Category: Nikon D3200.

October 25, 2024 · 4 Comments ·

We had some fog in the morning, according to my camera this was taken 8:04 am.

Yesterday I prepared myself for having to say goodbye to Nova, she had huge problems walking up the few stairs to the entrance door in the evening and she hesitated to try and get up to the bedroom so I had to help her, she also had problems with her balance in her back legs. This morning she didn’t want to get up from her bed at all so guess if I was surprised when she suddenly came down skipped around and had no problems what so ever with any stairs 🙂 🙂 🙂

I’ve noticed that every time she has been in the dog yard she’s always worse the rest of the day and I’m pretty sure that’s because she refuses to stay in the comfortable dog house and instead has to wriggle her way in to the garage. So from now on if I’m only going to the store or not be away for a whole day she’ll stay in the cottage. It can’t be a good thing to wriggle around when one is that old and she already has problems with her legs 🙂

So she had no problems what so ever on our morning walk, sometimes she walked behind us and sometimes ahead of us 🙂 Alma however took a step or two back and was quite a pain in the a..e almost the entire way 🙂 🙂 🙂 I still think she has behaved a lot better on our walks lately so I’ll see this as a temporary setback. It is much more noisy in the forest now when almost all leafs have fallen off, leafs are terrific sound dampeners during summers. Today someone was working with a wheel loader somewhere and that winded her up a bit.

The beavers must be back again, the water level is so high now but after a tube where the water flows beneath the gravel road it’s very low instead.

We haven’t had the nicest of weather today, still no wind and no rain but really grey and dull. It made me sleepy so some time during the day I fell asleep in the recliner with a kitten by my side and I have no idea for how long I slept 🙂 🙂 🙂 I think it was for too long though because I’m still tired 🙂 🙂 🙂 I really can’t complain about the weather to be honest, we’ve had unusually much sunshine and it has been unusually warm as well but now they say it’ll turn towards colder again, I’m not looking forward to it but as long as it doesn’t snow I’ll just keep on smiling 🙂

it’s really low on the other side of the gravel road.

Have a great day!

A belated birthday present :-)

October 21, 2024 · 12 Comments ·

I wouldn’t say that a storm passed by today but the wind was hard and it roared when it blew through the forest. My garden was totally wind free because my neighbors cottage took it all and it was surprisingly calm in the forest where we walked, the tree tops swayed but very little reached us on the ground. Warm winds though so it has been rather nice to be outdoors and now there’s only a few walnuts left hanging in the walnut tree.

The last of the bright colors are blowing away, I wonder how much that will be left tomorrow.

Even though it is much warmer than usual this month winter is still closing in on us unless we get really lucky and it stays autumn until spring. I know it isn’t a good thing but I admit that I won’t feel sorry if that happens 🙂 Anyway, here in Sweden we have a law that says we must have winter tires if it becomes winter. My cars tires weren’t good so on Wednesday I’ll get new ones and even though I like that we have that law I still don’t want to pay for it, it will cost something around $ 700 US. Ok I drive gentle so the tires will last for long but it still hurts 🙂 🙂 🙂

Yesterday friends I haven’t seen in well over 24 years came for a visit 🙂 It was so fun to meet them again 🙂 We do keep an eye on us via Facebook but it isn’t the same to be honest. They gave me a present since I now am 60 years old and it was one in a series of children’s book 🙂 🙂 I love that series of books! It’s about these characters called Pettson and Findus (another English name for them is Festus and Mercury), an old farmer and his cat Findus. I’ll give You a link to the Wikipedia site: Pettson and Findus . They think that I reminded so much of Pettson 🙂 🙂 and I really wish I was as handy as he is 🙂 I think this might have been the best birthday present ever 🙂

The weather will calm down during the day tomorrow but get worse again later in the evening and night so I think I better go to the store tomorrow since I’ll get the new tires on Wednesday. It sounds as if I’m stressed and can’t find the time but that’s far from the truth 🙂 🙂 It’s good to have something to do each day. It is at least easier to remember what day it is 🙂 🙂

The dogs are sleeping here on the upper floor and I think the cat sleep in my recliner downstairs. She might be up here as well but she moves so quiet so I never really knows where she is 🙂 The only time I know where she is is when I bring out food, it is amazing what that cat likes to eat, like pickled cucumbers 🙂 not even the dogs like that and if she gets a tiny piece of cheese she bites me till she gets it 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Misty rain.

