Some morning it feels like it’s just impossible to wake up, this morning was one of those. Then I opened the door to let the dogs out and I woke up in a second, it was -4C (24,8F) and that cold air hit me like a ton of bricks 🙂 🙂 🙂
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The rest of the day has been pleasant though. Lots of sunshine and I opened the big door to where I paint as often as I could, it was still rather chilly until the afternoon so the door wasn’t open for longer periods of time though 🙂
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But like always clouds started to arrive when I stopped working and even though we did have some sunshine while we were out walking clouds soon covered the entire sky. That will at least keep the night temperatures on a much nicer level and well above freezing point and who could ask for more 🙂
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I’m out of energy now so either it’ll be an early night and I’ll go to bed or I will fall asleep in my recliner, I’m pretty sure nothing will be able to keep me awake no matter what I’ll do 🙂 🙂 I might have some red seedless grapes first though, they were on sale when I was in the grocery store today. I do like grapes no matter what color they have and to be honest I can’t say that they taste much different depending on the color, I’ve tasted bigger difference just by eating different green ones 🙂
.It’s either me or my neighbors who once threw an apple from our own gardens just beside the gravel road and now it gives the most delicious red apples 🙂 I do hope the forest owner leaves it alone..
It was supposed to be cloudy all day here so I wasn’t the least surprised that we’ve had sunshine for most part of the day. Ok there has been clouds but the sun has had long periods of shining through. It has been fairly warm as well, 17C (62,6F) so the radiators have been turned off and the kitchen door has been open quite a lot.
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My winter apples that usually aren’t ripe until the middle or late October are already ripe and quite delicious 🙂 I got lots of plums from my neighbors and I realized that I wouldn’t be able to eat them all before they would go bad, not many plums last for any longer period of time I’m afraid. So i cored them out and put them all in the blender. I almost had enough for a big jar but added one of my apples and two satsumas as well 🙂 The apple makes it easier for the jam to harden and I could have used lemon juice but why not use satsumas when I have lots 🙂
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I also added some cardamom because that’s my favorite spice when it comes to sweet things :-)The jam turned out really well so I’ll have some of it on my pancakes tomorrow 🙂 Alma almost behaved on our walks today. Now when she pulls the leash she only pulls it forward and in a steady pace so it’s easier to keep control of her. She also almost only shouts like insane as long as we pass the neighbors cottage and later on the Beekeepers cottage, after that she only whines a lot but at least rather quietly 🙂 🙂 🙂 She still can’t concentrate on anything for more than fifteen seconds though, I’m pretty sure she has some kind of dog ADHD 🙂 🙂
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I almost always bring a plastic bag with me on our walks now so I can pick those mushrooms growing on or just on the side of the roads we’re walking. It may look like much when I come home but after frying them there’s very little left 🙂 🙂 My favorite mushrooms to photograph though are the Red Toadstools. Over here we have plastic ones as decorations in our Advent candlesticks 🙂 so when I see the first ones looking up from the ground I start to think of Christmas, almost as early as the advertisers 🙂 🙂 🙂
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We aren’t supposed to have any sunshine tomorrow so i guess we’ll see quite a lot of the sun 🙂 🙂 They’re also guessing that we might get some rain. The coming week will be chillier and we’ll get lots of rain as well according to their guessing. We do need rain so I won’t complain too much if we actually get it. I wouldn’t mind if it became a bit warmer than they are guessing but if they are right about the clouds being here 24/7 we will at least not have frost at nights and therefore I won’t have to scrape ice from my car 🙂
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It is time to get some hot cocoa and since there’s absolutely nothing I want to watch on tv tonight I might look at a dvd instead. I usually don’t fall asleep when I watch a movie so I will be tired by the time I go to bed 🙂 🙂 🙂
We’ve had a rather nice day over here. It started out cloudy but then the clouds broke up and after that it’s been rather sunny. Lots of smaller clouds up there in the sky but still sunny enough to warm up my little cottage.
.I’ve heard that they’ve been working a lot out at the peninsula this week but at first it didn’t look as they had thinned out anything.They had but just enough so that the trees will have enough space to grow (this is now days a part of the nature reserve. They removed all spruces so that a more natural forest will grow up again). I must admit that it is quite nice to walk around in a birch forest.I also found a Lingon berry 🙂
I went to the optician yesterday and this time it was a young man that checked my eyes, it’s almost a year ago I did that last time so I didn’t think my eyesight had changed at all. Turns out they had. I don’t know why but suddenly he asked me if I was a hunter? I said I’m not and he didn’t have high thoughts about hunters at all 🙂 🙂 Around where he lives it seems they mostly have trophy hunters who doesn’t care about the wild life at all so I was happy to tell him that here it is quite the opposite since they always check how many of each animal we have here and how many they can hunt without disturbing the balance.
