Category: Nature reserve.

Thunder and lightning and bank ID.

August 4, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

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We had fog again this morning and I think fog must be my favorite kind of weather, especially when the sun can shine through every now and again. Nova decided that we were going out to the bog again. We didn’t see or hear any animals except for the birds and only one bird still sung its spring songs. There were no wolves around either since the dogs were happy and calm. Alma has calmed down so much that it’s hard to believe she’s the same dog that tore my shoulder apart a couple of time last year 🙂 🙂 🙂

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My Bank ID, a digital ID that I must have if I want to buy something online now days (I’m sure You have it too but one never know what it can be called), had to be updated, and I asked people and they said I had to do that in the online bank. I tried but the online bank said I had to either have an absolutely new passport or an international ID card where I could scan something to proof that I am who I am. My new drivers license wasn’t ok enough to use. I know we are several people who are quite upset about that because it will cost around $40 US to get an international ID card and why should I have to have that? I’ll never use it.

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So I drove to the bank today and my bank is in a neighbor county 50km (31 mile) away. I was quite annoyed when I arrived because after all my bank is well known for helping Russian oligarchs laundry their money and I doubt that those people would have to have an international ID card 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well it turns out that I really don’t have to have anything new because all I needed to do was to update the app in my phone 🙂 🙂 🙂 The young woman who helped me had gone through this a lot of times 🙂 🙂 🙂 I still have no idea why the online bank said I had to have those things but I think that it had to do with newcomers to this country who aren’t citizens.

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I came home just before one of the angriest thunderstorms we have had here in years arrived. The Lightning app said that we had well over 800 lightning hits in and around this village during 30 minutes! I can’t remember that heavy showers falling either and the sound from the rain was so loud that I couldn’t hear the thunder at the same time. I loved it, Nova and Alma slept through it and Albin was so angry because I didn’t allow him to go outside to check what it was that made so much noise 🙂 🙂 🙂 I did open the door for him when the thunder had moved away some but the showers still were just as heavy and then suddenly it wasn’t that important to go outside after all 🙂 🙂 🙂

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After that we’ve had sunshine for a while but now it’s just as cloudy as before and the lightning app has warned about lightning in the area again. I think the worst is over but perhaps it’s best to close doors and windows again just in case.

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Have a great day!

Lots and lots with rain.

July 28, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

So after this weekend I’ll only have one week of vacation left, well until Christmas time when I’ll use my last week. We have no holidays at all until then so I really hope I’ll like working evenings again. AI’ll at least get fewer hours to work with slightly more in pay but I still don’t look forward to work evenings. Still I’ll have a job so I won’t complain too much.

This week had been rather chilly and we’ve had so much rain that I haven’t had to water anything out in the garden. I really didn’t mind that much but some of those showers were so bad that I thought much of what’s growing in the garden would break. That didn’t happen but I still hope that the coming rain next week will be less heavy 🙂

Nova decided that we should walk in the forest this morning. She went out to the peninsula in the bog and I hoped that there would be lots of fog because we had fairly thick fog everywhere else. I was sort of disappointed because there was almost no fog at all. We hadn’t been out there for especially long when the dogs suddenly wanted to walk home again and they seemed to be in a hurry. We hadn’t walked far when we heard the deer “barking” around the place we had been at so my guess is that a wolf must have arrived.

It was while standing here the dogs suddenly wanted to hurry back home.