October 18, 2024 · 6 Comments ·

Frostbitten tomatoes and I can see the birds have pooped on two as well 🙂

It’s actually a bit difficult to keep track on what week day it is now day 🙂 I had to check my mobile phone because I wasn’t sure of what day it was today 🙂 In a way that gives a nice feeling 🙂 🙂

We went down to the creek this morning and it rained, a misty rain. The dogs doesn’t seem to see misty rain as real rain even though I feel it is the worst kind of rain there is, at least on windy days. It eats its way through the clothes in no time at all plus that insects, that we seem to have plenty of now, mostly non biting mosquitoes and small relatives to dragon flies and mayflies, don’t seem to care about it either. I did see a few moose flies but they are actually quite easy to avoid if one see them coming because they are lousy flyers and easy to hit in the air 🙂

Looks like it’s a bit hazy but it’s actually misty rain.

I went to the supermarket after that. I needed to buy cat food so I did of course come back home without it 🙂 🙂 It isn’t a big problem right now since Nova refuses to eat anything other than boiled chicken (with rice and some of the other dogs food) so I’ll just give Sara the cat some of that chicken until I go to a store next time. I also went to a store called Jysk, they sell cheap furniture and anything belonging to beds and towels and those sort of things. I wouldn’t call it a furniture store to be honest since they don’t have much and have all those other things as well. I need something to cover my big sofa cushions because the dogs really make them dirty.

Can You see the opening in to the forest? It is actually almost impossible to see it in the real as well.

So I bought four fleece bed spreads, two grey and two blue. A bit more expensive than I like but they are needed. I did buy a carpet cleaner this summer, You know the kind one can use in the car as well and looks like a chubby little vacuum cleaner. I started with one of the cushions today. I now know that it isn’t a good idea to have it on the kitchen floor if it isn’t possible to spread it out totally. They are truly heavy and when slightly wet almost impossible to move 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll try the next one while it still is on the sofa. The only thing I really miss from when I lived in an apartment is the laundry rooms, all of them were equipped with carpet washing machines and they were amazing! I wouldn’t even be able to get one of those in to my cottage 🙂 🙂 Back in the apartment I could have carpets even if I had dogs, I gave up that almost as soon as I moved to the countryside 🙂 🙂 🙂

I think it is time for a last cup of tea for the day and today I have gluten free Digestives. They doesn’t taste like the real ones at all but still are so tasty that I buy them, it’s a new brand I found and as a sweet cookie they are perfect and they also work really well with a nice Blue cheese, well any cheese I guess but I’ve only tried them with a Blue cheese so far 🙂

As You can see the cushion is quite dirty, full of sand and hair 🙂

Have a great day!

Warmish.

October 17, 2024 · Leave a comment ·

The four walnuts I found on the ground yesterday.

It’s quiet in my cottage, the dogs and kitten are sleeping and even though the tv is on downstairs I can’t hear it. We went out to the bog this morning and I tried something old with Alma, I thought she has become older so perhaps it will work this time. It is more quiet out there and even though we do see animals every now and again that still can’t compare to a huge tractor passing in front of us, curious calves running towards us and dogs barking in dog yards 🙂

To my very big surprise it worked really well! This was only one day but we’ll continue with this for a while and if it works I’ll tell You what we did 🙂 It was fairly warm already in the morning and with almost no wind it did feel like an early spring day. No birds singing of course but some tweeting from smaller birds flying by and I could hear a Jay screaming from somewhere in the forest plus a few Ravens as well. One moose fly that I managed to get rid of when we had arrived here at home again, they should all be dead by this time of the year but there’s always a few that survives for a longer period I’m afraid.

