We’ve had a really wonderful day here today, just enough warm with a lukewarm wind blowing, mostly sunshine but also some clouds every now and again. We must have had rain during the night because the grass was a bit more wet than it would have been if it only was morning dew. According to my phone we also had thunder in the middle of the night but even I having the window open all night I slept through it without noticing it 🙂
After we had come home from our morning walk I started to continue to remove the old stump and as many roots as I could from the old Japanese quince. There’s still lots of big roots left in the ground but what ever will grow up from them will be thin twigs and those are easy to remove until they finally gives up. I’ve removed almost all flowerbeds in my garden but this one will stay, I’ve even started to make it slightly bigger. Also I’ve planted some young perennials in to it, well the Kankakee mallow isn’t small but the others are.
I’m visiting my friend in the gardencenter tomorrow and see if they have anything I want. Nothing unusual as I had back in the days but more common flowers, I really don’t want to fuss with plants just so that they barely survives 🙂 🙂 🙂 Easy and beautiful is my new goal 🙂 🙂 Plus I bought seeds on sale online so anything growing from those will be in that flowerbed and any leftovers will be planted here and there in the garden and what survives our winters and the dogs running around like crazy over them will be welcomed 🙂
It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I might also have a bowl of cornflakes. I think it actually is the milk I’m after, cornflakes do after all not taste that much 🙂 I have to admit that I pour cinnamon all over it so it could be the combination milk and cinnamon 🙂 🙂
So the Japanese quince is gone and now I’ve put some perennials in the bed.The Kankakee mallow stands just beside the white mulberry tree that died but started to grow from the roots again 🙂
We had a wonderful morning here, just below 10C (50F), morning mist and a sun slowly rising. If I hadn’t just woken up I would have taken our morning walk there and then. however newly awake, quite tired and both I and the animals needed some food before we went out. So by the time we were ready the mist was gone but it was still sunny and cool.
We walked the same way we’ve done lately since the grass is way too high in the forest since it’s only us walking there and we haven’t been there for a while now. Plus the grass was really wet after the rain we had during the night so it would also most likely be full of ticks. Only two flies were out to pester us but as soon as we walked in to shadow it was a bit too cool for them to follow 🙂 🙂 We did however see two Roe deer on our walk and we haven’t seen any when we’ve been out walking in all summer I think.
We actually had several showers today, not heavy and not long lived but if we’ll get more as they are guessing we will the ground is now a bit softer so that the water has a chance on sinking down into the ground instead of just running down through the garden and down to the bog that starts more or less behind the old garage and dog yard.
No need to mow the lawn yet so instead I dug out some space to plant the rhubarb seedlings I sowed in spring. The sand beneath the grass was so dry that one c an find more water in a desert 🙂 🙂 I also mixed in some compost from my smallest compost, a black one that stands n legs and can be rotated and should be rotated once a day I think. The fun thing is that since one is rotating it the compost becomes sort of round and to be honest all those round pieces looked like dog poo 🙂 🙂 🙂 I need to empty at least two of the three other composts I have, the third one I think still has a family of mice living in it 🙂 🙂
It is time for that last cup of tea for the day, I’ve already eaten so I won’t have anything with it. The summer apples are now falling of the tree so tomorrow I’ll buy things I need to make an apple pie 🙂
I have two small Ginkgo trees growing in my garden, this one has huge leafs and the other one quite small.
Todays test photo shows our garbage bins. The green ones if for normal trash and the browns are for food. I almost never throw away food so I’v placed min the wrong way so they don’t have to try and empty it.
It was even nicer this morning, the temperature had dropped down to 7C (44,6F). We did have some morning mist but not as much as yesterday. It is quite common for us to have cool and mostly cold nights and mornings here and that’s why we get all that morning mist when the sun rise and heat up the ground.
It never became that hot as they had predicted thankfully 🙂 but that just made it less hot in the factory and we also had a rather strong wind, so I hoped that the wind would blow away all the flies when we were out walking but oh how wrong that was, the wind blew from the wrong direction so the forest stopped it. Still I don’t think we had a single biting fly pestering us, only the forest flies, so that was a great plus. We didn’t see the fox cubs but they are still hanging around because they had left some poop on the road 🙂 🙂 So if we’re out early tomorrow we might have a chance to see them if they still are here.
