Category: Drizzle.

Sort of meh weather.

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The new neighbour has decorated the bush with coloured feathers. Most people just brings in a lot of twigs, put them in vases or urns and decorate them there. Not only feathers are used though, could be plastic or papier mache eggs, tiny yellow chickens or flying witches 🙂

I don’t mind the little rain we’ve got but it is a bit chilly to be honest. That and a high humidity forces me to turn on the radiators again. Not a much but enough to keep that humidity outside. We haven’t been close to how much rain they predicted, the ground is still bone dry if on scratch the surface.

It seems like nature is a bit out of sync this spring. The vegetation started to flower long before the first Bumblebees started to fly and now when we don’t have any honey bees around very few pollinators visit my garden. Honeybees can be both a blessing and a curse for nature. If there are too many they can actually disturb the wild bees so they don’t get enough nectar to managing to survive the next winter. We used to have lots of wild bees here before the honey bees arrived so it’ll be interesting to see if we have fewer wild bees this spring. Today is so chilly that I haven’t seen or heard a single bee at all.

Badgers makes these shallow holes to get to worms and other juicy larvae.

I’ve now brought up all citrus trees as well from the cool cellar and some were replanted but I had to stop doing that because I suddenly went out of soil again 🙂 I hope that cloudy weather, despite northern and cold winds will keep the frost away.  don’t think it would harm the bigger citrus trees because the cool cellar is quite often pretty cold, 0-1C (32-33,8F) isn’t that unusual down there and that’s why the cellar also works pretty great to be a root cellar and even a huge fridge during winter 🙂 🙂 All that’s left are a Christmas cactus, easter cactus and a few things I think have died 🙂 🙂

It is time for a pot of tea and perhaps a nap after that, I’m really tired so either I have a cold going on or the Birch pollen season has started 🙂

Not long before the Marsh-marigold opens up in the root zone.
Red currants have buds now.

The Sloe is in full bloom as well. You really don’t wants this in Your garden 🙂
The Juneberry will soon be completely white. Unfortunately they don’t like warm sunny days if the nights are cool and damp. That’s how it is here quite often and then they get attacked of mildew and then the berries are inedible and the entire bush looks sad. I’m afraid I’ll have to remove it and plants something else there, too bad because it is a favourite of mine.

Have a great day!

We even had sunshine today :-)

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Not an eating day in any way but suddenly the sun started to shine!! It wasn’t supposed to show itself until it was about to set but it arrived pretty early instead. We are supposed to have sunshine all day tomorrow but I’ll believe it if it happens 🙂

Nothing much new about the shooting yesterday, at least 11 dead but some are so badly injured that it might end with more dead. The suspect shooter is said to be a 35 year old man born in Sweden and so are his parents, so at least the far right can’t attack immigrants. He’s a loner and it is said by a relative to him, which we can’t trust since he said it anonymously, he was supposed to have problems with his mental health. The suspect did kill himself.

They haven’t even identified all the dead yet, which is a bit odd but that can indicate that they mostly were immigrants. Normally I doubt it would take especially long for us who has grown up here to be identified since even our phones would help to do that, I think we might be one of the most digitalised people in the world, most of us don’t even use money now, I don’t and haven’t since many years ago, but just one look in my wallet or phone they would identify me in seconds 🙂

I’ve never seen a Beard lichen this big down here in southern Sweden, they grow slow so it must be really old.

Birds or mice have found their way in to the squash and eaten almost all seeds.

Well here in the village at the outskirts of the world it’s calm and quiet as usual. My neighbour were outside when the sun arrived so we had a little chat and the dogs jumped over the fence and played with the children. After that I made some rose-hip soup and now I’ll have a sandwich or two with cheese. No tea today, I had a cup way to late yesterday so I had to go up in the middle of the night to visit the bathroom 🙂

Have a great day!

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Nothing happened here the previous two days so I really had nothing to write about. We had some snow, it melted away, then we had some rain and today we finally had some fog. Only one problem, I missed most of it.

I was just going to apply to a couple of job ads, no big to be honest. The little problem I had was that no matter what kind of document I tried to save it in no site excepted it, not even as a pdf?! I was trying well over an hour seeing how the fog became weaker and weaker. I was so desperate that I finally called one of the bigger companies telling what I had tried and all versions Id tried as well. They were really confused because all versions I’d tried were accepted.

