Category: Chilly.

A good day for naps :-)

· 2 Comments ·
I’ve noticed that now when it is warmer the birds still wants sunflower seeds, so when they think I’m cheap they come really close, lots of them, and won’t leave me alone until I filled the feeder 🙂

After this winter I really can’t complain about it not being warmer than 10C (50F) but it does feel a bit chilly and I did turn on the radiators this morning. In summers it’s nice that the bottom floor is a bit cool not so much now when it isn’t that warm outside 🙂  The dogs hasn’t been that keen on being outside either but the kitchen door has been open so that they can go in and out as they please.

The Serviceberry trees are in full bloom. I really like the berries but the birds always take them first.

   

No sunshine today so I wore a hoodie when we were out on our morning walk. I would have liked to walk to the bog but Nova decided it was the creek she wanted to walk to. She and Malkolm wanted to stop at every spot where something had passed by while Alma wanted to see the world and quickly as well since she wanted to go home again 🙂 So even though I really like that they want to follow tracks I had to pull them away some times so that Alma wouldn’t get a too high blood pressure and a brain bleed 🙂 🙂 🙂

It used to grow so may cherry trees here but they thinned out most of them.

   

Alma has started to calm down a lot again, she too must realize that our walks will be much nicer if I don’t have to scold her every five minutes because she’s trying to pull my arm off my body 🙂 🙂 🙂 The whining is almost gone thankfully, I think that cutting noise is what drives me crazy most of all 🙂 🙂 🙂 To constantly hear a sound that cuts in to the brain slicing it into pieces for two hours when we’re out walking is actually quite painful after a while.

     

We haven’t done much today the dogs and I, they’ve been playing a little in the garden while I re-potted the rest of the Guava seedlings and the two Jacaranda trees. I haven’t even looked at the mower yet 🙂 We’ve had a pancake dinner and we’ve napped a lot as well. Tonight we have the seconds semi final in the Eurovision Song Contest and it would be fun if I at least could watch all the contributions. The big final will be on Saturday and for the first time in many years our song is not amongst the top five on the betting sites. Our song is sung by two Norwegian twins, they are really good at what they’re doing but the song is a bit too much meh. Plus people are getting tired of us because we’ve won this competition seven times now and been amongst those they think will win for perhaps too many years now. Jealousy and politics have always been strong in this competition even though they say it isn’t about either, we should just have fun 🙂

     

I’m sitting here wondering if we should have another walk or perhaps take another nap, the dogs are deeply at sleep and I wouldn’t mind joining them but I think we’ll have a short walk instead. I’ll try to avoid high grass because tick season is here and now I need to go through my dogs after every walk and even after they’ve been walking in the grass here in the garden. Nasty animals those ticks, if we all have a purpose in life theirs is to spread death and disease 🙂 🙂

     

Have a great day!

It finally arrived :-)

· 2 Comments ·

The warm and sunny weather sure took its time to arrive today, the morning was chilly and rainy so we didn’t go out for our morning walk until just before noon and it was still really cold. Then suddenly it changed and the temperature has risen to 20 C (68 F), the sun is shining even though there are big clouds in the sky and, of course, there is now a strong wind blowing.

     

That has helped the laundry to dry in five seconds so I really can’t complain too much 🙂 I don’t think it took fiver minutes after the sun started to shine through the gaps in the clouds before I heard the first mower 🙂 Yes the grass has grown pretty much but why can’t they just relax at least for one day before they start 🙂 🙂

     

I didn’t care about mowing the lawn, instead I’ve brought up almost all plants from the cool cellar. I only have four cacti down there still because I need to get more plants outside before I have enough space by the windows 🙂 I even brought the pawpaw seedlings I had down there outside, three of them but decided that the three I have indoors by the kitchen window can wait for a while. One never knows when we’ll get a nasty cold frosty night again.

The Camellias started to flower in the cool cellar.

 

I bought a hardy Fuchsia (Fuchsia magellanica) and it too was touched a bit hard by frost, like the trees I also got delivered late this week. So I decided to take a few cuttings that can over winter in the cool cellar neat winter. I took a few photos of how I do that that You can see here below. The Hardy Fuchsia doesn’t survive like a big bush here though but the roots survives and starts all over next year. It’s always best to put dry leafs over it all just in case we do get another cold winter. One can of course also have it as a pot plant and keep it light but cool during the winters.