The autumn has come much further out on the bog than closer to the village...
I told him about how the hunters not even was upset about us having wolves close by and that they also cared about the lynx living in the area. That would not be the case where he lived. We kept on talking about that for almost twenty minutes but we did actually talk about the lenses too 🙂 🙂 I sure hope he didn’t have any other customer waiting after me 🙂 🙂 🙂 So now I’m waiting for the lenses to be made and when they arrive I’ll get another appointment so they can check that they work for me and then they’ll give me yet another appointment after a week or so to see how things work out. No need to teach me how to put in a lens though, I have no problems what so ever to poke myself in the eye without blinking 🙂
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I had a short walk with the dogs this afternoon and brought a plastic bag just in case I would find any mushrooms. I think I can say that this is a mushroom year. I know quite a lot of edible and unedible mushrooms but I still only pick a few of what actually is edible. There are always too many delicious mushrooms that can look way too much some that are more or less deadly. Even though I know the difference between a deadly White Toadstool and a white champignon I still don’t pick the champignon just in case I for some reason would make a mistake. So I only pick the ones that are totally sure like chanterelles, boletes and hydnoid fungi (and a few more). We don’t have chanterelles in this part of the forest and very few hydnoid fungi but we have loads of boletes.
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The boletes I found today has a slimy layer over its hat and it is a bit tricky to get rid of that before doing anything with the mushroom. It must be something like trying to remove the slime from a slug 🙂 🙂 🙂 They are quite tasty when being fried though 🙂 They are also favorites amongst the larvae community 🙂 So even if it looks like quite a lot when one comes home it really looks like very little when one finally has fried them 🙂 🙂 🙂 I think I have enough for two sandwiches with mushroom stew on them 🙂 🙂 Lots of more mushrooms in the forest though so if I only remember to bring anything to carry them home in I think I’ll have plenty for the rest of the year if I want them in my dinners 🙂
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It is time to give the dogs their dinner and even though I do feel slightly better I think I’ll settle with some toast with perhaps jam and cheese 🙂
Older photos today since I haven’t been out on walks with the dogs.
Nothing has happened here, I’m still at home since my stomach is quite wobbly and I still haven’t tried cooked food yet. I’m so glad I like toast and rose-hip soup 🙂 🙂 🙂
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The weather has been rather mixed. Either strong winds and rain or almost no wind and mostly sunny. I have been able to have the kitchen door open but not as much as I have wanted too because of Alma, she tends to jump over the fence and research what has happened in the neighborhood all by her self.
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I will go the my appointment to the optician tomorrow and I have checked how much lenses cost and to be honest it will be much the same as what my glasses cost. I thought it would be much more expensive to be honest. I’ve learned that the progressive lenses work in another way than glasses, they will be made so that they are as sharpest for reading in the middle of the lens because usually the light is strong while reading and the pupil therefore are small and that will work well when I drive to work now when winter comes because it’ll be pretty dark soon and the pupil therefore is bigger.
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But how will that work when I drive in summer and the sun already is up? Well I guess it’ll work otherwise how would people all around the world who use lenses like this ever be able to drive at all 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve also been taking looks on another camera because I really use my cameras a lot so they’re actually getting closer to when they finally will give up. I did find a really nice Nikon Z5 camera and it wasn’t expensive at all to be honest but it didn’t come with a lens and one need other lenses than the ones I have. There are adapters but those cost almost as much as a lens and I really don’t want to spend a lot of money when we really don’t know how expensive things will be this winter. So I’ll just hope for the best and that my cameras will keep on working until time changes.
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It is time to give the dogs their food and I’ll have tea and toast 🙂
I took a few photos from the window upstairs this morning. I was lucky because the morning mist vanished within minutes.
So I went early to vote yesterday morning, I was there as soon as they opened up and I still had to stand in line. Not more than five minutes but it did feel odd. I was lucky, later in the day some people had to stand in line for hours.
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I don’t know how things work in other countries when it comes to the ballots but here each party has their own ballot. If one is a Swedish citizen we can vote for three different things, the parliament, the region (which takes care of the health care system) and the county. So one need one ballot for each one. Up until last year they had all the ballots on a place where everyone actually could see what one chose, not a great thing to be honest but most of us just took a bunch of ballots from different parties when we went to the screen where we put the ballots in special envelopes.
It was however quite foggy up on the mountain yesterday morning when I went to vote...