It might be impossible to see if You look at this photo on Your mobile phones but on top of that dead tree trunk sits a blackbird with larvae in its mouth.
Nothing much has happened here otherwise. I’ve ordered a memory foam pillow today, I’ve never had one so I hope it is as good as it’s said they are. I’ll also order a duvet, a warm one for the winter. I like it to be warm when I fall asleep but always lower the temperature on the radiator when going to bed. My last duvet was treated the same way as my mattress so at the moment I just have a fleece blanket and that won’t help much when the temperature drops on a winters night 🙂
One of my favourite wild flowers just because the flowers are so tiny. The Swedish name for it is Forest lettuce but it is definitely poisonous so they could have chosen a better name for it 🙂 🙂 🙂
It is supposed to rain on and off the entire coming week but the temperatures will be high, it’ll be like living in a steam bath 🙂 🙂 🙂 Then again I think all of You know by now that it isn’t often they are right in their guessing 🙂 🙂 It could just as well be cold and sunshine or what ever else will pass us on its way 🙂 🙂 Despite all the rain we’ve gotten lately it still is rather dry in the forest, good if one doesn’t like slugs who need wet grounds to grow and lay eggs, bad if one has a shallow well because it will most likely soon dry out if this continues. My well is deep so I don’t have to worry thankfully.
It’ll be an apple year this year. This apple hangs on the tree I once sowed and my neighbours said that it was the most delicious apple they’ve ever eaten. The problem is that it is prune to be hit by different fungus diseases so I never get many apples from it. If I get lots this year I’ll try them in a pie 🙂
It is time for that last cup of tea and perhaps a sandwich or two. There’s nothing worth watching on tv, mostly reruns or things I don’t like. So I’ll be in the garden with the dogs and monsterkitten, they’ll take turn is chasing each other 🙂
The cat refused to move but both Alma and Malkolm behaved really well when we passed it 🙂
It could have been a nice day if it wasn’t for the cold winds from north. They are biting their way in to the core of the body no matter how well dressed we are. We’ve had some sunshine but the wind destroyed that nice feeling as well. We’ll have frost during the night and I can only hope it won’t be too bad but I’ll probably have to scrape ice from the car before going to work tomorrow.
A second crabapple tree is in bloom now so perhaps the one in the forest will have a chance to give fruit anyway but then again we’ll have frost tonight.
Strawberries flower in the forest but as You can see the flower is black in the middle, that means it’s destroyed by frost and won’t give any berry.
It wasn’t that bad in the morning though so we had a nice morning walk in the forest and out to the bog. Both Alma and Malkolm behaved really well when the new neighbours cat refused to move from the road when we came 🙂 I am however very glad they didn’t see the hare in the forest because that would have made Alma go nuts 🙂 🙂 🙂
I’ve done very little today, after the morning walk I did the laundry and the slow cooker took care of the dinner next week and that’s it. WE even had a nap in the sofa but I still feel rather tired to be honest, despite lots of coffee 🙂 Its pollen season and no amount of coffee can remove that tiredness 🙂 🙂 I also had to turn on the radiators because even though we did get rain last night it wasn’t much but it did make the humidity go sky high and the cold arctic winds just made it more cold. Thankfully it will turn towards warmer days again from tomorrow, night might be chilly though.
I think I’ll have that last cup of tea for the day after this and perhaps a sandwich too or I’ll skip the tea and have hot chocolate instead, it’s that kind of day today.
We’ve actually had a really nice day here as long as one wasn’t too long in shadow 🙂 Ok , it wasn’t that bad there either but I preferred to sit in the sunshine and drink tea 🙂 I have moved a perennial that comes from Illinois, the Kankakee mallow (Iliamna remota). It has actually thrived in my garden beneath the Juneberry tree but it was time to move it because the ground is just too dry there during summer.
