Category: Nikon D7100.

Nasty wind.

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I doubt the monster wanted the bird seeds 🙂

 

Less cold today but we’ve had a nasty, bitterly cold wind blowing almost all day so it has been rather unpleasant to be outdoors. It was totally calm on our morning walk though so that was nice. I think I might have a fever now, I woke up last night felling awfully hot but my bedroom is anything but and today I’ve had a slight fever and sneezed a lot all day. I’m not sitting here feeling sorry for myself though but I do hope this isn’t the beginning of something worse like what my neighbours had last week.

Nothing special is happening here at the moment.  I have been thinking on Christmas decorations for some reason. I haven’t had a lot of that because cats and having rather big dogs that picked anything in their reach and chewed on them if they liked the taste 🙂 🙂 I do have a nice plastic Christmas tree and I’ve used it for two years but now I have a cat again 🙂 🙂 I do remember having a nativity set back in the days that I liked a lot but then one day I couldn’t find it, turns out my mother had given it away without asking me, quite common behaviour from her I’m sorry to say.

So I went online to see what they had there. Lots of different ones and they cost a fortune! Some I think I would be able to do better myself to be honest. I did find one I liked meant to be hanging on a wall I guess but it is oddly enough supposed to be filled with water?? Is it a kind of snow globe perhaps and every time one shakes it snow will fall down over the people? 🙂 🙂 🙂 To be honest, I have seen worse and I think that one would be the one working best because it would hang like a painting on the wall and the monster wouldn’t care about it. I’ll better check it once again 🙂

I took an extra look at it and no there’s no snow in it 🙂 🙂 🙂 It’s called a lantern with LED lights in it but why the water? Also rather expensive to be honest. Well I’ll keep on looking or perhaps I should try to make one myself even though making the humans and animals will be very tricky 🙂 🙂 I do of course have the advent candlestick I made from clay last year.  It’s not the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen but I did it myself, perhaps I should order some clay again and make the nativity set 🙂 🙂 I will at least have lots of fun making it 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and then go out on the net to see whether I’ll buy some clay 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Still waiting for that snow.

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View from my kitchen window.

Still waiting for that snow to arrive. Well to be honest we have actually had some but so little that it’s hard to find 🙂 🙂  They are threatening us with more later on though so I guess we’ll get it sooner or later. There has been snow chaos in other places though and I’m so glad it never came to us.

We have had fog though, so thick in the early morning that it was hard to see anything and then it slowly started to thin out just to come back again later. I do like fog so I didn’t complain but it did make the day a bit dark to be honest. The eyes didn’t notice it that much but the camera did 🙂

I had prepared for a snowy day so I made lots of rice porridge and learned that it worked just as well on a foggy day 🙂 Rice porridge is not something one make unless it is cold and snowy because it takes a long time to make, easily gets burned and if it is burned one has to toss it away because it tastes awful. Making it on a stove is hot and boring since one must stir it around pretty often. I however make it in the slow cooker so even though it takes almost three hours to make one only have to stir it a few times.

I put on a new collar on the monsterkitten yesterday and she wore it for almost half a day before she lost it 🙂 🙂  This time I wrote my phone number on the collar so I got a call just minutes ago, she had lost it at the farm just up the slope 🙂 So I’ll get it tomorrow when I’ll check if I’ve gotten any mail. I guess that’s the place she mostly walks to because she does tend to smell like a cow  now days. I’m pretty sure her mother was one of the feral cats living there and that’s where the cat looking almost identical to her lives at as well 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day. It is pitch black outside and the temperatures will drop considerable so tomorrow morning might be the coldest morning so far this winter.

Have a great day!

The snow is closing in.

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We might get up to two decimeters (eight inches) of snow from tonight and until Friday afternoon so I decided to go to the store already today so I don’t have to drive in that garbage weather on Friday. I know, snow is pretty but I truly dislikes it. The only time I actually liked it was rather many years ago when I spent Christmas in a cottage even more remote than where I live now.

