Category: Nature reserve.

I never heard the thunder.

We’ve had a really wonderful day here today, just enough warm with a lukewarm wind blowing, mostly sunshine but also some clouds every now and again. We must have had rain during the night because the grass was a bit more wet than it would have been if it only was morning dew. According to my phone we also had thunder in the middle of the night but even I having the window open all night I slept through it without noticing it πŸ™‚

After we had come home from our morning walk I started to continue to remove the old stump and as many roots as I could from the old Japanese quince. There’s still lots of big roots left in the ground but what ever will grow up from them will be thin twigs and those are easy to remove until they finally gives up. I’ve removed almost all flowerbeds in my garden but this one will stay, I’ve even started to make it slightly bigger. Also I’ve planted some young perennials in to it, well the Kankakee mallow isn’t small but the others are.

I’m visiting my friend in the gardencenter tomorrow and see if they have anything I want. Nothing unusual as I had back in the days but more common flowers, I really don’t want to fuss with plants just so that they barely survives πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Easy and beautiful is my new goal πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Plus I bought seeds on sale online so anything growing from those will be in that flowerbed and any leftovers will be planted here and there in the garden and what survives our winters and the dogs running around like crazy over them will be welcomed πŸ™‚

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I might also have a bowl of cornflakes. I think it actually is the milk I’m after, cornflakes do after all not taste that much πŸ™‚ I have to admit that I pour cinnamon all over it so it could be the combination milk and cinnamon πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

So the Japanese quince is gone and now I’ve put some perennials in the bed.
The Kankakee mallow stands just beside the white mulberry tree that died but started to grow from the roots again πŸ™‚

Have a great day!

Summer at its best.

The first day with evening shift works great, the second day really well, the third day is quite tiresome and the fourth is just nasty πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ So I’m so glad I mowed the lawn yesterday morning and the shopping today otherwise I’m pretty sure the mowing wouldn’t have been done πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

Today is Midsummer eve and most likely the biggest holiday here, I was planning on writing about it today but I’m so tried that it will have to wait until tomorrow. We have a quite wonderful weather here today, mostly sunny all day, 22C (71,6F) with a wind that actually reach my garden after the heavy pruning of the Hungarian lilac a few weeks ago. It was much needed and I really need to do more but that will be a job for later.

I drove to the grocery store in the village where I used to work at nine am and they played summer music (which must mean music that has been played a lot previous summers, not necessarily about summer though πŸ™‚ I had the windows open and all smells in the world came in to my car. I only drove on small roads so the speed was slow and I enjoyed every second of it πŸ™‚ I took slightly different roads back home just to be able to enjoy everything from the forest to big fields with wheat and corn flowers, no poopies though but I’m pretty sure they’ll be there in a day or two.

Every year since I moved to this region I’ve seen a couple driving around in what I think is a Morgan Plus 8 car. they have always been dressed in a British upper class style and she has worn a hat with a thin scarf holding the hat down (since it is a convertible) So I’ve only seen this couple those time we both have been driving around at the same time but also see them, like me, getting older. I met them early in May the last time and they looked just as happy as always. Today I was happy to see the car again but this time only the man was sitting in it and he looked well not sad but not happy either. I do hope the woman is healthy and living (they must be in their 80’s by now) because the car looked empty without her.

The village is quiet today, only the wind and the birds can be heard, not even the cats up at the farm fights. I noticed that the monsterkitten followed us in the to the wood shed when I was about to drive to the store, she refused to go out with me so she had to stay there until I came home. I left the door to the wood shed stay open when I returned home and let the dogs out from the dog house and naturally though the stupid cat (one of all her names πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Β would run out but now this afternoon I started to wonder why she wasn’t with us pestering me for food. Turns out that she had stayed in the wood shed when I closed the door πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Well at least she was safe all the time πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

It is time for some ice cream and a soda called Trocadero, a Swedish brand with a taste somewhat close to tutti-frutti. The sugar free is so much better tasting since it isn’t that sweet so it works really well with very sweet ice cream πŸ™‚

Pawpaw seedling. One more is on the way but I think the two seeds I still am eating for to germinate won’t make it. Still two out of five seeds is still better that how it works in nature.
Pawpaw I bought as a three year old tree, seed sown. I also bought a name variety and that one is so much slower to grow.
The Chinese wisteria that I moved because it couldn’t grow close to the cottage seems to have down well during winter. It isn’t even supposed to manage this climate zone but it just doesn’t understand that πŸ™‚
My red elderberry tree is in bloom.

