Yesterday was sunny and nice until it was time to drive home after work, the rest of the day was grey and murky. Today the clouds stayed away and we had some nice sunshine when we had our afternoon walk. Not warm though, northern winds made sure of that.
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Nothing much has happened here and I guess it’ll continue like that. I have no packages I’m waiting for and can be upset about them being delivered to the wrong house 🙂 🙂 Alma sometimes behaves almost well on our walks but not the last two times. It’s strange that she can be so different at walks when she’s quite wonderful here at home. I have to admit though that we do have lots of wild hogs around now so I guess that can be one thing that makes her slightly insane on our walks.
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I really would like to join the dogs in my bedroom, they’re all sleeping and snoring there right now but 7pm is a bit too early to go to bed 🙂 🙂 Instead I think I’ll go to the kitchen and make me some hot cocoa and after that fall asleep in front of the tv again 🙂
The sun has mostly shined all day but the temperature has barely reached above 13C (55,4F). It does feel much warmer in the house on the southern part of it where the sun hits than it does on the northern side (and I mean indoors). So while I’ve been able to have the kitchen door open for quite some time today I’ve still had the radiator on in the living room where there isn’t any window on the south side of it 🙂
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We were out in the early morning and for once we actually saw a couple of Roe deer. Alma went nuts as always but Albin did actually stay quite calm. I did manage to calm down Alma after a couple of minutes but she refused to stop looking at the point where she last saw them 🙂 Too many scents after the wild hogs all around us though so she was still all over the place when we were walking. I brought a plastic bag with me and I did find some mushrooms, not the most yummy but they are perfect if one wants to make a mushroom sauce.
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No need to make dinner for the coming week at work today, I did that last week and since I’ve been at home all week I still have it in the freezer 🙂 Today I also tried cooked food for the first time (well unless one counts toast as cooked, it is after all sort of fried) and so far so good 🙂
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Economists are surprised that we have stopped to buy other things than necessities much earlier than they anticipated. I wonder why since they’ve scared the crap out of people telling us that electricity and petrol prices will be insanely high the coming winter. Also all the central banks have raised the interest rates to stop the inflation, which has no effect on the electricity and gas prices what so ever, making the living costs insanely high as well for lots of people. So how can they be surprised at all? Of course people will stop buying things they really don’t need when they’re told the coming winter will be as close to harmagedon as possible without actually go through Harmagedon for most people 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Well nothing much we can do about it anyway to be honest , all we can do is to hope it won’t be too bad. It is time for a cup of tea and some toast and after that it’s time to give the dogs their food too.
We’ve had a rather nice day over here. It started out cloudy but then the clouds broke up and after that it’s been rather sunny. Lots of smaller clouds up there in the sky but still sunny enough to warm up my little cottage.
.I’ve heard that they’ve been working a lot out at the peninsula this week but at first it didn’t look as they had thinned out anything.They had but just enough so that the trees will have enough space to grow (this is now days a part of the nature reserve. They removed all spruces so that a more natural forest will grow up again). I must admit that it is quite nice to walk around in a birch forest.I also found a Lingon berry 🙂
I went to the optician yesterday and this time it was a young man that checked my eyes, it’s almost a year ago I did that last time so I didn’t think my eyesight had changed at all. Turns out they had. I don’t know why but suddenly he asked me if I was a hunter? I said I’m not and he didn’t have high thoughts about hunters at all 🙂 🙂 Around where he lives it seems they mostly have trophy hunters who doesn’t care about the wild life at all so I was happy to tell him that here it is quite the opposite since they always check how many of each animal we have here and how many they can hunt without disturbing the balance.
The autumn has come much further out on the bog than closer to the village...