The best soil to have while planting cuttings are usually sowing soil. I didn’t have any so I mixed ordinary soil with some sand from my garden, mix it well.
As You can see the cuttings did look a bit sad after the frost so I don’t know if they’ll work but it’s worth a try. I can take new ones later in summer.
One only need a short stem, just make sure that at the bottom there have been leafs. Take away those because that’s where the new roots will start to grow. This one didn’t have any leafs at all but they usually work anyway.
This one looks better. Two leafs taken away at the bottom and two leafs at the top. Most people think this is too short but it’s actually just enough.
Plant the cuttings along the edge of the pot, more oxygen will reach where the leafs will grow and the risk of them rotting because of too much water is lesser. Normally I don’t put a see through cover,, like plastic, around the pot but since there were hit by frost I thought it might help. Place the pot by a window that doesn’t get any sunshine and wait for them to grow to new plants 🙂

Tomorrow will be a bit cooler than today but still above 10 C (50 F) and then on Tuesday it’ll go back to more what we’ve had this afternoon, I do hope this was the last cold period until autumn arrives again, I’m really tired of the cold weather we’ve had lately. I wonder how Malkolm think about warmer weather, so far all his life has been pretty cold, all three months of it 🙂

Alma and Malkolm have been playing all day long so they are both now snoring loudly 🙂

Have a great day!

They say it’ll be warm next week but I’ll believe it if it happens :-)

· 4 Comments ·

This day took its time to become reasonable warm and nice, mostly it felt like winter was coming back and the clouds up in the sky looked like solid led. But it did eventually become warmer and the drizzle we had before noon stopped to drizzle and then the sun finally showed itself.

     

Now new clouds have arrived and tomorrow will eventually become pretty warm, almost 20 C (68 F) but first we’ll have to go through much the same weather we had today but with lots more rain. It will however not be freezing cold during the night and it looks like nights will stay like that for the ten coming days. Then again we all know how our weather forecasts are so it can be the opposite as well 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

We walked down to the creek in the morning and Alma finally was calmer than she has been lately. Malkolm walks really well leashed and Nova is never a problem so for once I didn’t have to put 90% of both my energy and time on keeping control of Alma. She behaved much better when we later in the day walked to the bog so there might be a tiny bit of hope that she’ll calm down eventually 🙂 🙂 🙂 She didn’t even scream when we saw four deer in the fields and that’s really unusual.

     

I’ve managed to make my brother slightly obcessed by cameras too now 🙂 Sometimes he buys something, then regrets it and ships it to me 🙂 🙂 So today I have some times used an Olympus E-420. Like all old cameras it has a mind of its own so every now and again it just changes all settings I’ve just programmed so I have to do it all again 🙂 🙂 🙂 Overall for being such an old camera I think it was pretty good and will most likely use it every now and again when I want to have a very light camera with me, my Nikons are not heavy but compared to this one they are heavy weight 🙂

   

The Maples are in bloom.

I’ll go out in to my garden tomorrow when it is raining and sow grass seeds because 24 years with dogs really wear the grass down but I’ll also sow annuals in the old vegetable patch. I have already done that but then the winter came back so I suspect some of what I sowed might have frozen to death during that time. I’ll pick up most of what’s left in my cool cellar and place it on the north side of the cottage.There really isn’t any place here now where the sun doesn’t reach at any time of the day. Soon the sun will rise north- east (north north-east to be honest) and it is already setting at north-west and soon at north north-west. It is always best if the sun can’t reach those plants because just like us humans that will get burned by the sun easily in the beginning so will leafs too.

All the following photos are from the Olympus camera.

I’ll also plant some of what’s already standing outside, I was going to figure that out today but time flew so I’ll have to do that tomorrow instead. I’ll also go through the dog yard to check after weak spots and fix them so that Alma can’t escape 🙂 🙂 🙂 We’ve been up since 4 am because Malkolm woke me up after he had pooped beside my bed. I see that as a good sign because he didn’t tell me at all just a few days ago 🙂 🙂 🙂 To be honest though, he hadn’t have to wake me up because that small was so bad that not even a dead person would have missed it 🙂 🙂 🙂 If this had been a working day this accident would most likely not have happened because 4 am is the time the alarm starts so I can go to work.

