Category: Gardening.

We had thunder but I didn’t notice it :-)

July 3, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

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I knew that we would get both clouds and rain and most possibly thunder later today so we went out on our walk as soon as we had woken up because the sun was shining and it was cool and nice outside. Just enough warm for the forest flies to fly around but cool enough to keep the horse flies calm.

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It was almost cloud free when we started our rather short walk but the sky was completely covered by clouds by the time we came home again, perhaps 30 minutes later. It didn’t take long after that when the first rain arrived. They had guessed that it would arrive after noon some time so I wasn’t surprised at all that it arrived rather early in the morning 🙂 🙂 🙂 I really didn’t mind though but decided to do the last of the laundry before any thunder might arrive. It did but I didn’t notice it at all. I just noticed that the app on my phone had warned for lightnings long after it had passed 🙂 🙂 🙂

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They’re now guessing we’ll get more rain tomorrow and on Tuesday as well but after that it’ll slowly dry up and sunshine will return. I do hope the coming week will be cooler since I’ll be working in the hot powder paint department again. All other painters are on vacation so I’m the only one who can do it. We do however have other people who can paint with normal paint so what ever needs to be painted there will be painted by someone else. I think I’ll appreciate my comming vacation so much more after a week in that hot place 🙂 🙂 🙂

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I haven’t found that add about bread baking machines again but while looking I remembered that it would be much better if I actually bought a new slow cooker since the ceramic pot in the old one broke. I do like the food we now can buy at work but the price is really insanely high compared to what it costs to make the food at home. So when I’ve finished here I’ll check for slow cookers instead. I managed to convince my work friend that it is one of the best inventions ever so he bought one and now he makes all his dinners in it 🙂 When I get it I’ll try to bake a bread in it too, I’ll still do all the work but I must try it 🙂

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I planted two melon vines earlier today and watered them of course but it is time to water some more because I’m pretty sure the dry ground around them has stolen most of that water. After that I’ll fall asleep in front of the tv as usual 🙂

Have a great day!

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I hope they’re guessing it right and that cool weather and rain is on the way :-)

July 1, 2022 · Leave a comment ·

No walk in this hot weather so only photos from my garden today.

32C (89,6F) again and I really don’t like it. They’re guessing however that we’ll get lots of rain tonight and most likely also thunder. The temperature will also fall down to more nice 20C (68F) and stay like that for at least ten more days (and more rain will fall). I’m already longing for the rain to arrive 🙂

I went to the physiotherapist for the last time today because even though my shoulder most likely never will go back to good it’s still so much better that if I just continue with the training I’ve learned it most likely won’t be worse either. I stopped at a garden center on my way back to work. I didn’t look for any plants but I did take a look anyway. Turns out that they now sell peach trees that gives those “Gold Peaches”. They also sold an almost totally white peach, called icy something. Both trees were however so small that I most likely would cut them down with my lawn mower but the price wasn’t small at all 🙂 🙂 🙂

If the Hardy Kiwi likes where it grows it grows like crazy.

I‘ll get flowers on my Chinese (or Yellow) Catalpa this year 🙂

What I was looking for was some kind of water tight semi big pot where I could put all my carnivorous plants I bought some time ago. It is time they move from the shadier north side of my cottage to a more sunny spot. I didn’t know if I wanted one big pot or perhaps two semi big ones but they were so expensive that I bought one bigger. Turns out that it didn’t really hold water 🙂 🙂 🙂 It is made out of a thin layer of metal but folded together instead of welded.

I’ve sealed it with textile glue, more or less just liquid rubber to be honest. When it has dried I’ll fill the pot with peat and water. It’ll take some time for the peat to suck up enough water before I can plant anything in it though. But if I leave it outside in the rain tonight it might be good enough tomorrow. I can already now however say that my little carnivorous plants don’t starve 🙂 🙂 The Venus fly traps I have are almost always closed 🙂 I don’t think they can over feed that way, I sure hope that anyway because I really need both plants and animals to eat as many flies as they can, we really don’t have too few flies in this area 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is time for a cup of tea, yes warm tea 🙂 I bought lots of things to make really nice sandwiches, like tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce and much more but it is just too hot to eat anything so tea it’ll be but I will also drink lots of cold milk 🙂 Did You know that a survey shows that the best one can drink to re hydrate the body on a hot day is to drink milk? Because even the fat in the milk contains water so it actually works even better than pure water! 🙂 I drink lots of milk 🙂

Have a great day!

