Category: Cool.

cleaning my sofas will be easier, I hope :-)

July 15, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

The day has mostly been gray and dreary. Rather chilly in the beginning but not chilly enough to keep the flies calm though. Later in the day rain passed by and now there are some cracks in the clouds where the sun can peak through and it’s also much warmer. Still it won’t last for long because it’ll start raining tonight and we can either get almost nothing to very little or just as much as we had the last time. It all depends on where the heavy showers will pass.

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So we’ve done very little today. Alma has been really bored because none of us wanted to go outside to play and the neighbors daughter has been indoors as well. So no one to play with and all that energy has made Alma a very talkative dog 🙂 🙂 🙂 She’s normally not a quiet dog but today she’s been worse 🙂 🙂

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I’ve just ordered a small carpet and furniture washing machine 🙂 I was thinking about how I was supposed to be able to clean the big cushions on my sofas and was thinking of a pressure washer. I’ve seen how good they work on carpets but then again those cushions are quite thick and would become so heavy with all that water that it would take ages for them to dry if at all in this cool and rainy weather 🙂 🙂 🙂 So instead I found this little machine where the only complaints about it is that it is very loud. Does its job really well though. It’s called Bissell SpotClean Pro 1558N. I even looked at international reviews and all said just the same, does its job really well but is very loud. Well I have earplugs at home so I’ll use those.

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The odd thing was that I couldn’t buy the detergent at the same time as the machine, as soon as I had pressed the button there was no turning back to buy anything more. So annoyed as I was I bought the detergent from another business 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll let You know what I think about it when I’ve tried it and I do hope I’ll say the same thing as the reviews 🙂

My big apple tree will get loads of apples this year, the rain came just in the right time because it had already dropped lots but now it looks like no more small apples have fallen off.

I have a patio that I haven’t used for well over twenty years, well I put a lot of things there but never sit there any more. It is mostly covered by a big rose, a grape vine and a climbing clematis so now House sparrow fledglings practice their flying in there. Magpies tried to hide there when it was raining but I think I finally managed to scare them away, they are big birds and will have to manage anyway. Every now and again though those little fledglings comes outside very close to my kitchen window and I managed to take a few photos through the rather dirty window 🙂

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Have a great day!

First week soon to be over.

July 14, 2023July 14, 2023 · 3 Comments ·

Magpies, funny birds but also bl…y annoying 🙂 🙂 🙂 They can terrorize an entire neighborhood and attack cats and dogs and are really intelligent.

The weather has been rather mixed this first week of my vacation. Everything from sunny and hot to a bit chilly and heavy raining. Today is really nice though, mostly sunshine, a nice breeze and around 20C (68F). It was supposed to be like this yesterday but like always our weather service managed to miss that we would have rain almost half the day 🙂 🙂 🙂

The rain started quite nice on Wednesday

Another one on the back by my kitchen door. It needs to be a lot of rain to create a lake there because it’s only sand and runs down through the sand as soon as it hits, normally that it 🙂 🙂

We’ve gotten well over two inches of rain this week and nature loves it. Well I don’t complain about it either to be honest 🙂 Unfortunately the ticks loves it most of all. After every walk I’ve picked over twenty ticks from Alma while the two others have had perhaps five together. I have no idea why Alma is such a tick magnet but they do seem to love her. Nova decided that we should walk along the creek this morning so I was a bit worried that they all would have lots more walking around on them but to my surprise they had just a few, not even Alma had more than six walking around on her.

Yesterday morning felt quite chilly so not a fly was flying around annoying us.

The weather has made it more or less impossible to do anything outside and it has been perfect 🙂 🙂 🙂 I can’t remember when I slept this much before. The heavy rain day I must have slept well over six hours during the day (mostly with the window open so I could hear the rain hit the ground and cottage, until it changed direction and it started to rain in through the window 🙂 🙂 🙂 ) and I still fell asleep at my usual hour and sleeping all night without any problems. I guess I needed it but have no idea why 🙂 🙂

We could pass this doe without Alma screaming like insane 🙂 🙂

The flies have calmed down because they’ve now cut down all the grass and made silage balls of it. That always happens when they do that so I guess that flies prefer to stay in high grass instead of trees during nights and perhaps even during days and when it’s gone the flies go to? Well there’s plenty still but not near enough to what we had before. I don’t even bring my mosquito hat on our walks, it’s enough with a hoodie. Alma has calmed down even more now, she still pulls the leash but the screaming when seeing anything move is almost gone! So now days we even see the odd deer again, still hares do make her a bit too excited but we’re working on that. The sitting down until she’s calmed down seems to work pretty well 🙂

