Category: Flies!

Quite a nice day despite the rain.

June 28, 2025 · 9 Comments ·

To me this has been a rather nice day, no sunshine but still rather warm, mostly misty rain but every now and again it changed to a nice summer rain, You know the kind that isn’t too heavy and not drenches anyone outside.

So the fox cubs were playing just by the gate but the lens was covered in misty rainwater.

We took a walk rather late today down to the creek. Both Alma and Malkolm behaved so well until we had passed our new neighbours, then we met them just after their home and both Alma and Malkolm were so excited that Malkolm for some reason started yapping, yes it did sound just like that and Alma started bawling like insane 🙂 🙂 The good thing was that their dogs did the same 🙂 🙂 They all really wanted to meet but sort of scared each other at the same time so we had to just keep walking 🙂 🙂 🙂

I just like how difficult it is to see that there’s an opening to a path in to the forest that is really hard to see just in front of us.

That’s when the misty rain arrived and unfortunately misty rain sticks like glue to everything no matter what direction it comes from so I couldn’t get any photos of the two fox cubs that played on the gravel road in front of us, they didn’t have the patience to wait for me to clean the lens from rainwater. So I was sort of relieved when the nice summer rain started to fall instead.

Almost no wind today so we were surrounded by forest flies almost all the way. I’ve realised that it is enough to wear a hoodie to keep them away from both the ears and nostrils. I mean they do no harm at all but they have this idea that they need to go inside there to see what they can find and I hate it 🙂 🙂 🙂 Still no biting flies here and that sort of builds up hope that they might be very few this summer but I’m sure that’s a false hope 🙂 🙂

The Fireweed in bloom just outside my livxingroom window.

This weather also removed all ideas that a nap would be wrong, not even the dogs wanted to be outside, so I had a nap in the sofa together with Alma, Malkolm decided it was too crowded so he chose the other sofa and the floor. I’m pretty sure the sofas would be great to sleep on during hot days when the bedroom would be like an oven but it tends to be too crowded with me and the dogs but I think I’ll try it next time the temperatures rise too high, after all I might be able to convince the dogs that they can share the other sofa instead sleeping close to me 🙂 🙂

I’ve just baked a bread and for once I let it rest and not take a slice or two just after bringing it out in to the world 🙂 So as soon as I’ve done this blog I’ll have a slice or two together with that last cup of tea for the day 🙂

Have a great day!

My first strawberries :-)

June 25, 2025 · 6 Comments ·

We’re having a really nice afternoon/ evening. Just below 20C (68F), a weak wind blowing (therefore a lots of flies flying around), birds singing and I’ve had my two first strawberries 🙂 To be honest it would have been better to wait a day or so because they were pretty sour 🙂 🙂 🙂

The cattle are now walking in the fields again so we can’t walk everywhere we want to at the moment, like following the creek down-stream. Also there are so manytickso now that high grass is a no no to walk in. Last time we did I picked eight from Malkolm as soon as we came home and six from Alma. I once had two dogs that had a bad reaction on those drops one drop in the neck so I try to avoid using that on my dogs, especially a stressed dog like Alma. Thankfully I do pick off most of them after our walks.

They say our weather will be on and off when it comes to rain, we do need it but I do hope that the temperature doesn’t drop down to arctic temperatures again, after all it is summer now 🙂 🙂 Last week, the night before midsummers eve the night was clear and it wasn’t dark at all. The sky was deep red closer to the ground, then a thin layer with orange slowly turning to a pale light blue colour. Not a star could be seen and we had so much light that I didn’t need to use the high beam on the lights. Unfortunately that changes quickly now but it was nice to drive home at night without it bring pitch black.

I’ve just pad my bills and I always feel a bit sad doing it but then it changes to happy since I know I won’t have any more bills until next month 🙂 🙂 It is time for that last cup of tea for the day, I wish I had some cookies but I ate the last one on Sunday. I don’t have the energy to bake any new ones and most of the gluten free ones one can by is an abomination to any living thing 🙂 I wonder if they actually do taste what they bake or that they really don’t care because it’s not their fault we can’t eat normal cookies 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Scandinavian hot today.