Have a great day!

Strawberries, carrots, beetroot and also peas grow well together in the big box πŸ™‚

Been gardening a lot today.

I woke up at 4:50 today despite staying up much later yesterday, still can’t say I feel especially tired today. We had a wonderful morning mist so I took a few photos before we had our breakfast. Oddly enough I can’t find them in my camera or in the computer?? I really don’t think that I used any other camera than the one I’ve used all day so I have absolutely no idea what happened to them πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

We had around thirty minutes of cloudy sky today and the rest totally cloud free. Even though it’s slightly cooler it still feels much warmer today than yesterday. No wind at all to talk about so I guess that’s why it feels so warm here. So I thought it safe to sow beans now, beans will rot if the ground temperature is too low but even though we’ll get loads of rain tomorrow afternoon we will still have warm weather. The rain is good and I will not complain as long as it is warm. I also planted three squash plants but two of them looked really sad so I think I’ll only have one left at the end of next week.

I have lots of lilacs in and around my garden and I really dislike them πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ When all flowers open up it’s like living in a perfume bottle and when they slowly decay the smell is so nasty that it’s hard to breathe. Too much work to remove them all though so I prefer to suffer those weeks it happens instead πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I do have an Hungarian lilac though, it smell less both times but it is growing too wide now so I’ve been cutting down big chunks of it on the side towards my Pawpaw trees. I’ll do the other side when the flowering is over. It is amazing how different a garden can look just by pruning bushes and trees really hard, light reaches everywhere and new weeds finds new homes πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I can finally walk this way again but so far I’ve forgotten that so I’ve taken the longer walk around it all day πŸ™‚
This is the next area I’ll start pruning but it’s so beautiful now and when the rose flowers so that will have to wait until late summer.
The potato sprouts are growing, the higher it grows the more soil I’ll put in the bucket and then it will produce more potatoes πŸ™‚ I’ll have three buckets with sprouts soon πŸ™‚

It was so quiet over at my neighbours today so I thought they weren’t at home, then suddenly now in the afternoon they started to mow their lawn πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ The rooster over at the next neighbour has been quiet all day, very unusual so I do hope it’s ok. Normally it isn’t quiet at all and I realised that I missed it a lot πŸ™‚ Roosters and countryside sort of goes hand in hand and when one suddenly is missing it doesn’t feel right at all. I had to leave the dogs alone for an hour today and since it worked so great to have them in the cottage while I was working I didn’t think it would be any problem by being away for such a short time. The first thing that met my eyes when I came back home again was one of my working shoes and the heel on the shoe was chewed away and Malkolm looking really ashamed πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I have another pair so no big problem but these were so nice that I will miss them.

I’ll go out to the vegetable garden again after this because it is also time to sow peas and leek. I already have leek in a pot that I just brought outside so it can stay away from the sunshine for a week before I plant them somewhere but one can never have too much leek plus they can be harvested as long as the ground isn’t frozen. I’ll also sow pack-choi (Japanese kale) and broccolo, a sort of mix between broccoli and cauliflower if I understand it right. The broccolo seeds are old so I’m not sure anything will happen but I won’t know if I don’t sow them. There really is no place for either in the vegetable patch but I can get big pots to plant them in instead πŸ™‚ Peas, I need to remember to bring the peas as well πŸ™‚

I’ve also cut away parts of my biggest wild rose so that my little red oak gets some sunshine.

It is time to go outside to sown and I think I’ll bring a cup of tea so I can take regular breaks and not overdo my working πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I have lots of creeping bellflower in my garden and they can be devastating towards other flowers. They grow so dense that no other flower can survive there. I usually dig up a big chunk of them when they become too many and pick it all up in one piece. Any tiny piece of roots that’s left will be a new flower.
The old broken wheelbarrow will be full of annuals like always. Poppies and I think clarkia seems to take over this year πŸ™‚

Last year I bought one bood red peony and one pure white. The dogs managed to rip away the only bud on the deep red and the pure white is yellow πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ To be honest I could have gotten something much more valuable because it does look like a Golden peony, nicknamed Molly the witch because of a part of its scientific namemlokosewitschii πŸ™‚

Have a great day!