I’m waiting for the package delivery car to come. I’ve ordered dog food and I have almost no dog food left so these packages will arrive just in time 🙂 🙂 I’ve just recieved a text message that they are on the way. So anytime from now until 5pm I’ll need to stay at home. Just a few weeks back they changed it to that packages below 20Kg ( 44,1 pound) can be delivered without me being at home but above that I need to be at home to recieve it. I’ve just bought a new kind of food for Alma and Nova because they didn’t really like the one I had and they have been a bit wobbly in their stomachs since we started with it. So today I’ll get one package that weighs well over20Kg and one well below. Does that mean they then would deliver the lighter package while bringing back the heavier if I weren’t at home? 🙂 🙂 🙂

Nova can be the most stubborn dog in the world 🙂 🙂 I called for her because she went away on her own and to a road we weren’t going to take. She could hear me very weel and she knows the sign for coming back and she just didn’t give a crap 🙂 🙂 🙂

After around five minutes she slowly came towards us.

Then she stopped again and just stood there for another five minutes 🙂 🙂 🙂 She finally started to walk towards us again but refused to go all the way and instead went to where we were going to walk but through bushes and high grass instead 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Not much in bloom in my garden at the moment but the Creeping Bellflower has opened up. It’s voted to be the worst weed one can get in a garden 🙂 🙂 Here it has to fight with other plants almost as bad as itself so it’s no problem here.

A Perennial Sunflower is almost as bad as the bellflower.

The Nepeta sibirica or as its Swedish name is Great Dragon flower can also compete with it.

the Large yellow loosestrife isn’t much weaker.

Hotas are however not a match and would lose the battle fairly quick 🙂

The coolest looking beetle.

July 2, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

a (3) — The Venus Flytrap has also been growing rather slow. I still have two left from last summer and the second one grows even slower.

Really mixed weather here today, very windy, sometimes sunny, sometimes cloudy and a lot of the time rainy. Most of the times a nice gentle summer rain but every now and again heavy showers. It’s exciting to stay outdoors because one never knows what will happen 🙂 🙂 The weather was stable when we had our morning walk though. I did bring the mosquito hat but only used it once while we walked along the creek because the wind couldn’t reach us there. Still not so many flies anyway but they still have time to show up before their season is over.

a (19) — but Nova wanted to go this way instead.

Nova is the one who chose where we’ll walk every day and I had preferred if she had chosen only the gravel roads but she wanted to walk along the creek so that’s where we walked. The grass was wet and high so I feared that I would have ti pick ticks until late night but to my surprise I only found two in total!? It should have been perfect for them along the creek but who am I to complain about the lack of ticks 🙂 🙂 While we walked there I checked after dragonflies and damselflies. I did see one dragonfly but long before the creek and only one damselfly along the entire creek. Perhaps I’m too early to lok after either? I have seen both earlier but there are always a couple that show up early.

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My dinner for work next week is boiling in the slow cooker. I made it easy for me by making meat sauce and I’ll boil the pasta before going to work. I’ve also done the laundry and we’ve had our pancake Sunday as usual. I will however, unlike a neighbor somewhere, not mow the lawn. That persons lawn mower must be a mushy mess when it is over 🙂 🙂 🙂 I don’t think it is fun to clean the mower on a normal day but it is awful on days when the grass is long and wet.

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I’ve also planted two of the Chicory seedlings I have, a third is on the way but they can be slow to germinate. It’s a perennial and its leafs look surprisingly much like dandelion leafs so I better remember where I planted them next spring 🙂 🙂 I also had several bell pepper seedlings. It was so hot when I sowed them that nothing happened until it started to cool down and then it went hot again so they barely grew at all. I don’t expect to get any bell peppers from them but since I had the space in the vegetable patch I planted them there anyway. I’m pretty sure they’ll start to grow good now when it will rain until Thursday and stay cool as well. After that they’re guessing the heat will come back again on Friday, my last day before vacation starts 🙂

A golden fly, have no idea what it can be called.

This is one of the coolest beetle I’ve ever seen I think.

