It took its time but now we’ve finally had above 0C (32F) but the day began with mostly snow falling but also some rain. The roads have been rather bad and for once even worse in this village. My neighbour was going to take her children to pre school but had huge problems to even go up the small slope up to the village road. After that it was even worse, so she had to go back home again and can’t work tonight.
Our fox has survived the hunters so far 🙂
I walked up to my mailbox just a few minutes ago and if it doesn’t freeze too hard tonight it’ll be much better when I have to drive around noon tomorrow. I’ll go to a job interview so hold Your thumbs and cross Your fingers for good luck 🙂 Anyway, it had rained before we went out for our morning walk but it turned to snow when we were out. Instead of dry fluffy snow we now have what and slushy snow 🙂 I could get a grip when walking though so I think that was better 🙂
I can’t figure out if this is a track from a piglet or perhaps a small roe deer. I think it is a piglet.
Bot Alma and Malkolm behaved better than they have ever done I think. Well the only thing Malkolm does is to pull the leash because he wants to follow tracks as fast as he can but he does listen when I tell him to calm down, the majority of times 🙂 🙂 Alma is a different thing but today she stayed mostly quiet and also followed Malkolm to see what he thought was so interesting 🙂 So no aching shoulders on me today 🙂 Otherwise I haven’t done much. I baked some French rolls before we went out and I’ve realised that it’s the cheese that make any bread much better. I didn’t have any leftover cheese this time so the rolls sort of missed something 🙂 I also did some laundry just so I have some clean clothes tomorrow 🙂 🙂
It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I’ll have another of the rolls I baked because they’re always best the day they’re made 🙂
That spruce beside the birches looks like the perfect christmas tree (or Yule spruce as we call it).
Since I knew we would have both snow and rain later in the day I drove to the supermarket as soon as we had some daylight. The road outside the village wasn’t especially well plowed but the big road thankfully was, we had gotten some snow during the night but most of it was already plowed away. No rain so far though but lots of snow, I do hope they’re right about warmer weather is on the way but it is still below 0C (32F) here.
I am a bit irritated about this supermarket now. Since I can’t eat wheat, rye or barley I have to buy other kinds of flour, like sorghum or buckwheat and they were out of most other flours before christmas and they still haven’t ordered them. I guess I’ll have to go to Falköping instead because there’s one place that always make sure to have other kinds of flour. They do have oat flour but as it says on the packet it can contain gluten. Most of the times it doesn’t but sometimes it does and a lot of it as well. So I’ve decided to order it online instead. If I include the gasoline price when I go to the store it will be much the same to have it transported to me.
They did however have everything else I wanted plus I found spare ribs for sale so I forgave them this time 🙂 No more mice caught in the box trap and it sort of feels good since it has been so awfully cold outside. They wouldn’t have had a chance if I had had to leave them outside in this weather. Also since the monster refuse to go outside now she instead wants to go down in to the cool cellar several times a day 🙂 🙂
It is time to make a pot of tea and I’ll have a couple of sandwiches too since I now have something to put on them, You call it condiments we say pålägg which would be onlays in English 🙂 🙂 🙂
It is slowly but steadily getting less cold now and that makes me smile. Thankfully we had clouds covering the sky during most parts of last night so it wasn’t as cold as they guessed it would be but to cold for me 🙂
So it almost felt warm when we went out for our morning walk today, only -11C (12,2F). No wind and a thick layer of clouds so the whole area sort of had a led grey hue to it. The wild life had noticed the change towards less cold as well so today we saw lots of tracks in the snow. Mostly wild hogs but also deer, both Roe and red deer and also some moose tracks. The squirrels are to light to make any prints in the hard surface the snow now has (still powdery beneath the surface though) but the foxes were just enough heavy to make paw prints.
We did hear a few smaller birds tweeting close to the village but that was it, no Jays or Ravens made any sounds. A squirrel ran down a pine trunk on the back side of the tree but we could hear it and just had to follow the snow that fell from the surface while the squirrel ran downwards. It felt like walking in a world where only the vegetation was left. Well the whining from Alma sort of destroyed that feeling a bit but she was actually much more quiet than she normally is.
