Category: Gardening.

The wild hogs comes closer and closer.

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The wild hogs are now just 50 meters (much the same in yards) away from my cottage, in the cow pasture beside the dog house/ yard. I did wonder why the dogs kept running around like crazy during the night 🙂 🙂 🙂

-6C (21,2F) as coldest last night but it can’t have lasted that long because it was close to 0C (32F) when we went outside after we had woken up. They said the sun would start to show around 8 am, so of course it didn’t arrive until after noon but when it did the world warmed up properly again 🙂

I haven’t done much today, I sowed some leek seeds and was about to sow some bell pepper seeds but for some reason I still haven’t 🙂 🙂 I’ll do it after writing this 🙂 I can’t start sowing especially much yet because I don’t have the space indoors and we’ll most likely have frost several nights the coming week, days will be warmer again though.

Chionodoxa.
Vinca minor.
This is how it looks after I removed the grapevine. I think I’ll plant an apricot tree there.
Can never remember the name on these, spreads really happily everywhere though.

I started to clean up my garden yesterday and continued for a while today. I also gathered all the pots I’ve spread around the garden 🙂 🙂 For some reason I never empty them in the autumn so I really need to do it now before weeds grow and cover them so I can’t find any when I need to 🙂 🙂 I’ve also continued to rip up stinging nettle roots and this time I managed to stay away from those nasty leafs. I have way too many nettles in the garden but then again they are edible so it is perhaps not such a bad thing to have just in case the orange idiot does something really stupid (worse than what he has so far and he’s done some really stupid things) 🙂

I also tried to nap in the sofa while the sun shone through that window. Stupid idea when one has two dogs and a cat 🙂 🙂 🙂 I can however tell You that when I gave up they finally decided it was time for them to have a nap 🙂 🙂 🙂

The orchid that flowered earlier this winter decided to give me more flowers, didn’t see that until I thought it was time topwater it 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day. I must remember to buy more tea tomorrow when I’ll drive to my health care place to give blood before the kidney x-rays. Some time this week I’ll know if I got a job at the coffin factory, if not it sounds like I have another one on the way, they promised to call back this week and give me a job if I didn’t got the coffin job.

Have a great day!

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One of the five Pawpaw seeds I bought now have a tiny root, so I have sown it in a big pot and can place it outdoors as soon as nights get a bit warmer.

For once we didn’t have frost last night but instead we had hard northern winds blowing so that sort of evened it all out 🙂 Sunshine all day with the exception smaller clouds passing in the sky in front of the sun. It was pretty nice as long as one kept away from the wind and stayed in the sunshine 🙂 Pretty tricky when being out on walks though but worked pretty good in the garden. For once the wind blew from a direction where it actually can reach my garden but the cottage managed to block most of it 🙂

The wind is icy cold so it was rather nasty when we walked in the open fields but as soon as we reached the creek and then in to the forest it changed dramatically, even in those places the sun couldn’t reach us. We’ll get a couple of nights with cold nights but the days will get warmer and warmer again. My kitchen door is towards south and the wind comes from north so I can have it open all day thankfully. Both the little monster and the dogs can walk in and out as they please and the cottage gets rid of all the winter air with is quite nice 🙂

The monster had a little break on top of the grape vine 🙂

Yesterday I cut down the Amur grape vine I had outside my kitchen, where all the birds sat while waiting for their turn to eat by the feeder. It didn’t give many grapes to be honest and since dogs shouldn’t eats grapes I just thought it best to remove it. It was a bit too easy to be honest and most of the vines seemed dead, I could only see buds on a few of the vines. Now I need to plant something else  there so that the birds can be protected from raptor birds while they sit and wait for their turn.

Lots of stack ants walking around on the ant stack .

I do have a lot of apricot trees now so it will most likely be one of those, Apricots are really hardy, the problem is that they flower no matter what weather we’re having so it can be really warm or winter and they just don’t care 🙂 🙂 So if one wants the apricots up here in the north one better be prepared to protect those flowers from cold weather 🙂 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I have baked some rolls but they sort of flattened out 🙂 🙂 The taste is just the same though so that doesn’t matter 🙂

Have a great day!

