Category: Nikon D7100.

Now I can see the mess :-)

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We were supposed to have rain all day today, not much though, so I’m not the least surprised that we until 5:50 pm had sunshine all day long 🙂 A strong wind has been blowing and that kept the flies away and it has been warm as well. 

I didn’t look outside the window when we went up this morning and since I do have a rather high lilac hedge around big parts of the cottage I missed that we had morning mist. I did notice it before it evaporated though so there was still some left when we had our morning walk. A walk in a sunny, misty and cool morning is better than most things in life to be honest. Small birds were flying around everywhere, Jays argued somewhere in the tree tops and I could hear some animals trotting away from us.

The ground is drying up again so I still need to water the most vulnerable trees and perennials and I do that either just before we’re out on our walk or just after. Today I once again had to pick up a parcel, this time it was a LED light bar. The old fluorescent lamp I have down there is long gone, I’m not even sure if one can get parts to it any more. During winter I always have plant lights on but now one of those broke as well. I’ve put the new one up and almost regretted it because now I can see the mess 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll need to clean it all up before I start taking down the trees I must have indoors during winter.

I haven’t done much after that, we did take a long nap though but I’m not sure that can count as doing something 🙂 🙂 🙂 Isn’t it strange that the phone can be quiet all day but as soon one is falling asleep the entire world wants to reach You 🙂 🙂 🙂 and then as soon as the nap is over the phone gets quiet again 🙂 🙂 🙂 Mostly it’s telemarketers so I’m happy to say that they now are discussing a new law that forbids telemarketers to call privet persons unless we specifically have allowed them to 🙂 This is a law I’m really looking forward to!

The Dahlias I sowed had only bright yellow flowers in the beginning.

Then some showed some orange as well.

Yesterday morning I found this bud.

 

And today it opened up bright red 🙂 Dahlias are supposed to have migraine-inducing colours according to my taste so this one I like 🙂

I is time for that last cup of tea for the day. To be honest I think I could drink an entire pot without having problems to fall asleep because I’m still just as tired as I was before the nap. 🙂

Have a great day!

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Morning mist again this morning but we came out a bit late so it wasn’t much left when we had our morning walk. Still the one still left was rather nice. 

 

The rain prediction they first guessed should fall today were changed to showers and then changed to just cloudy so I wasn’t surprised that we mostly have had sunshine today with the occasional cloud passing in front of the sun. It has been rather warm as well so I did some sawing in the old apple trees. I bought one of those on a long stick so I could cut off dead branches higher up in the trees, Now I realise that I should have bought one of those telescope sticks because there’s lot of dead branches pretty high up in the trees. 

I also by mistake cut of a big branch that still was alive but to be honest it opened up the tree a lot so now air will flow more easily through the tree and hopefully it will keep apples from rotting and perhaps it will help to keep the different fungi infections the trees can get since they’ll dry up faster after rain and high humidity. There are still lots I can cut off and I do have the time to do it without feeling stressed about it, I’ll have lots of tea and coffee breaks that is 🙂 

The paper shredder has arrived at the grocery store in Gudhem but I’m waiting for another parcel coming via another shipping company to the same grocery store. I don’t know when it arrives though otherwise I would get it at the same time, I really don’t like to drive around unnecessarily even though it just a ten minute drive away. So I guess I’ll pick it up on Monday when I’m going to a bigger grocery store anyway and pick it up on my way home. You might think that I should buy my groceries in the smaller one but they don’t have especially much to be honest, I will however buy more ice cream there to make sure it doesn’t melt on the way home 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I think I’ll have the last of the ice cream I bought the other day. Also it is time to give the dogs their dinner as well. My headlamp is now charged so if we need to get up in the middle of night to do our businesses I’ll go outside first to check so there isn’t any badger walking around there again 🙂 🙂

The Jerusalem artichoke, a perennial sunflower, already flowers, almost a month early.

Have a great day!

