Category: Cold.

We had sunshine most parts of the day yesterday and were supposed to have some today as well so of course we hadn’t 🙂 🙂 🙂 Instead we had my second favorite weather today, fog and at times really thick fog. Tomorrow we’re supposed to have fog all day so perhaps the sun will show itself then instead 🙂

     

But we didn’t just have fog, tiny, tiny snow flakes fell all day as well but since they were so small and few it isn’t noticeable anywhere on the ground, I can accept snowfall like that 🙂 🙂 It was a nice morning walk despite it being below 0C (32 F) because there was no wind what so ever blowing. Also both Malkolm and Alma behaved pretty well after the first couple of hundred meters (much the same in yards) of the walk.

     

I still, to my own surprise, have christmas feeling. I normally have them late October to some time in the middle of November and then they die out 🙂 🙂 🙂 I guess it can be because I don’t have to go out to scrape the windows of the car, feel well rested and actually just because the snow is falling even though it can’t be seen 🙂 I haven’t felt this well rested in years to be honest but I still can’t promote unemployment unless one is rather wealthy 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’m not so I better keep on looking for a job or win the lottery 🙂 🙂

They have removed the blockage in the creek so now the water level is much lower again.

 

It is time for a cup of tea but nothing more, the dogs and I have just eaten some pancakes and that’s enough for me but they and the cat will have their dinners just after this, even though they all had pancakes as well 🙂

     

Have a great day!

I went to the mail box and checked if I had gotten any mail, we only get it every second day and I never remember what days they are 🙂 Anyway I took this photo on my way back. The left one is my neighbors and the right one is mine.

Been to the supermarket in the early morning and followed the note I’d written and instead of buying more things I don’t need I actually removed some since I really don’t need them and probably want to have other things next time I’ll go to the grocery store 🙂

     

We were supposed to have rain today but I don’t think we’ve had any, we did get some sunshine instead and that was a good swap I think 🙂 Above 0 C (32 F) temperatures today so the snow and frost is slowly melting away, very slowly it still stays in places where the sun can’t reach. I don’t think Alma has behaved so well ever before as she did today!! I only wish I knew what was different this time 🙂 🙂

     

Every time my or my neighbors cars aren’t working as they should we borrow each others cars. Last year just before Christmas my old Peugeot broke down totally I could borrow their VW, this time they have their Volvo at the garage so now they borrow my Renault 🙂 I might have a rather shit life in some ways this autumn/ winter but I do have the best neighbors one can have 🙂 Also they like when my dogs jump over the fence and plays with their children and that’s a huge relief 🙂 🙂 🙂 So at the moment it’s a good thing I’m at home most of the time 🙂 🙂

     

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day. I baked some french rolls today and they sort of sank and are a bit flat but texture wise they actually are really close to the “real” ones but they taste absolutely nothing at all 🙂 🙂 🙂 So I’ve been sitting here wondering how all taste just have vanished when I remember that I forgot to put in salt 🙂 🙂 🙂 I tend to bake on a hip as we say here but I think I can remember how much of each product I used so I can do them again and put salt in too 🙂 🙂 🙂

Well if Alma is cleaning her up she of course does the same to her 🙂

I wonder what the Yule Gnome is trying to defend himself from? People who’d rather have Julmust? the biggest of all sodas during this time of year 🙂

Have a great day!

The temperature dropped down to -10 C (14 F) again last night and it has stayed a bit chilly all day but we did get lots of sunshine instead so that made it all feel so much nicer. I always feel that even if one really doesn’t have any bigger problems during winter anything always feel so much worse than when it is sunny and at least above freezing when it comes to temperatures. Like if the car behaves odd I can take it with a smile during a nice spring to a nice autumn day but if something happens during winter everything just feels like life’s about to end in a miserable way 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

Last evening when I just had gone to bed a big lorry drove by my cottage. I was a bit surprised but it happens when they’ve cut down trees but I hadn’t seen any bigger logs lying by the road. Today I realized that it had been a lorry full with gravel, they had poured it out on the road down to the creek. Unfortunately they had used bigger stones than what one usually do and these stones are too big to settle on the ground, they will continue to move while walking on them and either one stumbles on them, fall and get nasty cuts in the hands when having fallen or one sprains ones ankles. If we’re lucky one will be able to walk without injuring oneself after three or four years. Plus the layer is so thin that I can’t see the use with it.

