That cold we’re having going around here never want to leave. I’ve talked to those getting hit by it before me and just like me they still have it! No fever what I know but runny noses and coughing. So I’m pretty sure this must be covid, I’ve never heard of a cold staying for this long. It’s annoying but it doesn’t seem to want to kill us anyway 🙂 🙂 🙂
The odd thing is that at least I don’t cough at nights, only in the early mornings and in the afternoons. Well I’ve had worse things so it’s just annoying to be honest. We’ve had rather nice weather here for two days, lots of sunshine and rain only last night. We had a walk in the village yesterday just after noon. Alma had one of her impossible days, that dog wasn’t quiet for a second and she became even worse when first the mailman drove by and even more so when we met some villagers out walking as well 🙂 🙂 🙂
This mornings walk was better thankfully. At least she didn’t pull the leash that much. Both yesterday and today we passed dogs in dog yards, a under stimulated labrador in his garden. Nothing wrong with him really but to be honest I’ve never seen them taking him out for a walk and another little yapping dog in his garden but not close to the gravel road so none of the dogs cared about him at all 🙂 She didn’t care about all the bulls we passed though which I’m happy about because I really don’t want her to anger them up 🙂 🙂 🙂
Malkolm and Sara have played all day, even upstairs and it did sound as if they tore down everything up here 🙂 After that Sara went to Nova for a nap 🙂 Alma is still a bit unsure about what she can do since the day I had to rip her out from the couch when she twice sat down on Sara and not moving when the cat screamed for her life 🙂 🙂 🙂 Alma does after all weigh 35 kg (77 pound) and Sara 0,5kg (around a pound). So if the cat is with me and Alma in the sofa I quite often lift over Sara to Alma so that she knows she’s allowed close to the cat, as long as she doesn’t sit on her 🙂
It is the upper part of my little cottage You can see here 🙂
Again it is time for a last cup of tea for the day and perhaps a banana as well.
The rain has been pouring down all day and the dogs have refused to go outside unless they really needed to 🙂 It will stop raining some time tomorrow morning and after that we’l at least get one day with sunshine, that’s what they’re guessing anyway 🙂
I’ve now planted all but one Camellia in the garden. This one just beside the cottage on the east side andthis one beside the Pawpaws, I think that place has the best micro climate since nothing in there has been touched by frost. One was already dug down on the south side of the cottage.
So it has been very little activity here today, at least from me, the dogs have been chasing each other all over my little cottage and when Alma was bored by that Sara took over. She and Malkolm works really well together.
I have however make meat sauce today, unfortunately I had only bought big pack so I had to do more than I really needed to, around a gallon 🙂 🙂 Well I will at least have dinner for quite some time ahead 🙂 🙂 It did taste good though but I’ll need to put quite a lot of it in the freezer 🙂
That was about it today, tomorrow I’ll go to the super market so that I at least gets out from the cottage 🙂
Another rather wonderful but chilly day. -2C (28,4F) and lots of fog in the morning and sunshine for most of the rest of the day. By the time we came outside it had mostly turned to morning mist which I liked better. The sun had started to rise and rather quickly evaporated the thick fog. Alma had rather early on managed to make the leash to a choke leash. I have no idea how she managed to do that but after that she walked the best she ever has 🙂 🙂 🙂
I don’t use collars on my dogs, especially not Alma because her neck would most likely be destroyed within a week or so but since this worked so well today I might have it the same way tomorrow. She was however more loud than usual so I guess that’s a price I have to pay for her not tearing my shoulders again 🙂 🙂 🙂
We walked down to the creek and it was so nice to not have to wear the hood in my hoodie, this was way too cold for any insects to fly around in 🙂 It won’t be long before even the moose flies will be gone now, there are usually no left in the middle of October. The good thing with these chilly but not awfully cold nights and mornings is that the vegetation slowly gets used to it. None of my potted Apricots, pear trees or citrus trees freeze to death when it happens this slowly. Back in the days our first frost usually killed off loads of the more sensitive potted plants (and those sensitive plants in the garden) because it usually dropped down to -5C (23F) for a couple of nights the first times. Long time since that happened here.