June 22, 2025 · 8 Comments ·

Scandinavian hot today, 25C (77F), thankfully a wind is blowing to cool it down. Then again warm air dries out the ground even more so it’s sort of a damned if I do damned if I don’t situation for nature. They say we’ll get some more rain tomorrow evening though and the temperatures will drop some as well. The good thing though is that the laundry dried up in less than ten minutes 🙂 🙂

I will be surprised if the peach tree survives next winter, It is hit by leaf curl disease and this time it’s the entire tree. I’ve heard peaches usually can handle it when the tree is older but I’ve had so many peach trees dying because of it so I doubt it.

I’ve tried to remove this rose so many times that even I am beginning to give up now, it’s a garden variety of the Cinnamon rose and happily spreads via its roots.

I know that for many of You 25C (77F) is like a cool summer morning but up here in the north that used to be as high the temperature rose in summer with, of course, the occasional heatwave passing by a day or two before we had more rain 🙂 🙂 🙂 I can’t remember if it is two or three years ago the temperature never rose above 20C (68F) during the month of July and we had at least some rain every day that month. To be honest I didn’t complain even though I did get bored by it before the vacation was over 🙂 🙂 🙂

The potato sprouts I planted has now grown so high that it was time to fill up the entire bucket with soil. It will now produce potatoes along the stem that was just buried in soil. I doubt there will be many per stalk but they usually grow a bit bigger instead.

Three pots with sown rhubarbs. They are so easy to sow that it would have been surprising if even one seed didn’t germinate. Can’t eat any next year because the plant will need all leafs to grow bigger, but the year after that I can start harvesting 🙂

I’m still rather tired today but I guess it’s the combination of one week with high fever followed by a week with evening shift that sort of takes its toll, plus of course the warm weather itself. I’ve tried to not sit still too much, so I’ve done the laundry, started dinner for next week in the slow cooker and now I’m waiting for a bread to be ready to be taken out of the oven. This time I skipped the cheese but have plenty of rosemary in it. Also today I’m trying Teff flour, a cereal growing mostly in Ethiopia but I’ve heard they now grow it in a lot of places. I have used it once a long time ago but can’t remember how it tasted.

I have lots of the creeping bellflower in my garden, over here seen as one of the worst weeds there is 🙂 They are beautiful though and if too many just eat the roots, works great in a salad like radishes would.

I couldn’t for my life figure out what it was I had sown (name tags of course gone 🙂 ) Then I suddenly remembered it, garden varieties of the purple coneflower 🙂

This is truly surprising! Do You remember me telling You about mice chopping off both Giant sequoia seedlings and my Pawpaw seedlings? All looked dead to me but I saved them just in case it would produce new branches. I’ve mostly neglected this one but watered it every now and again. To my very big surprise this morning I noticed that it actually is alive and is producing new branches again 🙂 🙂 🙂 I will take very good care of it from now on 🙂

Not even the dogs are especially active today, they’ve played some but mostly they’ve been napping. I’ve always wondered how thick furred dogs can survive in a warmer climate than what it is here, most of them are knocked out already in our temperatures. We now have loads of insects here but surprisingly few biting ones, that may change quickly now if we actually get the rain that se we’ll get. Not many butterflies though but plenty of different bees and at the moment they are all visiting my wild roses 🙂

Magpies, beautiful, smart, funny and probably one of the most annoying birds there is 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

May 16, 2025 · 10 Comments ·

Still very windy with northern winds but today they were almost lukewarm. We only work to 2:30 pm on Fridays so I had the chance to experience it for a while 🙂 We walked down to the creek and thankfully the winds were so strong that the forest flies never came to us.

I had forgotten to buy toothpaste and a toothbrush yesterday when I was at the store so I had to make a stop at the smaller grocery store in Gudhem. They only had toothbrushes for kids 🙂 but any toothbrush is better than none 🙂 I’ll get a bigger one next time I’ll go to the supermarket. I was supposed to work overtime tomorrow but they had missed that lots of people at work are going out to have fun tonight so they had to cancel it. I must admit that I’m quite happy that they did, it’s one thing to say ok on Monday because one never knows how tired one will be on Friday evening 🙂 🙂

I’ll work the evening shift next week and it’s a long time since I did that. It usually messes up the sleep for a while but since this only will happen every three weeks I’ll take it without complaining, at first they said it would be every second week. It would have worked for a while but I’m pretty sure it would have been too much in the long run. When one need a job one has to take what one gets 🙂 I have had another call from a staffing agency but I really like this place so I didn’t answer the call.