Now they decided that the ballots would be in a place where no one could see what one picked, no problems with that really but I and most other people then believed that there would be several places where they had the ballots. How wrong we were and since lots of people hadn’t decided what party/ parties they would vote for until they reached that place it took a lot! of time for people to vote. I don’t know who the idiot is who didn’t think of that, especially since they had been warned that this most likely would happen but who ever it was should never be allowed to be in charge of anything ever again. The lines were so long in some places that people just gave up and walked home without voting.
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Anyway, the results? Well we have eight parties in the parliament and they are divided in to two groups. One is center left parties and the other one is right and fascist. It is at the moment so close that we won’t know for sure until Wednesday evening/ Thursday morning until we actually know which one of them won. Unfortunately it leans towards the right-fascist side. They will have huge problems making it work though because the least right wing party refuses to have anything to do with the government if the fascist party is in it. Then again the fascists won’t be happy if the least right wing party is a part of the government either, especially since they are the biggest party in that group (just above 20%).
I stopped by the Abbey ruins on my way back home but unfortunately most of the fog had drifted away by then...
To be honest the other group, if things would change when all votes are counted, will not have an easier time to create a government either, they have more or less the same problems in their group 🙂 🙂 🙂 It is a bit scary that people who behaves like toddlers in in the defiance age will actually lead this country. I have some kind of stomach flu today so I’m at home and have spent the day in front of the tv watching the two big channels discussing what will happen now and that’s just stupid since we actually don’t know who won! At the moment the right leads with 46000 votes and I think they still have several hundred thousand votes to count. Anything can happen.
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It is time for some rose hip soup and after that I’ll most likely fall asleep in front of the tv as always 🙂
It’s not the nicest of days here. It rained quite a lot last night so the humidity is high but the temperature is low. There’s a rawness in the air that tells me that autumn definitely has arrived.
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There was actually some sunshine when we were out walking this morning but I can’t say it warmed up the air especially much. No wind though and very few flies around to annoy us. I really think they flies should have given up by now considering we’ve had two nights with below 0C (32F). It should be a sign telling them that it is time to hibernate till next year.
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The election for our parliament is tomorrow and I’m so tired of it now. The party leaders in each party behaves like spoiled kids as soon as they show up on tv. The worst thing is that the outcome is so uncertain that it most likely will take just as long (I think it was 175 days) to make a government as the last time. There are eight parties in the parliament and since many don’t talk to each other it will be very complicated to form any kind of government.
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No matter what we’ll all know that the rich will get more rich and the poor will be even poorer and that almost all parties will be blaming the poor for being more poor even though the politicians are the ones to blame, some things will never change I’m afraid.
The day started rather nice, reasonable warm for being an autumn morning and the sun slowly rising. After that it sort of went down hill 🙂 Strong and chilly winds arrived and so did clouds. We did get some sunshine later in the day but the winds were too chilly for the sun to warm up.
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We have some filters at the huge washing machine at work that needs hydrochloric acid and caustic soda to work. No big problem really because we handle it rarely and when we do we have protective clothes and a breathing mask. The problem is that the containers weigh between 75kg and 85kg (165,3 pound and 187,4 pound) and it isn’t possible to use any kind of lifting device where they are placed.
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So I changed four of those containers yesterday and that wasn’t a good thing to do 🙂 🙂 🙂 The joints in my left hand aren’t happy and neither are the joints in the toes on my right foot 🙂 🙂 🙂 My back has some things to complain on as well to be honest so I only stayed for almost half the day at work so the filters could be cleaned. The only reason I’ll go to work tomorrow is because I’m the one who knows what to check inside the washing machine after they’ve stopped painting for the day. We have so much to do now that we work 24 hours a day now and the only time we can really go through the washing machine is on Fridays afternoon.
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I’ve started two radiators today. The chilly wind really cooled down the cottage and even though I’m preparing for lower temperatures to keep the electricity bills down the coming winter I really didn’t want to freeze now when my joints are acting up 🙂 🙂 Sweden is the biggest exporter of electricity in the EU so our electricity should be pretty cheap to be honest but since the EU now is one big market we’re now forced to pay a much higher price because for some reason we must pay when the electricity costs on the open market and that price is founded on what the most expensive power cost at the end of the month. So even if we don’t use especially much natural gas in this country we still have to pay for what the gas costs.
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I really can’t understand that logic to be honest. We really should pay for what the energy costs at that speciffic time we used it and since we don’t use natural gas we really shouldn’t pay the price for it either. They are now thinking of removing the natural gas as the price indicator but EU rarely works fast so who knows when that will happen. So now they say that every house owners should have at least $ 5000 US as a buffer to be able to managed the electricity cost. They are also talking about some kind of support so that we don’t have to pay so much for our power but we’ll have our election for government on Sunday so they’ll say anything right now to be honest.
