Category: Rain.

They play dare :-)

September 23, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

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Today started rather nice, it was slightly cloudy when I woke up but the sun started to shine between the clouds while we were out walking. Also it was cool enough to keep most mosquitoes and moose flies away and that makes any day a good day 🙂 🙂

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I know I can’t have fallen asleep before two am and I woke up at six thirty am and I’m still less tired today than those days I’ve slept around seven to eight hours 🙂 🙂 I know the tiredness will come later but so far it feels pretty good. It si raining now and thunder just passed the village pretty close and I can see that more is on its way. There is at least no risk what so ever that any lightning will manage to start a forest fire, at least one thing we can than all the rian that has been falling for so long now 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Also I was thinking of using my new lawn mower for the first time today so I guess I should than the rain for not being able to do that 🙂 🙂 🙂 Today and tomorrow will be a bit cooler but we’ll have more sunshine tomorrow ands no rain, after that it’ll get cooler again but there really is no use in looking at those guessings since they have problems guessing the weather that will happen in two hours 🙂 It does at least look like we won’t have any frost nights the coming ten days. Normally the frost arrives around September sixth but so far it hasn’t even been close to happen.

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We’ve had lots of fog during nights though, sometimes I haven’t been able to see the road at all when driving home 🙂 🙂 Deer has probably had a competition about who’s the bravest and can run out in front of my car as close as possible, also a badger must have been competing about that as well. The winner however was a bird that actually was sleeping standing on the road, He can’t even have been more than an inch from getting hit by my car.

The mum I bought. I would rather had bought a rust colored one but this was the one they had 🙂

The rest of the photos show what’s in bloom right now .

I managed to get some photos in my garden before the rain and thunder started. Not much in bloom right now. I bought a Chrysanthemum yesterday. I’ve actually only seen this one for sale in the grocery store in Kvänum but they’ve had Asters instead and i didn’t want that. It is the wrong color and filled flowers but I wanted one so I bought it 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll plant it in my garden and if winter is mild enough it will survive until next year. It will look quite different (much higher than now) and might not flower in time before frost but I still want to try it. The only problem now is that I really don’t have any space for it 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Back to rain again.

August 26, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

DSC_0006 (6) — Lots of acorns this year.

We actually had quite nice weather here this week, until yesterday when it poured down most of the day . This morning was rain free but thick clouds covered the sky so it almost felt like the sun had disappeared behind the horizon and that night was on its way. Well now it’s a bit darker and the rain has started to fall. We might get up to 35mm (one and two fifths inches). It all depends on where the heaviest showers will pass.

DSC_0004 (5) — Quite misty up on the mountain today.

DSC_0011 (5) — Nova decided that we should walk in the forest and out to the bog.

I now have the radiators on a couple of hours each day, yesterday because it was cold but mostly because everything is damp with all this rain falling. Still I wouldn’t want to change to how hot it is in some places on the American continents or southern Europe to be honest.

DSC_0012 (5) — Autumn has arrived. This place was bright yellow last week.

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Alma just stood by my side whining a lot because she wanted to go outside. I opened the door and she together with Albin rushed out, stopped immediately when they got wet from the rain and rushed inside again 🙂 🙂 🙂 They ran up to my bed as soon as they had come inside again 🙂 🙂 🙂 Those two wouldn’t survive for long in the wild 🙂 🙂 🙂

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The bear hunt has started in northern Sweden and at least three people are already injured because the bears attacked them. I don’t know if they want sympathy when talking in the news or to news papers but to be honest, if You actually isn’t knowing how bears react when being hunted, often with dogs chasing them, You really shouldn’t be out there hunting bears. These are often the people who call them selves nature conservationist claiming that they hunt to make sure there aren’t too many herbivores eating too much of the trees and the rest of the vegetation.

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Then when nature is coming back and takes care of that problem they go on about those predators taking too many herbivores so there’s nothing left for them to hunt 🙂 🙂 🙂 I could perhaps respect them if they stopped being such hypocrits. They also hunt foxes because they eat too many fawns but then when they heard that we might have a new predator, the Golden jakal (slightly bigger than the fox and eat much the same things) they started to scream about how it will reduce the ammount of foxes! There is a fun thing about the jackals though, hunters aren’t allowed to hunt them since they naturally have migrated to this country and is natural to Europe. It would have been a different thing if they had escaped from fur farms in Europe and not being a natural habitant in the part of the world.

DSC_0045 (2) — I found some Hedgehog mushrooms today and these are just as delicious as the Chanterelles. Therefore one pick them even though one hasn’t anything to put them in besides the big pocket of the hoodie one wears 🙂 🙂

It is time for something to eat and after that I’ll do something that I might show here later 🙂 I’ll tell You more about it some other time 🙂

Have a great day!