Then they asked me what browser I used and I said Safari and they said oh 🙂 🙂 🙂 Do it via Google Chrome and it’ll work. So then I needed to find chrome in my computer which the computer said I would have and showed what keys I should press to get there. The problem is that I have a keyboard for pc but adapted to Mac, so those hints didn’t help much 🙂 🙂 🙂  So I had to download it from the net instead 🙂 🙂 🙂 Another fun thing that happened was that My keyboard then changed from a Swedish keyboard to a British English one. So suddenly three of the letters in our alphabet suddenly didn’t work 🙂 🙂 🙂 That one was easy to fix though 🙂 🙂

Well all is fine in the end besides that I missed the best fog 🙂 Alma was nothing but good the first two hundred meters (no big difference in yards) but  then she finally calmed down and we did have a nice walk in the end. I heard one bid sing the entire time and oddly enough it was a spring song. Even though this bird starts earlier than the others it still should wait until late February. I must say it did sound so wonderful hearing it though even if I know spring still is far away for us up here in the north. It is time for that last cup of tea and after that I’ll most likely read a book 🙂

Have a great day!

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Misty rain and meh fog here in the village today. The fog was much thicker outside the village and all the way to the grocery store in the village where I used to work. I still go to that store every now and again because that’s where I started to buy my groceries when I moved up to this region over 27 years ago. It’s as if I know them all by now even though I’ve seen plenty of the workers come and go during the years 🙂

This is an old fox trap and it has been standing here since long before I moved to the village. No it didn’t kill the animal, they used it for trapping foxes to see if they were healthy. Fox scabies (a sort of mange) is a horrible way for a fox to die, they scratch themselves to death more or less. So if the fox was hit by it they ended its life so it wouldn’t have to suffer if it wasn’t they let it loose again. It did however not only trap foxes, my dogs were in it so many times that they finally stopped using it because it needed to be replaced (it’s rotten since long) 🙂 🙂 🙂 They put all kinds of goodies in it and of course my dogs went in and got trapped 🙂 🙂 🙂 This was back in the days when I had dogs that actually listened to what I told them 🙂 🙂 🙂

   

There was almost no traffic either way so I could drive in the speed I like and that’s usually slow 🙂 On the way home I listened to a radio program about language and our dialects and the difference between them. It was rather fun to hear words in different dialects and how I actually understood lots of the words from southern Sweden, I don’t use them but heard many of them growing up because my grandparents came from the south and used them all the time 🙂 They didn’t have much of the dialect left but all the words 🙂

     

Winter is on its way says our weather services. We’ll have a couple of days with warm air and rain left, then it’ll turn and the temperatures will drop and the rain turn to snow, can’t pretend I like that even though it does look nice in photos when there’s 20 cm (8 inches) of snow covering the world. The only good thing is that I at least won’t have to drive around in it 🙂 🙂 🙂 I also have very little snow to shovel because the gate to the garden is just 4 meters away from my door, I only have to shovel some around the car as well and the rest the guy shovel the roads will take care of 🙂 Plus it will be easier to see if wolves are around, always good to know for us with animals.

     

Sara the monster kitten is now in to destroy all my orchids 🙂 Those that look like grass when they don’t flower. She likes to play with the leafs and when she does get a grip on them she tears them down on the floor 🙂 🙂 She also attacks the dogs all the time, not that they care especially much but one day her claws and teeth will reach the skin and then they might 🙂 🙂 On the other hand Malkolm plays rather tough when he plays with her so I guess it evens out 🙂 🙂

     

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I’ll continue to read the book I started on but every time I sit down to read both Alma and Malkolm wants my attention so it’s going slow but forward 🙂 I wish You all a good continuing of Yule!

     

Have a great day!

Yule knock :-)

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We don’t say christmas present over here, we say julklapp, more or less Yule knock. That’s because when giving presents here in the beginning it was meant to be (I’ve heard) either a prank or an anonymous present. On christmas eve they didn’t lock the door and put new straw behind the door and when someone came with a present they knocked on the door and tossed in a present that then landed on the new and soft straw. So they named it a Yule knock 🙂

     

Later on when present giving became more common it was the Yule buck that delivered the presents. The goat has always been important back in the days so for people living back then it wasn’t an odd thing to come with the presents. There are different explanations to whom this buck was, most seems to think he was supposed to be one of the Norse god Thor’s goats, the ones he flew up in the sky in his chariot and created thunder but when I was young a by that time really old lady told me that it was the devils duty to do good one day every year.

     

Well Sinterklaas and Santa Claus started to turn up down in Europe so I think they wanted to be up to date here in Sweden as well so suddenly the Yule Gnome came to life 🙂 My guess is that since the gnome was a well known being here since way back in history and was known to help the farms they were living in, perhaps not happily or joyfully to be honest, so why not combine him and these other present givers. Not totally though, our gnome was still very short, mostly dressed in grey or green, except for the caps, they were almost always red (old christmas card)  click on the red text and You’ll see what it could look like.  . I doubt it was supposed to be someone one actually met because to be honest how many small people could quickly and swiftly move around to each place during one day.