Have a great day!

Ticks and mosquitoes.

July 1, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

The Beekeeper is trying to make an old fashioned flower meadow. Looking good so far!

The day started with some sunshine before very thin clouds covered the sky but that didn’t really change much since I could see the sun 🙂 I think the first “shower” I use ” because it wasn’t especially much or shower like but it did rain for a while. It has continued like that until now when we have misty rain and it will continue like this for the coming five days. I don’t mind at all and the temperature has dropped down to 16C (60,8F) and that I really like 🙂

Well I wouldn’t want rain and such low temperature for the rest of summer but for now it’s perfect. The ticks think much the same. I stopped counting when I had picked over twenty from Alma after our morning walk and thankfully just a couple on the rest of us. Nasty animals those ticks! Still not many annoying flies but a gazillion mosquitoes instead 🙂 🙂 Nova decides where every walk should go and today she has chosen the forest. She’s not the one that wants to walk the same path every day, the other two prefers that I’ve noticed.

We’ve taken a long nap today and after that I started to weed the vegetable patch. I’ve had big parts of it covered because I sowed an Asian cabbage. Nothing much happened though so I sowed a winter radish I bought seeds to for a couple of years ago. I have no idea what to do with it except using it in salads but I wanted to try it anyway. So now when I pulled away the cover I noticed that I now have both cabbage and winter radish there 🙂 🙂 I’ll bring back the cover when the cabbage butterfly and cabbage moth starts to fly again. Also the lid to one of my mini greenhouses fell down over the Broccolo seedlings I have, so when the sun showed they all boiled away. I think there’s still time to sow the remaining seeds to get at least some to harvest. The entire plant is edible so I will get something from them if they germinate.

Besides this I’ve done very little 🙂 I did catch mosquito larvae to the aquarium fish but that only took a few seconds 🙂 🙂 I think this is just how a weekend should be spent 🙂 🙂 Tomorrow I’ll have to do all those things I didn’t do today, like dinner for work next week, the laundry and baking a bread but since it will rain I will at least not have to mow the lawn 🙂

The potato sprouts that I planted now have flower buds 🙂 Technically I then should be able to harvest my first potatoes when the flowering is over but I think I’ll wait a couple of weeks before I try it.

Have a great day!

Finally cool air and rain :-)

June 30, 2023June 30, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

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It rained quite a lot here this morning and it has also cooled down considerable so it feels like life is back on track again. It has also blown quite a lot so the walk after work was really nice since both flies and mosquitoes blew away from us 🙂 🙂 🙂

DSC_0003 (6) — Lots of apples on the crab apple tree in the forest, They are red and rather yummy 🙂

DSC_0010 (5) — I actually chased away the bumblebee before it came too close to the white spider. I do feel the spider is worth its meal but I prefer if it eats flies 🙂 :-)

I have two big water barrels in my garden and those are mosquito larvae heaven but what the mosquitoes don’t know is that those larvae are fed to the fish in my aquarium 🙂 🙂 🙂 My Platy loves to eat them and all larvae are gone within minutes but just in case someone of them would survive I cover the holes in the glass lid so that none can escape in to my living room 🙂 Also it looks like there’s spiders living in the thin space between the lid and the water because every time I feed them flakes some of those flakes get caught in the spider web 🙂 🙂

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We’ll have this cool and rainy weather for five days they’re guessing but after that it looks like the warmer weather will come back again, just in time for my vacation. I’m not sure I like that at all to be honest. Then again if I don’t work in the heat I might like it a bit better 🙂 🙂

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It is time to go to bed and I’ll have no problems at all to fall asleep, well I usually fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow, because today I’m so tired after this unforgiving hot work week. I’ll just check for ticks on the dogs again. I missed one walking on Alma because she just laid her hed towards my arm and when she walked away I could feel one walking on my arm, felt horrible!

DSC_0048 (2) — The old wheel barrow looks fairly good despite it drying out once.

DSC_0050 (2) — I have four Hawthorn bushes to plant somewhere. The berries they give tastes delicious, something like passion fruit and oranges.

DSC_0051 (2) — I have also a Hazelnut bush I need to plant somewhere.

DSC_0049 (2) — The same water as they have indoors and still they prefer to drink it from this bucket 🙂

Have a great day!

Nice and gentle rain but we need more.

