Time just flew away at work today and since the weather was quite nice I could have the big door to the painting box open quite a lot. Someone at work b rings fresh pears to work every day so we all can eat them when we like to. I like to a lot 🙂 🙂 I think he has brought two different kinds and I’ve saved quite many pear kernels that I now have in moist paper towels (in plastic bags) in the fridge. They are really tasty so I hope that if I get any trees they’ll give just as tasty fruits too.
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I took a look at “My pages” at my electricity company and in there I can see how much electricity I’ve used per day and the outdoor temperature as well. I can also see what it was like last year at this time of year. So according to the electricity company I’ve used 19,2% less electricity now than last year. The only days I’ve spent more energy this year are on especially Sundays and I’m not surprised since I do most vacuuming, washing laundry and making dinner for the coming week on Sundays. Last year I was lazy and bought most of my dinners at work 🙂 🙂
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We managed to take a walk in the forest before the sun set today. No hunters out today and they won’t be here until Sunday again. I wonder if they either have shot their moose or if they’ve just given up, so far this autumn I’ve just seen one set of tracks from moose so I doubt that there are especially many in the neighborhood. Then again there are lost of wild hogs so I think they can concentrate their hunting on them.
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I did actually have a cup of tea the other day and it didn’t affect my sleeping at all, I’m just as tired today so I think I’ll risk taking a cup again today. I might even go so far that I’ll have a couple of Digestives with blue cheese as well 🙂
So the moose hunt has begun so we can’t take our walks in the forest today (nor yesterday). Well they left pretty early yesterday so we might be able to go there later today but the lovely sunshine will most likely be gone by then. The temperature fell down to 0C (32F) this morning but the sun shone so it was still pretty nice to stand on the kitchen stairs and drink a cup of tea.
..There’s an old well behind the fence.
I would have loved to take a walk in the village but since Albin and Alma behaves like they do when ever they see anything moving or a cat or dog sitting still it really is impossible to do that any more. They scream and howl and Albin gets so excited that he ends up biting Alma (well once he bit my knee 🙂 🙂 🙂 He doesn’t bite hard, sort of nibbles but if some skin gets caught it leaves a bruise). Then again Alma is pretty though towards him and I do find marks all over his body when they’ve been playing in the garden.
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So anyway, yesterday I thought it would be a great idea to walk out in the empty cow pasture just outside my garden. It’s fairly big and usually free from any wildlife during the days as well. Plus I was a bit curious about what walks there at night. Two nights ago Alma (and Albin too for once) barked furiously towards something walking there. It was pitch black so I couldn’t see anything at all. My close neighbors and I wondered if it possibly could be wild hogs. So in we walk and no signs of any pig activity, not even from the piglet that always escapes from his enclosure.
..Apples growing on my seed sown apple tree, they are delicious.
What I did see though was what I call badger paths. Badgers tend to walk the same route every night and after a while they have made clear paths on te ground. So my guess is that it is badgers they’re barking at. We walked around in the pasture a while and went back home again. We did the same routine in the afternoon too. What i didn’t think of the first time we walked there was that there are two metal wires on the ground. I might have gotten caught in one of them but wearing rubber boots I didn’t notice anything. We did however notice it a lot when we went in the second time, there is electricity in them!
..Well sometimes there’s a deer in the pasture during the day but this one jumped away quickly.
So when we went back to walk home I wasn’t sure how to pass them without the dogs getting electrocuted by them again. So this time I just dropped the leashes and let the dogs run fast and jump over them 🙂 🙂 No problems at all but I doubt that I’ll be able to make them walk in to that pasture willingly again. I could bring something to cover the wires but Albin and Alma will most likely panic and refuse to walk on what ever I place above the wires. So today the dogs will have to be content with the garden unless the hunters leave early. The hunting group here has two areas not far from each other and they do quite often divided the time between them, half day here and half day there.
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The laundry is done and it is time to start making dinner for next week at work. This week I’ll have thick ribs 🙂
Once again I had to scrape ice from my car before leaving for work, I really don’t like it 🙂 Still it doesn’t seem to have been that cold in the garden because nothing looks frozen at all. I guess that my high hedge and the fact that my cottage and my neighbors cottage stays warm enough during the night to keep the frost away until the morning comes.
