Rain all day long, not even the monster likes to go outside. It is warmish outside though but that doesn’t help much since we really can’t be outside anyway.
The travel cage for hamsters that I bought arrived today so I went to the grocery store in Gudhem to pick it up. They have so many parcels there now that one really can’t wait a day or so to pick it up, sort of annoying since I’ll get another one tomorrow. I’ll most likely have to go to the supermarket in Skara to pick up another one and that’s a bit annoying since that means I’ll almost go all the way back home just to continue 20 km the other way 🙂 🙂
We went out to the bog this morning and we could hear lots of animals moving around. I must say that both Alma and Malcolm showed their best behaviour all the way, even when we met a young Fallow deer buck. There was some whining and some pulling the leash but I don’t think they ever have behaved better than today 🙂 Before our morning walk however I went out to the forest by myself with the box trap.
It had caught a small yellow necked mouse but it was still so dark that I had to wait a couple of hours before I could release it. When it was time to do it another one sat in the trap as well 🙂 Rather big so I guess the small one was a female and the big one a male. There was no coconut flakes left so I guess the big one wasn’t out to get fed 🙂 🙂 This time I went further away in to the forest just to make sure they can’t find their way back home again 🙂
The Fallow deer buck has two tiny antlers, hard to see though. Must be around two years old.Now I don’t have to walk out to the forest with two cowards following me to release the mice, They can stay in this cage until it is time. I’ve put some peanuts in it so they have something to eat while waiting 🙂
It is time for that last cup of tea and I’ll also have the last of the ice cream. I’ll buy more tomorrow since I most likely will have to get that parcel at the supermarket anyway 🙂
So I had another little mouse in the box trap this morning, I do hope that’s the last one for this season 🙂 But just in case more will visit I’ve now bought a small travel cage for hamsters on our eBay called Tradera. So if they’ll get caught while it still is dark outside and to be honest it seems to be dark all the time now, I can put it in there until the daylight returns. I guess it’s best to give them some peanuts during the time they’ll be in the arrest 🙂
Today it was so dark that I had to put the camera on ISO 5000 and the photos still came out rather dark, so most of them are being brightened up. The colours did look a bit odd so I changed it to black and white as well (any coloured photo I might put in was taken yesterday). To make it even funnier it has rained all day.
At the beginning just drizzle but after a while we had heavy rain instead plus a small storm was passing by. Didn’t notice much of it here in the garden though, the neighbours cottage and garage plus the forest took all of it instead 🙂 That wind did bring warmth with them so we might even reach 10C (50F) on Wednesday.
It is time for that last cup of tea for the day. I have a slight fever and a slightly sour throat now, Don’t know how I got it since I barely leave my home. I noticed my neighbours were at home as well today so I guess they have it too. It doesn’t feel like an influenza thankfully t I’ll drive to the supermarket tomorrow morning and buy some ice cream and rose-hip soup 🙂
Mixed weather here today, anything from misty rain to drizzle and then showers but also a lot of sunshine and it was so nice to stand in it feeling the warmth from it. Tomorrow it’ll be 4C (39,2F) all day, both day and night but with no chance of seeing the sun they say.
There was almost no vegetation growing in the bog (except for the pines) when I moved here 25 years ago but long draughts have made sure that birches thrive. The idea was that they weren’t allowed to keep the ditches so that the water level would rise but nature has another idea. So now when animals walk here I can’t see them, just hear them.
It was a joy to have our morning walk today, Alma behaved all the time and Malkolm pushed the leash much less, I guess the smell from what ever it was that the ravens ate made them more focused 🙂 🙂 🙂 This time of year the birds don’t make a lot of sounds, the occasional tweeting but they are so focused at finding food that they really don’t have the time to do other things. That makes it easier for us to hear other things, like wild hogs trying to move as quietly as possible .
