Category: Drizzle.

It is hard to shout quietly :-)

May 27, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

DSC_0003 (7) — The tree stump from the old crabapple tree. I would like to cover 99% of that big hole so that wild bees could move in. I’m pretty sure it is thick enough so bees would survive there during winter.

It has rained off and on all day but I didn’t care that much. I’ve been busy napping since I came home early after work. I woke up at 2:20 am to the sound of a dog vomiting. It wasn’t anything more than a ball of grass though so easy to clean up.

DSC_0007 (10) — We were walking down to the creek when I noticed that they’ve closed the road so that the cattle could walk over to another pasture. I really didn’t want to try and pass there with my dogs who are terrified of those electric cables, so we had to turn back again.

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I decided to let them outside before going back to bed again. So naturally Alma decided to jump over the fence and go god knows where. It’s so fun to have to shout as quietly as possible in the middle of the night to get that dog back home. Well someone had left a trash bag outside their door and Alma had gone though it. She smelled so wonderful and I was so upset about her that I couldn’t go back to sleep 🙂 🙂 🙂 It is never a good idea to put out a trash bag here, even if one perhaps doesn’t expect a dog to go through it at night, because magpies will tear it open as fast as they can and then spread the contents all over the area. I’ve done it once and I’ll never do it again 🙂

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She was also impossible on our walk so she is not on the top ten list of things I like at the moment, not even on the top thousand to be honest. So now she’s not allowed to be outside without me being there too and she really doesn’t like that 🙂 🙂 🙂 She knows that she isn’t allowed to do most things she does and doesn’t even have the decentness to look guilty when being discovered 🙂 🙂 🙂 I looked at a tv program with a dog expert who dealt with dog behaving like Alma and turns out they actually do the same things I’ve tried with Alma and sometimes without any good result either. So I guess I’ll just have to keep on trying until we either get it right or we both die trying 🙂 🙂 🙂

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They are now guessing that we’ll get rain tomorrow but actually sunshine all Sunday. It would be nice if they get the temperature right so that I finally can turn off the radiators. They work all night here and even if I don’t have them on high temperature they will at least keep the humidity outside, we’ve mostly had a humidity around 90% to 100% lately and it does it its way through the walls. The vegetation outside loves it though so I guess I can’t complain too much.

Have a great day!

Lots of rain and looong naps :-)

May 26, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

DSC_0002 (10) — Through my kitchen window early in the morning.

It rained half the day and now we have sunshine but also a really strong wind blowing. I must say I do prefer the sunshine and wind because it’ll dry up lots of the water that fell from the sky the last day. Also the humidity is finally going down again. We’ll get plenty of more rain the coming days if they’re guessing the weather right.

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The Cuckoo bird is rather shy and hard to see but I just had one siting in my lilac hedge so I guess now some of the smaller birds nesting in my garden will have an egg added to the ones they already have and that one will hatch much earlier and then toss out the other eggs so that it will get all the attention and food. Nature is really only nice and relaxing for us humans since we are top predators, for the rest of the animals and plants it’s really a battle ground.

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We managed to take a walk in between showers today. It stopped just before we went out and we even got some sunshine. It started again as soon as we had come home 🙂 I really didn’t want to do anything today so except for walking the dogs I’ve napped and napped for hours 🙂 🙂 I do hope I can fall asleep tonight because I’ll get up at 3:30 tomorrow morning 🙂 🙂 Not a lot of people will work tomorrow since today is a holiday and who wants to work on a Friday? So I’ll stay for a couple of hours just to check te huge washing machine after they’ve poured in new water and chemicals. I’ll do some testings to see that it doesn’t change too much before I go back home.

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I’ll do some more sowing of flower seeds later today. I’ll sow the seeds where I’ve put all the lawn I removed. I hope that when these seeds germinate and grow they’ll make it much harder for any of the stinging nettles to grow back up. Futile I know but one can still hope. Perhaps I at least will get lots of flowers in between the nettles 🙂 🙂 I found to my big surprise that my honey suckle had died, I didn’t know they could 🙂 🙂 🙂 Quite often when someone wants to get rid of honeysuckles they still grow back every year, so it was quite surprising to see that mine was totally gone!