We had a rain free day!

August 20, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

Yesterday we had a rain free day!! Not any sunshine but still rain free so we all did those chores in the gardens and on the farms that has been impossible or too hard to do when the rain is falling. I was the one who started the mowing, a couple of hours before the rest. The grass is growing like crazy now and even though I do like my electric mower it sure doesn’t work especially well when it is filled up with long and wet grass 🙂

I think we actually have a couple of real Wild apple trees (their Swedish name is actually Wild apple) Malus sylvestris.

They are becoming rare, we don’t even know if there are any real left because they cross pollinate with our garden apples. It’s always great to have a real Wild apple tree close by especially if one only have one apple tree because the Wild apple will help pollinating the garden apple. The ones we have a shoots from the old one that grew here when I moved to this place and that tree were old enough to actually be a real Wild apple tree. The apples are really small and mor sour than any lemon 🙂 🙂

The mowing too three times as long because every thirty seconds or so the mower stopped because there was just too much grass glued to its inside. I now have loads of small mounds with wet grass all over the lawn. I started to spread out the grass so it would dry up better but since it is pouring outside there’s no use in doping that any more. The farmers were out fetching those white balls that contains the silage they’ve made from earlier this summer. Also one neighbor was out cutting the grass and flowers along the gravel roads. They normally do that earlier in the season but since everything went late they waited long enough for most of those flowers to release their seeds.

These are the seven Apricot trees from seeds this winter. Growing well.

The pears however was hit by mildew and some died but they are finally growing again 🙂

I doubt that the hunters had any luck yesterday because of all the noise, I doubt there was a single animal even remotely close to the village 🙂 I don’t think they’re out there today either since it is pouring down and I really would like to take a walk today but then again my dogs refuse to step outside while it is raining so here we are, quite restless to be honest 🙂 Well I can do the laundry, bake bread and make dinner for next week at work but then again I’m not sure I’m restless enough to do more than the bare minimum 🙂 🙂

A15398_008 — Four photos from the Agfa Ambiflex.

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Have a great day!

e (8) — Well, I do at least get grapes 🙂 🙂 🙂

A second harvest and autumn colors.

August 12, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

We haven’t had as much sunshine today as they guessed yesterday but instead it started to rain much earlier 🙂 To be honest it was mostly drizzle but the grass went wet so I decided that I wouldn’t detsroy my day with mowing the lawn 🙂 Also the few flies that still flies around are nasty now and I don’t know what kind is biting but it sure itch a lot afterwards.

We went out to the bog on our morning walk. Nova wanted to walk there yesterday but I managed to make her walk to the part I wanted to walk in 🙂 🙂 Today we went out to where she wanted. Lots of mushrooms everywhere now but I still haven’t picked a single one. I guess I still have plenty of time because the rainy weather will continue for quite a while they’re guessing now. The trees in the bog have started to change colors and it feels like it is a bit too early even for here but it has been quite cold and rainy for quite some time so I guess the trees just thought it was time to give up for the year 🙂

I also found several flower buds on my rhododendron today, I guess for the same reason but it believing we’ve had an unusually mild winter 🙂 🙂 🙂 I guess that it’ll flower in early September, especially if we would get some more warm weather again. It will from now on reach 20C (68F) if they’re guessing right but they seldom do that 🙂 🙂 🙂

I took a look at my cacti that I placed in my apple trees this summer. They all look pretty fine and the Christmas cactus now have small buds 🙂 I also have an orchid hanging out there but that one only flower once every year and just before spring arrives so I won’t know if it liked this or not until then. I did forget to check the ones that grows in my old woodland but I’m pretty sure they like it too. The only problem with hanging all these potted plants in my trees is to remember to bring them indoors again before the frost arrives 🙂 🙂

I have a second harvest of potatoes as well 🙂 I poured out the soil from the second bucket where I planted only the broken off potato sprouts. More in this bucket than in the previous one but not as many as I had last summer. Still I’m quite content as it is because I didn’t have to sacrifice any potatoes to get these, just the broken off sprouts 🙂

My Black walnut is rather big now, higher than my cottage actually.

The English walnut does grow too but I would be surprised and happy if it survives the winter here.

But tiny white ones on my Christmas cactus.

It is time to have a last cup of tea before dozing off in front of the tv. I will not miss anything on tv if I would sleep alla night, I think the quality of the programs they show now days are crap to be honest.

In the front but hard to see since it is green towards green is my Persimmon hybrid tree. Behaind it the peach tree.

The potato leafs showed it was time to harvest the potatoes.

Have a great day!

Back to work again.

