Category: Flowers.

Close but still no thunder or rain.

June 1, 2024 · 4 Comments ·

The path down to the creek is bordered with Dog biscuits. — The path that eventually leads down to the creek is full of Dog biscuits. I’m glad they have driven four wheelers there, otherwise we would have been drenched in water from the rains and morning dews.

Hot again today so it was really nice that we were able to have our morning walk in the early morning while it still was cool. Not cool enough to keep the mosquitoes away but cool enough for them to not attack us to hard 🙂 Malkolm woke me up at 3:27 am today but after he had been outside we all went back to bed and slept for another hour.

A Roe deer buck is eating in the field. — This wasn’t the only animal we saw this morning. It is a Roe deer buck.

Still lots of water in the creek. — There’s so much vegetation along the creek now that it is hard to see it 🙂

All the dogs are at the moment a bit wobbly in their stomachs so today I boiled rice and fish for them. Nova loved it, Alma loved it and Malkolm put his nose in the air and refused to eat anything until he realized they all had the same food 🙂 He did eventually eat all of his food but I can clearly say that he’s not a fan of boiled fish 🙂 Too bad for him because he’ll get this tomorrow as well 🙂

The path along the creek is very narrow now days. — The path along the creek is now so narrow that we need to walk in a line, something Alma have big problems understanding 🙂

There's a little brige at the both ends of the creek where we alk so I had to stand on one of those to be able to see more than a couple of meters of it.

My camera refused to do as I wanted so here are two rather bad photos of fox cubs running away from us. — Some previous owner of my camera thought it was a good idea to adjust the camera to being able to go through the photos when turning the shutter speed wheel. Idiotic since if I need to adjust the speed after just taking one photo instead of changing the shutter speed I then started to go through my photos already taken. So instead of actually capture these two fox cubs so it would be easier to see them I instead took several photos that an editing program then tried to make at least some better. We met the mother later on but it happened so fast that I wasn’t able to take any photos of it.

Thunder and heavy rain is nearby again but it looks like it’ll go either south or north of us. I wouldn’t mind if we at least got the cool air that always follow thunder but even if we don’t get it today it will cool down considerable next week. It’ll drop from today’s 26C (78,8F) to 14C (57,2F). It will stay that cool during the entire long weekend and I think I’ll enjoy it a lot, cool weather plus what they are guessing rain as well sort of forces us to just relax all the time 🙂

Nova didn't like that I wanted to go down to the creek, she wanted to go out to the bog. So she dragged her feet all the time until I let her go un leashed, then suddenly she had all the energy in the world :-) :-) :-)

Malkolm decided to not follow Nova and instead kept himself close to me and Alma.

Nova did stop and look after us every now and again :-) — Nova checked after us on and off, last time she walked away like this she too a wrong turn and it took some time until she finally found us. She’s more or less deaf so no use in calling after her 🙂

I moved the lawn, well most of it, when the grass had started to dry up some. I drank too little water while doing it so now I have a slight headache. What’s left will be moved tomorrow and it’s on the north side of the cottage and beside the woodland where the Pawpaws are growing. I do hope we’ll have a wind blowing because that’s where all the mosquitoes are and I have already been bitten quite a lot. I was bitten by a horse fly this morning as well, they’ve started their season a bit early unfortunately. Last month was unusually hot here and I guess that kickstarted them.

I do like the European Hornet, a gentle giant unless one comes too close to their nest. If one do one must run fast :-) — The European Hornets are back, favorites ogf mine :-)

Alma and Malkolm playing in the garden :-) — Alma and Malkolm had a few minutes to play before it became too hot.

It looks like both the thunder and rain will miss us so I better put together the new hose and spray gun so I can water the vegetable patch. Something is eating the beans I sowed but the rest looks untouched, the carrots however hasn’t shown them selves yet so I’m starting to wonder whether I’ll have to sow something else in that spot. I’ll give them a couple of more days before I do anything.

Have a great day!

It missed us again.

May 31, 2024 · 6 Comments ·

The factory where I work is almost surrounded by fields and I really like to stand outside in nice weather just watching what ever they are growing, sometimes a fox pass by and deer kan be seen gracing there too. — Took this one with my camera at work today, I think it came out rather nice 🙂

Another day another thunderstorm passing by but to be honest even though it did go through nearby I couldn’t even hear it this time. It was much worse along the west coast where cities and town have been flooded and cellars being filled with dirty water. An old gardening enthusiast who grew up nearby well over 90 years ago told me that the bog I live beside is so big that during hot summers it creates a high pressure area all by itself, so when rain comes close it push it towards its sides. So the rain can pour down on the mountain but we can have sunshine. It also makes it much colder here when winter arrives and so far I can’t say that he was wrong.

View from my window upstairs. Some sheep in the foreground and behind them the ground is covered by morning mist. — Not bad views when driving to work 🙂 This one however was taken from a window upstairs.