I’ve tried to identify the huge rose that now is so high and heavy that it sort of collapses because of its own weight and because it can’t lean or grow towards anything else. It’s 4 meters high (much the same in yards) and the big difference (except its size) compared to the dog rose is that it has at least seven buds on the same twig. The dog roses I have only have five as most.

The heat is back.

June 30, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

DSC_0017 (1) — Have You ever eaten Sea cale (Crambe maritima)? It grows wild in my old home town and now finally I have three seeds that has germinated. One eat anything from the flowers (like broccoli) to the leafs and the stem. Quite tasty. It’s a perennial as well.

Hot again today and I don’t like it. It has even been so hot that people at work who usually go outside during every break refused to do so today 🙂 🙂 🙂 I knew I would have to fetch a package today so I managed to go home a couple of hours early 🙂

It was the lens I bought at our EBay, called Tradera, that finally had arrived. Turned out that the seller were on vacation when I won it with my bid. I wouldn’t have cared if it just had said so in the add instead of getting to know it after I had bought it 🙂 🙂 🙂 Still I’ve tried it today and I really can’t complain. It is nice to once again have a tele-photo lens that works as it should. To be honest it has such a wide range that I don’t have to have any smaller lens as long as this one works.

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Earlier this week I bought two really big peaches called Golden Peach. Nasty expensive but I thought that I at least should try once. They were really delicious and evenly light orange all over. I’ll see if I can find any more in the store tomorrow. Later on I bought some nectarines and all were just slightly bigger than a big plum. They too are delicious but I must admit that I’ve never seen that small nectarines before. So I’ve saved the kernels and I’ll sow them next winter. There’s no guarantee that, if any of them germinates and grow to be big enough to give fruits, that the fruits will look the same but then again I do like to sow seeds and see what happens 🙂

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I’ll go to the physiotherapist for the last time tomorrow and I must say that my shoulders feels much better. They aren’t good in any way but I can work and didn’t need any surgery to get here and that’s a relief. After that I’ll only have to work one more week and then vacation starts 🙂 After this heat wave I’m really looking forward to it and I do hope that we’ll have temperatures around 20C (68F) and no higher than 25C (77F).

Nova’s eyes became better pretty quick after they had swollen up last week. Have no idea why this happened and I really wish I did know why because after the walk we had today I went to take a shower and when I came back from the bathroom one of her eyes were really swollen again. She doesn’t feel any pain and had a healthy apetite so I know it doesn’t disturb her but it does disturb me 🙂 🙂 🙂 She walked by herself most of the walk and I have no idea what she was doing while I took the shower but sometime around the walk and my shower she’s been in contact with something she can’t tolerate. I guess it’s some kind of grass pollen and I’ve ruled out insect bites because insect bites are irritating for a long time and she doesn’t even seem to know something is different 🙂

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It’s time to drink something cold and after that I’ll most likely fall asleep in front of the tv, I’ve already fallen asleep in front of it once today 🙂

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Have a great day!

Finally!

June 28, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

DSC_0017 (11) — Cornflowers, poppies and Californian poppies now flower in the old wheel barrow 🙂

The temperature has dropped and the rain finally fell down the sky today and it fell a lot of it as well 🙂 It isn’t often everyone around You are happy about lots of rain and still want more to fall, especially during summer 🙂 🙂 Yesterday it was 32C (89,6F) today it stopped at 22C (71,6F). We’ll get more rain on Friday but how much varies between the different weather sites. I do hope the one with most is the right one 🙂

DSC_0002 (16) — They grow everywhere but in my garden. It might be that the dogs fertilize my garden too well for them to like it here.

DSC_0004 (14) — Chamomile always grow beside the gravel road. I really should pick the flowers and dry them so I can have them in tea during winter.