I told him about how the hunters not even was upset about us having wolves close by and that they also cared about the lynx living in the area. That would not be the case where he lived. We kept on talking about that for almost twenty minutes but we did actually talk about the lenses too 🙂 🙂 I sure hope he didn’t have any other customer waiting after me 🙂 🙂 🙂 So now I’m waiting for the lenses to be made and when they arrive I’ll get another appointment so they can check that they work for me and then they’ll give me yet another appointment after a week or so to see how things work out. No need to teach me how to put in a lens though, I have no problems what so ever to poke myself in the eye without blinking 🙂
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I had a short walk with the dogs this afternoon and brought a plastic bag just in case I would find any mushrooms. I think I can say that this is a mushroom year. I know quite a lot of edible and unedible mushrooms but I still only pick a few of what actually is edible. There are always too many delicious mushrooms that can look way too much some that are more or less deadly. Even though I know the difference between a deadly White Toadstool and a white champignon I still don’t pick the champignon just in case I for some reason would make a mistake. So I only pick the ones that are totally sure like chanterelles, boletes and hydnoid fungi (and a few more). We don’t have chanterelles in this part of the forest and very few hydnoid fungi but we have loads of boletes.
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The boletes I found today has a slimy layer over its hat and it is a bit tricky to get rid of that before doing anything with the mushroom. It must be something like trying to remove the slime from a slug 🙂 🙂 🙂 They are quite tasty when being fried though 🙂 They are also favorites amongst the larvae community 🙂 So even if it looks like quite a lot when one comes home it really looks like very little when one finally has fried them 🙂 🙂 🙂 I think I have enough for two sandwiches with mushroom stew on them 🙂 🙂 Lots of more mushrooms in the forest though so if I only remember to bring anything to carry them home in I think I’ll have plenty for the rest of the year if I want them in my dinners 🙂
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It is time to give the dogs their dinner and even though I do feel slightly better I think I’ll settle with some toast with perhaps jam and cheese 🙂
Older photos today since I haven’t been out on walks with the dogs.
Nothing has happened here, I’m still at home since my stomach is quite wobbly and I still haven’t tried cooked food yet. I’m so glad I like toast and rose-hip soup 🙂 🙂 🙂
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The weather has been rather mixed. Either strong winds and rain or almost no wind and mostly sunny. I have been able to have the kitchen door open but not as much as I have wanted too because of Alma, she tends to jump over the fence and research what has happened in the neighborhood all by her self.
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I will go the my appointment to the optician tomorrow and I have checked how much lenses cost and to be honest it will be much the same as what my glasses cost. I thought it would be much more expensive to be honest. I’ve learned that the progressive lenses work in another way than glasses, they will be made so that they are as sharpest for reading in the middle of the lens because usually the light is strong while reading and the pupil therefore are small and that will work well when I drive to work now when winter comes because it’ll be pretty dark soon and the pupil therefore is bigger.
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But how will that work when I drive in summer and the sun already is up? Well I guess it’ll work otherwise how would people all around the world who use lenses like this ever be able to drive at all 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve also been taking looks on another camera because I really use my cameras a lot so they’re actually getting closer to when they finally will give up. I did find a really nice Nikon Z5 camera and it wasn’t expensive at all to be honest but it didn’t come with a lens and one need other lenses than the ones I have. There are adapters but those cost almost as much as a lens and I really don’t want to spend a lot of money when we really don’t know how expensive things will be this winter. So I’ll just hope for the best and that my cameras will keep on working until time changes.
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It is time to give the dogs their food and I’ll have tea and toast 🙂
I took a few photos from the window upstairs this morning. I was lucky because the morning mist vanished within minutes.
So I went early to vote yesterday morning, I was there as soon as they opened up and I still had to stand in line. Not more than five minutes but it did feel odd. I was lucky, later in the day some people had to stand in line for hours.
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I don’t know how things work in other countries when it comes to the ballots but here each party has their own ballot. If one is a Swedish citizen we can vote for three different things, the parliament, the region (which takes care of the health care system) and the county. So one need one ballot for each one. Up until last year they had all the ballots on a place where everyone actually could see what one chose, not a great thing to be honest but most of us just took a bunch of ballots from different parties when we went to the screen where we put the ballots in special envelopes.
It was however quite foggy up on the mountain yesterday morning when I went to vote...