June 18, 2023 · 6 Comments ·

a (1) — It’s almost impossible to see that it had been raining for a couple of hours when I took this photo 🙂 🙂 🙂

It has been raining since early morning, a nice gentle rain far from what we actually needed, heavy showers would have been much better but I’m happy for what I got. They say we’ll get more rain in the coming week, not enough once again, and it’ll stay cool for a day or so before we go back to warmer again. The temperature dropped from 28C (82,4F) yesterday to 15C (59F) today. It has taken all morning to get the heat out of the cottage, it even became chilly for a while but I closed the doors and windows when I had baked my breads and let the oven stay open after I had shut it off. It was just enough with heat to make it feel rather nice indoors again 🙂

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I’ve done my chores for the day except for dinner at work next week. It’ll be a short work week since we celebrate Midsummer next Friday. I’ll make it easy for myself this week. I’ll fry some meatballs, some wiener sausages, two eggs and then pour half a tin of either baked white beans or baked brown beans over it 🙂 🙂 Perhaps not healthy but very yummy 🙂 🙂 I’ll go to the vegetable patch and pick some of the Goosefoot (Chenopodium album) that grows there, works very well as a spinach substitute.

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I didn’t win the lottery this week either, must say I thought it was my turn this time 🙂 🙂 🙂 So back to work tomorrow. Ok short week but I would rather have won the lottery 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve noticed that I spend much less time in front of the tv now days, instead I surf more on the net. I guess it sort of equals each other out. I mostly blame the hot weather, it has been so hot that it really has been impossible to do anything outside without jeopardizing our health. Still I wish I could have done something else really but I’ve been too lazy to come up with anything else to do 🙂 🙂 🙂

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It is time for the dogs dinners and perhaps I should make myself a cup of tea. I’m pretty sure I’ll sleep very well tonight now when it is cool and nice both outside and inside the cottage 🙂

Have a great day!

They’re guessing we’ll get rain tomorrow.

June 17, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

It has been so hot this week that we haven’t been on walks at all. Nova is old and Albins fur isn’t good at regulating his temperature. Even Alma has been a bit off because of it. I’ve been working in my old department at work and it’s even hotter in there than standing in the sunshine outside 🙂 🙂 🙂

Nova doesn’t want to walk down this road if we comes from the cottage but she will gladely walk it if we comes from the other direction. Have no idea why but we almost always do as she wants 🙂

So mostly I’ve been watering my potato and vegetable patches after work. It might have been too hot because lots of seeds haven’t germinated and the ones that did have been struggling. The only things that seems to like it are the beans, peas and iceberg lettuce. It does however look like I’ve managed to save the almost dead Pawpaw tree, no Kat not the tropical one You’re thinking of but the north American one 🙂 🙂 I dug it up and noticed that when they once potted it they put a huge chunk of the fertilizer pellets that looks like slug eggs just beneath its roots.

So the tree has never felt the need to spread its roots and by not doing that it sort of doomed itself. I dug it up and put it in a bucket with soil and lots of peat since it likes lower pH. After that I put a see through plastic bag over it to help it with sucking up water. Yesterday I took a look at if and I can see the beginnings of three new stems (well perhaps it’s branches?) 🙂 I’ll let it stay in the cool cellar during winter so it can get a better start next year.

It will be another hot day today but the morning was quite cool and nice. We went down to the creek and even though the mosquitoes were just as annoying as always there were very few annoying forest flies and not a single horse fly. Also I could only find one tick when I went through the fur of the dogs. They really don’t like dry weather. We still have morning dew though so that shows the ground and vegetation isn’t totally dry yet. A cold front will pass here tomorrow so temperatures will drop a lot and they are guessing that we also will get rain. Sometimes they guess we’ll get lots and sometimes they guess we’ll barely get anything 🙂 🙂 🙂 They also guess we’ll get more rain during the week but temperatures will stray high. We all do know however how good they are at guessing the wetaher over here 🙂 🙂 🙂

There’s a little black and white dot at the bump of the road, that’s Sally the beekeepers cat 🙂

So far I haven’t heard a single person complain about the eventual coming rain 🙂 :-)The risk of forest fires are high all over the country and, there are a few going on, it is an especially high risk around here. So panic bag packed just in case we need to leave quickly. I’m not especially worried but it’s always best to be prepared just in case. It is time for a cup of tea and perhaps a little nap, we’ve been up since 4am and it is now 8:30. Better take a nap when it still is fairly cool, later on it’ll be too hot.