It actually started last weekend and removed a part of it just to see how well it would adapt to the move and it adapted really well. It sort of divided itself to smaller parts so there’s still one growing where it has been that easily can be four new plants and I’ve already have it in6 other places now 🙂 It has been a favourite of mine since I sowed it well over twenty years ago so I do hope it will thrive at the new places they can call their homes 🙂 Mine spreads via its roots but I’ve read that a fire will start the seeds but I didn’t have a fire when I bought the seeds back then so I think it will work again without it if I try again 🙂
The clouds covered the sun when we went out on our morning walk but as soon as we were almost at home the clouds opened up. We’ve had lots of smaller clouds in the sky all day but now it looks like bigger clouds are coming in again, they say we’ll get rain but they said we would last night as well and as far as I could see the only reason the grass was wet was because of dew. A day or two with cloudy weather and some rain will only be good for my Kankakee willows now when they have moved all over the garden.
We won’t get much rain though, mostly just enough to keep the soil surface slightly damp 🙂 I’ve also heard the Cuckoo bird for the first time this year. According to folklore it means different things from what direction one hear it for the first time. From north and summer will be dry, from east one will be comforted because if it comes from south it means death in the family but it is from the west we want to hear it because that’s the best 🙂 The coming year will be great. We here will have a dry summer this year 🙂
I think this could be a Red Kite or a brown. I’m not that good when it comes to birds 🙂
Besides that I’ve done very little. Mostly I’ve been sitting in the sunshine drinking tea or coffee. Last year when the warm weather came the entire garden was buzzing because of the beekeepers bees, it is considerable more quiet this year. Yes we do have pollinators like bumblebees flying around but all those hives did make a big difference, so it’ll be interesting to see how it will be next year, to many honey bees can actually make life really tough for the wild bees by being too many for an area. Also everything started so early this year that there wasn’t much for the bumblebees to eat and that could have killed a lot of them. I think we’ll know better when summer starts and all workers starts to fly around.
It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and today I’m so tired that I most likely will fall asleep in the sofa 🙂
In my woodland right now.
Have a great day!
Not this one though, it grows in full sunlight and dry soil.
We had frost again last night but just barely and nothing seems to have been damaged this time. The morning walk was really pleasant, especially since Alma had another good day. We could even pass the new neighbours without her going crazy 🙂 🙂
We had pancakes today and I did the dinner for next week at the same time but in the slow cooker. I really wanted fried potatoes this time so I had already boiled some in the early morning, I know I could have done them raw in the oven but sort of wanted some old time fried potatoes, no one seems to do that any longer. Every time I do I can see my Mormon (mothers mother) in her kitchen frying potatoes and what ever leftovers she had in the fridge 🙂
I’ve continued the war against the stinging nettles but they seem to pop up everywhere, this time I didn’t get stung by them though 🙂 The seed sown peach tree looked rather fine down in the cool cellar but died slowly now when spring arrived. It did get the leaf curl disease at the end of summer last year so I’m guessing that it killed the little tree. I had already planted it but dug it up and now one of the seed sown apricots stand there instead I’ve also planted a seed sown quince tree ( Cydonia oblonga) at the best spot, climatewise that is, just in front of the old patio.
I even managed to fall asleep in front of the tv for a while, clouds covered the sky and when the suns heat didn’t reach us it wasn’t as pleasant outside any more, so I took a break and fell asleep during that time. Now the sun reaches us again so I almost feel guilty by sitting indoors 🙂 It is a short work week again, I really started to work at that factory at the right time 🙂 Unfortunately the holiday is on Thursday so I do need to work on Friday again but then again I’ve always liked it when I have a day off in the middle of week, it sort of feels like having two short work weeks during that one week 🙂
It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and after that perhaps have a go at those nettles again 🙂
-6C (21,2F) here this morning. One could feel it in the air already late afternoon that it would be cold but I didn’t think it would drop down that much. The morning walk was really nice though because the sun was blasting heat towards us at the same time as the ground still was so cold that it evened itself out in a way. Alma was really bad at yesterdays walks but today she behaved really well again. For some reason she behaves like crazy when we pass our new neighbours even though we’ve met them several times and she likes both the humans and the dog, Can’t say she likes they cats though even though they run away long before we come close 🙂 🙂 🙂
This morning we didn’t walk that way so she was calm all the time, she even managed to stay reasonable calm when a deer ran away from our path and even though she saw a big goose in one of the fields she still didn’t start to scream and pull the leash, I so wish that behaviour could continue from now on but I now that’s just wishful thinking 🙂 🙂 🙂 we went down to the creek and it might have been even colder there because there were ice in some places almost all the way down to the water. The plus side with that cold mornings are no ticks waiting to attack us because they have dug down into the ground so they don’t freeze to death.
