Category: Cold.

I wish You all a Good Yule!

So the important parts of Christmas, or Jul as we call it, is over. I’ve baked gingerbread and failed something spectacular πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Β It’s like eating hard bread and at first they don’t taste much but after a while the mouth is burning, I think there’s just to much ginger in them πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Still they go down with lots of cold milk πŸ™‚ After that I grilled the ham and had the first slices on a couple of vΓΆrtbrΓΆd sandwiches πŸ™‚

After that I went out with the catch of the night and guess who had returned for a fourth time? Yes the mouse with the short tail. This time however it was in a bad shape and it didn’t make the trip to where I now let them out again. I guess it takes just too much energy for a small yellow-necked mouse to do those long trips, especially in snow and cold weather. I went back for the dogs so we could have our morning walk.

More snow had fallen during the night and it continued to do so until at least noon. Small tiny flakes so it didn’t add that much to be honest, just enough to cover our tracks from yesterday. Snowy days makes the world very quiet, especially since no one was out driving tractors or cars. We did hear a few birds tweeting and a couple of ravens as well. So when one suddenly hear three big moose running in the forest it will be a bit stressing πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ The best thing is just to stop and hope they don’t run over you πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ We didn’t see them this time but running moose in a dense forest do make a lot of sound πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I had a christmas lunch around 1 pm ad it feels like I won’t have to eat anything more this week πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I didn’t think it was that much but christmas food is anything but light πŸ™‚ I napped in my recliner for a while before Donald Duck and his friends celebrates Christmas (The Wonderful World of Disney). We’ve seen this hour long program at 3 pm every year since 1960 and we know most of it by heart now. It is actually one of the most popular reprograms we have here in Sweden and even though they sometimes makes changes in it we don’t care, not as long as they don’t touch Ferdinand the Bull. Last time they tried to do that and show the ugly duckling instead the complaints were so many that they showed him after the original program and is back again since then πŸ™‚ We Swedes can tolerate a lot but not that πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I’ve had a few of my gingerbreads with lots and lots of cold milk and now I’ll skip the tv and read some book instead and I doubt I’ll have anything more to eat. I will however have that last cup of tea but that’s it.

I wish You all a Good Yule!

I guess it’s ok during Christmas :-)

They said the chance/ risk, depending on how one look at it, that we in southern Sweden would get a white christmas was slim to none, so I wasn’t especially surprised when I let the dogs out this morning that we had snow on the ground Β πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Also it continued to snow for quite some time and the temperature has dropped so we will have a white Christmas here this year.

I had a parcel waiting for me at the grocery store in Gudhem so I decided that it was best to pick it up before we went out on our morning walk. I had ordered an aquarium book from 1942 so that I would have something to read this christmas plus the fact it is so old that I would be able to read about cold water fish people since long has forgotten about πŸ™‚ I had hoped to find shredded coconut as well because I had forgotten to buy some when I went to the store yesterday. There’s nothing mice seems to like more than shredded coconut. Unfortunately they didn’t have any but it did remind me of potatoes when I saw the last two bags they had πŸ™‚

A sort of a second flowering πŸ™‚
It is actually quite hard to see these huge animals as long as they stand totally still.

This morning the box had trapped three mice! This time a definitely recognised one of them. Some time in its life it had lost a part of its tail so it was easily recognisable. I went out with them before I drove to the store. We went out on our morning walk as soon as I came home and walked much the same way as when I released the mice. We passed the last little field before entering the forest and something caught my attention. I didn’t see them at first but then I saw them, three moose! One big cow, one calf and the third too small to be an adult moose but still too big to be a calf. I’ve seen them before a couple of times and felt happy that they’ve survived the hunting season so far.

The dogs didn’t see them but they understood they were somewhere near πŸ™‚ I must say that Alma has come a long way, just a few months earlier and she would have gone berserk πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ For once she actually started to follow the scents on the ground instead of screaming like obsessed and whining like she has gone crazy πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ We didn’t see any more big animals but both Alma and Malkolm kept their noses to the ground for the entire walk πŸ™‚

I have actually been rather active today because when we came home again the first thing I saw when I went down in the cool cellar was that the trap had another prisoner. Well if that mouse with the short tail come here again I just as well get a cage and have it as a pet πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ It wasn’t the least stressed to see me, rather the opposite to be honest πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ It had taken it slightly more than two hours to find its way home again πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ So I just took the trap and walked even further away before I released it again πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I was worried for a while that I for some reason had all forest mice and yellow necked mice in the entire area but I think I’ve just caught the same ones all the time πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

