Do You remember all the cuttings I took from the Hardy Fuchsia? These ones are not any of those because they all died 🙂 Turns out that the peat free soil I bought turns in to concrete after a while, perhaps works better for big plants but really bad for cuttings 🙂
Another chilly day here, some sunshine but rain as well. The clouds covering the sun brings out the mosquitoes and I have quite a lot of them because of all the vegetation I have in my garden. It doesn’t itch that much after a bite though so it won’t take long until the itching is over for this year. It can still hurt while the mosquito bites though.
This tomato plant grows in the ground beside my cottage and now it flowers 🙂I’m not fond of roses and still have plenty of them 🙂 So since I don’t like roses that much I naturally bought a new one 🙂The tea bush (Camellia sinensis) looks pretty healthy.The gooseberries are slowly going bigger.
Nothing much has happened today, just as I like it 🙂 but even if I had to do a lot at work time passed really slowly. It’s strange that the same amount of time at home pass so much faster 🙂 🙂 Time started to fly as soon as I left the factory and besides re-potting one of my Jacaranda trees I only had a walk in the garden while being attacked by both mosquitoes and flies and get slightly wet from rain I have no idea what I’ve been doing 🙂
Sometimes a sort of failed photo still look pretty good. This one is too bright but by being that we also can see Malkolms face so much better.
They had a sale in one of my favorite seed businesses, it was dirt cheap, and I had forgotten about it so I was really surprised when a thick envelope came in the mail today 🙂 I have forgotten most of what I had ordered but too a quick look and there are some perennials, some annuals and some vegetables waiting until next year. They have quite a good expiration date as well so the results should not be bad because of that 🙂
This rose has been growing in this garden for almost a hundred years I’ve been told. It has changed places where it has been growing though. I moved it here a couple of years ago and after fighting with wild roses for years it now has its own place.Smells nice and it also grows in the beekeepers garden, a shoot from the roots of this one.I do have a lot of roses for someone who doesn’t like them 🙂 🙂 This is one bush from the ground up to the top of the photo 🙂Lots of Heartsease growing in my garden.
I did take a few photos while walking in the garden and most photos shows Alma and Malkolm playing 🙂 They weren’t out for especially long because of the weather but if they’re guessing it right we will have a sunny and cool morning before warmer weather and rain will arrive. We’ve gotten so much rain now that even if we should have a month long drought we would still have a ground water level so high that there wouldn’t be any risk of water shortage 🙂
Have a great day!
P.S. Alma just scared the shit out of me because she kept on walking to Nova who was sleeping beside my desk, she never does that, so I had to check on the old girl because for a moment there I thought she had passed on 🙂 🙂 🙂 She’s fine and looked just as surprised as I was 🙂 🙂 🙂
Good thing I still have lots of photos from earlier 🙂 So this is the same fox I showed yesterday.
I know I’ve said that I really liked that it had cooled down a lot but I didn’t mean it should cool down so much that I almost have to start the radiators again! 10C (50F) outside today, heavy showers on and off plus really strong winds really isn’t what I want in June. On the other side all these clouds that covers the sky does keep the night frost away and we normally have our last night with frost around June sixth. So nothing bad that doesn’t bring something good as well but to be honest we could have had the same weather but at least 20C (68F) so we at least could go outside in between showers 🙂 🙂
Sorry about yesterday, first I visited my friend at the garden center and I can proudly tell You that I didn’t bring home and plants this time 🙂 I had been tired since the moment I woke up and when I came home I took a nap for well over an hour but was just as tired as before so I went to bed and slept all night long. I guess that I actually am having a cold because after our morning walk today I napped well over two hours but this time I’m not that tired again 🙂
So I was going to write something about our national day and why we celebrate it. There are two reasons for it, the first is that June sixth Gustav Vasa became king here in Sweden. Sweden was at that time occupied by Denmark and their king (we call him Christian the Tyrant 🙂 ) made a blood bath killing lots of the nobility in Sweden including Gustav’s father. He wanted revenge and fled north to gather the support of the people in Dalarna (a region in Sweden that sort of have become the picture of what Sweden is when it comes to traditions). No one really did support him but he did eventually get their support and he of course promised them a lot in return. The Danish king was driven out and when the good people in Dalarna actually expected to get what he had promised he happily slaughtered them.