Otherwise I’ve mostly done chores today, like mowing the lawn, doing most of the laundry (I still have my working clothes to do, for some reason this company doesn’t provide a laundry service for working clothes and that’s the first time that has happened to me, so I’ll do that tomorrow. I still have to bake some bread if I want a sandwich for breakfast though. I do have hard bread at home but I’ve had that for two days now and is a bit tired of it to be honest. We’re having a short work week next week again 🙂 May first is the workers day here but I’ll need to work on Friday again but that’s ok.
I guess it is time to start baking that bread, it’ll most likely be French rolls and since it is a weekend I’ll most likely will have a cup of tea even though it might keep me up all night 🙂 🙂
Some managed the frost really well.Others not so.I’m starting to fill up the blue barrel with stinging nettle roots, I can win the battle but not the war 🙂
The first plum flower. There are so many buds that the tree will be completely white in a couple of days.
They said it would be more cloudy today but I haven’t notice that much difference to be honest. the big difference is the strong wind and that we had frost and morning mist when I woke up. A good thing when it is this warm during the days is that the frost is pushed upwards by the warm ground so no frost damages on those plants I just planted in my garden.
It was a really nice walk early in the morning despite it being chilly. Birds sand and geese flew just a few meters (much the same in yards) above our heads. Alma behaved really well but Malkolm decided that he wouldn’t stop pulling the leash even if I got angry at him 🙂 🙂 Still he doesn’t pull that hard so I could live with it. I’ve been busy today, I’ve baked bread, dinner in the slow cooker, the ham in the oven and also boiled potatoes and done the last of the laundry.
So this is the last day of my seven month long “vacation” 🙂 I’m really glad to have a new job but I must admit that I have enjoyed every day of this involuntary vacation. I haven’t had to worry about the money and that makes the difference. For those having nothing saved this must be horrible, constantly thinking of how to pay bills and food.
It is time for a last cup of coffee since I don’t have any tea at home and refuses to drive to the store for just one thing 🙂 I could have coffee later but since I really need to fall asleep tonight so that I’m not too tried tomorrow morning when I’ll drive to my new work place I better stay on the safe side 🙂 🙂 I think I’ll also have a couple of sandwiches with some of that ham.
No wind this morning and sunshine. Really pleasant to walk around in the forest listening to all birds and some deer running away when we came close. Still it was below 0C (32F) and the water had frozen during the night. These mornings really are the best because it feels warm and nice but no flies are terrorising us 🙂 They’ll arrive some time in the middle of June. The forest flies are just annoying though and not biting. The biting ones tends to show up a couple of weeks later.
I’m slowly getting the dogs used to me being away a couple of hours every day now so today I went to my old work place for a visit, it might be the last time I do that since I now will work rather far away and after that I went to the grocery store I’ve been doing my shopping for the last 28 years now. I will go there again but not that often, I will have at least four big supermarkets and several other big stores just beside where I’ll be working.
Back in the days when one would sign a contract of employment one sat at the employers desk and signed it with a pen, that’s not how it’s working now days. I got a mail with a link and after reading the contract I signed it with my Bank ID and did it at home. It is amazing how fast things change now days. It is practical though since I now have it stored in my computer. Also I could really take my time reading it, one never did that in the office with the new employer to be honest. One just signed and smiled 🙂 🙂 🙂
I’m slowly picking up the plants I have in the cool cellar. Lots have died, either too much or too little water during the winter but most is still alive. The dead plants get tossed in places where the dogs have been digging so the ground evens out again 🙂 🙂 We’ll have fairly warm nights for the coming ten days they say so I planted one of my apricot seedlings where I used to have the Amure grapevine. It will take a couple of years but it will be a good place for the birds to sit while waiting for their chance of eating from the feeder I have outside the kitchen window. I also started to fill the big wooden box I have my , for some reason, autumn flowering strawberry plants . Turns out the packages with soil are small now days (and more expensive) so I need to buy two more.