We had lots of them around us today and as long as they keep trying to avoid us I don’t care about them 🙂 there were lots of ravens in the air and Great tits flew between the trees looking for insects hiding in the moss and lichens. No woodpeckers today though and oddly enough I didn’t hear any Jays arguing, normally those are the ones one mostly can hear 🙂
I also went to the supermarket today. I didn’t need especially much but came home with more than I had written down on my list 🙂 They did have whole chicken on sale so why not and I found this cereal that was supposed to taste like apple pie (and it was also gluten free) and I thought I really needed to try that one. Well it didn’t taste anything like apple pie and one could think that since it was made from oat that it possibly at least would taste like oatmeal cookies but no. So sit was like eating hard bread in a bowl of yogurt 🙂 🙂 🙂
Then I thought I should buy sand for the aquarium so I walked in top the pet store just beside. They now have a license to sell fish so they actually had a few aquariums with fish but they were so expensive that I doubt anyone will buy any fish from that place. I did eventually find aquarium sand but I couldn’t find how much it weighed but took it anyway, I would need around 10kg (22 pound) and it looked like that bag would way something like that. I did think that I must have lost a lot of muscle because it was so heavy. It was expensive too but since the fish was expensive I didn’t think much of it. Turns out that I bought a 20kg (44 pound) bag 🙂 🙂 so now I have around 22 pound of sand just standing in a corner 🙂 🙂 🙂
I think this might be the last leaf still hanging on in the entire area, it’s on my peach tree 🙂I really should cut of this big branch on the apple tree but I like all the moss that’s growing on it 🙂
It is time for that last cup of tea I think. Perhaps I should have some of that apple pie cereal as some kind of cookie 🙂 🙂 🙂 I can always pour some cinnamon over it all and pretend it’s a Christmas cookie 🙂 🙂
We woke up to a cold and foggy world today which, despite the cold, is one of my favourite weathers 🙂 So as soon as it was light enough the dogs and I walked out to the bog. If I had known the fog would stay all day we would have had a longer walk down to the creek and out on the bog there. Days like these are quiet days, not only does the fog dampen sounds from the big road but also no birds make any sounds at all. Well there was these two ravens flying above us who made their metallic sounds a couple of times but that was it.
Alma behaved so well so if there had been any animals out on the fields we would have been able to see them, at least if they were close enough because the fog was so thick sometimes that the camera couldn’t find places to focus on 🙂  we walked out on the peninsula and when we stood there looking out over the bog we could hear something moving around but it never came close enough for us to see it. It was most likely one or two wild hogs because if they know we are around they really don’t care if they can be seen 🙂 and really doesn’t care if we hear them. I always thought the wolves would hunt them but I’ve learned that wolves aren’t especially interested in wild hogs and I guess that’s why they don’t care about being heard or seen.
I sat in my recliner after we had come home and started to think about what time I was going to x-ray my hips tomorrow and after that see my doctor. I have experimental hip implants in my hips since I was too young to get hip prostheses since they would wear out way to fast. Turns out that these implants mostly were quite horrible to those getting them. They leaked lots of heavy metals in to the body and both the bones, muscles and tendon attachments could start to dissolve because of that. The doctor I had for my first surgery however is a snob 🙂 🙂 🙂 so he chose the most expensive kinds there was and therefore I have no such problems 🙂 My “new” doctor of course chose the same kind for my other hip 🙂 They do check my blood and take new x-rays every five years now (before it was every year) just in case something goes wrong. So if they can’t find any heavy metals in my blood I’ll do this again after five years 🙂
Anyway it turns out it was today I would go to the hospital 🙂 🙂 🙂 I still had lots of time going there so no panic 🙂 Normally I don’t mind driving around in fog unless it is dark outside or that it is colder then 0C (32F) since fog is water and when it hits the road it starts to freeze. Most of the way was fine though but it had started to freeze on my way home. No traffic at that time though so I could drive in the speed I felt safe, also it helps if one drives behind a tractor the last 500 meters before driving in on the village gravel road 🙂Â
It started to become dark again as soon as I had come home otherwise we would have had another walk to the forest but since we have hogs, moose and eventual wolves here I didn’t want to meet any of them when it was dark 🙂 🙂 🙂 I haven’t figured out what to have for dinner so I guess it’ll be warm sandwiches with meatballs and sausages and lots of cheese 🙂 Plus I*ll of course have that last cup of tea for the day 🙂
Have a great day!
So this is my Korean spruce. Its top was destroyed long ago and it took may years before a branch decided to become the new top 🙂 So it does have an odd shape.So the lights also have an odd shape 🙂 🙂 🙂
So it is warmer but instead we got a wind that makes everything feel colder. The dogs and I have been in the forest mostly so we haven’t felt much of it to be honest. Nights can still be a bit chilly so the ground is frozen when we get out first thing in the morning.