Tomorrow I’ll brush off all snow from the car and go to the supermarket. I really don’t have much left in the larder or the fridge 🙂 I also need seeds for the birds, some birds just don’t like peanuts, especially not those who only comes to the feeders when it’s too hard to find food in the forest like the Bullfinches. To be honest they are rare then to but it looks like both the House sparrow and the field sparrow prefers seeds before peanuts.
It is time for that last cup of tea for the day. If I hadn’t had dinner just an hour ago I woukld have made a couple of sandwiches because I made some French rolls yesterday that almost tasted like normal ones and as always I’ll never recreate them since I just mixed together what ever kind of flour I had. Perhaps one day I should write it all down 🙂 🙂
Have a great day!
This must be the most sad looking Thuja in the world. The ground is dry and it never get any sunshine 🙂
So I was sitting here by the computer yesterday evening and everything looked fine. Not outside because the temperature had fallen down to -21C (-5,8F) and I was worried that we might get back those horribly low winter temperatures we had just 20 years ago (-30C (-22F) ). It didn’t look good because the sky was clear and I could see all the stars. Well that looked good but the temperature dropped so fast that it didn’t look good 🙂 🙂
I walked downstairs and thought it looked a bit dark, I had left a couple of lights on but none of them were shining. I started to try anything electrical and realised that a fuse must have died. The thing is that when they renovated this cottage long ago they sort of made a new electrical system for the new parts. So I have six main fuses instead of the normal three. I have one of the systems outside and the second part down in. the cool cellar. Here is when things get strange because even though the cellar belongs to the new part it still is tired through the old part 🙂 🙂 🙂 So I have so many fuses that it’s ridiculous 🙂 🙂 🙂 So half the kitchen had no power, no power in the living room and no power in my bedroom except for one outlet and thankfully the radiator was connected to that one 🙂 🙂
I had no power in the living room at all or the hallway and in the part of the kitchen that didn’t have any power I still had it in one outlet and that’s the one my incinerator toilet is connected to 🙂 🙂 besides that no power in the bathroom. So I was at least lucky that all but one radiators still worked so I brought an extra radiator to the living room and connected it to an outlet on the new part of the cottage. I’m so glad I never throw any kind of electrical cord away 🙂 🙂 Most people around here have the switch kind of fuse box but I found one place here in the village who still had the old kind of fuses. I really didn’t want to dig out the car from the snow so I had to walk to them to get a fuse. So I’ve learned that even if no fuse have given up the last twenty years it’s still good to have a couple of extra at home 🙂
The temperature dropped down to -22C (-7,6F but then thankfully clouds arrived and this morning it almost fell warm even though it still was -7 (19,4F) Even the dogs liked it when we went out for our morning walk and I do hope they’re wrong when they say the clouds will go away and that it’ll be nasty cold tonight again. I usually get tired of the clouds but right now I want them to stay 🙂
So last night was cold, the temperature dropped down to a bit lower than 19C (2,2F). The sky was clear so there was nothing stopping what was left of the heat from going straight out to space. Tonight will be even colder they say and it is already -16.4C (2,48F). The weather sites says it’s only -13C (8,6F) at the moment and won’t fall that much more 🙂 🙂 🙂
We did go out for a morning walk when it was slightly less cold but the dogs changed their minds after a while. Malkolm refused to walk where there was less snow for some reason so his paws got really cold and I did warm them up but that did only help for a short while. Thankfully my neighbours had to buy food so they helped me with a few things because I had no wish what so ever to be out driving when it was that cold 🙂 🙂 🙂
They say that it will be much warmer the coming week and even above 0C (32F) from Wednesday and for the rest of the week but since they can’t get what temperature we have now right why would I believe them about what might happen later in the week 🙂 🙂 🙂
So it has been a lot of tea drinking most of the day, so I have already had that last cup because what goes in must come out 🙂 and so far not all has come out 🙂 I think I’ll make myself some warm sandwiches and try to stay close to the radiators for the rest of the day 🙂 🙂 I truly hate winter!