I think I finally has managed to do the right things at the unemployment insurance website 🙂 🙂 🙂 There are still a red dot saying I should do one thing more but I’ve understood that it should be done next week, I truly hope so anyway 🙂 🙂 🙂 I think that to fill in both the the employment agency site will be something one has to do if going to hell one day 🙂 🙂 🙂 So since I’m doing it now perhaps I’m already there 🙂 🙂 🙂
It is time for a last cup of tea for the day and if we’re lucky we’ll have the same weather tomorrow 🙂
Alma isn’t fond of cows and today there was a cow in the pasture just outside our gate when we went out for our walk 🙂 Later on when I had to drive to the store we had another cow but on the gravel road 🙂 They are usually quite easy to get back in the pasture again 🙂
I’m trying to figure out the unemployment insurance site and it isn’t easy 🙂 🙂 🙂 If there’s something I want to comment or check it says where I should look but nowhere in the site I can find that particular place 🙂 🙂 It could have been so easy to just put in a link but I guess they want us to feel that life is hard 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve done what I have been able to today without going insane and I’ll continue to figure out more tomorrow 🙂 🙂
Cold mornings with either morning mist or sunshine with a few clouds up in the air is what seems to be what we’re having in the mornings here. The rest of the days can be anything, today we had sunshine mixed with light showers. Really tricky to figure out when the showers would pass since the forest block most of any possible view. It’s only towards the mountain I really can see anything but then again almost only when my own tress are leaf free 🙂
I’m getting really tired of this last cold, it never gives up! It is the same for all of us that had the pleasure to get it 🙂 No more fever and not especially runny noses but the coughing just refuses to stop, plus it can be gone for a day but then come back again. Thankfully I only seem to have it during the days and not nights like many other have it.
Today when I was in the living room I hear some strange noises in the kitchen. At first I thought it was Sara playing around but the sounds were too loud. So I managed to sneak really quiet out to the kitchen and found Malkolm and Sara going through the trash bag. You should have seen Malkolms guilty face when I cleared my throat 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve realized that Malkolm can move really fast and quiet, I did that when I picked up the trash and he suddenly were nowhere to be found 🙂 🙂 🙂 He had run upstairs and jumped up in the bed 🙂 🙂 🙂
It is time to go downstairs and make a cup of tea. I’m not really hungry to be honest but the dogs demands cheese so I guess a sandwich or two could be eaten anyway. There’s actually two programs worth watching on tv tonight and they will of course be shown at the exact same time 🙂 I know I can go in and watch the programs on, in this case, SVT.Play but I’ll most likely have forgotten about it tomorrow 🙂
Have a great day!
She knows which one of the dogs she has the best naps with 🙂
Frost last night and this time it hit everywhere. I brought in some unripe tomatoes yesterday so I hope they all will ripen by the window where I’ve hung them. I haven’t actually checked those outdoors today but I doubt they’ll managed to go undamaged.
We had a really nice morning walk, it was so cold that not even the moose flies were out flying 🙂 The sun had been up in the sky for a while though so most of the frost had already melted away from the vegetation. I would have liked it to be a bit warmer for the rest of the day though but I guess one can’t have it all 🙂
I think Alma look at her self as the mother of all living things and she really is careful when she’s around children, puppies and kittens but for some reason she’s really the opposite when it comes to where she wants to sit or lay down. Today, two times she has either sat down on Sara or laid down over Sara and really haven’t understood why I tore her away or why Sara sounded as if she was fighting for her life, screaming very loud 🙂 🙂 🙂 Sara’s so small that I don’t think she could feel that she was under her 🙂 🙂 🙂
Besides that Sara is thriving now. She has now gained just as much weight last week that she actually weighed when we found her, almost 800 grams (1,76 pound)! Her eyes are now clear but I do think she might not have perfect sight, if I drop some food beside her she knows I’ve dropped it but it takes some time before she can find it. That can of course be totally normal since she’s so young. That in itself doesn’t matter to me but I’ll talk to the vet tomorrow afternoon about it.
