Category: Frost.

Snowstorm and new car.

December 22, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

The snowstorm Pia passed by yesterday evening and all night long. I had borrowed my neighbors car and if there’s one thing one doesn’t want to do is to wreck their car because one was driving careless 🙂 🙂 🙂 So even though I went home half an hour earlier I still came home a few minutes later than I normally would have done 🙂 🙂

A15659_001A — As You can see this photo wasn’t taken today but was taken last spring (with my Agfa Flexilette) but it shows the only big building, besides the castle, that still stands in what once was a thriving village.

20231222_111056 — This is just beside the previous building.

The car dealer and I had agreed to meet around 1pm and I was going to get there by bus. The bus would leave my bus station at 12:05 and on a sunny and nice day in spring or summer it takes around 45 minutes to walk there,so since the world now once again is filled with that white crap (and the fact that it rained a lot before the snow fell and it went cold) I decided to start early, I’m so glad I have studded boots because the snow didn’t stick well to the ice covered road. Today it took almost exactly one hour.

20231222_113302 — This is the creek where it flows out in to the lake.

I think I would have thought the world was beautiful if I hadn’t had to walk in this mess 🙂 🙂 I only brought my phone so only a few photos today. The wind was still blowing pretty hard and it was bitterly cold. Well walking and wearing really good winter clothes did help but standing and waiting for the bus still made me pretty cold inside.

20231222_113436 — The road leading to the castle. Big oaks grown on each side of it.

I managed to get there in time and went to the grocery store on my way home. They usually like when I tell them about my car problems 🙂 🙂 So we had a good laugh before I finally drove home again. I haven’t had much sleep to be honest but I think the short nap I had in my recliner will help me to stay awake until at least 9 pm 🙂 🙂

20231222_114423 — There once was a big yellow house standing behind those Birches. I guess it was the rectory but now days priests usually don’t live beside the churches they work in.

Only one previous owner and it has a new cam belt, that was the thing that made me want to have it without even seeing it in a photo 🙂 🙂 It has six gears, something I need to get used to. The only things I really made sure to know about before I drove home was to know how to open the fuel filler flap, something I didn’t understand with the borrowed car, I had to phone them to know how 🙂 how to handle the different lights and how to control the heat in the car, it took me over a day before I understood it in the borrowed car 🙂 🙂 🙂 Cruise control and how to manage to radio can be learned later 🙂 🙂 🙂

20231222_125854 — This is at the bus stop in a village called Ljung. I like how they decorated the tree like that. Back in the days before they brought in spruces at christmas they often brought in a young crab apple tree, dressed it and if they were lucky it had green leafs and perhaps even small flowers when christmas arrived.

Winter vacation started today so no more work until January 8 🙂

Have a great day!

20231222_150507 — My new car and a very happy Alma 🙂

More snow.

December 8, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

It’s usually tricky to capture snow flakes when taking photos but it worked in this photo, don’t know why though 🙂

I was waiting for the last package for the dogs and the dog yard to arrive, like always it said some time between eight am and five pm and with the roads looking like they do after all snow, we had more again yesterday, I didn’t expect it to arrive until late. So I didn’t think much of it and went to the toilet and just as I did what I had to do the van with my package arrived 🙂 🙂 Thankfully the guy who drove it here understood that I was at home and did his job a bit slower and I panicking indoors tried to hurry outside 🙂 🙂 🙂 It all went well and now the two lamps are charging under my kitchen lamp 🙂

It was foggy enough to hide the mountain but not sort of close up foggy like I like it.

The Ipad has also arrived and a moment ago I desperately tried to find where to put in the sim card, I was thinking of using my phones sim card just to download the app where I can read a book, thinking of the Harry Potter books, so that Alma can hear my voice while I’m away. I watched videos on Youtube and they all showed where the little hole to release the little plate for the sim car was and I still couldn’t find it!! So out on the net again, turns out that I can’t put a sim card in this one, I’ll have to use wifi to down load anything I want in it. The problem is that my wifi isn’t known for willingly recognize that there’s another computer that I want to use for the internet!! Neither as something belonging in the cottage nor as a guest. Worst case scenario is that I’ll have to ask my neighbors to see if their wifi will help me 🙂 🙂 🙂

