Still summer warm.

The dogs woke me up at 3:20 am and I really didn’t want to get up. However if it was because they needed to do their business and I didn’t want it to happen indoors I had to get up. I’m not sure what they did because they ran around the garden a couple of laps and then they wanted to go inside again 🙂 🙂 I guess they heard something and I guess that especially Alma wanted it to be the badger so she could chase it out from the garden 🙂 It could also be because the monster wanted to go indoors after a night of hunting but if that was the case the dogs didn’t seem to care about here as soon as the door opened up, she went in and they ran outside.

I went back to bed again and I had almost two more hours of sleep before the dogs demanded to go outside again 🙂 So up I went and when they were doing their thing I opened up the greenhouse and watered the plants in there. One of the bigger tomatoes is almost ripe now, I might be able to pick it already this afternoon. I continued to remove caterpillars from the broccoli plants and noticed that I have at least two spaghetti squashes growing. So far no normal squashes though, the few I’ve seen growing turned yellow and died shortly after. Some of the tomatoes growing outside the greenhouse are also going red. They are rather small but the ones I’ve eaten so far have tasted so much more and better than the beefsteak tomatoes I’ve had so far. That doesn’t mean those big tomatoes are bad in any way but I’m pretty sure it means I won’t grow the big ones next year.

We went out on our morning walk an hour later. Still cool and nice, sun shining on its way up and a weak but steady wind blowing. Today I wanted to go out to the bog. We don’t get a lot of variation with a dog like Alma. She’s finally calm and happy after five years when we walk in the forest/ out to the bog so a walk in the village isn’t something I want to try again in the near future 🙂 🙂 It is even more limited when the grass is high and there are loads of ticks in that grass. Fortunately for us the hunters are now preparing for the hunting season so they had trimmed away lots of grass from the forest roads and paths, so we could easily avoid most of those places ticks thrive 🙂 Still the forest flies don’t care about how high the grass is so lots of them followed us on our way. Still very few compared to how it used to be here. However it only takes one fly tying to do research inside ones nostrils to get annoyed by them 🙂 🙂 🙂

Now clouds cover the sky most of the time but it’s just enough warm and the little wind that reach my garden keeps most of the few flies I have here away. Too bad the clouds doesn’t release any rain though. The ground is dry and the little water that was caught in my water barrels wasn’t enough to last for especially long, so soon I’ll have to use my own tap water to help the smaller newly planted trees and all the vegetables. I try to avoid using that for as long as I can because even though I get water from a deep drilled well there’s still very little groundwater now.

The dogs and I had small pancakes, called plättar (plaettar) in Swedish. They are the size of the palm of ones hand and should have double cream instead of milk but who remembers to buy that when full fat milk works just as well? 🙂 So the dogs had a few small ones because they love it and I had strawberry jam on mine, something the dogs had to do without 🙂

It is time to make a pot of tea and start with the laundry as well. I really have no wish what so ever to do the laundry but I also don’t want to smell bad at work tomorrow 🙂 🙂 I think I’ll have that tea before doing anything else today 🙂

Have a great day!

6 responses to “Still summer warm.”

  1. catsworking Avatar

    Is Sarah wearing a collar these days, or has she ditched it again?

    I bought pheromone “calming collars” I saw on Instagram for my two cats who hate each other, Tony and Tater. I thought Tony would rebel because he violently refused collars when he was a kitten, but they both accepted them, even though the collars are hard plastic and must be uncomfortable.

    It’s been a week and I haven’t seen any pee or spray for about 5 days. Tater isn’t hissing and growling as much, so maybe they are helping. I notice Tony has not been wrestling with his big brother Roc at all. They typically play like Alma and Malkolm. So, maybe Tony has gotten even a little TOO mellow.

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    1. Christer. Avatar

      Hi catsworking!

      Well it depends 🙂 The neighbour kids haven’t found any of her collars in a while now but good thing You mentioned it because I have an orange one in the car. The kids found it in the hedge and gave it to me when we drove to the preschool with them in the early morning 🙂

      Looks like that solar works really well! or as You say a bit too well 🙂

      The monster is either friend with every other cat in the area or just really good at avoiding all other cats. My old cats always had a scar or fur missing because all the other cats never understood that my cats were royalty around here 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  2. Beatrice Avatar

    Fresh tomatoes are what we miss in the summertime, Christer, because we also used to grow them in our home gardens in NJ and VA. The local supermarket does sell produce from local farms so that is helpful and I did buy some nice cherry tomatoes at a farmers market this week. Patrick likes making a tomato and mayonnaise sandwich at this time of year. The flowers in your yard are very colorful.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Christer. Avatar

      Hi Beatrice!

      I’ll have to make a lot of tomato sauce now, soo many tomatoes will ripe at the same time and even if I, like Patrick like having tomato slices on sandwiches I still won’t be able to eat enough -) 🙂 🙂
      I do like strong colours when it comes to flowers 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  3. Caryn O'Keefe Avatar
    Caryn O’Keefe

    Those early morning, pre-dawn potty outings can be irksome especially if they then don’t do anything out there because they’re distracted by interesting smells. Then two hours later they’re asking to go out again because, “Oh! We forgot. Sorry.”

    It’s pretty dry here, too, though we did have a nice, soaking rain a couple of weeks ago. I think we got 2 inches but we’re still in significant drought condition. The ground is pretty hard. I haven’t been down to the swamp to see if it’s dried up but it probably is.

    When I was a kid there were pig nuts all over the place. We ate a lot of them because they were so easy to crack and they tasted fine. And they were free which probably enhanced the flavor. 😀

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Christer. Avatar

      Hi Caryn!

      Yes that always worries me because if I go back to sleep and don’t wake up when they need to go outside again there will be an accident somewhere 🙂 🙂

      The bog is bone dry now and only the bigger trees still look fine. I support watering what I really want to survive and the rest will have to manage it all by themselves. We have had some rain but way too little. The bog divides the rain clouds here so most of it miss us. It can pour down at the mountain and nothing will fall here.

      I really would like to have any kind of Hickory but I have problems with too many trees as it is already now 🙂 🙂 I have my black walnut, the English walnut and two heart walnut trees and I still have to find space for the last heart walnut tree I have in a pot 🙂 🙂 I have one place but my read oak grows too close to it and I really like my red oak 🙂 🙂 🙂 I could plant it out at the bog, no one would know it since I am one of very few that walks there but it’s also a nature reserve so perhaps I shouldn’t 🙂 🙂 🙂

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