I haven’t had any nap today so I am a bit tired, how on earth did I manage to stay awake when I worked all day 🙂 🙂 🙂 I haven’t done any chores either, I am already getting lazy 🙂 Well I did bake some bread yesterday but only because I didn’t have any at home and I did go to the store today because I didn’t have either dog or cat food. The dog food will most likely arrive tomorrow but that doesn’t help me today. The cat is now so important to both Alma and Malkolm that both mostly wants to stay indoors rather than to go outside to the garden or neighbors. It’ll be nice when this first obsession is over and she is big enough to start pestering them instead, dogs usually comes back to normal when that happens 🙂
We all woke up at 4 am today, Nova was running in her sleep at the same time she sounded angry. I had stayed up longer than usual yesterday so I had hoped we all could go back to sleep after that but of course not 🙂 It had rained all night and was pouring down outside so the dogs just ran out to do what they needed to and then they all went indoors again 🙂
I had only planned to go to the super market today so I did that early. It continued to rain so the dogs still refused to go outside unless they really had to 🙂 There wasn’t anything worth watching on tv so I decided to go upstairs to take a nap. I usually fall asleep as soon as I put my head on the pillow but today it took a while before I felt that wonderful feeling that comes just as the sleeps hit.
At that moment a now days rather heavy male puppy decided to jump up in the bed and landed on me 🙂 🙂 Then he jumped down again and continued like that for a while. Sara the cat had learned to climb the stairs so he was playing with her 🙂 🙂 🙂 I continued to try and fall asleep but gave up after a while. So I turned of the timer looked at the ceiling and after that I don’t remember anything 🙂 🙂 I must have slept for several hours when I finally woke up 🙂 🙂 🙂 Turns out that Sara had fallen asleep beside me and when she did that the dogs just fall asleep around me in bed 🙂 🙂
I slept for too long I’m afraid so I’m just as tired now as I was then 🙂 I’ll try to watch some tv but I’m afraid it will be an early night today 🙂 Not even several cups of coffee has helped to make me less tired 🙂 Well I better go downstairs to the tv and try to stay awake there instead 🙂
Have no idea where time flew yesterday, suddenly it was time to go to bed and no time left to write a blog 🙂 I went to my old work place to get the employer certificate but it turns out that works automatically now days so it was sent to the unemployment insurance on the last pay day, that’s today 🙂 So instead I walked around talking to everyone and had a really nice morning 🙂
These photos comes from the folder “For a rainy day”.
v v
Got a text message from a work friend early this morning about a job that would be perfect for me, in the same village where my old job is. The fun thing is that I actually was going to get a job in that factory 17 years ago but for some reason couldn’t find the place and that was odd since I actually lived nearby but just couldn’t find it 🙂 🙂 Instead I drove to my old job and asked if they needed a painter. Started working there the day after 🙂 🙂 Turns out that was a good thing because the place I actually looked for went bankrupt two weeks after. I remembered where the place was as soon as I got hired at my old work place 🙂 🙂 🙂
It’s always stressful to look for a new job, especially since I’ve almost never have had to search for one. What is important what isn’t? Well since this is a painting job I mentioned that I was educated as a car painter at Volvo cars but that I also had done other things there but for the last 17 years I’ve been both a powder painter and went paint painter. I also have the CEO from my last work place as my reference person and I do hope that helps a lot 🙂
Sara is doing really good. I was worried that her stomach wasn’t working properly because lots went in but nothing out but just as I was on the way to be she showed her stomach works really good 🙂 🙂 Her eyes are puss free now and she has a lot of energy and I think it helps her having two big dogs as parents as well 🙂 She must be the cleanest cat in the world by now 🙂 🙂 Especially Malkolm follows her everywhere and she’s not afraid to show when she is tired of him 🙂 Still she has pneumonia so I’m not celebrating yet.