Before him the nobility here always chose the next king but after him it became an inherited title. He had three sons all more or less insane and all became king over Sweden and Finland (which was a part of Sweden for centuries). The first one I guess had schizophrenia, married his non nobility mistress which wasn’t liked at all so his brothers put him in prison and eventually poisoned him with arsenic. They spared his wife and children though but she had to move to Finland, promising never to claim the throne for her children and what I know they had a great life there.
The second reason is that we got a new constitution 1809 that removed most of the Kings power, that I see as a really good reason to celebrate though but very few know about it here. The king by the way was a French buddy to Napoleon which he then turned against and we helped to win over him. Denmark’s capital Copenhagen was heavily bombarded by the Brits so that Napoleon wouldn’t be able to use their harbors so they sided up with Napoleon instead. So after Napoleon lost Denmark was punished by giving Norway to Sweden. There was however a big problem with that because Norway had already declared they were now independent of Denmark. So they were pissed of by this (in my opinion they rightfully were so) but back in the days You really couldn’t do anything unless You were prepared to go to war with the big powers in the world. To be honest we really didn’t want Norway because we wanted to get Finland back from the Russians who had taken it from us by winning a war against us but Russia was also on the winning side so Norway it was. Lasted until 1905 when they finally became a free country. Not that the Swedish king wanted that but he was wise enough to not start a war. To be honest I don’t think we ever have won a war against Norway, the last time we tried our own troops finally shot our king with a big button.
So anyway we haven’t had a national day for that long anyway, until 1983 it was the Swedish flag day (the next oldest country flag in the world, only the Danes have an older one) and it didn’t become a holiday until 2005. So since most people don’t know why we celebrate and to be honest Gustav Vasa was a horrible dictator, we never have sort of understood how to celebrate it (and to be honest they removed another holiday that we wanted to have much more so that sort of dampened the cheers 🙂 🙂 ) They do try to make it more festive but so far it is sort of a meh celebration we’re having 🙂 🙂 🙂
The morning walk was really pleasant, cool enough to keep flies and mosquitoes away but still sunny and no wind. We met two foxes and the deer doe was outside the garden once again, she doesn’t even react when we go out now days. Now however the rain is pouring down and it is quite chilly and we might get thunder later today. The weather will be much the same tomorrow, sunny morning and rainy before noon and with lots more rain. I don’t mind even though it would have been nice if we could have reached 20C (68F), we’re not even close today.
Magpie younglings photographed through mosquito net and window 🙂
Looks like it has rained over my car but it hasn’t, lots of morning dew here so this is normal every morning.
Remember I told about how easy it is to propagate tomatoes? Some tomato plants grow like a bush and others like vines. The vine ones are supposed to be pruneed by removing all shoots that grow out and those are easy to just put in soil.
Take those shoots and remove all but the to leafs and put them in a new pot.