Another perennial sunflower, they are quite popular amongst pollinators.
They needed to have a long rest after my hard work with the apple trees 🙂

Finally lots of rain (but still not enough :-) ).

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They finally got it right, we have rain. Most of the time it’s nice summer rain but every now and again heavy showers and we’ve even had thunder passing to the west of us. I’m so annoyed that I haven’t found the jigsaw because if I had I now would have had three full water barrels, all containing around 300 litres (79,3 gallon US) each. They’re guessing we’ll have rain all weekend so if I just find it I’ll be able to open up the third barrel that’s just waiting to be opened up.

From the window beside the computer upstairs.

The morning walk was quite different though, slightly cloudy but with huge gaps between the cloud masses and enough cool top have morning mist, something I really like to see. t was more or less vanishing by the time we went out but there were places it still lingered. Jays were arguing loudly but besides them it was quite quiet. Alma and Malkolm behaved so well and it was cool enough to keep even the moose flies calm. So far I haven’t seen many of the moose flies and I do hope the drought has killed most of them.

We woke up rather early, even for me, at 4 am so I opened the door for the dogs so they could do their business. Well that didn’t happen because Alma found some animal in the garden and started to bark like insane. It was so dark that I couldn’t see anything but I’m pretty sure it was the badger again 🙂 🙂 🙂 It has now dug a hole beneath the fence to my neighbours, I found it yesterday. She (I think it’s a she because of the size) hadn’t been able to get in to my garden for a while, instead she has dug her small holes in the ground around my garden just beside the fence. It does seem I have lots of things she likes to eat here, frogs, slugs and snails (and fallen apples on the ground) so she decided it is worth the risk of meeting fierce Alma 🙂 Malkolm was smart enough to stay by my side instead of joining her 🙂 🙂

So I think it might be time to put up that wildlife camera again. I hope the batteries still work because I really don’t want to have to drive away just to get batteries. If it catches any nightly visitors I’ll of course show them here. I know the fox tends to visit us as well and lots of cats of course 🙂

It is time to have that last cup of tea for the day, after that I don’t know what to do. I actually have lots of things I can do but for some reason I don’t want to do them and I don’t mean chores but old hobbies I used to have. I guess I still have those hobbies but at the moment I just can’t get myself to start with any of them 🙂

Have a great day!

I just can’t find it, or the hammer.

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The rain we had lasted two days, now the trees look just as sad as they did before the rain, not even the grass started to grow especially much. They once again say we’ll get bucketloads of rain, if the showers come our way  🙂 🙂 There will be, from what I understand, a steady rain falling though so lets hope both the steady rain and the showers comes our way.

It has been really nice today, no rain but rather windy with mixed clouds and sunshine. Ok it dried out the ground and vegetation even more but it was really nice to be outdoors :-)I did almost everything I had planned to do except the cutting down the elder trees. I’ll do that tomorrow before the rain arrives, if it does. I still can’t find my jigsaw, I even went through the old garage and the wood shed and even went down and checked the cool cellar.  I can’t for my life understand where I’ve placed it 🙂 I can’t find my hammer either?!

I wanted to hang up the orchids I have had outside all summer and was only going to put up a hook (unfortunately I couldn’t find any hook at home that is supposed to be screwed in, only ones one need to hammer in). I have however found my (Have no idea what they are called in English) exchangeable bits I put in the  screw driver, I don’t need them at the moment but I’ll put them where they are supposed to be so I can find them again 🙂 🙂 🙂 also all my drills and a few cameras I’ve wondered where they were 🙂 🙂 🙂

I’ve just had my last cup of tea for the day and tonight they show Death in Paradise again so I have that to look forward to. Tomorrow I’ll continue to search for that jigsaw and now also the hammer 🙂 Both must be somewhere and perhaps they’re on the same place. Sometimes it feels like I get blind when looking for something, it can be just in front of me but I still don’t see it, happens all the time when I place my mobile where it shouldn’t be 🙂

Have a great day!

