Category: Gardening.

T-shirt weather.

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I woke up in the middle of the night because too much tea I guess 🙂 🙂 and naturally I couldn’t fall asleep especially quickly leading to me sleeping unusually long and when I looked out the window I could see the ground was covered in unusually thick fog. The dogs and I rushed to go outside, took perhaps as most ten minutes and by that time almost all of it had vanished. I was a bit annoyed to be honest but then the sun shone and the leafs in the trees looked like they were burning, so I stopped being annoyed 🙂 🙂

I wouldn’t say it was cold but I can say it wasn’t warm so even if we went out to the bog only one moose fly showed any interest in us, meaning me 🙂 Deer were barking so something out there were scaring them but I doubt that it was a wolf, deer have a tendency to think anything is scary as long as it moves. Could have been a fox or perhaps wild hogs passing by. Lots of small birds flying between the trees, Jays arguing further up close to the tree tops and ravens flying towards the bigger roads to see if breakfast was served (meaning something gotten hit by a car or lorry during the night).

the temperature never rose above 12C (53,6F) in the shadow but the sunshine was so warm today that I had to change from a sweater to a t-shirt. It was impossible not to enjoy it so we spent a big part of the day outside in the garden. I really didn’t have anything to do so I decided that those roses I had cut down and would put in the compost grinder next year (mostly because of the thorns) would be better if I did that today 🙂 This rose has millions of small but awfully sharp thorns but they soften a lot if being wet for a longer period of time so the branches can be handled without too much problems. The problem is that not all become soft so now I have lots of tiny thorns in my hands because why would I use gloves 🙂 🙂 🙂

The old vegetable garden looks a bit odd now when the fence is gone. I didn’t remove any weeds after I had harvest all but some leeks and the potatoes so half is green and half brown where the potatoes grew 🙂 There are still some tiny leeks in there though 🙂

Since I now have found my jigsaw I thought why not cut those barrels open so I finally have those extra rainwater barrels I’ve been talking bout to do as soon as I found the jigsaw 🙂 I do like to play with machines but I must admit I’m not good at it 🙂 🙂 So I cut one open at the top and placed it by the entrance door. Then I thought that it is actually impossible to have too many rainwater barrels and I knew I had two more barrels I could use (blue plastic ones, I’m not much for the aesthetics to be honest. Yes a rainwater barrel in oak do look good but costs a fortune especially since we don’t have any distillery where one can get them for free anywhere near 🙂 So blue plastic ones will do great 🙂

So I made one more to the greenhouse and realised I have at least one extra barrel in the old garage (so two more instead of one more) but by then I’d started to look at those thorny branches so I might do another rainwater barrel tomorrow and place it  on the other side of the greenhouse 🙂 🙂  in between I went indoors to have some tea and ice cream 🙂  Now it’s dark outside and I could hear rain hitting my window so tomorrow I’ll check how much water has fallen in to the new barrels 🙂 At the moment however my biggest concern is to try and remove as many tiny thorns I can from my hands, they itch like crazy right now 🙂

I’ll skip that last cup of tea for the day, it is much nicer to be able to sleep all night instead 🙂 Also if I go up the dogs go up as well and if they go up they want to go outside and if they go outside I’ll have to go first to check there’s no badger walking around looking for food and since it’s chilly at night I’ll have problems falling asleep again 🙂 🙂

My big apple tree is actually only half a tree, the other half fell one summer because that side grew too big.

Have a great day!

It would be a lie to say it was warm today.

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Well to say that we had a warm day here would be to lie 🙂 the temperature barely reach above 10C (50F) but the sun was shining almost all day and it did feel really nice when being in it. The long side of my cottage is heading south so I could have the kitchen door open for a big part of the day anyway.

No hunters in the forest but lots of moose flies but since it was as chilly as it was they were easy to remove and kill. Wild hogs had left just before we arrived at the bog so that could be the reason we had so many moose flies. Lots of birds tweeting and we did see a roe deer out in the fields.

I’ve decided to not use the fenced vegetable garden next year, I did fence it because back then old Albin still was around and he loved to dig up and eat vegetables 🙂 🙂 especially garlic and he also tried to eat onions 🙂 🙂 🙂 and since he not is around any longer I might just as well remove that fence and start growing the vegetables around the greenhouse instead. Also since I have two different potato diseases in that soil (nothing deadly for either the potato or me, common scab and powdery scab) I’ll only grow potatoes in buckets or big pots.

