Category: Butterflies.

I hope it starts to dry up now.

July 18, 2024 · 6 Comments ·

Lots of butterflies and dragonflies on our way to the creek today and also a few Damselflies down by the creek.

I hope I can mow the lawn tomorrow because today has been both reasonable warm and sunny plus we’ve had a wind blowing helping to dry up the grass. The early morning wasn’t that fun though, misty rain and so warm that the flies behaved like crazy so we never came out for a morning walk. We waited to have any walk until the weather became much more pleasant.

Instead I started to collect all cardboard boxes, breaking them down in to smaller pieces and then loading it all in to the back my car trunk. I still have loads to pack but it is almost completely full there now 🙂 My big problem is that if I have an empty box and I have something in my hands where I don’t know where to place it it goes down in the box 🙂 All but one of all those boxes are now in the car but I still have several big ones that needs to be unpacked and find somewhere to place what’s in them. I have almost no storage space in this little cottage, I have the cool cellar but I need that space for my plants that need a cool but not cold space to spend winter 🙂

Yesterday I went with my neighbor to a vintage shop, I’ve wanted to go there for a long time so yesterday my neighbor brought me there, turns out it’s her brother in law that owns it. I really lied it and found lots of things I would have liked to buy 🙂 I did come home with an old kitchen scale. There were a couple of really old ones but one need counter weights to make it work and those are always missing, so I bought a not so old, made sometimes in the late 1900’s. I have an almost new digital one but it eats batteries and it can change how much something weighs if I weigh the same thing again 🙂 I’ll take a photo of my new one if I remember it 🙂

We walked down to thew creek today. Still lots of puddles in the gravel road but the grass bushes along the creek were almost dry, the sun and the wind had done a great job there. For You living where temperatures around 22C (71,6F) is almost chilly this time of year 🙂 my dogs didn’t think it was 🙂 Totally ok while walking in shadow but coming out in the sun made them pant an awful lot. Alma always pant so I can’t say much about here 🙂 but Nova slowed down considerable and also Malkolm was less energetic. So I let Nova of the leash already when we were down by the creek, none of the dogs have show that there are wolves around so I felt it was safe to do so. I let Malkolm of the leash at the usual place and I must say that he’s really good at coming back if I call him.

So it’ll be an early walk tomorrow while it still is cool after the night because tomorrow will be warm, Scandinavian warm that is 🙂 25C (77F) and that will be too much for my Swedish dogs that are used to much lower temperatures 🙂

It’s time for a last cup of tea and then see if there’s anything worth watching on tv, I doubt that though.

Have a great day!

A morning I liked.

July 16, 2024 · 6 Comments ·

The morning was almost perfect here today, only almost because as usual the vegetation was so wet that Malkolm was soaking wet when we came home even though he barely walked in the high grass today. It was cool, morning mist and the sun slowly rising. We skipped having breakfast before going outside hoping to be in the fog as much as possible. The mist actually stayed our entire walk so I was more than happy 🙂

I went up to the mail box before we went out on our walk, back in the days I would have had all dogs with me, unleashed, because they would stay close to me. If I tried that today Alma would be all over the place, most likely chasing cats at the farm, Malkolm would follow her and Nova would have turned back home again 🙂

I did hope that we would see some bigger animals since the sun just had started to rise but we only saw one and that was a wild hog down by the creek. It was passing the gravel road perhaps twenty meters ahead of us (much the same in yards). At first it stood still just watching us but decided to pass since we had stopped only looking at it. The thing is that wild hogs never comes alone and I had no idea if this was the first or last of them I decided to turn around and walk back home instead.