The sun is shining, a few clouds flies in the sky and both windows and doors are open πŸ™‚ It has been like this all day but a low pressure is on its way with more rain but not especially much of it. Today the temperature reached above 20C (68F) and that’s summer temperature for me.

Alma behaved really well on our morning walk today and was almost quiet when we passed the new neighbours, both of the way out and when we were going back home again. Ok no human or dog was outside but for being Alma she was really good πŸ™‚ We didn’t see any birds but sure heard them all the walk. Cranes and geese from a distance and all the small birds close in the trees and shrubs. I think we passed lots of interesting animals on the way because both Alma and Malkolm were really interested in what was hiding behind the trees.

We always have lots of morning dew here so my shoes and socks were soaking wet when we came back home πŸ™‚ The shoes are now standing towards the cottage wall drying up in the sunshine. I’ve also mowed the lawn and all grass cuttings were placed around the potatoes so I don’t have to hill up the soil around them. The grass clipping’s will decompose with time so I need to place more around them a few more times while mowing. I think it will be time to sow beans, peas and cabbage this weekend plus what ever I might have seeds for in the space that might be empty.

It is time for a pot of tea and then I’ll bake a bread again. I’ll add rosemary of course and some cheese as well if I have any small piece in the fridge.

Have a great day!

I don’t complain about the weather sites got it wrong :-)

We were supposed to have rain and strong winds today so I’m not surprised that we had a lot off sunshine and sort of half strong winds πŸ™‚ Couldn’t notice much in the garden though since the winds came from south.

I wonder what they use this for? I thought it looked like a piece of art but I’m sure they have a more practical use for it πŸ™‚

So the dogs, cat and I spent a lot of time in the garden today, the dogs playing like crazy and the cat running up to them so they would chase her πŸ™‚ I spent a lot of time cutting of dead branches from bushes and trees and also got attacked by small black ants, it never hurts when those black ants attacks (the small red ones though is a totally different thing, that hurts like h..l πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Still it took hours to get rid of all of them since they were crawling all over my body πŸ™‚ They lives in a pot whee I tossed away the dead plant and since I had no idea they lived there they managed to run over to me in rather big numbers before I noticed them πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

It was a bit warmer today because of the sunshine, sort of perfect this time of year, not too warm so one could do some gardening but not so cold that one wanted to go inside to have a pot of tea. I’ve also pulled up a lot of weeds from places where I didn’t want them to grow, normally they’re quite welcome here if they flower a lot so that the bees get lots of nectar from them but if they grow where I don’t want them they’ll have to go, if not for any other reason than that snails and slugs love to live there.

I’m baking a bread right now and everything would be good if I just had remembered to start the timer πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ It looks nice in colour but I put a tooth pick in it and it felt a bit too damp, then again it might have been a prefect bread since I did put a lot of cheese in it and therefore it should feel like that sort of πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I put a lot of rosemary in it and the small is filling the entire cottage. Talking about rosemary, the extra hardy one I planted in the garden has actually survived winter and is now producing new shoots πŸ™‚ Still tiny but I can see them now. This is an American variety and I’ve forgotten the name πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I have also forgotten from whom I bought it so I can’t get the name from the seller either πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I just went down to the oven and checked, I’ve shut it off and will let the bread stand there for five more minutes, the cooler of it says it should be ready by then. Even though I did enjoy working the evening shift I still don’t think it is worth it. I was really tired all Friday long even though I did lots of things during the day and I’m still tired today. I’ll probably be back to normal tomorrow so I’ll be fit for fight for work on Monday. I’m an extreme morning person, goes to bed at nine pm and up around 4:30 am the day after, changing sleeping hours even though just four hours later does cost me a lot but thankfully this will only happen every fourth week.

New leafs on the Pawpaw trees
and on the ginkgos as well.