Now they decided that the ballots would be in a place where no one could see what one picked, no problems with that really but I and most other people then believed that there would be several places where they had the ballots. How wrong we were and since lots of people hadn’t decided what party/ parties they would vote for until they reached that place it took a lot! of time for people to vote. I don’t know who the idiot is who didn’t think of that, especially since they had been warned that this most likely would happen but who ever it was should never be allowed to be in charge of anything ever again. The lines were so long in some places that people just gave up and walked home without voting.
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Anyway, the results? Well we have eight parties in the parliament and they are divided in to two groups. One is center left parties and the other one is right and fascist. It is at the moment so close that we won’t know for sure until Wednesday evening/ Thursday morning until we actually know which one of them won. Unfortunately it leans towards the right-fascist side. They will have huge problems making it work though because the least right wing party refuses to have anything to do with the government if the fascist party is in it. Then again the fascists won’t be happy if the least right wing party is a part of the government either, especially since they are the biggest party in that group (just above 20%).
I stopped by the Abbey ruins on my way back home but unfortunately most of the fog had drifted away by then...
To be honest the other group, if things would change when all votes are counted, will not have an easier time to create a government either, they have more or less the same problems in their group 🙂 🙂 🙂 It is a bit scary that people who behaves like toddlers in in the defiance age will actually lead this country. I have some kind of stomach flu today so I’m at home and have spent the day in front of the tv watching the two big channels discussing what will happen now and that’s just stupid since we actually don’t know who won! At the moment the right leads with 46000 votes and I think they still have several hundred thousand votes to count. Anything can happen.
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It is time for some rose hip soup and after that I’ll most likely fall asleep in front of the tv as always 🙂
The day started rather nice, reasonable warm for being an autumn morning and the sun slowly rising. After that it sort of went down hill 🙂 Strong and chilly winds arrived and so did clouds. We did get some sunshine later in the day but the winds were too chilly for the sun to warm up.
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We have some filters at the huge washing machine at work that needs hydrochloric acid and caustic soda to work. No big problem really because we handle it rarely and when we do we have protective clothes and a breathing mask. The problem is that the containers weigh between 75kg and 85kg (165,3 pound and 187,4 pound) and it isn’t possible to use any kind of lifting device where they are placed.
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So I changed four of those containers yesterday and that wasn’t a good thing to do 🙂 🙂 🙂 The joints in my left hand aren’t happy and neither are the joints in the toes on my right foot 🙂 🙂 🙂 My back has some things to complain on as well to be honest so I only stayed for almost half the day at work so the filters could be cleaned. The only reason I’ll go to work tomorrow is because I’m the one who knows what to check inside the washing machine after they’ve stopped painting for the day. We have so much to do now that we work 24 hours a day now and the only time we can really go through the washing machine is on Fridays afternoon.
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I’ve started two radiators today. The chilly wind really cooled down the cottage and even though I’m preparing for lower temperatures to keep the electricity bills down the coming winter I really didn’t want to freeze now when my joints are acting up 🙂 🙂 Sweden is the biggest exporter of electricity in the EU so our electricity should be pretty cheap to be honest but since the EU now is one big market we’re now forced to pay a much higher price because for some reason we must pay when the electricity costs on the open market and that price is founded on what the most expensive power cost at the end of the month. So even if we don’t use especially much natural gas in this country we still have to pay for what the gas costs.
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I really can’t understand that logic to be honest. We really should pay for what the energy costs at that speciffic time we used it and since we don’t use natural gas we really shouldn’t pay the price for it either. They are now thinking of removing the natural gas as the price indicator but EU rarely works fast so who knows when that will happen. So now they say that every house owners should have at least $ 5000 US as a buffer to be able to managed the electricity cost. They are also talking about some kind of support so that we don’t have to pay so much for our power but we’ll have our election for government on Sunday so they’ll say anything right now to be honest.
.Jerusalem artichoke..At least 2,5 meters (much the same in yards) high.
To be honest,Nova is now 16 years and three days old. I should have posted about her in the last post but I wanted to include a very short video(which I hadn’t filmed)Â as well and it’s at the bottom of this post. Just click on the bottom post and You should be able to see it even if You don’t have Instagram.