Nothing much to write about today, the wind is back and is nasty cold but for most of the day it didn’t reach my cottage or reach in to the forest. Now it clearly reach the cottage and the kitchen feels a bit chilly. Now both big weather sites says cold during Sunday and Monday but one says -13C (8,6F) and the other says -16C (3,2F) I really don’t like either of those options 🙂 🙂 Two days after they say above 0C (32F). cold roads with melting water will be fun to drive on.
I could almost see the sun but those blue gaps in the clouds were never in the right place 🙂
No mice have been caught in the cool cellar but the monster has been very interested in going down there and of course I let her do it. She tells me when she think it is enough 🙂 Lots of people are sick here now, lots of coughing and nose dripping 🙂 So far I’ve been spared but I do feel tired all the time but that can also be because the lack of sunshine.
We walked down to the creek this morning and as long as we walked on the gravel road everything was fine but then we followed the creek and only had our old tracks to walk in and the wind had blow a lot of snow in those tracks so it was like walking in potato flour, I never knew what way I would slide 🙂 🙂 It was even worse in the fields because the perfectly smooth snow surface didn’t show where the wild hogs had been digging 🙂 :-)Sometimes the snow barely reached the sole of my shoes, sometimes I stood in knee deep snow 🙂 🙂 🙂
Not a sign in the snow where the wild hogs have been digging 🙂
It was even a bit too much for the dogs in the end and the walk took much longer than normal. I didn’t mind the longer time especially but I did mind the wind that hit us all the time. I could barely feel my hands when we came back home. It was so nice to be able to sit down and have a cup of tea just doing nothing after we had come back.
I think it is time for that last cup of tea for the day and to fall asleep in the recliner. I’ll have to have the alarm on though because today it’s On the Tracks on tv, something I actually like to watch 🙂
WordPress is really slow today and has been for a while but I hope it will allow me to post something. We had a warning about heavy snowfall today but barely nothing extra had fallen when we went out on our morning walk. I could even see some blue spots up there in the clouds.
We walked out to the bog and I must say that Alma has become much better now, ok she still have these high pitch whining that drives me crazy but they are fewer now days and Malkolm has really learned how not pulling the leash makes my mood so much better :-)There was some new snow on the ground but it was still pretty easy to walk in the tire tracks the hunters had made two days ago.
So it wasn’t until we walked in to the forest that walking became a bit harder, it is like walking in potato starch, two steps ahead and one back so to speak 🙂 but then the sun broke through and we had a huge blue opening in the clouds and that made life so much easier, even the walking in the snow 🙂 🙂 When we reached the end of the peninsula roe deer were jumping around everywhere 🙂 I did manage to get photos of one that stood still but the rest were like bouncing balls 🙂
It tried to stand so still that we wouldn’t see it.The sun kept shining almost the entire way home and when I had closed the door behind us the snow started to fall and it was a lot of snow falling. It didn’t last for long that time but it came back several times and enough of it for the guy that plows our road to get out working. Now the weather sites seems to have lined up and says the same thing, just a little more snow but nasty cold instead, especially during the weekend. I’m not happy about that at all but can’t really do anything else than to except it 🙂 Well they aren’t too good in guessing the weather so it can be just the opposite instead 🙂
It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I’ll have a sandwich or two at the same time. I baked a couple of loafs yesterday and they turned out really good, no I can’t make the same again because I just tossed in what kind of leftover flour I had at home 🙂 🙂 But to be honest, I think that it actually is the cheese I put in that make all the difference 🙂 I’ve also started with the sowing today, two different bananas, Oriental raisin tree and Chinese dogwood.
These are the seeds to the Pink Banana. I soaked them in hot water over night.