It is getting more tricky to have our walks now days. Nova is old and I’ve noticed how much slower she is compared to just a year ago. So it is a bit tricky to understand what speed we should walk in. First we have Alma who most likely would love to run around as fast as she can, last is Nova who now days mostly enjoys to just walk really slow sniffing on everything she can find on the ground and Malkolm in the middle 🙂 Malkolm is more like Nova, more interesting in smells than speed so it is Alma who has to adapt the most and adapt is not her strong side 🙂 🙂 She too can find smells interesting but can’t concentrate for more than fifteen seconds, I’ve actually measured the time and it’s rare that she can be interested in anything for up to twenty seconds 🙂 🙂

She did behave pretty well when we met the hog though, I must give her that! The weather after that was rather nice, lots of sunshine and just a weak wind blowing. the rest of the walks she behaved really well. I thought of mowing the lawn but even though it was fairly warm and the sun shone the grass was still soaking wet, no mowing tomorrow either because it has just started to rain again and it will most likely last until early morning tomorrow. One newspaper shouted out that after this rain we’ll get higher temperatures again and lots of sunshine so I checked the weather sites. Yes we’ll get one day with high temperatures and then it’ll drop down to 20C (68F) again 🙂 🙂 They always do like that when they know most people are desperate to at least get some sunshine before work starts again 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is time for a last cup of tea for the day and then bed I think. I guess it’s stupid to hope for another morning like we had today but I’ll be happy if it is cool and with some sunshine 🙂

Have a great day!

Only one more day :-)

July 4, 2024 · 2 Comments ·

I always save photos for days when I can’t take any and put them in a folder called “For a rainy day”. All photos today comes from that folder. They can be taken earlier this year or some time during last year. The only important thing is that it doesn’t show snow 🙂

The weather is what I would call rather unstable right now, heavy showers coming and going. Pretty chilly here as well and it’ll be like this over the weekend they guess. No use in looking at what they are guessing for the coming week they change those predictions more or less every hour. Everything from sunny and warm all week to quite the opposite 🙂 🙂 🙂

Lots of things to do at work and due to bad planning they asked if people wanted to work overtime, they never come to me even if they are desperate since they know I’ll just laugh at them 🙂 To be honest only three people wanted to work, most of us will after all start our vacation now.

Only Malkolm liked to be outside in the rain so we haven’t had any walk. Not good for any of us so it’s nice that vacation starts now because it is very rare that it rains all day, so in between showers we’ll be able to go out and get rid of some of all that energy that is building up in the dogs now. Normally during weekends and vacations we’re out on walks at least three times a day but the weather lately has really stopped us to do that. In winter time, before Alma, we usually had walks in the empty cow pastures and normally we walked a bit more than 9km (5,6 miles) but Alma being like she is and after tearing my shoulder twice we haven’t been able to do that last winter. I am hoping that she will have calmed down enough until next winter. They say hope is the last thing to leave us 🙂 🙂 🙂

Tomorrow is the last working day before vacation starts and at first they said we would stop working with the painting early, then a bit later than they thought and today that we most likely will continue as normal 🙂 🙂 🙂 It doesn’t really matter because I won’t be back in four weeks anyway 🙂

Have a great day!

A day with warmth and sunshine, it’ll rain tomorrow.

June 11, 2024 · 4 Comments ·

Every year since long before I moved here poppies have grown outside the Beekeepers garage.

I have two really happy dogs beside me right now. Warmer weather and no rain so now they’ve been playing outside all afternoon/ evening 🙂 Also a short walk after I had come home was really liked. Unfortunately the Forest fly season has started so after walking to the bog we all hurried out of the forest again 🙂 These flies are really harmless in all way but they always try to get inside the ears and nostrils and if they can’t they just walk around on the hair. So annoying!!! So I better find my mosquito hat otherwise I’ll refuse to take any walk after it becomes warmer than 10 C (50 F).

Clouds missing my village, they pass south or north of us :-)

This is some kind of Lathyrus, Sweet pea relative and it grows along the gravel raod. — I can’t remember the name but this is a close relative to Sweet Pea. Could be Spring pea perhaps ?

The first wild strawberries, they grow all over the forest and in to our garden :-) — The first ones for the year. I didn’t eat any because too many dogs walk by there and god only knows how many pee on them 🙂

They’re guessing that it’ll stay this warm tomorrow again but with rain and thunder. After that a few days with lower temperatures again and then up to summer temperatures and with rain almost the entire time, I guess the mosquitoes will be happy about that 🙂 🙂 🙂 I think it might be time to go fishing and put what ever I catch in the little lake behind my garage, a few fish can eat a lot of mosquito larvae 🙂

White beam, not especially common growing in the wild outside this village. Whitebeam isn't rare here normally but I can't find it anywhere in this area except for in this forest. — Whitebeam.