So until that works do You know a good app where I can download me reading a book and then have it working on loop, it will take way too long to read all those books at the same time, no matter how much I like them 🙂 🙂 I’m on my way though and that’s a good sign 🙂 🙂 I’ll start my new hours next week so it would be great if I could have this thing working by then. Besides feeling like going insane because of the Ipad the day has been pretty nice. It snowed yesterday, way too much but it has turned towards slightly less cold weather, Just below 0C (32F) all day. It will not be as warm as they guessed earlier but for a few days it’ll be just barely above 0C (32F), after that they’re guessing that it will turn slightly colder again for a few days and then they’re guessing again that it’ll be way much warmer. I’ll believe it if it would happen 🙂

Today it showed that the air would become slightly warmer because we had a rather nice fog. Warm air and cold ground usually creates nice fog. Could have been a bit thicker according to my taste but I’ll take what I get since the sun won’t show itself anyway. Lots of tracks in the new snow, a fox, probably the one coming to visit my garden, had followed the road down to the creek and somewhere half way there it had followed a hare. The most surprising track though was that a moose had passed a few meters away from the beekeepers cottage. No wolf tracks but I think i saw some from a lynx but since Alma is everywhere at the same time I only had a second or two to try and figure out what it could be 🙂 🙂 🙂

I guess that the rest of the evening and night will be spent here by my computer and wifi to try to get the wifi to cooperate and then download the best app I can find, wish me luck 🙂 🙂 🙂

Turns out that this unfortunately isn’t a Wood Grouse but instead a melanistic pheasant. If it had been a rooster it would have been almost black with a metallic green tinge when the sun had shone on it. Still long time since we had any pheasants here either so I’m just as happy 🙂

Have a great day!

My orchid now has two flower stems and a third is on its way 🙂

December 3, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

The hunters were out until just after noon so we could have a walk in the forest while there was daylight. Thankfully we have no wind now because it fell down to -15C (5F) last night, much less cold during the day though but the temperature will drop just as low tonight again.

We went out to the bog and even though we didn’t see any animals we could hear what I think was a complaining wild hog while it ran away from us. No small birds or any birds to be honest. I guess the bigger ones stay close to the roads to eat what has been killed by traffic during the night and the smaller ones seems to be at my feeders 🙂

The Wood Grouse might not be a Wood Grouse after all. People knowing birds better than I do says the coloring is wrong. It has the size of one though so until they can tell me what it actually is I’ll still call it a Wood Grouse. It can be a crossing with the Black Grouse though, they do look different in their colors. It is still around every day though and I’ve noticed that it hasn’t any tail feathers, a close call with a lynx perhaps?

A female Bullfinch, the bright red dot above and behind it is a male.

The female have a more dusty mauve color.

The Blue tit rather stays close to the peanut feeder

We also had a visit from our local fox last night, I had the camera up for three days and as long as it snowed it stayed away, cold weather doesn’t seem to disturb it though.

BURREL — Alma is usually the one most caught by the wildcam but usually she’s so blurry that it’s hard to see what she is, that dog runs all the time 🙂

Have a great day!

Lots of snow.

December 2, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

We have lots of snow now, I can’t pretend to like it but the dogs are at least clean when they come in from being in the garden. we’ve had two really cold nights, -15C (5F) but mostly it has been between -4C to -8C (24,8F to 17,6F).

There’s so much snow now that the forest birds have problems reaching their food so yesterday I saw the first Bullfinches. I didn’t get any good photos of them, the best is the one shown below. That is a male, the females are more towards mauve colored. I also have a, in this area, very rare visitor and she comes by every day, a Wood Grouse. The roosters can weigh up to 7 kg (15,4 pound) but the hen usually around 3kg (6,6 pound). I’m not sure what she is eating here, they usually eat pine needles. So my guess is that she eats buds from the lilacs and some of the seeds on the ground. We haven’t had a wood grouse in these parts since long before I moved here 23 years ago so it’s kind of cool that when one comes it chose my garden 🙂

We went down to the creek this morning. The snow that the weather sites said wouldn’t fall started to fall already yesterday evening 🙂 It didn’t stop falling until we were almost at home again 🙂 Lots of tracks from animals in the snow, mostly from wild hogs, roe deer, hares, a fox (possibly the one visiting my garden every night and either a small mosse or a big red deer. Only one human had walked there since the dogs and I walked there last time and that was a couple of days ago. My guess is that it is the beekeeper who has made those tracks, very few other people walk there in winter.