I found eight more walnuts on the ground today and since almost all leafs are gone from the tree now I found seven more up there just waiting to fall down. This year I’ll use a hammer to crack them since they destroyed my very sturdy nut cracker last year 🙂 🙂 🙂 It wasn’t the best nut cracker to be honest but since it was made from thick iron I never thought they would break it 🙂 🙂 🙂 They’re still green on the outside so it’ll take some time until I can crack them open. I hope that they aren’t empty like the few hazelnuts I got 🙂 🙂 🙂

It will stay relatively warm and nice for a while now, with that I mean up to 59F as most but it looks like the sun will stay away most of it. I won’t complain even if the sun will hide behind the clouds as long as it is around that temperature. I’m not a fan of winter, truly dislike below freezing temperatures, hate scraping ice from the car windows and hate even more to shovel snow from the ground. To be honest it’s just four meters I really need to shovel and some around the car but I really can’t stand it. Now days winter tends to arrive when we usually was waiting for spring, some time in March and with fierce snow storms. Like this year when it arrived twice, the last time it came at easter just when I had brought home Malkolm. We had had spring for a few weeks by then when the snow arrived again and forced me to take a week of vacation because I couldn’t leave a small puppy in a dog house/ yard when we had well over 40 cm (16 inches) of snow everywhere 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day but I think I’ll skip anything to eat. I’m not hungry and don’t even crave anything sweet, a first time to be honest 🙂

I must say that this little compost works really well.

Have a great day!

October 16, 2024 · 8 Comments ·

Today I realized to my very big surprise a big bud on one of my Paphiopedilum hybrids (slipper orchids)! That almost never happens for most of us. I must have done something right for once!

-3,6C (25,52F) outside this morning according to my thermometer. A tad chilly but since we didn’t have any wind and the sun was rising it didn’t feel that bad. I had hoped that they had removed all cattle from the big field/ pasture but I could see that there was still just as many left as they had moved yesterday so we had to walk back and walk in the village instead. Unfortunately we met a huge tractor carrying all the food to the bulls and after that and of course when we passed lots of half adult cows in another field Alma behaved like crazy. She isn’t afraid, her tail shows that clearly but she gets excited and then can’t calm herself down and I can’t calm her down either.

Besides that though we did have a nice walk but if any villager on the other side of the village saw us they must believe I hate her 🙂 🙂 🙂 The rest of the village knows what she’s like though and most people feel sympathy for us both 🙂 🙂 🙂 Just imagine to walk with a dog whining a screaming constantly for well over an hour on every walk and then have no way to calm her down 🙂 🙂 🙂 Then here at home she’s absolutely amazing! She even gather the other dogs if I ask her to and then bring them to the front door. She makes sure Nova is ok all the time, plays with Albin, keeps an eye on Sara the cat and also always check on me that I’m ok but as soon as we go outside the garden with a leash on she starts whining and screaming, once she even started to howl 🙂 🙂 🙂

I haven’t done much today , not even dinner but I have actually dome some of the laundry. I have loads left but I thought why not take a little at a time. I don’t have a big washing machine because I have no space for one, my bathroom is tiny but I do have one made for campers/ mobile homes. Works really great but it is what I would call a manual washing machine. I have to decide how warm the water is so I usually put in the same temperature as when I shower and then open the tap for cold water to rinse it all. Not especially hard but it is annoying sometimes 🙂 🙂 So when I do the laundry I need to think about what I put in, one or two heavier things and the rest light things and so on 🙂

Yesterday evening when we went to bed I could hear Sara the cat miaow loudly from downstairs. I called for her to come up but she didn’t, well You know cats 🙂 🙂 She still wasn’t with us when I woke up and must admit that it was nice with a night of undisturbed sleep. I couldn’t find her when we came down either so I called after her and I could hear here but not figure out where she was. I became a bit worried because we had just been outside and I thought she might have escaped and now was outside in that cold temperature but I couldn’t find her there either. Turns out that I had locked her in the cool cellar all night, she must have went in when I for a second had opened the door to place a potted plant on a shelf just inside the door. So now I check the door every time we go outside she she doesn’t follow 🙂 🙂

It is time to have a last cup of tea for the day and I’ve bought some candied ginger, dangerously yummy that I think I’ll have some of 🙂

It takes a lot of energy to biting my hand all evening so a nap was needed 🙂

Have a great day!

