Category: Cold.

Chilly mornings.

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Alma isn’t fond of cows and today there was a cow in the pasture just outside our gate when we went out for our walk 🙂 Later on when I had to drive to the store we had another cow but on the gravel road 🙂 They are usually quite easy to get back in the pasture again 🙂

I’m trying to figure out the unemployment insurance site and it isn’t easy 🙂 🙂 🙂 If there’s something I want to comment or check it says where I should look but nowhere in the site I can find that particular place 🙂 🙂 It could have been so easy to just put in a link but I guess they want us to feel that life is hard 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve done what I have been able to today without going insane and I’ll continue to figure out more tomorrow 🙂 🙂

     

Cold mornings with either morning mist or sunshine with a few clouds up in the air is what seems to be what we’re having in the mornings here. The rest of the days can be anything, today we had sunshine mixed with light showers. Really tricky to figure out when the showers would pass since the forest block most of any possible view. It’s only towards the mountain I really can see anything but then again almost only when my own tress are leaf free 🙂

     

I’m getting really tired of this last cold, it never gives up! It is the same for all of us that had the pleasure to get it 🙂 No more fever and not especially runny noses but the coughing just refuses to stop, plus it can be gone for a day but then come back again. Thankfully I only seem to have it during the days and not nights like many other have it.

     

Today when I was in the living room I hear some strange noises in the kitchen. At first I thought it was Sara playing around but the sounds were too loud. So I managed to sneak really quiet out to the kitchen and found Malkolm and Sara going through the trash bag. You should have seen Malkolms guilty face when I cleared my throat 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve realized that Malkolm can move really fast and quiet, I did that when I picked up the trash and he suddenly were nowhere to be found 🙂 🙂 🙂 He had run upstairs and jumped up in the bed 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

It is time to go downstairs and make a cup of tea. I’m not really hungry to be honest but the dogs demands cheese so I guess a sandwich or two could be eaten anyway. There’s actually two programs worth watching on tv tonight and they will of course be shown at the exact same time 🙂 I know I can go in and watch the programs on, in this case, SVT.Play but I’ll most likely have forgotten about it tomorrow 🙂

     

Have a great day!

She knows which one of the dogs she has the best naps with 🙂
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Frost last night and this time it hit everywhere. I brought in some unripe tomatoes yesterday so I hope they all will ripen by the window where I’ve hung them. I haven’t actually checked those outdoors today but I doubt they’ll managed to go undamaged.

     

We had a really nice morning walk, it was so cold that not even the moose flies were out flying 🙂 The sun had been up in the sky for a while though so most of the frost had already melted away from the vegetation. I would have liked it to be a bit warmer for the rest of the day though but I guess one can’t have it all 🙂

     

I think Alma look at her self as the mother of all living things and she really is careful when she’s around children, puppies and kittens but for some reason she’s really the opposite when it comes to where she wants to sit or lay down. Today, two times she has either sat down on Sara or laid down over Sara and really haven’t understood why I tore her away or why Sara sounded as if she was fighting for her life, screaming very loud 🙂 🙂 🙂 Sara’s so small that I don’t think she could feel that she was under her 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

Besides that Sara is thriving now. She has now gained just as much weight last week that she actually weighed when we found her, almost 800 grams (1,76 pound)! Her eyes are now clear but I do think she might not  have perfect sight, if I drop some food beside her she knows I’ve dropped it but it takes some time before she can find it. That can of course be totally normal since she’s so young. That in itself doesn’t matter to me but I’ll talk to the vet tomorrow afternoon about it.

     

I haven’t had any nap today so I am a bit tired, how on earth did I manage to stay awake when I worked all day 🙂 🙂 🙂 I haven’t done any chores either, I am already getting lazy 🙂 Well I did bake some bread yesterday but only because I didn’t have any at home and I did go to the store today because I didn’t have either dog or cat food. The dog food will most likely arrive tomorrow but that doesn’t help me today.  The cat is now so important to both Alma and Malkolm that both mostly wants to stay indoors rather than to go outside to the garden or neighbors.  It’ll be nice when this first obsession is over and she is big enough to start pestering them instead, dogs usually comes back to normal when that happens 🙂

       

Have a great day!

 

A too long nap :-)

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We all woke up at 4 am today, Nova was running in her sleep at the same time she sounded angry. I had stayed up longer than usual yesterday so I had hoped we all could go back to sleep after that but of course not 🙂 It had rained all night and was pouring down outside so the dogs just ran out to do what they needed to and then they all went indoors again 🙂

     

I had only planned to go to the super market today so I did that early. It continued to rain so the dogs still refused to go outside unless they really had to 🙂 There wasn’t anything worth watching on tv so I decided to go upstairs to take a nap. I usually fall asleep as soon as I put my head on the pillow but today it took a while before I felt that wonderful feeling that comes just as the sleeps hit.