After that I made the gingerbread dough. The recipe said that I should have agave syrup and coconut fat but since I’m not a millionaire I used normal syrup and butter. The dough will rest until tomorrow morning before I make the cookies. I will however not be without anything nice to eat today because my neighbours daughters (six and three years old I think) wanted me to have something as a christmas gift, so they made me some fudge and butterscotch to have during christmas, well it won’t last that long because it was delicious πŸ™‚

After that I baked two loafs of VΓΆrtbrΓΆd, they came out rather nice, I and the dogs have already tried a couple of slices with a christmas cheese πŸ™‚ So tomorrow I’ll bake the gingerbreads and also grill the christmas ham. I bought a small already cooked one because now days we really don’t use the water it was cooked in as they did back in the days when every calorie one could get was important. They used to heat it up and dip stale bread in it the get up all the fat still in the rather salty water. It has never been a favourite of mine so I buy ready cooked instead.

It is time to have that last cup of tea for the day and of course some of the christmas candy my neighbours gave me πŸ™‚ Tomorrow is our big day of christmas and if I get some time over I’ll write something here πŸ™‚

Have a great day!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Well it’s thankfully frost and not snow :-)

I knew it was going to get colder but I didn’t know it would be that cold. the temperature dropped down to -7C (19,4F) this morning. The fog was gone though and the sky clear so I forgave the cold weather since it would mean sunshine πŸ™‚

One funny thing with fog and below freezing point temperatures is that the ice created on the windshields on the car is just as good protecting against bullets like kevlar is πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I really don’t like the motor running so the heat will soften the ice in but even that heat had problems thawing that ice, so I removed as much as I could and drove to the edge of the village. There I stopped and removed most of what was left but it still wasn’t easy πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

So I guessed right, there was almost no traffic on the roads, the big ones were ice free but the smaller ones in the forest was anything but. I wasn’t in any hurry though so I just drove as fast as it was possible and still have a chance to stop if any animals would jump out on the road. Usually they stay calm when it is this cold though but one never knows. The only wildlife I did see today was the two tiny mice I caught in the box trap πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Β I’ve decided to move the peanut bird feeder from the kitchen window because I know they will climb up to it and eat the peanuts and that’s ok as long as they don’t walk inside again like they just had bought some takeout πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I had written down a list what to buy in the grocery store and even remembered touring it with me but I still wasn’t prepared for how much it was or the price to be honest πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I bought big packets of most things because it will most likely cost even more in the long run if I buy the smaller packages. Plus I would have to drive many more times to get what I need so I’ll have to add the petrol price as well and even though the petrol price is really low here right now it still costs a lot to drive shorter distances since the car barely gets warm enough to work effective. I will at least not starve during christmas and new years eve πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

So I wished every one in the store a merry christmas (or as we say a good yule) and continued to my old working place and wished those who worked a merry christmas as well. There were more people working today than I thought it would be but I think everyone has taken tomorrow off and most likely till after new years eve. I don’t think I’ve ever worked during christmas time ever. Normally I have stopped working at December 22 and not come back to work until after the 6th of January. I always saved a week of vacation and the rest of the time I used the hours I’ve saved during the year.

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I had planned to bake a couple of loafs of bread today but it takes such a long time so I wouldn’t be in bed until midnight and that’s way too late for me so I’ll bake them tomorrow and I’ll make some rice porridge in the slow cooker at the same time, it is after all our christmas porridge (and also the porridge we give to the yule gnome at christmas πŸ™‚

Have a great day!

I almost missed it :-)

Β 

We woke up to a cold and foggy world today which, despite the cold, is one of my favourite weathers πŸ™‚ So as soon as it was light enough the dogs and I walked out to the bog. If I had known the fog would stay all day we would have had a longer walk down to the creek and out on the bog there. Days like these are quiet days, not only does the fog dampen sounds from the big road but also no birds make any sounds at all. Well there was these two ravens flying above us who made their metallic sounds a couple of times but that was it.

Alma behaved so well so if there had been any animals out on the fields we would have been able to see them, at least if they were close enough because the fog was so thick sometimes that the camera couldn’t find places to focus on πŸ™‚ Β we walked out on the peninsula and when we stood there looking out over the bog we could hear something moving around but it never came close enough for us to see it. It was most likely one or two wild hogs because if they know we are around they really don’t care if they can be seen πŸ™‚ and really doesn’t care if we hear them. I always thought the wolves would hunt them but I’ve learned that wolves aren’t especially interested in wild hogs and I guess that’s why they don’t care about being heard or seen.