September 5, 2024 · 2 Comments ·

This is the pot with the self sown flowers. Canadian Goldenrod, catnip, Californian poppy and also an Aaron’s rod but I managed to break that stem .

It wasn’t much cooler today so the factory was nasty hot today, it’ll be slightly cooler tomorrow but now the ovens are building up the heat indoors. We do have two big gates where forklifts can go in and out of the factory but the problem is that the sun shines towards both almost all day, so it’s only when it is really windy it actually helps to open them up 🙂 🙂

I found these photos in the camera, must have taken them during the vacation I think.

No walk today either, the dogs didn’t want to go outside at all, they did follow me outside when I walked around watering all the trees I’v planted this year but as soon as I went towards the door to go inside they ran to be first indoors again 🙂 We did have a weak wind blowing so I opened up the windows upstairs but as soon as I did the wind died 🙂

The new shoots from the dead Persimmon hybrid, I will cover them with something to give them a better chance during our winter.

This and the one You can see behind it slightly towards the right are the Pawpaws I bought this spring.

The seed sown pawpaws. I think they still are confused about the year. They germinated the absolutely wrong time of year to be honest.

The first Black walnut I could find 🙂 I’m sure there are more but really tricky to find up there 🙂

I met a villager out running when I came home to the village. I can’t think it i especially healthy to do that in this heat. He also wore a back pack, ok a smaller one but still. Back in the days when I was out running almost every day I never ran if it was over 23C (73,4F), I would not have been able to carry that much water 🙂 🙂 🙂 Also I used to bike every day as long as it wasn’t colder than 0C (32F). I actually liked to bike when it was cold but I never could find gloves or mittens that could keep the cold away from my fingers and I hate cold fingers 🙂

They didn’t have the energy to play, only to eat apples 🙂

It is time for a last cup of tea and then bed I think, I start an hour earlier on Fridays so best not to stay up too late 🙂

Have a great day!

July 20, 2024 · 6 Comments ·

I had both windows upstairs open during the night and woke up in the middle of the night because I was freezing 🙂 It was only 8C (46,4F) outside and not much warmer in my bedroom 🙂 So I just pulled up the blanket and had a really good sleep until the dogs decided it was time to get up, around 4:30 in the morning.

I was a bit too slow though so by the time we finally started walking the flies started to fly. It was still rather cool in the shadows but the warmth had already done the damage. The only place where the flies didn’t do what they could to drive us crazy was actually by the creek because it was still much cooler there. Nova did have a difficult time every time we walked in the sunshine, she can’t take any heat now days, thankfully though most of our walk happened where trees gave a really nice cool air. She is after all a quite old lady so it isn’t surprising. She eats better than she has in ages though, she doesn’t leave a single thing in her bowl for the other two to fight about 🙂 🙂

I have an ant colony in one of my older composts and I noticed that the new queens and can we call them kings? started to leave their old home. I noticed that when I was about to put in more grass in the compost and there were ants everywhere 🙂 🙂 They seemed a bit annoyed with all that grass poured over them but it only took a few minutes until they had made new passages so that they all could start to fly away. I really need to pour in more water in that compost, just enough for the ants to find a new place to live, after that I can pour in a lot of water because since ants are living there they dry it out totally so the compost just becomes a storage place for dry grass and twigs 🙂

I can’t say I noticed especially many horse flies but at least some of them found me and now my right arm itches and I’m a bit swollen around my knuckles on my right arm. Still this is an amazingly good year for us warm blooded animals because there are very few of those biting nasties (well gazillions of mosquitoes earlier this summer but not so many now). I do hope this also means that we’ll get much fewer moose flies as well, since it has rained this much so that we have more ground water than we have place for in the ground it might actually mean that the moose fly larvae/ pupas have drowned but it sounds too good to be true 🙂

I had forgotten that I can make additional pages to this blog and thought that I perhaps should make a new page and write down gardening tips for those of You that are interested. For instance what to do and not to do with invasive species, when and how to sow different seeds and so on, would that be of interest? I know I live very much far north than most of You but most of what I know could be adapted to warmer climates, just as long as You actually have some kind of winter even though it might be shorter than ours up here 🙂

The Creeping bellflower is pretty but it is also a terrible weed so today I had to remove all flowers because they had started to produce seeds and it can be bad enough with just all the roots 🙂

Looks a bit empty now but they will most likely start growing new flower stalks already now so I might get a second flowering from them.