New gravel and it looks nice but is hellish to walk on.

   

Anyway we had to walk on them since we walked don to the creek and the older forest and I almost sprained my left ankle 🙂 🙂 🙂 Since it was a but troublesome to cross the creek yesterday we also had to walk back home on the same gravel road 🙂 The dogs dislike it as well and our mood while walking there wasn’t helped by Almas’ constant whining 🙂 🙂 🙂 I so wish I knew why she continues to keep on doing that.

   

I brought in three big branches from what I pruned off the apple tree yesterday. I wanted to bring in more but I have no idea what so ever where I’ve placed my big old urn, something in the back of my head says one of my old cats broke it but I do hope that’s a false memory. I can’t say it was beautiful in any way but it was practical to have during easter when we bring in lots of branches for easter and dress them more or less like our christmas trees but with other things like colored feathers and chocolate eggs filled with creamy nougat and chickens and I can go on forever 🙂

     

When we Swedes first started to have christmas trees they used to be put at the top of flagpoles, so only rich people could do that. Then they brought the tree inside and they hanged it from the ceilings so the trees were of course smaller. It took some time until they placed them on the floor and if they dressed it they often used apples ( and if it was a rich family perhaps oranges, by the way do You know that the Swedish name for orange (apelsin) means apple from china) which they could eat on Christmas, not the oranges they would most likely have started to mold by then but the apples.

     

It is time for that last cup of tea and then fall asleep in front of the tv 🙂

    The Himalayan Cedar is looking good so far.

Have a great day!

A winter day.

 

-10 C (14 F) when we went out for our morning walk, the sun was supposed to shine from early morning until it set so naturally we only had sunshine for an hour. The wind wasn’t strong but had a nasty bite to it so it was a relief when we could walk in to the forest. 

     

We walked down to the creek but the opposite way than usual so that we only had to walk in the cold wind at the beginning of our walk. I could see how the clouds above our head stopped just before the mountain so those living on the other side of it or at the top had sunshine all the time during our walk 🙂 🙂 🙂 I noticed that the water level is really high now and when we reached the little bridge that allows us to continue with our walk along the creek it was almost totally covered in ice. 

     

So we walked up the field to see if there was any place we could pass and then walk down to the creek again. I unfortunately thought I had found such a place but the brink of that ditch broke and my left foot sunk down into it 🙂 🙂 🙂 It looks like I had taken very good care of the boots because I didn’t get wet inside the shoe at all.  Still my boot smells s bit of bog and so does my trousers 🙂 🙂 🙂 On the way back home we passed some working horses, the forest owner almost always hires a guy who works with horses in the forest to make as little damage as possible. Alma wanted to become hysterical but lots of treats made her manage it well 🙂

     

I’ve read in a couple of places that before we started to have christmas trees in our homes people tended to bring in smaller crab apple trees instead. If they planned it right the little apple tree would start to flower at christmas. So today I went outside and started to prune my seed sown apple tree. I’ve shaped it in a fan shape so it doesn’t grow too wide into the cow pasture beside. The cows will chew away those branches growing there anyway. 

     

When You prune fruit trees like apples and pears only take a third of what is needed. If You take more the tree will do anything to get back all those leafs that it has lost and do it in autumn because that’s when the tree prepares to slow down before winter and won’t realize that it has lost all those leafs. Then next year take half of what You want to remove and the third year the rest, after that just check every now and again if something needs to be removed. Anyway I’ll take in some of those branches I cut of and put in a big vase and see if I can manage to make it flower till christmas 🙂

     

The ice cream lorry is on the way so I’ll go outside to buy some to have on christmas eve morning 🙂

Have a great day!

Northern winds today.

 

So I went with my neighbor to get my car this morning and thankfully those working in the reception start half an hour early because it was a bit too chilly to have to stand and wait outside until I could get my car 🙂 I would have survived but it wouldn’t have been nice 🙂

Lots of lichens on the trees says we have a very clean air here.