I rented a cottage back then in a region called Dalsland, close to the Norwegian border, and I had the best Christmas ever (I think that I have written about it here in my blog a year or two or perhaps even more years ago 🙂 ). Over half a meter of snow (much the same in yards), -28C (-18,4F), no electricity but a fire stove and my then two dogs and one cat. There’s no light pollution at all there so even if I can see lots of stars here it’s nothing compared to there. I spent an entire week there and as I said it’s the only time I actually have liked snow 🙂

This and the rest of the photos are taken with analog cameras and if I remember it right it’s an Agfa Ambiflex I took these six first ones, then two with a Nikon F90 and the four last ones with an Agfa Colorflex (can be wrong with that last one though).

Back then mobile phones just started to become popular so to hope for any kind of signal there was to hope for a miracle 🙂 🙂 🙂 I would have loved to live there but I think there’s a bigger chance to find a job on the planet Mars than in that region 🙂 🙂 🙂  Well I’ll have to endure the snow here no matter what but I do think that if I ever won the lottery I would buy something small in southern France so I could stay there during winter and move back here when spring arrives 🙂

I didn’t bring any digital camera with me on our walks today but it looks much the same as it did a few days back and I also have some wintery photos taken with film cameras last winter so perhaps I’ll put in a few of those. I think it is time for that last cup of tea for the day, I will not bake a mug cake today no matter how yummy it was so I’ll just have that tea and perhaps watch some tv even if I doubt that there’s anything I want to watch, there rarely is.

Have a great day!

Cold.

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Pretty chilly here and even though I ‘m not that fond of cold weather I still have to admit that it is nice to walk on ground that isn’t muddy and as long as we have almost no wind it’s quite nice. Ok no wind means higher price on electricity but I guess that’s something we need to take wether we like it or not.

Nothing has happened here so I have very little to write about. We did have the first real snow this morning but it was so little that I only could see it lying on my entrance stairs. If I knew we won’t have any more I would even say that I liked it 🙂 🙂

I was planning on having a little nap every day now when I am at home but so far I’ve had none. The morning just flies by and when I think of having one it’s too late, at least if I want to have any more daylight hitting my eyes. The sun sets already at 3:43 pm now and it is a long time left until it turns again. I really should have been born so much further south where the sun stay up longer during winter and the temperatures never drops 🙂 Then again I would miss our summers here when it never gets especially dark, just a couple of hours in the middle of the night.

I made a mug cake today. I can’t remember if I ever have done that before. I wasn’t hungry but wanted something so I went out on the net to see what I could find. The recipe said to use cocoa but I put in a piece of mashed banana and some cinnamon instead and it turned out really yummy. I would have made one more if I hadn’t eaten my last banana 🙂 Well now I know what I can do if I feel that way again 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I really wish I had made that mug cake now instead 🙂

Have a great day!

So cold!

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It was a bit colder this morning than I thought it would be, it had dropped down to -9,4C (15,08F) as coldest. No wind and sunshine all day made our walks really nice though. I wore my studded boats because it is no fun sliding on ice and breaking something while being out at the bog where it would be very hard to find me 🙂 🙂 🙂 That however made it impossible to walk silent, those studs against the gravel road sounds like I’m crushing the stones 🙂 So instead of seeing them we could hear them run away in panic in all directions 🙂 🙂

It is much the same when I have them while shopping, people don’t run away but everyone looks around to see what it is breaking down 🙂 but it’s only in the beginning of winter that happens because after that most people use studs in either ones that can be removed from the shoes (no one will because they are horrible to try and get back when going outside again) or shoes with studs already in them. Even teenagers use them now days, might be nice to not have to go to school but no fun not being able to go anywhere anyway 🙂

Lots of hunting dogs moving around us while we were at the bog, not from this area but dogs doesn’t know any borders, especially not if they follow what ever it is they’re hunting. So we didn’t walk as far as I wanted to. Not that those dogs actually would care about us but because Alma would go nuts and start to screaming like crazy and I really didn’t want the hunters believe that their dogs was mauled by wolves 🙂 🙂 🙂 I hope there are less out hunting tomorrow 🙂

Despite it being so cold now I haven’t heard a single mouse in the cottage walls, it looks like the monster is doing a good job 🙂 It is time for that last cup of tea for the day.