     

It is time to bring them all out for a last time today and hopefully he will soon understand that it always is best to wake me up before he does anything because if he does he will get a treat and he does like a treat. His appetite comes from the Golden Retriever in him, the barking indoors comes from the English Cockerspaniel so I wonder what will show from the Border collie? He doesn’t seem to herding at all but loves to stop at every spot where animals have walked, I’ve never heard that about Border collies 🙂

Lung worth.
Leopards bane.
White Wood Anemone.
Yellow Wood Anemone.

Have a great day!

Dogs, sometimes I wonder :-)

· 6 Comments ·
One of my Camellias has been standing outside when the nights were so horrible cold and it hasn’t looked this healthy in many years.

The day started well but it was well below freezing point outside so I had to scrape the car windows before going to work. We had wonderful morning mist, the kind where one could see the fog roll away like big waves over the ground, so I picked up the camera I had in the car and of course the battery was dead 🙂 🙂  The morning mist was even better down by the lake so I was a bit annoyed by myself for not checking the camera after I used it last week. So lets hope it’ll be much the same tomorrow morning.

All the Apricot trees have been standing outside those cold nights as well and they too look good.
I was sure the Himalayan Cedars were more or less dead after this winter, I forgot to water them, but now one can see that new needles are growing out 🙂

Even the grape vine cuttings look good and they barely have any roots yet.

I came to work a bit early but started to work almost directly because today there was one more that didn’t come to work, high fever this time, so I had to check the huge washing machine that cleans all the things we’re going to paint. None of those being at home yesterday turned up today either. So today we were five short at the painting department but that would be worse later on.

     

Because I suddenly had a phone call from my neighbor telling me that Alma had escaped the dog yard once again. This time she had managed to rip off the fence from the ground. The gap wasn’t more than 25 cm (10 inches) wide and perhaps 15cm (6 inches) high. I have no idea how she, who is quite big, slightly bigger than a German Shepherd, could squeeze through that hole. My neighbor told me that he had tried to make her go back but when he came too close to Malkolm (they were both rather stressed by this), still in the dog yard, she changed the sound of her voice so he would rather call me 🙂 🙂 🙂

He’s going for her stick.
He’s catching up really good.
He loses his balance though.
Well it is nice to lay down in the grass as well 🙂

I have no idea why she keeps on doing this because she doesn’t go anywhere and she never manages to go back which is what she always wants to do 🙂 🙂 🙂 So I had to leave work and go home to fix the problem and then go back to work again. I really couldn’t be angry at her but now I think she has learned that if she does like this I’ll come home again 🙂 🙂 🙂 The only time that dog use her brain for more than fifteen seconds is when she calculates how to get out from the dog yard. She must have worked on this place in the fence for quite some time before she finally could squeeze out from that hole 🙂 🙂 🙂

 

Red leafed Elderberry tree.
Leopards bane, seems to survive any condition 🙂

On my way home the Beekeeper also sent me a text message that Alma was outside. She’s the kindest there is but one day she’ll do this when someone comes driving, then again everyone knows she can turn up anytime so everyone drives really slowly on this gravel road 🙂 At least the dogs were happy to see me even if it only was for a few minutes 🙂

Have a great day!

The table has finally arrived.

· 6 Comments ·

It wasn’t a lucky day for my work place today. One was at home with migraines, one was at home for back pain, one managed to injure himself so his eyebrow was torn up and he started bleeding like crazy and had to be driven to the hospital and then I went home because I had to sign for a package that they just refused to leave outside my door.

   

Gooseberry bush in the wild. Those gooseberries are delicious but very small and the bush is the thorniest one can find. I did the mistake to bring in one to my garden once. As soon as a branch hits the ground it creates roots and spreads insanely quick. Those thorns are horrible to be stung by and they tend to stay inside the foot as well 🙂

The package, my new table for the living room, was going to be delivered some time between 11 am and 3 pm. I was also going to pick up a package at the grocery store in Gudhem today and managed to do that before 11 am. That package was the Tea bush I ordered for quite some time ago. I was really stressed by the time I came home so naturally the table arrived almost exactly at 3 pm 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is starting to green up 🙂

 

Yellow wood anemone.