Photos taken in the village on my way to work. The sun is breaking through the mist showing how it floats around in different patters when the sun heats it up. It doesn't take long before the sun burns it away but here the last of it is rising upwards behind the gravel road.

We’ve had mostly thin clouds that the sun has shone through or clear blue sky. There was a strongish wind blowing when I came home after work so even if I thought it might be too warm for both Nova and Malkolm I took the dogs for a walk, I thought the wind would cool us down. Turns out that the wind wasn’t strong enough to blow through the forest. The odd thing was that there were no mosquitoes?! The first horse fly annoyed us for a while and the first forest flies a bit longer but even they gave up, so I guess it must have been much warmer in the forest than I actually thought.

This and the next photo showsmostly the did up fields and a small bit of the creek and a thin layer of morning mist floating around over it all. — And tow from the lake.

Dog biscuits, a quite common flower that looks much like wild carrot and smells rather nice. — The Swedish name for the white flowers is Dog biscuit, have no idea how they came up with that long ago 🙂 It is edible and the root is said to taste like Parsnip. They are closely related. The problem is that several other flowers looking similar are deadly poisonous so one must know what one is doing if one wants to eat them 🙂 Also We have wild carrot growing here, believe me when I say that it’s like chewing on a stick 🙂 the taste is there though 🙂

A cloud slowly building up to become a Thunder cloud.

The morning was cool and nice though, 8C (46,4F) and I would rather have had a walk with the dogs than having to go to work 🙂 🙂 🙂 Morning mist floating above the ground and birds singing like crazy. I brought one of my cameras with me and managed to get a few photos with the morning mist before the sun burned it away.

I'm bad at butterfly names but lots are flying around here now, This one was feeding n Lingonberry flowers just when I saw it. — Lots of butterflies here now.

The forest is filled with strwberry plants. Thankfully we have the law called Right to access so we can pick any berries everywhere (unless it is in a garden of course). No land owner has the right to stop us doing that. — Wild strawberry flowers

Have no idea what these tiny yellow flowers are called but I like them :-) — No idea what these are called.

WE have lots of Veronica's growing in the wild, I think these are called Granny's' goggles. — These veronica’s’ are everywhere now and I think our name for these are Granny’s’ goggles 🙂

The birds just stopped to sing, it is oddly quiet so I checked the lightning app and there isn’t any thunder even close to here. There’s also a tractor working somewhere nearby that also just stopped making noise. I don’t think they are related in any way but it feels odd when it suddenly becomes totally quiet 🙂 Well th

Chamomile grows along the gravel raod towards the forest. — Chamomile.

The forst star loves living in the forest where it doesn't get too much sunlight that would dry out the ground. — Forest star.

More and more Buttercups are opening up now, soon the fields will shine yellow again nw after all the Dandelions have stopped flowering. — Buttercups.

This is a deep hole in the bog, it looks like it has a bottom rather shallow but it is in facy just roots that covers the water below. Hare tail cotton grass grows well there. — The little tjärn still has water in it and the hare tail cotton grass looks beautiful.

e birds are back and I hope they won’t drive that tractor any more 🙂 🙂 I noticed earlier when I was watering all the new trees that it is time to do something about some of my sowing, like the Hollyhocks and Morning glories, they are growing fast and I was wondering for myself if the best thing is to re-pot them (but I have very little soil) or just plant them where I want them to grow?

This small creek is almost dried out now but the ferns are covering it up instead.

Salmiak , the beekeepers cat, is sleeping on the patio table. We think he is as old as Nova, 18 years old. — Salmiak sleeping on the patio table.

These grow everywhere except in my garden 🙂

I sowed a Black Walnut almost 16 years ago and last year it gave nuts for the first time and this is the first time I've seen the male flowers :-) — The Black Walnut in bloom.

Also several more Giant Sequoias have germinated, still none of the Dawn Redwood but I still have hope 🙂 I have too much of the Greater celandine so I’ll remove some of them tomorrow, I’ll wear gloves when doing that because the sap in them are bright orange and it is more or less impossible to remove that color and I never know where smaller stinging nettles can hide 🙂 I also need to figure out where to plant that last Mulberry tree I bought and four Sea Buckthorn I have waiting as well.Plus the rose that I planted where Teodor the cat is buried seems to have died this winter, so I’ve bought another one, completely different. I doubt it’ll flower this year but it is much more hardy. Seems to spread happily with its roots though so perhaps I need to contain it with a bottomless big pot.

Four photos where You can see Alma and Malkolm playing. — It was too hot for Malkolm to have a walk but he and Alma could play for over an hour in the garden when we came home 🙂 🙂

It is time for a pot of tea and I bought a packet with gluten free oatmeal cookies. I’m pretty sure I’ll fall asleep in the retainer as soon as I’ve taken the last sip of the tea 🙂

Have a great day!