Can You see those tiny green dots? The life continues for the Pawpaw after all 🙂

From the root zone, I think You call these irises Yellow flag.

Iceland poppy. Seems they are now placing in lots of different poppies under that name that before had their own names. We used to call this one for Siberian poppy.

I’ve passed this rose several times a day for weeks and still didn’t notice that it was in bloom 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Busy day.

August 21, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

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The weekend has been rather nice. Fog a big part of yesterday morning and sunshine in the afternoon. Today chilly and sunny in the early morning with just a tad of morning mist and this afternoon is just enough warm with a light but cool breeze. High humidity though and that sort of brings down it all a bit.

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The hunting season has started, they start with Roe deer bucks and it’s usually over after a couple of days. Here the hunters counts how many bucks there are and after that they decide how many they think can be hunted and usually the older and bigger ones are protected, just to make sure the most fit stays so the coming generation of deer benefits from it. No bigger animals are allowed to hunt yet except for wild hogs, they can be hunted all year long as long as it isn’t a sow with piglets.

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So we’ve mostly been out in the early morning. I hoped that we would see the wolf that walks around here but I didn’t have that luck I’m afraid. I haven’t seen or heard any hog since they saw the wolf so I think it still is in the area. Yesterday when I went to bed I also hoped that I would hear it howl, the sky was clear and the moon shone but it stayed quiet all the time 🙂 🙂 🙂 I do have a camera in the car and I’ll have it ready just in case the wolf shows up on my way to work 🙂

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I did one big load of laundry yesterday and another one today. I also have the dinner for the coming week cooking in the slow cooker at the moment. It will be some kind of pasta sauce, well not quite because I’ll also have green curry, bamboo shoots, corn, haricots verts (from my own vegetable patch, squash also from my own vegetable patch and chard that also is growing there 🙂 and I’ll have it with pasta so I guess I can call it a pasta sauce 🙂 🙂 🙂

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WE had pancakes (thin European ones) for dinner and IU must say that my apricot and banana jam actually tastes better now. After this I’ll make an apple pie (well it will most likely be an apple crisp since I’m a bit lazy 🙂 🙂 🙂 and I’ll have both cardamom and cinnamon in it. and I’ll have custard poured all over it 🙂 I’ll either sleep like a baby tonight or my stomach will give me so much trouble that I won’t sleep at all 🙂 🙂 🙂

c (1) — My new coffee maker. Finally I can get a decent cup (well two if I count my tea cup or eight if I count coffee cups 🙂 ) of tea.

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Have a great day!

DSC_0001 (5) — One of Albins absolute favorite spots in the garden, close to the gate on the north side of the cottage.

At least the morning was cool.

August 13, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

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Clear sky and 8C (46,4F) when we went out on our morning walk today. At 10:30 the sky was still clear and blue but the temperature had risen to 26C (78,8F). Still a clear and blue sky and now it’s 29C (84,2F) and I’m not sure if it stops there or will get even warmer. It is too warm for my taste as it is now so I do hope it starts to cool off now instead. They’re saying it will get warmer tomorrow.

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Alma decided that she would be a monster on our morning walk so I can’t say I enjoyed it especially much, even if it was just enough cool and no flies were flying around. Ok she had a lot of energy in her body since it was too hot to take walks the two previous days but she really can’t control herself. The second we were at home she changed to that wonderful nice and pleasant dog I rarely see outside my garden. My guess is that she either really doesn’t like to take walks or she loves it so much that she just can’t keep calm.

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The two sofas I’ve ordered will arrive here on Monday some time before noon so I had to break down the old corner sofa I’ve had for at least twelve? years. Ever since I got the recliner from my neighbors I’ve left the sofa to my dogs and it was almost sad to see how bad it had deteriorated since then 🙂 🙂 🙂 The seat cushions had holes in them and one is so bad that the stuffing fell out from it while I carried it to the wood shed (well I need to place it somewhere until I can get rid of it 🙂 🙂 ). The two for the back and the smaller one to sit on is now placed in the dog house. Normally I give my dogs my old sweaters and other warm and sort of fluffy things to have in there but every young dog I’ve had here them drags it out into the dog yard, I would really like to see Alma drag these huge cushions outside 🙂 🙂 🙂