I also dug up a lot of Ball thistles, the few Hostas I have and a peony. I wasn’t sure if I would touch the peony but it was much bigger under the surface than I thought it would be so by mistake I managed to cut it in two pieces. All but the ball thistles are now replanted, the thistles I just tossed in a corner of the garden because they tend to survive no matter what one does to them 🙂 🙂 🙂

Every time I’ve been going down the stairs to the cool cellar both Alma and Malkolm has been standing outside the open door whining and refusing to follow me down. Old Love followed me despite that her first year in life was being starved and tortured in a cellar. Alma and Malkolm just continued to refuse 🙂 Malkolm could follow me three steps but then turning back while Alma refused to do even that. That was until Malkolm one day realised that he would get a treat if he came further down 🙂 Still he could walk almost all steps down but never step on the floor. When Alma understood that treats were involved things started to change 🙂 🙂 🙂

Today she ran all the way down to the floor and when she got a treat I could see how proud she was. Malkolm was still a bit anxious but a piece of cheese made him change his mind 🙂 🙂 Now they almost run down the stairs before me and expects me to give them a treat 🙂 Their eyes grow big and tail wagging 🙂 🙂 Perhaps it was better before after all 🙂 🙂 🙂 It is time for that last cup of tea and today I’ll have crackers with blue cheese on 🙂

The flowerbed just beside the vegetable patch, I removed half of it because there were too many wild raspberries growing in it plus that, if I ever come around to that project I’m thinking of I will need that space.
I’ll have the vegetables growing close to the greenhouse instead. I do have two roses though that will be staying where they are. This one on this side
and this one on the other side. This rose have been growing in this garden for very long, perhaps already from the beginning 115 years ago. Has been moved around though so that’s why it is as small as it is.

Have a great day!

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They are slowly ripening 🙂 I had to take this photo with a flash so the colours aren’t quite right. They are turning towards a very dark red colour.

For a while in the early morning it looked like we were going to have sunshine while we were out walking and we did for around twenty seconds 🙂 Then the rain arrived, no heavy showers but either a steady but calm rainfall or misty rain. It wasn’t until just after noon the sun made a come back and now three hours later I can see that the rain is falling again.

The rain on the mountain missed us but another one came a short moment after.

So I haven’t done a lot today, mostly drinking tea and watching tv, well I wouldn’t be able to tell You what it was I looked at because mostly it was pretty boring and nothing I really wanted to see. When the sunshine finally arrived I’ve mostly been throwing away what I’ve had in pots and poured it all out close to where the plum tree stood. I dug up all the dahlias and for the first time in my life only one can be saved till next year, I have no idea why they didn’t create root lumps like dahlias always do. Could be that I’ve watered them too little.

No signs of any wolf still staying around, they rarely do to be honest. I did see some tracks from moose though and they looked really fresh, if they had been old the rain would have wiped them out. To my very big surprise I finally found my jigsaw!! and it was pure luck because I can’t really understand why I had placed it there, beneath the entrance stairs??!! It must have been that a shower passed by and that was the closest place I could find, otherwise I have absolutely no idea 🙂 🙂 🙂 Thankfully it is in a sort of plastic suitcase so no water from the latest rains had managed to get to it. So it still works and soon I’ll be able to have that third rainwater barrel 🙂

Well the weather doesn’t seem to become any nicer again so I guess I better make a pot of tea and perhaps doze off in front of the tv 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

My little project.

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It has been a rather wonderful day, frost again this morning but without morning mist. I was a bit disappointed about that but we did have sunshine all day long and once again it went from cold to almost Scandinavian summer temperatures 🙂

So sweater in the morning but after I had been to the grocery store in Falköping I switched to t-shirt. I have around one gazillion of flies in the grass now, I think it might be that they need water, because the grass stays wet for quite some time plus the fact the ground is fairly warm all day. These flies aren’t annoying in any way, they really don’t want to be close to neither me or my dogs but as soon as we get too close they fly up in the air and the sound from them is amazing 🙂 🙂 This is so to speak their final show so I don’t care about them.

