Category: Presummer.

It is hard to shout quietly :-)

May 27, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

DSC_0003 (7) — The tree stump from the old crabapple tree. I would like to cover 99% of that big hole so that wild bees could move in. I’m pretty sure it is thick enough so bees would survive there during winter.

It has rained off and on all day but I didn’t care that much. I’ve been busy napping since I came home early after work. I woke up at 2:20 am to the sound of a dog vomiting. It wasn’t anything more than a ball of grass though so easy to clean up.

DSC_0007 (10) — We were walking down to the creek when I noticed that they’ve closed the road so that the cattle could walk over to another pasture. I really didn’t want to try and pass there with my dogs who are terrified of those electric cables, so we had to turn back again.

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I decided to let them outside before going back to bed again. So naturally Alma decided to jump over the fence and go god knows where. It’s so fun to have to shout as quietly as possible in the middle of the night to get that dog back home. Well someone had left a trash bag outside their door and Alma had gone though it. She smelled so wonderful and I was so upset about her that I couldn’t go back to sleep 🙂 🙂 🙂 It is never a good idea to put out a trash bag here, even if one perhaps doesn’t expect a dog to go through it at night, because magpies will tear it open as fast as they can and then spread the contents all over the area. I’ve done it once and I’ll never do it again 🙂

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She was also impossible on our walk so she is not on the top ten list of things I like at the moment, not even on the top thousand to be honest. So now she’s not allowed to be outside without me being there too and she really doesn’t like that 🙂 🙂 🙂 She knows that she isn’t allowed to do most things she does and doesn’t even have the decentness to look guilty when being discovered 🙂 🙂 🙂 I looked at a tv program with a dog expert who dealt with dog behaving like Alma and turns out they actually do the same things I’ve tried with Alma and sometimes without any good result either. So I guess I’ll just have to keep on trying until we either get it right or we both die trying 🙂 🙂 🙂

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They are now guessing that we’ll get rain tomorrow but actually sunshine all Sunday. It would be nice if they get the temperature right so that I finally can turn off the radiators. They work all night here and even if I don’t have them on high temperature they will at least keep the humidity outside, we’ve mostly had a humidity around 90% to 100% lately and it does it its way through the walls. The vegetation outside loves it though so I guess I can’t complain too much.

Have a great day!

It’s raining, it’s pouring.

May 24, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

No photos from today. This is the beginning of a cherry plum tree 🙂

The day started nice but went downhill after that. It’s a bit chilly, the humidity is up to 94% and it is mostly raining. Sometimes it stops raining but not for especially long. The rain will continue more or less for at least five days. It seems that the Cuckoo bird I heard didn’t have a clue to what weather we’ll have this summer 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Thankfully the dogs refuse to take walks when it rains and I’m not complaining about that 🙂 🙂 Even the birds seems to think this is a bit much and it looks like most of them hide beneath the roof on my patio, so nice to get more poop on everything in there 🙂 🙂 I did however take advantage of this rain and I’ve spread lots of flower seeds on the lawn pieces I’ve placed over the stinging nettles. I do hope they grow large before the nettles manages to grow through it all.

Yesterday I woke up pretty grumpy, I can’t remember what I had dreamt but that grumpyness stayed all day. Today I woke up even more grumpy, still no idea what I had dreamt about and I’ve felt both grumpy and cranky all day 🙂 🙂 I do hope I dream about something funny tonight because the days get so slow when feeling grumpy 🙂 🙂 I once woke up in the middle of the night laughing like crazy, have no idea what I had dreamt about then either but I did feel very happy when I finally went back to sleep. I wish that could happen again because it felt just great!

Never a good sign when ants gather like this, there are most likely aphids hiding in those leafs.

b (149) — I’ve sown lots of these today.

We have a holiday on Thursday (Ascension Day) and I hope I have nothing to paint on Friday because if I haven’t I will go home early. They are so busy where I worked before so they’ll have to work and that sort of feels nice, for me that is 🙂

Have a great day!

I’ve started to remove the lawn.

May 22, 2022May 22, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

DSC_0002 (9) — Do You remember that big old crabapple tree that grew outside the dog yard but fell down in a storm a couple of years ago? Root shoots from it have now grown so big that they’ve started to flower.

I woke up pretty early this morning, let the dogs outside and saw that everything still was pretty wet after yesterdays rain. So as soon as they had come back in I went up to bed and slept for an hour and a half more 🙂 Really nice and the dogs didn’t seem to mind either 🙂

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The day has mostly been cloudy, sometimes there’s been a gap between clouds so that the sun has reach us down on the ground. No rain really but the occasional drop has fallen every now and again. I did hang out the laundry to dry because an occasional drop doesn’t make much difference. The humidity has been rather high though, 88%.

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I’ve started to remove the lawn where the potato patch will be, so far I’ve removed perhaps a quarter of it and I’ve also planted three mini kiwi vines (I think they also are called hardy kiwi vines). I’ve done enough for the day I feel so I’ll continue to remove lawn tomorrow. The parts I’ve removed I’ve started to cover lots of stinging nettles. It won’t stop them from growing but it will at least slow them down a bit. Stinging nettles are an indicator plant, they only grow where there’s lot of nutrients, especially nitrogen, in the ground. I hate stinging nettles no matter how useful they are but I refuse to get rid of my dogs who are the source of all that nitrogen just to get rid of the nettles 🙂 🙂 🙂

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It looked like the frost took those tiny peaches that grow on my new peach tree but that might not be after all. The peaches are still there and they aren’t soft as they would be if the frost had damaged them. The color however is towards brown but perhaps that is what is supposed to as they grow? I do hope they hang on so I at least once can have a taste of my own peaches 🙂 I’ve also ordered another apricot tree. Unfortunately I had to order from the same place so lets hope they’ll do it right this time, there’s only place for so many trees in my garden and one peach tree is enough, especially since I never wanted one in the first place 🙂 🙂 🙂

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I think I’ll have a last cup of tea for the day. I didn’t win the big winning in any of the lotteries this week, so I’ll have to go to work tomorrow. Well I would have stayed that month we have after telling them one will quit working anyway but I think I would have felt much happier about it if I had won 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Have a great day!

