s warmer than it has been. No ticks so far. It’s been very hot and very dry so maybe they don’t like that extreme either.

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Christer. Avatar
      Christer.

      Hi Caryn!

      This is another kind of quince and since it started to spread a bit too happily it had to go. I do have the kind You have too and it seems to behave rather different so that one will stay. It is amazing that Your still hangs around since the rabbits likes to eat it 🙂

      I am really surprised that the peach still lives since it always get the leaf_curl disease. That fungus have killed three other peaches I’ve had. The fungus seems to travel with migrating birds and flies around in the air until rain brings it down, so trees that has a protecting roof of some kind tends not to get it.

      I haven’t heard of the Canadian wildfires in a long time so I thought they had managed to win over them. Then again we have so many wildfires here in Europe that I guess they rather write about them. We’ve just had a couple of smaller ones yet thankfully.

      No ticks don’t like hot and dry but they also don’t like wet and any kind of temperature. If it is hot they risk drying to death and wet they might drown. We’ve had both here so that helps keeping them on a low number I guess 🙂 They’r guessing that some of the heat down in Europe will travel north and it was a bit warmer today despite it being mostly cloudy and we even had one really good shower as well 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

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  3. Denali Sam Avatar
    Denali Sam

    Hi Christer,

    I’m so glad all that stormy weather is behind you and you’re back to more regular walks!

    On a different note, I seem to be having problems with WordPress accounts; they are seemingly posting my comments or my LIKES on others’ comments but then my LIKES disappear. So if my likes or comments don’t appear, please know that I’m liking your posts, Christer, and I’m reading and liking everyone’s comments.

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. catsworking Avatar
      catsworking

      I am a WordPress blogger, so I log in here through that account, but it does not let me do anything but like Christer’s posts. I’m unable to like any comments unless I first post a comment myself. Then I can like everything. In fact, I put a like on your last comment just to see if I could do it, and it worked. (And I also did like the comment!)

      Liked by 1 person

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      1. Christer. Avatar
        Christer.

        How strange!

        Like

  4. Denali Sam Avatar
    Denali Sam

    Hi Christer,

    I’m so glad all that stormy weather is behind you and you’re back to more regular walks!

    On a different note, I seem to be having problems with WordPress accounts; they are seemingly posting my comments or my LIKES on others’ comments but then my LIKES disappear. So if my likes or comments don’t appear, please know that I’m liking your posts, Christer, and I’m reading and liking everyone’s comments.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    1. Christer. Avatar
      Christer.

      Hi Denali Sam!

      I’ve seen any like You’ve been doing but not so many comments. WordPress do behave odd some times and I hope it’ll change for You quickly, otherwise there’s always bluesy 🙂

      The storm was way worse closer to the coast and hit Norway bad but since my cottage is protected against winds from most direction I just enjoyed the sound 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

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  5. catsworking Avatar
    catsworking

    With all your forests, I wondered if Sweden has stories of anything like what we call Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch. It’s a very tall, huge hairy beast that seems to be mainly in the Northwest (though I think it has other names in the rest of the country). It walks on two legs like a human, but it’s hard to see one clearly because it hides. Some have found his footprints.

    Bigfoot – Wikipedia

    I watch a TV show called “Paranormal: Caught on Camera,” and they usually do a segment on a Bigfoot sighting, and the woods he’s usually seen in look like yours.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
    1. Christer. Avatar
      Christer.

      Hi catsworking!

      We all know about Bigfoot 🙂 but we have our Trolls but if we see any we don’t talk about it since no one would believe us anyway 🙂 🙂

      I do think Bigfoot and the Yeti (or the Snowman) is interesting since they look the same but lives in two different continents. If they do exist they can’t be many and the inbreeding must be bad I’m afraid. They could of course be masters in disguise and many more than we understand. I’m not ruling them out but still hard to believe they exists.

      Liked by 1 person

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      1. catsworking Avatar
        catsworking

        The Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) I’ve seen people capture on film do seem real, but I don’t know that they are a monster or some animal. Yes, it is weird that the same type of creature seems to live on different continents. How do they get together to breed?

        The Loch Ness Monster is the same thing. Other bodies of water claim to have something similar, but how are they breeding? Here in Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay is supposed to have a monster they call Chessie.

        The creatures we see can’t be hundreds or thousands of years old and be living beings. On the other hand, turtles can be hundreds of years old, I think.

        In Scandinavia when you have trolls that could pop out from anywhere, you don’t really need any other monsters. You’d think we have enough monsters running our country in the U.S. not to need to make up any others!

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Christer. Avatar
        Christer.

        Hi catsworking!

        From now on I think we will have huge problems to figure out if films and photos are real or AI, A>I is getting better and better at doing both now days and it will just keep on getting as good as it can.
        I don’t think they can since there’s too much water between the continents even at its closest place.

        We do have our lake monster as well, actually we have a few of them but one is much better known than the others and it’s called Storsjöodjuret (something like big lake monster) The earliest recording of it is from 1635. Storsjöodjuret klick on the name and it’ll bring You to Wikipedia.
        You’re right, they can’t be that old and yes turtles can be well over 100 years old 🙂

        Well it’s only the Mountain trolls we see as dangerous, the other ones are much like us but with a furry tail 🙂

        Like

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The Cottage by the crane lake.