     

At that moment a now days rather heavy male puppy decided to jump up in the bed and landed on me 🙂 🙂 Then he jumped down again and continued like that for a while. Sara the cat had learned to climb the stairs so he was playing with her 🙂 🙂 🙂 I continued to try and fall asleep but gave up after a while. So I turned of the timer looked at the ceiling and after that I don’t remember anything 🙂 🙂 I must have slept for several hours when I finally woke up 🙂 🙂 🙂 Turns out that Sara had fallen asleep beside me and when she did that the dogs just fall asleep around me in bed 🙂 🙂

     

I slept for too long I’m afraid so I’m just as tired now as I was then 🙂 I’ll try to watch some tv but I’m afraid it will be an early night today 🙂 Not even several cups of coffee has helped to make me less tired 🙂 Well I better go downstairs to the tv and try to stay awake there instead 🙂

     

Have a great day!

First frost but a beautiful day.

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The weather has been really wonderful today! Sunshine from the start and a bit chilly, we had the first frost last night. -2C (28,4F). I’m so glad that I decided to start two radiators last evening because if I hadn’t I would have been frostbitten as well 🙂 🙂

     

Most of the vegetation in the garden weren’t damaged though. I have so many bushes and trees that it creates pockets of warmer air and that’s where I have the least hardy plants. So my Dahlias and tomato plants look as healthy as they did yesterday. They’re guessing that it will be warmer at nights again but I’ve brought a few more plants indoors just in case.

     

We walked down to the creek as soon as the sun rose and mornings like this one doesn’t have to worry about moose flies, even they tend to be calm when it is that cold. One night of frost won’t kill them though, they are nasty tough little critters. Nova walked without a leash and normally that goes fine but then there are those days when she suddenly doesn’t give a s..t about where we are supposed to walk and she decides on walking elsewhere 🙂 🙂 🙂  So today she went ahead before we were close to her and walked a road we haven’t in years, mostly because we have to pass a rather loud barking dog that seems to be outside 24/7 🙂 🙂 🙂 and since both old Albin and Alma tended to scream when they met other dogs I did my best to avoid that place.

     

We didn’t reach Nova until half way there and then it just felt that we could go through a screaming/ barking match at least one time 🙂 🙂 🙂 Turned out that the dog for once was indoors. I could smell that they had started a fire so I guess both the humans and the dog were inside having breakfast.

     

The rest of the day has been really calm, the kitchen door has mostly been open and Malkolm and Alma has been over at my neighbors playing with their kids. Malkolm had decided that he wanted to see more of the world by jumping over their fence as well but one stern call to come back from my neighbor made him realize that she has the power even if he doesn’t think so 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve napped a lot as well because coughing is not a good friend at nights.

Can You see the little black dot close to the tree line? That’s Nova 🙂 🙂

I had seen Nova just on the other side of this little slope, so I could finally catch her and put the leash on 🙂 🙂 🙂

There were lots of telephone calls and text messages to answer because today I turned to 60. I’m not a big birthday celebrator so I’m not disturbed by the cold even if it had been nice to not have it 🙂

It is time to make another cup of tea and most likely fall asleep in my recliner in front of the tv 🙂

     

Have a great day!

Coughing and sneezing.

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So it isn’t the three or four day cold I’m having, it’s the sneezing coughing all night cold I have 🙂 🙂 🙂 No fever though so I guess I’ll survive it 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

I’m so glad I turned on the radiator in the kitchen last night. The heat goes straight up to the upper floor and in to my bedroom. I do like a cool bedroom but ice cold is a bit too much for me 🙂 It took a while though but until it became warmer I had Alma as a living radiator sleeping beside me, she kept on sleeping all nigh at the same spot so I must admit that even though I was grateful for the help when it was cold it did become a bit too warm in the end 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

The outside thermometer said 1C (33,8F) as coldest and I think it must have been right because the vegetation weren’t covered in ice but the cars had more ice on them than yesterday morning. We also had lots of morning mist so we had our walk in the village. We met a villager, a woman who always are out running. At first I thought she just was one of those people who are obcessed with running because one can see her far from the village at any time of the 24 hours a day contains.

     

Anyhow, turns out that she is competing in long distance team running 🙂 I had heard she was attacked by a dog, a well know aggressive  dog, that the owners had in the garden that simply jumped over the fence and attacked her. So since Alma and Malkolm jump over jump over the fence too play with my neighbors kids I stopped her (since we were just beside her home) and asked her if she wanted to greet my dogs so she knows what she meets. So she said that Alma had met her several times so she wasn’t worried about her but she wasn’t sure about Nova and Malkolm 🙂 Malkolm was so polite that he didn’t even try to reach her head when they greeted and I said Nova is 18 and You’ve met her several times so she’s so well behaved that she never is noticed when she’s around 🙂

     

I think it is time to have some tea and a table spoon with honey. Never heat up honey because the good enzymes and bacteria in it dies when it is too hot, lukewarm is enough. If You kill them the honey will only become very expensive sugar. So I usually have a spoon of honey either before or after having the tea.