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I left work a couple hours early today. I went to get my new contact lenses and wanted to try them for a couple of hours today so I would know what they were like. I don’t think it would have been a good idea to put them on tomorrow morning and then drive to work 🙂 🙂 These are test contacts, just to make sure they’ve made them right and I’ll have them until Monday two weeks when I’ll go to the optician again so we can see what I think of them.
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They aren’t perfect, I can see clearly from about 60cm (15 inches) to around 3 meters (much the same in yards). Then there’s a long distance where everything is slightly blurry but I could see the trees on the mountain very clear 🙂 (a mile or so away). It can depend on the light because the lenses are most sharp for shorter distances like reading in the middle because when one reed there’s brighter light and the pupil will become much smaller. The sun shone really bright today so I guess my pupils were quite small all the time. It’ll be exciting to drive to work tomorrow morning when it still is quite dark 🙂
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The lenses work really well together with the camera though, everything is sharp no matter what distance it is from me and the camera. I have no problems putting in lenses in my eye, old habits die hard or what they say but I did have huge problems getting them out 🙂 🙂 🙂 No matter what I did those lenses sat on the eye as if they were glued, no risk of them falling out by accident though 🙂 🙂 🙂 Then I remembered that one should always look up when picking them out. Didn’t take more than a second when I remembered that 🙂 🙂 But I think I need to buy eye drops because the air in the factory tends to be rather dry, except beside and inside the big washing machine and I’ll be working inside it tomorrow afternoon 🙂
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I think it is time for a big cup with hot cocoa and perhaps a couple of digestives. I’m really tired today, don’t know why, so it’s a good thing I took out those lenses because the odds of me falling asleep in front of the tv are pretty low 🙂 🙂
Yesterday was sunny and nice until it was time to drive home after work, the rest of the day was grey and murky. Today the clouds stayed away and we had some nice sunshine when we had our afternoon walk. Not warm though, northern winds made sure of that.
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Nothing much has happened here and I guess it’ll continue like that. I have no packages I’m waiting for and can be upset about them being delivered to the wrong house 🙂 🙂 Alma sometimes behaves almost well on our walks but not the last two times. It’s strange that she can be so different at walks when she’s quite wonderful here at home. I have to admit though that we do have lots of wild hogs around now so I guess that can be one thing that makes her slightly insane on our walks.
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I really would like to join the dogs in my bedroom, they’re all sleeping and snoring there right now but 7pm is a bit too early to go to bed 🙂 🙂 Instead I think I’ll go to the kitchen and make me some hot cocoa and after that fall asleep in front of the tv again 🙂
The sun has mostly shined all day but the temperature has barely reached above 13C (55,4F). It does feel much warmer in the house on the southern part of it where the sun hits than it does on the northern side (and I mean indoors). So while I’ve been able to have the kitchen door open for quite some time today I’ve still had the radiator on in the living room where there isn’t any window on the south side of it 🙂
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We were out in the early morning and for once we actually saw a couple of Roe deer. Alma went nuts as always but Albin did actually stay quite calm. I did manage to calm down Alma after a couple of minutes but she refused to stop looking at the point where she last saw them 🙂 Too many scents after the wild hogs all around us though so she was still all over the place when we were walking. I brought a plastic bag with me and I did find some mushrooms, not the most yummy but they are perfect if one wants to make a mushroom sauce.
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No need to make dinner for the coming week at work today, I did that last week and since I’ve been at home all week I still have it in the freezer 🙂 Today I also tried cooked food for the first time (well unless one counts toast as cooked, it is after all sort of fried) and so far so good 🙂
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Economists are surprised that we have stopped to buy other things than necessities much earlier than they anticipated. I wonder why since they’ve scared the crap out of people telling us that electricity and petrol prices will be insanely high the coming winter. Also all the central banks have raised the interest rates to stop the inflation, which has no effect on the electricity and gas prices what so ever, making the living costs insanely high as well for lots of people. So how can they be surprised at all? Of course people will stop buying things they really don’t need when they’re told the coming winter will be as close to harmagedon as possible without actually go through Harmagedon for most people 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Well nothing much we can do about it anyway to be honest , all we can do is to hope it won’t be too bad. It is time for a cup of tea and some toast and after that it’s time to give the dogs their food too.