It has been raining constantly since I came home yesterday but now the sun shows so perhaps we’ll be able to have a walk before the rain starts again. So we better go out while we can 🙂
I had my day planned, I would go to my old work place to get a employer certificate so I can show that I’ve worked there for as long as I have and had no complains and so on. Lots of other things planned to do as well but that didn’t happen, wasn’t even close 🙂 🙂 We had morning mist even though we were quite late going on our walk, it was quite a lot more chilly that it felt when I let the dogs outside after we had woken up. I was quite pleased with that because we were heading for the forest and the eventual moose flies. Nova was a bit slow today so I chose to just have a shorter walk.
We found her far down in to the fog.
When we came back out of the forest I could hear something screaming quite loud. Took some time before I realized it was a cat, so we walked down quite far on the road where Malkolm always is allowed to walk of-leash. I thought that it perhaps was a cat that had gotten stuck in the mud and needed help or perhaps been run over by the four wheeler the ones working with the cattle use, they tend to drive really fast. We had been walking quite far down the path when I finally saw it, it was a kitten.
I must say that I was quite disappointed by the way Alma and Malkolm behaved (Nova behaved like the lady she is, she took a sniff at it and walked away 🙂 🙂 🙂 ). I was just going to pick the kitten up when Alma tossed it up in the air as if it was a toy. I scolded her really badly but fell and then Malkolm did the same. I can happily say that it is very different now, they adore her 🙂 Anyway, Her eyes were filled with puss and she couldn’t open them. So I brought her home, cleaned her eyes and called the vet. So now she’s registered to me and chipped. Turns out she has cat flu, pneumonia and some other smaller infections, all treatable. The problem of living alone and having pets is that when You’ve been at the vet You usually need to go to the pharmacy as well. I can’t eave the kitten in the car and I can’t bring her to the pharmacy, so I had to drive home to leave her in the cottage, hoping that the dogs will accept the bribes since I need to go back again to almost the exact place again to get the medicines 🙂 🙂 🙂
I left her in the bathroom with water and beside the litter box but also had to buy her some food. I had a big bag with cat litter standing in the bathroom, only three or four years since I had a cat her last time 🙂 🙂 I was about to lift it up and then the bottom opened up 🙂 🙂 🙂 The dogs changed their minds as soon as re introduced them and have been more or less obsessed with her 🙂 I’ve blocked the bathroom door so that she can go in and out as she pleases but to narrow for the dogs to follow. The vet had to have a name for her and I really hadn’t had any time to figure out any, so we named her Sara 🙂 She will most likely be called The Cat in the future 🙂
She didn’t get her shots today just because she’s too sick but will get them next week. Her eyes have almost turned to green so we figured out that she’s around 7 weeks old and weighs 390 grams (less than a pound). She is a bit tired of me right now because I have given her her medicines, both antibiotics and eye drops. She is now oddly colored around the eyes because the drops are bright yellow 🙂 🙂 I’m pretty sure she’ll be ok soon, she has a temperament that show she’s not going to give up 🙂 🙂 🙂
She will look a bit miserable for some time but she has a lot of energy and have walked around in the cottage a lot, followed by Malkolm and Alma 🙂
Almost frost again this morning, lots of morning mist, no wind and a rising sun. Mornings really can’t be much better. The mornings this week have felt like early summer, despite the yellow and red leafs. Lots of different bees on what still is in bloom as well. Very few wasps though, to be honest I haven’t seen especially many of them this summer, loads of different kind of bees but very few wasps.
I’ve tried to have naps many times today but every time someone or something has interrupted it. I’ll have to take a few more tomorrow instead 🙂 Alma is slightly better in her stomach so I hope we all can have a long nights sleep tonight. The problem is that she doesn’t wake me up, she just walks to the stairs and down to the door, I’ve been sleeping very light lately because of that 🙂 🙂 🙂 I realized that I wouldn’t have enough fish for her so I had planned to go to the supermarket tomorrow but thankfully my neighbor called, she was on her way to go home after work and asked if I needed something 🙂 so no supermarket tomorrow 🙂
besides that I have to say that today has been a really nice day and if it hadn’t been for Malkolm constantly jumping over the fence and continue to the little lake behind the dog yard so that I have had to have the kitchen door closed most parts of the day. He isn’t that old yet and soon the moose hunt starts and that’s not a time to be running around in the forest. So if he’s out in the garden I must be there too. A fun thing is that if he’s gone I just tell Alma to fetch him and she does 🙂 🙂 🙂 It takes a while but he does follow her home.