By the way, I remembered to buy ice cream today so I’ll have some of it while watching tv 🙂

It did rain all night.

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We never had those heavy showers here and I haven’t heard any news about them either so I guess they never happened. We did however have a nice summer rain all night so that’s at least something. The rain water barrels are perhaps filled to a third but I had hoped they would be more than half full. Well we can’t get everything I guess.

Still we had a cool and nice morning just as the last fog vanished. Both Alma and Malkolm behaved really well, even when we passed the soon to be former neighbours cottage. We scared a Jay that was walking on the gravel road and I could hear ravens nearby and cranes from a distance. I also noticed that there were plenty of tiny toads walking across the  gravel road, from one ditch to the other. I’ve had unusually many in my garden this year and unusually many frogs as well. They’ve been hiding in the higher vegetation close to where I’ve watered all summer. I do hope none of the dogs see the toads because they are poisonous and if a dog chew or eat one they can die.

I’ve ordered a paper shredder today. back in the days when one had paper bills here in Sweden they always wrote our social security numbers on the bills or any kind of paper to be honest. It seems that back then identity theft wasn’t a thing. When we had paid the bill we just tossed it in the trash. Things are different now days I’m afraid. So I have loads of old bills that I should have thrown away (recycled) years ago but then I would have to tear away that part where my number is printed and to be honest there are funnier things to do during the day 🙂

The recommendation here is to save those papers for ten years so I have loads to destroy now. I belong to those who are happy we don’t have it that way any more, instead I just save my bills in the computer  until they are old enough to delete. Thankfully they don’t write our numbers down in bills any more. Envelopes are another thing, we can’t recycle them because of the glue and I don’t think the shredder likes that either but then again they’re easy to just throw in the garbage bin 🙂

I’ve also managed to put the new chain saw chain on the chainsaw and even managed to stretch it enough so it won’t loosen its grip while working with it. We’ll have a rather nice weather tomorrow so after our morning walk and the grocery store trip I’ll have to do I’ll start cutting down the grape elder trees I’ve started to cut down. Grape elder tree is so bad that I don’t think it even works as fire wood when it is dry and I think it’s the same with our common Elder.  I would like to get that wild plum tree cut down as well but I think it’s best to cut off the branches one by one because those thorns are terrible.

It is time for that last cup of tea and I think there actually is something I want to watch on tv before it is time for bed.

Have a great day!

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We are supposed to have loads of rain today, bucket fulls of rain. We did have rain during the night, a soft and gentle summer rain but after that mostly drizzle as best. I’m sort of disappointed to be homes 🙂 Ok the day isn’t over yet and the Swedish weather site says lots of rain or very little in the evening while the Norwegian says sort of what we had during last night, not enough at all. I’m afraid the Norwegian site use to be the one one can trust.

I haven’t been just idling around waiting for the rain though, I’ve made a pasta sauce in the slow cooker and I’ve baked bread as well. Also I decided that I would start the filter in the aquarium again. It is filled with a quarter to what it can take because  I thought the plants in it should survive just in case I would buy some fish again. I emptied since I had to work evening shift a couple of times and didn’t know how wild the dogs would be when I wasn’t at home. I would have liked to have them in the dog yard while I worked but since they bark at anything moving when it is dark outside they would wake up my neighbours and they are just too good to do something like that to.

It took me one hour to get the filter to actually work and not just sound as if it was working again 🙂 🙂 I did fill it with water as much as possible and it still refused to work. It turned out that even though it was filled it still had som much air inside that it couldn’t work. I’ve watered my tomato plants and tomatillo plants with the water that was inside the filter before I cleaned it. Aquarium water is an amazingly good fertiliser so I hope they will enjoy it 🙂 🙂

I was going to cut off the top on this barrel so I could have one more rainwater barrel. Didn’t happen because I can’t for my life find my jigsaw 🙂 🙂 I looked at it just a few days ago and can’t remember where it is 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day, I have in fact the cup beside me 🙂 The reason I made the pasta sauce is because I want to try and bake pierogies, something I’ve never done before. So I’ll put it in a lunch box and in the freezer until it is time to do it. For a while, long ago pierogies were the street food to eat but then the kebab came and now days very few actually seems to know what a real pierogi is. It’s actually raining outside again, still just a gentle summer rain though.

