Just a short one today. The greenhouse still stands, I went out several times to check how the anchors and pegs were holding up and they show no signs of even moving the slightest. The only thing that did was the broken golf club in front of the door, so I pressed it down in the ground in another place and much further down and it is still standing 🙂
The dogs barely went out to do their business because the wind was fierce and I must say I didn’t think a tree could bend that much as my Chinese catalpa, any normal tree bending so much would have broken in two 🙂 🙂
The badger visited us in the late morning, I was surprised it even had went out on a day like this. I was outside just minutes earlier to check the greenhouse and went back to let the dogs out. Took a bit longer than I expected so by the time we came out the badger had left us again 🙂 They dig mall holes searching for snails and larvae to eat and they weren’t there when I was out earlier 🙂 So everything has went well and we’re all sitting in the cottage enjoying not being outside 🙂 It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and after that it feels like an early night is the right thing to do 🙂 Well I’ll watch the news first just in case something has happened in the world 🙂
It has been a rather wonderful day, frost again this morning but without morning mist. I was a bit disappointed about that but we did have sunshine all day long and once again it went from cold to almost Scandinavian summer temperatures 🙂
So sweater in the morning but after I had been to the grocery store in Falköping I switched to t-shirt. I have around one gazillion of flies in the grass now, I think it might be that they need water, because the grass stays wet for quite some time plus the fact the ground is fairly warm all day. These flies aren’t annoying in any way, they really don’t want to be close to neither me or my dogs but as soon as we get too close they fly up in the air and the sound from them is amazing 🙂 🙂 This is so to speak their final show so I don’t care about them.
So I started this project yesterday. I was walking around in the garden and saw an old plastic pot I’ve dug down in to the ground. I had done that because I wanted black berries in the garden but in just one place. So the pot was there to keep the roots in one place. The thing is that the blackberry bushes slowly and steadily became smaller for each year until they were no more and for some reason I just didn’t remove the pot. So I looked at the pot, rather big to be honest and wondered what to do with it. I must have brought it with me when I closed my garden center. It’s around 120 litres (31,7 gallon US) and then I looked at some rubber sheet I still had after the voles destroyed my pond. So why not make a little pond from that instead of the readymade little pond I was wondering if I could repair?
There are sharp edges at the bottom so those must be covered with something. I found some old towels I never use and placed them around the sharp edges.
So I dug out all the soil that filled the pot witch made my morning a bit hellish because I apparently have muscles I don’t know of 🙂 🙂 I actually tried to lift the pot up from the ground but it was just impossible. So I brought the rubber sheet and started to preparing the surface around the pot. It isn’t easy to try and force down a rubber sheet in a rather small space and one has to forget a big rule when making a pot, the rubber shouldn’t be folded but absolutely smooth around the edges. That works well if one actually is making a big pond but not when forcing it down in to a fairly small space 🙂 🙂 🙂 Before that though I had dug a sort of moat around the pot, that will be the future swamp zone. That’s where plants that loves to grow in swampy areas but not below the water surface can live.
Malkolm kept an eye once so I wouldn’t mess it up too much 🙂
Here You can see the moat properly. I’ll have to adjust it next spring because winter tends to make the ground settle in new ways 🙂So this is what it looks like now. There is some water in it so I’ll have to check it for frogs and toads every morning plus the eventual other animal that might be in it.
When I had done my best to adjust the rubber sheet to it all (the easiest way to get the sheet down to the bottom of the little pond is to just start filling it with water) with lots of folds everywhere 🙂 🙂 🙂 I started to cut off the unnecessary parts of the sheet. That is of course best to do with a carpenter knife, preferable the ones with a razor blade in it. Or if You like me can’t find it one can use that bl…y expensive bread knife that is completely useless except for it is so sharp it’s possible to cut down a tree with it. After that just start to cover the rubber sheet that is outside of what it is supposed to be with soil. This one will be empty until next spring so I just poured out those wood chips I had after the compost grinder. It is a good thing to use a water measure so that it’s even, otherwise there will be problems if it rains too much.