So I managed to fall asleep in the recliner and the two big dogs in the sofa and Malkolm in the dog igloo 🙂  The weather could have been worse today, not especially warm but sunshine every now and again plus almost no wind to speak of. So we had a quite nice walk after the table had arrived. It will be slightly warmer from now on but we’ll also get rain and on Friday even some snow.

Her favorite spot on hot summers days 🙂 Also works when it’s cold in the air but the sun is shining 🙂

   

The new table is much smaller but have a shelf under the table top (which is made of glass), so I placed one gardening book there, one crime novel and the book Doctor sleep written by Stephen King if You for some reason didn’t know that 🙂 I love that book but I have no wish what so ever to see the movie, I have a tendency to get in to horror movies a bit too much and that’s not good when living at the outskirts of the world where imagination can carry You away a bit too much 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

We’ve already had our dinners but I feel that I might have the last orange or perhaps an ice cream or why not both 🙂 I’m going to the store tomorrow anyway 🙂

Alma can become a bit jealous if Malkolm spend time with Nova, she just place herself between them until either of the two other leave 🙂

Have a great day!

A sunny and wind free day for a change.

· 2 Comments ·

For once we’re having a day when the sun shines, no wind and after the ice cold morning a relatively warm day and I’m not at work 🙂 Also a low pressure with rain and possibly snow is slowly entering the country and it looks like it’ll miss us here 🙂 Something must be wrong and in one way or the other I’m sure I’ll have to pay for it 🙂 🙂

     

We walked down to the creek early this morning and even saw a few deer. Nova and Malkolm walks really good when leashed but Alma has after all that has happened here gone back to being impossible. She whines and shouts plus pulling the leash all the time. It hasn’t been easy for her losing her best friend like that and now when Malkolm is here being over protective.

   

He’s fascinated by the creek and its running water 🙂

Today I wondered where she was because she hadn’t been indoors for quite some time. So I went out through the kitchen door and it wasn’t until I walked over to the other side of the cottage when I heard her barking like insane 🙂 She was down by the now rather big lake behind the garage so the sound couldn’t really reach the cottage. She was probably defending us towards something horrible like deer or pheasants 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well it could have been wild hogs too and she was smart enough to not trying to reach what ever it was because then she would have become wet and she really doesn’t like that 🙂 🙂

     

Later on we went out to the bog and she was just as impossible then as she had been in the morning. I do hope she calms down when Malkolm gets bigger and doesn’t need her protection but I doubt that 🙂 Otherwise it has been a calm and nice day. I’ll need to bake some bread though but the day is still young and there’s plenty of time to do that. I could also start with the laundry but I really don’t feel like doing that 🙂 🙂

   

The lake behind the garage is getting bigger and bigger, normally it’s a swamp there 🙂

The dogs are sleeping and I really would like to join them but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to sleep at all tonight if I did that 🙂 I would have liked to start doing things in the garden but the nights will stay below freezing so no use in doing that, I could mow the lawn though because when nothing else is growing the lawn sure does 🙂 I have to put the new lawn mower together first though so bread baking it is 🙂

Have a great day!

Storm again.

· Leave a comment ·
I could find five House sparrows in the wild rose, can You find them 🙂 I had at least the big original photo to look at 🙂

If You don’t think about the rain that fell or the storm strength winds all day this has been a really nice day 🙂 🙂 🙂 We have actually had a lot of sunshine as well so the laundry dried up really fast 🙂 I had some extra laundry today because Malkolm the little monster decided it would be nicer to stay in bed and pee than to go out to the rainy world 🙂 I really have no good place where thick fleece blankets can dry so I was at that moment and only then quite happy about the strong wind and sunshine 🙂

     

I was a bit hesitant about having a walk today. We did eventually go out and walked to the bog, I really didn’t want to get caught in any eventual shower passing by, then again walking in the forest when the winds were as strong as they were today wasn’t a good idea either. The trees swayed a bit too much and at one place big branches fell off a pine just after we had passed it.