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The factory was still nasty hot though. I guess that shows good insulation but also bad ventilation I’m afraid. The first one walking in to the factory days like these also opens all big doors so the cooler air can blow in, well at least days when there’s wind 🙂 No wind ever reach the powder paint department so the heat wave still went on in there 🙂

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I was a bit worried that the flies would be horrible when we were out walking after work but they stayed calm almost all the way, only at the end of the walk they became nasty and tried to get inside the nostrils and ears. Must remember to bring the mosquito hat tomorrow. I don’t mind them buzzing around my head but I get really annoyed when they try to get inside it 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Almost all windows are open and it was really nice when the wind flew through the cottage but now there’s no wind but compared to yesterday it still feels pretty nice. I started to be a bit worried about my closest neighbors yesterday because they too got this cold/ covid? and I hadn’t seen or heard them for over a week. Then this morning I finally heard how one of them drove to work and today when we headed out on our walk I finally had a chat with them. The fever is gone now but they are still not feeling especially well to be honest, just like all of us that had this.

DSC_0030 (9) — Rubus odoratus, Virginia raspberry. The colors are a bit strong here, should have changed the settings 🙂 Beautiful weed that rarely gives any berries here and when it does the berries doesn’t taste anything. Tried to get rid of it several times but it always comes back 🙂

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Have a great day!

It is the wind that saves us :-)

June 25, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

The first flower to open up in the old wheel barrow, a Californian poppy.

I must admit that I slept very well last night, the bedroom wasn’t at all as hot as I thought it would be. I even woke up an hour and a half later than usual! Can’t remember when that happened the last time. The temperature had already reached 20C (68F) by then so I thought a walk wouldn’t happen.

So I watered the vegetable and potato patch, made us our breakfasts and didn’t think more about it. Then a wind started to blow and both Alma and Albin became a bit restless so I thought it best to have a walk anyway. By then it had reached 25C (77F) but the wind made it feel less warm. Nova really didn’t care about a walk but she still wanted to follow us when I picked up the leashes.

WE didn’t go far and we were in no hurry. Half the walk was in sunshine since they’ve cut down all the trees on the left side of the road but the other half was in shade since we walked back in the forest. Both Alma and Albin just fell down on the floor when we came back and slept heavily after just a minute or two. Nova behaved as if she could have continued for a couple of more hours, she wasn’t affected by the heat at all 🙂 🙂 🙂

I’ve also done the last of the laundry but that doesn’t demand especially much energy from me 🙂 It is too hot (we reached 32C (89,6F) as warmest today) so I’ve only had cold things to eat, like granola with icy cold sour milk with raspberry taste. Unfortunately I had the last ice cream yesterday evening and it is really too hot to go and buy some more, it would melt long before I even reach half way home 🙂 🙂 🙂

The first blue geraniums are opening up in the garden.

Tomorrow will be even hotter they say and I’m not looking forward to that. There’s even a risk that Monday will be even hotter and I do hope they have that prediction wrong. After that it’ll cool down again, at least that is what they’re guessing. I don’t like these temperatures when I’m on vacation and I really don’t want them while I’m working.

Bryonia alba, White bryony, is a weed one doesn’t want. If left alone it can cover an entire tree. It smell bad and is also poisonous. We call if Dog turnip because it grows a huge root looking much like a turnip.

This is another weed, Nepeta sibirica. We call it Big dragon flower. It smells odd like all nepetas but it’s beautiful and has no demands what so ever 🙂

Have a great day!

The heat from south will reach us after all, they think.

June 21, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

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This was a good day to have off from work, the sun has been shining all day and it’s been around 23C (73,4F). The winds have been rather strong so that makes it feel a bit cooler. The weather predictions have varied quite a lot about the coming week and at the moment it seems as if we’ll get up to 30C (86F) during the weekend. I’m not happy about that but there’s nothing I can do about it.

DSC_0004 (11) — For someone who really doesn’t like roses I sure have a lot of them 🙂

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A lot of people will love it though since we celebrate midsummer this weekend. Many will go to the beach, others will barbecue and some will start forest fires because they can’t use their brains and understand that open fires when everything is dry and hot aren’t such good ideas 🙂 🙂 🙂 We really should celebrate it today though since it is summer solstice now. Then again we won’t notice any change in daylight anyway since several days now are more or less just as long. Today the sun rose at 4 am and it will set at 10:16 pm. The only difference to Friday will be that the sun rise one minute later 🙂

DSC_0020 (9) — The giant rose has just opened its first flower. It is later than the common Dogrose and a bit deeper in color.