Older photos today since I haven’t been out on walks with the dogs.
Nothing has happened here, I’m still at home since my stomach is quite wobbly and I still haven’t tried cooked food yet. I’m so glad I like toast and rose-hip soup 🙂 🙂 🙂
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The weather has been rather mixed. Either strong winds and rain or almost no wind and mostly sunny. I have been able to have the kitchen door open but not as much as I have wanted too because of Alma, she tends to jump over the fence and research what has happened in the neighborhood all by her self.
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I will go the my appointment to the optician tomorrow and I have checked how much lenses cost and to be honest it will be much the same as what my glasses cost. I thought it would be much more expensive to be honest. I’ve learned that the progressive lenses work in another way than glasses, they will be made so that they are as sharpest for reading in the middle of the lens because usually the light is strong while reading and the pupil therefore are small and that will work well when I drive to work now when winter comes because it’ll be pretty dark soon and the pupil therefore is bigger.
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But how will that work when I drive in summer and the sun already is up? Well I guess it’ll work otherwise how would people all around the world who use lenses like this ever be able to drive at all 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve also been taking looks on another camera because I really use my cameras a lot so they’re actually getting closer to when they finally will give up. I did find a really nice Nikon Z5 camera and it wasn’t expensive at all to be honest but it didn’t come with a lens and one need other lenses than the ones I have. There are adapters but those cost almost as much as a lens and I really don’t want to spend a lot of money when we really don’t know how expensive things will be this winter. So I’ll just hope for the best and that my cameras will keep on working until time changes.
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It is time to give the dogs their food and I’ll have tea and toast 🙂
I took a few photos from the window upstairs this morning. I was lucky because the morning mist vanished within minutes.
So I went early to vote yesterday morning, I was there as soon as they opened up and I still had to stand in line. Not more than five minutes but it did feel odd. I was lucky, later in the day some people had to stand in line for hours.
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I don’t know how things work in other countries when it comes to the ballots but here each party has their own ballot. If one is a Swedish citizen we can vote for three different things, the parliament, the region (which takes care of the health care system) and the county. So one need one ballot for each one. Up until last year they had all the ballots on a place where everyone actually could see what one chose, not a great thing to be honest but most of us just took a bunch of ballots from different parties when we went to the screen where we put the ballots in special envelopes.
It was however quite foggy up on the mountain yesterday morning when I went to vote...
Now they decided that the ballots would be in a place where no one could see what one picked, no problems with that really but I and most other people then believed that there would be several places where they had the ballots. How wrong we were and since lots of people hadn’t decided what party/ parties they would vote for until they reached that place it took a lot! of time for people to vote. I don’t know who the idiot is who didn’t think of that, especially since they had been warned that this most likely would happen but who ever it was should never be allowed to be in charge of anything ever again. The lines were so long in some places that people just gave up and walked home without voting.
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Anyway, the results? Well we have eight parties in the parliament and they are divided in to two groups. One is center left parties and the other one is right and fascist. It is at the moment so close that we won’t know for sure until Wednesday evening/ Thursday morning until we actually know which one of them won. Unfortunately it leans towards the right-fascist side. They will have huge problems making it work though because the least right wing party refuses to have anything to do with the government if the fascist party is in it. Then again the fascists won’t be happy if the least right wing party is a part of the government either, especially since they are the biggest party in that group (just above 20%).
I stopped by the Abbey ruins on my way back home but unfortunately most of the fog had drifted away by then...
To be honest the other group, if things would change when all votes are counted, will not have an easier time to create a government either, they have more or less the same problems in their group 🙂 🙂 🙂 It is a bit scary that people who behaves like toddlers in in the defiance age will actually lead this country. I have some kind of stomach flu today so I’m at home and have spent the day in front of the tv watching the two big channels discussing what will happen now and that’s just stupid since we actually don’t know who won! At the moment the right leads with 46000 votes and I think they still have several hundred thousand votes to count. Anything can happen.