 

I was going to the store as well today but it was too early for that as well, so I drove to my old work place and made a visit to my old work friends. Times  are hard now so they didn’t have much to do. I may not like the leadership of that place but I don’t want my old friends to lose their jobs. The leadership made a huge miscalculation to how much we would have to do when they started the evening/night shift so people have had to go. Well that happens when one believes one is a god but quite frankly is dumb as a doorknob 🙂 🙂 🙂

   

After that I went to the grocery store in that village, I’ve done most of my grocery shopping there since I moved to this county and that’s over 27 years now, so I won’t stop now just because I don’t live nearby. I don’t go there as often though but since I know them all it’s worth the trip every now and again 🙂 I didn’t have any shopping list today but surprisingly I managed to get everything I wanted but for a cheese. I remember that I turned towards the cheese but something caught my eye and I never got one with me home 🙂 🙂 So it’s a good thing that I have a neighbor working at a supermarket 🙂 So now I have what I need for almost a week I think 🙂

   

I think someone is out cutting down trees somewhere close to the creek. To be honest I can’t hear anything sounding like those huge saws they have but something big that makes a lots of noise works down there anyway. I don’t think anyone will work there tomorrow so I think I’ll have our morning walk there tomorrow. If they work we won’t come anywhere near before Alma freaks out, she is very sensitive to noise and it doesn’t have to be especially loud, she was so stressed on our walk today and we walked far away. Next time we’ll go to the vet I’ll ask him if there’s anything I can give her so she doesn’t work herself up like she does. It has gone worse again after Nova had to leave.

   

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I might make myself a couple of sandwiches, perhaps have some christmas ham, beetroot salad(I’ve understood that our beetroot salad isn’t the same You have on the other side of the ocean, we have vinegar and mayo as the base in ours) and I might even have a couple of slices of strong cheese 🙂

Not many photos from the wild life camera lately. So here’s one of the cats from the farm uphill 🙂

Have a great day!

A bit chilly.

We had a clear sky when I woke up this morning and I could see that the sun was rising even though it still was a couple of hours before that happened. I opened the door and followed the dogs outside and realized that if we stayed outdoor for more than a few minutes we would all die 🙂 🙂 still standing as the ones the Ice queen in Narnia froze to statues 🙂 🙂

     

-12 C (10,4 F) but thankfully no wind at that moment. we did get a very weak wind when we went out on our walk though but by then the sun was up shining, not that it felt especially much warmer but my imagination is strong so I decided it was 🙂 🙂  We walked down to the bog and out to the island I like so much to walk at.  This time I decided that we should walk on the more beautiful side of it. I think it must have been well over a year since we were there, can’t remember Malkolm ever walking there so it must have been long before he moved here. That side of the island is as it most beautiful when spring hasn’t turned to summer because the sun reach that side and all mosses and lichens shine so beautiful in that light early in the morning.

   

What I didn’t know was that lots of dead trees had fallen during the storms that it was impossible to walk that way. It’s a nature reserve so fallen trees stays where they are. So instead we had to walk through a dense shrubbery containing mostly of young birches, really fun to do that with a dog like Alma 🙂 🙂 🙂 We finally managed to walk through it and to the island again. Unfortunately the frozen water in the bog was covered with snow and so was all moss and lichens, not by much but enough to hide what it looks like there. Still a beautiful place though. We did hear a deer jumping away so after that Alma was slightly impossible to walk with.

    This is actually the county border, I live around 200 meters from it.

I did make a macaroni pudding today and I must say it was delicious 🙂 I ate too much of course but there’s still enough left for dinner tomorrow. I also tried one of all the recipes on apple pie made in a micro. Well I wouldn’t call what I did a pie in any way, it was more like oatmeal cookies with apples mixed in 🙂 🙂 Still really nice but not a pie. There seems to be loads of those recipes so I think I’ll try another tomorrow 🙂

     

It’ll have be cold tomorrow as well and sunshine all day long, at least that is what they all are guessing but it will be almost 10 C (50 F)  on Sunday. It will also rain they say but I will not complain, I really don’t like winter 🙂 I really am born in the wrong part of the world when it comes to the cold season 🙂 🙂 Time for a last cup of tea for the day and then some tv watching, for once there’s actually something I want to see 🙂

     

Have a great day!

The water filled puddles are impossible to see when the thin layer of snow covers them.