The box is quite empty when the big gooseberry bush was removed. Just weeds and strawberry plants left.I removed it all and filled up with soil and there’s still lots of space to fill up. I planted the young strawberries again. I’ll have to redo this when I have more soil (or compost when I can empty any of my composts).Lots of old ones left but I didn’t want to toss them away.So I planted them in a spot where I have removed as much of the stinging nettle roots I could. Now the strawberries can spread as they please 🙂
I have that last cup of tea for the day beside me and soon I’ll go outside with the dogs bringing more dead plants from the cellar 🙂
Most photos are from yesterday when the sun arrived a bit earlier than today. There was still ice on the creeks.
The sun is shining outside my window. It should have showed earlier but I guess one should be happy for what one get. Still 10C (50F) during the day isn’t that bad but the dogs wanted to go indoors pretty quickly after we had gone outside.
A male Starling sitting on the ghost tree.The doves are here again and lots of them, this is just a small part of the flock.
My new neighbours have two roosters and I think three hen. They said that once of the roosters keep on crowing all the time and they were are right 🙂 🙂 🙂 I do like that sound so I enjoy it a lot, plus that they have them on the other side of a building so even if I’m outside it isn’t especially loud and I can’t hear them at all if I’m indoors. I do however think that the second rooster might take over if the first one quiets down 🙂 🙂 🙂 Alma was absolutely stunned when seeing them 🙂 🙂 🙂 She just stood there watching them, she didn’t even whine like she always do 🙂 🙂 🙂
I got a call from the coffin factory today and he told me I got the job 🙂 I’ll start working there next week 🙂 So now I’ll see these last days of unemployment as the end of a vacation and I’ll most likely have “the end of vacation anxiety” on Sunday evening 🙂 🙂 🙂 I must say that I’ve have enjoyed this time I’ve been unemployed but only because I’ve had money enough myself so that I never have had to worry about expenses, otherwise this would most likely have been a long stressful period. Now instead I’ve enjoyed every day and especially those mornings when my neighbours have been outside scraping ice and brushing snow from their cars 🙂 🙂 🙂
It is time for a cup of instant coffee because I don’t have enough tea at home 🙂 By the way, now when we all hate the orange one all over the world there’s actually one thing that upsets us Swedes even more and it has nothing to do with the blob at all, the coffee price is now so high that many struggle to be able to buy it and as the second most coffee drinking country in the world this is serious to us 🙂 🙂 🙂
I gathered all the pots and placed them by the big compost before deciding where to put them, they became very interesting for a certain monster kitten 🙂
When that became boring she started to play with Malkolm instead 🙂
I’m glad I didn’t have to remove the ice from the car windows when I drove to Falköping 🙂
-5C (23F) here this morning, it wasn’t especially nice at all 🙂 But the sun did show itself and as soon as it did it became rather warm. We walked down to the creek and everywhere the sun hadn’t reached yet was covered in white frost. I only worse a thin anorak but it still rose the temperature beneath it so it almost felt too warm 🙂
I was going to be at the coffin factory at 1pm but they said don’t stress because that’s when the lunch break ends and it will take some time before everyone is working again, that was a good thing to know 🙂 🙂 I had plenty of time when I drove from home and when I reached Falköping I turned on the GPS on the phone and when I did I realised it didn’t work as it should 🙂 🙂 🙂 it refused to show where I was and I could only get instructions on how to get there from Stockholm, our capital around 350 km away 🙂 🙂 🙂
Falköping also seems to be ridiculously bad at putting up the street names so I just couldn’t figure out where I was so I had to call them and ask for directions 🙂 🙂 🙂 Turns out that I had passed the factory twice 🙂 🙂 🙂 This isn’t the first time this has happened to me. When I looked for a job the last time, 18 years ago, I did much the same. That village is tiny and I’ve lived close to it but I just couldn’t find the factory I was looking for, so I drove to another one, the building actually looks more like a office building, to ask for directions. Since I was there I asked if they had a job for someone who worked at Volvo Cars as a painter and assembler for well over twenty years the CEO shouted, our painter is quitting and I haven’t found another, can You start tomorrow 🙂 🙂 I could and stayed there for over 17 years.