The ticks and mosquitoes are back, yay.

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Below 0C (32F) again this morning, nothing strange to be honest because that’s how it used to be back in the days. April here back in the days could be anything from what we have now to bitterly cold and snowstorms, usually the latter. This year the warm weather started so early that it isn’t until now we can see and especially hear bumblebees in the air. Also the ticks are active, yay, and yesterday I killed two mosquitoes that tried to drink my blood.

The first bumblebee of the year 🙂

We are thankfully out on our morning walks so early that it is too cold for ticks to be active, the ground is still frozen after the nights low temperatures. It will be less warm the coming days with especially Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights being pretty chilly but we’ll have sunshine and almost 10C (50F) temperatures during the days so it will not be as bad as they first guessed.Tuesday will be the start of rising temperatures again. So I took a bit of a chance today by sowing annuals in the little area where I’ll have flowers for pollinators. I most likely did this too early so that those more sensitive flowers might get killed even if they during those chilly nights still only will be seeds.

I’ve also brought up more trees from the cellar but those will be covered with fibre cloth so the freezing temperatures won’t reach them. It’ll be nice when I can bring out all those plants down there so that I can use it as an earthen cellar. The cool cellar works fine as a farther cellar but if summer is hot it will be a bit too warm down there as well. It is perfect during winter though when the temperature usually stays just above 0C (32F) as coldest, especially now days when it doesn’t get as cold as it used to be.

I think it is time for a cup of tea and perhaps some hard bread with cheese and jam 🙂

I have a couple of old piles with branches I’ve cut of from trees and bushes and yesterday the monster kitten went in to one of them and Malkolm was upset, he couldn’t follow her 🙂

Have a great day!

They say it’ll rain tomorrow.

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Lungwort.

Another really nice and sunny spring day here. Started a bit cloudy but warm so I didn’t feel I had the right to complain 🙂 No cranes in the field though but I could hear some trumpeting in fields further away.

We walked down to the creek but in the opposite direction to what we normally do. It would have been nice to walk to the older forest but the ground is so wet around there that rubber boots are a necessity at the moment. The sun started to shine while we were out warming up the air quite a lot so after a short while it felt too much to wear an anorak 🙂

I continued to weed in the garden, today only nice weeds but yesterday I started to rip up stinging nettle roots. I could see the first shoots for the spring and decided I would at least slow them down this year. The shoots are edible after heating them up and can be used as a sort of spinach. People who do that always lies about those new shoots and say that they doesn’t burn, lies lies lies 🙂 🙂 🙂 So yesterday my hands burned and today they itch something bad 🙂 🙂

Besides that very little has happened here. Can’t say I remember what I’ve been doing but at the moment it does feel like I could have taken a long nap and still hadn’t rushed to do what I have done today 🙂 Tomorrow we’ll have a much cooler day and they’re saying we’ll have some rain as well, we barely got anything last time they said that. It’s not like we really need it but nature will love it anyway 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and after that I have no idea 🙂

The cranes had arrived outside the cottage when we were back home again, they didn’t like to see me so they flew away 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Our nesting couples are here now :-)

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The new neighbours cat. The photos can come from today but also several days back, sunny photos are always nicer 🙂

It was warmish and cloudy this morning when we went out in the garden. Four cranes were walking in the field outside my garden, two left when they heard us but two stayed. The problem was that I only could photograph them through the branches on my catalpa tree 🙂 I did get a few reasonable good ones though.

I had forgotten a few things last time I was at the supermarket so I went there again this morning before our morning walk, I like to go there as early as possible so that very few other customers are there. They tend to annoy me when they start complaining when there’s only one cashier even though they already are second in line 🙂 🙂 🙂 Anyway I stopped by the lake to take a few photos of the cranes there and once again I was too lazy to get out of the car 🙂 🙂

The clouds blew away in the petty strong wind we’ve had since yesterday, a steady wind with few gusts  so it was quite nice to walk in the forest. I took a look at the small trees I’ve placed in the patio and so far they look really good, even if we would have temperatures below 0C (32F) at night the cottage itself will make sure those temperatures won’t reach the plants.