Thunder and rain.

May 30, 2024 · Leave a comment ·

Clouds are fascinating, I’m pretty sure this will grow up to a thunder cloud.

Thunder and rain again, at work the rain poured sown and thunder passed just outside the village. It doesn’t look as we had much rain here though and only the sound from the thunder reached this village. The rain did arrive shortly after I came home though and now we get the occasional shower passing by. They’re guessing we’ll have rain on and off all evening but tomorrow and Saturday will be rain free, well with our weather services that can mean anything but I do hope snow is out of the question 🙂

This is how a Gardenia looks like in nature, the same smell but the flower lasts less. One of my seed sown ones.

A Camellia flower that fell of the potted plant.

You see those white tipped leafs? They come from the male hardy kiwi vine. This one is so big that it almost has grown to the top of the apple tree behind it 🙂 The female ones froze this winter and has started to grow again. It’ll take many years until I get any kiwi fruits 🙂 🙂

I was so tired yesterday that I didn’t have energy to even write a blog, must be pollen because I did sleep like a that night and again last night. Alma hasn’t escaped the dog yard in a couple of days now but I did noticed that she had searched for a weak spot in several places. I fixed those and today there were no signs of her trying again. It’s just a matter of time though 🙂 🙂 She and Malkolm plays all day and now when they can’t be outside because of the rain they play just as wild indoors. No problems really unless Malkolm suddenly needs to pee because when he notice that he doesn’t have much time, if I don’t understand that immediately he will pee on the floor 🙂 🙂 I was just about to haste down to the door when he returned with one of my woolen socks 🙂 I traded it with an old handkerchief instead 🙂

Isn’t it strange how plants no matter how much one water and fertilize them always grow much better when it has rained? I looked at my small apricot trees and I have been watering and given them fertilizer all the time and nothing much has happened, they a couple of days with rain and they grow like crazy!Personally I feel it wouldn’t do much difference but the plants show it does. We almost always have a very high humidity here so that shouldn’t do any difference but rain and high humidity together might be so much better.

Yellow day-lilies. I used to have four different but only the yellow ones are still here, so by that I mean I have two different yellow ones 🙂

The residues of my woodland. Few flowers left but now it’s home to the Pawpaw trees, a Ginkgo and the rhododendron Catawbiense.

The little green dot grows bigger from the root of the Hybrid Persimmon that died 🙂

The surviving Pawpaw now has several small green dots which means leafs and new growth 🙂

It is time to go downstairs to watch the news, not much else to watch tonight. Well the Diamond league, competing in athletics might be something to watch because we do have a couple of Swedes competing, if boring it’s perfect to fall asleep to 🙂

Have a great day!

I didn’t mind they were wrong about today’s weather :-)

May 25, 2024May 25, 2024 · 4 Comments ·

So today was supposed to be all cloudy and hot but without any wind. It started out that way but then the sun broke through so the hot part was right because we now do have a wind blowing thankfully. Before it started it was like living in a steam bath here. I couldn’t move a meter without sweating like a pig.

The cattle walking in the pasture outside the beekeepers place for the first time this year.

Rowan trees usually don’t grow especially high, this one is at least fifteen meters high (much the same in yards). We had one much bigger but that one was a victim this years thinning. A bit odd because it seems they’ve saved almost all other Rowan trees this time and we do have lots of them here.

We walked down to the creek while it still wasn’t too warm, we couldn’t follow it down stream though because now they let the cattle walk in to the pasture outside the beekeepers so they block the road with those electric wires and I really didn’t want to go through passing them with Alma 🙂 🙂 🙂 I really didn’t want Malkolm to learn from her how to do it 🙂 🙂 🙂 So we walked it up-stream for a while until the grass became too high, damp grass close to a creek is a tick magnet. After that we walked back the same way and suddenly four wild hogs ran out in front of us, perhaps ten meters (much the same in yards) away from us. Alma reacted like always so no photos of them I’m afraid 🙂 🙂

This flowers Swedish name is Hag’s tooth 🙂

We actually woke up at 3:45 this morning because someone needed to go outside to do his business 🙂 Normally we would all just stay up and then take a walk as soon as the sun would start to rise. No sun was supposed to shine today though so we all just went back to bed and slept for two more hours and that is really unusual! The sun was shining when we went up again, went back in to the clouds while we were out walking and then came back and has stayed here all day and by the looks of it it’ll stay until it sinks down beyond the horizon. One good thing with yesterdays heavy showers is that I didn’t have to water anything today 🙂

The Persimmon hybrid that I bought last year and that looked healthy all winter through until that last snow storm is dead. Since it was a variety however it’s always grafted on a root from the actual persimmon, Diospyros virginiana, and I have hoped that the root has survived because it is so much hardier than the rest of the trees in that family. Today I noticed that a new branch is growing up from the root 🙂 🙂 So since I bought a real Persimmon this year I now will have two 🙂 Lets hope that one is female and one is male so I can grow my own fruits in the future 🙂 So now I have two Persimmon trees and with the my own seedlings nine Pawpaw’s 🙂

Can You see the little green dot at the base of the dead tree trunk? That’s new growth from the Persimmon roots 🙂

This is a new variety of White Mulberry tree with tasty berries. Normally the white mulberry tree gives edible fruits but someone said if one likes the taste of dry grass they’r pretty good 🙂 🙂 This one however gives sweet and tasteful berries. It was quite damaged by frost before it arrived here but it is coming back again.