August 6, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

It is raining and thunder is closing in as well. We didn’t have any thunder at all when the heatwave was here or when the cold weather started but now we’ve had it several times. I hope it won’t be as bad as it was the last time because it lasted for hours and sometimes the sound just kept on all the time because of all the lightnings 🙂 🙂

We did have a really nice morning and up until just after noon though, mostly sunshine and actually rather warm weather, something we haven’t been spoiled with this vacation. Still I’ve had a really nice vacation and I am so relaxed that it will be hard to start working again tomorrow 🙂 🙂 I’ll have no problems waking up, I’ve woken up the same time I normally do when going to work the entire vacation 🙂 🙂

It was 6C (42,8F) when we went out on our morning walk today, perfect because there were no flies flying around and I only found two ticks in total when I checked the dogs and we had walked in pretty high grass quite a lot. Ticks normally don’t like temperatures around those degrees. The water level is still quite high in the creek and I guess that after these four coming days it will rise even higher, they’re guessing we’ll get up to four inches of rain.

Four days ago I was stung on the backside of my ear by one of the wasps that lived between the roof and ceiling by my entrance door. I did swell a bit but not much, normally I swell like a balloon where I’m stung but I think it hit the cartilage in the ear. My ear has been aching ever since, it isn’t until now that the pain has gone away. It has been itching a lot and the skin started to sort of flake away 🙂 🙂 The ear is still rather warm though but that I can live with 🙂 🙂 It actually took three days until all the wasps were gone. I didn’t think that many actually stayed outdoors during longer periods. There’s still the occasional wasp flying there but they don’t even try to get in any more. I don’t mind wasps as long as they don’t attack me or the dogs, if they do it’s good bye!

It looks like the thunder will continue along the mountain and go north but these last have sounded to be really close even though the lightning apps says different so I better stop for today.

She will become 17 years old next month 🙂

and Alma a bit more than two years old now.

She and Albin loves to eat the Japanese quince fruits. I can’t understand that because they are hard as rocks 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Thunder and lightning and bank ID.

August 4, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

a (28)

We had fog again this morning and I think fog must be my favorite kind of weather, especially when the sun can shine through every now and again. Nova decided that we were going out to the bog again. We didn’t see or hear any animals except for the birds and only one bird still sung its spring songs. There were no wolves around either since the dogs were happy and calm. Alma has calmed down so much that it’s hard to believe she’s the same dog that tore my shoulder apart a couple of time last year 🙂 🙂 🙂

a (32)

My Bank ID, a digital ID that I must have if I want to buy something online now days (I’m sure You have it too but one never know what it can be called), had to be updated, and I asked people and they said I had to do that in the online bank. I tried but the online bank said I had to either have an absolutely new passport or an international ID card where I could scan something to proof that I am who I am. My new drivers license wasn’t ok enough to use. I know we are several people who are quite upset about that because it will cost around $40 US to get an international ID card and why should I have to have that? I’ll never use it.

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So I drove to the bank today and my bank is in a neighbor county 50km (31 mile) away. I was quite annoyed when I arrived because after all my bank is well known for helping Russian oligarchs laundry their money and I doubt that those people would have to have an international ID card 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well it turns out that I really don’t have to have anything new because all I needed to do was to update the app in my phone 🙂 🙂 🙂 The young woman who helped me had gone through this a lot of times 🙂 🙂 🙂 I still have no idea why the online bank said I had to have those things but I think that it had to do with newcomers to this country who aren’t citizens.

a (40)

I came home just before one of the angriest thunderstorms we have had here in years arrived. The Lightning app said that we had well over 800 lightning hits in and around this village during 30 minutes! I can’t remember that heavy showers falling either and the sound from the rain was so loud that I couldn’t hear the thunder at the same time. I loved it, Nova and Alma slept through it and Albin was so angry because I didn’t allow him to go outside to check what it was that made so much noise 🙂 🙂 🙂 I did open the door for him when the thunder had moved away some but the showers still were just as heavy and then suddenly it wasn’t that important to go outside after all 🙂 🙂 🙂

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After that we’ve had sunshine for a while but now it’s just as cloudy as before and the lightning app has warned about lightning in the area again. I think the worst is over but perhaps it’s best to close doors and windows again just in case.

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Have a great day!