Besides this very little has happened here, the dogs and I had pancakes for dinner (well they had their own food first, I don’t think pancakes would be especially good to have as the only thing to eat 🙂 ). I think I can see flower buds on the apricot trees in the garden. Apricots are really hardy but they don’t change their habits just because they live in a harsher climate, they will flower at the same time as they do everywhere else they grow naturally 🙂 So if they start to flower soon I’ll need to cover the trees with some cloth so no frost takes away eventual fruit. Easy at the moment but one day they’ll be big trees 🙂 🙂

I’m not sure if I’ve missed all the Germans (and Dutch) because there’s only “normal” sized motorhomes by the lake. Could be that I’m a bit early because it looks like most cranes will come in April, yesterday there were 9300 cranes by the lake.

It is time for that last cup of tea and then watch some tv 🙂

Have a great day!

Hold Your thumbs and cross Your fingers!

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These photos are a bit old now but it was nicer weather when I took them than it was this morning 🙂

 

We had odd weather yesterday, we were supposed to have rain and we did get some misty rain but that was it. Instead the air felt sort of thick (no mist or fog) so it did drop a lot from the roofs anyway, really odd 🙂 It stayed that way until noon today when the sun broke through the clouds and dried up the air.

I was preparing for going to my job coach when a number called that I didn’t recognise at all. Normally I just check the number and if it is from specific telephone companies I just block them because it is always someone trying to sell me things. Today however I answered and a good thing that was 🙂 Next Tuesday I’ll go to a place where I’ve applied for a job and have a tour of the factory 🙂 I have no idea if I am one of several people doing this or if it means I got the job but just to be able to actually go to a work place feels good.

This place makes coffins and back in the days Falköping had six such makers, today I think this is the only one left. I just took a little look on Google and it seems it’s the only one in the entire country, can be wrong but it looks that way. So I need You all to hold Your thumbs and cross Your fingers next Tuesday 🙂 Very little has happened here otherwise, Cranes fly above our heads all day long and they are so many down by the lake that the sound from them is like a wall of sound 🙂 Even though it is hard to tell that sound comes from Cranes I still like to hear it in the morning 🙂

It is time for a cup of tea and then go outside for a while before the sun sets and it gets a bit chilly again. Yesterday I placed a couple apricot tree, a peach tree and  four quince trees from the cellar out in the patio. I would have brought out more if it wasn’t for the monster kitten and Malkolm rushing through there when they chase each other 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll see if I can moves things around to get some extra space for a couple of more trees 🙂

Have a great day!

 

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Another really nice morning, chilly but sunny and no wind. The wind will arrive a bit later and with it it will bring clouds and perhaps some rain as well. Works good for me since I’m planning to sow winter lettuce. It can’t germinate when it is warm weather and can live long in autumn even after frost. It is a bit more bitter in the taste though.

We are now not allowed to throw clothes in the normal garbage bin, all clothes must be recycled. I can’t say I’m against it but it does give some problems because even though we have one of the most advanced cloth sorting machines in the world they still can’t use it. The problem is, if I understand it right, that there’s a sort of fibre it can’t sort away (some kind of nylon relative I think) so instead we’re sending our clothes to Lithuania where they sort it by hand. If anything is of good quality they’ll sell it but if it’s bad they burn it instead. Well that is something we could have done ourselves.  What to do with an old stuffed blanket? have no idea to be honest, it’s more or less just stuffing left and is that counted as cloth fibres? Have no idea so now I have two big sacks I’ll have to have in the wood shed until I can figure that out 🙂 🙂 🙂

We met our new neighbours on our morning walk yesterday. I’m glad to say that they like both my dogs 🙂 🙂 Malkolm would be a given since he can behave somewhat but it can’t be easy to meet a dog that screams like insane and pulls the leash so hard that I almost lost my balance 🙂 🙂 🙂 But perhaps what’s more important is that their tiny little white dog actually loves both Alma and Malkolm, sh’e tiny but still throws herself towards them 🙂