Have a great day!

I took lots more photos today so perhaps I’ll save them for another day 🙂

Tiny, tiny snowflakes.

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Yes they fell yesterday evening but they were tiny and I think all of them melted away as soon as they hit anything because of all the rain we had just before they started to fall. When I say tiny, imagine misty rain, drops just slightly bigger than fog drops becoming snow instead.

It want cold during night though so I was happy I had bought new studded boots so I could walk anywhere even if it was mostly ice. -4,8C (23,36F) as coldest and just before we went out on our morning walk. Lots of frost everywhere so I must admit that the world did look rather pretty and it even gave me some Christmas feelings 🙂 We walked down to the creek and I was a bit hesitant to walk on the road over the creek. Last time we had this much water in it I fell down in to a sink hole created by water flowing beside the concrete pipe that usually leads the water. I was lucky that time because I happened to fall so my feet hit the concrete pipe and I also still had my shoulders high enough up so I could get out from there 🙂 🙂

The little metal bridge isn’t especially visible any more 🙂 I really didn’t want to try and walk on it so we followed the field until I found a place where we could pass and in to the forest.

All worked well this time but it was impossible to cross over to the forest on the other side of the fields so we had to walk quite some distance before the ditch that follows the edge was dry enough to walk over to the forest. The reason by the way that the water level is as high is because of beavers, they’ve more or less plugged the entire concrete pipe with sticks and mud 🙂 🙂 🙂  The rest of the walk wasn’t that exciting 🙂 🙂  and I never saw any beaver. Just as well because it happens that they attack people if they get too close and there’s also that beaver that for some reason walked up to a bust stop in a bigger city here in Sweden and bit a woman (I think it was) that was waiting for the bus. Just imagine those huge, yellow sharp teeth cutting in to Your leg!

Normally however beavers are very shy so no reason to be afraid to see one close by 🙂 I also went to a grocery store in Falköping today. I had bought what I wanted when I realised that it was a really long time since I had eaten reindeer, back in the days those packages were rather small. just enough for one or perhaps two dinners. Have You ever eaten it? If not You’ll either hate or love it. Reindeer with boiled potatoes and a mushroom stew is delicious according to my tastebuds. Anyway, I noticed that the price is nasty high now, even more expensive than filet of beef and the package was almost a pound so I had to skip it. To be honest, anything tastes great with a good mushroom stew 🙂

The reason I want to Falköping to buy groceries instead of Skara like I usually do was because I was going to pick up a small package on my way home. I had ordered some Narcissus bulbs and seeds to a small banana plant with edible bananas (if they ever would like to show up) and another seed I can’t remember at the moment. What looked like a good idea last week when it still would be fairly warm (when it comes to the bulbs) is now a slightly less good idea 🙂 🙂 Bulbs can be planted as long it is possible to make a hole in the ground and it will stay pretty chilly here for a long while it looks so I’ll most likely plant them in a pot and keep the in the cool cellar during winter and plant them when they have flowered next spring.

Now I remember what the other seed bag is, an edible passion flower species, Barbadine I think it’s called in English. I already have the common passion fruit flower seeds and thought that now when I have a greenhouse I’ll try them in there during summer. They usually germinate quite easy but to get fruit one need two different vines. By that I mean You can’t take a cutting from one and think that it is another plant because it is the exact same one that You took the cutting from. So two seed sown plants are needed and they will not give any fruit the first year. Passion flowers grow like weeds to be honest so as long as one treat them as they like they’ll never die 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is already (5:13 pm) almost as cold outside as it was this morning so I don’t want to guess how cold it’ll be tomorrow when I wake up 🙂 Sunny all day though so it might be nice anyway. It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and after that, later tonight, watch my favourite quiz program On the Tracks.