I drove to the supermarket in Skara this morning, the big road was just fine but the smaller one just outside my village was a bit scary to drive on 🙂 I always do a test brake when I drive out on it now when it’s  cold in the morning and even though I have really good winter tires on the car still slid around as if it was drunk 🙂 🙂 So all the way to the big road I wished no hogs or deer would jump up on the road 🙂 🙂
We haven’t seen much of the sun except for when the clouds were so thin it shined through them. We walked down to the bog and out to my favourite island and walked in the forest there. I could hear one hunting dog bark in the distance , last time they were all over the bog. I couldn’t find a single track from wildlife oddly enough, not even from the wild hogs that I know are plenty out there. I guess the wind and generally cold weather made them stay in the thickets until they really needed to eat something.
Now when all the leafs have fallen down we can hear the traffic on the big road but out on that island it’s totally devoid of traffic sounds. Mostly because most of the trees there are spruces and they’re so thick that not even sounds go through. It is a nature reserve so no one has cut a tree there since I don’t know when. The thought is that when these trees have fallen more “natural” for this area trees will start to grow there instead. I guess the idea is nice but since 70 years back nothing than spruces have grown there there will also be lots of spruce seeds just waiting for a chance to grow up 🙂 🙂
Every time I see this old tree I start to think about the monsters in the movie Miss Peregrine’s home for peculiar children 🙂
There was a small Sparrow hawk sitting on the table in front of the bird feeder this morning just waiting to have a small bird as breakfast. Well the small birds were nowhere to be found oddly enough 🙂 🙂 🙂 I think it must have been a young male (because of the size, males are smaller) and that he hasn’t figured out that being seen by his food is not a good thing 🙂 🙂 Beautiful bird and even though I like the birds by the feeder I do hope this one will survive the winter.
It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and then watch some tv if I can find anything that interests me, which I doubt.
Have a great day!
The photo was taken with my phone camera through a not so clean window 🙂
Still waiting for that snow to arrive. Well to be honest we have actually had some but so little that it’s hard to find 🙂 🙂  They are threatening us with more later on though so I guess we’ll get it sooner or later. There has been snow chaos in other places though and I’m so glad it never came to us.
We have had fog though, so thick in the early morning that it was hard to see anything and then it slowly started to thin out just to come back again later. I do like fog so I didn’t complain but it did make the day a bit dark to be honest. The eyes didn’t notice it that much but the camera did 🙂
I had prepared for a snowy day so I made lots of rice porridge and learned that it worked just as well on a foggy day 🙂 Rice porridge is not something one make unless it is cold and snowy because it takes a long time to make, easily gets burned and if it is burned one has to toss it away because it tastes awful. Making it on a stove is hot and boring since one must stir it around pretty often. I however make it in the slow cooker so even though it takes almost three hours to make one only have to stir it a few times.
I put on a new collar on the monsterkitten yesterday and she wore it for almost half a day before she lost it 🙂 🙂  This time I wrote my phone number on the collar so I got a call just minutes ago, she had lost it at the farm just up the slope 🙂 So I’ll get it tomorrow when I’ll check if I’ve gotten any mail. I guess that’s the place she mostly walks to because she does tend to smell like a cow  now days. I’m pretty sure her mother was one of the feral cats living there and that’s where the cat looking almost identical to her lives at as well 🙂
It is time for that last cup of tea for the day. It is pitch black outside and the temperatures will drop considerable so tomorrow morning might be the coldest morning so far this winter.