So that’s what I’ve been doing today and the problem is that it really made me start to think about making a big pond again, too pricy to do that at the moment so this little one will have to do. This one will be big enough for three or four gold fish, they will eat any mosquito larvae or other fly larvae who will try and grow up there 🙂 This one is not deep enough to keep them alive during winter so I’ll see what I need to do before then. Well it is time for that last cup of tea and since there’s absolutely nothing I want to watch on tv it might be an early night, I’ll just have to check for badgers in the garden before I let the dogs out 🙂
Two nice days in a row, yesterday started out sunny and it wasn’t until pretty late in the afternoon the rain arrived, today started with deep dark clouds and rain but later in the afternoon the sun showed itself. From no on they’re guessing that we’ll have sunshine all day long for a couple of days but the temperature will drop rather a lot.
So today I started to bring down the smaller citrus trees and the hardy hibiscus I have outside plus one little tree called Date-plum (Diospyrus lotus, a Persimmon relative). I bought it late in the season since it was for sale and affordable so I felt it was too late to try and plant it since this is on the border to what it can take climate-wise. I do hope that if any mouse would go down there that it doesn’t like to eat the little tree 🙂 🙂 🙂 I know they don’t like any kind of citrus so those will be safe. Then again the monsterkitten is a great mouse hunter and so far I haven’t heard any mice running inside the walls 🙂
The dogs and I went out to the bog yesterday morning so I could pick the mushrooms I found. It looks like I now days am the only one picking mushrooms so I don’t have to worry about anyone else taking them before me 🙂 I fried them with butter until all water had evaporated from the frying pan and then I tossed them in the freezer. I think we’ll be taking that road again tomorrow 🙂 After we had come home I got the idea that I should preserve apples in sugar syrup. It is easy to be honest if one has the right kind of apple, I didn’t 🙂 🙂 🙂 I can however tell You that I might have made the best applesauce I’ve ever tasted 🙂 🙂
After I had drained off most of the sugar syrup I poured it down in to jars, so do anyone know what one could do with lots of rather good tasting sugar syrup 🙂 🙂 🙂 I also baked a big loaf of bread with lots of cheese in it (at the same time I did the laundry) and I must say it is really tasty 🙂 Since I did so so much yesterday I’ve done almost nothing today (except for bringing down those trees to the cellar) , not even napped. I did however since the morning was so dull make some rice porridge,. It’s really a winter porridge but it sort of fitted to the mood both I and the dogs had.
Still getting strawberries but they don’t taste especially much now.I need to clean the table for some cacti I have but otherwise it looks pretty good. I also have a new led-light ramp beside the old plant light ramp.Soon I’ll also place five bigger citrus trees here (not so big nowadays since that frost we had early in spring) and a tea tree.
The only thing I still need to do today is to go out to the garden before letting the dogs out for the last time today to make sure there’s no badger out there 🙂 🙂 I have to do that until it gets so cold at night so the badgers decides to just sleep until it’s nice outside again 🙂 I’m just about to have my last cup of tea for the day and perhaps I’ll have a sandwich or two as well. I don’t have much in the fridge but I’ll always have cheese and milk, so tomorrow I’ll have a trip to the grocery store again, So many colds going around at the moment so I’ll drive away as early as possible.
Most of the plum tree is gone now. All I need now is a day or two with weather that dries up the ground so I can cut the rest with my chainsaw. After that I need to start thinking about what else can grow there instead 🙂
Lots of rain has been falling here today, from before I woke up until now at almost seven pm. I don’t mind the rain but it has stayed on the chilly side all the time.
One of four piles with twigs and branches from my two plum trees. I’ve started to cut them in smaller pieces so the wood chipper (compost grinder) will have an easier job.