     

Have a great day!

   

I doubt that this Red Mulberry will ripen even though I plan to bring this little tree down to the cool cellar. I don’t want to bring in the little tree until it lost its leafs.

So my last work day and it feels just fine

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Cold and with some mist this morning, so I used my camera on the way to work, I almost came late to work on my last day of work, had been fun if that had happened for the first time in the 17 years I’ve worked there 🙂 🙂 🙂

I had to scrape ice from the car this morning but we didn’t actually have any frost, it only dropped to 2C (35,6 F) The sky will be clear again tonight so I’ve moved in some of the more sensitive plants to the cool cellar now and all orchids to the windows facing east or north. I would have liked to bring in more but it’s dark outside so I can’t ind them now, all I can do is to hope that the frost stays away for another night.

     

Neither me nor my work friend got that bag yesterday 🙂 🙂 🙂 The boy (who I call the one forcing me to quit) eventually made the work friend go up to the office to collect it himself. I think the boy understood that it would not work on me to go up there like a beggar so just before I was going to go home he had to go and find me 🙂 🙂 🙂 It was quite visible that he didn’t like that 🙂 🙂 The bag had of course the company’s logo on everything but those can be covered with other things 🙂 I must admit that the fleece sweater is really good so I’ll find one of those stickers or what they are called that I simply can iron over the old logo.

This is the beautiful pot I got from my work friend I pick up sometimes on my way to work.
This is the gift I got from the rest, Now I can buy ice cream for quite some time 🙂

The colors are starting to show in the garden.

Now I’ll take a few days of doing nothing but on Monday I’ll call two high end kitchen makers we have in this area, Kvänum kök and Vedum kök. People who work there really likes it and the pay is much better than in most companies around here I would take any job but they do paint lots of their products and I’m lucky to have learned to paint at Volvo cars and was amongst the last ones to learn everything from painting the cars and check and fix all surfaces before painting, ok that was a long time ago but it’s easy to get it all back thankfully.

My care tree, I don’t think it ever has carried so many berries before.
Lots of apples and these are really tasty.
I could make a lot of rose hip soup if I had the energy to remove all the hairy seeds in the hips 🙂
Time to harvest all then hazelnuts 🙂 First time this bush gives any at all 🙂

My work friends in the painting department Gave me a present today 🙂 They thought the boys thank you for long and faithful service was both odd and fun so they made me a card saying just that and inside it they had bought gift certificates for ice cream from the Ice cream van 🙂 🙂 🙂 It was also a birthday gift because I’m turning 60 on Sunday 🙂

     

Have a great day!

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It’s hard to believe that so much rain can fall at the same time 🙂 Well that just means that I won’t have to water anything in the garden for quite some time 🙂 It had rained all night so when I saw that the rain had stopped this morning the dogs and I went out for our walk, It can’t have taken more than a few minutes after we had left the garden when it started to pour down again 🙂 🙂 

     

I’m not complaining about the rain though because with  that kind of weather napping comes naturally 🙂 So we didn’t do much before I left for the hospital and the x-raying. I left a bit early to avoid the rush hour in Lidköping and as soon as I had  given notice of me being there they called me to get those x-rays. I said already, it’s a half hour until I’m supposed to be here and the nurse then said sometimes one is rewarded for being early 🙂 🙂 So I was finished long before I was supposed to be there 🙂

     

It is still pouring down outside so I think I might make it an early night and I hope my nose will stop running and that the coughing will stay calm (and the sneezing) It was a bit bad with both before I drove to the hospital but rather calm now in the evening.

     

Have a great day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A storm passed by today and today it was noticeable even here in my garden, the strong ghusts shuffled the leaves in the trees pretty bad 🙂 The more steady wind was as always more or less unnoticeable here. They had guessed that we at least would have some sunshine in the early morning so I waited for quite some time before I gave up and we had our morning walk.

     

A good thing with the winds are that almost no flies are out and about irritating us 🙂 and if any mosquito had been desperate enough they still would have blown away really fast 🙂 Also pretty chilly for being a day in July, only 15C (59F) as warmest and that’s now in the early evening. I’ve noticed something, the dogs don’t like to be outside in the garden windy days like this, I think it is the roar from the wind blowing through the forest and perhaps they smell things from far away that they don’t like and believes what ever it is can be nearby.

   

I’ve been thinking about having a pond again but this time make sure no vole can chew through the rubber.