.Jerusalem artichoke..At least 2,5 meters (much the same in yards) high.
I think it might be the same piglet that escapes every day 🙂 The photos are from both yesterday and today.
This Sunday has passed like most other Sundays. I’ve done the laundry and dinner for next week at work. Not the most exciting of days but the dinner was mostly made by the slow cooker so all I had to do was to go outside and collect the vegetables and potatoes and then put it all in the cooker.
Its siblings stays where they are supposed to...
It has been a rather nice day though. started out a bit cloudy but turned warm enough for me to have the kitchen door open most of it. Well every now and again Alma jumped over to my neighbors so I had to call her back and close the door for a while. Seems like she gets that it sort of is a punishment and stays in the garden after that, at least until she hear something that is too tempting 🙂 🙂 🙂
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She has actually behaved pretty well for being her lately. Ok she pulls the leash but mostly just in the direction we’re walking so that’s a plus. She has also started with sort of whining loudly/ howling when we are about to leave for a walk and then the entire way down the road until we have passed the beekeepers 🙂 🙂 🙂 So now every time she starts I say: Do you want to go indoors and lay down? At first she just looked at me and continued so I dragged her indoors and closed the door and left her there. Ok I didn’t go anywhere but she did get the message 🙂 🙂
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Now every time we leave and she starts I say the same thing and she does quiet down, at least for a while 🙂 🙂 🙂 The only place where she actually calms down and is quiet is where we once saw a couple of sows and some piglets, she can stand there for a long time without making a sound or even move. We’ve only seen the pigs there once but she will never forget it 🙂 🙂 🙂
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It is time to give the dogs their dinner, they have already had one pancake each but that was hours ago. After that I’ll most likely fall asleep in front of the tv as I always do 🙂
We might get up to 80 mm or three and one fifth inches of rain this weekend (or possibly even more, it all depends on where the showers will pass). At the moment we’re having a nice gentle summer rain and almost no winds to speak of. The dogs won’t go outside in it but it’s actually quite nice.
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The morning weather was rather different though. Just below 10C (50F), ground mist and a rising sun. There are no birds singing any more unless one counts the trumpeting from Cranes. When we first hear them it’s a typical spring sound but now when we hear them it’s a typical autumn sound. Lots of them are heading south now together with lots of geese. Some will stay for much longer but those who plays it safe move south already now.
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No flies were around to annoy us thankfully. Well most of the forest flies are gone but it is worrisome that the moose flies already have arrived. They will usually stay until late October or early November unless the worst night frost that will come is nasty cold. It isn’t that many years ago that we didn’t have those nasty flies here but warmer and especially shorter winters have helped them to survive till next spring. We do have lots of spiders this year though and since there has been plenty of annoying forest flies (but actually not especially many horse flies) they’ve had plenty to eat.
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This weekend is the last one with summer temperatures they believe, already on Monday it’ll fall below 20C (68F) and it will stay like that for at least eight days. I don’t want summer temperatures for too long so I’m ok with it but I sure don’t want winter to start early either 🙂 🙂 A perfect climate would be a very long and not too cold autumn followed by a not too early spring, I really don’t mind us skipping winter even though that most likely would mean more ticks, horse flies and moose flies 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I’ve just watched the latest Ghost Buster movie, afterlife I think it’s called. It isn’t that bad to be honest. Sometimes a bit slow between when things happens but otherwise I think it carries on the tradition rather well. Later today I’ll most likely watch Spiderman: No Way Home. I’ve seen so many trailers from it that I feel I’ve actually seen it 🙂 🙂 🙂 First though I’ll need to feed the dogs and force them outside to make their businesses no matter how much it might rain 🙂
The photos are taken with either my phone or my little Sony so they can be taken any morning since last week.
We’ve had lots of thunder lately and today is no exception. It has stayed calm for a while but now it’s closing in again. I don’t mind since the heat will cool down for at least a while.
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Yesterday and before noon today the weather guessings showed that we could possibly get up to two inches of rain today but has since then calmed down considerable, as most we’ll now get perhaps a tenth of that.
