Category: Birds.

I wish You a good end of this year and a good new year.

December 31, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

The birds were patiently waiting for me to fill up the feeders again.

So I’ll end this year by having a cold. Fever, runny nose, sneezing and coughing and I guess it won’t disappear magically over night so I’ll start the new year the same way. It is at least better than what one of my neighbor has at the moment, she has what we call The Winter Vomit Disease, it’s actually worse than it sounds and that’s hard to believe 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve never had it, turns out that some people have a defected gene that makes it impossible for that virus to attach to our bodies. Sometimes it’s nice to be a defect 🙂 🙂 🙂

I went to the supermarket this morning and of course the list of what I wanted never followed me there. I knew some things but they were all sold out, other things never attached to my brain but I did remember seeds and peanuts for the birds 🙂 To be honest I have most things I would need and since we now have the beginning of a snowstorm passing by I won’t drive to any store before it has passed no matter how much I want it 🙂

It was very calm when we went out for our walk though but the wind has become stronger and stronger and now I can hear it roar through the forest. The snow has started to fall as well, well fall is the wrong word since it comes sideways 🙂 There were a few gaps in the clouds but none close to where the sun was. We walked down to the creek and then followed it up-stream. there was also a thin layer of snow on the ground but very few tracks from animals. Except for where the wild hogs passed the creek and after where all the water ran off from their bodies.

It’s easy to see where the pigs has passed the creek 🙂

I’ll most likely not stay up until we pass over to the new year, I’ve never really celebrated new years eve and I’ve always wondered why they didn’t change that day to when we have the the winter solstice instead, I mean that’s when we actually is starting the journey towards longer days again and slowly leaving these long depressing nights that we have. In my mind that would make much more sence 🙂

It is time to give the dogs their dinner and after that I think I’ll go to bed. Thankfully no fireworks even close to here so the dogs and I will be having a calm and quiet night 🙂

Out with the old and in with the new, sort of fitting now at the end of the year 🙂

I wish You all a good ending of this year and a good new year!

Suddenly they came running!

December 30, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

Two days ago we had snow and quite a lot of it as well, yesterday we had mostly icy rods and some snow left in the forest, today we have some ice left on the roads but mostly meltwater lakes all over the place. Tomorrow it’ll turn towards colder weather again and more snow on Monday to Tuesday. I’m glad the snow is gone but it could just as well have stayed since we’ll get more of it anyway 🙂 🙂

We almost saw the sun when we went out on our morning walk, I could see that round disc shine through the clouds but it didn’t last for long. There was a hunting dog barking in the forest but none of our hunters were out today, so I guess the dog had followed what ever it was it followed for quite some distance. So for once I decided that we should try the fields again. It is well over a year since we were out there, mostly because both Alma and Albin behaves like obcessed every time a car passes by.

There were only two cars on the big road so it went rather well. They had put up more electric fences and since I didn’t want to try to open them up so we could go all the way down to the road we stopped when it was around a football field away from the road. We were just about to turn around when I heard a sound I at first couldn’t figure out what it was.

The Boar is a coward so he came running first of all the pigs.

Then it hit me, it did sound like when cattle is running around in panic. The thing is that there aren’t any cattle in the fields now when it is winter. Then suddenly they came around a small mound but it wasn’t cattle, it was wild hogs! Alma and Albin started to scream like insane but the hogs didn’t care about us at all, all they wanted to do were to get away from something chasing them. They came from the direction to the village but since I mostly tried to keep Alma and Albin by my side (nova is never a problem, she rarely cares about wildlife but I have to say that she looked a bit curious about these pigs 🙂 🙂 🙂 ).

I’m so glad that I managed to take some photos of the hogs this time 🙂 Normally they run sop fast in to the trees that it is impossible, the fields however have no trees 🙂 I never saw what it was scaring them that much but I guess it was a wolf or wolves because later today just as it had gone dark the dogs wanted to go outside but as soon as they did they refused to leave the entrance stairs, just sniffed in the air and wanted to go back indoors again.