It’s time to brush my teeth and then go to bed, I do hope all stomachs are calm, otherwise I’ll be even more tired tomorrow 🙂 Very little sunshine tomorrow they’re guessing but still temperatures above 20C (68F). This must be one of the warmest Septembers in ages and I’ve enjoyed every warm day we’ve had 🙂
Sorry about not writing yesterday, I was so tired that I didn’t have any energy over. To be honest I did feel better but once again the night had been disturbed by Alma’s stomach. She’s now on a fish and rice diet and I think I might have to start Malkolm on that too unless he’s better by tomorrow. They are full of energy though and soon there will be no apples on the ground for them to eat 🙂
This morning.
I did go to the grocery store yesterday morning and found everything I wanted. I even went and bought myself a couple of trousers. I can’t remember when I bought trousers the last time 🙂 🙂 It’s so much easier to just wear the working trousers when coming home from work and walk out into the forest. I realized however that I really need to have at least one decent pair of trousers if I’m going job hunting 🙂 🙂
The thing is that sizes on work trousers aren’t remotely similar to what one find i the stores. I did remember the length size and thinking back I really isn’t even close to how fit I was back then 🙂 🙂 🙂 I took a wild guess and hit it at first guess 🙂 So I grabbed a second pair and was done in fifteen minutes 🙂 I don’t think I was that quick even when I knew my size 🙂 🙂
The cold is going the right way, I still have some fever but most of the coughing is gone. It was the right week to get this cold because we’ve had early summer weather here. Cold nights, close to or frost but slightly above 20C (68F). Only a weak wind and yesterday evening started with fog and it stayed all night so we had morning mist until we went out on our morning walk. Today it was cold enough to keep the moose flies calm but I did wear an almost white hoodie, they don’t seem to like them, with the hoodie up. One really don’t want them to crawl around on the head getting stuck in the hair 🙂 🙂 🙂
My neighbor is mowing their lawn, I haven’t mowed in weeks 🙂 I’ll do it when this tiresome cold has went away. Ill have to wait until the afternoon because we have so much dew here now that the grass is soaking wet in the mornings but just very wet in the afternoon.
It was sunny during our morning walk again and I just took a little to long time to go out so a few moose flies were already flying around, only in the sunshine though, it was still below 4C (39,2F) in the shadow. These flies are sort of rubbery so one can’t smash them to death, one needs to sort of roll them between the fingers. They won’t burst open but the wings will fall off (something they do themselves when they have landed on a victim) and they won’t be able to reach any other animal. So now I have at least made sure fewer of them will fly next year.
Alma has a really bad stomach, because she eats too many apples and other berries. She woke me up last night and was in a hurry. I did try my best to get downstairs but was a couple of seconds late. I am however very happy that I managed to go down as fast as I could anyway because she ran straight in to the Jerusalem artichokes (these are never eaten but seen as any other flowers in a flower bed) and then I heard sort of three explosions 🙂 🙂 So now the rather difficult job has come to convince her to stop eating all berries and apples still around 🙂 🙂 🙂
Otherwise we’ve mostly slept today, I in the recliner and all three dogs in the sofa. I had my feet towards Alma’s head so there was no risk my feet would feel cold 🙂 The kitchen door has been open quite a lot too, not much sunshine but almost 20C (68F) anyway, the weather will continue being warm they’re guessing so lets hope they’ve guessed it right 🙂
I filled the bird feeder for the first time two days ago. Not a single bird came until early this morning 🙂
We’ve had a really nice day today, not as sunny perhaps but warmer, also no frost even though it was close. I was freezing when I woke up so I must have had a fever so I waited a bit longer before we went out on our morning walk so that it was a bi warmer even where the sun didn’t reach but cold enough for the moose flies to stay calm.