This is on the other hand another Mulberry tree with the name variety name Mulle 🙂 (Morus accidosa). I once had a smaller tree here but one day my two big dogs dug it up and had lost of fun tearing it apart 🙂 🙂

I’ve bought a tea bush as well this year (Camellia sinensis). It’s just as picky as the Camellia we have as pot plants or in the gardens where the climate allows it but it doesn’t flower until late spring I’ve read plus if it gets big enough I can always try to make a cup of tea from its leafs 🙂 🙂 🙂

We’ve had our pancake Saturday, I’ve sown almost all of the flower seeds I still had (but there’s at least two more but I just can’t find the seed bags 🙂 ) and we’ve had a short nap when it was as warmest. I don’t think we slept for especially long but that nap did more for me than the two more hours in the morning did 🙂 So for the rest of the day I’ll just relax. I didn’t win the Euro jackpot yesterday which is strange since so many really hopes that I will win 🙂 I’ve promised that if I win that much money (around 100 million US dollars) no worker at my work place would have to work any more 🙂 (not even the ones I dislikes). With that much money I still would have perhaps 25 million US dollars left to myself and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t miss the other millions 🙂 🙂 🙂

I did sow Salvia pratensis seeds last year and I think this is it 🙂 The Swedish name for it is Meadow sage and it looks like it’s the same in English!

When You think all the Greater celandine have died out but then You remove some grass and cut away some branches and suddenly it’s everywhere in the garden 🙂 🙂

This is a rhubarb but not an edible one, this is the Chinese rhubarb. Well it is used in traditional medicine but don’t try it for a pie 🙂 Mine has grown in the shadows and too dry for too long so this year I moved it. It can become really big and is quite beautiful as an ornamental plant.

Well the smaller lottery is today with “only” 7,5 millions US dollars as minimum maximum winning. I think it might be higher at the moment. I’ve said that if I “only” win those millions all they can expect from me is a cup cake 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

The Mosquitoes love the rain.

May 24, 2024 · 6 Comments ·

The plastic bag You can see is covering the handle on my old lawn mower, mostly because the birds ten to poop on it.

When I looked at the weather sites yesterday they said really warm all next week with almost only sunshine, today they say almost no sunshine and quite a lot of rain 🙂 🙂 🙂 So Your guess to how it will be is as good as mine 🙂 I won’t mind some rain just as long as it doesn’t continue for too long plus the farmers need it so at least they will be really happy when it starts to fall 🙂

The last peat in the yellow plastic bag was so dry that this rain really helped 🙂

It is hard to catch the rain drops when taking photos.

Today they were almost right though, they guessed cloudy all day but no rain. It has been cloudy all day but just before I arrived here at home after work the clouds opened up and the rain started to pour down. My water barrels that were almost empty are now three quarters full. The ground here is still very wet so we here really don’t need the rain but it is nice to see that the barrels are full of water again.

Can’t remember the name on this weed but it does look harmless enough. It isn’t though because it becomes so dense that nothing else can grow up from the ground. Really good to stop water evaporating from the ground though, never dry beneath it.

The rain however stopped us from taking a walk and now there are so many mosquitoes flying around that it’s a bit nasty to have walks. Well they are guessing we’ll have sunshine and hot weather tomorrow again so we’ll just take an extra long morning walk before it gets too hot. This rain has unfortunately brought out both slugs and snails so some of my sowings (in containers) has been eaten. Tomorrow I’ll see if anything can be saved.

Alma hadn’t escaped the dog yard today either 🙂 This morning I took all small plastic bottles I could find here at home and put dog treats in them, I tried it with Malkolm at first and when he saw what I did to get those treats out he understood it. I don’t think Alma has a clue still because some of those bottles were heavily chewed so that the treats could come out 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well at least she has been busy 🙂

This container has not been visited by slug or snails so I moved it temporarily to a table on the other side of the cottage.The biggest leafs to the right are from Morning glories, beside them are Hollyhocks. Then comes False Dragonheads followed by Alpine Aster and Siberian Larkspur.

My little Red oak, it grows so slow here. I need to remove the vegetation around it so that it gets some sunshine.