So I started this project yesterday. I was walking around in the garden and saw an old plastic pot I’ve dug down in to the ground. I had done that because I wanted black berries in the garden but in just one place. So the pot was there to keep the roots in one place. The thing is that the blackberry bushes slowly and steadily became smaller for each year until they were no more and for some reason I just didn’t remove the pot. So I looked at the pot, rather big to be honest and wondered what to do with it. I must have brought it with me when I closed my garden center. It’s around 120 litres (31,7 gallon US) and then I looked at some rubber sheet I still had after the voles destroyed my pond. So why not make a little pond from that instead of the readymade little pond I was wondering if I could repair?

There are sharp edges at the bottom so those must be covered with something. I found some old towels I never use and placed them around the sharp edges.

So I dug out all the soil that filled the pot witch made my morning a bit hellish because I apparently have muscles I don’t know of 🙂 🙂 I actually tried to lift the pot up from the ground but it was just impossible. So I brought the rubber sheet and started to preparing the surface around the pot. It isn’t easy to try and force down a rubber sheet in a rather small space and one has to forget a big rule when making a pot, the rubber shouldn’t be folded but absolutely smooth around the edges. That works well if one actually is making a big pond but not when forcing it down in to a fairly small space 🙂 🙂 🙂 Before that though I had dug a sort of moat around the pot, that will be the future swamp zone. That’s where plants that loves to grow in swampy areas but not below the water surface can live.

Malkolm kept an eye once so I wouldn’t mess it up too much 🙂

Here You can see the moat properly. I’ll have to adjust it next spring because winter tends to make the ground settle in new ways 🙂
So this is what it looks like now. There is some water in it so I’ll have to check it for frogs and toads every morning plus the eventual other animal that might be in it.

When I had done my best to adjust the rubber sheet to it all (the easiest way to get the sheet down to the bottom of the little pond is to just start filling it with water) with lots of folds everywhere 🙂 🙂 🙂 I started to cut off the unnecessary parts of the sheet. That is of course best to do with a carpenter knife, preferable the ones with a razor blade in it. Or if You like me can’t find it one can use that bl…y expensive bread knife that is completely useless except for it is so sharp it’s possible to cut down a tree with it. After that just start to cover the rubber sheet that is outside of what it is supposed to be with soil. This one will be empty until next spring so I just poured out those wood chips I had after the compost grinder. It is a good thing to use a water measure so that it’s even, otherwise there will be problems if it rains too much.

So that’s what I’ve been doing today and the problem is that it really made me start to think about making a big pond again, too pricy to do that at the moment so this little one will have to do. This one will be big enough for three or four gold fish, they will eat any mosquito larvae or other fly larvae who will try and grow up there 🙂 This one is not deep enough to keep them alive during winter so I’ll see what I need to do before then. Well it is time for that last cup of tea and since there’s absolutely nothing I want to watch on tv it might be an early night, I’ll just have to check for badgers in the garden before I let the dogs out 🙂

Have a great day!

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It felt much colder this morning even though it actually was slightly warmer, or less cold is better because there was no warmth what so ever 🙂  It was a bit cloudy when we went out on our morning walk so the cold air stayed and the moose flies weren’t near.

Bittersweet berries.

At least one moose fly did wake up when the sun finally showed itself, that fly is no more 🙂 I think it walked over to my hand while I was lifting some branches to pick a mushroom, still cold so it was pretty easy to get rid of it. We walked down to the creek and followed it up-streams and there’s definitely a beaver living in the creek again. The water level was pretty high and since we’ve had little rain it shouldn’t be possible to have that much water there unless the creek is blocked. They have placed materials to build a trap so I guess it won’t be long until we have no beavers here again.

The sun really made the day so much nicer so I’ve finally planted the last two Quince tree seedling, I now have six of them but this is a bit tough climate wise so I’m not even sure if any of them will manage through winter. It all depends on if winter will continue to behave as it has for several years now or if we’ll get a “normal” winter again, very cold and very long. Most likely it won’t be like the old days though but we’ll not know until next year.

I’ve also continued to cut down that huge rose with all the small but plentiful thorns. It’s not because I don’t like it, I do and it gives the birds lots of rose-hips to eat during winter. It is because this rose is seen as an invasive species and it might soon be illegal to have it anywhere. I actually have two of it and both have become huge during the 25 years I’ve lived here. So I’m slowly cutting it away but will leave some so if it isn’t banned it can grow back again 🙂 I might remove the other one totally because even if it is big it still has problems because of other invasive plants I have 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea and I’m waiting for a bread to be ready to be picked out of the oven. I might have a slice or two with the tea but I really should eat the last piece of the bread I still have, then again a warm slice of newly baked bread with strong cheese is a good excuse to wait and use the last bread tomorrow morning instead 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Frosty night.