     

After our walk not only did I do the laundry I also baked a bread and tried to make a pizza base. I left some of the dough from the bread, added some more flour (today I added rice flour since it doesn’t taste much in it self) and spread it really thin on the baking sheet. It was ok but rose unevenly and it was over all a bit too thick. I have at least now tried it and will try something else next time.

     

After that we all had a long nap. Alma and Nova in one of the sofas and Malkolm and I in the recliner. One really sleep well in a recliner 🙂 Then I realized that I had forgotten to wash my working t-shirts so I had to do that as well. This time I just put them in a bucket and washed them by hand, they are easy drying, sort of feels like wearing some kind of plastic but always feel dry no matter how much one sweats 🙂 Just as I hung them outside to dry in the wind and sunshine a hail storm passed by followed by some rain, something the weather sites said didn’t happen (they also show what kind of weather we’ve been having) 🙂 🙂 🙂

   

After the willows the Grape elder is always first to flower.

To be honest I would love to have another long nap, I’m just as tired as I was before. It’s pollen time so I guess that’s why. Runny nose,eyes that feels old and always tired, life is wonderful sometimes 🙂

Have a great day!

Our weather service is quite useless to be honest.

· Leave a comment ·

We still have quite a lot of snow left and since our quite useless weather sites now say it won’t be that warm tomorrow as they’ve said for five days the white crap may stay longer than I had hoped for. Ok it is still going to be above 10C (50F) but nowhere near to what they said before. Honestly I have no idea why they even get paid when they do such a lousy job!

     

Still the slightly warmer air that has arrived hit the cold air from the snow and gave us a rather nice and thick fog instead. We went out quite early in the morning for our walk because since I thought it would be warmer the fog might vanish quite fast. It didn’t because it stayed until way after noon 🙂 🙂 I thought Nova would go out to the bog again today but she decided that a walk along the creek would be nice.

     

Much of the snow had melted on the gravel roads so Malkolm wanted to walk most if it himself. It wasn’t until we reached the path along the creek when I had to start carry him even though he did protest a lot 🙂 There was so much snow that it even was hard for the rest of us to walk there without sliding down into the creek 🙂 birds were singing even though I think the fog dampened their will to. I did hear something walking around and since fog brings out my imagination I thought it might be a troll.

     

It wasn’t though, it was just a badger talking a walk in the snow 🙂 🙂 Could have been wild hogs because they’ve done a great job digging up the road from the creek. They had done a great job digging up the field as well to be honest. I don’t know how many of them we have now but by the look of what they do to the roads and fields they are way too many. I’ll protest to the wolves because it is after all their job to remove as many of them as they can 🙂 🙂

   

Thew Starlings wren’t too happy about the weather 🙂

Always when a new puppy comes to live with me I always start by letting them go off leash when they’ve been here a week, so today I did the same with Malkolm. To be honest I never did that with Alma because she was all over the place all the time when she arrived here and even though she’s much calmer now I still never would let her off the leash 🙂 🙂 I noticed how Malkolm behaved because he too noticed that she’s a bit wild 🙂 So when we walked he walked close to Nova but when we stood still he went to Alma 🙂 🙂 🙂 Here at home it’s almost only Alma he’s with and I think that’s how Nova wants it to be 🙂 🙂

     

Tomorrow I’ll leave them in the doghouse/ yard/ garage for an hour because I have to go to the grocery store. He has already been there for fifteen minutes once and I doubt he realized I was gone. So I’ll check with my neighbors if they can see or hear him while I’m at the grocery store, I doubt it though because I’m pretty sure Alma will play with him the entire time 🙂

   

Have a great day!

Winter decided we shouldn’t think spring was here :-)

· 2 Comments ·

So this week has in many ways been rather terrible when it comes to the weather. On Tuesday we had around 40 cm (16 inches) of snow falling. I really didn’t like it at all, especially since it also went pretty cold. Easter was warm and friendly, it was fun to have a puppy in the house, You already know that a new puppy is living here again and during Easter we could stay outdoors all day. Then winter came back and I really couldn’t leave a puppy in the dog house/yard with that ammount of snow plus cold weather because a puppy wouldn’t understand that he would have to stay in the nice dog house all day long.