I’ve done the laundry and we’ve had our pancake day so from now on it is just relaxing for me 🙂 I might have to go to the supermarket tomorrow because I have no bird seeds. I could also fill up with other things to be honest. It would be nice if I didn’t have to do it on Monday and Tuesday because of the snow that will fall and after that they’re guessing it will be nasty cold again. Always better to stay at home in the cottage when it is nasty cold 🙂

Have a great day!

Good Yule!

December 24, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

x (6) — They had decorated a tree like this in a small village where I had to change bus to get to my new car. It reminded me of something I’ve read about, that before we started to bring in the christmas trees like spruces and pines here in Sweden, sometimes they brought in young apple trees and decorated them and if the timing was right the young apple tree started to flower just around christmas.

So I’ve done all the important stuff today, I’ve made the christmas ham and at the same time I also put the prince sausages and meatballs in the oven together with the ham 🙂 I’ve eaten some of the Quality Street bonbons, I’ve watched the Donald Ducks christmas show and also fallen asleep a few minutes in to it. I did however just doze off for a few minutes so I watched most of it anyway 🙂 🙂 The birds did get more seeds than usual and we had a rather nice walk in the morning when the temperature was as low as -12C (10,4F). No wind and sunshine made it really nice even though I couldn’t feel any warmth from the sun what so ever.

It wont look this wintery for long though, it will start raining already tonight and the temperatures are now slowly move above 0C (32F). It’s snowing at the moment, tiny flakes and I guess that if they’re guessing it right we’ll have very little snow tomorrow. It will rain even more tomorrow but it will unfortunately be sunny on Boxing day. I write unfortunately because the hunters will be out and they’ll hunt for hare and fox. I wished them good luck with the hares but they already know that we truly and deeply dislikes them for hunting fox here. We need them to keep the ammount of rodents down, these mild winters have really suited the rodents, so everyone in this part of the village hates when they hunt for fox.

I was going to bake gingerbreads but didn’t have any energy to do it but over here we say that christmas lasts till easter so I have plenty of time to do that 🙂 🙂 I did however defrost the freezer yesterday. It was cold enough outdoors so it was the time to do it if I ever was going to. I must admit that i didn’t realize how much ice there was in there 🙂 🙂 🙂 It took well over five hours even if I had placed a bowl with boiling water in there and even though there is a shallow sort of gutter at the bottom of the freezer that is supposed to lead the water in one direction out to bowl collecting it, it really doesn’t 🙂 🙂 so now the floor around it is nice and clean as well 🙂 🙂

This morning when I was about to put everything back in the freezer I also looked if anything in there contained gluten, so now my freezer is quite empty 🙂 🙂 🙂 Only the things I’ve made myself were gluten free. The reason I did that (because I’m pretty sure I would have forgotten normally) is because I bought a Julmust with orange flavor. I was talking with one of the owners of the grocery store I buy my food from because they were offering taste samples of bread with something on and I said I couldn’t eat it. So then they said that at least I could drink the Julmust. Turns out they were pretty wrong about that 🙂 🙂 🙂 I did wonder why my stomach suddenly gave up now when I’ve been so careful with having nothing with gluten. So I checked the internet and voila, the Julmust contains gluten.

Most other, if not all, Julmust only have the flavoring of malt and not the real thing so it was an honest mistake but I will inform them about it. There’s nothing more I’ll do today than watch the British crime drama “Vera” and perhaps a program about the smaller wild cats we have around the world. I’ve watched it before and to be honest, those small wild cat species are really much more interesting than the bigger ones, perhaps because we always almost only see programs about the big ones. Tomorrow starts the time of leftovers, sandwiches with ham, sausages and meatballs. I’ll make them a bit more fun by adding blue cheese as well 🙂

Taken through my kitchen window, these birds truly loves peanuts 🙂

I wish You all a Good Yule!

Defrosting the freezer, it’s cold enough outside tonight :-)

December 23, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

I had planned to do so much today but the slightly stressful character of this last week has caught up with me 🙂 🙂 🙂 Plus I think I’ve gotten a cold because last night I woke up freezing something terrible even though I had three radiators sleeping beside me in the bed 🙂 🙂 It should have been impossible to freeze so my guess is a cold and that could also be why I’ve been so tried today. We have however had our pancake Saturday today so at least I’ve been doing something.