Alma was a bit impossible on our walk today so my back feels a bit sour. She has behaved so much better lately but today was a day when she just couldn’t. Turns out that she isn’t especially quiet at nights when I am at work so now I have to figure out a way to either make her quiet down or dampen the sound from her barking. I’ve ordered two sun powered lights that will shine as soon as she’s outside in the dog yard, if that doesn’t help I’ll have to put up a wooden fence instead. Turns out that she sometimes is so loud that she wakes up my neighbors youngest daughter. They are the kindest and best neighbors one can wish for so I wish they would have told me when this started. Well I’ll figure out something to make her at least not sound as much.

I’ve baked a bread today, I checked recipes online and the recipes are either really complicated or they all use a ready mad mix. So I just checked how much flour/ mix they were using and tossed in what I had (in this case oat flour, sorghum flour and rice flour) in the same ammount 🙂 I haven’t tried it yet because as soon as the bread was ready I put in french fries and meatballs in the oven. I’ll have a sandwich with meatballs, christmas ham and beetroot salad after writing this 🙂 As worse it’ll just taste like the breads one can buy and they work if one toast them 🙂

Hunters out in the forest tomorrow and I hope they will hunt for wild hogs because we have so many of them now. They are now slowly destroying the forest roads I usually walk on and it is hard to see where they’ve been now when the snow covers everything. It is very surprising when there’s a deep hole beneath my foot when I can’t see it by looking at the snow 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Winter is here and I can’t stop it.

November 26, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

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-10C (14F) here last night but despite it being well below 0C (32F) all day it still was a pretty nice day. The sun was even so warm that all snow on the south side of the cottage roof melted away. It was the lack of wind that did the trick.

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I haven’t done a single thing of what I usually do on Sundays. No dinner for next week, no laundry done and no vacuuming either which is really needed now. Then again the dirt won’t go away and now when it is as cold as it is none of us will bring in any more dirt anyway. The only good thing with these temperatures, even the dust has frozen to the ground 🙂 🙂 🙂

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I have done rice porridge but I forgot to start it in the early morning, I did it however early enough so that I could have some after a later walk 🙂 I was thinking, for a second, that I should decorate the tree as well but I’ll wait with that because the tree is nice enough with only the lights shining in it. The advent candlestick will have to wait since the snow covers all moss and lichens I would be able to find if there wasn’t any snow on the ground. The sad thing is that we’ll get more snow later next week so it’ll be even harder to find anything.

I better go down and launder at least some t-shirts so I have anything to wear at work. I have enough of the rest to last at least until Thursday 🙂

Have a great day!

A lazy day.

November 19, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

Blue tit. I’ve seen people asking where all the Blue tits have gone when looking on the net, it used to be one of the most common birds by the feeders. They’ve always been around here until this year. It wasn’t until yesterday I saw the first ones by my feeders so they are becoming more rare. I did read however that they are the tits that most common migrates during winter so I do hope that’s the reason we don’t see them as much now days.

I woke up way too early today, just before seven am but I’m still not tired so I do hope the tiredness doesn’t come too early because I need to stay up quite late since I’ll be working tomorrow. We had a rather nice morning here today, no wind, just below 0C (32F) and almost sunshine. We walked down to the creek and Alma behaved pretty well for most of the time.