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On Wednesday I found a notice about a registered letter that I could fetch in Falköping. I had absolutely no idea what it could be so I took a couple of hours off from work to go and get it. When I get there they check and says I’ve already have fetched it? I don’t know what they are doing at the Swedish postal service because it turns out that it was the parcel I already had fetched!! So it wasn’t a letter and I haven’t gotten a paper note in my mailbox about anything I can pick up at the post office in so many years that I actually can’t remember when it happened the last time 🙂 🙂 🙂 The girl I talked to felt so sorry for me going there unnecessarily that when I bought a soft ice cream she made it so big that I had huge problems eating it 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Today I went to the grocery store in Gudhem and picked up another parcel, this time by another company thankfully, it was my new coffee maker 🙂 I haven’t tried it yet, it is too late for tea or coffee if I want to have any sleep tonight so I’ll do it first thing tomorrow morning 🙂
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I can hear the thunder closing in again, the lightning map says it’s still several km, miles, before it is here but thunder can move fast sometimes.
Yesterday when we were about to take our walk I saw a shower pass by, it didn’t reach us but I did feel a few drops hitting my arm.
I’ve survived the two first day back to work 🙂 It hasn’t been that hard to be honest and I’m not sure half of us are back yet. When I grew up all industries had the summer vacation period at the same time, four weeks so it was called general industrial holiday.
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Suddenly Volvo I think it was decided that we would be able to change that slightly so half of all working in the company could take two weeks earlier than the rest, then the factory would close for two weeks and then the ones that had that earlier vacation started to work while the rest had their vacation. They thought it would be a good idea to only close for two weeks so the production could continue without too much disturbance. Well that didn’t work because they forgot that if only half of the workers were aty work things would move very slowly 🙂 🙂
Even dead butterflies are beautiful.Copper lizard..
Nowdays it varies slightly, at my work place we can have one week before they close for three weeks or one week after. Also one can work during summer if there’s anything to do if one want a later vacation, so some people only have three weeks vacation during summer and take the last two weeks later if they perhaps wants to travel somewhere. I always take four weeks in the summer and save one for christmas. If we’re lucky those five working days together with the holidays can make that one week up to almost three weeks vacation 🙂 🙂
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Yesterday was on the cool side, today was more towards early summer warm. Tomorrow will be vacation warm and after that it’ll be nasty hot if they’re guessing right. The weekend will be the worst and Monday as well but they’re guessing it will start to cool down after that. I don’t mind if autumn waits a bit before it arrives but I really don’t want another heatwave again. I guess however that it’s better than what happened in South Korea yesterday. It fell well over a foot of rain during one hour!
I noticed that in one of the plastic buckets where I put the spruts that fell off from the potatoes I was planting the leafs suddenly had gotten small black spots and that’s a sign that they are infected with potato blight. No bigger problem as long as one remove all green above surface before it spreads down to the potatoes. The problem was that these plants hadn’t flowered yet so the potatoes were going to be pretty small.
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So I went over to my neighbors so we could harvest them. There were potatoes and most were tiny 🙂 They had put some potatoes in the ground as well so they dug up some of those as well, they were almost as tiny as mine were 🙂 🙂 🙂 They do taste delicious though, I tried two of each today, so I’ll have them with my dinner at work tomorrow. I also got some onions, so I braided them together and now they hang to dry in my cool cellar. They won’t dry for long because I will continue to make my dinners for work. The food from the new restaurant is delicious but the price is way too high since we all know that the electricity will be nasty high this comming winter.
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It stayed on the chilly side today, it barely reached 16C (60,8F). I tried to stay outdoors but the flies were nasty. I know we’ll get rain later and that it will be the start of warmer weather arriving so perhaps we’ll have some thunder as well, it would explain why the flies were so nasty. People are saying that there are very few insects flying around where they live, it’s the contrary here. I guess that means nature still works pretty well here and I should of course be happy about that and I most likely would have been if it wasn’t for all those nasty flies that always wants to get in to my bears and nostrils 🙂 🙂 🙂
Mostly male flowers on the squash plants.But suddenly I noticed the first squash 🙂The beans are in bloom and the first bean pods are growing as well 🙂The walnut tree I got hasn’t grown especially much but I hope that it instead had concentrated its energy to grow roots.
I really need to buy new sofas or a sofa and perhaps an armchair. The dogs have gotten the old sofa and I really doesn’t like to sit in it any more 🙂 🙂 🙂 I really like rattan furniture and have seen some ads. The one I liked the most didn’t have pillows and I really wonder why, of course it should be sold with pillows. One I liked had a more Indian style to it and it had pillows 🙂 Even if I really don’t have any special kind of style in my home an Indian style still would look rather odd in my home 🙂 There was also rattan recliners and i do like them a lot but they were also a bit pricy. The delivery home was free though. I’ll continue to see what I can find. The good thing with rattan furniture is that it is easy to vacuum and scrub the floor beneath them, that’s impossible with the furniture I have now.
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It is time for something to eat and later on watch the British Antique Road Show.
The Cottage by the crane lake. 