I then placed them in a damp paper towel and put them in a plastic bag. Now they hang over the kitchen radiator so they will be as warm as possible.
This is the seeds for the Ethiopian Banana. Ten times bigger but will be treated the same but soak in that water for a couple of days.
No big difference today compared to yesterday but it didn’t snow for once. It will start to snow again tonight but after that the two big weather sites once again have different opinions. Yesterday it was the Norwegian site that said nasty cold during the winter and the Swedish just bitter cold, today it’s the opposite and according to the Swedish site we’ll have snow falling for two days while the Norwegian says one.
Yesterday evening I thought it would be very cold here because my brother living on an island by the sea had it much colder than here and so was a friend living by our biggest lake, Vänern. That never happened here, it was just the normal cold temperature so I feel like that was a sort of win for us here because it’s always much colder here during winter. We get it back when summer comes though because it’s always a couple degrees warmer here. An old garden enthusiast said it’s because of the big bog, it is so big that it makes its own miso climate. Big lakes and oceans evens out the temperatures while big bogs like this one do the opposite and so far I’ve never been able to prove him wrong 🙂
No mice in the box trap this morning but later in the day when I had let the monster down there, she sits outside and looks at me until I open the door so that she can walk down, I heard a rumble that can’t be anything else than she chasing a mouse. I haven’t checked if I can find any victim but she usually eat up her victims so I’m not sure I would even find any signs of it.
I had to pick up a parcel in Gudhem today. I have a couple on the way and all have different delivery companies so I was a bit unsure what it was I was going to pick up 🙂 Today it was all the stories that the Grimm brothers had collected. All these stories comes from different origins and to get one story, like Cinderella, they had to combine several local stories to one. Some of those local stories were so bad, even for that time, that the brothers actually had to censor them 🙂 🙂 It’ll be interesting to see if they are anything different to what I read when I was growing up because those stories shouldn’t be read to children (but they were because I grew up in the stone ages 🙂 🙂 🙂 ) and if they were censored I can’t imagine how bad the original stories were 🙂 🙂 🙂
It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I think I’ll start reading those stories when I have that tea ready 🙂
Hunters were out in the forest this morning because it didn’t snow, they wouldn’t have if it had snowed they said 🙂 So I drove to the supermarket while they were out there. I actually woke up pretty late today, at least the last time 🙂 The dogs needed top go outside just before four am and afterwards we went back to bed for a while 🙂 I woke up well after eight am 🙂
The smaller roads were no fun to drive on but the big one to Skara was pretty good actually. The reason I drove today was because of snow warnings the coming days. Now when I look at the biggest weather sites they really can’t agree. The big Swedish one says snow and the same temperature as today (around -6C (21,2F) but the Norwegian one, the one I trust the most, says no snow but bitterly cold. I don’t want it even colder but then again I don’t want more snow either 🙂
Wild hogs had been working on the forest road before the hunters arrived 🙂
I used a big brush when I went out to remove all the snow in front and on the car. It was so fluffy that it only took a few minutes but the snow on the car had melted to a thick ice sheet.It was more or less impossible to remove that on the car roof but the ice on the windows was sort of fragile so I didn’t even have cold fingers when I was done 🙂
I’m so glad that our hunters are a bit lazy because instead of walking to where they are supposed to be they take their cars. To be honest I can understand them because it is so hard to walk on this fluffy and dry snow because nothing can get a good grip while walking in it. Anyway that helped me a lot when we finally could have a walk because the cars are so heavy that I could walk in the car tracks and actually get a grip. Only when walking on the road of course but still. I walked in their foot steps in the forest and that didn’t help at all 🙂 🙂 🙂
There were lots of tracks from mostly wild hogs and roe deer and the occasional fox as well but this weather make the animals stay where they are. I guess it’s just nice to get out and get fresh air and saying they’ll hunt is just a good excuse to get out of their homes 🙂 Well it is time for that last cup of tea for the day but I think I’ll instead have a last cup of coffee. Waking up so late as I did today sort of mess up my day, I don’t have a headache as I usually get when that happens but my brain is sort of a few seconds behind if You understand what I mean 🙂
I think we now have gotten three dm (12 inches) of snow and more will come tomorrow. at the moment the flakes are tiny and few though. It did still snow a lot when we. went out for our morning walk and it looks like both Alma and Malkolm loves it 🙂 🙂 The monster however is not a happy cat at the moment, she did go outside but wanted to go in again after just a few minutes. She hates it so much that she even use the cat litter box 🙂 🙂 This is really her first real winter when she can go in and out as she pleases, last winter I stopped her from going out in the snow and I think she liked that 🙂 🙂 🙂
I saw this generator outside the now empty neighbour cottage (and heard it but it is fairly quiet). I think the owner has been so cheap that he cut off the electricity when the last couple moved away. Apparently the water pipes froze!! Of course they will when there’s no heat in the building!! This time he wanted even more money for the place but no one showed any interest what so ever and now it has been taken away from the biggest web broker. So like always with some people, they rather let it fall apart than sell it for a price someone wants to pay.