It is time to go downstairs again to pick out the bread so wish me luck that it is ready πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

Have a great day!

I’ve used another lens today that came with an old camera I bought, to be honest I only wanted the lens but it would most likely have been much more expensive if I’d tried ton just buy the lens πŸ™‚ So You’ll notice that some photos will have a sort of blurry sharpness to them.

It was so nice this morning, a bit towards the cool side but with the sun shining and a rather weak wind. That has changed now, the wind is strong once again and even though it actually is warm enough it still feels chilly even on the south side of the cottage when the sun shines through the clouds.

So since I must change my hours to stay awake in the evening now I watched the entire Eurovision final. It really takes too long but I had very little else to do. We didn’t win but came fourth and that’s not bad at all. My sister and I usually text each other during this show and suddenly no texts came from her, she had fallen asleep πŸ™‚ and texted me this at 4:56 this morning (we are both morning people) since I had forgotten to tell her that I’ll work in the evenings this week πŸ™‚ Luckily I did manage to fall asleep as son as my head hit the pillow πŸ™‚

I’ve been emptying my aquarium since the dogs mainly will be in the cottage while I work the coming weeks and since there now longer is any fish in it I decided to empty it instead of buying new fish. One never knows how wild the dogs play will be and if they bring down the aquarium I want the damage to be as small as possible πŸ™‚ I’ll also unplug the radiators because they have actually once managed to trip over one of my sofas and it broke the radiator when it hit it πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I always prepare for the worst πŸ™‚

It is time for a cup of tea and then outing the garden for a while. I’ll tray to stay out of the wind and it isn’t often I have to say that because the wind can only hit my garden if it comes from north to north east.

Have a great day!

There she stood just looking at us.

20C (68F) today but very little sunshine. Really doesn’t matter to me since I’ve been working all day Β πŸ™‚ The dogs must have had a really nice day though πŸ™‚ Summer arrived a month early (I’m not complaining about that πŸ™‚ ) and so did the forest flies, that I am complaining about though. Forest flies are really harmless to be honest, no biting or drinking blood or spreading diseases, instead they swarm around the head and always tries to check out our nostrils and ears πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I truly dislike them! Still I can avoid them by wearing a mosquito ha so that’s what I’ll be doing when they become too many.

If You want tulips that comes back from year to year buy bulbs from the wild species. They tend also to spread quite happily πŸ™‚

I did wonder how it would be with the wild bees now when the we don’t have any honey bees in the village and today the sound from the flowering apple trees told me they are ok πŸ™‚ The trees were buzzing loudly so they have not suffered by having honey bees here. I had read that it could go bad for them if there were too many honey bees in an area but how many are too many. Well there were up to ten hives for a while and by the sound from my apple trees that weren’t too many πŸ™‚

I’ll get my first pay check soon πŸ™‚ well checks haven’t been used here for ages even though I’ve heard they still can be used. It’s always something special with that first one, even though it only is half a month since I didn’t start working until the 14th let month. How getting paid varies here, in this place You’ll get paid the moth after so if one quits one will get paid the month after on has quit. At my previous work place they paid for the same month on had been working and any adjustments, like sick days or over time would be on the next pay check. I’ll also get paid from the unemployment agency so it will be almost like it would if I had worked a full month anyway πŸ™‚

I’m baking a bread right now so it’ll soon be time to bring it out of the oven. The dogs are eager for me to bring it out because they always get some and some cheese too πŸ™‚ It’s also the first semi finale in the Eurovision Song Contest. If You don’t know what that is I’m happy to explain it as good as I can. Anyway, Sweden is once again a big favourite amongst the betting sites and if we win on Saturday when the big finale is we’ll be the country that has won most times leaving Ireland behind us πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I will not see any of the semi finals because it takes forever but I will watch it on Saturday.

Now many people wonder why it is called Eurovision since also countries from Asia and Australia competes but I’ve learned that since they belong to the European Broadcasting system they too can compete. I don’t mind because my favourites are quite often from those countries πŸ™‚

We passed this roe goat on our way home from our walk. Alma didn’t notice her thankfully, Malkolm did but just stood there watching her. I took one photo and then we left because I didn’t want to stress her more than necessary.