I sat in my recliner after we had come home and started to think about what time I was going to x-ray my hips tomorrow and after that see my doctor. I have experimental hip implants in my hips since I was too young to get hip prostheses since they would wear out way to fast. Turns out that these implants mostly were quite horrible to those getting them. They leaked lots of heavy metals in to the body and both the bones, muscles and tendon attachments could start to dissolve because of that. The doctor I had for my first surgery however is a snob πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ so he chose the most expensive kinds there was and therefore I have no such problems πŸ™‚ My “new” doctor of course chose the same kind for my other hip πŸ™‚ They do check my blood and take new x-rays every five years now (before it was every year) just in case something goes wrong. So if they can’t find any heavy metals in my blood I’ll do this again after five years πŸ™‚

Anyway it turns out it was today I would go to the hospital πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I still had lots of time going there so no panic πŸ™‚ Normally I don’t mind driving around in fog unless it is dark outside or that it is colder then 0C (32F) since fog is water and when it hits the road it starts to freeze. Most of the way was fine though but it had started to freeze on my way home. No traffic at that time though so I could drive in the speed I felt safe, also it helps if one drives behind a tractor the last 500 meters before driving in on the village gravel road πŸ™‚Β 

It started to become dark again as soon as I had come home otherwise we would have had another walk to the forest but since we have hogs, moose and eventual wolves here I didn’t want to meet any of them when it was dark πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I haven’t figured out what to have for dinner so I guess it’ll be warm sandwiches with meatballs and sausages and lots of cheese πŸ™‚ Plus I*ll of course have that last cup of tea for the day πŸ™‚

Have a great day!

So this is my Korean spruce. Its top was destroyed long ago and it took may years before a branch decided to become the new top πŸ™‚ So it does have an odd shape.
So the lights also have an odd shape πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

Another cold day, the temperature reached 0C (32F) as highest and to be honest that’s not so cold this time of year now days. I remember one year, about 21 years ago when winter started with snow and below freezing temperatures all the time in October and it lasted until early May. Lots of snow as well so that was for me a nightmare winter πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ and I hope it’ll never happen again πŸ™‚

I could hear the wind blowing in the tree tops but it never reached the ground. So even if the sun was hesitant to show itself we still had a nice morning walk, especially since Alma only whines once in a while. Β She pulled the leash like insane some times though but rather that than her high pitched whining. For me that sound is like a fork drawn over a plate would be like for the rest of the world I guess and hearing it constantly on every walk (which lasts at least an hour, often much more) it’s like torture. So days when she only does it every now and again are joyful days πŸ™‚

I got that light chain in the mail today, so I put it up in the spruce with an odd shape. No matter how I do the lights looks really odd πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Still any light is a good light. I’ll take photos tomorrow. I have one in my phone but either I miss something or the transfer of a photo from a phone to an iMac computer is ridiculously complicated. In a PC one just mail the photo to oneself and voila! It’s in the computer easily reach when needed, in an iMac not so unfortunately.

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and today they show the weekly science program on tv. I’ve slept badly for a couple of days now because I have gotten pimples on my earlobes πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I didn’t know one could get pimples there but now I’ve learned something πŸ™‚ They hurt like h..l when I rest my head on the pillow. One on each ear so it doesn’t matter on what side I sleep on πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

Have a great day!

They say it’ll warm up again.

So another really nice and sunny day but rather cold. I could see the wind power plants up on the mountain moving with the wind but that wind didn’t reach us down on the ground. We walked down to the mostly frozen creek and when we walked out on the field there I saw two White tailed eagles fly up from the ground just 50 meters (much the same in yards) away from us πŸ™‚ I guess they were eating something but I didn’t check what it was πŸ™‚

Instead of following the creek all the way down to the forest we took a turn and crossed the field and walked in to the forest further away. There’s an old road there no one ever use (unless when they cut down the trees) and followed it till the end where we then walked in to the older forest and later to the creek up-streams instead. This is wild hog area but we didn’t see or hear any today. Well I think the dogs might have since they both stared towards a thicket of spruces but that was it.

White tailed eagles.

I thought the water level in the creek would be lower now when we didn’t have any rain or snow but it is actually much higher.