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I stopped at my favorite garden center on my way home and bought a couple of plants, two melon plants since the ones I have really doesn’t seem to grow at all and one Kiwi vine. It isn’t really hardy enough to grow here, close but no cigarr as they say but I’ll try and protect it from the worst cold if winter gets bad. That was bad luck for You though because I couldn’t find any parking spots in the shade so I couldn’t stop and take any photos for You and instead I had to drive home again. Well I’ll most likely take trip up there again during my vacation.

DSC_0015 (9) — Tiny caterpillars have eaten almost all leafs on my gooseberry bushes. No bigger harm for the bush since they’ll grow new leafs and they never touch the berries.

DSC_0018 (10) — My fig tree was hit by the frost a month or so ago and finally it grows new leafs again.

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DSC_0014 (10) — Magpies found it funny to rip up the beans that had started to grow and just leave them on the ground so now I’ve covered most of the vegetable patch.

So tomorrow it’s back to work but only for two days since we don’t work on Friday. Midsummer is almost as big as christmas here and anyone who doesn’t have to work will not work.

Have a great day!

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I think it hoped we wouldn’t see it :-)

June 19, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

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It hasn’t been as nice as they said it would be today but it has still been pretty nice weather anyway. A bit on the chilly side as soon as the clouds covered the sky. Those times were perfect to take naps on 🙂

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It is always interesting to watch how they change the weather predictions every day. Yesterday for instance they showed that we were going to get pretty unstable weather, lower temperatures and anything from a bit of rain to loads of it. Today they show that we’ll have pretty nice weather, just above 20C (68F) but no rain what so ever. It still looks though as the heat they have down in Europe won’t reach us but that can change any minute since it as usual doesn’t look as if they know what they’re doing 🙂 🙂 🙂

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As You all know I get my water from a neighbor around 100 meters (much the same in yards) away, if You draw a straight line between us. However the owner of the land between us back when they put down that pipe refuse to let them put it down the straight way, instead it takes a long detour so it is perhaps three times as long 🙂 🙂 🙂 No problem really to be honest and to be even more honest I doubt that anyone now days actually know where that pipe is placed 🙂 🙂 🙂 Anyway, I’m the only one using that water now days but the one having the pump on his property is kind enough to still care for the filter so I didn’t have to buy a new one and install it here.

DSC_0019 (11) — The path down to the island in the bog where we always walk. If the dogs and I don’t walk there the grass grows high, we are the only ones ever walking there except during hunting season.

DSC_0020 (8) — The same on the path to the peninsula. The cranes are nesting there now so we don’t walk down there until the younglings can fly away.

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Every time he fixes anything with that filter though some of what has been caught in that filter ends up in the pipe, can’t be helped and back in the days when we both used that water I never noticed anything because he then pour out that water into his garden through his garden hose. He can’t do that any more since he now have communal water and those water taps were closed. Now days it all comes to me 🙂 🙂 🙂 He always tells me when this is about to happen but I don’t use that much water and the pipes are soo long so I actually never can guess when it will arrive over here 🙂 🙂 🙂 It did that last Monday and as worst it looked like I was pouring out very strong tea from my taps 🙂 🙂 🙂

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There’s nothing wrong with the water, it is mostly rust and some silt but it really looks bad 🙂 So it has been a good thing that I’ve sowed a lot of seeds and that we didn’t get that much rain because to get rid of it and to get back my clean water I’ve watered a lot 🙂 In between when I have needed water I’ve just filtered it through thick paper but it is really nice to just be able to use the water out from the tap again 🙂 The seeds I’ve sown are finally showing up in my vegetable patch. I had to wait for them to so I then knew exactly where those plants were and how many that showed up in case I needed to sow again. As soon as the seeds I sowed today shows up I’ll be able to cover the soil with grass from the lawn mower.