Have a great day!

Biting cold today.

The cat refused to move but both Alma and Malkolm behaved really well when we passed it πŸ™‚

It could have been a nice day if it wasn’t for the cold winds from north. They are biting their way in to the core of the body no matter how well dressed we are. We’ve had some sunshine but the wind destroyed that nice feeling as well. We’ll have frost during the night and I can only hope it won’t be too bad but I’ll probably have to scrape ice from the car before going to work tomorrow.

A second crabapple tree is in bloom now so perhaps the one in the forest will have a chance to give fruit anyway but then again we’ll have frost tonight.

Strawberries flower in the forest but as You can see the flower is black in the middle, that means it’s destroyed by frost and won’t give any berry.

It wasn’t that bad in the morning though so we had a nice morning walk in the forest and out to the bog. Both Alma and Malkolm behaved really well when the new neighbours cat refused to move from the road when we came πŸ™‚ I am however very glad they didn’t see the hare in the forest because that would have made Alma go nuts πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I’ve done very little today, after the morning walk I did the laundry and the slow cooker took care of the dinner next week and that’s it. WE even had a nap in the sofa but I still feel rather tired to be honest, despite lots of coffee πŸ™‚ Its pollen season and no amount of coffee can remove that tiredness πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I also had to turn on the radiators because even though we did get rain last night it wasn’t much but it did make the humidity go sky high and the cold arctic winds just made it more cold. Thankfully it will turn towards warmer days again from tomorrow, night might be chilly though.

I think I’ll have that last cup of tea for the day after this and perhaps a sandwich too or I’ll skip the tea and have hot chocolate instead, it’s that kind of day today.

Have a great day!

Surprisingly pleasant day.

We’ve actually had a really nice day here as long as one wasn’t too long in shadow πŸ™‚ Ok , it wasn’t that bad there either but I preferred to sit in the sunshine and drink tea πŸ™‚ I have moved a perennial that comes from Illinois, the Kankakee mallow (Iliamna remota). It has actually thrived in my garden beneath the Juneberry tree but it was time to move it because the ground is just too dry there during summer.

It actually started last weekend and removed a part of it just to see how well it would adapt to the move and it adapted really well. It sort of divided itself to smaller parts so there’s still one growing where it has been that easily can be four new plants and I’ve already have it in6 other places now πŸ™‚ It has been a favourite of mine since I sowed it well over twenty years ago so I do hope it will thrive at the new places they can call their homes πŸ™‚ Mine spreads via its roots but I’ve read that a fire will start the seeds but I didn’t have a fire when I bought the seeds back then so I think it will work again without it if I try again πŸ™‚

The clouds covered the sun when we went out on our morning walk but as soon as we were almost at home the clouds opened up. We’ve had lots of smaller clouds in the sky all day but now it looks like bigger clouds are coming in again, they say we’ll get rain but they said we would last night as well and as far as I could see the only reason the grass was wet was because of dew. A day or two with cloudy weather and some rain will only be good for my Kankakee willows now when they have moved all over the garden.

We won’t get much rain though, mostly just enough to keep the soil surface slightly damp πŸ™‚ I’ve also heard the Cuckoo bird for the first time this year. According to folklore it means different things from what direction one hear it for the first time. From north and summer will be dry, from east one will be comforted because if it comes from south it means death in the family but it is from the west we want to hear it because that’s the best πŸ™‚ The coming year will be great. We here will have a dry summer this year πŸ™‚

I think this could be a Red Kite or a brown. I’m not that good when it comes to birds πŸ™‚

Besides that I’ve done very little. Mostly I’ve been sitting in the sunshine drinking tea or coffee. Β Last year when the warm weather came the entire garden was buzzing because of the beekeepers bees, it is considerable more quiet this year. Yes we do have pollinators like bumblebees flying around but all those hives did make a big difference, so it’ll be interesting to see how it will be next year, to many honey bees can actually make life really tough for the wild bees by being too many for an area. Also everything started so early this year that there wasn’t much for the bumblebees to eat and that could have killed a lot of them. I think we’ll know better when summer starts and all workers starts to fly around.