We walked down to the creek and I was lucky that hunters had been out during the night because I could walk where the wheels had pressed down the snow. It is a fluffy kind of snow so the shoes, even studded ones like I have, really can’t get a good grip. That only lasted until the creek and after that I had to slid around hoping to get some kind of grip so I wouldn’t slip down in to the creek 🙂 It is all covered in ice and snow but not even the lighter animals have tried to walk on it yet.
It was as worst when walking over the field where the wild hogs had dug up it all. The snow lay nice and smooth disguising where all the pits were, thankfully Malkolm walked first so I I followed him and only stepped down in a few pits the entire way 🙂 The wind has calmed down quite a lot thankfully but only for a few days they’re guessing. Also when looking at the weather sites yesterday the temperature would drop down to nasty cold but today they’re guessing it will just be bitterly cold 🙂 🙂 With some luck it’ll stay more or less like it is now because to hope for even warmer weather seems to be pointless at the moment.
Have You ever heard about Baba Vance? it was a blind Bulgarian woman that predicted the future. I haven’t read about any of them to be honest but her followers said she amongst other things predicted the Covid hitting us and last years economic predicaments. I guess like always in these cases her predictions is just enough vague so it can fit anything and therefore come true 🙂 Anyway for this year her predictions, according to her followers of course, says the third world war will start and involves Russia, The USA and China. Also this is the year we’ll meet aliens from space for the first time.
One touch and all that snow falls down on the passer by 🙂
After the last days events the world war doesn’t seem to be too strange but will the Aliens arrive before or after Trumpty Dumpty starts the world war? I sort of hopes it is after because who would want to be embarrassed by having any of those leaders welcoming visitors from space? Senile Trumpty, insane Putin or Horrible calculating Xi (the man who forbid Winnie the Pooh because they look so much alike 🙂 )? and make them think we all are like that? Well if they come after they’ll know for sure that we weren’t the sharpest knives in the universe 🙂 🙂 🙂 Perhaps they can restore the planet again but not any kind of ape because the same thing would most likely happen again if any of us were still here. Well the Bonobo could stay, they are anything but violent to be honest.
It is time to make a pot of tea and just relax for the rest of the day doing nothing 🙂 Perhaps I should try the old pencil again, I found the three drawings I’ve for some reason saved from back in the days and remembered how much I liked to draw, then again a good book isn’t bad either 🙂
It has been snowing since last night and it will continue to do so for at least two more days. The flakes are smaller though so it only builds up rather slowly. I really don’t like winter! It does look like people are taking it easy in the traffic though, so far I’ve only read about one accident involving two cars and a bus.