The Birch wood on the way out to the tip of the peninsula in the bog.

Lots of butterflies here now :-) — I’m not good at butterfly names 🙂

I found a new anti tick, horsefly, mosquito spray in the pharmacy last Friday. The last one I had smelled like really bad deodorant, the kind of buy while being abroad somewhere warm and wonder why one never find something like that at home and when You do come home fully understands why not 🙂 🙂 This one doesn’t seem so bad to be honest, it smells like a very flowery perfume older ladies used in the sixties. Sort of discrete but powerful. The thing is that it sticks around and if some of it has hit the floor or a wall that discrete smell sort of grows and fills the entire home and in the end forces You out of Your own home 🙂 :-)Nova doesn’t care much, Alma shows her displease and Malkolm starts to roll around in anything that might smell so bad that it at least kills the flowery smell 🙂 🙂 🙂

The bog.

It’s supposed to be for humans as well so I sprayed some on myself as well. That smell has now followed me at work and it’s really hot where I work and I can tell You that heat really make this smell grow thousandfold. The bottle is new and it seems to do the job so I’ll keep on using it until I find something else 🙂 Can’t they come up with something that works but at least doesn’t stink so much 🙂 🙂

Maianthemum bifolium, relative to Lady in the valley and smells really nice. — Maianthemum bifolium, the Swedish name for it is Squirrel berries and I have no idea why 🙂

I won’t write anything tomorrow, too much to do but I’ll return on Thursday. I used to take Wednesdays off from the blog when I helped my friends daughter with her French homework and that continued even after she left school for good but instead of Wednesdays I’ll have a break every Monday, I never seems to be able to do what I should on Mondays any more 🙂 It is time for a cup of tea and perhaps something to nibble at as well 🙂

Have a great day!

It missed us again.

May 31, 2024 · 6 Comments ·

The factory where I work is almost surrounded by fields and I really like to stand outside in nice weather just watching what ever they are growing, sometimes a fox pass by and deer kan be seen gracing there too. — Took this one with my camera at work today, I think it came out rather nice 🙂

Another day another thunderstorm passing by but to be honest even though it did go through nearby I couldn’t even hear it this time. It was much worse along the west coast where cities and town have been flooded and cellars being filled with dirty water. An old gardening enthusiast who grew up nearby well over 90 years ago told me that the bog I live beside is so big that during hot summers it creates a high pressure area all by itself, so when rain comes close it push it towards its sides. So the rain can pour down on the mountain but we can have sunshine. It also makes it much colder here when winter arrives and so far I can’t say that he was wrong.

View from my window upstairs. Some sheep in the foreground and behind them the ground is covered by morning mist. — Not bad views when driving to work 🙂 This one however was taken from a window upstairs.

Photos taken in the village on my way to work. The sun is breaking through the mist showing how it floats around in different patters when the sun heats it up. It doesn't take long before the sun burns it away but here the last of it is rising upwards behind the gravel road.

We’ve had mostly thin clouds that the sun has shone through or clear blue sky. There was a strongish wind blowing when I came home after work so even if I thought it might be too warm for both Nova and Malkolm I took the dogs for a walk, I thought the wind would cool us down. Turns out that the wind wasn’t strong enough to blow through the forest. The odd thing was that there were no mosquitoes?! The first horse fly annoyed us for a while and the first forest flies a bit longer but even they gave up, so I guess it must have been much warmer in the forest than I actually thought.

This and the next photo showsmostly the did up fields and a small bit of the creek and a thin layer of morning mist floating around over it all. — And tow from the lake.

Dog biscuits, a quite common flower that looks much like wild carrot and smells rather nice. — The Swedish name for the white flowers is Dog biscuit, have no idea how they came up with that long ago 🙂 It is edible and the root is said to taste like Parsnip. They are closely related. The problem is that several other flowers looking similar are deadly poisonous so one must know what one is doing if one wants to eat them 🙂 Also We have wild carrot growing here, believe me when I say that it’s like chewing on a stick 🙂 the taste is there though 🙂

A cloud slowly building up to become a Thunder cloud.