The haunted tree looks like it is freezing 🙂

We’ve had sunshine all day today and it has also been nasty cold. When the dogs have gone outsider it hasn’t taken long before they’ve wanted to go in again. The small birds have eaten much more seeds and peanuts now when it is colder as well. It does look pretty though even though I’d rather seen this cold world on a post card. I thought that the snow would be rather icy since it rained a lot before it went cold, instead it’s really fluffy and hard to walk in. Also Albins feet tend to freeze when we have this weather so every now and again we’ve stopped so that I could get the snow out from between his toes 🙂

It’s so cold outdoors now that I’ve decided to defrost my freezer, it bis unfortunately not one of those that does it itself and it really was time to so so now. That means I’ll have to go outside with the dogs while my food still is out in the cold night, we have a clear sky showing the half moon really good. I do hope the fox stays away, I’ve never caught it with a camera on that side of the cottage but who says that will be the rule for all times 🙂

I had planned to make gingerbreads today but instead I’ll decorate the christmas tree. For a while I thought that I would just have the light there but a few decorations is sort of needed even though the red, blue and yellow lights make it beautiful enough when the room is dark.

It will start to rain tomorrow evening and on christmas day it’ll start getting cold again. I’m very glad that I don’t have to drive anywhere in the near future, the roads will be dangerous and people will not drive as careful as they need to. Lots of people have already slid of the roads while they were driving in the remnants of the snow storm that just had passed here and I guess will do the same when they’re on the way home again. After that it will be cold at nights but above freezing during the days. Well as long as we have daylight at least, days are short this time of year but it has finally turned and for every day that pass they’ll have bit more daylight 🙂

Have a great day!

The lamps really help!

December 15, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

Like the geese I would love to move south during winters but I’ll need a big lottery winning to be able to do that 🙂

I’m not that happy about my new working hours even though it works better than I thought. The thing that annoyes me most is that even though I stop working two hours later every day I still start to work only 25 minutes later. So since I can’t go to sleep until after three am I need to sleep until at least ten am and that makes the day at home before going to work two hours shorter. It’s only the first week like this but I did feel constantly stressed before going to work.

Fog and misty rain today. I only wore a hoodie when walking with the dogs so I didn’t appreciate the misty rain. Otherwise the temperature made it really nice outdoors.

Having the Friday off is nice but since I feel tired most of the time I don’t do much anyway. I’ll get used to it I know but it is still annoying. Well only one work week left before christmas vacation starts and then I won’t work again until January 8 🙂 The good thing is that I only will have to use my five remaining vacation days and no compensastion hours since I only work four days every week 🙂 Also I really can’t complain about the traffic no matter which way I drive. I go to work just before people start going home from work so very little traffic then and I drive home before people start driving to work. Still I do meet a couple of lorries on my way home and sometimes smaller cars in the middle of the forest. I guess we’re both thinking what the other driver is doing on a forest road in the middle of the night 🙂 🙂 🙂

Putting up two lamps in the dogyard, one shining in the dogyard and one shining towards the gravel road just outside made a huge difference. Now Alma only barks occasionally instead of constantly before the lamps were put up. I am also still recording my voice on the Ipad but filling up ten hours with my voice does actually take ten hours 🙂 🙂 🙂 and I’m not even half way there yet 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’m doing my best though.

Tuesday night was pretty cold here after a day when snow had thawed and some of it found its way in to the padlock I have on my garage doors. Normally no problem but when Nova decides she wants to sleep in the garage and goes in through the hole they’ve dug up from the dogyard and refuses to go back that way it is a problem 🙂 She’s half blind and half deaf and with only one ear she can’t understand from where a sound comes. So when the padlock was frozen solid I first tried to defrost it with spraying something called 5-56, I’m pretty sure it excists all over the world, and lots of it flowed down on my hands I still couldn’t open it. So instead I went in to the dogyard and called after her through the hole.

The swamp behind my garage has more water in it than it has had since I moved here.