I often get the question if it isn’t scary to work with coffins all over the factory but it’s just like working with boxes to be honest. I guess there’s just too much of them. The only time it gets a bit sad is when one need to pass the coffins for children. Especially the tiny ones but thankfully they work with them in a part of the factory we seldom pass.

It is time to have that last cup of tea, today I need to start wit being up late so it won’t be a shock for the body on Monday 🙂 Also later breakfast tomorrow and dinner tomorrow as well.

Have a great day!

April 10, 2025 · 6 Comments ·

No wind this morning and sunshine. Really pleasant to walk around in the forest listening to all birds and some deer running away when we came close. Still it was below 0C (32F) and the water had frozen during the night. These mornings really are the best because it feels warm and nice but no flies are terrorising us 🙂 They’ll arrive some time in the middle of June. The forest flies are just annoying though and not biting. The biting ones tends to show up a couple of weeks later.

I’m slowly getting the dogs used to me being away a couple of hours every day now so today I went to my old work place for a visit, it might be the last time I do that since I now will work rather far away and after that I went to the grocery store I’ve been doing my shopping for the last 28 years now. I will go there again but not that often, I will have at least four big supermarkets and several other big stores just beside where I’ll be working.

Back in the days when one would sign a contract of employment one sat at the employers desk and signed it with a pen, that’s not how it’s working now days. I got a mail with a link and after reading the contract I signed it with my Bank ID and did it at home. It is amazing how fast things change now days. It is practical though since I now have it stored in my computer. Also I could really take my time reading it, one never did that in the office with the new employer to be honest. One just signed and smiled 🙂 🙂 🙂

I’m slowly picking up the plants I have in the cool cellar. Lots have died, either too much or too little water during the winter but most is still alive. The dead plants get tossed in places where the dogs have been digging so the ground evens out again 🙂 🙂 We’ll have fairly warm nights for the coming ten days they say so I planted one of my apricot seedlings where I used to have the Amure grapevine. It will take a couple of years but it will be a good place for the birds to sit while waiting for their chance of eating from the feeder I have outside the kitchen window. I also started to fill the big wooden box I have my , for some reason, autumn flowering strawberry plants . Turns out the packages with soil are small now days (and more expensive) so I need to buy two more.

The box is quite empty when the big gooseberry bush was removed. Just weeds and strawberry plants left.

I removed it all and filled up with soil and there’s still lots of space to fill up. I planted the young strawberries again. I’ll have to redo this when I have more soil (or compost when I can empty any of my composts).

Lots of old ones left but I didn’t want to toss them away.

So I planted them in a spot where I have removed as much of the stinging nettle roots I could. Now the strawberries can spread as they please 🙂

I have that last cup of tea for the day beside me and soon I’ll go outside with the dogs bringing more dead plants from the cellar 🙂

Have a great day!

October 8, 2024 · 4 Comments ·

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!

The rebellious stage has begun.

August 3, 2024 · 4 Comments ·

Mostly cloudy today but really nice. Just warm enough and no wind. The no wind did make the flies too happy but only while we were walking in the forest, here at home they mostly kept away. So I could walk around watering the plants that need extra attention without going crazy 🙂

Today I scolded Malkolm for the first time, three times actually 🙂 🙂 He has now gotten the idea to pull out my potted plants and then start to chew on them. He’s getting his real teeth now so I guess it itches something awful in his mouth right now. I caught him in action so I thought that it would stop after the first time but oh no, he tried again 🙂 He really look miserable after scolding him and refused to go inside after the first time, no such behavior the other times though, he almost looked proud instead 🙂 🙂 I think the time of rebellion has started 🙂 🙂

Otherwise I’ve mostly listened to the radio and the Olympics and I’ve also napped so I’ve only missed to nap twice during my vacation, always feel nice when I can keep a promise to myself to almost 100% 🙂 🙂 They warned about showers passing by but so far nothing has fallen here. They’re guessing that we will get rain tomorrow as well but the amount and when keeps changing all the time. I won’t mind if it will rain the entire day, sort of fitting since I’ll go back to work on Monday 🙂 🙂

Nova has had a bad day today. The walk was tough for her so I let her off the leash so that she could walk in her own pace. I haven’t noticed any signs of wolves in the area so I’ll do the same tomorrow.