The morning was cool and nice though, 8C (46,4F) and I would rather have had a walk with the dogs than having to go to work 🙂 🙂 🙂 Morning mist floating above the ground and birds singing like crazy. I brought one of my cameras with me and managed to get a few photos with the morning mist before the sun burned it away.

I'm bad at butterfly names but lots are flying around here now, This one was feeding n Lingonberry flowers just when I saw it. — Lots of butterflies here now.

The forest is filled with strwberry plants. Thankfully we have the law called Right to access so we can pick any berries everywhere (unless it is in a garden of course). No land owner has the right to stop us doing that. — Wild strawberry flowers

Have no idea what these tiny yellow flowers are called but I like them :-) — No idea what these are called.

WE have lots of Veronica's growing in the wild, I think these are called Granny's' goggles. — These veronica’s’ are everywhere now and I think our name for these are Granny’s’ goggles 🙂

The birds just stopped to sing, it is oddly quiet so I checked the lightning app and there isn’t any thunder even close to here. There’s also a tractor working somewhere nearby that also just stopped making noise. I don’t think they are related in any way but it feels odd when it suddenly becomes totally quiet 🙂 Well th

Chamomile grows along the gravel raod towards the forest. — Chamomile.

The forst star loves living in the forest where it doesn't get too much sunlight that would dry out the ground. — Forest star.

More and more Buttercups are opening up now, soon the fields will shine yellow again nw after all the Dandelions have stopped flowering. — Buttercups.

This is a deep hole in the bog, it looks like it has a bottom rather shallow but it is in facy just roots that covers the water below. Hare tail cotton grass grows well there. — The little tjärn still has water in it and the hare tail cotton grass looks beautiful.

e birds are back and I hope they won’t drive that tractor any more 🙂 🙂 I noticed earlier when I was watering all the new trees that it is time to do something about some of my sowing, like the Hollyhocks and Morning glories, they are growing fast and I was wondering for myself if the best thing is to re-pot them (but I have very little soil) or just plant them where I want them to grow?

This small creek is almost dried out now but the ferns are covering it up instead.

Salmiak , the beekeepers cat, is sleeping on the patio table. We think he is as old as Nova, 18 years old. — Salmiak sleeping on the patio table.

These grow everywhere except in my garden 🙂

I sowed a Black Walnut almost 16 years ago and last year it gave nuts for the first time and this is the first time I've seen the male flowers :-) — The Black Walnut in bloom.

Also several more Giant Sequoias have germinated, still none of the Dawn Redwood but I still have hope 🙂 I have too much of the Greater celandine so I’ll remove some of them tomorrow, I’ll wear gloves when doing that because the sap in them are bright orange and it is more or less impossible to remove that color and I never know where smaller stinging nettles can hide 🙂 I also need to figure out where to plant that last Mulberry tree I bought and four Sea Buckthorn I have waiting as well.Plus the rose that I planted where Teodor the cat is buried seems to have died this winter, so I’ve bought another one, completely different. I doubt it’ll flower this year but it is much more hardy. Seems to spread happily with its roots though so perhaps I need to contain it with a bottomless big pot.

Four photos where You can see Alma and Malkolm playing. — It was too hot for Malkolm to have a walk but he and Alma could play for over an hour in the garden when we came home 🙂 🙂

It is time for a pot of tea and I bought a packet with gluten free oatmeal cookies. I’m pretty sure I’ll fall asleep in the retainer as soon as I’ve taken the last sip of the tea 🙂

Have a great day!

March 17, 2024 · Leave a comment ·

Chaffinches have arrived at the feeder with sunflower seeds in it. Some stay here over winter but most fly south. Now when they return the forest has changed and they need easy to get food until the insects starts to hatch. I’ve seen the second butterfly for this year today by the way.

Winter has come back but it won’t stay for long. Snow fell yesterday but not more than a centimeter (two fifths of an inch) so most of it melted away since we have had sunshine all day long 🙂 Now there’s snow in places where the sun couldn’t reach it.