It took me 15 minutes before I managed to make her go to the hole, she was hesitant of course so I reach towards her with my hands. The old lady could of course only smell the 5-56 so she backed away and went to the garage door again 🙂 🙂 🙂 I did manage to defrost the padlock with my two very frozen hands after a while and let her come out to the rest of us 🙂 🙂 🙂 The padlock is broken though but the door handle to the garage is removeable so it is still not possible to open the garage without the handle. I don’t think I’ll ever put a padlock there again 🙂 🙂 🙂

The bright red male Bullfinch is rather shy and stays close to the seed bird feeder.

The females are bolder though and makes visits to the peanut feeder but I don’t think they like peanuts.

Lots of Great tits eat from that feeder though.

I have some kind of hibiscus, not the one we can buy anywhere though. I took cuttings from it before the frost and even though the cutting isn’t more than perhaps 5cn (two inches) high it still has produced a flower bud!

The pheasant is still popping in for visits every day and doesn’t seem to be too bothered when the dogs chase it away when they go out in the morning, it returns again after a short while. The forest birds are also still visiting but we’ll have rather high temperatures here the coming week so when the snow melts away they’ll return to the forest again. Nice to have them visiting for a while though.I’ll stay up for a couple hours more, normally i would be in bed by now but I think it’s best to try and keep the sleeping pattern I have now, well staying close to it because I love the early mornings even though an early morning now is around eight am 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

the lamps are up and I’ll continue to record my voice :-)

December 10, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

It has been above 0C (32F) all day and will most likely stay there even though it’s just barely. With warmer weather it always looks like strong wind will follow. I can hear it roar outside but it is still coming from a direction that doesn’t hit the cottage. We’ll have a few days that slowly will go colder but then warmer weather will arrive again. How warm it’ll be is hard to guess since the different weather sites says different temperatures. I do hope it’s the Norwegian one because it shows the highest temperatures 🙂

The day has been quite nice since the wind arrived fairly late in the day. We walked down to the creek and no problem getting grip in the snow now when it slowly melts away (we’ll probably still have plenty left when the colder weather starts again though. Lots of the more shy forest birds have now returned there when the sno falls off the vegetation, so no more Bullfinches for a while I guess. The pheasant however comes for a visit every day and I’m starting to think it might be a juvenile rooster because of its size. If it is I do hope it returns for visits when it gets the new darker feathers. I’ve seen photos of melanistic pheasant roosters and they are truly magnificent when the sun hits the feathers.

I’ve put up the two lamps in and outside the dog yard. I tried them yesterday and they worked fine but today they didn’t start to shine when my neighbor drove by. No matter what I did it just stayed dark. Then I remembered that they had a switch on the attachment at the back and voila suddenly they weer glowing like the sun 🙂 🙂 There are three modes to chose from. Number one is that the light continues to shine 100% for twenty seconds after the last movement it can detect but as long as there’s movement it shines. The second mode is that it continues to shine all the time but only 60% of what it can. The third one is the same but 90% all through the night.

So I guess I’ll have the one shining outside the yard on mode three while I have mode one for the one shining in the dog yard. I’ve also started to read the first of the Harry Potter books for the dogs. So far I’ve read two chapters and that took around 48 minutes, great now I’ll only have to read for eight more hours to make sure they can hear my voice all the time after I’ve gone to work 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll continue to record my voice for several days so I do hope these lamps will help a lot!

Only twelve more days before it starts to turn towards longer days again and I do long after that day! Also only twelve more days before Christmas vacation starts and I long for that even more to be honest 🙂 🙂

A15265_030A — Four photos taken with the Agfa Ambi Silette last March, that was when winter arrived last time. I do hope that since we now started with winter that when the warmer weather arrives it also means it won’t return 🙂 🙂 🙂

A15265_033A

Have a great day!

Finally less cold!

December 9, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

If You don’t already like apple products that company really doesn’t help You to start loving them, on the contrary because after trying to get an Apple account for half an hour I truly hated anything Apple related 😄😄😄 I’ve had one before but couldn’t remember what I wrote in the security questions so I had to make a new one. It is amazing how unwilling Apple was to cooperate with me. If they ask me for what my address was where I grew up it really should tell me just the street name and no numbers. Also I got codes from Apple that I should write and the numbers weren’t accepted!!!