Nova on the other hand is still pretty annoyed because she’s leashed and she really don’t like that. I’ve told her that if she can’t behave and come when I call her (and sign for her to come, I’ve always learned my dogs signs for different things since many of them lost most of their hearing when going old) she will be leashed whether she likes it or not 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is winter so I thought I should make lots of rice porridge, so I put the ingredients in the slow cooker and it was ready to eat when we came back from our walk to the bog later on. It takes around three hours to do it in the slow cooker but the risk of the porridge being burned is almost none to nothing. It takes at least an hour if doing it on the stove and then it just takes one mistake and the porridge will burn 🙂 🙂 I made the porridge a bit sweeter today because I was also longing for cookies 🙂 🙂 To make it even sweeter I also put some jam in it just before eating it, no craving for cookies after eating that 🙂 🙂 🙂

The sun, so close but still so far away 🙂

I have however not done the laundry and no dinner for next week at work. I just didn’t want to to be honest. So I’ll do the laundry tomorrow before work and I’ll see what I can find in the freezer, I think I have meatballs and sausages in there and I can add an egg or two and perhaps some pasta or potatoes as well. It’ll be exciting to see how many that will turn up to work tomorrow, there are still a few people that weren’t sick last week so it might be their turn now.

The fox came for several visits last night again. I did cheat and put out some dog food but it still moved a bit too fast so most photos were blurry. I’l see what I can do about that tonight, I’ve placed the camera a bit lower this time and I’ll place the dog food in one place and not just throw it out like I did yesterday. The reason I just threw it yesterday was because I had two dogs that would have loved to eat it and I had to do it while they were busy with other things 🙂 🙂 🙂

I talked with a friend on the phone today and told him about my new hours. He has been a boss in several big grocery stores and he said those hours sounded horrible and only people one want to get rid of would get hours like that 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well at least I don’t have to work Fridays when it starts 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

New working hours, again.

November 18, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

A bit difficult to see but there’s a Blackbird sitting on a branch in the photo.

The weather report on tv yesterday said sunshine over almost the entire south of Sweden today, so I wasn’t the least surprised that it snowed when I woke up 🙂 🙂 🙂 No big flakes, just tiny ones so it created a thin dusting on the ground. Just enough to make it feel a bit christmassy and not so much that it annoyed me enough to hate winter even more 🙂 🙂 It also made the hunters out in the forest to give up quite early in the day so that made it even better 🙂

I’ve been at home this week because I had fever and was tired all the time. Turns out that 21 more at work (I think we’re slightly more than 50 people working there) had the same thing, most likely the covid. Some had high fever, runny noses and lots of coughing and the rest of us were hit with milder symptoms. I didn’t have any fever yesterday and since I knew there weren’t lots of people working I thought I just as well would go to work. Good thing because without me there would only have been three people working 🙂 🙂 🙂

We did what we could with only four people but then we came to the things we need lots more people around (masking and de-masking things), when we normally would have to be at least seven people there we couldn’t continue and since there was nothing else to do we all took the rest of the day off 🙂 So it wasn’t that bad to go to work when having the long Friday to work 🙂 🙂

A work friend called me the same morning and told me that seven people have to go after the new year has started and they’ll stop having a night shift as well. I still have a job and will be a resource person. Jumping in at any place if someone is sick or do jobs on the side of the line. Don’t mind that but I can’t say I’m happy about the new working hours, I’ll start working at 3:25 pm and continue to work until 1:55 am. I will not work a single Friday though so I guess that’s ok but I also know that if I don’t sleep for as long as I must I will sleep all Friday instead. I guess I’ll get used to that as well but it doesn’t sound fun. The dogs will be fine though since they most likely just will continue to sleep since it is dark and the world will be quiet.

The new working hours will start at week 50 so I’ll start with one week before christmas vacation starts. I do hope this only lasts for a short while since inflation has sunk and the Riksbank will most likely not make the interest rates higher so most likely people will feel a bit of hope again and start building new homes and buy new things so that we soon will be needing those people who can’t stay. It’s a horrible world really when we need people to spend all their money so that other people can get jobs and by doing so also make the climate crisis even worse.

I wanted to post a video here with the fox passing by but now days I can’t since I need to pay for Premium to be able to post videos so I say to WordPress Up Yours!

Lots of birds at the new feeder and I also got a few nice photos of the fox that visits us almost every night. I accidentally had made the camera take videos the first nights so there’s one video as well showing the fox. I also have some photos of Albin pooping and Alma running around like crazy mostly looking like a blurr 🙂 🙂 🙂 The fox looks healthy and I was thinking of placing some dog food in front of the camera so I could get more nice photos of the fox and possibly the badger if it comes again and hasn’t started its winter sleep. I’ve learned that badgers doesn’t hibernate but instead just sleeps, oh how I wish I was a badger 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

It did.