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It smell a bit of burning dust at the moment, I had to start two radiators today because we had frost and -2C (28,4F) when we woke up this morning and it never became warmer than 13C (5534F) during the day. We’ve had lots of sunshine though so during the day it almost was too warm indoors. The kitchen door has been open until the sun moved over to the other side of the cottage.

So a bit chilly when we went out on our morning walk, not as much frost as I thought we would have but fly free so I forgave nature 🙂 🙂 🙂 Alma walked really well today but instead she want back to that high pitched whining she’s so good at and after four years that sound cuts in to the brain like a dull knife creating a pain I just can’t stand. I doubt that she’s a fan of nature at all. She is getting better though but I really can’t stand that sound any more.

We went out to the bog and since it was as chilly as it was not a fly moved so I could pick the mushrooms without constantly make sure any of those nasty moose flies were crawling around on my head or elsewhere as well of course. I only picked the mushrooms I could find on the forest road so I’m pretty sure that if we had taken one step in between the trees I would have found plenty more. I think we might walk there again tomorrow if it is chilly enough and take that extra step and no moose flies can fly around and find us 🙂 🙂

I mowed the lawn when we had come home, the grass was still a bit wet but it didn’t clog inside the mower. Can one hope that this was the last time I had to do it for this season? After that I brought out the compost grinder or wood chipper as I like to call it. I had all these thorny branches from the wild plum to take care of plus a lot from the other plum tree and the apple tree. I actually also have lots of grape vines. The grape vine almost never gave any grapes and to be honest, grapes are really just weeds to be honest and grows like crazy 🙂 🙂 So I tried to entangle all the vines but that’s an impossible job so I’ll do them another time.

I wasn’t done until rather late, around 3 pm, so after that I haven’t been doing anything to be honest 🙂 I have had coffee and also tea but can say I’m just as tired as if the caffeine had run out of what ever it is that livens one up 🙂 🙂 🙂 The cows in the pasture on the other side of the gravel road outside my cottage has been rather loud from yesterday afternoon and still is,  I think they removed their calfs and it’s heartbreaking to hear them call for their babies.

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I’ll have a bowl with ice cream at the same time. Elsbeth is on tonight so I’ll need to go outside to check for badgers in the garden before letting the dogs outside so I can watch tv without having to do that during the program 🙂 🙂

The pawpaws grow in the most protected place I have in the garden and the frost had not reached them at all, not even the smaller ones were touched by it.
The tomato plants were protected and only the tops were slightly hit but the unripe fruits are still fine 🙂

Have a great day!

I sort of miss those days.

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I really like my birthday present I got from my eldest brother 🙂

A sort of meh weather today, mostly cloudy with the sun peeking through the clouds every now and again. It has been warm though so I really shouldn’t complain. Our morning walk was rather late today just because I hoped the sun would show itself more later in the day.

Instead I drove to the big grocery store in Falköping to get what I need for the weekend, nothing much really but cat food was a must 🙂  It’s not that I don’t have any at home but more because she demands the cheapest brand there is, for some reason she loves that wet food and who am I to complain that it is cheap 🙂 🙂 🙂 I had to stop at the grocery store in Gudhem on my way home because I had two parcels waiting to be picked up. The small one was a camera I’ve bought myself as a birthday present (Nikon D5200), nothing special with that camera more that I can turn the little screen at the back in almost any direction I want. So much easier to photograph something on the ground when I don’t have to lie down to get a nice photograph. I just turn have the camera close to the ground, turn the screen so that I can see what I’m photographing and take the photo 🙂

The blueberries are getting autumn colours.