They will create new roots along the stems and then You have new tomato plants. Normally our summers are too short to get any tomatoes on them but these had already flower buds so perhaps I’m lucky 🙂
The mornings was quite cool here today, so cool that no mosquitoes or flies were pestering us even though we went out to the bog. Nova wanted to go down to the creek but since she has been a bit off since the last walk there I’d rather have her walking a shorter distance but at least come out so she could sniff on every track she found. Good appetite though so she’s not ill. She did get grumpy though so she dragged her feet all the way until she realized we were on our way home again, then she suddenly could walk really fast 🙂 🙂
It has been less cool than what they were guessing in the weather sites and so far we’ve had a couple of small showers but that’s it. Lots of sunshine between the clouds as well. After we came home we had a little nap, well I tried to but Malkolm decided he would play with a nasty sounding plastic bottle so he woke me up every now and again. I guess the good thing was that I still just relaxed and most of the time even Alma stayed with me and Nova 🙂
I only found three ticks crawling around on the dogs when we came home, cool mornings keep those calm as well 🙂 The deer was outside in the cow pasture again this morning, I still haven’t see her young one but I’m pretty sure it’s out there with her. My neighbor, the Beekeeper, saw a doe with two young ones a couple of days ago. I guess that Alma and I are just too loud so that they can hear us from a long distance, Alma shouting and whining like always and me scolding her for it like always as well 🙂 The thing with Alma is that if she can keep calm until we pass the Beekeepers she’ll stay reasonable calm for the rest of the walk as well, if not we’ll have a constant war between us all they way 🙂 🙂 🙂
I’m thinking of buying some fish to have in my water barrels again, there are so many mosquito larvae in them and I can’t find the fishing net so that I can bring them to the fish i my aquarium. The problem is that they now have so tough rules for pet shops to be allowed to sell aquarium fish that most just don’t care to do it, I’ve heard that the license to be able to sell fish just costs too much. Good thing for the fish, annoying for us humans. Well I can always go down to the creek and see if I’m lucky fishing there 🙂 🙂 🙂
Bryonia alba is nothing You want in Your garden, it can cover a tree during one summer, smells nasty and I have had lots in my garden. Thankfully I’ve got rid of most of them.
I have lots of wild flowers mixed with garden flowers in my garden. Some would say I’m lazy not weeding them out and some would say I think of the pollinators 🙂 🙂 🙂
This is the male flowers on the Hardy Kiwi. My female plants are always freezing during winters (this one did in the beginning as well) so I’ve never seen those flowers but I think they look much the same.
This is a Geum urbanum, grows everywhere here and beside it a wild pink Geranium.
It grows a Sand cherry tree is that old flower bed so I can’t mow the area or remove all flowers we tend to call weeds 🙂
Another shower is just passing by and when they do the temperature drops a lot, then again it gets really hot when the sun shines instead so it evens out during the day 🙂 I forgot to write about our National day and what we are celebrating (most people doesn’t know why to be honest. So most just take this day as a day free from work and if the weather is nice they’ll barbecue something and just relax. I’ll try to remember to write about it tomorrow instead!
It rained in the village where I work but I could see no signs of any rain here in the village. The creek was really full though so the rain must have been heavy there. It was also slightly warmer today than they guessed yesterday but it still didn’t rise above 16C (60,8F) and it sounds as if we all love it at the moment 🙂
I’m not a fan of spruces in our forests butt they do look great when the new growth comes.
I noticed that the dogs loves it as well, even old Nova had much more energy today and isn’t as badly bitten by mosquitoes as she was yesterday. We have also had a really strong wind blowing and that if anything helped a lot with those biting little nasties, they aren’t strong enough to fly around in such a strong wind 🙂 I noticed that they still sell annual lupine seeds (in this case the Texas lupine) here so I ordered some yesterday before they forbid those as well. I sowed some early this spring directly in the ground and they do germinate but rather unevenly. The biggest I have now will son open up the flowers but the latest showing is barely 10 cm (4 inches) high.
We walked down to the creek after I had come home after work, as I wrote the creek was really full of water but the ground barely damp, They’re guessing that we’ll have much the same weather for at least ten more days and even though I feel sorry for those having vacation and wants warmer weather and sunshine I really have nothing against cooler weather even if it also means more rain. Then again I don’t have to water anything during that time 🙂 🙂 I do need to continue to water those trees I’ve planted though and will have to do that all summer because it takes so long for the roots to grow out into the soil. The first thing that will dry out is the old soil that was in the pot the tree came in so it is important to help those trees until the roots have started to spread underground.
This is what curled leaf disease looks like. Normally if it is this bad the tree will die rather soon but I did spray it with sulfur like last year and new leafs without the fungus are showing.
Flowering raspberry.
Malkolm is sleeping by my side and so deep that he doesn’t react when I scratch him, Nova is snoring so loudly that it actually should wake her up 🙂 Good for her that she’s almost deaf 🙂 🙂 Alma is almost never sleeping especially deep, thew slightest sound will make her run up from where she is and then she’ll run down the stairs 🙂 🙂
It’s still hard to get photos of the tiny new leafs of the old Pawpaw 🙂
Foxglove.