The night was a cold and so will the coming nights so I guess that we’ll have snow on the ground until Wednesday comes with warmer weather. Now the Cranes are so many by the lake that I can hear them when I go out in the early morning. It’s the sound of spring 🙂

I have so little laundry that I skip to do it today but I have made dinner for next week and I’ve baked a bread. I could only find frozen gluten free bread in the german grocery store and it wasn’t a yummy kind but it worked really good when toasted. So I tried a new recipe today but had to have it in the oven for much longer time because it had a hard time to be baked all the way through, so I guess I won’t try that one again 🙂 🙂

I was told I should talk with the optician with an referral to an eye specialist about the cataract, so I’ll have a talk with them when I get my new glasses on Maundy Thursday. Better to be early than late. Not much else has happened this weekend beside me sowing some seeds that I have had in the fridge in damp paper towels in plastic bags. I filled up an old balcony flower box and placed another broken one over it so no birds or mice can reach them. Also I bought another Ginkgo tree that I planted in an big old clay pot but that one I need to have indoors until it’s farther between rather cold nights than it is now.

It is time to watch Biathlon on tv, the season is ending and the last competitions is held in Canada so for once I’ve had all mornings free to do other things 🙂

Have a great day!

So I’ve survived my first week.

September 10, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

The photos can come from any day this past week.

So I have survived my first week working the evening shift 🙂 To be honest it is the ones one is working with who makes the day bad or good and these people I work with made it good 🙂 The job itself is just as boring or fun no matter what shift one is working even though I really don’t want to work nights ever again.

I’ll be working Monday to Thursday every week and then for some reason they’ve decided that we also must work every other Friday and to make it even better they’ve made that day longer. So I’ll be working one and a half hour more those days. In my opinion that’s a not too smart idea but I’m not the one deciding these things. So yesterday I was quite tired all day and even though I had an almost two hour long nap I still was so tired in the evening that I went to bed earlier than I had planned.

The dogs and I have had some really nice morning walks this week, one of the big plusses about working in the evenings. Later on when the nights are getting so long that they’ll start before 4 pm I still will have those walks in daylight. The dogs have mostly behaved really well but one evening some deer had started to “bark”, they do that when they are warning about dangers. So naturally my dogs had been answering and since they too then must have been warning about something the evening had become pretty lively 🙂 🙂 🙂

Alma also shows how happy she is that I’m at home again by shouting her lungs out 🙂 🙂 🙂 I told her that I really like that she likes me being back again but could she possible be doing that a bit more quiet 🙂 🙂 To my big surprise she is now mostly shouting in either the old garage or in the dog house 🙂 🙂 I’ve also noticed that there is a big space in the big fridge at work so that I can go to the grocery store and buy things that needs to stay cool just before I start to work! That’s a huge plus because I don’t want to have to go grocery shopping either early in the morning at work days or in the weekend.

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So so far things work as good as they can. Tomorrow I’ll most likely be a bit late for work because I’m waiting for a package. Originally I was going to get it to the grocerystore in the village where I work but for some reason the mail delivery company decided that no” Either You go and get it at the big office in Falköping or You’ll have to stay at home and sign that You’ve gotten it. The thing (it is one of those things one use to pick fruit high up in the trees) costs less than $ 10US! I’ve had packages delivered to my home (well mostly to my neighbors but they were close enough) costing three times as much and not having to be at home at all. I really don’t understand how they are thinking at Post Nord as the company is called 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is time for a cup of tea and after that perhaps a tiny nap so that I won’t go to bed too early tonight.

I had more than twenty-five Admiral butterflies in and around my apple tree yesterday.

Have a great day!

Well that didn’t go as I had planned :-)

July 8, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

a (4)

So my plan was to do nothing today besides taking walks with the dogs. So of course I’ve now mowed the lawn 🙂 🙂 The reason I did that was because we now are going to fill the holes in the gravel road tomorrow. We will thankfully be several people doing it (me and my neighbors, we’re only doing our little gravel road) and we don’t have that many holes but the ones we have are big and deep. It’s a job that needs to be done even though it’s heavy and boring.

a (9)