October 8, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

Yes the frost did arrive last night and just as I was on my way to bed I remembered that I had the rest of the cacti and the orchid to move indoors. So out I went at around midnight with a light on my head to find all of them and to bring them indoors. I brought in all of them except for the thorny one and one more. I placed them in the patio because early frost almost never gets in there.

I brought those two indoors today when the sun shone and it looks like they are ok. I did wake up a bit late for once so most of the frost was gone but I found a few plants that still were more or less covered in frost. I don’t know how cold it had been but my cousin who were by the ocean had -6C (21,1F), so I’m pretty sure it must have been much the same here.

The hunters arrived early I guess so I knew we couldn’t take a walk in the forest and since I’ve never managed to make neither Albin nor Alma to behave when we meet joggers or bikers or anything remotely moving we no longer can take walks in the village. One screaming dog I can handle but two is just too much. Plus to be honest there are now days a couple of dogs more that really can’t behave either 🙂 🙂

To my big surprise however all the hunters left quite early so we did manage to take a walk out to the bog anyway. Guess if I was happy because both Alma and Albin had so much energy that they started to become pretty annoying 🙂 🙂 🙂 I don’t think it reached 8C (46,4F) today so I wore my bright yellow winter jacket. There was a bitterly cold wind blowing so if any mosquito had survived the night they were at least not flying around. There was one moose fly though and it fell down behind my t-shirt on my back. It took some time to get it but it did at least not bite me.

We’ve had our pancake Sunday and I’ve also made lots of rice porridge. This cold weather sort of demands that 🙂 I did forget to do the laundry though but I’ll do that tomorrow before going to work. Hunters will be out in the forest again so I’ll have plenty of time to do it then. Now I have to stay awake until at least 11 pm so I don’t wake up way too early tomorrow and mess up my working day 🙂

Have a great day!

The frost will arrive tonight.

October 7, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

The feeling on Monday the week I know I’ll also work on Friday is actually far worse than it feels to work on that Friday 🙂 🙂 Still it isn’t fun but when things works as they should it’s quite ok. Still I would rather not have to so I’m holding my thumbs for the lottery today 🙂 🙂

It has been a rather nice day even though a bit too chilly and a storm that arrived yesterday also continued for quite some time today. The winds were north north-western so arctic cold has cooled down our days rather a lot, we’ll have our first frost tonight so the radiators are working downstairs. I’ve also ordered a new radiator because Alma and Albin were playing so wildly one day a couple of weeks ago that the sofa fell straight into the radiator. The plastic “feet” to the radiator broke into thousands of pieces.

I guess I could have tried to just order new “feet”, if that’s even possible but since the radiator hit the floor pretty hard I do want to try it while I am at home to see that the hit hasn’t broken it. It is one of those oil filled ones and since no oil has leaked I’m pretty sure it still is ok and one can never have too many radiators. I have one old radiator left of those who were here when I moved here and one never know for how long that one will keep going.

The morning walk was really nice, despite it being a bit too chilly. The wind was so strong that no insect that values its life would fly around in it 🙂 The sun shone from early morning and did its best to make the day nice but it had huge problems with that 🙂 We walked in the forest though so most of the wind was stopped by the trees. Nova wanted to go out to the bog again but I persuaded her to walk down to the creek and there she could decide whether we should follow it up or down-stream. She chose up-stream and the older forest. We did however go out to the bog in a later walk when the wind had calmed some so she did get her way eventually 🙂

The moose hunt starts tomorrow so we won’t be able to have any walks for most of next week. The hunting leader did however say that there will be times when they won’t be out there and he will text me when that happens. Personally I would have liked to take a walk in the village again but since I’ve never managed to make Albin and Alma behave when they see something moving, like a jogger or biker or a dog that is happy to see them, we really can’t take a walk there any more. Also there’s still cattle in tye huge pasture so we can’t walk there either.

So I can look forward to a week when I don’t have to leave the cottage at all before I go to work every day 🙂 I’ll just relax close to a radiator, perhaps reading a book or so 🙂

Have a great day!