I’m not sure the dogs like the new toys I bought 🙂 I bought two “tennis balls”, They aren’t but they look like them but are bigger and there’s a kind of rubber guard around them. They play with them but as soon as the squeaky thing in them gives out a squeak the dogs get scared and leaves it alone 🙂 I also bought a ball looking like a small orange american football. There are places all around it where one is supposed to put treats in and then the dogs are supposed to chew on the ball so the treats sort of falls out. The problem is that Malkolm has figured it out but he isn’t strong enough to chew out the treats and Alma still can’t figure it out so she doesn’t tough it 🙂 🙂 🙂
It is time for a cup of cocoa and then to bed, they day has felt twice as long as it has been and I’m so glad that I now have a four day weekend 🙂
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.
Not bad views when driving to work 🙂 This one however was taken from a window upstairs.
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.
And tow from the lake.
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.
Lots of butterflies here now.
Wild strawberry flowers
More Forest star flowers.
No idea what these are called.
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.
Forest star.
Buttercups.
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?
Salmiak sleeping on the patio table.
These grow everywhere except in my garden 🙂
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.
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 🙂
Clouds are fascinating, I’m pretty sure this will grow up to a thunder cloud.
Thunder and rain again, at work the rain poured sown and thunder passed just outside the village. It doesn’t look as we had much rain here though and only the sound from the thunder reached this village. The rain did arrive shortly after I came home though and now we get the occasional shower passing by. They’re guessing we’ll have rain on and off all evening but tomorrow and Saturday will be rain free, well with our weather services that can mean anything but I do hope snow is out of the question 🙂
This is how a Gardenia looks like in nature, the same smell but the flower lasts less. One of my seed sown ones.
A Camellia flower that fell of the potted plant.
You see those white tipped leafs? They come from the male hardy kiwi vine. This one is so big that it almost has grown to the top of the apple tree behind it 🙂 The female ones froze this winter and has started to grow again. It’ll take many years until I get any kiwi fruits 🙂 🙂
I was so tired yesterday that I didn’t have energy to even write a blog, must be pollen because I did sleep like a that night and again last night. Alma hasn’t escaped the dog yard in a couple of days now but I did noticed that she had searched for a weak spot in several places. I fixed those and today there were no signs of her trying again. It’s just a matter of time though 🙂 🙂 She and Malkolm plays all day and now when they can’t be outside because of the rain they play just as wild indoors. No problems really unless Malkolm suddenly needs to pee because when he notice that he doesn’t have much time, if I don’t understand that immediately he will pee on the floor 🙂 🙂 I was just about to haste down to the door when he returned with one of my woolen socks 🙂 I traded it with an old handkerchief instead 🙂
Isn’t it strange how plants no matter how much one water and fertilize them always grow much better when it has rained? I looked at my small apricot trees and I have been watering and given them fertilizer all the time and nothing much has happened, they a couple of days with rain and they grow like crazy!Personally I feel it wouldn’t do much difference but the plants show it does. We almost always have a very high humidity here so that shouldn’t do any difference but rain and high humidity together might be so much better.
This is how a Gardenia looks like in nature, the same smell but the flower lasts less. One of my seed sown ones.
A Camellia flower that fell of the potted plant.
Yellow day-lilies. I used to have four different but only the yellow ones are still here, so by that I mean I have two different yellow ones 🙂
The residues of my woodland. Few flowers left but now it’s home to the Pawpaw trees, a Ginkgo and the rhododendron Catawbiense.
The little green dot grows bigger from the root of the Hybrid Persimmon that died 🙂
The surviving Pawpaw now has several small green dots which means leafs and new growth 🙂
The first Mock orange flower.
The Yellow flag also have buds now.
You see those white tipped leafs? They come from the male hardy kiwi vine. This one is so big that it almost has grown to the top of the apple tree behind it 🙂 The female ones froze this winter and has started to grow again. It’ll take many years until I get any kiwi fruits 🙂 🙂
It is time to go downstairs to watch the news, not much else to watch tonight. Well the Diamond league, competing in athletics might be something to watch because we do have a couple of Swedes competing, if boring it’s perfect to fall asleep to 🙂
This day has been so slow! I’ve been able to do what I wanted to do and have had lots to do as well, still this day has been slow as cold molasses 🙂 We’ve been waiting for the rain and thunder to arrive but today it never did. Well I did hear some thunder at work, at least I think it was thunder but there were also some people up on the factory roof working and at one time it sounded more like they dropped something really heavy 🙂 I also hear the thunder once when I came home but it was from far away.