     

However if one look at really old christmas cards this is how they were depicted. Also he never flew around with reindeers up in the sky, he either came walking with a goat (the same one apparently as the one previous delivering the presents himself) that pulled a small sled filled with packages or with a horse also pulling a sled filled with presents. It didn’t take long though until he grew taller and I guess that’s when he started to visit homes and hand out the presents himself. I have no idea to why but he always came on Christmas eve instead of Christmas day. Also for Your information, The Yule Gnome lives far north in Swedish Lappland, not Finnish Lappland as the Finns believe  🙂 🙂 🙂 even though they have been far better in spreading that nonsense around the world 🙂 🙂 🙂 So now the kids can visit the Gnome both in Sweden and Finland and I must admit from what I know about the Finnish one it’s far superior towards our place.

     

The Yule Gnome has evolved to something closer to Santa now days, he has fatten up some, says ho ho ho and it looks like he’s always wearing an all red clothing and he never comes down the chimney even though most kids now days do believe he comes by reindeer 🙂 instead hi visits the children in their homes. I have seen one comming by horse but either he comes walking or in a car 🙂 🙂 🙂 Now days even Mrs Gnome visits the children, turns out that Mr Gnome was a bit too happy to have a schnapps at every place he went to so by the time he finally reached the last homes he was pretty drunk, no one understood him and the children refused to see him 🙂 🙂 🙂 Mrs Gnome isn’t that keen on schnapps thankfully 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

So never mix up the Yule Gnome with our old gnome, All he requires is a bowl with rice porridge at Yule eve night. They are rare now days though but if You do have a stable or barn place the bowl in there so the risk of him burning down You place is lower 🙂

 

This photo was taken three years ago. I thought we at least should have one wintery photo 🙂

Have a great day!

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I think Sara’s mother came from this farm. I haven’t seen her since we found Sara so I don’t think the mother is still alive.

The weather has really been boring for a couple of days now but it is well above 0 C (32 f) so I’m not complaining too much. The cottage becomes a mess though because since the dogs don’t want to be outdoors besides for walk they play indoors instead 🙂 🙂 They aren’t allowed to do it in the living room because of the aquarium so mostly they play in my bed 🙂 🙂

This was all sunshine I saw yesterday, not much but beautiful and a lot more than today 🙂

   

Today was a good day for Alma, not so much yesterday though but the periods when she is calmer seems to stay longer now. In this speed I’ll be long gone and dead by the time she’ll be able to behave like most other dogs, a year ago I’d never thought that would happen so it’s a step forward 🙂 🙂 🙂 I took a look at the trees in the cool cellar and despite that it actually has been pretty cold down there Some of them now shows new leafs! I don’t want that to happen 🙂 They are supposed to rest until at least early March Now I’ll have huge problems rearranging everything so that they’ll get light as well. I’ve also had a walk in the garden to examine how the new smaller trees are doing in the garden.

   

The Pawpaws look really healthy and have little to no frost damages and it’s the same with the Camellias I placed out there because they just too too much space in the cool cellar. I think that if winter doesn’t get colder than it has been so far they might even survive, I’m not counting on that though but they do look healthy. I have three different Mulberry trees out there too, A black called “Mulle” and it is the least hardy of them. Rather big frost injuries on that one but it will most likely survive and if it does it will become hardier next winter. I also have a white Mulberry tree and it is supposed to be the hardiest one but that too has some big frost injuries but it is far better than the black one. The one that has managed the winter best so far without any frost problems is the Red mulberry. I have two more in the cellar and it is of course those that has been growing new leafs 🙂 I have no idea how this will affect them towards next winter when they’ll be standing in the garden.

     

The Persimmon tree looks really well as well. I was a bit worried about that tree because some fungi had attacked it during summer and it looked so sad before it got cold 🙂 I also had those new branches that grew up from the roots of the dead persimmon hybrid, well they are no more but not because of the cold but because unknown dogs 🙂 🙂 had trampled them down while playing in the garden. I hope I’ll get lucky, even though this year has been anything but, and that new branches will grow up because then I’ll protect them so much better.