I read an article that most dogs when smelling a wolf nearby reacts just like that, they want to leave unless they are terriers because they want to attack 🙂 🙂 but as the article said since they were so aggressive towards wolves the wolf would most likely run away even though they were so small. Well one terrier didn’t react like that and that was the Amstaff, Albin really doesn’t like other dogs and would love to be able to attack but as soon as he smells wolf he reacts just the opposite 🙂 and I’m glad he does 🙂

I haven’t been able to do much because of the rain but I have weeded (well to be honest that sounds a bit lame because I used spades and secateurs to get rid of what was growing there. I used to have blueberry bushes there but all the sand that I dug up while doing the root zone had to go somewhere and that was the best and closest place to put it. I did find three blueberry bushes still in there amongst the high grass, wildflowers and grapevines though 🙂 I let the blueberries stay and added some peat around them. After that I placed all the pots with the apricot seedlings and some citrus trees there but couldn’t stop myself from planting the seedlings I had this year. I have even sowed some seeds from perennial Hollyhocks and they’ll look good already next year . I also found lots of things I forgot I had placed there before the weeds and grass started to grow in the sand 🙂 🙂 🙂

This is the after photo. The angle of the photo make the place look smaller than it is but it is around 4 square meter (much the same in yards).

a (4) — I also placed the rubber sheet from my old pond over all those shoots from the thorny sloes, roses and the false spirea.

I’ve “pruned” (with big and heavy tools 🙂 🙂 ) the Rowan tree that grows beside the plum tree. It sowed itself and I like it but it was starting to push away the plum tree plus it was so dark and dry on the ground that almost all ferns that grew there had died.

No all the plums will get sunshine and ripe nicely 🙂

It is time to have something to eat and after that I have no idea. Nothing worth watching on tv so perhaps I’ll start reading a book?

Have a great day!

Well that didn’t go as I had planned :-)

July 8, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

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So my plan was to do nothing today besides taking walks with the dogs. So of course I’ve now mowed the lawn 🙂 🙂 The reason I did that was because we now are going to fill the holes in the gravel road tomorrow. We will thankfully be several people doing it (me and my neighbors, we’re only doing our little gravel road) and we don’t have that many holes but the ones we have are big and deep. It’s a job that needs to be done even though it’s heavy and boring.

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Nova decided that we should walk in the forest this morning. We were out later than usual because I actually slept an hour and a half longer than normal, so it was warm enough for the flies to become active. No biting ones thankfully, just the annoying forest flies and it looks like the drought has done its job to stop the mosquitoes to become more, there’s not a single puddle anywhere and the water level in the creeks ar low or not at all. There was lots of biting flies in my garden when I mowed though.

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I put all the mowed grass in my vegetable garden in between plants or along them. I might have buried some because the flies, even though I also wore a mosquito hat, were driving me crazy. Plus it has been really hot today and that didn’t help at all. It’s only the weekend that will be hot and sunny, the coming week will be cooler and they’re guessing we’ll get lots of rain as well. I don’t mind the rain, I have vacation and can sleep all day to avoid it 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Have a great day!

When the rain comes the grass will both stop the water from evaporatiung and at the same time fertilize the ground while it slowly decays.

My new neighbors. They were the ones bringing the biting flies I’m afraid.

Nice spring rain.

April 23, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

I can’t say that I wouldn’t have preferred to have that sunny and warm weather we’ve had the rest of the week but it hasn’t been that bad today either. Around 10C (50F) and mostly a nice spring rain but also some misty rain that eats its way through all clothes no matter what one is wearing. The kitchen door has been open quite a lot to be honest.

I’ve been rather busy doing the laundry, making our Sunday pancakes, walking with the dogs and baking a bread. I’ll also make dinner for work tomorrow before I can sit down and relax again. I was planning on doing lots of things this weekend but I just didn’t have the energy, pollen season has started and even though the worst ones, birch and pines, haven’t started yet I still can react some to hazel if there’s a lot of that pollen around.

A15264_022A — From the Voigtländer Bessamatic.

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Once again I didn’t win the lottery so I’ll need to continue to work for a while longer 🙂 🙂 The coming week will be gry, a bit chilly and a bit rainy they’re guessing and it really is a perfect week for sowing annuals and spices outdoors. I don’t know how much of those spices I would use but they usually like to live on sunny and rather dry places and my entire garden contains mostly of sand so that’s what they’ll get 🙂 🙂 Also bees and butterflies love them and who doesn’t want many of those in the garden?