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It is time for some rose hip soup and after that I’ll most likely fall asleep in front of the tv as always 🙂
The photos are from both today and yesterday but actually covers the walk I had this afternoon.
We had a second morning with frost here today, two in one week is at least one too many and it’s still four more days until it usually arrives. I do hope this isn’t a sign about how winter will be, early and long.
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The day has been pretty nice though, lots of clouds but still lots of sunshine. It never reached 20C (68F) but still felt pretty warm when the sun shone. It is a bit chilly now in the evening though so I have turned on one radiator, the one in the living room. The little heat it gives will dry up the chilly air and then travel up to my bedroom and make it just enough warm there for it to be comfortable.
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Alma has behaved as good as she can the two latest walks, not shouting too much when we’re walking towards the forest and only pulled the leash in one direction. For being Alma that is more or less amazing 🙂 🙂 🙂 We were just about to pass the beekeepers when Salmiak the cat suddenly ran out in front of us and down towards my cottage (I’m starting to believe he does like that on purpose, he might get a kick out of being close to death 🙂 🙂 🙂 ) and that was just too much for both Albin and Alma 🙂 🙂 🙂 We did manage to come back home without me having a stroke because those two are just too much sometimes 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I was supposed to leave work a couple of hours early today because I wanted to finally buy that document shredder I’ve been thinking of buying for a couple of years now and I wanted to go when there was as few other costumers as possible. I really didn’t want to wait just because people buying new phones never can decide on what model they want to have 🙂 🙂 🙂 Everything was ok but then they suddenly gave my work friend the day off (without actually telling me, I got to know about it by accident since I heard other people talk about it), the one that is, together with me, responsible for the big washing machine. Fridays are now the day we go through it properly after they’ve finished to wash for the day.
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So I had to stay and had a long chat with the one responsible about it. I had said that me going a couple of hours early wasn’t that important but I really wanted to buy that thing now. I said I will stop working with the washing machine if I can’t know if I actually can leave early or take the day off if it all depends on him taking the day off even if he does so after I got the ok for taking time off. For reasons I’m not writing here he has to take days off with short notice now and then. I’m not annoyed about that but I really need to know that this doesn’t happen again. So I’m not really angry about it but I want to make sure it doesn’t happen again, one day it might be something important I have to do.
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It’s Friday and it is a bit chilly outside so I’ll make either hot chocolate and have some digestives with brie on or some rose-hip soup. Autumn is here and both a really great choices when the days get shorter and cooler.
Yesterday when we were about to take our walk I saw a shower pass by, it didn’t reach us but I did feel a few drops hitting my arm.
I’ve survived the two first day back to work 🙂 It hasn’t been that hard to be honest and I’m not sure half of us are back yet. When I grew up all industries had the summer vacation period at the same time, four weeks so it was called general industrial holiday.
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Suddenly Volvo I think it was decided that we would be able to change that slightly so half of all working in the company could take two weeks earlier than the rest, then the factory would close for two weeks and then the ones that had that earlier vacation started to work while the rest had their vacation. They thought it would be a good idea to only close for two weeks so the production could continue without too much disturbance. Well that didn’t work because they forgot that if only half of the workers were aty work things would move very slowly 🙂 🙂
Even dead butterflies are beautiful.Copper lizard..
Nowdays it varies slightly, at my work place we can have one week before they close for three weeks or one week after. Also one can work during summer if there’s anything to do if one want a later vacation, so some people only have three weeks vacation during summer and take the last two weeks later if they perhaps wants to travel somewhere. I always take four weeks in the summer and save one for christmas. If we’re lucky those five working days together with the holidays can make that one week up to almost three weeks vacation 🙂 🙂
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Yesterday was on the cool side, today was more towards early summer warm. Tomorrow will be vacation warm and after that it’ll be nasty hot if they’re guessing right. The weekend will be the worst and Monday as well but they’re guessing it will start to cool down after that. I don’t mind if autumn waits a bit before it arrives but I really don’t want another heatwave again. I guess however that it’s better than what happened in South Korea yesterday. It fell well over a foot of rain during one hour!