To be honest so far I haven’t seen that many moose flies here so perhaps last winter and rainy summer killed off a lot of then? We walked out to the bog, out on the peninsula, a favorite place for me and the dogs. I enjoy the views and the dogs all the smalls from the Fallow deer and Red deer and the badgers of course. Malkolm probably wondering what they look like and Alma wanting to pick up a fight with them, I really don’t understand why she wants that 🙂 🙂 Nova once met a badger. The badger jumped up on the road and ran towards her and old Sune , who was half Bernese moutaindog and half English working cockerspaniel, very much like Malkolm in his behavior.
Both dogs just stood there (always unleashed) and the badger came running to them. They stood there and sniffed at each other, looking really happy to meet each other, then they all turned away and went on their own directions. Five minutes later we met the Mrs, she wasn’t happy at all and both showed and sounded so we wouldn’t do it again 🙂 🙂 🙂
I haven’t done anything I was planning today, mostly I’ve just rested a lot but it felt like a nap only would mean lots of coughing. I have however baked gluten free french rolls. I never fully follow recipes but today I was close 🙂 and they turned out really good! I’ll write the recipe at the end and the changes I made at the end and it’ll be in centigrades and grams so You’ll need to change to Your measurements yourself, my brain is just too foggy right now 🙂
I will stay calm until this cold is over, calling companies asking for jobs but having a cold isn’t especially smart if they want You to come over to have a talk, it’s never a good idea to make an eventual employer sick when looking for a job 🙂 🙂 🙂 But I might have to go to the store and buy food.
A bumblebee had spent the night in the Canadian goldenrod, it was just waking up when we came home from our walk 🙂I’ve never seen flower buds growing together like this! It’s like they are conjoined twins.Lots of male starlings up in my neighbors birches.I looked at these for a very long time wondering what it was 🙂 🙂 🙂 Then I remembered that I sowed cob millet for the birds but they started to grow so late that I had forgotten about them. I hope the birds will have some use of them despite them being so late.
Anyway, the recipe.
Ingredients:
100 grams of potato flour
300 grams of brown rice flour Well I used 200 grams of white rice flour because I didn’t have any brown rice anything and one bag with 200 grams of white rice flour already open and didn’t want to open a new one 🙂 Instead I added 100 grams of Oat flour.
20 grams of powdered psyllium husk.
1.5 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of honey. Why destroy honey that way, I used brown sugar instead and probably 2 table spoons because the sugar is food for the yeast.
1 tablespoon of olive oil.
2 teaspoons of dry yeast or 20 grams of fresh yeast.
500 grams of lukewarm water.
Instructions:
Add all the dry ingredients in a bowl, including yest, salt and sugar. Well I’ve done that once and I really failed with that bread. I added all the dry things together with some strong tasting cheese (the recipe says olive oil but I can’t stand olive anything really), don’t take too much, it will feel like eating a well tasting rubber ball if You do that 🙂 🙂 🙂
I warm the water and then add the yeast, sugar and salt and let it stand for a while, perhaps a minute before I put it all together.
Then the recipe says whisk it all together quickly. Well I say use a baking machine if You have one or like I do an old time electric whisk and work the dough for five minutes. If You have all the strength in the world and muscles thick as a telephone pole just do it by hand 🙂
The recipe then says let it rest beneath a handkerchief for 75 minutes before You take it all out and form the rolls but be careful so You don’t press out the air. That’s quite stupid to be honest. This dough is rather firm, so form the rolls already after it has been worked on, put them on a baking sheet and then let it rest for 75 minutes.
The instructions then says heat up the oven to 275C and as soon as You’ve put the rolls in the oven turn it down to 200C. No don’t do that, put it o 200 from the beginning (well all ovens can be different so You’ll have to test that Your self I’m afraid), otherwise You might end up with burned surfaces and soggy middles.
Let them stay in the oven for 40 minutes, no that will be a bit long according to my tries. Today I had them in for 25 minutes with the oven working and then I turned off the oven and had the rolls in there for another ten minutes. Crispy surface and just enough baked through the entire rolls 🙂
v 
v 
Always a dog there to clean her up 🙂
The Cottage by the crane lake. 