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Nature loves it.

May 21, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

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It has been raining all day, sometimes just drizzle and sometimes a nice presummer rain. We managed to take a walk while the rain wasn’t too bad but after that every time I’ve opened the door to let the dogs out they’ve just looked outside and turned back in again.

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I think we might have reached 10C (50F) and even though it wasn’t especially warm it still has felt rather nice outside and I have been able to have the kitchen door open for a while. There’s one radiator working to push out any dampness that would have filled up my cottage otherwise.

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Nature loves this weather though so I’m not complaining too much. I’ve done very little today, I’ve taken a long nap and I’ve made pancakes 🙂 I just bought 32 eggs from a work friend, just in time actually because the day after I got them a fox found its way in to the hen and killed all but five of them. She knows it was a fox because it was still standing there when she went to clean up in the hen house. Well foxes need food too.

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There’s absolutely nothing I want to watch on tv tonight and I suddenly realized that the book I’ve started reading was a bit too familiar, I’ve already read it before. I do have some dvd’s I haven’t watched yet and have lots of other books I haven’t read either so I might do one of those instead.

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Have a great day!

DSC_0003 (5) — My two Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) trees have survived winter. Two small green dots that will become leafs 🙂

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DSC_0016 (8) — Sorbus domestica, apple rowan I think it’s called. Its fruits becomes pretty big and is said to taste good.

DSC_0018 (8) — Two of my camellias are still in bloom.

DSC_0020 (8) — Vitis amurensis, Amur grapevine.

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DSC_0024 (8) — I’ll unfortunately get loads of lilacs this year.

We didn’t get much but more will fall.

May 20, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

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The showers never passed above us here so we didn’t get that much rain but then again it’ll rain all weekend, perhaps no showers but I’m pretty sure we’ll get enough to fill up my water barrels. Today has been pretty nice though, just below 20C (68F), a little windy with cool air blowing and mostly cloudy with rather thin clouds.

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I had planned to dig up the potato and vegetable patches today but I felt too tired by the time I was supposed to do it so I’ll do that tomorrow instead, if it doesn’t rain too much of course 🙂 I do wake up early every day but 3:30 am is a bit early even for me but that’s when I need to get up on Fridays since I need to be first at work to go through (literally actually) the big washing machine before anyone else starts to work 🙂 There’s so much to do in the powder paint department that they need to work the entire weekend and they’ll also work on Thursday when we’re having a holiday here. Guess if I’m glad I don’t work in there any more 🙂 🙂

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We walked down to the creek after I had come home today and I must say that Almas behaviour has improved a lot. She still pulls the leash and she still shouts and whines but not even close to what she used to. Unless she see anything moving of course 🙂 🙂 She loves t watch birds or just even listen to them and now she can hear the Cuckoo bird everywhere. I don’t think I’ve ever heard as many as this year and the first one I heard Cuckooed from north and according to old folklore that means we’ll have a dry summer. Spring and now presummer has been dry so far so who knows if that one is right 🙂 🙂

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It is time for a pot of tea and I think I still have a few digestives I can have with it. I also think I might have some blue cheese to put on them and if the rain waits to start falling I even might have it while sitting on te kitchen stairs. No sunshine now but birds are singing and it’s quite nice outside 🙂

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Have a great day!

Yay! The mosquito season has started :-)

May 19, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

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I really didn’t need to paint anything today but the weather was so nice and we had summer temperatures so I did it anyway 🙂 🙂 It was so warm in the factory but so nice where I paint so that half of the day I was there was so nice and time just ran away. It didn’t when I had to go back to the heat again 🙂 🙂

DSC_0002 (7) — The cherry flowering is almost over and now starts the apples 🙂

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The clouds arrived before I drove homewards though and now it rains but just a nice spring rain. It can change pretty fast though if the showers that can give us up to an inch of rain comes this way. We do need the rain though so I won’t complain if those showers comes here. That would also fill up my water barrels so that’s another reason not to complain.

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I need to buy more fence. I put up fences around the places where I’ll have the potato patch and the vegetable patch and even though I do feel those spaces were smaller than I expected I still spent an entire roll of fence 🙂 🙂 🙂 I haven’t started to remove the grass yet, I’ll do that tomorrow unless it rains then too. I’ll place the removed lawn on top of stinging nettles, it won’t kill them but it will at least slow them down a little.

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The frost we had the other night killed almost all the small peaches on my new tree, they have turned brownish. I hope that at least the two that still just were withered flowers might grow in to peaches though. It also killed all my corn plants, that annoyes me a bit more actually. I do however have more seeds to sow so I’ll do that this weekend and I’ll cover the ground so that any small seedlings that show won’t freeze if we’ll get frost again.

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Yay, the mosquito season has started 🙂 We were walking in the forest when they suddenly attacked us. I have a few bites on my back but the most annoying one is on the side of one of my fingers. I don’t even know how it managed to go there since I held two leashes with that hand. Just a few minutes ago a woman with a stroller and a small dog passed my cottage and went up to my neighbors. The poor woman must have been scared to death when Albin and Alma suddenly started huffing and puffing and barking just as she walked beside my fence 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Have a great day!