I let the kitchen door stay open as soon as the sun shines towards it so all the animals can go in and out as they please. Malkolm has a tendency to jump over the fence to get down to the swamp behind the dog yard but now I have a weapon I use against him 🙂 As soon as I notice that he’s gone I just shout out “where’s the kitten?” Takes only a few seconds before he’s back and worries if he can’t find her 🙂 🙂 🙂 So far she hasn’t wandered off especially far though, just around the cottage and the entrance stairs 🙂 🙂 I even forgot to check where she was yesterday when I closed the kitchen door for an hour. As soon as I opened it again she came running in 🙂

I’ve kept on working (don’t like to call it working when it is something I enjoy doing and for free 🙂 ) in the garden. The aching isn’t that bad afterwords as I thought it would be 🙂 Ok it hurts in the legs and my back but it is sort of a good pain. Yesterday when I was about to boil some potatoes for dinner I found a few sprouts that I’ll plant in pots until it is time to bring them out to the vegetable garden or plant them in buckets or big pots. It takes a bit longer for them to grow new potatoes but they usually give a few but big potatoes.

Plum tree doesn’t decay easily after the tree is dead. This plum tree died well over ten years ago and today I finally managed to remove the last pieces of the stump.

                                 

I have a plum tree that I only planted so that my former neighbours would get plums on their tree but since my recent neighbours took that tree down I really have no use or joy in keeping mine. It just gives a few plums each year and at least half starts to mould already on the branches. So yesterday I debarked it close to the ground about 20 cm (8 inches) wide. That stops any water and nutrition to go up to the top of the tree and will also stop the tree from giving loads of root shoots. It’ll have to stay like this for two years now, if I cut it down before that those shoots will pop up everywhere and I already have enough of shoots in my garden as it is. It will look sad but I think I’ll plants a fast growing clematis there this summer so it’ll cover the tree next summer.

It is time to open the kitchen door and have a cup of tea while sitting on the kitchen stairs 🙂

Have a great day!

A wonderful spring day :-)

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I’m glad I didn’t have to go anywhere this morning 🙂

So the cold is slowly getting better and this morning the sun shone, which it wasn’t supposed to do and there as frost on the vegetation so we had a short walk in almost perfect weather.  It was so nice to finally be breathing fresh air again 🙂 Alma almost behaved so that helped a lot 🙂 The coughing has started to annoy me a bit but it is at least only while I’m awake and not while I’m sleeping. The sleeping leashed to Malkolm works much better than I thought it would, when he does try to walk away towards Alma I notice it immediately, pulls him back and he just goes back to where he’s supposed to stay.

Even though the walk was really nice it still felt like I had run a marathon when we came back home 🙂 🙂 So I had a nap as soon as I sat down but can’t say I feel anything from that now, I’m just as tired as if I hadn’t napped 🙂 🙂 We’ve also been outside in the garden a lot, I continued the cleaning after the dogs at the same time I kept an eye on the dogs 🙂 The Himalayan Cedar looks really good and so do the two small stems on the English walnut tree.

The hardy Rosemary has some frozen leafs but looks fine otherwise. Some frost damage on the red mulberry tree but that one is still much better than the black mulberry and the white mulberry. The pawpaws look amazingly well since they are the least hardy trees I have, much better than the Persimmon tree. I think that if we don’t get any more cold cold periods that all still has survived this winter. I won’t buy anything more when it comes to trees because now I must think where to plant all the seedlings I have in the cellar 🙂 🙂

I have at least six small pear trees, five or six apricots, two red mulberry trees and one peach. I really don’t have that space but since when has that stopped a gardener 🙂 🙂 🙂

Hard to see but the Himalayan Cedar looks really well, conifers this small usually show pretty early if they are dying.

Hardy Rosemary, it’s an variety from the US and seen as the hardiest Rosemary there is.

Snowdrops.

An iceberg in the water barrel 🙂

Have a great day!