My cold has come back, yay. I don’t have any fever but my throat is sour and my nose is runny. Summer colds are the best 🙂 🙂 They stay long and close as an old friend 🙂 🙂 So now I’ll have a cup of tea with lots of ginger in it and hope that will stop the cold from going worse.

These are the Guava seedlings, they haven’t grown much in the cold weather we’ve had but look really healthy.

Here are the Apricots, I have one more but I test planted it amongst the Siberian nepeta. It doesn’t look happy because the nepeta is too invasive.

My two peach seedlings. The one to the right was the first tree Malkolm decided to chew on 🙂

My strawberry plants are thriving now, I’ll get plenty of strawberries if the warm weather continues for a while.

Have a great day!

I’ve found two small squashes beneath the leafs, perfect size to have in the dinner.

He doesn’t look too guilty after chewing on my plants 🙂 🙂

Last day of vacation but still the weekend left.

August 2, 2024 · Leave a comment ·

The test photo of the day, my and my neighbors trash bins. The brown one is for leftover food and the green for non recyclable trash. I’ve used the brown twice, once when the freezer broke and once fr some really old food that I managed to hid in the back of the fridge 🙂 Still if I don’t have that brown bin I’ll have to pay more. It is more or less impossible to refuse to have garbage bins over here.

Another really nice day but it was a bit too warm in the morning and absolutely no wind so the flies were quite annoying, no biting ones though and that’s always positive. We walked down to the creek and I had hoped we at least would see the Roe deer we’ve seen lately but I guess they too were a bit tired of the flies and instead had walked in to the forest and hid in the shadow amongst the trees.

A bad year for acorns, normally this little tree is full of them but today I found five.

The spring was amazing when it comes to Rowan berries though. Old folklore says that if there are lots of Rowan berries we’ll get a cold winter. We had almost no berries last year and got a nasty cold winter again 🙂 All it says is that the spring was amazingly good for Rowan trees.

I think the beavers are back in the creek, even though the water level is really high on one side of the place we pass on our way home it’s really low on the other side. Last time they were here they blocked the big pipe passing under the gravel road and it looks like that’s what happening again now. I’m happy about it but I know the land owners aren’t. Still that was what saved the fields along the creek last time we had a drought for well over two months here. The rest of the area was so dry that the trees started to lose their leafs but everything was green and lush along the creek.

No risk of that happening this year though since the ground water levels now are higher in this area than there’s space in the ground 🙂 Still my garden has mostly sand so even though there’s lots of water in the ground the surface still dries out really quickly, so now the first thing in the morning I’ll go out to water what is newly planted and those things where the roots don’t go especially deep. The good thing with having sand is that almost nothing even get close to rot away because of standing water and the dogs are usually quite clean after being outside in the garden after a shower 🙂

I was disturbed twice when I tried to have a nap today. First time it was a phone sales person, I never answer a phone call if I don’t know who’s calling but my phone said it was trash and second time it was a text message telling me that a package had arrived and stood outside my gate. I know I should turn off the sound while having a nap but I usually never get a call that time of the day and when I do turn off the sound I usually forget to turn it on again 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well I did get two short naps so I’ve fulfilled my vow to have a nap every day of the vacation 🙂 Today was the last day of my vacation but I still have the weekend to enjoy. Tomorrow will be much like today weather-vice but Sunday will be rainy they guess.

The perennial sunflower the Jerusalem artichoke is very early this year, they normally start to flower some time in Early September but I can already see buds. Badly eaten by snails this year.

I sowed sunflowers all over the garden this spring and the few that started to grow are still small and tiny. This one however, sown by birds I think, grows in the vegetable garden 🙂 🙂

My seed sown apple tree has lots of apples. They taste delicious but the tree almost always get attacked by fungus and the apples rot directly on the tree, doesn’t look like that will happen this year though. So this tree proves that seed sow apples always becomes sour and bitter.

The blueberries are coming fine as well but they ripe really unevenly, so I’ll have to pick and freeze them one by one.

Alma is in the dog basket, she isn’t sleeping but I can’t say what she’s doing either, could be chewing on something. Malkolm sleeps beside the vacuum cleaner, he has no fear of it what so ever and Nova sleep just beside me, both of them sleeps quite heavily and at least one of them has gasses and it’s bad 🙂 Time to have a last cup of tea for the day and then see if there’s anything worth watching on tv.

Have a great day!