It was a bit colder this morning than I thought it would be, it had dropped down to -9,4C (15,08F) as coldest. No wind and sunshine all day made our walks really nice though. I wore my studded boats because it is no fun sliding on ice and breaking something while being out at the bog where it would be very hard to find me 🙂 🙂 🙂 That however made it impossible to walk silent, those studs against the gravel road sounds like I’m crushing the stones 🙂 So instead of seeing them we could hear them run away in panic in all directions 🙂 🙂
It is much the same when I have them while shopping, people don’t run away but everyone looks around to see what it is breaking down 🙂 but it’s only in the beginning of winter that happens because after that most people use studs in either ones that can be removed from the shoes (no one will because they are horrible to try and get back when going outside again) or shoes with studs already in them. Even teenagers use them now days, might be nice to not have to go to school but no fun not being able to go anywhere anyway 🙂
Lots of hunting dogs moving around us while we were at the bog, not from this area but dogs doesn’t know any borders, especially not if they follow what ever it is they’re hunting. So we didn’t walk as far as I wanted to. Not that those dogs actually would care about us but because Alma would go nuts and start to screaming like crazy and I really didn’t want the hunters believe that their dogs was mauled by wolves 🙂 🙂 🙂 I hope there are less out hunting tomorrow 🙂
Despite it being so cold now I haven’t heard a single mouse in the cottage walls, it looks like the monster is doing a good job 🙂 It is time for that last cup of tea for the day.
Have a great day!
I took lots more photos today so perhaps I’ll save them for another day 🙂
Much the same weather today as yesterday so still quite nice. They say we’ll have a couple of warmer days before it drops significantly. By that it means below 0C (32F) during nights and just barely above during days. Well the ground will at least not be muddy any more so I guess I’ll be fine with that 🙂
It isn’t as wet in the ground that I thought it would be and I didn’t think it would be especially wet at all but it is even worse. Normally this time of year, if the ground isn’t frozen it would be hard to walk out to my favourite island in the bog. I thought it would be less water but still very muddy. There was neither water nor mud but completely dry so we could walk out there without any problems what so ever.
Normally it would be hard to walk over this area because of water and mud. The mud can be up to half a meter (much the same in yards) deep 🙂
Fun being able to get out there but still a bit worrying because this is what it is like out there during heatwaves and droughts in summer time but without the ticks and blood sucking flies. No hunters in this area but I could hear hunters all around us (safe distance so no risk of getting shot). I really would have liked to go on the north side of the island because it is much more beautiful there but trees have fallen during storms this year and since it is a nature reserve a fallen tree lies. It is possible to walk around them but if we do it means we’ll have to go through thickets and that’s not fun with two dogs in leash 🙂 🙂 🙂
We didn’t walk far on the south side, which is much easier to walk but less beautiful but now when I know we can go out there again we can do that later in the week instead. That was actually the first place I saw wolf tracks a couple of years ago and the dogs were anything but happy to be there. The tracks were as most an hour old because we had new snow on the ground that had started to fall just an hour before we went out. It showed that at least three wolves just had passed , could be more but they tend to walk in their own footsteps. I’ve never seen any wolf though but several in the village has and also some of the hunters have seen them. If I ever will I’m sure that I either have no camera or that it malfunctions when I try to take a photo 🙂 🙂 🙂
I think this lichen is what they used to have ,back in the day when we had one glass windows, as insulation when they put in another one glass window (Is that perhaps what You call storm windows?)when winter arrived and we of course call it window lichen 🙂
I think, if I’ve learned it right that this lichen is the one reindeer eat, so of course we call it reindeer lichen. It is more towards greenish than the photo shows.
I’ve ordered my Christmas present. I really don’t want it now but I’ll need it next winter. Before covid I would just have waited since they have things on sale every day and it wouldn’t have become any more expensive. Now however we have all learned that things have changed and prices will up because of tariffs and inflation (even though our inflation is lower than it has been in years now that’s not the case in all countries). So I bought myself an aquarium, a smaller one, because next year I’ll have goldfish in the little pond I’ve made and also in some of the water barrels I’ve put up. Those fish will be too big for the aquarium I now have changed to an aqua terrarium so they’ll need somewhere to stay the winter.
One problem though, I haven’t a clue where to place it 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well it’s about a year until I need to have it up and running so I’ll figure it out by then 🙂 Well it is time for that last cup of tea for the day and after that I still haven’t a clue what to do, absolutely nothing to watch on tv but I can always watch a dvd.