We had morning mist here in the village when I drove to work. I was already a bit late already from the start and it didn’t help that I stopped here and there to take some misty photos on the road to work 🙂 I made it just in time thankfully but I missed my morning coffee. I stopped drinking coffee for a while because my stomach got upset, well more upset than it usually was. Then we found out that I couldn’t eat gluten, my stomach became much better and now I dare to drink a cup of Cappuccino each morning, so far so good 🙂
We are supposed to kill all Lupines we can find in nature because they are invasive, they have even created a special day when everyone is supposed to go outside and remove them. The problem is that we love our Lupines so no one touches them 🙂 🙂 🙂
NO attempt from Alma to dig her way out of the dog yard today but I found evidence that she had tried after I went to work after getting the summer tires on. So I blocked it and put new obstacles in the way. This does not mean she’s given up, she’s just biding her time, checking out eventual weaknesses and will most likely try again soon. I was supposed to measure the length of the fence today so I can get what I need to repair the fence but now I can’t fine my tape-measure. I used it a few days ago and I was pretty sure I knew where I had placed it but no I didn’t 🙂 I had even borrowed tools from work to fix some things today so I guess I’ll need to do the same tomorrow, including a tape-measure 🙂
More from Falköping. The streets around the town square.
The original church that stood here almost a thousand years ago is actually still there, it’s built in to the “new” and bigger one.
Even Alma has figured out how to get the treats out of the little bottles I place in the dog yard every morning now so I better come up with something else soon, a few treats only keep her occupied for so long after all. I did have an amazing toy like that but old Sune, a dog who liked his treats for himself dug it down somewhere in the garden 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll need to buy something similar. I do have one in the kitchen but it’s been put away fro a while. looks like a turtle with a see through cover. It is supposed to be pushed by the dogs and the treats will sort of pop up through a hole in the back. Alma never got that one but happily stole the treats from Albin who to my very big surprise understood it after a few minutes and he wasn’t the brightest star in the sky 🙂 🙂 I’ll put it back on the floor as soon as Malkolm is big enough to at least get a few treats as well 🙂
The red house to the left is actually for sale.
Alma and Malkolm is playing wildly at the moment, they’r running in and out of the cottage, up the stairs to me, run back out and chase each other like crazy. Even Alma seems to be on the edge of what she can managed and not collapse 🙂 🙂 🙂 I hope that means I’ll get just as good nights sleep tonight as I had yesterday, they were playing just as much yesterday as the’re doing now 🙂 🙂 🙂 Unfortunately Alma just decided that she would go on a hike by herself to the other side of the little lake behind my garage to eat wild hog poop, it’s a gift she has, to sort of ruin the fun they had and have a breath that smells horrible 🙂
Cratageus of some kind.
Sibylla sell hotdogs, hamburgers and other things like schnitzel. They were here before the big hamburger chains moved in and to be honest they are so much better.
If You want me to calculate how much more expensive our petrol is compared to Yours I’ll do it. This was the last photo of Falköping for this time. And if You wonder why there were almost no people in the photos it’s because Falköping is more or less dead until the shops open around 10 am 🙂
It’s time to prepare something to eat at work tomorrow, I think I’ll save that chicken I bought for next week instead 🙂 I’ll see what I can find in the freezer and put together something from that 🙂
Whitebeams are quite popular to have in towns and cities around here, hardy enough and rarely get sick.