The other parcel was more interesting, it was actually another camera that my eldest brother gave me as a birthday gift 🙂 It is the camera shown in the first photo 🙂 It is a TLR camera (for film) As You can see there are two lenses on the camera. The upper one is the one you look through and the lower one is the one taking the photo. A bit expensive as a gift but I would be an idiot if I didn’t accept it :-):-) 🙂 As You can see there’s also a second lens pair beside it and that’s a telephoto lens. not too common for these old cameras to have that. It weighs a ton so It is perhaps nothing one just hang over the shoulder when going out for a walk, the shoulder would be needed to be adjusted after that 🙂 🙂 🙂

This is a really nice mushroom to fry and perhaps make a stew. Or just fry them and put them on a sandwich with cheese and other things 🙂
This and the next ones are even better 🙂 I’ll think I’ll bring a bag so I can pick them all tomorrow on our morning walk 🙂
By the way, almost all photos today are taken with the “new” camera (I always buy second hand and when it is cheap 🙂 ). It takes a few days until we know each other well enough so I can get photos to look like I want them to look 🙂

It hasn’t rained today and the grass was surprisingly dry so after the walk I cut down those trunks from the plum trees, they really don’t look that big but they were so heavy that I almost wasn’t able to move them away 🙂 🙂 If I’ve been handy and known how to carve I would have had plenty to work with when they have dried up 🙂

I had to take this and the next photo through the kitchen door window so they look a bit off I’m afraid.

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I’ll also have an ice cream at the same time.There’s absolutely nothing to watch on tv tonight. I remember when I was a kid, You know back in the Stone Age, that Friday and Saturday night were family tv nights. When everyone in the family gathered in front of the tv, perhaps having sodas/coffee and something nice to eat. Not so any more and I sort of miss it even if it only be me and my dogs sitting there. The monster would perhaps join us but she would only sleep in the sofa anyway 🙂 🙂

I really hope we don’t get frost next week because this is the only squash (I think it is squash, have actually no idea because I used seeds I had saved from something I harvested years ago and can’t remember what it was, could be a pumpkin as well 🙂 🙂 ). The plants only gave male flowers until now.

Have a great day!

So much rain.

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Most of the plum tree is gone now. All I need now is a day or two with weather that dries up the ground so I can cut the rest with my chainsaw. After that I need to start thinking about what else can grow there instead 🙂

Lots of rain has been falling here today, from before I woke up until now at almost seven pm. I don’t mind the rain but it has stayed on the chilly side all the time.

One of four piles with twigs and branches from my two plum trees. I’ve started to cut them in smaller pieces so the wood chipper (compost grinder) will have an easier job.

I dug up the hardy hibiscus and thought the buds would fall off but here’s the flower. It was filled with petals before but now it looks like this to my great joy 🙂

So we haven’t done anything really, napped a short while and watched tv. All of us is a bit bored now because rain makes the dogs stay indoors  🙂 They only run out for a few minutes to do what they must and then indoors again.  Yesterday evening, around eight pm it was anything but boring here. I let the dogs outside and then Malkolm came running back to the front door and Alma started to bark.

One of the five pawpaw seedlings. If winter doesn’t kill it I’m afraid the dogs will 🙂 🙂 They run fast and wild when they play and don’t even see trees in their way 🙂 🙂

I walked around the cottage to see if I could find out what it was she barked at. She stared towards a bush and growled so I told her to go back indoors and I pointed my headlight towards the bush and there it was, a rather big badger hiding behind it. Poor thing, it must have been so scared. European badgers has a reputation of being aggressive and dangerous but that’s just nonsense. If they can they rather run away than have to meet dogs and humans.  The reason they are believed to be dangerous is because hunters. I think I also would become pretty aggressive if someone tossed down aggressive dogs in to my home and I too would attack the one doing it.

So tonight I’ll take a walk in the garden before I let out the dogs so it can be alone when it visits us. Badgers eat all those snails and slugs we hate plus a lot of other bugs and larvae we don’t want close to us. I think they also might eat apples from the ground and to me that’s positive since I have so many 🙂 It’s time for that last cup of tea and later tonight they show Elsbeth again 🙂

Have a great day!

Both fog and morning mist.

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The morning was really perfect today. It started with rather thick fog but moved in to morning mist when the sun rose just to turn back to fog when the rising fog made clouds so it blocked the sun again 🙂 Also chilly enough to even keep the moose flies calm. What made it even better was that Alma actually behaved almost the entire walk 🙂

The sun stayed until just after noon I think it was so I decided I would cut down the other plum tree as well, it never gives more than six or seven plums and always get hit by some kind of disease. I did de-bark in in early spring but it has stayed green all summer so I thought it best to do something about it. I know I now will have lots of root shoots but I’ll deal with them when they arrive. No thorns on this one thankfully 🙂 There was some damages on those other things living in that area but I think they’ll survive. It was where that plum tree is growing I had my old pond but since the ground now is filled with loads of roots I won’t be able to use it for that any more, I really don’t want to hire a digger to get those out 🙂 🙂

I also cut of the top of the thorny wild plum, the strong wind we’ve had today helped me to bring it down 🙂 I really don’t like cutting dow my trees but there are other trees I can plant there next year instead.  As long as I keep fertilise the ground all summer, for quite a lot of years, because there will be nothing left when it comes to nutritions for another tree and it can’t be another tree in the same family since diseases easily can stay in the ground and attack the new tree.  It didn’t take long after that when the rain arrived. Mostly a nice autumn rain but also a couple of heavy showers.