Below 0C (32F) this morning. Most mornings lately has been so chilly that we’ve had morning mist and I’ve used my car camera for several days now to capture it...
She has been through quite a lot in her life. Her first year she and her siblings were locked in a cellar, beaten and starved. After that she was with an elderly couple who spoiled her rotten 🙂 🙂 and she really deserved that. They had her for half a year and then she moved to me. She has some allergies, a tumor 2 inch long tumor between her right eye and ear removed, she has no cruciate ligament in her right knee but a knee brace and duct tape takes care of that and she’s in no pain. Constant ear infections and one of those turned in to flesh eating bacteria attacking her. The anti-biotics she got was so strong that I had to wash my hands every time I had given them to her. The skin is still hanging loose on the place where she had it. She has also had cancer but is still going strong 🙂
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I really didn’t want another dog at that moment, my old Erna had just passed away a month earlier but then the animal rescue organisation who called me and asked if I could take her showed me a photo of her. She looked almost exactly like old Erna but only half the size. Of course I couldn’t say no 🙂 🙂 🙂 In the beginning she had this thing of hating hares and if she was unleashed she would run after it and out of my sight (she never caught any though, the hares were just too smart for her 🙂 🙂 🙂 ). I never had to worry about her running away though, she always ran back to either me or back home 🙂
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One day hares weren’t tyat fun any more and after that She has mostly walked unleashed on our walks. Wild hogs and moose have run close to her several times and she might have looked a bit surprised when it happened but she has never run after them. The only time I demand her to be leashed is when I know there are wolves in the area. She’s friendly to all animals so she would mostly likely go to it and say hi 🙂 🙂 She has always had ear infections and one vet once said that her ear is built to get infections. Now days we’re controlling those infections with steroids and so far it has worked pretty well.
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Even though she right now is healthy and strong it doesn’t take much to change that in a dog that is that old, so all I can do is hold my thumbs and cross my fingers and hope it will continue like this for a very long time more 🙂
I think it might be the same piglet that escapes every day 🙂 The photos are from both yesterday and today.
This Sunday has passed like most other Sundays. I’ve done the laundry and dinner for next week at work. Not the most exciting of days but the dinner was mostly made by the slow cooker so all I had to do was to go outside and collect the vegetables and potatoes and then put it all in the cooker.
Its siblings stays where they are supposed to...
It has been a rather nice day though. started out a bit cloudy but turned warm enough for me to have the kitchen door open most of it. Well every now and again Alma jumped over to my neighbors so I had to call her back and close the door for a while. Seems like she gets that it sort of is a punishment and stays in the garden after that, at least until she hear something that is too tempting 🙂 🙂 🙂
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She has actually behaved pretty well for being her lately. Ok she pulls the leash but mostly just in the direction we’re walking so that’s a plus. She has also started with sort of whining loudly/ howling when we are about to leave for a walk and then the entire way down the road until we have passed the beekeepers 🙂 🙂 🙂 So now every time she starts I say: Do you want to go indoors and lay down? At first she just looked at me and continued so I dragged her indoors and closed the door and left her there. Ok I didn’t go anywhere but she did get the message 🙂 🙂
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Now every time we leave and she starts I say the same thing and she does quiet down, at least for a while 🙂 🙂 🙂 The only place where she actually calms down and is quiet is where we once saw a couple of sows and some piglets, she can stand there for a long time without making a sound or even move. We’ve only seen the pigs there once but she will never forget it 🙂 🙂 🙂
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It is time to give the dogs their dinner, they have already had one pancake each but that was hours ago. After that I’ll most likely fall asleep in front of the tv as I always do 🙂
The photos are from both today and yesterday but actually covers the walk I had this afternoon.
We had a second morning with frost here today, two in one week is at least one too many and it’s still four more days until it usually arrives. I do hope this isn’t a sign about how winter will be, early and long.
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The day has been pretty nice though, lots of clouds but still lots of sunshine. It never reached 20C (68F) but still felt pretty warm when the sun shone. It is a bit chilly now in the evening though so I have turned on one radiator, the one in the living room. The little heat it gives will dry up the chilly air and then travel up to my bedroom and make it just enough warm there for it to be comfortable.