Anyway it was a nice little factory with way too much to do and as someone not being there before I couldn’t figure out the logistics in there 🙂 We did the tour and had a chat afterwards. He wanted to know if I would stay until the day I retire and when that would be because he wanted someone who would stay for quite some time. I answered that I’m 60 years old and have no ambition to look for other jobs until I retire, It’s not like I wants to start a career and looking for other jobs 🙂 The pay is more or less what I had but I’ll have a shorter distance to the job. So he said that I’ll know some time next week if I get the job. I usually say that I’ll call at the beginning of the week but that never happens but some time next week at least.
So You will have to continue to have Your fingers crossed and or hold Your thumbs until some time next week 🙂 Now it’s time for that last cup of tea for the day. Tomorrow will be even nice than today and Thursday almost summer like and Friday winter might return 🙂 🙂 To be honest it won’t be that bad but temperatures will drop significant.
This is actually the second butterfly I saw today, the first one was a bright yellow Lemon butterfly. A slo finally heard the first Bumblebee.
Another really nice morning, chilly but sunny and no wind. The wind will arrive a bit later and with it it will bring clouds and perhaps some rain as well. Works good for me since I’m planning to sow winter lettuce. It can’t germinate when it is warm weather and can live long in autumn even after frost. It is a bit more bitter in the taste though.
We are now not allowed to throw clothes in the normal garbage bin, all clothes must be recycled. I can’t say I’m against it but it does give some problems because even though we have one of the most advanced cloth sorting machines in the world they still can’t use it. The problem is, if I understand it right, that there’s a sort of fibre it can’t sort away (some kind of nylon relative I think) so instead we’re sending our clothes to Lithuania where they sort it by hand. If anything is of good quality they’ll sell it but if it’s bad they burn it instead. Well that is something we could have done ourselves. What to do with an old stuffed blanket? have no idea to be honest, it’s more or less just stuffing left and is that counted as cloth fibres? Have no idea so now I have two big sacks I’ll have to have in the wood shed until I can figure that out 🙂 🙂 🙂
We met our new neighbours on our morning walk yesterday. I’m glad to say that they like both my dogs 🙂 🙂 Malkolm would be a given since he can behave somewhat but it can’t be easy to meet a dog that screams like insane and pulls the leash so hard that I almost lost my balance 🙂 🙂 🙂 But perhaps what’s more important is that their tiny little white dog actually loves both Alma and Malkolm, sh’e tiny but still throws herself towards them 🙂
I let the kitchen door stay open as soon as the sun shines towards it so all the animals can go in and out as they please. Malkolm has a tendency to jump over the fence to get down to the swamp behind the dog yard but now I have a weapon I use against him 🙂 As soon as I notice that he’s gone I just shout out “where’s the kitten?” Takes only a few seconds before he’s back and worries if he can’t find her 🙂 🙂 🙂 So far she hasn’t wandered off especially far though, just around the cottage and the entrance stairs 🙂 🙂 I even forgot to check where she was yesterday when I closed the kitchen door for an hour. As soon as I opened it again she came running in 🙂
I’ve kept on working (don’t like to call it working when it is something I enjoy doing and for free 🙂 ) in the garden. The aching isn’t that bad afterwords as I thought it would be 🙂 Ok it hurts in the legs and my back but it is sort of a good pain. Yesterday when I was about to boil some potatoes for dinner I found a few sprouts that I’ll plant in pots until it is time to bring them out to the vegetable garden or plant them in buckets or big pots. It takes a bit longer for them to grow new potatoes but they usually give a few but big potatoes.
Plum tree doesn’t decay easily after the tree is dead. This plum tree died well over ten years ago and today I finally managed to remove the last pieces of the stump.
I have a plum tree that I only planted so that my former neighbours would get plums on their tree but since my recent neighbours took that tree down I really have no use or joy in keeping mine. It just gives a few plums each year and at least half starts to mould already on the branches. So yesterday I debarked it close to the ground about 20 cm (8 inches) wide. That stops any water and nutrition to go up to the top of the tree and will also stop the tree from giving loads of root shoots. It’ll have to stay like this for two years now, if I cut it down before that those shoots will pop up everywhere and I already have enough of shoots in my garden as it is. It will look sad but I think I’ll plants a fast growing clematis there this summer so it’ll cover the tree next summer.
It is time to open the kitchen door and have a cup of tea while sitting on the kitchen stairs 🙂
The Cottage by the crane lake. 