Falling down :-)

June 3, 2023 · 1 Comment ·

My kitchen stairs are just two steps but when a slipper gets caught in a nail that has grown up from the wood it still is pretty high when falling down to the ground 🙂 🙂 🙂 Most of me hit a sack of peat and my first thought was that I had broken the lens on my camera, after that I started to check if I was ok 🙂 🙂 🙂 Nothing broken but my strained neck, because of Almas constant pulling of the leash, that was back to almost normal again is now back to being very strained.

It was even colder tonight than the previous one, -2C (28,4F) and this time I was worried that much more would have been damaged. The new walnut tree is badly frozen but I hope it will make a comeback later in summer. One of my ginkgos was touched at its top branch and so was the Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) but otherwise everything looks ok. The sun took its time to show as well this morning so we didn’t go out until well after 6am, normally we’re out at the same time the sun rise.

I went to Skara to buy soil and they were selling pitcher plants this year as well, so I bought three new ones to replace those two that didn’t make it through winter. I also went in to the super market and now I’m trying two new cookies. I’ve said it before and I say it again. They also make most of the cookies vegan so no butter or milk and nothing really tastes good because of that. I did however find hobnobs, normally not one of my favorites but these are quite ok, perhaps because the other ones I tried tastes like shit. They would most likely have been great with milk and butter in them. I’m not against veganism in any way but if food or edibles need milk and butter to taste good there really is no use in trying to make them without either of them.

I’ve planted my new Ginkgo today. I planted it close to the rose that stands above Teodors resting place. The rose seems to struggle so I thought Teodor most likely wouldn’t mind if ginkgo took its place 🙂 I also planted my Persimmon hybrid. The big problem was that the only place it really should be planted at was filled with roots of roses, sloe and false spirea. So I chose the only place where only the false spirea had grown. It really is a out of control weed that plant but it is fairly easy to remove because the roots grow just beneath the surface and can be ripped up. Except for the fact that they also grow like they are spiderwebs. So I had to rip up roots for almost half an hour before I could start digging for the tree 🙂 🙂

The Persimmon. You can see some of the roots in front of it.

Old Broccolo (a variety of broccoli) germinates much better than I thought 🙂

I cut out the bottom of a bigger pot,m placed it in the hole and planted the tree inside it. The put is deep enough so no roots will grow in to it from the false spirea. Next year when the tree is established (if it survives the winter) I’ll remove the pot bu just pulling it up from the ground and over the tree. I think it is time for a cup of tea and perhaps a couple of hobnobs. The other ones I bought would have been great as dog treats if they hadn’t contained chocolate. I hate tossing away anything edible so I guess that I’ll have to eat them but I will drink lots of milk while doing it 🙂

Photo taken while falling down the stairs 🙂

I think almost all potatoes have leafs now 🙂

Columbine. Looks like almost all mine are either pink or dark purple. I think I have one white and one blue.

Have a great day!

I’m ready for the vegetable season.

May 6, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

Flowering Bog myrtle (Sweet gale). Smells really nice.

We’ve had a really nice day here, it would have been wonderful if it hadn’t been for the pretty cold night and sometimes the wind being a bit too chilly. To be honest it was warm enough to have the kitchen door open all day and the little wind that actually reached the garden helped when I worked in the vegetable patch and potato patch. The vegetable patch mostly only had grass that I needed to remove but the potato patch also had dandelions, greater celandine, a few small elder bushes, wild raspberry bushes and that red leafed oxalis one can buy as a potted plant, usually have yellow flowers and really is a spreader. Many oxalis can be used in food but this one isn’t one of those but I musty admit that amongst weeds it’s quite beautiful.

I checked so that there were no bees visiting the dandelions before I removed them. There are plenty more dandelions in the lawn anyway so bees of all kinds won’t be hungry 🙂

The vegetable patch were much easier to clean out even though it’s almost twice the size.

The box is almost falling apart and I think I won’t have another there next summer.