I don’t think I would have hated it this much if it wasn’t for the wind, it reaches all the way in to the forest as well and since I wear glasses it only takes five seconds before I can’t see anything 🙂 🙂 I wouldn’t have moved outside the garden at all if it wasn’t for the dogs 🙂 They didn’t seem to be bothered at all and they followed tracks not visible because of the new snow that covered them. I must say they did behave really well today and I didn’t hear especially much whining from Alma, perhaps she has finally understood that it isn’t necessary to make sound all the time 🙂 🙂 Well I doubt it but I value the times she actually is quiet 🙂
I wished that I had something sweet to have with my tea but had nothing at home and no matter how much I wanted something I sure wouldn’t drive anywhere in this weather, so I baked a sponge cake (the Swedish name for it would be sugar cake and thinking about how much sugar there is in a sponge cake I think our name is more appropriate 🙂 🙂 ). I checked online for gluten free ones and as always I didn’t follow the recipe especially much 🙂 🙂 Most of those recipes says to use a flour mix and those flour mixes are usually just some kind of starch and usually taste horrible. So I took what I had and I must say that it turned out so well that I wish I could remember what I used 🙂 🙂 🙂
There was a tiny forest mouse in the trap this morning and since I thought it shouldn’t sit in that tiny space I moved it to the travel cage I bought. When I came down to fetch it and walk to the forest with it the little bugger had chewed its way through the plastic!! I hadn’t even gone an hour! so from now on they’ll need to stay in the trap and have a much more uncomfortable journey to the forest. I can hear it in the walls and I think it is laughing at me 🙂 🙂 🙂
It is time for that last cup of tea and I’ll have what’s left of the sponge cake 🙂 I did put half a banana in it but to be honest I couldn’t feel any banana taste. I guess it wasn’t ripe enough and perhaps I should have used the entire banana and not just half of it. I’ll know better the next time this happen 🙂
So it’s a new day and a new year. Back in the days that meant that one needed to remember to not write last years number when signing something, now days we tend to sign everything via apps and they already know what year it is 🙂 If we do need to sign by hand it most likely don’t happen for a while and by then we do remember what year it is 🙂
The new year has started with above 0C (32F) temperatures but also with both snow falling and showers of rain. Not a nice combination, especially when the rain mostly falls while being out on a walk with the dogs. Also the monsterkitten has managed to go outside when the snow has fallen just to be hit by showers of rain as soon as the door has been closed behind her, she’s not happy 🙂 🙂 🙂
The temperature will drop again and more snow will fall and we might get a lot of it, nothing compared to the area around a city called Gävle and further north, that area might get up to a yard of snow so who am I to complain about possibly getting eight inches of that white garbage 🙂 🙂 🙂 I am however pretty sure I will complain and complain a lot next Time I’ll have to use my car, the first snow will most likely start to melt while freezing towards the windshields. That layer will most likely be really thick before it is cold enough for the snow to just settle without melting. It’ll take forever (well quite some time) when I’ll try and get it all off from my car.
The box trap caught the mouse I could hear in the walls the other day, well I hope it’s the one anyway, so I trotted away to all the logs and let it out there. It will be protected from the snow, rain and winds if it decides to stay there. It is after all a wild animal who has lived its life outside my cottage so it should know what’s best for it. Then again I noticed lots of paw prints from a fox around the pile of logs so I might just be feeding it instead. Then again the red fox is a favourite animal of mine so I guess that’s a good excuse to let the mice out at that place.
I fell asleep at 10 pm yesterday and to my big surprise slept until eight am! Can’t remember when I slept that much before and the good thing is that I didn’t get an head ache, normally if I sleep for longer than usual my head aches like crazy until I’ve had a cup of coffee. I can’t take any pills since my stomach was destroyed (well destroyed sand really catastrophic but You know what I mean 🙂 So coffee and any soda/drink with lots of caffein is my saving when a head ache comes. Well I had a cup of coffee anyway just in case 🙂 🙂 I think I’ll skip the tea for once and just have a last cup of coffee for the day instead. New year new traditions perhaps 🙂
I have absolutely no idea why my photos show in this way 🙂 🙂 🙂
The Cottage by the crane lake. 