Have a great day!

Still raining.

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We were lucky today to have our morning walk before the rain arrived, well sort of because it did start to drizzle on our way home but drizzle doesn’t count 🙂 It has continued to rain all day and still does. Now even all those wood chips seems to slowly sink down into the mud beneath so even if I’m not happy about colder weather coming it will at least freeze the ground some so that it is walkable again.

There are two mushrooms on that tree stump and they’re both well over 30 cm (a foot) long.

Today the second package with an aquarium arrived and this one was actually not broken by our postal service 🙂 I was pretty surprised about that 🙂 🙂 🙂 They always wants us to grade how they did and possibly write a comment as well. So I wrote that perhaps they should teach people not to put other heavier packages on the ones having stickers saying Fragile on them 🙂 🙂 🙂 I think they truly dislike me at the postal center in Falköping because I once threatened them by calling the police on them if they didn’t stop placing my packages anywhere where I don’t live 🙂 🙂 🙂 That is however a non existing problem now days 🙂 🙂

It’ll be fun for those driving to work tomorrow morning when all this rain that has been falling turns to ice. We will have below 0C (32F) in the morning and it will not be that much warmer during the day. I’ll need to drive to a grocery store (and also a petrol station) tomorrow but I can do that later when the ice is gone. I could wait until Saturday but even if I don’t have a job to go to it still feels wrong to do that on a Saturday or Sunday 🙂 🙂

I have forgotten to make any dinner today 🙂 🙂 I was thinking of making pancakes but I’m just not hungry. So I’ll make them tomorrow instead. Yesterday I thought I went to be at normal time but I must have seen wrong when I walked upstairs because I had a text message that I thought arrived after nine but today when I checked the time it says it arrived at 8:30 pm 🙂 🙂 🙂  I did think it took some time to fall asleep 🙂 🙂 🙂 It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and after that perhaps watch a dvd.

Have a great day!

So dark and dreary.

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Even darker today even though it did light up some every now and again.

Rain all day except for in the morning plus strong winds blowing so we’ve mostly been indoors today. Still rather warm for this period of the year but what good does that make when we can’t be outside enjoying it 🙂 🙂 Still, the morning walk was nice since the wind hadn’t reached us yet.

The aquarium I had ordered arrived yesterday and as soon as I saw the package I guessed that it was broken. Too bad I was right. No real damage to it but one could see that they had placed other heavier packages on it because that is what one does when the package is more or less wrapped in red Fragile stickers, well that is at least what the Swedish postal service think is the right way to do it.

Lots of glue and tape and it might become a mini greenhouse 🙂

So I mailed the business I bought it from and they shipped away a new one as soon as they saw the photo of the damages and it will arrive tomorrow!! They didn’t want the broken one back so with some glue and tape I guess I will be able to use it as a mini greenhouse 🙂 I do wonder about our postal service though, back in the days even if a letter had the wrong address they still managed to get it to the right person but that a package marked fragile isn’t supposed to be placed at the bottom with other packages on to of it seems to be a mystery for them 🙂 🙂 🙂

Also a couple of years ago the constantly placed my packages at the wrong places even though they said they used the GPS. In the end I had to threaten to report it to the police as a harassment if they missed one more time. Haven’t had the slightest problem with that since then 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is so muddy now in places we walk all the time in the garden that I started to pour out those wood chips I got after I’d cut down all those branches from the trees.
It works really well and I have more chips to use in other places 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea and after that I’ll watch a dvd I think. I have so many but no place for them 🙂 🙂 Storage units is nothing I really have in this small cottage. I have one closet and mice went in there and chewed on all my clothes 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

So many varieties of rain in one day.

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Misty rain.