The sun came back after five so I planted the two remaining pawpaw seedlings just behind the Laburnum. It has been very dry there for quite some time but I’ve thinned out the branches a lot so now when it rains it actually reach the ground as well. So cross Your fingers and hold Your thumbs so they survive the coming winter, all five of them 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and after that I’ll watch a science program on tv. I think I’ll actually have some ice cream with that tea, orange ice cream with chocolate strings in it 🙂

Have a great day!

Thunder and rain.

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The morning started out much the same as they have been lately, a bit chilly and sunny. We walked out to the bog even though the grass was pretty wet with dew. No ticks on us today but I had to kill quite a lot of moose flies instead. I had hoped it would be a bit too cool for those flies but unfortunately not.

I hadn’t planned to do much in the garden today, just watering the dry sensitive plants I’ve kept on watering all summer and those I’ve just planted but found a few dead branches in the big apple tree that I used the new saw to remove. I also trimmed the Golden rain, Laburnum, and then I got the idea to start cutting down the wild plum tree. Its branches are full with big thorns and I have been a bit worried that those would injure us badly if one of those branches hit us so I had to plan every branch I would cut down so it wouldn’t fall the wrong way.

It almost went as I had planned except for one big branch that fell down over the strawberries and rhubarbs. No big damage but it made me even more careful with the rest of the branches. I guess it was just before 1 pm and I only had the top left to cut off when the thunder and rain arrived. So at the moment I have a rather long and thin and very thorny tree standing there looking really sad 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll use the chain saw to remove the rest as soon as the grass dries up.

I also planted the last Perennials I had in pots, well I hope they were but one never knows what is hidden in the flowerbed close to the entrance because there are so many self sown flowers there now that they can be hiding some pots I’ve forgotten about 🙂 🙂 🙂  So now all I have to dig down are two pawpaw seedlings and two quince trees, I think I know where the pawpaws will go but still can’t figure out where I should plant the quinces, I’m not even sure if they will survive the winter here.

It is still raining here, it’s so much that it looks like they have fog on the other side of the village, we need it so I’ll not complain. We might get a foggy morning and then towards the evening we might get more rain. In between we even might get some sunshine. I have that last cup of tea by my side and at the moment I’m waiting for the loaf of bread in the oven to get ready and so do the dogs 🙂 They always get a piece with cheese on it when the bread still is warm 🙂

Have a great day!

I’ve started to use those wood chips I’ve made.

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I was expecting a sunny morning and I hoped for morning mist again. We had sunshine but the mist wasn’t here but closer to the mountain.  It was a bit chilly when we walked down to the creek and my shoes got drenched in the morning dew and Malkolm who always wants to walk in the grass and follow tracks was even worse 🙂 He had no ticks walking around on him though so that was a good thing 🙂

Lots of small birds tweeting and Jays arguing but there were now bigger animals around. Once I saw a pure white wild hog and I have to admit that it was really beautiful. I didn’t manage to get a photo of it and have always hoped to see another one. Turns out that they are quite common, perhaps not pure white but with spot or markings of other colours on them. Since we don’t have white moose in this area I really think I deserve to see a white wild hog again 🙂 🙂 🙂

I’ve put up the new LED light ramp in the cellar so this morning I started to clean up down there. Lots of soil and sea leafs and twigs on that floor so it took its time. I knew that the monster pooped down there when she had sucked in when I didn’t notice it and therefore locked her in for hours sometimes 🙂 I did however not know how much until I had that light put up, on the plus side though is that I didn’t find any moose droppings which I see as positive 🙂 🙂 🙂

I took some photos to show what my garden looks like at the moment. This shows the south side east corner.
South side western corner.
North side towards east where the cottage stands.
North side towards west.
And the north side towards west corner where my Pawpaws grows.