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Alma has behaved as good as she can the two latest walks, not shouting too much when we’re walking towards the forest and only pulled the leash in one direction. For being Alma that is more or less amazing 🙂 🙂 🙂 We were just about to pass the beekeepers when Salmiak the cat suddenly ran out in front of us and down towards my cottage (I’m starting to believe he does like that on purpose, he might get a kick out of being close to death 🙂 🙂 🙂 ) and that was just too much for both Albin and Alma 🙂 🙂 🙂 We did manage to come back home without me having a stroke because those two are just too much sometimes 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I was supposed to leave work a couple of hours early today because I wanted to finally buy that document shredder I’ve been thinking of buying for a couple of years now and I wanted to go when there was as few other costumers as possible. I really didn’t want to wait just because people buying new phones never can decide on what model they want to have 🙂 🙂 🙂 Everything was ok but then they suddenly gave my work friend the day off (without actually telling me, I got to know about it by accident since I heard other people talk about it), the one that is, together with me, responsible for the big washing machine. Fridays are now the day we go through it properly after they’ve finished to wash for the day.
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So I had to stay and had a long chat with the one responsible about it. I had said that me going a couple of hours early wasn’t that important but I really wanted to buy that thing now. I said I will stop working with the washing machine if I can’t know if I actually can leave early or take the day off if it all depends on him taking the day off even if he does so after I got the ok for taking time off. For reasons I’m not writing here he has to take days off with short notice now and then. I’m not annoyed about that but I really need to know that this doesn’t happen again. So I’m not really angry about it but I want to make sure it doesn’t happen again, one day it might be something important I have to do.
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It’s Friday and it is a bit chilly outside so I’ll make either hot chocolate and have some digestives with brie on or some rose-hip soup. Autumn is here and both a really great choices when the days get shorter and cooler.
The first frost on the car. I had a few photos in the phone that I show today.
We had our first morning with frost yesterday. The temperature sunk to 0C (32F) for just long enough time to give me a sheet of ice over the entire car. I can’t say I liked it 🙂 🙂 🙂 Normally the first frost arrives at September 6 so it came a week early.
...This rather aggressive spider refused to be pushed away from the toilets at work 🙂 🙂 The body is around four fifths of an inch.
When I’m at work my dogs are in the dog house/ yard or garage. They once dug a hole in the ground to get in to the garage so after that it’s now their indoor yard 🙂 They’ve created havoc in there so I rarely go inside to see what it looks like now days 🙂 🙂 The problem now days is that they easily get in there but Nova is old and not especially agile any more so quite often I need to open the garage door to let her out. Albin has never been agile in any way and he’s getting older as well so lately I’ve had to open the garage door for him too.
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So yesterday when I came home Alma came out from the dog house (a big part of the wood shed to be honest, it’s so big that I almost can stand straight and I would have no problems having a bed in there 🙂 ) but neither Albin or Nova came out. So I opened the garage door and out ran Albin but I couldn’t find Nova? In this garage/ wood shed, dog house they’ve saved the old outhouse (the old outdoors toilet) and remade it in to a garden shed. and it is sort of built in to the garage. I called after her but she didn’t make a sound, then something on the ground caught my eye.
..The photo really doesn’t show it but the leafs are now slowly changing colors.
Turns out that the old lady had dug her way beneath the old outhouse and while doing that pushed the sand behind her blocking the way back out 🙂 🙂 🙂 I have no idea for how long she has been trapped there but it looked like she has had plenty of space anyway 🙂 🙂 🙂 So the first thing I had to do was to dig her out of that place and when i finally got her out I blocked the space with an old lawn mower 🙂 🙂 🙂 The lady might be old but she’s still pretty active 🙂 🙂 🙂
She had dug her way in beneath the old outhouse where the lawn mower now are pushed down and I could see her nose mowing from the little space between the wall and ground to the left where the rake stands...
The Cottage by the crane lake. 