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and today I’m so tired that I most likely will fall asleep in the sofa πŸ™‚

In my woodland right now.

Have a great day!

Not this one though, it grows in full sunlight and dry soil.

Holiday tomorrow.

Wonderful weather today, which is quite unusual on Walpurgis eve. Lots of people are out having fun tonight and quite often we have huge bonfires as well but at least here it will be too windy and to dry in the grass to have any. No one knows why we celebrate this day but who cares as long as we have fun πŸ™‚

If I’ve learned it all right Walpurgis (or Aalborg as we swedes say) was an English princes who became a nun in Germany and was quite successful in turning witches to the right way which most likely meant that she was rather unpleasant for those she turned since no matter how much those poor women (mostly anyway because there were a few men as well)turned towards christianity they still had nΒ΄been witches and therefore burned by the stake.

I just got the news about the tutor I have on one of my kidneys and it is good news πŸ™‚ It has almost not grown at all since six months back (and therefore too small to take a test from) so now we’ll wait another year before a new x-ray. So perhaps I’m one of the very few that has a benign tumour and not caner? In any way it isn’t an aggressive one πŸ™‚

Tomorrow is May first and in many places on this little globe of ours it’s the workers’ day and a holiday. I will have to work on Friday though since I’m so new that I don’t have any saved hours. I’ll survive one day of work though πŸ™‚ I think it is time for a last cup of tea for the day and then I’ll most likely doze off in front of the tv. Pine pollen is in the air and it makes me so tired πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

The cherry trees are in bloom here so no more frost so we can pick some when walking around in the forest πŸ™‚

The June berry in full bloom, too bad that it gets mildew every year so the berries get destroyed, I really like to eat them.

Have a great day!

No wind this morning and sunshine. Really pleasant to walk around in the forest listening to all birds and some deer running away when we came close. Still it was below 0C (32F) and the water had frozen during the night. These mornings really are the best because it feels warm and nice but no flies are terrorising us πŸ™‚ They’ll arrive some time in the middle of June. The forest flies are just annoying though and not biting. The biting ones tends to show up a couple of weeks later.

I’m slowly getting the dogs used to me being away a couple of hours every day now so today I went to my old work place for a visit, it might be the last time I do that since I now will work rather far away and after that I went to the grocery store I’ve been doing my shopping for the last 28 years now. I will go there again but not that often, I will have at least four big supermarkets and several other big stores just beside where I’ll be working.

Back in the days when one would sign a contract of employment one sat at the employers desk and signed it with a pen, that’s not how it’s working now days. I got a mail with a link and after reading the contract I signed it with my Bank ID and did it at home. It is amazing how fast things change now days. It is practical though since I now have it stored in my computer. Also I could really take my time reading it, one never did that in the office with the new employer to be honest. One just signed and smiled πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I’m slowly picking up the plants I have in the cool cellar. Lots have died, either too much or too little water during the winter but most is still alive. The dead plants get tossed in places where the dogs have been digging so the ground evens out again πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ We’ll have fairly warm nights for the coming ten days they say so I planted one of my apricot seedlings where I used to have the Amure grapevine. It will take a couple of years but it will be a good place for the birds to sit while waiting for their chance of eating from the feeder I have outside the kitchen window. I also started to fill the big wooden box I have my , for some reason, autumn flowering strawberry plants . Turns out the packages with soil are small now days (and more expensive) so I need to buy two more.

The box is quite empty when the big gooseberry bush was removed. Just weeds and strawberry plants left.
I removed it all and filled up with soil and there’s still lots of space to fill up. I planted the young strawberries again. I’ll have to redo this when I have more soil (or compost when I can empty any of my composts).
Lots of old ones left but I didn’t want to toss them away.
So I planted them in a spot where I have removed as much of the stinging nettle roots I could. Now the strawberries can spread as they please πŸ™‚

I have that last cup of tea for the day beside me and soon I’ll go outside with the dogs bringing more dead plants from the cellar πŸ™‚

Have a great day!

The ticks and mosquitoes are back, yay.

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 πŸ™‚

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 πŸ™‚

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 πŸ™‚

Have a great day!