Lots of smaller lorries have been driving up and down to where the latest neighbours live, looks like they’re moving out today. Too bad I liked them but I fully understand them, the owner of the place is just too greedy. So now we’re waiting for new tenants or perhaps someone from a big city buys it, they usually have no idea. what places like that costs here, anything is cheaper here than I the big cities. I’m not even sure if they could buy a two bedroom apartment in a big city for what they want for this place but it is still too much. Lets hope that who ever comes here are just as nice as the ones moving out.

This is one the other side of the cottage, the northern side looking towards west.
And this is the opposite side towards east. Big and thorny roses on both sides of the entrance 🙂

I’vedecided to plant those five Pawpaw seedlings I have, I can’t trust the cat wanting to go down in to the cellar so I think it is best that they’ll stay outside and I’ll cover them as good as I can instead. The biggest threat to their lives are the dogs running around playing with each other 🙂 🙂 So I’ve put up sticks so the dogs can avoid running in to them. Oddly enough the dogs actually tends to avoid those sticks but can happily run in to smaller trees so hard that they break them 🙂 🙂  According to our folklore the winter will be harsh if the Rowan trees have lots of berries, this year they have almost no berries so it should be warm, almost hot here 🙂 🙂 🙂 Unfortunately it doesn’t show anything more that if they have lots of berries the spring was absolutely perfect for them.

I’ve started to fill up the area around the English walnut with the wood chipping I made from what I’ve been cutting down. The layer is around 20 cm (eight inches) thick. Just remember when using fresh chips they will when slowly decaying steal a lot of nitrogen from the ground. No bigger problem with a walnut though since they have taproots.
The Pawpaws are small and while living in a pot they were eaten by slugs. So far I’ve never seen a slug in this part of the garden, there’s just too little to eat for them I guess.

It is time for that last cup of tea and perhaps a bowl with corn flakes.  Nothing on tv at all so I have no idea what to do for the rest of the evening 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

One more nice day tomorrow, after that the rain comes.

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Sunshine again this morning but it didn’t last for long, a meh fog arrived and after that it stayed cloudy for quite some time. It wasn’t really until late afternoon we had sunshine again but it was at least warm and nice.

So the kitchen door has stayed open most of the day and if I’ve said that we haven’t had especially many wasps (Yellowjackets) here I changed my view about that today. This is the time of year the new queens have left the nest and the workers therefore has nothing to do. That makes them confused and pretty angry and it doesn’t get better when they’ve eaten fermented apples on the ground. They can be pretty nasty and attack without any reason at all. This is the only time in the year I kill them if they start to be nasty towards me. They do so much good all summer but now they have no purpose since the queens are gone.

Since I hadn’t planned to do anything special today I finally used the chain saw. As I’ve mentioned earlier grape elder wood aren’t good for much after they’ve been cut down, not even in life the wood is especially tough, so even though they were quite thick it just too 15 seconds to cut those stumps off. I did go out on the net to see if it can be used to anything and it did say one could use it as fire wood but it wasn’t recommended since the wood (the entire plant actually) is poisonous.

The bog is yellow now, autumn is here.

Besides that I really haven’t done much today. I’ve planted one of the quince seedlings, there was sort of a space vacant when I had cut down the grape elder. Well I cut down two grape elders to be honest and should therefore be able to plant one more but the other one grew beside the huge rose I still am cutting down and also there grows an English walnut not far fro it so in the long run, if the walnut keeps on surviving it will be too much shade there. My black walnut on the other side of the garden is now higher than the cottage and grows way too close to it. I never thought it would survive here but oh how wrong I was 🙂 🙂 I will have to cut off the branches that soon will be long enough to slam hard on the roof when it is windy.

It will be nice weather tomorrow again but after that they say it will go downhill, lots of rain and lower temperatures. I really don’t need to go to the supermarket yet but if I go on Saturday as I’ve planned it will be a bit nasty weather to drive in. On the other side I’m waiting for a parcel with a LED light bar that I need to have down in the cool cellar and it might arrive tomorrow but on the opposite way to the supermarket 🙂 🙂 Well the lighter can wait until the weather gets a bit nicer again 🙂 I’m sitting here with my last cup of tea for the day and today I’ll watch Elsbeth on tv 🙂

My little meadow is still full of flowers.

My Black walnut. I wish that I had planted it just a meter (much the same as a yard) to the right but I guess in the long run that wouldn’t have helped anyway 🙂

Have a great day!