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I did actually try to unscrew all screws in the sofa when I was picking it apart but It took just too much time, not that I was in a hurry until Monday morning but it did start to be a bit too warm to do any kind of job 🙂 So instead I just broke it down into smaller pieces, yes that was a bit more job but it was a faster way to get rid of it 🙂 🙂 🙂 It was impossible to clean the floor where the sofa was standing without having to place all other furnitures outside while I moved that sofa around to be able to vacuum there, so it wasn’t a nice sight when the sofa was gone 🙂 🙂 🙂

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I was pretty sure that Bertil and Teodor had done something there and yes they had plus that the dogs had pushed in lots of things too. So first I removed all bigger pieces, then I vacuumed the floor and after that I washed the floor with chlorine. Nothing says clean and bacteria free as good as chlorine does 🙂 🙂 🙂 I took all the dog blankets outside and cleaned them up as good as I could and placed them on the floor where the sofa had been standing, the dogs aren’t happy and they all tried to climb in my lap in the recliner 🙂 🙂 🙂 As soon as the new sofas are in place I’ll start looking after a “new” table and a couple “new” low book shelfs. I have some big oil paintings on that wall so they need to be low 🙂 I’ve looked at where the second had places are in Falköping and they all have odd opening hours, now I’ll see what the other towns around here has. I did see one table in one of the second hand stores in Falköping but I doubt I’ll manage to get it inside my car.

I’ve had the front door (towards north) open all morning but now the sun shines there so it’s time to open the kitchen door so the dogs can go in and out as they please. Ok it’s too hot for them to do anything but if they suddenly get a burst of energy and wants to go outside the kitchen door will be open 🙂

Have a great day!

Another heatwave on the way.

August 9, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

DSC_0002 (3) — Yesterday when we were about to take our walk I saw a shower pass by, it didn’t reach us but I did feel a few drops hitting my arm.

I’ve survived the two first day back to work 🙂 It hasn’t been that hard to be honest and I’m not sure half of us are back yet. When I grew up all industries had the summer vacation period at the same time, four weeks so it was called general industrial holiday.

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Suddenly Volvo I think it was decided that we would be able to change that slightly so half of all working in the company could take two weeks earlier than the rest, then the factory would close for two weeks and then the ones that had that earlier vacation started to work while the rest had their vacation. They thought it would be a good idea to only close for two weeks so the production could continue without too much disturbance. Well that didn’t work because they forgot that if only half of the workers were aty work things would move very slowly 🙂 🙂

DSC_0012 (3) — Even dead butterflies are beautiful.

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Nowdays it varies slightly, at my work place we can have one week before they close for three weeks or one week after. Also one can work during summer if there’s anything to do if one want a later vacation, so some people only have three weeks vacation during summer and take the last two weeks later if they perhaps wants to travel somewhere. I always take four weeks in the summer and save one for christmas. If we’re lucky those five working days together with the holidays can make that one week up to almost three weeks vacation 🙂 🙂

Yesterday was on the cool side, today was more towards early summer warm. Tomorrow will be vacation warm and after that it’ll be nasty hot if they’re guessing right. The weekend will be the worst and Monday as well but they’re guessing it will start to cool down after that. I don’t mind if autumn waits a bit before it arrives but I really don’t want another heatwave again. I guess however that it’s better than what happened in South Korea yesterday. It fell well over a foot of rain during one hour!

Have a great day!

The first harvest :-)

August 7, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

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I noticed that in one of the plastic buckets where I put the spruts that fell off from the potatoes I was planting the leafs suddenly had gotten small black spots and that’s a sign that they are infected with potato blight. No bigger problem as long as one remove all green above surface before it spreads down to the potatoes. The problem was that these plants hadn’t flowered yet so the potatoes were going to be pretty small.

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So I went over to my neighbors so we could harvest them. There were potatoes and most were tiny 🙂 They had put some potatoes in the ground as well so they dug up some of those as well, they were almost as tiny as mine were 🙂 🙂 🙂 They do taste delicious though, I tried two of each today, so I’ll have them with my dinner at work tomorrow. I also got some onions, so I braided them together and now they hang to dry in my cool cellar. They won’t dry for long because I will continue to make my dinners for work. The food from the new restaurant is delicious but the price is way too high since we all know that the electricity will be nasty high this comming winter.