One being that I think exists all over the world is the Lantern man, When the day becomes night and one looks in to a forest or a bog one sometimes might see a flickering light, sometimes moving fast and sometimes really slow and if one is lucky one might even see the being carrying the light which is a small manlike being usually dressed in grey. It is the lantern man and quite often he tries to lure the human that see him out into the forest so they become lost. Sometimes however he lures them out into bogs or swamps to try and drown them. They will do the latter if they think one has been impolite or rude. However they can also save children being lost if one has been polite to them and also perhaps given them a coin or two (I guess that since silver always work with all other beings he would accept that too 🙂 )

     

They guess that he’s an evil spirit that, when he lived tricked others so that he made his property bigger at his neighbors cost, therefore he will never get peace after dying. He continues this behavior after death by moving property markings at nights, always saying this is wrong and that is right. The only way he can get peace is if someone follows him at nights moving back all the property markings he has moved. The thing is would one really follow someone that willingly would try and kill You just for fun? 🙂 🙂

     

It is time for a cup of tea I think and then see what’s on tv.

Have a great day!

Winds, rain, thunder and cold.

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Too tired for ALT text today, this cold is slowly killing me I think :-) :-)
Good thing I still have lots of photos from earlier 🙂 So this is the same fox I showed yesterday.

I know I’ve said that I really liked that it had cooled down a lot but I didn’t mean it should cool down so much that I almost have to start the radiators again! 10C (50F) outside today, heavy showers on and off plus really strong winds really isn’t what I want in June. On the other side all these clouds that covers the sky does keep the night frost away and we normally have our last night with frost around June sixth. So nothing bad that doesn’t bring something good as well but to be honest we could have had the same weather but at least 20C (68F) so we at least could go outside in between showers 🙂 🙂

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If it wasn’t for the wind.

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The sunrise this morning.

It could have been so nice today if it wasn’t for a biting cold wind blowing. Thankfully it comes from north so I can still have the kitchen door open but just walking a few steps from the door makes the world bitterly cold and nasty.

     

There was no wind when we had our morning walk though but then again the temperature had barely rose anything since I watched the thermometer when we got up, -6C (21,2F). We went down to the creek again but continued it up-stream and then in to the older forest. Lots of Ravens in the air and the Jays started to scream as soon as we closed in to the forest. The Swedish name for them is, if directly translated, Nut screamer 🙂 Sort of spot on to be honest, they behave like nuts and scream all the time 🙂 🙂 

     

Both Nova and Malkolm wanted to stop every second meter to sniff on something and they did so for a very long time every time, so in the end I had to hurry them up because they were driving Alma crazy 🙂 🙂 🙂 She really have no patience to stand still while they sniff around 🙂 

     

Malkolm really dislikes the collar he has to wear now when the harness is too small, it itches so when ever he can he stops to scratch where the collar is. I’ll try and find the harness I know I have somewhere here in the cottage, I never throw away things that isn’t broken and still can be used so I know it is here somewhere. Otherwise I’ll buy a new one when I order their food the next time. The problem is that I have no idea how big he’ll be 🙂 it can be anything from English Cockerspaniel to Golden Retriever. Thankfully I do have a big one that can be used if I would buy a too small one.

     

I think I’ll get the new table tomorrow. I know it already is here in my county waiting for being delivered but I haven’t gotten any text or mail that tells me when 😦 I can’t just stay at home (even though it would be nice 🙂 ) and hope that it’ll come 🙂 I’m sure they’ll call just as they enter the village and then it’ll take me around thirty minutes to get home. Last time it was like this, several years ago, the driver just left it inside my gate even though he really should have seen my drivers license. I do hope it can be fixed like this this time as well, if he can’t wait for me that is.

It isn’t easy to keep the balance while scratching because of the collar 🙂 

Then some more scratching. Thankfully no scratching at all when collar is removed.

I do know however that some time this week a Tea tree will arrive at the grocery store in Gudhem and on the 25th all the trees and bushes I’ve bought will arrive. I don’t need to stay at home for either of them thankfully so that makes it so much easier. I’ve done the laundry today and yesterday I baked a couple of breads, they turned out quite ok 🙂 I haven’t however made any dinner for work next week, so I guess it’ll be sandwiches for work tomorrow and then I’ll buy something after work that I can have for the rest of the week 🙂

Have a great day!

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

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

     

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

     

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

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

 

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

    Male Chaffinch.

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

     

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

     

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

Then he decided that he didn’t want to sit on the tree stump

but didn’t realize how deep the snow was 🙂

So I had him in a backpack when we went out and had it hanging on my front side so I could have an eye on him and make sure he wouldn’t try to jump out 🙂

Have a great day!

Winter weather again.

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The little lake behind my garage.

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

Have a great day!