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Have a great day!

The tick season has started, yay.

April 15, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

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Well we have to take the good with the bad I’m afraid and yesterday I found a tick on Alma. So I brought the tick repellent spray (it is supposed to help towards the biting flies too but that’s harder to check) from the cupboard. It smells like one of those cheap perfumes one can buy when going to (in our case) either the Canary Islands or somewhere along the mediterranean coast. They might smell nice there because You actually think more of the surroundings than what it actually smells but way too much here at home 🙂 🙂

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Alma has a very well made harness when we’re out walking and it has two attachments for the leash. Well today Alma tore off the one in the front so now there’s only one place. I’m amazed that it lasted this long to be honest but surprised at the same time since she has calmed down considerable. I guess that seeing two deer was one too many 🙂 🙂 She behaved much better on our second walk. Thankfully the attachment that still is there looks like that if she managed to break that one she would rip the entire harness apart 🙂 🙂 🙂

The beekeeper seem to have lost one hive this winter.

I might have to buy a new spray because I just picked a tiny tick from Alma, it walked on her where her fur is lighter colored and the tick was black, the tick is no longer. It is rather nice outside even though we have a rather feisty wind. The morning was dark and cloudy but the cloudy sky has more cracks in it now so we do see the sun every now and again. Tomorrow will be all sun though according to their guessing. They have already started to lower the temperatures they’re guessing we’ll have around next weekend so I’ll have a few work friends who planned to fill up their outdoors bathtubs feel rather sad 🙂 Ever never believe what Swedish weather sites and meteorologists say if it is longer than twenty minutes into the future, sometimes they don’t even get the weather we just had right 🙂 🙂 🙂

This is the only bush with flower buds I could find unless one counts the willow we passed on our walk today.

a (19) — We call this one Porcelain Hyacinth (Pushkinia scilloides).

Have a great day!

a (3) — The swamp behind my garage. There was a really beautiful duck swimming around there this morning but Alma refused to stand still so all photos I tried to take were so fuzzy it was hard to see anything.

I do hope the time of snowstorms are over!

April 1, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

Another snowstorm passed by yesterday, must have been the third in four days, so ow the world is covered in white garbage again. I do have to say though that the days has been rather wonderful with sunshine and above freezing temperatures. The photo shows the morning mist we got and it was better than nothing 🙂 🙂 🙂 They’re guessing that we’ll continue to have this weather until at least Thursday, with cold nights but sunny and warm days, after that the cold nights most likely will give up and most likely the sunshine as well but to be honest they aren’t that great in guessing the weather over here so a new ice age might start before the week is over 🙂

We now have a pack of wolves that made my county their territory. Their sort of home area isn’t that far south of the town Falköping so I guess we’ll have many more visits from them in the future unless hunters do what they usually do and poach them. Hunters can be nice people but they really don’t like competition about the wild life they themselves wants to kill. I do know however that the hunters in my village wouldn’t shoot them, they are usually the first ones to see the wolves and then spread the news to us in the village so we all can keep our eyes open and see them ourselves. No such luck for me yet but I know that at least one followed us, out of sight, at at least one of our walks because the dogs clearly showed me that something was close to us for quite some distance and they really didn’t like it.

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More and more cranes arrive now and so does the crane tourists. long time since I saw that many caravans and mobile homes down by the lake. Lots of other birds arrive here too of course and I do hope that I one day will see at least one of the very few Black Storks that comes here every year. I know that they one year actually nested here but that’s very rare. They are usually more at home on the other side of the Baltic sea.

A15265_015A — These were taken with my Agfa Ambi Silette.