     

He would be playing with Alma and even though she would most likely have stayed in the garage it still wouldn’t be especially warm there. I really didn’t want to come home to a puppy with pneumonia. So thankfully they understood at work so I have been at home this week hating the weather because we really couldn’t take any walks while it snowed and was so cold. To make it even more fun it snowed again on Thursday, this time just a little but it was already impossible for a puppy to go anywhere. Well we were out but I had to carry him almost all the time.

     

Today however it’s warmer, tomorrow will be even warmer than today and on Sunday they’re guessing it’ll really warm and that we’ll have warm weather the entire next week. So back to work on Monday it is 🙂 So the new guy is nine weeks old on Monday and his ancestry is Border collie (50%) , English Cockerspaniel and Golden retriever (25% each). He didn’t look like any of his parents to be honest and was the most long haired of them all. My guess is that he most likely will look something like a wrong colored Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever 🙂 At first I guessed that he might look like a smaller wrong colored Golden though.

If You wonder why I don’t have any photos of Nova it’s because she tends to prefer staying indoors sleeping 🙂

 

Thankfully my neighbor works in a super market so I have been able to get what I need when it comes to food 🙂 I have a few tins in the cool cellar just in case something would happen so I mostly use them now because their dates are closing in. A couple are too old but can one eat them? they’ve been stored cool all the time so would it be ok to eat them? Two tins with ham are spoiled otherwise and that would be a shame. Well I just remembered that I’m on the internet right now and I micro biologist said no problem to eat but the taste might have become less tasty. Just put the tin in boiling water for a couple of minutes or more and it’s quite edible. Well I’ll do that with one of the ham tins and if it smells ok I’ll take a tiny bit and hope to survive 🙂 🙂 🙂

    Male Chaffinch.

Alma has finally understood that it is ok to tell Malkolm when he goes to far, like chewing on her hamstring with his sharp teeth or chewing on her tail while she’s walking away 🙂 🙂 Nova does what she can to avoid him when he’s too much (which is almost all of the time 🙂 ) I’ll have to make her a raised bed so that he can’t terrorize her while I’m at work, she’s after all almost 18 now. He’s not a cuddly dog at all, he is very much Nova in that way. He usually sleeps on the floor on my slippers beside the bed. he has once or twice wanted to be in the bed but only for a few minutes. He’s very much Alma when it comes to energy though.

     

He did however sleep for hours after our walk this morning, despite him not walking much at all. So much new things to see, hear and smell so that was what tired him out. Many people believe that they need to run around and spend energy all day to be tired in the evening but it is actually using the brain that tires them out. So Alma wouldn’t have become a calm dog if I could have been running with her every day, she would just have become a dog with even more energy but with the same problems and I’m pretty sure that would have killed me 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

It is time to have something to eat and when I leave the computer Malkolm will wake up so I better pick him up and take him outside so he doesn’t pee in the cottage 🙂 🙂 🙂

Then he decided that he didn’t want to sit on the tree stump
but didn’t realize how deep the snow was 🙂
So I had him in a backpack when we went out and had it hanging on my front side so I could have an eye on him and make sure he wouldn’t try to jump out 🙂

Have a great day!

· 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!

Winter weather again.

· Leave a comment ·
The little lake behind my garage.

So the Swedish rounds of the Eurovision Song Contest is over for this year. Two Norwegian brothers, twins, won this year and their win was really big. Not my cup of tea but they can sing without taking a single false tune, can dance and seems to be genuinely nice guys so I’m pretty sure they’ll end up amongst the top five when the Final is in May here in Sweden. Malmö is hosting, our third biggest city just opposite Copenhagen in Denmark. My favorite came second and is very different to the winner but both the international jury and we Swedes wanted the twins to win and when both agree we usually end up amongst the top five.