It is amazing how many different kinds of rains there are because we’ve had all sorts of it today. Misty rain which I think is the worst but it does at least look like thick mist or fog. The drizzle, not that annoying, light autumn rain and showers. The clouds were so thick that I needed to use ISO 3200 and 4000 to be able to take any photos at all.

No wind though so that was a big plus, so the dogs weren’t too disappointed when they had to go for a walk in the morning, well morning is the wrong word because it was pretty late before it was light enough to be able to see where we were going 🙂 We might get a chance to see the sun on Thursday if we’re lucky. Now it’s so muddy that even the dogs and monster dislikes to walk on the “grass” outside the entrance door but I’m pretty sure that if we had walked out to the same place as yesterday it still would be just as dry in the ground there.

My neighbours are all having a cold and I met my neighbour when we went out for our walk and just seeing her made me want to stay far away from her 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’m not sure if it is a common cold they’re having or this years influenza. What ever it is I’m sort of glad I already have my little cold because if one already has one kind of cold virus one can’t get any other at the same time, learned that last year when a doctor explained that on tv.  At least one good news when having one of them while several other viruses is hitting the rest of the population 🙂 🙂 🙂

I’m going to the supermarket tomorrow so I guess I’ll be safe from getting a new one since this little cold I’m having refuses to leave 🙂 🙂  Well it is time for that last cup of tea for the day but today there’s a science program on tv so I’ll watch that instead of a dvd.

Even the Magpies need something to eat.

Have a great day!

It is much dryer than I thought it is.

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Much the same weather today as yesterday so still quite nice. They say we’ll have a couple of warmer days before it drops significantly. By that it means below 0C (32F) during nights and just barely above during days. Well the ground will at least not be muddy any more so I guess I’ll be fine with that 🙂

It isn’t as wet in the ground that I thought it would be and I didn’t think it would be especially wet at all but it is even worse. Normally this time of year, if the ground isn’t frozen it would be hard to walk out to my favourite island in the bog. I thought it would be less water but still very muddy. There was neither water nor mud but completely dry so we could walk out there without any problems what so ever.

Normally it would be hard to walk over this area because of water and mud. The mud can be up to half a meter (much the same in yards) deep 🙂

Fun being able to get out there but still a bit worrying because this is what it is like out there during heatwaves and droughts in summer time but without the ticks and blood sucking flies. No hunters in this area but I could hear hunters all around us (safe distance so no risk of getting shot). I really would have liked to go on the north side of the island because it is much more beautiful there but trees have fallen during storms this year and since it is a nature reserve a fallen tree lies. It is possible to walk around them but if we do it means we’ll have to go through thickets and that’s not fun with two dogs in leash 🙂 🙂 🙂

We didn’t walk far on the south side, which is much easier to walk but less beautiful but now when I know we can go out there again we can do that later in the week instead. That was actually the first place I saw wolf tracks a couple of years ago and the dogs were anything but happy to be there. The tracks were as most an hour old because we had new snow on the ground that had started to fall just an hour before we went out. It showed that at least three wolves just had passed , could be more but they tend to walk in their own footsteps. I’ve never seen any wolf though but several in the village has and also some of the hunters have seen them. If I ever will I’m sure that I either have no camera or that it malfunctions when I try to take a photo 🙂 🙂 🙂

I think this lichen is what they used to have ,back in the day when we had one glass windows, as insulation when they put in another one glass window (Is that perhaps what You call storm windows?)when winter arrived and we of course call it window lichen 🙂

I think, if I’ve learned it right that this lichen is the one reindeer eat, so of course we call it reindeer lichen. It is more towards greenish than the photo shows.