DSC_0033 (6) - 2 — I think it hoped that we wouldn’t see it 🙂 Well the dogs didn’t but I did. It has a tiny pine cone in its mouth 🙂

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I’ll go back to work tomorrow. I can’t say I feel back to normal but I don’t have any fewer now. It’ll be a short week anyway. Friday’s off since we’ll celebrate midsummer and I’ll be at the hospital for my twenty years inspection of my right hip on Tuesday. I guess I’ll go back next year for the tenth (really eleventh) year inspection of my left hip. I wonder why they couldn’t do both at the same time, it would just take five more minutes to be honest. It really doesn’t matter, I’ll always enjoy a day off from work 🙂

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Have a great day!

Neither Albin nor Alma screamed??!!

June 18, 2022 · Leave a comment ·

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We did get rain last night, I woke up at some time hearing a shower passing by. We didn’t get especially much though, just enough so I won’t have to water the patches today. I still have some sowing to do so I’ll do that tomorrow morning I think.

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We weren’t supposed to have any sunshine this morning but the clouds would go away some time before noon. So I wasn’t the least surprised that the sun shone through big patches of cloud free sky already in the early morning 🙂 🙂 We had breakfast before we went out on our walk so the temperature was above 10C (50F) which means the flies are flying around. We have a really strong wind blowing though so I hoped it would keep the flies away. No it didn’t. I didn’t want to walk down to the creek because horse flies reign there at the moment so we went in to the forest instead.

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We swapped horse flies to forest flies and mosquitoes instead. The forest flies are still a bit shy so they just circles around the head and don’t aim for ears and nostrils so the walk was quite pleasant. We walked to an opening in the forest where they cut down the trees a few years ago. We stopped just where it opens up and the dogs were quite interested in something out there. If it hadn’t been for my tele photo lens starting to argue about where to focus I would now have been able to show You photos of adorable striped piglets.

DSC_0027 (4) — She isn’t that big thankfully, perhaps 50 kg (around 104 pounds ).

The lens calmed down so that I at least could take photos of one of the sows. She had her eyes on us all the time and I think she didn’t care about us especially much because both Albin and Alma were quiet???!!! So we stood there for a minute or so but since I know wild hogs are fast and the boar must be around somewhere we slowly turned around and went back homewards. I have by the way bought another lens. I did it as soon as we came home. I went out to check our EBay, called Tradera and found a used Tamron telephoto lens. It has reasonable good reviews so I’m hoping for the best.

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My neighbor looked out the window when we were on our way out to the forest and I asked how she (well they because they are a family after all) was doing. Turns out that she got sick on Tuesday, her daughter just after and her fiance yesterday. All the symptoms are the same except for her, she has lost her sense of smell and taste. Could be corona but it can just as well be a normal influensa. I do feel better today even though I do cough a lot from time to time. I have very little energy so I’ll skip the lawn mowing until that returns.

DSC_0039 (4) — I may not have poppies around my garage but I do have buttercups, dog biscuits and stinging nettles 🙂 🙂 🙂

We’ve just had our dinner, well I had my dinner and the dogs had lots of my french fries :-). They’ll get their food as soon as I’m done here. I think I should have some dessert, ice cream 🙂 The banana split ice cream I bought is ok, too much chocolate sauce on it for my taste. It’s strange, I really like chocolate but have problems with chocolate sauce, it’s just sticky and way too sweet 🙂

f (5) — Flag Iris? The first one to open up.

f (9) — The Dog rose will soon be almost pink. The rose behind will open up a bit later. It is now well over 4 meters high (much the same in yards).

Have a great day!

Today I paid for it.

June 9, 2022 · Leave a comment ·

DSC_0002 (3) — Sunshine, water drops hanging on my Amur grapevine. A rather nice view from my kitchen window.

The sun shone and there was a beautiful layer of fog above the ground when I left the village to go to work and I thought that it was typical that we would have such a wonderful morning when I’m working and can’t take a walk in it.

DSC_0004 (3) — I’ve taken a photo like this loads of time but can You see the difference from before?

DSC_0008 (3) — This is the difference, they cut down almost all trees.