So far only columbines and Giant Sequoia seeds have germinated in this container. Still no Chinese dogwood, Dawn redwood, Tulip tree or Sea kale. This one did have a small slug in it so that container has also been temporarily moved.

It is time to go out to check where I can place my Pawpaw seedlings so that the slugs and snails at least have a harder time to reach them. I’ll do it quickly because those mosquitoes mean business when they start arriving, Nova is already scratching herself badly, the other two have only been outside when they really needed to.

Have a great day!

Rain and thunder is close but won’t reach us.

May 23, 2024 · 8 Comments ·

There’s thunder nearby but looking at the radar sequence on all weather sites it will miss us, I wouldn’t mind if we had gotten the rain because my two big water barrels are closing in to be empty and the cooler air would be nice as well. The cool air will come tonight though but only stay for one day, it’ll be warm again on Saturday.

A tiny part of my Lilac hedge, I have around 30 meters (much the same in yards) of it and I truly dislike Lilacs 🙂 🙂 In front of it stands a Red leafed Rose.

Whitebeam. A close relative to the Rowan tree and can become fairly large. I would like to have one in my garden but I have so many other trees growing now so it’ll have to wait until I win the lottery and can buy lots of new land 🙂 🙂 🙂

We haven’t had any walk today because it is just too hot for a puppy and an eighteen year old dog, it was bad enough yesterday when we were out for a short walk. Still I’m not yet complaining about it being too warm 🙂 Alma and Malkolm have been outside playing a lot though and now they sleep here beside me on the cooler floor while Nova sleeps on two fleece blankets and snoring loudly as well 🙂

Alma has stayed in the dog yard all day today, Yay 🙂 funny because today had been the perfect day for her to do it when it comes to me and my job. The same company all day long, only one color and long series of what I painted. She always escapes those days when it is most inconvenient 🙂 🙂 🙂 I must admit though that the dog yard hasn’t been this clean and tidy in a long time. I’ve been there fixing and cleaning almost every day and all eventual plants that tends to grow in there are almost totally gone 🙂 Nothing bad that doesn’t bring something good with it as we say over here 🙂 🙂

So I’ve mostly hand watered the vegetable patch and all the potted plants. The vegetable patch has only been fried by the sun but the wind can’t reach it, so the ground was actually a bit damp on the surface now in the evening. The potted plants however needed a lot of water. It’s always a bit tricky to water all the potted trees and bushes because some need acidic water, like the Pawpaw and other preferres water with lots of lime in it, like peaches and Apricots. So now I need to place them in two groups so that I don’t use the wrong water.

One of the Ginkgo’s I had in my garden survived the snow storm, the other one seems to have died.

My seed sown Pawpaw’s. Three of them now have new leafs growing out and three have leafs since during winter and I think those need to drop before they too get new leafs.

Can You see the tiny green dots? New leafs on the outdoors Pawpaw!

This and the next one shows the two Pawpaws I bought this spring.

I can also tell You that the Pawpaw that stayed in the garden all winter has survived because today I could see the first tiny leafs growing on it 🙂 The Columbines are opening up now and the tree peony has big buds 🙂 My seeds sown Gardenias are either flowering or just about to. The seeds sown aren’t filled with petals like the ones we can buy and has a slightly weaker scent so they are easier to have if one has problems with strong smells.

Columbine. If You look at the petals they look like a dove seen from the side, hence the name, columbine means dove like.

This and the next one is the same species but since they self sow all kinds of varieties can show.

I “won” almost nine dollars US on the lottery yesterday 🙂 I use ” because if I don’t win on Saturday I’ve only lost 3 dollars US 🙂 🙂 🙂 It’s a bit sad when one is happy because one only lost three dollars 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Doing everything while it is cool.

May 19, 2024 · 2 Comments ·

Another warm day here, My thermometers aren’t to trust when it comes to how warm it has been since both are hit by the sun. But I think that 25C (77F) is most likely. So everything I had to do today had to be done before it went too warm. So I watered vegetables, trees and a rose while it still was fairly cool, after that we went out for our morning walk.

Lots of water still and the reason for all the mosquitoes we have around our cottages.

It could have been much nicer if it wasn’t for all the mosquitoes and the first of the oh so annoying forest flies. Forest flies don’t bit or anything like that, they annoy! They come in big swarms flying around our heads and do their best to try and fly in to nostrils and ears. They are usually quite calm in the very early morning when it still is cool, almost chilly, after that I need to wear a mosquito hat while walking in the forest because they drive me crazy! On one hand I truly hate them on the other it is amazing we have so many and that they are food for lots of birds and other animals. Now days when driving during summer there’s no need to wash off all crushed flies on the windshields because there are no crushed flies any more. I guess they all moved to this bog 🙂 🙂 🙂

The laundry is done as well and everything dried within 20 minutes 🙂 despite the lack of wind and hanging in the shadows. We will get stronger winds again the coming week they’re guessing and I won’t mind, strong winds means no mosquitoes or forest flies, they will do what they can to hang on to vegetation and not blow away 🙂 More wind however mean more watering. The ground is still damp but the surface will dry up and since I’ve just sown seeds that mustn’t happen until the roots have grown deep to more reliable water sources. The ground water is just 2,5 meters (much the same in yards) down here.