I’ve ordered my Christmas present. I really don’t want it now but I’ll need it next winter. Before covid I would just have waited since they have things on sale every day and it wouldn’t have become any more expensive. Now however we have all learned that things have changed and prices will up because of tariffs and inflation (even though our inflation is lower than it has been in years now that’s not the case in all countries). So I bought myself an aquarium, a smaller one, because next year I’ll have goldfish in the little pond I’ve made and also in some of the water barrels I’ve put up. Those fish will be too big for the aquarium I now have changed to an aqua terrarium so they’ll need somewhere to stay the winter.

One problem though, I haven’t a clue where to place it 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well it’s about a year until I need to have it up and running so I’ll figure it out by then 🙂 Well it is time for that last cup of tea for the day and after that I still haven’t a clue what to do, absolutely nothing to watch on tv but I can always watch a dvd.

Have a great day!

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A grey and dull day but since we didn’t have any wind it actually turned out to be a rather nice day even though the temperature never rose above 7C (44.6F) and as it looks it will not fall especially much during the night either.

The hunters were out in the forest today and I doubt they had any success, turns out they had hunting dogs  but I couldn’t hear any barking until they were about to jump in the the cars again just before they left for the day. To be honest I’m a bit worried about the wild life here because it looks like we have very few of the bigger ones at all. I hope it is because of the wolves being here for a while and that they will come back when the wolves move back towards the south again.

I haven’t see a single hare either in a very long time. I really don’t like hares (or bunnies) to be honest Those front teeth can bite through anything and I’ve felt this way since, when I was a kid, my best friend had a pet rabbit 🙂 I can’t remember it ever biting me but it is enough to see those teeth to be honest 🙂 🙂 🙂 I do have the same feeling about water voles, they can grow pretty big to be honest and their front teeth are even worse (and very yellow with looks pretty nasty 🙂 ) and if getting too close to them they’re pretty aggressive 🙂 🙂

No sights of any animals more than some ravens and woodpeckers when we finally could have our walk but there are lots of rather tine mushrooms growing up in the forest. Usually pale grey or sometimes the same brown colour as fudge. Actually quite pretty where they grow in dark green moss and it feels sort of christmassy 🙂 One of our Christmas ornaments, especially in our advent candle sticks but some also have them in their Christmas trees are red toadstools. Have no idea why but I guess the red colour helps with that.

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and since there’s nothing I want to see on tv today I’ll need to find something else to do but can’t come up with anything, not because I have nothing to do but because I really don’t want to do any of it 🙂

Have a great day!

The sunshine is still warm.

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Dryer and colder winds will fly down over the country and I could feel it early this morning. 0C (32F) when the dogs and I went out for our morning walk. All the cars were covered in frost and the ground was slightly frozen so we weren’t especially muddy when we came back home.

Two male Bullfinches.

Sunshine all day long though and the heat from the sun was so strong that I could have the kitchen door open as long as the light hit the south heading wall. I can’t say it felt like early spring but it was really nice. This was however most likely the last sunshine we will see for at least ten days if the weather sites have guessed it right 🙂

The temperatures will fall so from tomorrow it will be a bit chilly here. Not below 0C (32F) during the days but perhaps during nights.  I took a look at the Kaki fruit kernels (an Asian relative to the Persimmon fruit) in the fridge, It does look as at least one might germinate so hold Your thumbs and cross Your fingers for good luck 🙂  This time of year is a bit boring when it comes to gardening and sowing. Well some plants need a winter or two to be able to germinate so I’ll start with those but not until January.

I bought myself a big Amaryllis (Hippeastrum) bulb when I went to the grocery store in Falköping after our walkThe ones I’ve seen has been ridiculously expensive but these were manageable in price. It says this one will have red petals with a white string in the middle of every petal. I don’t care if it is or not (usually lots of those bulbs are wrongly marked but who cares just as long as they flower 🙂 ) Have You ever sown the seeds from the Amaryllis? It is quite easy but it’ll take around three to four years until they flower and the flowers will most likely not look the same as the parent plant, sometimes one get the most amazing flowers from seeds.

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and later I’ll watch On the Tracks on tv, it’s really the only thing I watch now days 🙂

Have a great day!