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Tomorrow after work I’m planning on going to the pet store to buy some fish to have in my water barrels. I don’t think I’ll have goldfish this time because they grow so big but there are alternatives. Water barrels without fish in them are mosquito paradise and even though I don’t mind mosquitoes that much I still don’t want them to have that while they still are alive 🙂 🙂 🙂

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It is time to go out and sow those seeds and after that I think I’ll check for other seeds from flowers who like dry conditions, I only have sand beneath my lawn and that dries up quickly no matter how much it rains here.

DSC_0038 (3) — In my garden right now. Lilacs and lots of them unfortunately.

DSC_0043 (3) — We call these Troll grapes. These ones will get deeply red berries later on.

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Have a great day!

It’s raining, it’s pouring.

May 24, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

No photos from today. This is the beginning of a cherry plum tree 🙂

The day started nice but went downhill after that. It’s a bit chilly, the humidity is up to 94% and it is mostly raining. Sometimes it stops raining but not for especially long. The rain will continue more or less for at least five days. It seems that the Cuckoo bird I heard didn’t have a clue to what weather we’ll have this summer 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Thankfully the dogs refuse to take walks when it rains and I’m not complaining about that 🙂 🙂 Even the birds seems to think this is a bit much and it looks like most of them hide beneath the roof on my patio, so nice to get more poop on everything in there 🙂 🙂 I did however take advantage of this rain and I’ve spread lots of flower seeds on the lawn pieces I’ve placed over the stinging nettles. I do hope they grow large before the nettles manages to grow through it all.

Yesterday I woke up pretty grumpy, I can’t remember what I had dreamt but that grumpyness stayed all day. Today I woke up even more grumpy, still no idea what I had dreamt about and I’ve felt both grumpy and cranky all day 🙂 🙂 I do hope I dream about something funny tonight because the days get so slow when feeling grumpy 🙂 🙂 I once woke up in the middle of the night laughing like crazy, have no idea what I had dreamt about then either but I did feel very happy when I finally went back to sleep. I wish that could happen again because it felt just great!

Never a good sign when ants gather like this, there are most likely aphids hiding in those leafs.

b (149) — I’ve sown lots of these today.

We have a holiday on Thursday (Ascension Day) and I hope I have nothing to paint on Friday because if I haven’t I will go home early. They are so busy where I worked before so they’ll have to work and that sort of feels nice, for me that is 🙂

Have a great day!

Nature loves it.

May 21, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

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It has been raining all day, sometimes just drizzle and sometimes a nice presummer rain. We managed to take a walk while the rain wasn’t too bad but after that every time I’ve opened the door to let the dogs out they’ve just looked outside and turned back in again.

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I think we might have reached 10C (50F) and even though it wasn’t especially warm it still has felt rather nice outside and I have been able to have the kitchen door open for a while. There’s one radiator working to push out any dampness that would have filled up my cottage otherwise.

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Nature loves this weather though so I’m not complaining too much. I’ve done very little today, I’ve taken a long nap and I’ve made pancakes 🙂 I just bought 32 eggs from a work friend, just in time actually because the day after I got them a fox found its way in to the hen and killed all but five of them. She knows it was a fox because it was still standing there when she went to clean up in the hen house. Well foxes need food too.

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There’s absolutely nothing I want to watch on tv tonight and I suddenly realized that the book I’ve started reading was a bit too familiar, I’ve already read it before. I do have some dvd’s I haven’t watched yet and have lots of other books I haven’t read either so I might do one of those instead.

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Have a great day!

DSC_0003 (5) — My two Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) trees have survived winter. Two small green dots that will become leafs 🙂

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DSC_0016 (8) — Sorbus domestica, apple rowan I think it’s called. Its fruits becomes pretty big and is said to taste good.

DSC_0018 (8) — Two of my camellias are still in bloom.

DSC_0020 (8) — Vitis amurensis, Amur grapevine.

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DSC_0024 (8) — I’ll unfortunately get loads of lilacs this year.