So today is the last day of my vacation, tomorrow is just an ordinary weekend. One could say that the vacation actually goes on until Sunday but I prefer to feel that Sunday’s just another Sunday and the day after is a work day, feels less dramatic that way 🙂
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Still I could win the big winning in the lottery but I would still work that month that we are supposed to just so that they’ll get a chance to get someone else to continue after I’ve left. It is very easy to be generous as long as that winning actually hasn’t happened 🙂 🙂 We were supposed to have a sunny day here with a temperature around 20C (68F). They have actually gotten the temperature right but the sun has been absent most of the day. It showed itself a short while in the morning but very little after that.
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Yesterday was very different though, we had sunshine now and again and the temperature was nasty high as also the humidity was. Rather unpleasant to be honest. Then the rain and thunder arrived. I have to say that it was a magnificent thunderstorm and it continued from around 5pm way in to the night. Strong winds created havoc in some places in this region and what the wind didn’t destroy the hail did. The wind didn’t do anything here but the hail perforated all bigger leafs it hit. I looked at my lightning app and it showed that at one point we had more than 500 lightning hits between Skara and Falköping, I live exactly in the middle of those towns. I can tell You that there’s no need to water anything today, on the contrary, I’ve needed to empty almost all pots I have 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I really should mow the lawn before I get back to work. It isn’t particularly high yet but with all this rain falling I can already see how it is growing. I’ll use all that cut off grass to cover the ground in the vegetable patch. It will keep the sand moist at the same time the mouldering grass will fertilize the ground, a win win situation 🙂 Also after doing like that a couple of years I’ll have more real soil than sand in there. I still only have male flowers on my squash plants, a bit annoying but there’s still plenty of time to get some squashes before autumn arrives. The beans are flowering and I have plenty of lettuce and chard growing. The cabbage is struggling though, I do remove any eggs and caterpillars I find but something is still eating those cabbage leafs. I also think we now can start to pick up potatoes 🙂
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It is time to give the dogs something to eat, no rush really because they’ve all had one pancake each already 🙂 🙂 Yesterday, when it still was nasty hot but the thunder was on its way I made some jam. I had some apricots that were too old but not really enough to make jam from it, so I tossed in a couple of mashed bananas too plus a pinch of cardamom. To my very big surprise it turned out really well 🙂 🙂 🙂 It’s actually quite tasty so I had that on my pancakes today 🙂 I should perhaps have put in an apple or two from my crab apple tree because those apples contains lots of pectins that will stop the jam from being a bit runny. Still it runs very slow so it’ll work on toast as well 🙂
Nothing much has happened here. Yesterday morning started out much like the previous one, cold and sunny, so the morning mist was just starting to build up when some clouds came and destroyed it all. They prevented the heat from the sun to evaporate the cold morning dew so no morning mist.
...The Chamomile still flowers.
This morning had no clouds but it was too warm (over 10C (50F) ) so no mist today either. I really didn’t want to take a walk because of the constant war between me and Alma but I had noticed yesterday that the new harness actually does make a difference. I can attach the leash on the front and since it’s fairly low every time she pulls the leash she turns around because the leash moves towards her front leg and disturbs her balance. So far she hasn’t figured out a countermove but I can see that she’s trying 🙂 🙂 🙂
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It was warm enough for flies to fly around but not especially many did. I’m not sure if the fly season now is over, which I hope, or if they were busy elsewhere. It could be that they all are in my garden though because there’s no lack of them here 🙂 🙂 🙂 There’s absolutely no lack of ticks though. After we came home I combed Nova and took two from her. None was caught from Albin or Alma but then suddenly I saw plenty walking around on Almas head and also one on Albins. I don’t know where the one on Albin hid because he has plenty of white on him so it’s hard for a tick to hide. All in all I picked seven more from those two.