They say that it will turn to warmer weather again already tomorrow and I’ll believe it when it happens. I will miss the dry ground if it’s right but then again I will also feel happy about the warmer air even though it might mean less sunshine. As the saying goes, we can’t have it all unless we are rich enough to travel to where the weather is to our liking of course πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I haven’t been walking g in this part of the forest in many years, mostly because this is a very swampy area but frozen water is really great to walk on πŸ™‚

I’ve ordered a new wallet, my old one is falling to pieces and I haven’t found any in any store so when I found one on the net I bought it. Younger people now days don’t use wallets, they sort of combine the wallet with their phone case but I really don’t like that. Yes I know I’m old πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Β but I don’t want to lose it all by losing just one thing, like the phone. If I lose the phone I still have my wallet with everything important in it and if I lose my wallet I still have the phone so I can make those calls to stop anyone from using my cards and get a new driving license πŸ™‚

I’ve also ordered Christmas lights for my oddly shaped Korean spruce. If one looks at that spruce it looks like some kind of armchair made in the sixties πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ You know those laid back space inspired ones πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Well it is the only one I have bog enough so this year I’ll have some outdoor lights. The lights is eleven meters long (much the same in yards) and battery driven. It can either shine all the time or shine for six hour and then start at the same time next day. No one here is outside at night anyway so that will be great. I will of course take a photo of it when the light chain has arrived and dressed around the spruce πŸ™‚

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and later today I’ll watch the game show On the Tracks. My oldest brother and I send texts to each other when we think we know the answers, we are usually very wrong πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

Have a great day!

Nasty wind.

I doubt the monster wanted the bird seeds πŸ™‚

Β 

Less cold today but we’ve had a nasty, bitterly cold wind blowing almost all day so it has been rather unpleasant to be outdoors. It was totally calm on our morning walk though so that was nice. I think I might have a fever now, I woke up last night felling awfully hot but my bedroom is anything but and today I’ve had a slight fever and sneezed a lot all day. I’m not sitting here feeling sorry for myself though but I do hope this isn’t the beginning of something worse like what my neighbours had last week.

Nothing special is happening here at the moment. Β I have been thinking on Christmas decorations for some reason. I haven’t had a lot of that because cats and having rather big dogs that picked anything in their reach and chewed on them if they liked the taste πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I do have a nice plastic Christmas tree and I’ve used it for two years but now I have a cat again πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I do remember having a nativity set back in the days that I liked a lot but then one day I couldn’t find it, turns out my mother had given it away without asking me, quite common behaviour from her I’m sorry to say.

So I went online to see what they had there. Lots of different ones and they cost a fortune! Some I think I would be able to do better myself to be honest. I did find one I liked meant to be hanging on a wall I guess but it is oddly enough supposed to be filled with water?? Is it a kind of snow globe perhaps and every time one shakes it snow will fall down over the people? πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ To be honest, I have seen worse and I think that one would be the one working best because it would hang like a painting on the wall and the monster wouldn’t care about it. I’ll better check it once again πŸ™‚

I took an extra look at it and no there’s no snow in it πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ It’s called a lantern with LED lights in it but why the water? Also rather expensive to be honest. Well I’ll keep on looking or perhaps I should try to make one myself even though making the humans and animals will be very tricky πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I do of course have the advent candlestick I made from clay last year. Β It’s not the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen but I did it myself, perhaps I should order some clay again and make the nativity set πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I will at least have lots of fun making it πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and then go out on the net to see whether I’ll buy some clay πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

Have a great day!

Still waiting for that snow.

View from my kitchen window.

Still waiting for that snow to arrive. Well to be honest we have actually had some but so little that it’s hard to find πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Β They are threatening us with more later on though so I guess we’ll get it sooner or later. There has been snow chaos in other places though and I’m so glad it never came to us.

We have had fog though, so thick in the early morning that it was hard to see anything and then it slowly started to thin out just to come back again later. I do like fog so I didn’t complain but it did make the day a bit dark to be honest. The eyes didn’t notice it that much but the camera did πŸ™‚

I had prepared for a snowy day so I made lots of rice porridge and learned that it worked just as well on a foggy day πŸ™‚ Rice porridge is not something one make unless it is cold and snowy because it takes a long time to make, easily gets burned and if it is burned one has to toss it away because it tastes awful. Making it on a stove is hot and boring since one must stir it around pretty often. I however make it in the slow cooker so even though it takes almost three hours to make one only have to stir it a few times.