Ash tree. The first to drop its leafs in autumn and the last to get new ones in spring.

I’ve also re-potted most of my orchids. I’ve now placed them all on the north side of the cottage and after a week or so I’ll place them in the trees and leave them there doing nothing (unless we’re having a drought, then I’ll water them but not otherwise). I’ll also place my Christmas and easter cacti there as well. All I have left to do now is to make dinner for work next week and take a look at my notes for the road association meeting next week. We’ve already had a long nap but I’m still just as tired, pollen season does this to me. Then again the warm weather arrived so fast that the heat does this to me as well but I refuse to complain about that 🙂 🙂

I do need to check the melon vines I planted this morning as well. I think I better cover them with something now when the wind will arrive, they really can’t manage dry soil especially well. I haven’t seen many Cabbage butterflies yet but I better start to think about covering the little cabbage seedlings as well. The sun is coming back from behind the clouds we’ve had for an hour or so so I better go out and check those melon vines!

The extremely hardy Rosemary. It is said to survive -25C (-13F).

I have to protect the young Tree peony so the dogs don’t break it 🙂

One Ginkgo and most of my smaller citrus seedling plus all of the Guava seedlings to the right.

Three of the first kind of pear tree seedlings survived winter in the cool cellar

Here are the bigger citrus trees, they all need more iron, hence the yellowish leafs.

Have a great day!

I have a few Sand cherry trees in my garden, I love the berries but birds are fast.

There isn’t any big difference between the subspecies but the first one seems more easily hit by mildew.

My new Persimmon tree (Diospyros virginiana).

Old Nova was outside too before it was too hot even for her.

The snail had a long shower while I was watering the vegetable patch 🙂

If it hadn’t been for the mowing.

May 18, 2024 · 4 Comments ·

If it hadn’t been for having to mow the lawn today would have been a perfect day. Cool but sunny and wind free morning, ok it gave the mosquitoes a good opportunity to drink our blood and we will all probably scratch ourselves a lot tonight 🙂 🙂 I am lucky in a way though because I get immune pretty quickly from the itchy thing we got so after four or five bites I usually don’t feel it any more, I can only hope the dogs are lucky that way too 🙂

We now have pine pollen everywhere, my car is now covered in yellow pollen every morning.

I think this is a Greylag feather (well could be crane as well) I should have brought it with me and made a quill pen 🙂

We walked down to the creek, the birds were singing like crazy and I could also hear lots of geese honking up in the sky. Lots of animals had followed and passed the gravel road so both Nova and Malkolm had to stop everywhere to sniff to get what animals it might have been, Alma ran around like crazy as always 🙂 The dogs had already eaten before the walk but I had my breakfast as soon as we had come home. They said that it would be rather warm today and yes it has been and still is. So I went out and watered the vegetable patch and all the potted plants after that.

I let it be for a while so the water could sink down into the ground and then I went out to sow more flower seeds in the old vegetable patch and after that I sowed split beans, two different peas, carrots and one more thing I at the moment can’t remember what it is 🙂 🙂 🙂 I have lots of different vegetable seeds waiting to be sown in places where what I originally sowed won’t start to grow. A few days ago I also sowed different flower seeds and also some of the seeds I sowed when it still was cold are now germinating as well 🙂

I still plants that needs new spaces in the garden but I still haven’t figured out where 🙂 After the sowing we all had a long nap before I went out to mow that lawn. I didn’t drink enough with water so after a while I was bone dry in my mouth and not even thinking on lemons gave any result 🙂 🙂 I usually aren’t careless about that since I need to drink a lot of water at work because my workplace is close to a big oven so if I don’t drink a lot during the day I will get headaches. Only Alma kept me company while I mowed, Malkolm who now learns what warm weather is slept at the coolest place he could find, north side in the cottage just beside the entrance door and Nova slept in the kitchen close to the open kitchen door.

The vegetable patch. I’ve gone back to more traditional way of growing them. If one co plant with other vegetables if one doesn’t grow all of it will be a mess.

Six photos showing what’s in bloom in my garden right now.