I finally made it and went out to find an app with voice recording, just to realize that it wouldn’t work unless the Ipad was connected to the internet!!?? Why on earth do I need to be connected to the internet?? So instead I’ll use the voice memo that already excists n the Ipad. After all I can talk for hours, stop the recording but continue to record again when I have some time left. Doesn’t seem to have a loop though but I’ll just continue to read books for hours 😄😄😄 another problem I had was that I couldn’t find any place to change the volume so I had to go online to find that out 😄😄😄

Just around 0C (32F) here today. The snow is slowly, slowly melting but new one fell so not much difference in the snow thickness on the ground. We went out to the bog again and while being there I noticed some canine paw prints in the snow, made a couple of hours or so before we came out. Way too big and wrong shape for being a fox, also slightly smaller than Almas paw prints so I knew it wasn’t a wolf. Then again no prints from humans shoes so I couldn’t figure out what it was. On the way home I heard a hunting dog barking from a long distance, my guess is that it had made a visit to us before it went back to where it should be.

Besides fighting with my Ipad I haven’t done much today. We’ve had our pancake day but that’s it. It’s already pitch black outside, the sun set at 3:16 pm today and it doesn’t take many minutes before it is dark here. I’m so glad that there’s only a few days left before it goes towards more hours with daylight. One odd thing has happened here today though, the christmas lights in the christmas tree were shining when we came home after our walk, they are battery driven and the dogs can’t start them but I haven’t either 😄😄😄 I never lock the door so someone must either been here and lit those lights or there’s something wrong with both light chains because both were shining 😄😄😄 If someone was here why didn’t they also start cleaning my cottage because god knows that it needs cleaning 😄😄😄

The bees are sleeping and this year they have almost all the honey they produced because people don’t buy expensive Swedish honey when there’s cheaper foreign ones in the stores.

The Amaryllis I bought was a filled one and I don’t like it 🙂

It is time to start recording the first of the Harry Potter books for the dogs 😄

Have a great day!

More snow.

December 8, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

It’s usually tricky to capture snow flakes when taking photos but it worked in this photo, don’t know why though 🙂

I was waiting for the last package for the dogs and the dog yard to arrive, like always it said some time between eight am and five pm and with the roads looking like they do after all snow, we had more again yesterday, I didn’t expect it to arrive until late. So I didn’t think much of it and went to the toilet and just as I did what I had to do the van with my package arrived 🙂 🙂 Thankfully the guy who drove it here understood that I was at home and did his job a bit slower and I panicking indoors tried to hurry outside 🙂 🙂 🙂 It all went well and now the two lamps are charging under my kitchen lamp 🙂

It was foggy enough to hide the mountain but not sort of close up foggy like I like it.

The Ipad has also arrived and a moment ago I desperately tried to find where to put in the sim card, I was thinking of using my phones sim card just to download the app where I can read a book, thinking of the Harry Potter books, so that Alma can hear my voice while I’m away. I watched videos on Youtube and they all showed where the little hole to release the little plate for the sim car was and I still couldn’t find it!! So out on the net again, turns out that I can’t put a sim card in this one, I’ll have to use wifi to down load anything I want in it. The problem is that my wifi isn’t known for willingly recognize that there’s another computer that I want to use for the internet!! Neither as something belonging in the cottage nor as a guest. Worst case scenario is that I’ll have to ask my neighbors to see if their wifi will help me 🙂 🙂 🙂

So until that works do You know a good app where I can download me reading a book and then have it working on loop, it will take way too long to read all those books at the same time, no matter how much I like them 🙂 🙂 I’m on my way though and that’s a good sign 🙂 🙂 I’ll start my new hours next week so it would be great if I could have this thing working by then. Besides feeling like going insane because of the Ipad the day has been pretty nice. It snowed yesterday, way too much but it has turned towards slightly less cold weather, Just below 0C (32F) all day. It will not be as warm as they guessed earlier but for a few days it’ll be just barely above 0C (32F), after that they’re guessing that it will turn slightly colder again for a few days and then they’re guessing again that it’ll be way much warmer. I’ll believe it if it would happen 🙂