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Last year I bought a pair of shoes that were nasty expensive but they were the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever walked in. Unfortunately the price didn’t show that they were a high quality shoes, I guess they lasted a month or so and the reviews of the company showed that there was no use in trying to send them back or get a new pair. Turns out that the soles just were glued on and with a low quality glue as well. So I’ve been looking at the shoes with some kind of disgust 🙂 until I realized that if I tore the soles off they would work very well as slippers instead 🙂 So now I instead have really comfortable slippers 🙂 🙂 Still to be honest they weren’t worth the price but now I can at least use them again.

a (3) — Sixteen and a half years old, with a bad knee and still has no intentions on walking at the same pace as the rest of us 🙂 🙂 🙂

It’s time to make dinner for the dogs so see You tomorrow again.

Have a great day!

We almost had spring for a while.

March 26, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

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It really was spring like here for a while so I thought I might start here again, then the rain came and now it snows. They tend to change the weather forecasts faster than a spinning wind power plants but at the moment it looks like we’ll get nasty cold nights and barely survivable warm days. That will of course change next second but that’s what I’ve read so far.

So what has happened since christmas? Well I’ve learned, after 58 years why I’ve always had a wobbly stomach. Turns out I can’t eat gluten. I was at the companies health care service and talked with a nurse there. She asked if I had tried to stop eating products with gluten and I said I had bought one of those rather expensive home tests and it didn’t show anything at all. So she said try and stop eat anything with gluten and see what happens. Well I can tell You that I really don’t use much toilet paper now days 🙂 🙂 🙂

Now days it isn’t that hard to avoid gluten since it has become fashionable to not eating it. however the bread one can buy is an abomination to anything living so I’ve tried different ways to bake bread with other kinds of cereal and now I have bread that is just like any other except I really can’t make a good French roll but I’ll keep on trying till I get close enough.

A15266_001 — I had a few rolls of film developed and these two photos were taken with the Flexaret II

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The dogs are all fine and I must say that Alma has calmed down considerable. She would still be considered awful compared to other dogs but she has really tried to listen to what I tell her. Last time we saw a deer she only screamed for five minutes after she last saw it and that’s a huge improvement. More and more cranes are around now and now I can hear them trumpeting from the lake in the mornings. Well I can hear them for the cow pasture on the other side of the road as well but so far they’ve stayed behind a tiny mound so I haven’t been able to see them yet.

A15265_006A — These three were taken with the Agfa Ambi Silette.

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Well since the wetaher will be more wintery than what I prefer I’ll come back next weekend again.

Have a great day!

It’s a mushroom year.

September 16, 2022 · Leave a comment ·

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We’ve had a rather nice day over here. It started out cloudy but then the clouds broke up and after that it’s been rather sunny. Lots of smaller clouds up there in the sky but still sunny enough to warm up my little cottage.

DSC_0005 (2) — I’ve heard that they’ve been working a lot out at the peninsula this week but at first it didn’t look as they had thinned out anything.

DSC_0011 (3) — They had but just enough so that the trees will have enough space to grow (this is now days a part of the nature reserve. They removed all spruces so that a more natural forest will grow up again). I must admit that it is quite nice to walk around in a birch forest.

DSC_0010 (4) — I also found a Lingon berry 🙂

I went to the optician yesterday and this time it was a young man that checked my eyes, it’s almost a year ago I did that last time so I didn’t think my eyesight had changed at all. Turns out they had. I don’t know why but suddenly he asked me if I was a hunter? I said I’m not and he didn’t have high thoughts about hunters at all 🙂 🙂 Around where he lives it seems they mostly have trophy hunters who doesn’t care about the wild life at all so I was happy to tell him that here it is quite the opposite since they always check how many of each animal we have here and how many they can hunt without disturbing the balance.

DSC_0006 (3) — The autumn has come much further out on the bog than closer to the village.