 

It was snowing when we woke up and went out to the garden this morning, mostly tiny flakes though so the roads are white but barely no snow can be seen in the fields. Pretty cold outside but it was the wind that made it feeling too cold. Not around here in my garden but when we passed the fields the cold wind blew right through me.

   

There are lots of these old roads in to the forest, they were made so that it would be easier to get timber in and out of the forest.

We walked down to the creek and followed it down stream. The surface has already started to freeze, mostly because the water flows really slow because there’s apparently a log blocking the water flowing. So since this is the first time Malkolm has seen frozen water in the creek he happily took a step out on it 🙂 🙂 🙂  Thankfully it was easy to pull him up since he’s wearing a harness 🙂 🙂 He didn’t go down especially far, only up to his stomach so he had wet legs mostly. I think he enjoyed it though 🙂 🙂

The secret passage. It’s almost impossible to see the opening even when looking at in the real. Could be a way to Narnia, I should try it some day 🙂

   

The day has been calm after that, we’ve been in and out to the garden and I brought in the wildlife camera, just three blurry photos of our fox. It does look really healthy and it has thankfully been a long time since we had Fox scabies in this area. Dogs can get it as well and it’s easy to get rid of, not to the fox though and they usually scratch themselves to death. My old dogs got it fairly often, three of the four scratched themselves like crazy but the fourth showed no signs of having it. Turns out that some dogs can have it but never react to it, the scabies itself isn’t dangerous for the animal but it’s the mites pooping they are allergic to. She was full of it but never reacted.

   

I’ve baked some bread today and since the oven was working I threw in some brined pork after the bread was out. Smelled fantastic 🙂 I think I’ll make macaroni pudding tomorrow and put the pork in it. I think however I’ll make it closer to mac and cheese than the traditional way with eggs and milk and I do hope rice pasta will work. Rice pasta never need to boil for long so I was thinking of perhaps just let it sit in water for a while before mixing it all together and let it soften in the oven.

     

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I’ll have some of the bread I just baked. I think I’ll have perhaps some ham and blue cheese on it 🙂

Malkolm and Sara playing in the living room, a bit blurry but I wanted You all too see how vicious she is 🙂

   

Have a great day!

Lots of snow falling for about five minutes so not much on the ground.

So we’ve missed almost all snow but I heard it was a bit chaotic on th e northern parts of our west coast during the morning and now they expect up to 50 cm (20 inches) of snow at the east coast just north of our Capital Stockholm. Down here where I live we even had some nice sunshine during the day but also some snowfall but it looked worse than it actually was.

Much nicer weather yesterday so most photos comes from then.

   

I hadn’t planed on leaving my cottage until as earliest on Friday but I got a message that I could go to the vet to bring old Nova back home. So to the vet I went and just as I was about to leave the vet came and asked how Sara the cat was 🙂 He truly likes that little kitten of ours 🙂 🙂 I told him that I didn’t plan on letting her outside for quite some time yet because she’s tiny and he said yes maybe when summer arrives 🙂 I was planning some time after Christmas, for a short moment depending on the weather 🙂 I guess it depends on how much she wants it and she will be in a leash the first times 🙂

     

My neighbors kids had chickenpox last week, I didn’t know that when I walked in to their home 🙂 🙂 I have a tendency to get it even though I’ve already had it several times, I’ve heard that it is because my immune system is, as a nurse said to me, quite fucked up because of my rheumatism which is an autoimmune disease. So now I’m just waiting for that itching again, it isn’t that long ago I had it 🙂 🙂 to be honest it was more or less over by the time I was there so I’ll most likely not get it but now of course I do feel that it itches everywhere 🙂 🙂 🙂 Just like finding one tick walking on an arm and after that one feel they walk everywhere 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

I think it’s time for that last cup of tea for the day and perhaps some hard bread with christmas ham on. They’ve already started to sell slices of it in the stores so I bought a little package, goes really well with some brie 🙂

     

Have a great day!