     

It has finally stopped with shorter days and longer nights 🙂 Today the sun rose somewhere behind the clouds at 8:53 am and set at 3:16 pm here where I live in the village at the outskirts of the world.Some places further north haven’t seen the sun for ages. Then again we’ll get it back during summer where the sun won’t set at all for a long time. Even here further south it’ll be bright for a long time after the sun has set because of the angle towards the sun so when the day is at its longest we still only will have a couple of hours when it’s almost dark. Well it is time for that last cup of tea with lots of ginger in it and then I’ll most likely fall asleep in front of the tv.

   

Have a great day!

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The weather is so dreary that I today show photos from the folder “For a rainy day”. Really fits today 🙂

The weather has been so gloomy that it was depressing today, strong winds, rain (quite often misty rain which is the worst kind) and everything is muddy. Misty rain is awful when it hits the wind shield while out driving, it’s sort of sticky so nothing happens when the wipers tries to wipe it off and it was of course exactly how it was when I drove to the grocery store.

     

Also the ground was still frozen so it was slippery as h..l here and there all the way. Thankfully almost no cars on the road at that time so I could have the speed I wanted without disturbing anyone else.  I had hoped that my “new computer would arrive while I still was out driving, I got a message that it would arrive today some time during the day and it did some time and unfortunately in the late afternoon, so I’ll pick it up tomorrow.

     

Now my neighbors care is fixed so from now i can use it when ever I want. I won’t want to use it more than I’ve done so far anyway but the possibility is there 🙂 🙂 🙂 Today I used their Peugeot, a slightly newer one than the one I had. Nice car but if it came with a warning, like icy roads and such things the display only shows it in French 🙂 🙂 I still have some french left in my brain but since the text only shows for a couple of seconds I really didn’t manage to read it anyway 🙂 🙂 🙂 My old Peugeot always beeped a lot but almost never showed a text. I had no idea what was going on but that was actually much less stressing 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

The wind will keep on blowing pretty hard until late morning tomorrow and stay rather calm until the evening when it will return again. I really can’t complain because this is the weather we’ll get instead of cold and wintery that I dislike so much. One advantage though, the electrical bill will stay very low as long as the winds continue to blow 🙂

     

Time for a last cup of tea for the day and I’ll have a sandwich or two with Christmas ham (made in the store I used to work close to, it is delicious and I didn’t expect anything else, I’ll also have beetroot salad (our kind with lots of mayo in it and I’ll also most likely have a slice or two of a really strong hard cheese 🙂

     

Have a great day!

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I think most of the photos I use today were taken yesterday when the world still looked frozen and frosty white. Well Sara as well of course.

The cold and wind free days are over and now we have windy but warmer days instead. The only thing I’m not happy about is how much dirtier the floor becomes 🙂 🙂 Still I prefer warmer weather. I have been born in the wrong part of the world, I should have been born in a  warmer climate where it stayed around 20 C (68 F) all year round 🙂

I would like to say this was taken in the early morning but it was already 9:25 am.
I never picked that last squash in the vegetable garden 🙂

 

Today we must have had some rain during the night and the rest of the day, except for a few minutes, the sky has been evenly grey. Now the sky is clear, the full? moon is bright in the sky and therefor it’ll be cold during the night. Tomorrow the day will be cloudy again and I wonder why it always happen that way and not cloudy nights and sunny days? 🙂

     

I’ve done some laundry today and right now I’m waiting for my french rolls to cool down so I can have one or two before falling asleep in front of the tv 🙂 I’ve had some fun with clay for a couple of days now and have had really fun. I’ll show You when it is done. It isn’t beautiful in any way 🙂 🙂 🙂 but I’ve had lots of fun doing it. The problem is that I really have no good place to work with it, I’ve been standing at the kitchen counter and the stove 🙂 🙂 Back pain as a result but it’ll pass 🙂 I do have a lot more time now when I don’t have a job so I thought I would see what kind of hobby I would like besides photography.

     

I doubt I’ll continue with clay though even though this was a kind that hardens without having to stand in a kiln lots of hours. I have lots more things I can do and also sit down while doing it so if You’re unlucky You might have to look at several more failures until I know if I have another hobby or being happy about having my cameras 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

I think it is time to try one of those rolls, this time they at least look good, and of course that last cup of tea for the day 🙂

     

Have a great day!

A belated birthday present :-)

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I wouldn’t say that a storm passed by today but the wind was hard and it roared when it blew through the forest. My garden was totally wind free because my neighbors cottage took it all and it was surprisingly calm in the forest where we walked, the tree tops swayed but very little reached us on the ground. Warm winds though so it has been rather nice to be outdoors and now there’s only a few walnuts left hanging in the walnut tree.

The last of the bright colors are blowing away, I wonder how much that will be left tomorrow.