It’s so nice to have summer tires on the car again, it’s so much more quiet in the car now. I also asked them to check if there is a hole in the exhaust pipe because sometimes it does sound like there is one and sometimes as there isn’t one 🙂 🙂 🙂 The exhaust pie is really good they say but there is a place where two parts of the pipe connects and it doesn’t fit properly, when the pipe is cold so it sounds as if there is a hole 🙂 When it gets warm the heat make the two parts expand a bit and when they do the sound goes away 🙂 Nothing to care about they said so I won’t 🙂
Falköping is placed on two mountains and in the valley in between. If one is interested in status one should live on the other mountain called Mösseberg, Ålleberg as these photos are taken on is for some reason not as fancy to live on 🙂
The football stadium in Falköping. Not big but they are and should be proud of it. If their football team ever should come to the higher divisions this would be way too small.
A little guy woke me up at three thirty five this morning, he needed to go outside to do his business. There wasn’t any use going back to sleep after that 🙂 So I’m really tired tonight. He and Alma aren’t though, they are playing wildly here in the cottage because it is raining outside. It started when I drove to the garage and has continued more or less the entire day. Most seems to have missed the village though but it rained enough to make the dogs prefer to stay under a roof. Still I noticed that Alma had started to work her way out of the dog yard again so I’ve been working on that place as well 🙂 🙂 🙂 I hope it at least will keep her in there for a couple of days before she tries again.
Apartment building s and one family household houses are mixed quite well in this town.
Murals are popular here.
Any way, I had a little walk in Falköping while I was waiting for my car to be ready, it’s just a small part so it doesn’t really show how the town looks, I’ll walk elsewhere the next time. Falköping is at least one thousand years old but it is köping and not a city or town to be honest. It had all to do with taxes and what rights the King gave the place. We have a similar town north of Falköping called Skara and Skara is a town so they celebrated Skaras one thousand year birthday as a town some years ago but that can never happen in Falköping even though it is just as old 🙂 🙂 Today we call everything towns or cities even though most of them aren’t 🙂
The sign on the flower shop says: Show that You believe in love. I guess they mean they want us to buy their flowers to show that 🙂
To be honest Falköping is a nice little place but quite boring 🙂 I think it once was voted to be Sweden’s most boring town 🙂 🙂 It’s a bit odd because it has two town centers. One is by the railway station and one is on the other side of the town. The one on the other side of the town is where I walked today and it is more like a real town square while the other one is open space, a grocery store, the station and very little else.
This looks like headstones from a grave yard to me. I guess it’s some kind of art they now are placing in the town square.
I was a bit lucky while walking around, even though it rained most of the walk the thunder that arrived kept its distance and didn’t arrive until I had my car and was back at work. It missed this village but was quite ferocious everywhere else. It hit somewhere close to the factory just as I was leaving for the day and the last thing I heard was the paint box alarming and it looked like they weren’t able to re-start it again. Well I’ll know better tomorrow. Hopefully I won’t have to work by the paint box tomorrow, it’s a pain in the a..e when that happens because it can take forever to make it start again.
Plenty of art galleries in this town.
Well if You want to but small action figures from Two different English football teams this is the place to go 🙂
This little place used to be a thrift/ antique shop just a year ago.
It is still raining outside but little enough so that dogs can play outside. They are running in and out in full speed, up the stairs and down again and I can only hope they won’t break anything on themselves. I do hope it also means that Malkolm will sleep until the alarm starts tomorrow morning 🙂
The plastic bag You can see is covering the handle on my old lawn mower, mostly because the birds ten to poop on it.
When I looked at the weather sites yesterday they said really warm all next week with almost only sunshine, today they say almost no sunshine and quite a lot of rain 🙂 🙂 🙂 So Your guess to how it will be is as good as mine 🙂 I won’t mind some rain just as long as it doesn’t continue for too long plus the farmers need it so at least they will be really happy when it starts to fall 🙂
The last peat in the yellow plastic bag was so dry that this rain really helped 🙂
It is hard to catch the rain drops when taking photos.
Today they were almost right though, they guessed cloudy all day but no rain. It has been cloudy all day but just before I arrived here at home after work the clouds opened up and the rain started to pour down. My water barrels that were almost empty are now three quarters full. The ground here is still very wet so we here really don’t need the rain but it is nice to see that the barrels are full of water again.
Buds on the Amur grape vine.