I dug up the hardy hibiscus and thought the buds would fall off but here’s the flower. It was filled with petals before but now it looks like this to my great joy 🙂
So we haven’t done anything really, napped a short while and watched tv. All of us is a bit bored now because rain makes the dogs stay indoors 🙂 They only run out for a few minutes to do what they must and then indoors again. Yesterday evening, around eight pm it was anything but boring here. I let the dogs outside and then Malkolm came running back to the front door and Alma started to bark.
One of the five pawpaw seedlings. If winter doesn’t kill it I’m afraid the dogs will 🙂 🙂 They run fast and wild when they play and don’t even see trees in their way 🙂 🙂
I walked around the cottage to see if I could find out what it was she barked at. She stared towards a bush and growled so I told her to go back indoors and I pointed my headlight towards the bush and there it was, a rather big badger hiding behind it. Poor thing, it must have been so scared. European badgers has a reputation of being aggressive and dangerous but that’s just nonsense. If they can they rather run away than have to meet dogs and humans. The reason they are believed to be dangerous is because hunters. I think I also would become pretty aggressive if someone tossed down aggressive dogs in to my home and I too would attack the one doing it.
So tonight I’ll take a walk in the garden before I let out the dogs so it can be alone when it visits us. Badgers eat all those snails and slugs we hate plus a lot of other bugs and larvae we don’t want close to us. I think they also might eat apples from the ground and to me that’s positive since I have so many 🙂 It’s time for that last cup of tea and later tonight they show Elsbeth again 🙂
They finally got it right, we have rain. Most of the time it’s nice summer rain but every now and again heavy showers and we’ve even had thunder passing to the west of us. I’m so annoyed that I haven’t found the jigsaw because if I had I now would have had three full water barrels, all containing around 300 litres (79,3 gallon US) each. They’re guessing we’ll have rain all weekend so if I just find it I’ll be able to open up the third barrel that’s just waiting to be opened up.
From the window beside the computer upstairs.
The morning walk was quite different though, slightly cloudy but with huge gaps between the cloud masses and enough cool top have morning mist, something I really like to see. t was more or less vanishing by the time we went out but there were places it still lingered. Jays were arguing loudly but besides them it was quite quiet. Alma and Malkolm behaved so well and it was cool enough to keep even the moose flies calm. So far I haven’t seen many of the moose flies and I do hope the drought has killed most of them.
We woke up rather early, even for me, at 4 am so I opened the door for the dogs so they could do their business. Well that didn’t happen because Alma found some animal in the garden and started to bark like insane. It was so dark that I couldn’t see anything but I’m pretty sure it was the badger again 🙂 🙂 🙂 It has now dug a hole beneath the fence to my neighbours, I found it yesterday. She (I think it’s a she because of the size) hadn’t been able to get in to my garden for a while, instead she has dug her small holes in the ground around my garden just beside the fence. It does seem I have lots of things she likes to eat here, frogs, slugs and snails (and fallen apples on the ground) so she decided it is worth the risk of meeting fierce Alma 🙂 Malkolm was smart enough to stay by my side instead of joining her 🙂 🙂
So I think it might be time to put up that wildlife camera again. I hope the batteries still work because I really don’t want to have to drive away just to get batteries. If it catches any nightly visitors I’ll of course show them here. I know the fox tends to visit us as well and lots of cats of course 🙂
It is time to have that last cup of tea for the day, after that I don’t know what to do. I actually have lots of things I can do but for some reason I don’t want to do them and I don’t mean chores but old hobbies I used to have. I guess I still have those hobbies but at the moment I just can’t get myself to start with any of them 🙂
The new neighbour has decorated the bush with coloured feathers. Most people just brings in a lot of twigs, put them in vases or urns and decorate them there. Not only feathers are used though, could be plastic or papier mache eggs, tiny yellow chickens or flying witches 🙂
I don’t mind the little rain we’ve got but it is a bit chilly to be honest. That and a high humidity forces me to turn on the radiators again. Not a much but enough to keep that humidity outside. We haven’t been close to how much rain they predicted, the ground is still bone dry if on scratch the surface.