I’m happy to say that today was one of those days when Alma behaved pretty good even though two Roe deer ran in front of her eyes and she even noticed a hare in a field without going insane. She did however almost fall of the entrance stairs and pulling me with her when we went out for our afternoon walk. I wonder if I should put on her harness when we’re not taking any walks because as soon as I put that one on she starts to tremble, panting and whining a lot. If I open the door and she doesn’t have it on she behaves like any other dog. When we start walking and I can keep her reasonable calm the first two hundred meters the rest of the walk usually works rather well. If not it’s horrible for both of us. She has become much better though, now days I can actually hear the birds sing, I couldn’t do that from the day she arrived until some time in the middle of the winter that just passed 🙂 🙂 🙂

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They are finally putting more gravel on the road outside our cottages 🙂 The “big” road in the village belongs to the village and all of us are responsible for it but the roads leading from it are private roads and are supposed to be taken care of us who live along them. The problem is that it is timber lorries that destroys it so therefore it’s the forest owners responsibility to keep it in good shape. This winter was warm and the road was soft so now we have huge holes in it and the forest owners have been no where to find but finally one of them said he’s taking care of it. I don’t know how many times I’ve done what I have been able to to fix the holes outside my cottage but that doesn’t help when a new lorry arrives and just makes it worse again, also I live at the lowest point of the road so all water runs down to me and sometimes I have to wade in water when I’m trying to go out from my garden (well wading is a bit much but there’s at least 5 cm (2 inches of standing water there, five meters (much the same in yards) wide) 🙂 🙂 🙂

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It’s the finale in the Eurovision Song Contest next Saturday. To be honest they have been really quiet about it so I didn’t know until a few days ago. Our song is the absolute favorite an it is Loreen, who already have won this with the song Euforia, who sings for us. The music isn’t that much different than when she won the last time but I can’t for my life hear what she’s singing 🙂 🙂 I’m not sure if anyone actually can hear that but she’s like always very dramatic in her performance so I guess that’s what they fall for. I must admit that even if I can’t hear what she sings it still was the only song that should win, the rest were actually total crap and probably the worst I’ve heard in years 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Have a great day!

A15398_008 — One from the Agfa Ambiflex.

It’s greening up :-)

May 5, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

The week has been mostly sunny but with a nasty cold wind from north. Also well below 0C (32F) every morning. Most days though the sun has melted away most of the ice on the car so it was only this morning I had to use the ice scraper again.I was a bit worried when the dogs and I was going out on our walk after work because the last two ones Alma has been horrible. Mostly because hares run out in front of us and instead of running out in to the forest continued in front of us for quite some time. I really wouldn’t feel sad if all hares just died out 🙂 🙂 🙂

Today however, despite some other hares, she behaved really well again. I don’t know it it was what I told her yesterday that helped, that I would let a hunter shoot her to oblivion 🙂 🙂 🙂 She’s smart but I’m not sure if she’s so smart that she would have understood what I told her but I think she could understand how tired I was after those walks 🙂 🙂 🙂 So today she’s forgiven again. It’s so fun because my neighbors like when she jumps over the fence to them because she’s so calm when she plays with their oldest daughter, sometime I wonder if we’re talking about the same dog 🙂 🙂 🙂

The road association meeting is next week so I have put out notices about it in the mailboxes here in the village. The village road is more or less a circle so if I would do it all by car before going to work I would have to pass my mailbox twice and if I did that the dogs would have thought I was on my way home again and would have started to bark like crazy. Not a good thing at six am, so I decided I would walk to the four closest. I haven’t been able to walk there in a long time since both Albin and Alma behaves like they do when seeing wild animals, they would wake up the entire village. So I brought my camera and took a few photos since it was not just sunny but also so cold that we had morning mist. I realized how much I miss walking there but I just can’t reach those two when they start behaving like that and those times are the times I miss my old dogs the most 🙂 🙂 🙂

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More and more flowers are in bloom in my garden now. I hadn’t checked that this week so I was surprised to see so many flowers 🙂 I also found a flower I tried to plant in my garden when I moved here, 23 years ago. They survived a winter or two but suddenly they were gone. Now I found a lump of them in my hedge and I’m pretty sure I didn’t see them there last year. I have no idea how they managed to get there but who cares 🙂 Also I now have six apricot trees growing from kernels I saved from last autumn and it looks like three nectarines are on the way too 🙂 I have no space for them really but who cares, I’ll make space for them when that day comes 🙂 🙂 🙂