Nova decided that we should walk in the forest this morning. We were out later than usual because I actually slept an hour and a half longer than normal, so it was warm enough for the flies to become active. No biting ones thankfully, just the annoying forest flies and it looks like the drought has done its job to stop the mosquitoes to become more, there’s not a single puddle anywhere and the water level in the creeks ar low or not at all. There was lots of biting flies in my garden when I mowed though.

a (14)

I put all the mowed grass in my vegetable garden in between plants or along them. I might have buried some because the flies, even though I also wore a mosquito hat, were driving me crazy. Plus it has been really hot today and that didn’t help at all. It’s only the weekend that will be hot and sunny, the coming week will be cooler and they’re guessing we’ll get lots of rain as well. I don’t mind the rain, I have vacation and can sleep all day to avoid it 🙂 🙂 🙂

a (16)

Have a great day!

When the rain comes the grass will both stop the water from evaporatiung and at the same time fertilize the ground while it slowly decays.

My new neighbors. They were the ones bringing the biting flies I’m afraid.

Vacation time :-)

July 7, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

Vacation time and I won’t have to go to work for four weeks 🙂 I must admit that it feels rather good 🙂 The day did move slower than frozen molasses though 🙂 I had things to paint all day and time should have flown but I guess that I longed for vacation too much 🙂

Three days ago Albin started to throw up all that he ate at breakfast, he still was quite happy but he has never done that before so I was a bit worried but he wasn’t too keen on eating a treat and that was the thing that worried me. Alma is known for stealing the diapers from my neighbors new born daughter so I was worried that he might have a bit of diaper stuck in his stomach, so I even went home a couple of hours early just to check on him. He was just as always so I started to boil fish and rice for him to eat. Then yesterday he could barely walk on his left front foot.

He gladely shows that he has a problem but always refuse to show where the problem is 🙂 but I think I saw a grumpy face when I for the tenth time pressed one of his toes. So I thought he might have broken it when playing with Alma because those two play tough with each other. Today he had no problem at all so we could take a walk after work like always. I really don’t understand that dog sometimes 🙂 🙂

It isn’t such a bad fly year as I thought it would be, I guess the drought managed to kill off lots of fly larvae. There are the biting ones but still fairly few as well. We had a couple of really big ones and they pestered the dogs for a while but then just flew away. The smaller ones flew around me instead but after I managed to kill one of them before it managed to bite me the rest sort of just gave up. I do hope this is how it will be fore the rest of the summer 🙂 🙂

My neighbor had ordered three hoodies to her boyfriend and ordered the same size as always but they aren’t sure what size they actually got 🙂 So they asked me if I wanted them instead. I’m both taller and much fatter than my neighbor so I didn’t think they would fit me but they are actually perfect 🙂 They didn’t want anything for them, they were on some kind of mega sale so I said I would by them a big melon instead (well I’ll buy three different but they don’t know that 🙂 )Their daughter loves fruit and vegetables so melons should be perfect 🙂 It is the same daughter that I can hear on weekend mornings shouting: Yohoo Amma which means she wants Alma to come over 🙂 The girl is very happy today because she now knows I’ll be at home for four weeks and that Alma then can come over all day if she wants to 🙂

Have a great day!

Ticks and mosquitoes.

July 1, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

The Beekeeper is trying to make an old fashioned flower meadow. Looking good so far!

The day started with some sunshine before very thin clouds covered the sky but that didn’t really change much since I could see the sun 🙂 I think the first “shower” I use ” because it wasn’t especially much or shower like but it did rain for a while. It has continued like that until now when we have misty rain and it will continue like this for the coming five days. I don’t mind at all and the temperature has dropped down to 16C (60,8F) and that I really like 🙂

Well I wouldn’t want rain and such low temperature for the rest of summer but for now it’s perfect. The ticks think much the same. I stopped counting when I had picked over twenty from Alma after our morning walk and thankfully just a couple on the rest of us. Nasty animals those ticks! Still not many annoying flies but a gazillion mosquitoes instead 🙂 🙂 Nova decides where every walk should go and today she has chosen the forest. She’s not the one that wants to walk the same path every day, the other two prefers that I’ve noticed.