It isn’t easy for them but they still manages to play even though they both most likely wants to do something else 🙂 🙂 🙂

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I think Sara’s mother came from this farm. I haven’t seen her since we found Sara so I don’t think the mother is still alive.

The weather has really been boring for a couple of days now but it is well above 0 C (32 f) so I’m not complaining too much. The cottage becomes a mess though because since the dogs don’t want to be outdoors besides for walk they play indoors instead 🙂 🙂 They aren’t allowed to do it in the living room because of the aquarium so mostly they play in my bed 🙂 🙂

This was all sunshine I saw yesterday, not much but beautiful and a lot more than today 🙂

   

Today was a good day for Alma, not so much yesterday though but the periods when she is calmer seems to stay longer now. In this speed I’ll be long gone and dead by the time she’ll be able to behave like most other dogs, a year ago I’d never thought that would happen so it’s a step forward 🙂 🙂 🙂 I took a look at the trees in the cool cellar and despite that it actually has been pretty cold down there Some of them now shows new leafs! I don’t want that to happen 🙂 They are supposed to rest until at least early March Now I’ll have huge problems rearranging everything so that they’ll get light as well. I’ve also had a walk in the garden to examine how the new smaller trees are doing in the garden.

   

The Pawpaws look really healthy and have little to no frost damages and it’s the same with the Camellias I placed out there because they just too too much space in the cool cellar. I think that if winter doesn’t get colder than it has been so far they might even survive, I’m not counting on that though but they do look healthy. I have three different Mulberry trees out there too, A black called “Mulle” and it is the least hardy of them. Rather big frost injuries on that one but it will most likely survive and if it does it will become hardier next winter. I also have a white Mulberry tree and it is supposed to be the hardiest one but that too has some big frost injuries but it is far better than the black one. The one that has managed the winter best so far without any frost problems is the Red mulberry. I have two more in the cellar and it is of course those that has been growing new leafs 🙂 I have no idea how this will affect them towards next winter when they’ll be standing in the garden.

     

The Persimmon tree looks really well as well. I was a bit worried about that tree because some fungi had attacked it during summer and it looked so sad before it got cold 🙂 I also had those new branches that grew up from the roots of the dead persimmon hybrid, well they are no more but not because of the cold but because unknown dogs 🙂 🙂 had trampled them down while playing in the garden. I hope I’ll get lucky, even though this year has been anything but, and that new branches will grow up because then I’ll protect them so much better.

     

It has finally stopped with shorter days and longer nights 🙂 Today the sun rose somewhere behind the clouds at 8:53 am and set at 3:16 pm here where I live in the village at the outskirts of the world.Some places further north haven’t seen the sun for ages. Then again we’ll get it back during summer where the sun won’t set at all for a long time. Even here further south it’ll be bright for a long time after the sun has set because of the angle towards the sun so when the day is at its longest we still only will have a couple of hours when it’s almost dark. Well it is time for that last cup of tea with lots of ginger in it and then I’ll most likely fall asleep in front of the tv.

   

Have a great day!

A winter day.

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-10 C (14 F) when we went out for our morning walk, the sun was supposed to shine from early morning until it set so naturally we only had sunshine for an hour. The wind wasn’t strong but had a nasty bite to it so it was a relief when we could walk in to the forest. 

     

We walked down to the creek but the opposite way than usual so that we only had to walk in the cold wind at the beginning of our walk. I could see how the clouds above our head stopped just before the mountain so those living on the other side of it or at the top had sunshine all the time during our walk 🙂 🙂 🙂 I noticed that the water level is really high now and when we reached the little bridge that allows us to continue with our walk along the creek it was almost totally covered in ice. 

     

So we walked up the field to see if there was any place we could pass and then walk down to the creek again. I unfortunately thought I had found such a place but the brink of that ditch broke and my left foot sunk down into it 🙂 🙂 🙂 It looks like I had taken very good care of the boots because I didn’t get wet inside the shoe at all.  Still my boot smells s bit of bog and so does my trousers 🙂 🙂 🙂 On the way back home we passed some working horses, the forest owner almost always hires a guy who works with horses in the forest to make as little damage as possible. Alma wanted to become hysterical but lots of treats made her manage it well 🙂

     

I’ve read in a couple of places that before we started to have christmas trees in our homes people tended to bring in smaller crab apple trees instead. If they planned it right the little apple tree would start to flower at christmas. So today I went outside and started to prune my seed sown apple tree. I’ve shaped it in a fan shape so it doesn’t grow too wide into the cow pasture beside. The cows will chew away those branches growing there anyway. 