Finally the Californian poppies flowers too.

It is time for a last cup of tea for the day and then hope it’ll cool down a bit before we go to bed.

Have a great day!

I’m rarely nostalgic and Malkolm is much better.

July 3, 2024 · 4 Comments ·

So Malkolm is much better already 🙂 I went to work an hour later this morning just so I could see if the food would stay or not. My biggest worry was if he possibly had eaten something that blocked the food. He ate and had no problems at all 🙂

We have lots to do at work but the things I do had all been done just after lunch today, so I left work a couple of hours early 🙂 I went to the grocery store in the village where I work and was going to buy some frozen fish for Malkolm. When I was a kid fish was poor mans food, so we ate a lot of fish. Today fish is rich mans food because those prices really make one need an income on the top 1% to be able to buy it 🙂 🙂 🙂 Instead I bought frozen chicken and that also works really well for an upset stomach. I made the rice this morning before going to work and boiled the chicken as soon as I had come home. Now days Nova only eat any food made from chicken and the smell made even her want to eat so of course both she and Alma had some too 🙂

The food stayed where it should be and now Malkolm have more energy that I think he should have 🙂 🙂 He and Alma were playing here on the upper floor and when both finally fell off my bed and it to what sounded as the radiator I had to shout to make them stop 🙂 🙂 All three are now sleeping on the floor here beside me 🙂 For once no one is snoring 🙂

It was supposed to rain this afternoon and the sky sure looked like it when I drove home but one drop hit my head and that was it 🙂 They are now guessing that it will rain more or less all day tomorrow and Friday and Saturday but I’ll believe it if it happens. They are also guessing that my first vacation week will be sunny and just enough warm, I’ll believe that when it happens as well. Some times they don’t even get it right when they show what weather we’ve had during the day. I remember one winter when they said that we had had cloudy weather and -18C (-0,4F) when in fact we had had sunny weather all day long and minus 28C (-18,4F) 🙂 🙂 🙂 WE haven’t had such low temperatures since then so it must be well over 15 years ago but unfortunately the weather sites haven’t become much better since then 🙂 🙂 🙂

I think these are Creeping bell-flowers.

I have two Hardy Hibiscus in my garden but so far no signs of buds.

I’m not the one to be nostalgic or think back on memories form the good old days that weren’t particularly good to be honest but today lots of memories came back when a smell I really can’t say whet it was brought back a lot of memories, mostly about our summer cottage up in the mountains just outside my home town. Suddenly I saw myself sitting in the glassed veranda with place for two people eating two sandwiches and I could feel the smell of newly brewed coffee. The cottage were placed at the top of the mountain and there was no running water, an outhouse painted screaming green, a gas cooker and showers were taken outside with cold water that we brought with us in big plastic jerricans.

I started going there by myself when I was around 13 years old. I lived on the other side of the city so I think it was around 40 km (25 miles) to our cottage. The only heating we had was a kerosene heater so i rarely went there when winter had arrived. From early spring to late autumn however I want there quite often, the rest of the family didn’t care especially much then. Normally I biked there so I didn’t bring a lot of water but enough for a cup of coffee in the morning and to be able to wash myself if there wasn’t any water in the rain water barrel (well this is Sweden so naturally there was water in the barrel 🙂 🙂 🙂 ) The best thing, I think, was that I passed my mormor (grandmother on my mothers side) so I usually had a pit stop there bunkering up with a couple of sodas and cinnamon buns 🙂 and of course I had some while visiting her as well 🙂

I was quite young so if something walked outside the cottage it could be a bit scary but it was always a moose or deer that passed by 🙂 I loved that place and I think I mostly just read books or listened to my radio, back then they often played the Radio theater shows and those were really good. I don’t think they do that any more. Nothing would grow there except for grass, moss, daffodils and some Irises, we tried to grow potatoes there once but the potatoes were tiny and so hard that it didn’t help that we boiled them for hours, they just kept on being like little round rocks 🙂

Have a great day!