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Turns out that it only was here that we had that wonderful morning, As soon as I came to the lake I met a grey sky and some rather boring fog, sort of being there but not really hiding anything. It was like that all the way to work. The finishing of the potato patch and vegetable patch finally caught up with me so today my body has been aching, I wasn’t even sure I would be able to get out of bed 🙂 🙂 🙂 So since The things I have to paint at work were in no hurry to be painted I instead went home after lunch. I thought I might as well stay that long since I had ordered lunch and didn’t want to reheat it when coming home.

DSC_0011 (3) — There are two oaks in this photo. One is growing between the pine trunks and one to the left of them. Both are much the same age, perhaps around 25-30 years old. One grows like a tree and one is more or less the same hight it has since I moved here, it’s more like a bush.

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I don’t think it helped that I decided to start sowing some things in my vegetable patch in heavy rainfall yesterday either 🙂 🙂 🙂 The day was warm but the rain pretty cold but now I at least have started. I had ordered a new hardy kiwi vine since one of the ones I have seems pretty dead and it arrived today. The problem was that they had delivered it to my neighbor instead 🙂 🙂 🙂 I was surprised that they actually had done that since I’ve had plenty of packages delivered to my home. Also they delivered the package to a road where there are three houses and I don’t think it is common for the middle house to have the number 3 as home number 🙂 🙂 🙂

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It’s a good thing I’m so good friends with my neighbors because technically I’m not sure I’m allowed to walk in to their property to get my package even if it delivered wrong. I planted the vine and then we went out for a walk. Alma behaved pretty well, I was so glad she didn’t see the deer in the field. The first annoying forest flies have arrived but they were so few that I didn’t care. We still have plenty more mosquitoes but I’ve been bitten enough times now so it seems I’m immune to the itching again 🙂

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Besides this nothing much has happened. The company I’m working at is going so well that they now will make a new storage building so we finally can have the space we have in the factory for working spaces we really should have already. They’ve also rebuild my old painting department so that most people will be working outside the nasty hot and humid paint department. I’m really happy for my work friends because that hot department made me hate warm weather, instead i enjoyed walking outside in my t-shirt when it was below freezing temperatures outside 🙂 🙂 🙂 Now when I don’t work there I hope I’ll go back to liking warmer temperatures again 🙂

DSC_0034 (2) — It’s hard to see but here’s my new apricot tree.

DSC_0037 (2) — I’ll grow melons in this one 🙂

Have a great day!

DSC_0039 (2) — My little peach tree. The thought of this placement is that if it survives and gives peaches in the future my neighbors will just have to reach over the hedge and grab as many as they can. I have great neighbors and they’re worth that.

Blueberry flowers. I have neglected my blueberry plants for years now but they still give me plenty of berries. I think it is time to actually care for them now.

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Finally I have the right tree :-)

June 7, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

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So the weather prognosis said we should get rain from very early morning to late night today but it didn’t start until after 5 pm. Mostly drizzle but one heavy shower has passed by just now. Thunder is also in the neighborhood but it doesn’t seem to come any closer at the moment.

a (9)

I was surprised by getting two packages today. The first one I was expecting, it was the anti fungal thing I’ll use against peach leave curl. A disease that always hit peaches and slowly kills the tree. I hope this will help my peach tree to survive. I can’t understand how the first wild peaches (there is no wild peach any longer and they don’t seem to really know from where this fruit first came) survived at all but then again we’ve most likely meddled with these trees so much that they no longer can survive without our help.

a (12) — Three times I tried to get the all three dogs too look at me, three times I failed 🙂 🙂

a (13)

The other package wasn’t supposed to arrive until tomorrow but I’m glad it did come today. I finally have my apricot tree 🙂 They had delivered it to my entrance. The odd thing is that they refused to do so when the first tree (which is the peach tree I now have) because the package was too high. This package was exactly the same hight but this time there was no problem at all 🙂 🙂 🙂 So now I need to figure out where to place it since the peach tree now stands in the spot where I was supposed to have my apricot tree 🙂 🙂

a (18)

So today was back to work after the long holiday and I’ve been painting all day long. I had a chat with a higher up person about what I thought about Fridays events and I really can’t write anything about it here but I did think that I might be forced to have a conversation about it with the one planning it 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well I didn’t but I do hope they think about the next time they want to do something similar. I won’t go because I said that that would never happen again 🙂 🙂 🙂

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It is time to go downstairs again. I feel like a cup of tea might be in place. I have a head ache so I hope that a cup of tea will solve that. I’m really tired now as well so I doubt that a late cup of tea will keep me up tonight. It doesn’t look like the thunder will come any closer though. I’ve always wondered what I should do with my electrical toilet. Should I keep it plugged in or do like I do with almost all other electrical things, unplug it? It has happened that the lightning has come out into my cottage but that was before they dug down all the cables. It would be good to know though.