Can’t remember the name on this weed but it does look harmless enough. It isn’t though because it becomes so dense that nothing else can grow up from the ground. Really good to stop water evaporating from the ground though, never dry beneath it.
The rain however stopped us from taking a walk and now there are so many mosquitoes flying around that it’s a bit nasty to have walks. Well they are guessing we’ll have sunshine and hot weather tomorrow again so we’ll just take an extra long morning walk before it gets too hot. This rain has unfortunately brought out both slugs and snails so some of my sowings (in containers) has been eaten. Tomorrow I’ll see if anything can be saved.
Alma hadn’t escaped the dog yard today either 🙂 This morning I took all small plastic bottles I could find here at home and put dog treats in them, I tried it with Malkolm at first and when he saw what I did to get those treats out he understood it. I don’t think Alma has a clue still because some of those bottles were heavily chewed so that the treats could come out 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well at least she has been busy 🙂
This container has not been visited by slug or snails so I moved it temporarily to a table on the other side of the cottage.The biggest leafs to the right are from Morning glories, beside them are Hollyhocks. Then comes False Dragonheads followed by Alpine Aster and Siberian Larkspur.
My little Red oak, it grows so slow here. I need to remove the vegetation around it so that it gets some sunshine.
So far only columbines and Giant Sequoia seeds have germinated in this container. Still no Chinese dogwood, Dawn redwood, Tulip tree or Sea kale. This one did have a small slug in it so that container has also been temporarily moved.
It is time to go out to check where I can place my Pawpaw seedlings so that the slugs and snails at least have a harder time to reach them. I’ll do it quickly because those mosquitoes mean business when they start arriving, Nova is already scratching herself badly, the other two have only been outside when they really needed to.
I’m so glad I didn’t have to go anywhere with the dogs today 🙂 Life is so much calmer and easier when we’re all at home 🙂 We woke up pretty early today and I saw the most red sky I think I’ve ever seen in my life, unfortunately I only had the phone with me and after dropping it so many times on the ground the camera is having problems showing the right colors, the best I got was a pale pinkish color. It didn’t last for long because clouds soon covered the sky.
The last of the nights rain.
Grape elder and this is as much colors we get from flowering trees here, the Maples are quite yellow as well but most tree flowers are white.
It was around 5C (41F) and even without the sun quite bright outside. I like our cool mornings for many reasons but one of the best reasons is that the ticks tends to not catch us while we walk by, also it had rained during the night and even though ticks like damp areas they truly dislike wet. I had hoped Nova would want to go to the bog today but down to the creek is what she wanted, I did however manage to make her walk up-stream and in to the old forest. Nova and Malkolm stopped at every spot that had some kind of smell, there were lots of spots 🙂 Alma ran around whining and hated that we didn’t move when she wanted to see the entire world in five minutes 🙂 We did thankfully not see a single animal because today I think that would have been a bit too much for her 🙂
The sun did come out of the clouds shortly after we had come home and with it higher temperatures. It even reached well over 20C (68F) today and with very little wind it almost was too warm when I mowed the lawn for the first time this year. I was a bit worried about Malkolm for a while because he sort of lost his energy, mostly he just wanted to sleep indoors and I did worry that it could be tick related. It took a while for me to understand what was wrong, Malkolm has never experienced warm weather! 🙂 He was born when it was cold, he moved here just before the last push of winter and snowstorm. After that it has been unusually cool here but today it went warm and he learned that warmth will make You tired, especially if one plays a lot in the sunshine 🙂 🙂
So I mowed the lawn and after that I’ve re-potted all the apricot trees and the two peaches. I’ve planted the two Pawpaw trees, one seed sown and one variety. I will not do anything with the ones I sowed, not until they start to grow again after the winter in the cool cellar and I’ll also wait with the tiny pear trees. My four year old neighbor made a bracelet for me today and I’ll wear it with pride. It is made with metallic blue beads and white beads with letters on. Now she is only four so the letters doesn’t say anything 🙂 She loves Alma as long as Alma doesn’t lick her in the face and Alma is constantly licking her in the face 🙂 🙂 She is still a bit unsure about Malkolm though be she has nothing against him licking her hands 🙂 🙂
I’ve also weeded the vegetable patch. Mostly grass, dandelions and geraniums that moved it but also some raspberry bushes and a weed called Catchweed or Cleavers. It has an ability to stick to anything passing by and especially long haired animals are full of the seeds later in summer. It is apparently full of vitamin C and the fresh seeds are good in a salad they say and dried seeds can be used as a coffee surrogate. Doesn’t matter how good it is I don’t want it in my garden but probably will because of my dogs 🙂 🙂 I don’t mind the dandelions so much though because the entire plant is edible even though the root is bitter but can be cut down, roasted and used as another coffee surrogate 🙂 The flowers and leafs are really tasty in a salad. Just think of only taking small leafs since they too can be a bit bitter when big.