I put on a new collar on the monsterkitten yesterday and she wore it for almost half a day before she lost it πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Β This time I wrote my phone number on the collar so I got a call just minutes ago, she had lost it at the farm just up the slope πŸ™‚ So I’ll get it tomorrow when I’ll check if I’ve gotten any mail. I guess that’s the place she mostly walks to because she does tend to smell like a cow Β now days. I’m pretty sure her mother was one of the feral cats living there and that’s where the cat looking almost identical to her lives at as well πŸ™‚

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day. It is pitch black outside and the temperatures will drop considerable so tomorrow morning might be the coldest morning so far this winter.

Have a great day!

The snow is closing in.

We might get up to two decimeters (eight inches) of snow from tonight and until Friday afternoon so I decided to go to the store already today so I don’t have to drive in that garbage weather on Friday. I know, snow is pretty but I truly dislikes it. The only time I actually liked it was rather many years ago when I spent Christmas in a cottage even more remote than where I live now.

I rented a cottage back then in a region called Dalsland, close to the Norwegian border, and I had the best Christmas ever (I think that I have written about it here in my blog a year or two or perhaps even more years ago πŸ™‚ ). Over half a meter of snow (much the same in yards), -28C (-18,4F), no electricity but a fire stove and my then two dogs and one cat. There’s no light pollution at all there so even if I can see lots of stars here it’s nothing compared to there. I spent an entire week there and as I said it’s the only time I actually have liked snow πŸ™‚

This and the rest of the photos are taken with analog cameras and if I remember it right it’s an Agfa Ambiflex I took these six first ones, then two with a Nikon F90 and the four last ones with an Agfa Colorflex (can be wrong with that last one though).

Back then mobile phones just started to become popular so to hope for any kind of signal there was to hope for a miracle πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I would have loved to live there but I think there’s a bigger chance to find a job on the planet Mars than in that region πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Β Well I’ll have to endure the snow here no matter what but I do think that if I ever won the lottery I would buy something small in southern France so I could stay there during winter and move back here when spring arrives πŸ™‚

I didn’t bring any digital camera with me on our walks today but it looks much the same as it did a few days back and I also have some wintery photos taken with film cameras last winter so perhaps I’ll put in a few of those. I think it is time for that last cup of tea for the day, I will not bake a mug cake today no matter how yummy it was so I’ll just have that tea and perhaps watch some tv even if I doubt that there’s anything I want to watch, there rarely is.

Have a great day!

Cold.

Pretty chilly here and even though I ‘m not that fond of cold weather I still have to admit that it is nice to walk on ground that isn’t muddy and as long as we have almost no wind it’s quite nice. Ok no wind means higher price on electricity but I guess that’s something we need to take wether we like it or not.

Nothing has happened here so I have very little to write about. We did have the first real snow this morning but it was so little that I only could see it lying on my entrance stairs. If I knew we won’t have any more I would even say that I liked it πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I was planning on having a little nap every day now when I am at home but so far I’ve had none. The morning just flies by and when I think of having one it’s too late, at least if I want to have any more daylight hitting my eyes. The sun sets already at 3:43 pm now and it is a long time left until it turns again. I really should have been born so much further south where the sun stay up longer during winter and the temperatures never drops πŸ™‚ Then again I would miss our summers here when it never gets especially dark, just a couple of hours in the middle of the night.

I made a mug cake today. I can’t remember if I ever have done that before. I wasn’t hungry but wanted something so I went out on the net to see what I could find. The recipe said to use cocoa but I put in a piece of mashed banana and some cinnamon instead and it turned out really yummy. I would have made one more if I hadn’t eaten my last banana πŸ™‚ Well now I know what I can do if I feel that way again πŸ™‚

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I really wish I had made that mug cake now instead πŸ™‚

Have a great day!

So cold!

It was a bit colder this morning than I thought it would be, it had dropped down to -9,4C (15,08F) as coldest. No wind and sunshine all day made our walks really nice though. I wore my studded boats because it is no fun sliding on ice and breaking something while being out at the bog where it would be very hard to find me πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ That however made it impossible to walk silent, those studs against the gravel road sounds like I’m crushing the stones πŸ™‚ So instead of seeing them we could hear them run away in panic in all directions πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

It is much the same when I have them while shopping, people don’t run away but everyone looks around to see what it is breaking down πŸ™‚ but it’s only in the beginning of winter that happens because after that most people use studs in either ones that can be removed from the shoes (no one will because they are horrible to try and get back when going outside again) or shoes with studs already in them. Even teenagers use them now days, might be nice to not have to go to school but no fun not being able to go anywhere anyway πŸ™‚