Yay! The mosquito season has started :-)

May 19, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

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I really didn’t need to paint anything today but the weather was so nice and we had summer temperatures so I did it anyway 🙂 🙂 It was so warm in the factory but so nice where I paint so that half of the day I was there was so nice and time just ran away. It didn’t when I had to go back to the heat again 🙂 🙂

DSC_0002 (7) — The cherry flowering is almost over and now starts the apples 🙂

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The clouds arrived before I drove homewards though and now it rains but just a nice spring rain. It can change pretty fast though if the showers that can give us up to an inch of rain comes this way. We do need the rain though so I won’t complain if those showers comes here. That would also fill up my water barrels so that’s another reason not to complain.

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I need to buy more fence. I put up fences around the places where I’ll have the potato patch and the vegetable patch and even though I do feel those spaces were smaller than I expected I still spent an entire roll of fence 🙂 🙂 🙂 I haven’t started to remove the grass yet, I’ll do that tomorrow unless it rains then too. I’ll place the removed lawn on top of stinging nettles, it won’t kill them but it will at least slow them down a little.

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The frost we had the other night killed almost all the small peaches on my new tree, they have turned brownish. I hope that at least the two that still just were withered flowers might grow in to peaches though. It also killed all my corn plants, that annoyes me a bit more actually. I do however have more seeds to sow so I’ll do that this weekend and I’ll cover the ground so that any small seedlings that show won’t freeze if we’ll get frost again.

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Yay, the mosquito season has started 🙂 We were walking in the forest when they suddenly attacked us. I have a few bites on my back but the most annoying one is on the side of one of my fingers. I don’t even know how it managed to go there since I held two leashes with that hand. Just a few minutes ago a woman with a stroller and a small dog passed my cottage and went up to my neighbors. The poor woman must have been scared to death when Albin and Alma suddenly started huffing and puffing and barking just as she walked beside my fence 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Have a great day!

I went out and took a look at the label :-)

May 13, 2022 · Leave a comment ·

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So just before I was going to bed yesterday evening I suddenly started to think about the label on my new apricot tree. I thought it looked a bit odd but also thought it must be a standardized thing they put on and then the text would say what it was. Well I went out to look at it a second time.

DSC_0018 (2) — Cherry trees are in bloom everywhere now.

Turns out it wasn’t a standardized label, I haven’t gotten an apricot tree 🙂 🙂 🙂 Instead I got one of those flat peaches 🙂 🙂 🙂 So the last thing i did before going to bed was to email the company. It costs the same and has the same hardiness so I wondered if they wanted me to send it back to them or if I could take this tree instead since I really didn’t want to find a new box, since I had cut it down 🙂 🙂 🙂 The sort of fun thing about this is that they don’t even sell that peach yet so someone must have made a big mistake.

They answered that I could keep it if I wanted so now I have a peach tree instead 🙂 I do like them a lot those flat peaches but peach trees have huge problems with a fungus that kills them after a few years so I wasn’t sure at first but then I found out that they now have a good pesticide that kills the fungus (it contains sulfur which kills off the fungus and one need so small ammounts that it isn’t dangerous for anything else). One need to spray the tree with it after the leafs have fallen in autumn and one more time before the new leafs grow out.After doing that the problems will go away. I do like apricots though so I might order one anyway but most likely from another business 🙂

DSC_0034 (1) — We have a few Elm trees that still look really healthy so I hope that the Dutch Elm tree disease stays away.

I’ve been a bit worried about Nova for a couple of days again because she really didn’t want to eat, not even treats and she is on her sixteenth year. Turns out her stomach was wobbly again so today she had no problems what so ever to gulp down her food again 🙂 I’ve also bought the old food she likes better again and I’m pretty sure that helped as well. Still I need to find one she likes and keeps her stomach well so I better check out other varieties again.

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It rained some when we were out walking but we also had some sunshine. It’ll rain again later tonight but after that the skies will keep the water to themselves for quite some time, at least that is what they’re guessing. It is time for something to eat and after that I’ll doze off in front of the tv, like always 🙂

h (1) — In my garden right now. I hope the wheel-barrow will look good again this year.

h (2) — Marsh marigold in the root zone.

h (4) — Yellow wood anemone. These came with the perennial sunflowers that You can see the first leafs from around it.