The Harness is too big for him but he’s growing so fast that it soon will fit really well.
All the dogs are completely knocked by this warm weather so they are all sleeping heavily on the floor beside me. I had hoped the ice cream lorry would come today because it could be nice to have some ice cream when I’ll be watching the Eurovision song contest tonight. The Netherlands have been disqualified because the singer apparently attacked a film crew?! It is said that he asked the crew not to follow and film him and when they didn’t give a shit about that he did something. Israel on the other hand can compete despite killing thousands of small children in the Gaza strip, strange how different we can see the world!
I’ve planted the Pawpaws I bought.
The vegetable patch before the weeding
and after. A good thing with almost only sand in the ground is that it isn’t hard to remove weeds, a bad thing is that it dries up way too fast but as long as one cover every bare spot with grass cuttings the ground will stay damp and the decaying grass cuttings will work as fertilizer.
My new lawn mower, I always think it looks like a formula one racing car 🙂
The bracelet my four year old neighbor made to me 🙂
It is time to make a pot of tea and then hope I won’t fall asleep during the competition 🙂
Salmiak, the beekeepers cat. He’s getting old now, I think he’s 17 years old by now and have used lots of his nine lives because he’s too friendly towards dog that aren’t friendly towards him.
We had meh weather here when I woke up this morning, misty rain and a bit too cool and since we were going to the vet in a few hours I said to the dogs “Going for a walk or sleep again?” To my very big surprise they all went indoors again 🙂 🙂 🙂
So I was wondering if it would be best to let Alma and Nova stay at home in the dog yard while Malkolm and I went to the vet for his shot or should I bring them and when we come home have that walk? Last time I left with one dog he never came back (Albin) so knowing Alma I thought it best to let her follow and Nova would be there to keep her company for those five minutes we would be indoors. It sounds good doesn’t it 🙂 🙂 🙂
I fasten my dogs in the seat belt when they’re with me on the roads, I could have had them in the back but the thought of getting hit from behind and what that would do to the dogs has always made me use the seat belts instead. So I thought everything would be easy when letting them in to the car. Malkolm and Nova were no problems, Alma started screaming as soon as I tried to get her in 🙂 🙂 After that she kept on screaming all the way to the vet and also tried to come to the front seats, so I had to push her back with one hand 🙂
So we arrived at the vet and thankfully it was still rather cool and cloudy outside so I lowered the windows and as soon as we started walking to the entrance door Alma screamed like insane and tried to dig her way out of the car. I shouted at her that no digging is allowed and oddly enough she stopped. No such like when it came to the screaming though. We came in and were shown to a room on the other side of the building and while we were waiting I could hear Alma very clear, it sounded like someone stabbed her over and over again 🙂 🙂 The vet hadn’t arrived yet so I hurried out, shouted at her to calm down and went in again.
I arrived at the room at the same time the vet did. Malkolm thought that when I was gone it would be a good time to both poop and pee on the floor 🙂 So the first thing the vet had to do was to clean the floors 🙂 He kept on smiling and laughing to himself because Alma was so loud by now that anyone hearing her could have called the police reporting animal cruelty 🙂 🙂 🙂 As soon as I and Malkolm were back in the car she went silent and slept the whole way home 🙂 🙂 🙂 She’s a wonderful girl that dog but sometimes I think she will be the reason for my death 🙂 🙂 🙂
The Cottage by the crane lake. 