Today it showed that the air would become slightly warmer because we had a rather nice fog. Warm air and cold ground usually creates nice fog. Could have been a bit thicker according to my taste but I’ll take what I get since the sun won’t show itself anyway. Lots of tracks in the new snow, a fox, probably the one coming to visit my garden, had followed the road down to the creek and somewhere half way there it had followed a hare. The most surprising track though was that a moose had passed a few meters away from the beekeepers cottage. No wolf tracks but I think i saw some from a lynx but since Alma is everywhere at the same time I only had a second or two to try and figure out what it could be 🙂 🙂 🙂

I guess that the rest of the evening and night will be spent here by my computer and wifi to try to get the wifi to cooperate and then download the best app I can find, wish me luck 🙂 🙂 🙂

Turns out that this unfortunately isn’t a Wood Grouse but instead a melanistic pheasant. If it had been a rooster it would have been almost black with a metallic green tinge when the sun had shone on it. Still long time since we had any pheasants here either so I’m just as happy 🙂

Have a great day!

My orchid now has two flower stems and a third is on its way 🙂

December 3, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

The hunters were out until just after noon so we could have a walk in the forest while there was daylight. Thankfully we have no wind now because it fell down to -15C (5F) last night, much less cold during the day though but the temperature will drop just as low tonight again.

We went out to the bog and even though we didn’t see any animals we could hear what I think was a complaining wild hog while it ran away from us. No small birds or any birds to be honest. I guess the bigger ones stay close to the roads to eat what has been killed by traffic during the night and the smaller ones seems to be at my feeders 🙂

The Wood Grouse might not be a Wood Grouse after all. People knowing birds better than I do says the coloring is wrong. It has the size of one though so until they can tell me what it actually is I’ll still call it a Wood Grouse. It can be a crossing with the Black Grouse though, they do look different in their colors. It is still around every day though and I’ve noticed that it hasn’t any tail feathers, a close call with a lynx perhaps?

A female Bullfinch, the bright red dot above and behind it is a male.

The female have a more dusty mauve color.

The Blue tit rather stays close to the peanut feeder

We also had a visit from our local fox last night, I had the camera up for three days and as long as it snowed it stayed away, cold weather doesn’t seem to disturb it though.

BURREL — Alma is usually the one most caught by the wildcam but usually she’s so blurry that it’s hard to see what she is, that dog runs all the time 🙂

Have a great day!

Lots of snow.

December 2, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

We have lots of snow now, I can’t pretend to like it but the dogs are at least clean when they come in from being in the garden. we’ve had two really cold nights, -15C (5F) but mostly it has been between -4C to -8C (24,8F to 17,6F).

There’s so much snow now that the forest birds have problems reaching their food so yesterday I saw the first Bullfinches. I didn’t get any good photos of them, the best is the one shown below. That is a male, the females are more towards mauve colored. I also have a, in this area, very rare visitor and she comes by every day, a Wood Grouse. The roosters can weigh up to 7 kg (15,4 pound) but the hen usually around 3kg (6,6 pound). I’m not sure what she is eating here, they usually eat pine needles. So my guess is that she eats buds from the lilacs and some of the seeds on the ground. We haven’t had a wood grouse in these parts since long before I moved here 23 years ago so it’s kind of cool that when one comes it chose my garden 🙂

We went down to the creek this morning. The snow that the weather sites said wouldn’t fall started to fall already yesterday evening 🙂 It didn’t stop falling until we were almost at home again 🙂 Lots of tracks from animals in the snow, mostly from wild hogs, roe deer, hares, a fox (possibly the one visiting my garden every night and either a small mosse or a big red deer. Only one human had walked there since the dogs and I walked there last time and that was a couple of days ago. My guess is that it is the beekeeper who has made those tracks, very few other people walk there in winter.

Alma was a bit impossible on our walk today so my back feels a bit sour. She has behaved so much better lately but today was a day when she just couldn’t. Turns out that she isn’t especially quiet at nights when I am at work so now I have to figure out a way to either make her quiet down or dampen the sound from her barking. I’ve ordered two sun powered lights that will shine as soon as she’s outside in the dog yard, if that doesn’t help I’ll have to put up a wooden fence instead. Turns out that she sometimes is so loud that she wakes up my neighbors youngest daughter. They are the kindest and best neighbors one can wish for so I wish they would have told me when this started. Well I’ll figure out something to make her at least not sound as much.