Elves and Alves.

June 19, 2024 · 6 Comments ·

Malkolm woke me up at 4:08 am today with a loud but high pitched bark, he’s after all only four months old now 🙂 After that he ran as fast as he could and peed on the stairs all the way down to the kitchen 🙂 🙂 🙂 To be honest he’s really good in peeing outside almost all the time. Just before I was going to write here he once again barked, ran as fast he could down the stairs and peed all the way down again 🙂 🙂 He had been playing so much with Alma that he forgot that he needed to go outside 🙂 🙂

We don’t have Fairies in our folklore, the closest is Alves and Elves. I really don’t know a lot about Alves but there seems to have been two kinds of them, the darkness Alves who lived underground and the Light Alves who lived in the sky and shone brighter than the sun. It also seems many think they are the male equivalent to Elves but since I’ve read that there were male Elf kings I’m not sure of that. No matter what meeting Alves, who always came in groups was no good thing. Most of our beings seems to love hurting us 🙂

Elves however could be seen during early mornings and late evenings dancing in the fields. They were dancing in the morning mist and one can still see them when the mist comes in circles and is sort of uneven on its upper part, like small tops all around the circle, those tops are the heads of the Elves. So I can say that I see them fairly often here 🙂 Elves might be beautiful but their main purpose is to make humans sick, especially children. Sometimes so bad that they die but they mostly do this for fun and really doesn’t want to kill anyone 🙂 🙂

If one would get sick after meeting the Elves one could be cured by blowing towards them with Bellows or perhaps drop some pieces of gold in a nearby creek as a sacrifice 🙂 Elves can sometimes invite You to dance with them and mean no harm with that but time flows much much slower in that circle so it’s best to not be in a hurry if one accepts. They will make You sick if You don’t dance with them and they will throw illness upon You and that will most likely kill You. Sort of damned if You do and damned if You don’t 🙂 🙂

In the year 1656 a woman was put to trial when she said she had had sex with the Elf King and had seven children with him. He one day came and brought the kids with him wearing golden clothes. The verdict was that she had been that the devil had made her insane and that they all should pray for her. I’m so glad that they never have asked me to dance with them since I have two left feet and my hip replacements really aren’t made for dancing 🙂

Have a great day!

Close but still no thunder or rain.

June 1, 2024 · 4 Comments ·

The path down to the creek is bordered with Dog biscuits. — The path that eventually leads down to the creek is full of Dog biscuits. I’m glad they have driven four wheelers there, otherwise we would have been drenched in water from the rains and morning dews.

Hot again today so it was really nice that we were able to have our morning walk in the early morning while it still was cool. Not cool enough to keep the mosquitoes away but cool enough for them to not attack us to hard 🙂 Malkolm woke me up at 3:27 am today but after he had been outside we all went back to bed and slept for another hour.

A Roe deer buck is eating in the field. — This wasn’t the only animal we saw this morning. It is a Roe deer buck.

Still lots of water in the creek. — There’s so much vegetation along the creek now that it is hard to see it 🙂

All the dogs are at the moment a bit wobbly in their stomachs so today I boiled rice and fish for them. Nova loved it, Alma loved it and Malkolm put his nose in the air and refused to eat anything until he realized they all had the same food 🙂 He did eventually eat all of his food but I can clearly say that he’s not a fan of boiled fish 🙂 Too bad for him because he’ll get this tomorrow as well 🙂

The path along the creek is very narrow now days. — The path along the creek is now so narrow that we need to walk in a line, something Alma have big problems understanding 🙂

There's a little brige at the both ends of the creek where we alk so I had to stand on one of those to be able to see more than a couple of meters of it.