     

Well our weather service :-)

So this morning they changed the weather predictions, no snow at all but slightly colder perhaps. The low pressure will continue to the south of us before it turns north so the snow will fall over eastern Sweden. I’m all for that even though I now have bought everything I need for quite some time just because of the snow prediction they showed yesterday  🙂 🙂 🙂

     

Well by now we all know how great they are in predicting the weather over here so I wouldn’t be the least surprised if we get that snowstorm anyway 🙂 🙂 I will at least be prepared for it. The insulation in these old wooden cottages have been made as good as it gets but the windows and doors are usually letting the cold indoors, old cottages tend to live a life of their own and move some with heat and cold. So today I’ve started to hang up draperies or what ever I have that covers the door and of course I’ll have something thicker at the bottom so that any cold coming from the doors stay there. Last year I couldn’t find any thicker draperies that could cover the entrance door so I actually used three thin sheet.

     

I really couldn’t believe how effective this would be since they were so thin. Well turns out that layer on layer works really well so the entire door froze 🙂 🙂 🙂 I couldn’t unlock the door from either side and since the outside of the door was covered in snow/ ice the door had also frozen to the door frame 🙂 🙂 🙂 During warmer days I just pull it all to the side and when needed I’ll just cover the door again. I don’t want it to insulate too good when it comes to the windows since I need it to have potted plants there. It gets a little bit dark indoors to be honest but sunny days I’ll just push all covers to the side to let the light in.

I cleaned some carrots I brought in from the vegetable patch in the water barrel, this is what I found this morning 🙂

   

I cleaned some carrots I dug up yesterday in the water barrel, this is what I found today 🙂

I’m just about to put some bread in the oven, we call them tea cakes but that’s not the name in English, I’ve looked and it’s absolutely something else. One can say that it is sort of flat french rolls 🙂 Even these gluten free ones taste really nice, especially as warm with some butter on and a, in my case, strong cheese 🙂 One can even put some jam on them as well, really yummy 🙂 so I’ll have that last cup of tea for the day together withe one or two of those tea cakes 🙂

    

Have a great day!

The bog.

It was a good thing it was this little badger the dogs fought in the garden last winter and not the big male, he would have broken all bones in my dogs.

I’m sorry I can’t show You a photo of a wolf today but as You can see the camera caught a badger instead. It is most likely the same badger Alma and Albin had two fights with in the garden, just slightly bigger 🙂 Last nights photos was less good, to be honest the camera had changed from photos to videos but that didn’t matter, we had frost during the night so the lens was covered in it 🙂 I could see something walking by and it did look like a canine of some sort but it was most likely the fox that also visit the garden at nights. No frost tonight so perhaps the camera will catch that canine again but as photos instead.

Out to the bog we went.

   

Our walk this morning wasn’t anything out of the ordinary and to be honest neither was yesterdays morning walk but we did go out to my favorite island in the bog. It has dried up so much now that it is possible to walk there now, so today You’ll see photos from that island and most of You have never seen that place before. I couldn’t see any signs of wolves being there but Alma was a bit stressed with her tail hanging so we only walked there for a short while and on the less beautiful side of the island (I write island because this is actually an old lake they’ve tried to empty totally a century ago but failed since the lake is a spring lake). I hope I can show You the rest soon, it all depends on rain and wolves 🙂 🙂

     

I went to the store in the village where I used to work and after that I visited my old work friends. It was fun to talk to them but I must admit I didn’t feel especially sad leaving 🙂 🙂 It didn’t feel like I was leaving a happy place to be honest. They do at least have free coffee though 🙂  We had frost in the morning here and even though it almost reached 10C (50F) the ground still stayed frozen all day long. Earlier they guessed that we now would go towards colder weather, now they say we’ll have warmer weather again 🙂 🙂 No sunshine for quite some time though but I can survive without that for a while 🙂

     

I think it is time for that last cup of tea for the day and perhaps some hard bread sandwiches with it. Tomorrow I’ll have to bake more bread, I failed some last time, too little flour I guess even though I actually put in more than I should. The bread instead of rising it sort of flouted out and became almost flat 🙂 🙂 🙂 The taste was good though and that’s more important 🙂

It isn’t easy to find the small bridge so one can pass over the creek if one doesn’t know where it is 🙂

   

Have a great day!

     

Today I realized to my very big surprise a big bud on one of my Paphiopedilum hybrids (slipper orchids)! That almost never happens for most of us. I must have done something right for once!