I’ve baked a bread today, I checked recipes online and the recipes are either really complicated or they all use a ready mad mix. So I just checked how much flour/ mix they were using and tossed in what I had (in this case oat flour, sorghum flour and rice flour) in the same ammount 🙂 I haven’t tried it yet because as soon as the bread was ready I put in french fries and meatballs in the oven. I’ll have a sandwich with meatballs, christmas ham and beetroot salad after writing this 🙂 As worse it’ll just taste like the breads one can buy and they work if one toast them 🙂

Hunters out in the forest tomorrow and I hope they will hunt for wild hogs because we have so many of them now. They are now slowly destroying the forest roads I usually walk on and it is hard to see where they’ve been now when the snow covers everything. It is very surprising when there’s a deep hole beneath my foot when I can’t see it by looking at the snow 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Winter is here and I can’t stop it.

November 26, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

a (7)

-10C (14F) here last night but despite it being well below 0C (32F) all day it still was a pretty nice day. The sun was even so warm that all snow on the south side of the cottage roof melted away. It was the lack of wind that did the trick.

a (13)

I haven’t done a single thing of what I usually do on Sundays. No dinner for next week, no laundry done and no vacuuming either which is really needed now. Then again the dirt won’t go away and now when it is as cold as it is none of us will bring in any more dirt anyway. The only good thing with these temperatures, even the dust has frozen to the ground 🙂 🙂 🙂

a (18)

I have done rice porridge but I forgot to start it in the early morning, I did it however early enough so that I could have some after a later walk 🙂 I was thinking, for a second, that I should decorate the tree as well but I’ll wait with that because the tree is nice enough with only the lights shining in it. The advent candlestick will have to wait since the snow covers all moss and lichens I would be able to find if there wasn’t any snow on the ground. The sad thing is that we’ll get more snow later next week so it’ll be even harder to find anything.

I better go down and launder at least some t-shirts so I have anything to wear at work. I have enough of the rest to last at least until Thursday 🙂

Have a great day!

That was a surprise.

November 25, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

I must admit that I was quite surprised when I peeked out the window this morning, the world had gone very white! I can’t remember anything like that when I looked at the weather sites yesterday. Still it is beautiful and i didn’t have to drive around in it today so I dislikes it just a little. The annoying thing is that it’ll stay for quite some time because it will stay below 0C (32F) for at least ten days, according to the weather sites and I guess that just because I don’t like this weather they will for once be right 🙂 🙂 🙂

We had quite a lot of sunshine today but not while we were out walking and the wind that arrived with the sunshine was biting and nasty cold so I’m rather glad that we at least didn’t have that. No wolf around today because the dogs behaved normal, lots of tracks from other animals in the snow though, like hares, foxes, pigs and deer. I don’t know if the fox visited us last night because I forgot to place the wildcam and the dogs had been all over that part of the garden so no tracks were there by the time I was putting up the camera again.

The snow really motivated me to bring up the yule spruce from the cool cellar. I’ve put the lights in it, I’m glad I bought two because the length of the light chains always sounds longer than they actually are 🙂 🙂 Still I almost wish I had bought three but I’ll rearrange them tomorrow to see if I can make them look longer. I put them on the back side of the tree as well and perhaps that’s a bit unnecessary. I’ll dress it tomorrow I think, for now the lights do the work 🙂

I had planned to also decorate the advent candlestick today but the snow made it a bit difficult. Mosses and lichens are protected here so one isn’t supposed to pick any of it in nature. Well some moss can be picked with with the landowners permission and if lichens have fallen off the trees one can pick them as well but now snow covers it all. To be honest, I have lots of moss that has fallen off the roof so if I only can find it on the ground I can take that. It is still a week until the first of advent so I have time to fix it until then.

We’ve had our pancake Saturday and I was thinking of making some rice porridge but I’ll wait until tomorrow. I can start the slow cooker when we go out on our morning walk and it’ll be ready an after after we’ve come home. the weather sites are saying that it’ll be just as or a even a bit colder than today and also that we’ll have sunshine so it’ll be nice to have some of that porridge after our walk.

Have a great day!