My camera refused to do as I wanted so here are two rather bad photos of fox cubs running away from us. — Some previous owner of my camera thought it was a good idea to adjust the camera to being able to go through the photos when turning the shutter speed wheel. Idiotic since if I need to adjust the speed after just taking one photo instead of changing the shutter speed I then started to go through my photos already taken. So instead of actually capture these two fox cubs so it would be easier to see them I instead took several photos that an editing program then tried to make at least some better. We met the mother later on but it happened so fast that I wasn’t able to take any photos of it.

Thunder and heavy rain is nearby again but it looks like it’ll go either south or north of us. I wouldn’t mind if we at least got the cool air that always follow thunder but even if we don’t get it today it will cool down considerable next week. It’ll drop from today’s 26C (78,8F) to 14C (57,2F). It will stay that cool during the entire long weekend and I think I’ll enjoy it a lot, cool weather plus what they are guessing rain as well sort of forces us to just relax all the time 🙂

Nova didn't like that I wanted to go down to the creek, she wanted to go out to the bog. So she dragged her feet all the time until I let her go un leashed, then suddenly she had all the energy in the world :-) :-) :-)

Malkolm decided to not follow Nova and instead kept himself close to me and Alma.

Nova did stop and look after us every now and again :-) — Nova checked after us on and off, last time she walked away like this she too a wrong turn and it took some time until she finally found us. She’s more or less deaf so no use in calling after her 🙂

I moved the lawn, well most of it, when the grass had started to dry up some. I drank too little water while doing it so now I have a slight headache. What’s left will be moved tomorrow and it’s on the north side of the cottage and beside the woodland where the Pawpaws are growing. I do hope we’ll have a wind blowing because that’s where all the mosquitoes are and I have already been bitten quite a lot. I was bitten by a horse fly this morning as well, they’ve started their season a bit early unfortunately. Last month was unusually hot here and I guess that kickstarted them.

I do like the European Hornet, a gentle giant unless one comes too close to their nest. If one do one must run fast :-) — The European Hornets are back, favorites ogf mine :-)

Alma and Malkolm playing in the garden :-) — Alma and Malkolm had a few minutes to play before it became too hot.

It looks like both the thunder and rain will miss us so I better put together the new hose and spray gun so I can water the vegetable patch. Something is eating the beans I sowed but the rest looks untouched, the carrots however hasn’t shown them selves yet so I’m starting to wonder whether I’ll have to sow something else in that spot. I’ll give them a couple of more days before I do anything.

Have a great day!

I had to apologize to Alma :-)

May 8, 2024 · 4 Comments ·

Today I’ll show photos I’ve taken on my way to work so some can be a few days old but also some from today.

So it wasn’t Alma who had stolen the meat, it was all my fault even though it actually happened because of keeping it away from her 🙂 🙂 I was going to do something and it wouldn’t take long so I thought I just place it high. Like always things that won’t take a long time usually does 🙂 I have two window sills in every window and in this window I have one rather high up but at the moment no plants there. So I reached up and placed the meat there 🙂 🙂 🙂 One can’t see that window sill because the drapes hang low so even when I looked “everywhere” I couldn’t see it and had forgotten that all those pots now stood outside on the north side of the cottage 🙂 🙂 🙂

One the other hand today I once again got a call from my neighbor, Alma was outside the dog yard again and this time Malkolm had followed. My neighbor told the two of them to follow him to my garden and blocked the gate. He then called me and when he had he noticed that Malkolm sat beside his feet 🙂 So he let him in again and made sure the gate was properly blocked. Alma wouldn’t leave Malkolm all alone so he thought he could relax a bit before he had to go away for a while.

I came home not long after that and heard Malkolm in the garage and thought he must have told me wrong where Malkolm was because Alma was outside the dog yard again 🙂 🙂 🙂 So I placed them both (and Nova even though she would have been happy to be anywhere as long as Malkolm was busy with Alma. So I went to check where she had escaped through and turned around and there he was, Malkolm, by my feet 🙂 🙂 I had the same thought as my neighbor so I took him back to the garden again. For some reason I looked back towards the gate when I was going to fix the fence, she had managed to remove a huge log that I tied to the fence with thick electric cables, she had worked hard on those from the morning when I checked everything in the dog yard until my neighbor called.