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I had hoped the pet store would be open today but during summer he tends to have Saturdays closed. He sells a anti tick spray that is made only with scents ticks hate and it works pretty well. Albin is allergic to it but I can use it on the other two. It is after all so much easier to have to go through only one dog with extremely short fur 🙂 🙂 I can also spray it on my trousers. Pretty expensive though but it is well worth it. I’ll go there first thing on Monday morning instead. They even get them here in the garden and that’s because a deer seems to be visiting us when it knows we’re all asleep. I do like deers but I wish they could wait to visit us until the tick season is over 🙂 🙂
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I think it is time for a cup of tea and after that perhaps a nap. We’ve been up since before the sun rose and since I still am on vacation a nap sounds pretty nice 🙂 I do have some ice cream in the freezer and I think that would go nicely with a nice tea 🙂 Today I’ll only do one thing, every now and again I’ll go out to the vegetable patch to check the cabbage for butterfly eggs and caterpillars. It is amazing how fast even the tiniest caterpillar can eat those leafs!
The new harness, it is called “Military harness”. I have no idea if they used something like this in the army anywhere but it sort of looks like it. The leash can be attached at her back but also in the front which the next photo almost shows 🙂..
So I woke up to e clear sky just before the sun started to rise and we went out for our morning walk as soon as I had put on my clothes and the dogs their harnesses. I did take a look at the thermometer before we went out and it showed 4C (39,2F). It was wonderful to take a slightly longer walk in that temperature because not a fly or mosquito were around to bite and annoy us 🙂
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Alma had once again decided that she would be impossible but she did at least not scream loudly when we passed our neighbors and Albin didn’t even look for Salmiak. Salmiak however is totally ok and it might actually be that Albin never tried to bite him but just push him down with his nose but as I said to the beekeepers I’m not willing to try it again just to see if that’s the case 🙂 🙂 🙂 Anyway we walked down to the creek and followed it down-streams. Alma was everywhere as usual and when Albin wanted to walk out on one of those small bridges that cross the creek she naturally had to follow and since Alma is like she is she then fell down and in to the rather muddy water 🙂 🙂 🙂
.Those three trees are the last ones in the WOW trees 🙂.
That didn’t calm her down especially much and we had a full blown war between us all the way home. It’s fun but as soon as we pass the gate she calmes down and becomes that wonderful dog she is here at home. She smelled of mud and rust, lots of rust in the waters here so I had to shower her. I could have and should have done it outside with the garden hose but instead decided I should do it in my tiny bathroom. I decided that she would follow in her own pace and everything was going fine until both Nova and Albin decided they too had to go in to the shower. Well I did manage to get in there but she wasn’t happy. At least until she realized it wasn’t that bad, perhaps even rather nice 🙂
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After that I had to go to the store. I decided I should go to the one in the village where I work, mostly because I needed duct tape. They are the only ones I know that sell a kind where one can split it in half and get two thinner strips. All other ones are difficult to do that with. So off I went. At the same time I got two text messages that told me I was going to have two packages delivered to my home but I didn’t need to be at home at the delivery. Just before I left the store I also got a text message that Almas new harness had arrived and that I could pick it up in Gudhem. I could have waited but thought I really want to try it as soon as possible.
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When I came home again my neighbor told me that a guy had been here to deliver my packages but went to them instead. My neighbor told him to leave the packages with him or just put them in my garden around 20 meters beside. No problem the delivery guy said, tossed the packages in the car again and drove off??!! I then got a message that the packages had been delivered but I didn’t have them and my neighbor hadn’t either. So I called our postal service and was pretty angry, asked something about if the driver possible had some mental challenges or other problems (I’m not proud of that)Â (I did say to the girl in the phone that I wasn’t mad at her but she was the one who unfortunately had to take my anger). She fully understood and after perhaps ten minutes waiting she then asked how my neighbors house looked like. The delivery guy had told her he had placed the packages close to the post boxes (around a 100 meters, much the same in yards)Turns out that he had placed my packages at the farm up the slope!
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I know I have a high hedge but my cottage is very visible when driving down the slope so I have no idea why he though my neighbor next door meant the farm up the hill??One package weighs 20Kg (44,1 pound) and the other package was very big but not heavy at all, so I had to go back home and take my car to get it back home 🙂 🙂 🙂 On the other side, I did get my neighbors mail in my mailbox instead 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well everything was solved and now I don’t have any more packages so everything is as it should but if I can chose who will deliver my packages in the future it will never be our postal service again!
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Have a great day!
If Albin doesn’t want to play Alma is fully capable to entertain herself with an apple 🙂 🙂..
The Cottage by the crane lake. 