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I told him about how the hunters not even was upset about us having wolves close by and that they also cared about the lynx living in the area. That would not be the case where he lived. We kept on talking about that for almost twenty minutes but we did actually talk about the lenses too 🙂 🙂 I sure hope he didn’t have any other customer waiting after me 🙂 🙂 🙂 So now I’m waiting for the lenses to be made and when they arrive I’ll get another appointment so they can check that they work for me and then they’ll give me yet another appointment after a week or so to see how things work out. No need to teach me how to put in a lens though, I have no problems what so ever to poke myself in the eye without blinking 🙂

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I had a short walk with the dogs this afternoon and brought a plastic bag just in case I would find any mushrooms. I think I can say that this is a mushroom year. I know quite a lot of edible and unedible mushrooms but I still only pick a few of what actually is edible. There are always too many delicious mushrooms that can look way too much some that are more or less deadly. Even though I know the difference between a deadly White Toadstool and a white champignon I still don’t pick the champignon just in case I for some reason would make a mistake. So I only pick the ones that are totally sure like chanterelles, boletes and hydnoid fungi (and a few more). We don’t have chanterelles in this part of the forest and very few hydnoid fungi but we have loads of boletes.

The boletes I found today has a slimy layer over its hat and it is a bit tricky to get rid of that before doing anything with the mushroom. It must be something like trying to remove the slime from a slug 🙂 🙂 🙂 They are quite tasty when being fried though 🙂 They are also favorites amongst the larvae community 🙂 So even if it looks like quite a lot when one comes home it really looks like very little when one finally has fried them 🙂 🙂 🙂 I think I have enough for two sandwiches with mushroom stew on them 🙂 🙂 Lots of more mushrooms in the forest though so if I only remember to bring anything to carry them home in I think I’ll have plenty for the rest of the year if I want them in my dinners 🙂

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It is time to give the dogs their dinner and even though I do feel slightly better I think I’ll settle with some toast with perhaps jam and cheese 🙂

Have a great day!

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Slow tv.

April 30, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

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We’ve had a rather wonderful day today. Sunny with the occasional cloud until the afternoon when more clouds arrived but it is still pretty nice and warm outside. Also the night was frost free, which is a bit odd since the sky was clear and usually clear nights this early in the year means nightly frost.

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DSC_0005 (15) — I wish the doe could have just stayed there but of course not. I did however manage to distract Alma so that she didn’t see it run away.

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We went out on our morning walk a bit later than normal, I did wake up by myself but that didn’t mean I wasn’t really tired all morning 🙂 They have started to show the great moose migration now so I watched that for a while (for those of You who don’t know what this is, it’s cameras stationed at the same place every year showing how moose migrate north when winter is over. We also see a lot of other animals of course and this is called slow tv), something they do every year and the fun thing is that I can hear the same kind of birds singing through the tv as I can if I open the door 🙂 🙂

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After that I’ve sown some more seeds, annuals outdoors because they’ll germinate when they feel it is the right time and some berry plant seeds that still need to stay indoors until we know the risk of night frost is over. I also dug up a Wisteria. I thought it died three winters ago but it resurrected last summer and grew terrible fast and slid up beneath the tiles on the roof. I really can’t have that so today I cut it down. I managed to get two big pieces of roots with a climbing stalk on each and thought why not plant them where they’ll do no harm?

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I planted one beside the crabapple tree with the big magpie nest. We call wisteria here for Blue Rain so I planted it beside the tree we call Gold Rain, The Laburnum. I could work all by myself without the dogs because my neighbors little daughter has her birthday today and lots of people would come. Since Albin and Alma really can’t behave, Albin would run up and down beside the fence huffing and puffing while Alma would start barking and then jump over the fence so she can bark a bit more before jumping back to star all over again 🙂 🙂 🙂 So I said that I’ll bring in the dogs while people will be arriving, my neighbors thought it was unnecessary because they all love dogs but I said that today none of us on this side of the fence would be the center of attention after all 🙂 🙂 🙂

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I think I’ll make myself a cup of tea and have some of my home made ice cream. First however I’ll give the dogs their food, they are standing beside me demanding it right now 🙂

Have a great day!!