It seems like nature is a bit out of sync this spring. The vegetation started to flower long before the first Bumblebees started to fly and now when we don’t have any honey bees around very few pollinators visit my garden. Honeybees can be both a blessing and a curse for nature. If there are too many they can actually disturb the wild bees so they don’t get enough nectar to managing to survive the next winter. We used to have lots of wild bees here before the honey bees arrived so it’ll be interesting to see if we have fewer wild bees this spring. Today is so chilly that I haven’t seen or heard a single bee at all.
Badgers makes these shallow holes to get to worms and other juicy larvae.
I’ve now brought up all citrus trees as well from the cool cellar and some were replanted but I had to stop doing that because I suddenly went out of soil again 🙂 I hope that cloudy weather, despite northern and cold winds will keep the frost away. don’t think it would harm the bigger citrus trees because the cool cellar is quite often pretty cold, 0-1C (32-33,8F) isn’t that unusual down there and that’s why the cellar also works pretty great to be a root cellar and even a huge fridge during winter 🙂 🙂 All that’s left are a Christmas cactus, easter cactus and a few things I think have died 🙂 🙂
It is time for a pot of tea and perhaps a nap after that, I’m really tired so either I have a cold going on or the Birch pollen season has started 🙂
Not long before the Marsh-marigold opens up in the root zone.Red currants have buds now.
The Sloe is in full bloom as well. You really don’t wants this in Your garden 🙂The Juneberry will soon be completely white. Unfortunately they don’t like warm sunny days if the nights are cool and damp. That’s how it is here quite often and then they get attacked of mildew and then the berries are inedible and the entire bush looks sad. I’m afraid I’ll have to remove it and plants something else there, too bad because it is a favourite of mine.
It was a good thing it was this little badger the dogs fought in the garden last winter and not the big male, he would have broken all bones in my dogs.
I’m sorry I can’t show You a photo of a wolf today but as You can see the camera caught a badger instead. It is most likely the same badger Alma and Albin had two fights with in the garden, just slightly bigger 🙂 Last nights photos was less good, to be honest the camera had changed from photos to videos but that didn’t matter, we had frost during the night so the lens was covered in it 🙂 I could see something walking by and it did look like a canine of some sort but it was most likely the fox that also visit the garden at nights. No frost tonight so perhaps the camera will catch that canine again but as photos instead.
Out to the bog we went.
Our walk this morning wasn’t anything out of the ordinary and to be honest neither was yesterdays morning walk but we did go out to my favorite island in the bog. It has dried up so much now that it is possible to walk there now, so today You’ll see photos from that island and most of You have never seen that place before. I couldn’t see any signs of wolves being there but Alma was a bit stressed with her tail hanging so we only walked there for a short while and on the less beautiful side of the island (I write island because this is actually an old lake they’ve tried to empty totally a century ago but failed since the lake is a spring lake). I hope I can show You the rest soon, it all depends on rain and wolves 🙂 🙂
I went to the store in the village where I used to work and after that I visited my old work friends. It was fun to talk to them but I must admit I didn’t feel especially sad leaving 🙂 🙂 It didn’t feel like I was leaving a happy place to be honest. They do at least have free coffee though 🙂 We had frost in the morning here and even though it almost reached 10C (50F) the ground still stayed frozen all day long. Earlier they guessed that we now would go towards colder weather, now they say we’ll have warmer weather again 🙂 🙂 No sunshine for quite some time though but I can survive without that for a while 🙂
I think it is time for that last cup of tea for the day and perhaps some hard bread sandwiches with it. Tomorrow I’ll have to bake more bread, I failed some last time, too little flour I guess even though I actually put in more than I should. The bread instead of rising it sort of flouted out and became almost flat 🙂 🙂 🙂 The taste was good though and that’s more important 🙂
It isn’t easy to find the small bridge so one can pass over the creek if one doesn’t know where it is 🙂
The Cottage by the crane lake. 