Have a great day!

They say it’ll finally rain a lot tomorrow.

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It has been warm all day, 25 C (77 F) most of the day before noon was sunny and most of the day after has been cloudy. Still warm though and we’ve also had a rather strong warm wind. I slept for much longer last night than I’ve done in years, a cold is spreading here and it might be that it has made me so much more tired, a bit stuffed in the nose but nothing worse for me. My neighbours had it much worse.

The leafs are going yellow but it’s because of the drought and not so much because we’re closing in on autumn.

So since we went up much later we had our morning walk before we had breakfast. I could hear some ravens and small birds were tweeting but besides those it was rather quiet. We walked down to the creek and back because I didn’t want to walk in the high grass in the forest now when it is dry enough for the ticks to stay there.  We walked in the high grass yesterday and I had to pick plants of ticks from the dogs after we had come home, nasty animals!

I’ve also been to a big grocery store in Falköping this morning, a nice change to the supermarket I usually go to. I was going to stop on the way home at the small grocery shop in Gudhem on my way home to buy ice cream, it gives me enough time to come home without the ice cream melting. I of course forgot that so still no ice cream in my home 🙂 🙂 🙂 I do have a can with peach halves and one smaller with pear halves so I might have one of those instead.

I would like to tear up all these vibes with small yellow flowers now. They are annuals and has already spread so many seeds that there’s no risk of them not coming back. However we have loads of bumblebees here and these small flowers are perfect when they need nectar sonce they will continue to flower until the frost kills them.

They say that we will have rain tomorrow. Anything from one centimetre (two fifths of an inch) to 4 cm (one inch and three fifths of an inch) falling down from the sky. I do hope we’ll get the higher amount because I would at least not have to water anything for a couple of days 🙂 🙂 It is so dry here now that we only get very little dew in the morning and when that happens we’re really in a secure drought.

I want to remove the wild plum tree I have but I’m afraid to even go close to it with thorns like these 🙂 🙂 🙂 The sooner I do it the better though, it’s just a young tree and if I with it’ll only get more thorns 🙂 🙂

I was planning on baking a bread after this but it will be done so late that I better start tomorrow since we actually might get that rain 🙂 Time for that last cup of tea for the day and then some tv watching.

Have a great day!

Fog.

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To my surprise I woke up to a slightly foggy world, not a great fog but still foggy enough 🙂 No wind, a few birds tweeting and I could hear cranes flying south west towards the coast and the ravens of course. Alma behaved so well today that it surprised me, yesterday she did anything but that 🙂

Yesterday I also learned that the moose fly season has started over a month to early. I caught one of these nasty insects while it walked up my hoodie towards my neck. I truly hate them, even more than I hate ticks. So I actually texted friends I know are out in the forest a lot so they can make sure the flies can’t get in beneath the clothes in any way. No nasty one today though. Instead we didn’t even have a single annoying fly either despite it being rather warm and that sort of made me happy 🙂 🙂

I was going to get two packages from the post office in the grocery store in Gudhem today. I had ordered a saw that one puts on a long shaft so I can saw off dead branches on my trees higher up and I have bought a “new” lens to my camera. You’ll not notice anything though because it’s the same brand as the one I have but a bigger telephoto lens. The lens works perfect but when I took a look at the saw I noticed I’ve bought one with another coupling than what I have to the rest of the garden tools I have from the same brand. It’ll take longer to ship it back than to actually buy a new shaft 🙂

Anyway now days it’s almost impossible to get the package if You don’t have a mobile phone and just as I drove in to the parking lot I realised I had forgotten the phone at home 🙂 🙂 So I had to drive back home, upset my dogs since I didn’t let them out from the dog house and drive back to the store before going back home again 🙂 🙂 🙂 I felt so annoyed about it that I forgot to buy ice cream and I do long for ice cream right now. I do however have custard at home and apples in the trees so perhaps I’ll bake a pie instead 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and a slice or two from my newly baked bread, it’s cooling off down in the kitchen right now 🙂

Have a great day!