-3,6C (25,52F) outside this morning according to my thermometer. A tad chilly but since we didn’t have any wind and the sun was rising it didn’t feel that bad. I had hoped that they had removed all cattle from the big field/ pasture but I could see that there was still just as many left as they had moved yesterday so we had to walk back and walk in the village instead. Unfortunately we met a huge tractor carrying all the food to the bulls and after that and of course when we passed lots of half adult cows in another field Alma behaved like crazy. She isn’t afraid, her tail shows that clearly but she gets excited and then can’t calm herself down and I can’t calm her down either.

     

Besides that though we did have a nice walk but if any villager on the other side of the village saw us they must believe I hate her 🙂 🙂 🙂 The rest of the village knows what she’s like though and most people feel sympathy for us both 🙂 🙂 🙂 Just imagine to walk with a dog whining a screaming constantly for well over an hour on every walk and then have no way to calm her down 🙂 🙂 🙂 Then here at home she’s absolutely amazing! She even gather the other dogs if I ask her to and then bring them to the front door. She makes sure Nova is ok all the time, plays with Albin, keeps an eye on Sara the cat and also always check on me that I’m ok but as soon as we go outside the garden with a leash on she starts whining and screaming, once she even started to howl 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

I haven’t done much today , not even dinner but I have actually dome some of the laundry. I have loads left but I thought why not take a little at a time. I don’t have a big washing machine because I have no space for one, my bathroom is tiny but I do have one made for campers/ mobile homes. Works really great but it is what I would call a manual washing machine. I have to decide how warm the water is so I usually put in the same temperature as when I shower and then open the tap for cold water to rinse it all. Not especially hard but it is annoying sometimes 🙂 🙂  So when I do the laundry I need to think about what I put in, one or two heavier things and the rest light things and so on 🙂

     

Yesterday evening when we went to bed I could hear Sara the cat miaow loudly from downstairs. I called for her to come up but she didn’t, well You know cats 🙂 🙂 She still wasn’t with us when I woke up and must admit that it was nice with a night of undisturbed sleep. I couldn’t find her when we came down either so I called after her and I could hear here but not figure out where she was. I became a bit worried because we had just been outside and I thought she might have escaped and now was outside in that cold temperature but I couldn’t find her there either. Turns out that I had locked her in the cool cellar all night, she must have went in when I for a second had opened the door to place a potted plant on a shelf  just inside the door. So now I check the door every time we go outside she she doesn’t follow 🙂 🙂

 

 

It is time to have a last cup of tea for the day and I’ve bought some candied ginger, dangerously yummy that I think I’ll have some of 🙂

 

It takes a lot of energy to biting my hand all evening so a nap was needed 🙂

Have a great day!

The coldest night so far but since the sun rose and there weren’t any clouds (but morning mist) it soon became a really pleasant morning. We went out to the forest as soon as I could see the sun rising through my kitchen window, no risk of any surviving moose flies in the air when it was that cold.

     

Nova is much better again and the first one to demand food in the morning 🙂 well Sara screams as soon as she think I’m awake but that could be about anything really 🙂 🙂  Nova is too thin though, even though the vet says that she looks great since she’s so old. I think I’ll start giving her more treats, even directly in to her food, better that way since the two other won’t notice it that much if I do it that way 🙂

     

The world isn’t a happy place right now, war in Ukraine, war in the middle east and the risk of Trump becoming a president again feels too big. plus that we have gang wars here in Sweden so it’s times like this it feels really nice to live in a village at the outskirts of the world. Very little happens here any time of the year. The dogs and I are almost always alone on our walks in the forest or out on the bog, the only thing we really need to look out for are angry moose and wild hogs 🙂 Yes we have wolves but they are almost never seen, only tracks made when they have passed by and to be honest, one can never know how moose and hogs will behave if one meet them 🙂

     

That I also have the best neighbors one can get helps a lot as well 🙂 The beekeepers cottage is still empty and not a single person came when they had an open house for buyers. No one wants to buy a place for double what it is worth. I do hope however that it won’t be empty for too long, rodents love that and when they start invading a place things can go down hill pretty fast.  I won $ 9 US on the lottery yesterday but I’m afraid that won’t help me much 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

Have a great day!

Sara has sad eyes, even when she’s hunting Malkolm’s tail she look sad 🙂 The first time she chased Malkolm’s tail he looked horrified 🙂 🙂