Have a great day!

h (5) — I have three Serviceberry trees in my garden.

A bit higher than I thought :-)

May 12, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

a (28) — The photos are from the folder “For a rainy day”. This is what my Black walnut tree looked like last summer. It actually looks as if it is fighting the tree cancer with some success!

The winds are so strong today that I didn’t want to take a walk in the forest because the gusts might push some trees to the ground and I really don’t want to get one over anyone of us. Besides that it’s a really nice day, just enough warm and sunny. We did get some drops of rain and more will come tomorrow but that’s nothing compared to what we got yesterday.

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I left work a bit early yesterday because some papers would have to be signed before the road association meeting. The rain had started early and then the thunder arrived. To be honest most of it passed north of us but we did get the showers and the hail. I walked five meters from the car to the house door and was soaking wet before I arrived at the house 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’m so glad that the dog food I had ordered arrived the day before 🙂 🙂 The meeting went very well, we were only five people there so the meeting didn’t take long and after that we had some coffee and biscuits 🙂 I wasn’t away from home more than an hour including the drive there and back 🙂

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Today my apricot tree finally arrived so I had to pick it up at the big package delivery center in Falköping. I did wonder why I couldn’t fetch it at my normal place in Gudhem but I had forgotten to check how high it actually was. It is just as or slightly taller than I am and I did have some problems getting it in to my car 🙂 🙂 🙂 I had to cut off just enough of the box it arrived in to be able to shut the tailgate. Another problem was the wind.

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The package was high but not especially wide to be honest but the strong wind caught it and I’m lucky it didn’t use us as a kite 🙂 The tailgate was headed just towards the wind so at first I couldn’t open it up. It was a bit tricky to hold the package at the same time 🙂 🙂 It was almost as difficult to shut it when all wind pressed in the the car and I tried to push the tailgate down 🙂 🙂 We now I have it at home and it will be standing at the north side of my cottage where the wind can’t reach it until it calmes down and I can find some place to plant it.

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I’ll leave work early tomorrow as well since I’m going to the physiotherapist again. I won’t go back to work after that since there will be very little time left until I stop working for the day. I’m waiting for another package as well, I’ve ordered a fence so I can make it higher so that Alma won’t jump over it (well at least I hope she won’t 🙂 🙂 ) and I’ll also fence in my vegetable patches since Albin would eat anything edible he could reach 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

More old photos.

May 5, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

048 — The photos doesn’t come in any particular order, like age or so. It tends to be that the smaller they are the older they are. I can’t remember the password so I can’t reach the photos from my oldest blog unfortunately.

I have nothing much to say really, the wetaher has been nice but today is a bit chilly and we even had some drizzle on my way home and a while after I had come home.

Alla hundarna — Sickan is the brown dog, Viran the big black to the left and all the puppies were Virans.

Erna för elva år sedan — Erna when she was quite young.

Erna äldre — and at least twelve years old.

Nova, she quite the spitting image of Erna but just half the size 🙂 Too bad that the harness covers the white that Nova also has on her chest 🙂

Work has been flowing nicely and I have had the big gate open when ever I’ve had the chance, like today when I cleaned some things I was about to paint. The sun was shining then and all that nice warm sunshine filled the place.

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The swallows have arrived and they nest beneath the roof just outside where I paint and where all goods are delivered or shipped away. I do like them but they poop a lot and it’s hard to remove after just an hour or so. Plus they can spread salmonella with their poop so mask is always worn when cleaning it off.

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Today I’m showing more old photos from when I had this blog at another place, blogger. Some are from 2008 and very small. I have all these photos in the laptop I can’t remember the password for though 🙂 🙂 I really need to find some place that can help me open it up again so I can get photos from old Sickan and Viran too.

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Have a great day!

This is Öivind, later on renamed to Maxi. He was the father of Orvar and Hector and unfortunately their mother was Erna, Öivinds sister 🙂 🙂 🙂