They are all still sleeping but now close to me, I opened the window on the opposite end of the cottage so that the little wind there is now can blow through the upper floor. It is time for them to have something to eat and after that I think I’ll sow some more flower seeds, they are getting old so I’m not sure how well they are but to be honest one can’t have either too many trees or too many flowers 🙂

Aronia. The berries might be super berries as they call them but they taste like shit to be honest. To say they are tart is an understatement 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

She will drive me crazy one day :-)

May 17, 2024 · 2 Comments ·

The morning was quite wonderful today, sunny but also cool enough to keep the mosquitoes calm. I had to go a bit early because I needed to fill up the car with petrol. I had worked perhaps ten minutes when I noticed my neighbor had called me six times! It is a very noisy job to clean the paint box so I hadn’t heard the phone.

She asked me if I had arrived at work and if so said I better come home again because Alma and Malkolm were in her garden. I really can’t be angry at Alma but god knows she does test my patience a lot 🙂 🙂 🙂 Thankfully no hand painting for the two coming jobs so I left to get home again. My neighbor had tried to find where Alma had escaped from but couldn’t find any place and it was the same when I looked the first time as well 🙂 🙂 🙂

We went out to the bog again. It was a bit warm but a wind was blowing so I didn’t think it would be too warm for the dogs.

Well I think now that it was, so it’ll be nice to have walks in the cool morning air this weekend.

So I went in and checked in the dog yard and even then I first couldn’t figure out how she had managed to get out. There are two tree trunks lying along the fence and they are both attached to the fence with steel wires and both were still there 🙂 She had managed to squeeze her self beneath the trunks and the ground and then managed to bend up the fence and if she had managed to get out properly before Malkolm understood what was happening he would never had the chance to follow her but Malkolm is where Alma is.

The Lingon berry bushes are full of flower buds now 🙂

We call this little flower for Forest Star.

If it only had been Alma I just wouldn’t have cared to go home, everyone knows she’s either out of the garden or the dog yard and never walks anywhere all the time 🙂 🙂 🙂 My neighbors two daughters had had really fun playing with them both until I came home again 🙂 🙂 🙂 and everyone at work loved to see the photos my neighbor sent me showing that even an almost two year old kid can have lots of fun with both the big Alma and the puppy Malkolm 🙂 🙂

Clematis ‘Propertius’ has a weak but nice scent.

One of the Himalayan Cedar trees is alive and gives new needles now 🙂

We call this flower Troll Grapes. Gives very poisonous deep red berries in autumn.

I’ve made sure that those two trunks can’t be moved again and during the weekend I’ll check the rest of the fence, again 🙂 I will soon start to repair that fence properly but even then I’m pretty sure Alma will find a way to escape, I know Malkolm will be able to since he now can climb up net fences 🙂 🙂 My neighbor tried twice to put him in my garden but gave up since he pretty quickly sat by her side again 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Time flies sometime.

May 14, 2024 · 4 Comments ·

The photos today can be from today but also from a day or two back.

I don’t know where yesterday went! It passed by so fast that I all day today have believed it is Monday today 🙂 🙂 Two days with no Alma escaping the dog yard, it feels like it’s my turn to win the lottery tonight 🙂 🙂

It has been really warm today so we didn’t take any walk after work, Malkolm is after all only three months old and 25C (77F) is a bit too much when being so Young. Still he and Alma played in the garden both before and after their dinner so it wasn’t that much of a difference to be honest 🙂 🙂 Well they were close to water any time they wanted to drink.

I watered the planted trees and the vegetable patch on the part where I had sown seeds and Malkolm thought it was really funny to catch the water jet 🙂 🙂 Alma kept her distance from it though, the risk of getting clean really scares her 🙂 🙂 Nova slept in the kitchen 🙂 🙂 Sleeping is mostly what she does now days but every now and again she starts to play with the others just as though as they do 🙂

I cut Malkolm’s claws today, he’s really good at screaming in pain long before I’m even close 🙂 🙂 Any imagined pain is gone as soon as he sees the treat bag though, sometimes that bag is so good that he forgets to complain at all 🙂 Alma really doesn’t care, just cut the claws and give me the treats 🙂 Nova is also easy since I can cut them while she’s sleeping, I will however wake her up for her treat 🙂

Three of my four apple trees are in bloom now.

They’re guessing that we will have this wonderful weather for at least ten more days. Back in the days we knew that if May was warm and nice June would be cool and rainy and July when most people have their vacations over here would then be warm and nice. Today we never know, it can switch pretty fast. Last year my entire vacation was rainy and rarely warmer than 20C (68F) and for me that was quite ok, I’ve rarely felt so relaxed after a vacation because one couldn’t do anything outside anyway so I had long naps every day 🙂

I marked where I've sown seeds with small stones along the lines :-) — I marked where I’ve sown seeds with small stones along the lines 🙂

The melons decided to start flower now, I haven’t even separated them yet 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Even nicer today :-)

May 12, 2024May 12, 2024 · Leave a comment ·

I think today has been even better than yesterday, we woke up to a blue sunny sky and fairly chilly morning, it had dropped to 0C (32F) during the night. This is not unusual for this area, the last frost usually arrives at June sixth and after that, normal summers, nights regularly have temperatures down to 3C (37,4F). Well if the days are sunny, cloudy days the temperature usually don’t sink especially much, the clouds keep the warmth from escaping upwards.