   

Even though it is much warmer than usual this month winter is still closing in on us unless we get really lucky and it stays autumn until spring. I know it isn’t a good thing but I admit that I won’t feel sorry if that happens 🙂 Anyway, here in Sweden we have a law that says we must have winter tires if it becomes winter. My cars tires weren’t good so on Wednesday I’ll get new ones and even though I like that we have that law I still don’t want to pay for it, it will cost something around $ 700 US. Ok I drive gentle so the tires will last for long but it still hurts 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

Yesterday friends I haven’t seen in well over 24 years came for a visit 🙂 It was so fun to meet them again 🙂 We do keep an eye on us via Facebook but it isn’t the same to be honest. They gave me a present since I now am 60 years old and it was one in a series of  children’s book 🙂 🙂 I love that series of books! It’s  about these characters called Pettson and Findus (another English name for them is Festus and Mercury), an old farmer and his cat Findus. I’ll give You a link to the Wikipedia site: Pettson and Findus . They think that I reminded so much of Pettson 🙂 🙂 and I really wish I was as handy as he is 🙂 I think this might have been the best birthday present ever 🙂

   

The weather will calm down during the day tomorrow but get worse again later in the evening and night so I think I better go to the store tomorrow since I’ll get the new tires on Wednesday. It sounds as if I’m stressed and can’t find the time but that’s far from the truth 🙂 🙂 It’s good to have something to do each day. It is at least easier to remember what day it is 🙂 🙂

     

The dogs are sleeping here on the upper floor and I think the cat sleep in my recliner downstairs. She might be up here as well but she moves so quiet so I never really knows where she is 🙂 The only time I know where she is is when I bring out food, it is amazing what that cat likes to eat, like pickled cucumbers 🙂 not even the dogs like that and if she gets a tiny piece of cheese she bites me till she gets it 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

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The rain has been pouring down all day and the dogs have refused to go outside unless they really needed to 🙂 It will stop raining some time tomorrow morning and after that we’l at least get one day with sunshine, that’s what they’re guessing anyway 🙂

I’ve now planted all but one Camellia in the garden. This one just beside the cottage on the east side and
this one beside the Pawpaws, I think that place has the best micro climate since nothing in there has been touched by frost. One was already dug down on the south side of the cottage.

So it has been very little activity here today, at least from me, the dogs have been chasing each other all over my little cottage and when Alma was bored by that Sara took over. She and Malkolm works really well together.

 

I have however make meat sauce today, unfortunately I had only bought big pack so I had to do more than I really needed to, around a gallon 🙂 🙂 Well I will at least have dinner for quite some time ahead 🙂 🙂 It did taste good though but I’ll need to put quite a lot of it in the freezer 🙂

 

That was about it today, tomorrow I’ll go to the super market so that I at least gets out from the cottage 🙂

 

Have a great day!

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It did rain a lot in the early morning and should have continued to do so all day. So no hunters were here in the morning. The raining stopped however and even though we didn’t get any sunshine it still turned out to be a rather nice day. The hunters did arrive later on but I think it mostly was because it was the first day and I guess they mostly sat in the hunting lodge, having a nice fire and perhaps grilled some sausages 🙂

I wasn’t going to bring in any of the Camellias this winter but then I noticed they are full of buds.

   

The storm Kevin was supposed to hit us later this week and they predicted lots of wind and rain, now they’re guessing it wont hit that bad, the wind will be quite normal and the rain won’t fall. They can change this prediction loads of times until then so who knows what will happen 🙂  Anyway I was going to have a phone meeting with the employment agency today, some time between 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm to talk of my strategies to get a new job. So at around 11 am I thought why not take a nap? I put the timer on my phone at 59 minutes. I can’t pretend I slept especially well or much at all to be honest so I gave up and looked at the timer, turns out that I had put it on one hour and 59 minutes 🙂 🙂 🙂 I must have slept much better than I thought because it was only 15 minutes left until I was going to have that meeting 🙂 🙂 🙂

   

The stalk to the self sown sunflower had broken so I brought it to the feeder so the birds cane have the seeds. Just as I came in and looked out the window some kind of mosquito landed on it under side.

So they called and asked what I had done so far and what I was planning on doing next. After I had explained they simply said: Well it’s clear that You know what You’re doing and won’t need any help from us, we’ll schedule for another meeting later and leave You to do what You’ve planned. It took around 10 minutes 🙂 🙂 🙂 After that I baked a bunch of french rolls, they turned out good but sort of floated out over the pan but who cares, the important things is that they taste good 🙂

     

It is time for a last cup of tea for the day and perhaps I’ll have one of those rolls as well  🙂

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!