The mist rolled out from the forest when we went out for our morning walk and people growing up here says that it’s because Mösakärringen ( I can’t find the phonetic letter but o and e goes together and so do the a and e so it should be something like this: Moesa Kaerringen) a translation would be something like the bog hags puts out there fires after a cold night. They are a local variation to wood spirits but I call them Bog Ladies because who knows they might exists and that sound much nicer 🙂 🙂 🙂
I saw it at several places and sometimes in the forest. We were lucky to have sunshine when we were outside but mostly it has been cloudy today. Rather nice and warm though to be honest. We went out to the bog and when we reached the end of the peninsula we stood still there for a while and both the dogs and I could hear something walking behind some trees. I have no idea what but it really tried to be as quiet as it possibly could. It might have been the two moose we happened to scare away on our morning walk yesterday.
Do You remember when I pushed all those thorny rose branches through the compost grinder? Those tiny thorns are now aching their way out from my hands. The spot gets swollen and there’s usually a small blister filled with puss and that has been happening all over my hands for a couple of days 🙂 🙂 🙂 Not nice but it’ll soon be over thankfully.
Today I put an entire chicken in the oven, I’ve done that so many times before but those times I mostly did it without any spices because it was meant for my severely food allergic dog Albin. He couldn’t eat any kind of fish or meat but he could eat chicken. Also he couldn’t eat all kinds of rice either so it was always rather tricky to get his food right. Mostly however he ate vegan dog food, the first time I bought it I must say it felt so wrong because dogs usually eat meat but it worked so great that I finally could stop cooking chicken and it too na couple of years before I tried chicken again 🙂 🙂 🙂
Since the oven was on I also baked a big loaf of bread and even though it didn’t rise especially much it still turned out to be rather good. No matter how tasty these gluten free breads can be when one doesn’t use readymade mixes nothing will beat a French roll with butter, cheese and a slice of bell pepper 🙂 Oh how I miss them 🙂
I’m drinking the last cup of tea for the day and since there’s nothing I want to look at on tv I’ll continue to watch Eureka before it is time to go to bed 🙂
Despite we’ve had so many really cold nights here now the moose fly still flies, very few others show themselves even when the sun shines now but moose flies just refuse to give up. I do wonder why we even have them now since we have almost no moose left around here.
I thought this was a hole in the tree but it isn’t. For some reason the place where the branch once sat has gone completely black 🙂
The morning walk was nice though, despite the moose flies, and since we had a cloudy sky and on and off rain it was fairly warm. There are still some leafs hanging on the trees but every day get less colourful and a bit more dull. Some Yarrow still flowers but very few other flowers.
Most people stay in their homes as well, only the tractors are still active, farmers rarely have some time over to do other things. Even the hunters seems to have given up this year, I’m not complaining because that means I’ll be able to be in the forest without getting disturbed 🙂 🙂
I just found the wildlife camera but so far nothing have shown in the garden. The only thing it has taken photos of is the dogs and I 🙂
These are the best tasting tomatoes I’ve eaten in years but I have no name so I’ll save some seeds and sow them next year again 🙂
The little cold I’ve had for some time now just refuses to give up and today I was freezing all the time so nothing much has happened here but I’ve had a lot of ice cream 🙂 I think it is time for that last cup of tea for the day and after that I’ll most likely will fall asleep in front of the tv 🙂
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.
It has been a meh day weather-wise. The sun didn’t show itself until now when it is about to set for the day. Ok it has been around 10C (50F) all from morning to now so at least there was no need for any radiator to be working.
Malkolm is now refusing to eat anything in the morning but after a walk there’s no problem what so ever to give him the exact same food from my hand 🙂 🙂 🙂 I guess this has to do with the chemical neutering slowly is giving up, he’s also normally a sensitive dog but at the moment he’s even more so, so if I sound the least annoyed he looks like the world is ending 🙂 poor guy. No problem what so ever to eat his food in the afternoons though.
I’ve removed the fence around the vegetable garden now and it looks quite funny with a circle with no vegetation (well there are my tiny leeks, they never grew to anything really since I mistreated them from the start but I can say they taste really good) and a sort of border with higher grass growing around it 🙂 🙂 I’ll take a photo of it tomorrow. I also moved the chrysanthemums I had planted outside the fence to new and hopefully better places for them climate-wise. They aren’t as hardy as autumn asters are.
It is time for that last cup of tea for the day. The sun is down and I can see ground fog slowly flowing out in the pasture I can see from my window here by the computer. They say we’ll have fog again tomorrow and I hope it stay for longer than it did this morning.
The Cottage by the crane lake. 