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It stayed on the chilly side today, it barely reached 16C (60,8F). I tried to stay outdoors but the flies were nasty. I know we’ll get rain later and that it will be the start of warmer weather arriving so perhaps we’ll have some thunder as well, it would explain why the flies were so nasty. People are saying that there are very few insects flying around where they live, it’s the contrary here. I guess that means nature still works pretty well here and I should of course be happy about that and I most likely would have been if it wasn’t for all those nasty flies that always wants to get in to my bears and nostrils 🙂 🙂 🙂

b (1) — Mostly male flowers on the squash plants.

b (2) — But suddenly I noticed the first squash 🙂

b (3) — The beans are in bloom and the first bean pods are growing as well 🙂

b (4) — The walnut tree I got hasn’t grown especially much but I hope that it instead had concentrated its energy to grow roots.

I really need to buy new sofas or a sofa and perhaps an armchair. The dogs have gotten the old sofa and I really doesn’t like to sit in it any more 🙂 🙂 🙂 I really like rattan furniture and have seen some ads. The one I liked the most didn’t have pillows and I really wonder why, of course it should be sold with pillows. One I liked had a more Indian style to it and it had pillows 🙂 Even if I really don’t have any special kind of style in my home an Indian style still would look rather odd in my home 🙂 There was also rattan recliners and i do like them a lot but they were also a bit pricy. The delivery home was free though. I’ll continue to see what I can find. The good thing with rattan furniture is that it is easy to vacuum and scrub the floor beneath them, that’s impossible with the furniture I have now.

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It is time for something to eat and later on watch the British Antique Road Show.

Have a great day!

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Apricot and banana jam :-)

August 5, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

DSC_0019 (2) — The photos comes from today and also yesterday.

So today is the last day of my vacation, tomorrow is just an ordinary weekend. One could say that the vacation actually goes on until Sunday but I prefer to feel that Sunday’s just another Sunday and the day after is a work day, feels less dramatic that way 🙂

Still I could win the big winning in the lottery but I would still work that month that we are supposed to just so that they’ll get a chance to get someone else to continue after I’ve left. It is very easy to be generous as long as that winning actually hasn’t happened 🙂 🙂 We were supposed to have a sunny day here with a temperature around 20C (68F). They have actually gotten the temperature right but the sun has been absent most of the day. It showed itself a short while in the morning but very little after that.

Yesterday was very different though, we had sunshine now and again and the temperature was nasty high as also the humidity was. Rather unpleasant to be honest. Then the rain and thunder arrived. I have to say that it was a magnificent thunderstorm and it continued from around 5pm way in to the night. Strong winds created havoc in some places in this region and what the wind didn’t destroy the hail did. The wind didn’t do anything here but the hail perforated all bigger leafs it hit. I looked at my lightning app and it showed that at one point we had more than 500 lightning hits between Skara and Falköping, I live exactly in the middle of those towns. I can tell You that there’s no need to water anything today, on the contrary, I’ve needed to empty almost all pots I have 🙂 🙂 🙂

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I really should mow the lawn before I get back to work. It isn’t particularly high yet but with all this rain falling I can already see how it is growing. I’ll use all that cut off grass to cover the ground in the vegetable patch. It will keep the sand moist at the same time the mouldering grass will fertilize the ground, a win win situation 🙂 Also after doing like that a couple of years I’ll have more real soil than sand in there. I still only have male flowers on my squash plants, a bit annoying but there’s still plenty of time to get some squashes before autumn arrives. The beans are flowering and I have plenty of lettuce and chard growing. The cabbage is struggling though, I do remove any eggs and caterpillars I find but something is still eating those cabbage leafs. I also think we now can start to pick up potatoes 🙂

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It is time to give the dogs something to eat, no rush really because they’ve all had one pancake each already 🙂 🙂 Yesterday, when it still was nasty hot but the thunder was on its way I made some jam. I had some apricots that were too old but not really enough to make jam from it, so I tossed in a couple of mashed bananas too plus a pinch of cardamom. To my very big surprise it turned out really well 🙂 🙂 🙂 It’s actually quite tasty so I had that on my pancakes today 🙂 I should perhaps have put in an apple or two from my crab apple tree because those apples contains lots of pectins that will stop the jam from being a bit runny. Still it runs very slow so it’ll work on toast as well 🙂

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Have a great day!

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