DSC_0002 (2) — My vegetable patch. It does look much smaller than it actually is.

DSC_0001 (1) — I left all the removed lawn by the fence side. I’m thinking of perhaps just arrange them in a nicer way and to keep them all there. It would become a wind break when eastern winds blow.

DSC_0004 (2) — I have several small Loquat trees and I’ve planted one in my garden. It’s on the border to what it cane take here but since I have several so why not try. Normally one should wait to plant them until they are three years old, like I did with my Black Walnut but then again I have plenty 🙂

Have a great day!

So nice day!

June 5, 2022 · 6 Comments ·

a (3)

I really can’t complain about anything today to be honest. 23C (73,4F), sunshine, a weak but cool wind blowing and Alma has behaved all day! There was this one deer that refused to move out in a field but Alma didn’t see it and only pulled the leash forward. It’s when she suddenly make quick turns that my shoulder gets worse.

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The first horse flies have arrived, still they aren’t too bad, just annoying by circling around showing they are here. Well I think one bit Alma because most of the day she has been chasing everyone of them that has been close to her. These look like wasps so I’m a bit worried she will try and catch one of those, a sting in the mouth isn’t a good thing. I can also tell already now that it’s a wasp year, long time since I saw these many as I do now.

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I’ve finally done the potato patch 🙂 I haven’t placed the last pieces of lawn over the stinging nettles yet, I was so tired and my body hurt so much when I was done that I decided to do that tomorrow. It was so fun because every time I went away for a short while small birds landed in the patch and took any maggot, larvae and worm they could find. Some were even so brave that they came down while I still was working there. I’ll rake the place tomorrow before I put down the potatoes so they’ll have another chance to find food. There is this larvae (who eventually will become some kind of beetle) that feeds on grass roots, when the grass roots no longer is there they will go for the potatoes so any of these the birds will take is a good thing.

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Tomorrow I’ll start with the vegetable patch and do the exact same thing there. I’ll have some very well fed baby birds this summer 🙂 🙂 🙂 I think there are lots of birds nests in the garden this summer because I could hear when they fed their younglings. It’s amazing how loud they are, especially since there are so many who would love to have them as a snack. I don’t have any cats now but the neighbors have plenty but they are of course not in my garden if I and my dogs are there.

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Tomorrow is our national day and that’s a day very few actually celebrates here. Most of us didn’t want it to become a holiday because we knew they would remove another holiday we had if it did become a holiday. The one they removed was Whit Monday. No one did celebrate that one either since no one actually knew why we had it as a holiday 🙂 🙂 The thing was however that it always was on a Monday so we all knew we would get a long weekend.Our national day can come any day since it is a fixed date. So since no one actually wanted it both the employers and the union agreed on us getting eight hours of compensation time every year it happened on a Saturday or Sunday so that we actually could take a long weekend anyway 🙂 🙂 🙂

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I can feel I have drunk way too little water after working in the sun all day so now I’ll have something to drink and I will also open a tin of canned peaches because I feel I deserve it 🙂

Have a great day!

a (29) — Tiny little spiders who are all ready to start to eat each other 🙂

DSC_0002 (1) — The potato patch. I’ve planted three hardy kiwi along the fence. It looks like one might be dead or on its way to so I’ve ordered a new one.

I’ve made a path for the dogs with the cut out pieces of lawn.

DSC_0009 (1) — This is a male plant of the hardy kiwi. It’ll get small beautiful white flowers. None of my female plants will give any flowers this year so I’ll have to wait for a chance to eat the berries.

Lots of rain and looong naps :-)

May 26, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Have a great day!