I also found my grass trimmer :-)

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Cool and nice morning today. It had rained some during the night but it didn’t make any difference, the ground is still bone dry. I made a quick trip to the supermarket, just to buy a few things I might need over the weekend. I had a list, followed it but still came home with loads of things, like canned fruit 🙂 🙂 So the trip that would go fast and not cost too much became just the opposite 🙂 🙂

Finally a butterfly eating from the Butterfly bush 🙂

My little meadow is still rather full of flowers.

They started showing late but now I have plenty of them, the California poppy.

The pile is gone, only a few that were too big is left.

My hands have lots of small cuts and they hurt because I forgot how many branches from the wild roses I had put in that other pile of branches 🙂 🙂 🙂 but now I’ve worked through both piles. It was the same with this one, lots of rather old half rotten left and those can easily be handled with the lawn mower. I also found my old grass trimmer in the patio 🙂 🙂 I didn’t have to do anything with it, it just started and worked perfect. The first thing I did with it was to trim away lots of stinging nettles 🙂

Besides this I’ve done very little today, I didn’t even do the laundry I had planned to because the compost grinding too much longer than I thought. I can do that tomorrow if they’re guessing on the weather is right, rain all day as best or very little some of the time as it looks right now. It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and after that I’ll take a look on what’s on tv tonight, I think it’s Death in Paradise tonight 🙂

Have a great day!

That was truly a surprise :-)

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I’m feeling a bit surprised today because facebook tossed me out 🙂 🙂 🙂 I was sent a warning that I had behaved inappropriate and something about their ads. So they removed me entirely 🙂 🙂 🙂 I have no idea why though because the only thing I post is the blog and my wordl scores. I have removed lots of the ads they show because I haven’t liked them and they were not about something I needed or wanted. Also I have liked all the anti trump posts I’ve seen 🙂 Someone said I could have been hijacked but since I’m removed totally it doesn’t matter.

Very few acorns here this year.

No matter where I look I look at Yarrow. Perfect since I can rub them on the dogs to try and keep the ticks away.

This flower is called Eye comfort. These flowers however is almost ten times bigger than they usually are. All other plants I saw were normal sized, tiny that is.

I have been thinking of leave anyway so I’ll not try to get back again, not by appeal or getting a new account. Still it would have been nice to say good by before I left. Well I do hope they don’t think I’ve died 🙂 🙂 Nice day once again here, more cloudy and with some rain now and again. I was using the compost grinder and since it is electric and with a cord it stopped me to work twice. Still the first pile is done, what’s left is some branches so old that they broke while I tried to lift them up. So I’ve been walking over them a couple of times and now I’ll leave them to autumn and winter to break them down totally. Tomorrow I’ll start on the second pile if it isn’t raining.

I don’t remember if I’ve told You about my mobile phone, I managed to drop it on a small stone and it hit the button that helps controlling the sound and if I want to take a photo of the site I’m looking at. It hit so good that I know can’t use the button and will until the day I say goodbye to it play everything on the highest volume 🙂 🙂 🙂 It can’t be changed in any way so if I look at something with sound it screams out and I have to block the speaker with a finger 🙂 🙂 🙂

Well it is time for that last cup of tea for the day, the machine is baking a bread and it would have been nice to have a cup of tea when I eat that first slice but the machine is anything but fast so milk is what I’ll have instead some time tonight 🙂

Have a great day!