     

When You prune fruit trees like apples and pears only take a third of what is needed. If You take more the tree will do anything to get back all those leafs that it has lost and do it in autumn because that’s when the tree prepares to slow down before winter and won’t realize that it has lost all those leafs. Then next year take half of what You want to remove and the third year the rest, after that just check every now and again if something needs to be removed. Anyway I’ll take in some of those branches I cut of and put in a big vase and see if I can manage to make it flower till christmas 🙂

     

The ice cream lorry is on the way so I’ll go outside to buy some to have on christmas eve morning 🙂

Have a great day!

Northern winds today.

 

Much hardier than I thought.

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It’s finally warmer again but not especially close to what they guessed, instead of 10 C (50 F) it reached 4.5 C (40,1 F). They did guess it right when it came to the rain though and it it also quite windy so the photos You see today are from yesterday when it still was cold and sunny, so much nicer to look at 🙂

     

Nothing much has happened here and that’s just how I like it 🙂 I had decided to let one of my seed grown Gardenias stay outdoors because I have very little space indoors now 🙂 So I ignored that the cold period would come and it fell down to -12 C (10.4 F) and I thought that was it, after all it comes from warmer areas. So I brought it in anyway and now it has a slightly too dark place in the cool cellar. So I just checked the hardiness for it and to my very big surprise it is hardy down to -12 C(10.4 F) 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well I hope any pests it could have gotten from when living indoors, like whitefly have died 🙂 🙂

     

I have also gone tired of my Camellias since they only flower while down in the cool cellar, I know they can take this cold and some more so I’m not surprised that they still look really healthy out there.  I want around in the garden to see how my small trees had managed this first cold period. The Persimmons has frozen some, the tips of their branches but looks good otherwise. To my very big surprise the Pawpaws looks totally untouched by this first cold and those were the ones I was most worried about 🙂 The English walnut is also untouched by the cold and the Red mulberry, White mulberry and the one called M. accidosa or Mulle as its name is as well 🙂

     

Well this was the first cold weather for most of them and winter is young, Last winter really didn’t start until early February and ended in the middle of March just to come back to easter again for a week, just as I brought home Malkolm 🙂 🙂 We had 40 cm (20 inches) of snow and it took a week for it to melt away 🙂 🙂 🙂 I wouldn’t mind if this was the last snow for this winter but my neighbor wants snow on her birthday on December 3 and on Christmas, after that she doesn’t care either 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

I think I’ll skip that last cup of tea for the day and Instead I’ll make some rose-hip soup, fits so well on a windy and rainy day like today. I’ll also have a slice or two from the loaf I baked today 🙂

     

Have a great day!

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The rain has been pouring down all day and the dogs have refused to go outside unless they really needed to 🙂 It will stop raining some time tomorrow morning and after that we’l at least get one day with sunshine, that’s what they’re guessing anyway 🙂

I’ve now planted all but one Camellia in the garden. This one just beside the cottage on the east side and

this one beside the Pawpaws, I think that place has the best micro climate since nothing in there has been touched by frost. One was already dug down on the south side of the cottage.

So it has been very little activity here today, at least from me, the dogs have been chasing each other all over my little cottage and when Alma was bored by that Sara took over. She and Malkolm works really well together.

 

I have however make meat sauce today, unfortunately I had only bought big pack so I had to do more than I really needed to, around a gallon 🙂 🙂 Well I will at least have dinner for quite some time ahead 🙂 🙂 It did taste good though but I’ll need to put quite a lot of it in the freezer 🙂

 

That was about it today, tomorrow I’ll go to the super market so that I at least gets out from the cottage 🙂

 

Have a great day!