     

I doubt we’ll win because down in Europe they’ve come to dislike our songs just because we tend to end up amongst the top five 🙂 🙂 🙂 We have after all now won the whole shebang seven times. Only Ireland has done that before. The weather has been indoor weather for two days now, cold, windy and some snow falling. Ok the snowfall was so tiny and so were the flakes that it was hardly noticiable on the ground but it was annoying anyway 🙂

     

I stayed home from work last Thursday and Friday because of an accident, nothing serious happened to me, bruising and a scrape. We were lifting things weighing 44Kg (97 pound) and we do that with a magnet. This thing is flat on the side I stood and has a sort of sharp edge all around. I was prepared with hooks when it was high enough to be hanged on the chain that transports the thing through the factory. Suddenly the magnet came loose and the thing fell down. I was hit on my right hand, then it hit my left knee, scraped my right shin and had it come just a half centimeter (a fifth of an inch) it would have cut off my toes on the right foot. Now it landed on the toe-cap instead so I didn’t realize that until I tried to walk away 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

No serious injury but I have been fairly sour until now. It’s still a bit tender but nothing worse. Even though it was very unlucky to be hit I did have luck with the weather those two days, no wind, sunny and warm enough to have the kitchen door open all day 🙂 But as I said today and yesterday were quite different. Winter jacket on and I should have worn mittens because the wind made it so cold that I couldn’t feel my fingers when we came home again this morning 🙂

     

I’ll be warmer again in a couple of days and I think the Cranes will arrive with the warmer weather and better winds. I’ve seen a few circling around high up in the air but that’s it. Lots of geese and swans here now though plus all the smaller birds already singing their spring songs. Still plenty of birds by the feeders though, especially many forest birds because they are now thinning out the trees, they’ll only take the biggest trees and leave the rest but before they started they also cut down almost all those smaller trees and bushes where the smaller birds nests and find food. We’ll I’ll continue to feed them for as long as they come here.

     

Have a great day!

41 cm (16,4 inches) of frozen mud.

· Leave a comment ·

The morning looked quite beautiful but this only stayed for a few minutes and after that the sky stayed evenly grey. Yesterday morning we went down to the creek, I knew there would be lots of water because they have flood warnings about the creek and where it flows out in to the lake. That however wasn’t the big problem, the big problem was where the road makes a dip before reaching the creek.

There’s almost always water here but now there’s a ditch on the right side that is supposed to lead away that water that instead lets more water in because of the high water level. So I thought why not jump over the smaller ditch to the right and then go through the forest until we can go out on the road again and then follow the ditch. Alma had been unusually annoying and really didn’t walk well. Anyway we reach the ditch and I tell the dogs to jump and both Nova and Albin did, Alma however stood absolutely still for the first time in her entire life. I made a total stop in the air because I held her leash and then went down in to the frozen mud.

It was much deeper than I thought it would be 🙂 🙂 🙂 Yesterday was the day that Alma learned how strong voice I actually have and after that she walked really well and didn’t whine even once 🙂 🙂 🙂  The odd thing was that I never got cold feet but above the boot I froze quite a lot 🙂 🙂  Alma and I are now the best of friends again and we made a deal yesterday evening that if she stopped whining all the time while we’re walking I would be less angry when she pulled the leash. The morning walk today started a bit shaky but after that we both kept to the deal 🙂 🙂

Today Nova wanted to walk to the bog again and it is more and more looking like the shallow lake it once was, there’s water everywhere. Just a little more water and I’m pretty sure ducks soon will swim around there 🙂

I didn’t see any ducks but lots of geese flew above our heads, it looked like Greylags mostly but I’ve already seen lots of Canada geese as well. They always come a couple of weeks before the first Cranes but we do normally have one or two cranes here around this time and when they arrive we’ll get a snowstorm passing by 🙂 🙂

They’re guessing it might stay warmish during days and most nights but a few nights will be freezing cold. Also we’ll most get rain for most of the week and perhaps some snow mixed in it as well. I don’t mind if it rains, then perhaps the bog will become a lake again and who doesn’t want a lake property 🙂 🙂 🙂 but why does it have to be freezing after that rain? I’m really tired of driving on icy roads now.

I’ve heard that the air high up, I think it was the stratosphere, might become really warm next week and that the polar vortex therefore most likely will collapse and that can give us nasty cold weather again. If so I hope it does so over Siberia since they are used to it anyway 🙂 Could perhaps help to keep the permafrost stay a bit longer 🙂 Well with my luck it will happen here so I won’t put away my winter clothes just yet 🙂 🙂

If it is this much water in the creek up here I can only guess how bad it is down at the lake.

I need to fill the peanut feeder every day now and now when I work day time again I’ll have to do it the evening before. That will keep both the night shift and day shift happy. I must say though that the night shift (house mice) are eating way less than the day shift 🙂

Have a great day!