It worked after all these years.

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+1 C (33,8 F) this morning but since there was no wind what so ever it actually didn’t feel that bad. I’m glad I covered the sensitive plants last evening. I don’t trust those temperatures the weather web sites show though, they say around 10 C (32 F) so I’ll cover them again tonight.

Perfect weather during the morning walk though, the sun was mostly shining, there were a few clouds that managed to hide it a few times, so it was nice in the sunshine but still so cold that the flies didn’t fly around. No cranes in the air this morning but four song swans (like Your trumpet swans) passed on their way to the little lake in the bog. I also saw a Jay fly away but that’s it when it comes to wildlife. All that rain we had last week has already dried up and very little dew as well but I managed to pick the three ticks that were climbing on the dogs. When we have lots of dew the grass is too wet for the ticks to stay there since there’s a risk they actually drown.

I also mowed the outside of the garden grass but the mower barely trimmed the tops 🙂 That’s the positive part with a long drought 🙂 🙂 🙂 I then remembered my compost grinder that has been standing beneath the roof of the patio for I don’t know how many years. So I brought it out on the lawn and took a look at it. The grinding parts were covered in rust and it was impossible to see how it looked inside the motor. I plugged it in just too see if it showed any signs of life anyway and to my very big surprise it started!!

So today I have started to work away the two big piles with all the branches I’ve cut away lately from most of my trees and bushes. I managed to grind down a lot even though it doesn’t show to be honest 🙂 🙂 and the mound of grinned branches isn’t especially big either but I thin I’ve actually done half that pile oaf branches today. I’ll continue tomorrow and I hope that I’ll at least worked through the rest by tomorrow evening. After that I’ll start with the second pile.

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and then I’ll watch a show on tv called Elsbeth, It has gotten good reviews so why not 🙂

Have a great day!

Trellied tree, or at least it will be.

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Once again we woke up to a pretty and cold morning. No frost but I had still covered all the more sensitive plants. I will not do that this evening because from now on nights will be warmer again and therefore we’ll be annoyed by the flies again. They might not be many but oh how good they are in annoying me 🙂 🙂

This morning however was more or less fly free, later in the day when it warmed up though lots of them did their best to irritate me here in the garden. we actually saw two deer on our walk this morning and thankfully Alma only noticed one of them 🙂 Today we walked down to the creek but from the other direction than we usually walk there. The beavers are damming up the creek so almost no water runs away from it. I noticed that they’ve brought lumber there so I guess they’ll try to trap it, don’t think regular hunting is allowed now in summer since they have small ones.

I’ve continued to cut down the big rose in the corner of my garden, it is anything but fun or enjoyable 🙂 🙂 I managed to cut of a branch that went above my head. Do You know what it is like to remove thorns from ones scalp and not being able to see what one does 🙂 🙂 🙂 I also planted that last pear tree seedling (are they called seedling when they are over two and a half years old?) I didn’t know what to do with it but then I started to think about trellised trees! So that’s what I’m going to do. I’ve put up the poles to the side of it. It is still to small to do that but all I need to do know besides waiting for it to grow 🙂 is to get some steel wire to be able to trellis it when it is time to start.

It is time to have that last cup of tea for the day and after that I think it will be an early night. I’ve had loads of tea and coffee but still feel pretty tired. Tomorrow I’ll go to the supermarket, I don’t need much but I hope they still have some of the Juniper berry soda I loved as a kid, Hadn’t seen it in years but then suddenly I found it in the super market. If You wonder how it tastes I can say that it is something between cola, dark beer and Dr Pepper 🙂

The big rose. This is what it looked like when I started

and this after twenty minutes work. My hands and head were really in bad shape after that 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll continue slowly and steady 🙂

Have a great day!

The work had begun. To be honest this will be so much easier to manage than a big tree. Perhaps not as much fruit but the quality of the fruit will be better. Plus it doesn’t take up as much space and it will not shadow anything behind it.