We went out as soon as we woke up and that was way too early really because I watched the Eurovision last night and I think it stopped just before 1 am and we woke up just after 5 am 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well even after napping I still think I’ll sleep very well tonight 🙂 I, Nova and Alma didn’t see any animals this morning but Malkolm did so he started to growl. That of course made Alma running around looking for what threat we might meet and after that she couldn’t relax at all 🙂 🙂 Malkolm stopped caring about it as soon as we had passed where he saw what ever it was.

I’ve started to move the citrus trees I have from the less sunny north side of the cottage out to the sunny garden, even if we would get frost now and blazing sun during the days they’ll manage it. I’ve also sown iceberg lettuce, squash, chard and some kind of Japanese cabbage today. Iceberg lettuce is hard to fail but both the chard and squash seeds were a bit old so I’ll better start to look for what I can sow in those places nothing germinates. Peas and beans will be sown later when the temperature is more reliable. I’ll sow most of the potatoes in buckets this year so as soon as I buy more soil I’ll start with them.

The rest of this day I’ve mostly just watered the trees I’ve planted and I’ve had a couple of short naps 🙂 The dogs have been rather calm since it has been so warm. The wind can’t reach us down here so when it becomes warm it’s always a couple degrees warmer here and the opposite when it comes to cold weather. It’s almost never cold weather that kills plants here during winter, it’s because we have such a long time when it is dark here. So if we have a warm and sunny summer most of the less hardy plants make it till next year, is it cool and rainy most of those will die. They need that warm and sunny weather to collect so much energy that it lasts all winter through. It’s the same with how good plants flower and how much fruit/ berries they give, it all depends on what last years summer was like.

The big dogs are sleeping beside me but by the sound Malkolm is chewing on a stick in my bed 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve done dinner for next week at work and the laundry so for the rest of the day I’ll do as little as possible 🙂

Have a great day!

A good day for naps :-)

May 9, 2024 · 2 Comments ·

I’ve noticed that now when it is warmer the birds still wants sunflower seeds, so when they think I’m cheap they come really close, lots of them, and won’t leave me alone until I filled the feeder 🙂

After this winter I really can’t complain about it not being warmer than 10C (50F) but it does feel a bit chilly and I did turn on the radiators this morning. In summers it’s nice that the bottom floor is a bit cool not so much now when it isn’t that warm outside 🙂 The dogs hasn’t been that keen on being outside either but the kitchen door has been open so that they can go in and out as they please.

The Serviceberry trees are in full bloom. I really like the berries but the birds always take them first.

No sunshine today so I wore a hoodie when we were out on our morning walk. I would have liked to walk to the bog but Nova decided it was the creek she wanted to walk to. She and Malkolm wanted to stop at every spot where something had passed by while Alma wanted to see the world and quickly as well since she wanted to go home again 🙂 So even though I really like that they want to follow tracks I had to pull them away some times so that Alma wouldn’t get a too high blood pressure and a brain bleed 🙂 🙂 🙂

It used to grow so may cherry trees here but they thinned out most of them.

Alma has started to calm down a lot again, she too must realize that our walks will be much nicer if I don’t have to scold her every five minutes because she’s trying to pull my arm off my body 🙂 🙂 🙂 The whining is almost gone thankfully, I think that cutting noise is what drives me crazy most of all 🙂 🙂 🙂 To constantly hear a sound that cuts in to the brain slicing it into pieces for two hours when we’re out walking is actually quite painful after a while.

We haven’t done much today the dogs and I, they’ve been playing a little in the garden while I re-potted the rest of the Guava seedlings and the two Jacaranda trees. I haven’t even looked at the mower yet 🙂 We’ve had a pancake dinner and we’ve napped a lot as well. Tonight we have the seconds semi final in the Eurovision Song Contest and it would be fun if I at least could watch all the contributions. The big final will be on Saturday and for the first time in many years our song is not amongst the top five on the betting sites. Our song is sung by two Norwegian twins, they are really good at what they’re doing but the song is a bit too much meh. Plus people are getting tired of us because we’ve won this competition seven times now and been amongst those they think will win for perhaps too many years now. Jealousy and politics have always been strong in this competition even though they say it isn’t about either, we should just have fun 🙂

I’m sitting here wondering if we should have another walk or perhaps take another nap, the dogs are deeply at sleep and I wouldn’t mind joining them but I think we’ll have a short walk instead. I’ll try to avoid high grass because tick season is here and now I need to go through my dogs after every walk and even after they’ve been walking in the grass here in the garden. Nasty animals those ticks, if we all have a purpose in life theirs is to spread death and disease 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!