So when I turn around I saw that Malkolm knows how to climb over a fence 🙂 🙂 🙂 When I saw that I remembered that I said that it was so nice to once again have a dog that loved to use his brain 🙂 🙂 🙂 So how long will it take when he’s grown up to be able top climb over the well over two meter (much the same in yards) high fence around the dog yard 🙂 🙂 🙂 The log by the way is now #tied” together with the fence with a really thick steel wire so now we’re guessing how long it will take until she manages to remove that, should be impossible but if any dog can it will be Alma 🙂 🙂 🙂

Well what ever I sowed there last year will most likely never see the light of the day unless it in some way has managed to be covered with enough wet sand and then grow up elsewhere.

I think it might be a joined work between these two 🙂

Otherwise it’s been a rather wonderful day, not hot but not chilly either. Lots of sunshine but also lots of clouds. I’ve re-potted some of the Guava seedlings, they are now placed outside as well. I had planned on mowing the lawn tomorrow but they’re guessing it will be a bit rainy. I have however a long weekend now so no more work until Monday. Malkolm will also get his second vaccine shot on Friday and I’m already worrying about Alma 🙂 It will not be especially warm so I might have to bring her with us and then Nova can relax here at home without being disturbed by wild playing between Alma and Malkolm, she deserves that the old Lady 🙂

I managed to break off one of the small branches on the Apricot tree I bought this year. I have no idea if this works but I put it in moist soil and put a plastic bag over it. I have done this with an apple twig once and it grew roots on its own. Those apple trees becomes very weak and usually dies with a few years. The Prunus family is know for spreading easily with their roots so who knows it might work. I’ll keep You updated weather it goes well or not.

Have a great day!

The table has finally arrived.

April 23, 2024 · 6 Comments ·

It wasn’t a lucky day for my work place today. One was at home with migraines, one was at home for back pain, one managed to injure himself so his eyebrow was torn up and he started bleeding like crazy and had to be driven to the hospital and then I went home because I had to sign for a package that they just refused to leave outside my door.

Gooseberry bush in the wild. Those gooseberries are delicious but very small and the bush is the thorniest one can find. I did the mistake to bring in one to my garden once. As soon as a branch hits the ground it creates roots and spreads insanely quick. Those thorns are horrible to be stung by and they tend to stay inside the foot as well 🙂

The package, my new table for the living room, was going to be delivered some time between 11 am and 3 pm. I was also going to pick up a package at the grocery store in Gudhem today and managed to do that before 11 am. That package was the Tea bush I ordered for quite some time ago. I was really stressed by the time I came home so naturally the table arrived almost exactly at 3 pm 🙂 🙂 🙂

So I managed to fall asleep in the recliner and the two big dogs in the sofa and Malkolm in the dog igloo 🙂 The weather could have been worse today, not especially warm but sunshine every now and again plus almost no wind to speak of. So we had a quite nice walk after the table had arrived. It will be slightly warmer from now on but we’ll also get rain and on Friday even some snow.

Her favorite spot on hot summers days 🙂 Also works when it’s cold in the air but the sun is shining 🙂

The new table is much smaller but have a shelf under the table top (which is made of glass), so I placed one gardening book there, one crime novel and the book Doctor sleep written by Stephen King if You for some reason didn’t know that 🙂 I love that book but I have no wish what so ever to see the movie, I have a tendency to get in to horror movies a bit too much and that’s not good when living at the outskirts of the world where imagination can carry You away a bit too much 🙂 🙂 🙂

We’ve already had our dinners but I feel that I might have the last orange or perhaps an ice cream or why not both 🙂 I’m going to the store tomorrow anyway 🙂

Alma can become a bit jealous if Malkolm spend time with Nova, she just place herself between them until either of the two other leave 🙂

Have a great day!