Lots of hunting dogs moving around us while we were at the bog, not from this area but dogs doesn’t know any borders, especially not if they follow what ever it is they’re hunting. So we didn’t walk as far as I wanted to. Not that those dogs actually would care about us but because Alma would go nuts and start to screaming like crazy and I really didn’t want the hunters believe that their dogs was mauled by wolves πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I hope there are less out hunting tomorrow πŸ™‚

Despite it being so cold now I haven’t heard a single mouse in the cottage walls, it looks like the monster is doing a good job πŸ™‚ It is time for that last cup of tea for the day.

Have a great day!

I took lots more photos today so perhaps I’ll save them for another day πŸ™‚

Tiny, tiny snowflakes.

Yes they fell yesterday evening but they were tiny and I think all of them melted away as soon as they hit anything because of all the rain we had just before they started to fall. When I say tiny, imagine misty rain, drops just slightly bigger than fog drops becoming snow instead.

It want cold during night though so I was happy I had bought new studded boots so I could walk anywhere even if it was mostly ice. -4,8C (23,36F) as coldest and just before we went out on our morning walk. Lots of frost everywhere so I must admit that the world did look rather pretty and it even gave me some Christmas feelings πŸ™‚ We walked down to the creek and I was a bit hesitant to walk on the road over the creek. Last time we had this much water in it I fell down in to a sink hole created by water flowing beside the concrete pipe that usually leads the water. I was lucky that time because I happened to fall so my feet hit the concrete pipe and I also still had my shoulders high enough up so I could get out from there πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

The little metal bridge isn’t especially visible any more πŸ™‚ I really didn’t want to try and walk on it so we followed the field until I found a place where we could pass and in to the forest.

All worked well this time but it was impossible to cross over to the forest on the other side of the fields so we had to walk quite some distance before the ditch that follows the edge was dry enough to walk over to the forest. The reason by the way that the water level is as high is because of beavers, they’ve more or less plugged the entire concrete pipe with sticks and mud πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Β The rest of the walk wasn’t that exciting πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Β and I never saw any beaver. Just as well because it happens that they attack people if they get too close and there’s also that beaver that for some reason walked up to a bust stop in a bigger city here in Sweden and bit a woman (I think it was) that was waiting for the bus. Just imagine those huge, yellow sharp teeth cutting in to Your leg!

Normally however beavers are very shy so no reason to be afraid to see one close by πŸ™‚ I also went to a grocery store in FalkΓΆping today. I had bought what I wanted when I realised that it was a really long time since I had eaten reindeer, back in the days those packages were rather small. just enough for one or perhaps two dinners. Have You ever eaten it? If not You’ll either hate or love it. Reindeer with boiled potatoes and a mushroom stew is delicious according to my tastebuds. Anyway, I noticed that the price is nasty high now, even more expensive than filet of beef and the package was almost a pound so I had to skip it. To be honest, anything tastes great with a good mushroom stew πŸ™‚

The reason I want to FalkΓΆping to buy groceries instead of Skara like I usually do was because I was going to pick up a small package on my way home. I had ordered some Narcissus bulbs and seeds to a small banana plant with edible bananas (if they ever would like to show up) and another seed I can’t remember at the moment. What looked like a good idea last week when it still would be fairly warm (when it comes to the bulbs) is now a slightly less good idea πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Bulbs can be planted as long it is possible to make a hole in the ground and it will stay pretty chilly here for a long while it looks so I’ll most likely plant them in a pot and keep the in the cool cellar during winter and plant them when they have flowered next spring.

Now I remember what the other seed bag is, an edible passion flower species, Barbadine I think it’s called in English. I already have the common passion fruit flower seeds and thought that now when I have a greenhouse I’ll try them in there during summer. They usually germinate quite easy but to get fruit one need two different vines. By that I mean You can’t take a cutting from one and think that it is another plant because it is the exact same one that You took the cutting from. So two seed sown plants are needed and they will not give any fruit the first year. Passion flowers grow like weeds to be honest so as long as one treat them as they like they’ll never die πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

It is already (5:13 pm) almost as cold outside as it was this morning so I don’t want to guess how cold it’ll be tomorrow when I wake up πŸ™‚ Sunny all day though so it might be nice anyway. It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and after that, later tonight, watch my favourite quiz program On the Tracks.

Have a great day!