We’ve taken a long nap today and after that I started to weed the vegetable patch. I’ve had big parts of it covered because I sowed an Asian cabbage. Nothing much happened though so I sowed a winter radish I bought seeds to for a couple of years ago. I have no idea what to do with it except using it in salads but I wanted to try it anyway. So now when I pulled away the cover I noticed that I now have both cabbage and winter radish there 🙂 🙂 I’ll bring back the cover when the cabbage butterfly and cabbage moth starts to fly again. Also the lid to one of my mini greenhouses fell down over the Broccolo seedlings I have, so when the sun showed they all boiled away. I think there’s still time to sow the remaining seeds to get at least some to harvest. The entire plant is edible so I will get something from them if they germinate.

Besides this I’ve done very little 🙂 I did catch mosquito larvae to the aquarium fish but that only took a few seconds 🙂 🙂 I think this is just how a weekend should be spent 🙂 🙂 Tomorrow I’ll have to do all those things I didn’t do today, like dinner for work next week, the laundry and baking a bread but since it will rain I will at least not have to mow the lawn 🙂

The potato sprouts that I planted now have flower buds 🙂 Technically I then should be able to harvest my first potatoes when the flowering is over but I think I’ll wait a couple of weeks before I try it.

Have a great day!

Easter continues.

April 8, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

DSC_0004 (4) — Not the first butterfly for the year, I saw some in February when it was a bit warmer than now but it was the first one I managed to photograph. Lots of other ones were flying around but they refused to stand still so I could take a photo of them 🙂

So easter continues and today most families gather for easter dinner (well could be lunch as well, the thing is that relatives who can’t stand each other normally now do and after this they usually don’t meet until midsummer again 🙂 🙂 ) Like always we swedes eats loads of pickled herring, personally I can’t stand it but I belong to the very few who just refuse to eat it. They will also of course eat pickled salmon or cold smoked salmon. We who don’t like food that isn’t cooked eat meatballs, sausages, oven omelette with a stew made of chanterelles, lots of eggs and now days also easter ham. Easter ham is the exact same thing as christmas ham but they’ve changed the name so it fits the season 🙂 🙂

DSC_0014 (3) — I manage to distract Alma and Albin so they nere saw the deer 🙂

DSC_0016 (2) — Wild hogs at work during winter. Doesn’t look that bad but they can dig down to half a yard deep but it can’t be seen in this photo.

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Since it isn’t especially dry in the grass or the ground there will be lots of bonfires burning, to scare away the witches who now flies home after the party on Blåkulla. This tradition is strongest here in the southwest and out on the islands outside of Gothenburg, the town I was born and raised in, the tradition has gone a bit out of hand.They are, since at least 100 years back, competing in what island has the biggest bonfire. I’ve heard stories about how they go over to other islands and steal what ever they can to make their own bonfire bigger, including old tires and christmas trees. It will burn but they are also polluting both the area around the bonfire as well as the ocean surrounding the island. Now days it’s so bad that they call in extra polices to keep it reasonable calm.

p (16) — The Honeysuckle is always early with new leafs.

I went and visit my friend with the garden center. No I didn’t bring any camera, I’ll do that when the spring season has started. Easter eve was pretty calm back when I had my garden center, most people had already bought the flowers they were about to give away, so I was happy to see they she had lots to do today. So I had some time to walk around and I always like to see what they have hidden away. I found a Calamodin, a citrus relative that gives small orange looking fruits. They taste bitter sweet with emphasizing on bitter. It works great for marmalade though. All leafs were gone but it looked really healthy but she was going to toss it away, so now it stands in my cottage 🙂 My guess is that it was hit by cold air and didn’t like it so it dropped all the leafs. Takes too much time to come back for a garden center but I have all the time in the world 🙂

A15264_002A — These three photographs were taken with a Minolta X700 but it broke down after that so I moved the film to the Bessamatic instead.

A15264_004A

The day started boring and grey but it was at least above 0C (32F) but later on teh sky cleared and we’ve had sunshine all day long after that. Tonight will be a bit chilly, well almost warm after previous week but days will now be at least around 10C (50F) so I’m planning on bringing out some of what I have in my cool cellar to slowly get it used to be outside until the frost comes back in autumn again.

A15266_010 — And one from the Flexaret VI.

Have a good continuing of easter!