The rain has given back what the drought took away :-)

July 30, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

a (2) — We were caught in a heavy shower this morning and all of us,except for Nova took shelter beneath big trees. I understand why she didn’t want to go there because that was the place most biting flies decided to stay as well 🙂 🙂 🙂

The weather has really been mixed today. Steady rain in the early morning but after that it has been mixed between heavy showers and sunshine. One minute sunshine and one minute showers just to go back to sunshine again. The dogs refused to go outside until rather late for being us so when we finally went out on our morning walk the flies were already there waiting for us. I can happily say that there now are fewer biting ones than there were before we went out on our walk 🙂 🙂

a (4) — I wasn’t expecting to find any mushrooms on our walk since I guessed that Nova would chose to walk down to the creek today. So I could unfortunately not pick this rather delicious mushroom because I had nothing to carry it in.

a (7)

I’m glad I mowed the lawn yesterday because it would have been impossible to do it today. My neighbor however mowed the last parts along their hedge and that mower can’t have been fun to clean up afterwards 🙂 🙂 But I haven’t been lazy despite the weather. I’ve trimmed away lots from the lilacs (and some of a mock-orange) that now made life hard for my Chinese catalpa. I’ve also ripped up some weeds around one of my ginkgos and I realized that I also ripped up a stinging nettle. I now have that burning sensation in my finger on my right hand.

a (11) — Lots of water in the creek now, so I would say that what the drought removed when it comes to water the rain now has given back.

Some of the summer apples are ripe now, I don’t like them especially much unless they are slightly un-ripe because when un-ripe they’re slightly sour. When ripe they are more bland and sort of mealy. I guess they could be great for apple sauce though so perhaps I should pick some for myself, I give away most to my closest neighbors because their oldest daughter really likes apples and especially those. In September I’ll have too many winter apples so I hope they take lots of those as well 🙂

a (14) — Snails are now eating my melon vines. I removed this one before it ate those tiny flower buds 🙂

I sowed some cone flower seeds just a few days ago and they first one has already germinated 🙂

So tomorrow starts the last week of my summer vacation. I can’t say I don’t like my work place but I desperately wants to win the lottery anyway 🙂 🙂 🙂 Just thinking of having to drive to work when the roads are slippery with ice again and most parts of the days will be dark again is depressing 🙂 🙂 Ok I’ll start working evenings in September so I will actually see daylight but still I really don’t look forward to winter again.

The Catalpa doesn’t stand a chance if I don’t do something about those lilacs and the mock-orange.

This is the result. I’ll leave the branches where they are and later on I’ll drive over them with the mower.

Finally buds on my squash plants. They really didn’t like the heat wave we had but grows better now.

The same with the chicory. They do look a lot like dandelions 🙂 🙂

The Catalpa is in bloom but the flowers are hard to find since they all are up at the top of the tree 🙂

Have a great day!

Lots and lots with rain.

July 28, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

So after this weekend I’ll only have one week of vacation left, well until Christmas time when I’ll use my last week. We have no holidays at all until then so I really hope I’ll like working evenings again. AI’ll at least get fewer hours to work with slightly more in pay but I still don’t look forward to work evenings. Still I’ll have a job so I won’t complain too much.

This week had been rather chilly and we’ve had so much rain that I haven’t had to water anything out in the garden. I really didn’t mind that much but some of those showers were so bad that I thought much of what’s growing in the garden would break. That didn’t happen but I still hope that the coming rain next week will be less heavy 🙂

Nova decided that we should walk in the forest this morning. She went out to the peninsula in the bog and I hoped that there would be lots of fog because we had fairly thick fog everywhere else. I was sort of disappointed because there was almost no fog at all. We hadn’t been out there for especially long when the dogs suddenly wanted to walk home again and they seemed to be in a hurry. We hadn’t walked far when we heard the deer “barking” around the place we had been at so my guess is that a wolf must have arrived.

It was while standing here the dogs suddenly wanted to hurry back home.

I read an article that most dogs when smelling a wolf nearby reacts just like that, they want to leave unless they are terriers because they want to attack 🙂 🙂 but as the article said since they were so aggressive towards wolves the wolf would most likely run away even though they were so small. Well one terrier didn’t react like that and that was the Amstaff, Albin really doesn’t like other dogs and would love to be able to attack but as soon as he smells wolf he reacts just the opposite 🙂 and I’m glad he does 🙂

I haven’t been able to do much because of the rain but I have weeded (well to be honest that sounds a bit lame because I used spades and secateurs to get rid of what was growing there. I used to have blueberry bushes there but all the sand that I dug up while doing the root zone had to go somewhere and that was the best and closest place to put it. I did find three blueberry bushes still in there amongst the high grass, wildflowers and grapevines though 🙂 I let the blueberries stay and added some peat around them. After that I placed all the pots with the apricot seedlings and some citrus trees there but couldn’t stop myself from planting the seedlings I had this year. I have even sowed some seeds from perennial Hollyhocks and they’ll look good already next year . I also found lots of things I forgot I had placed there before the weeds and grass started to grow in the sand 🙂 🙂 🙂

This is the after photo. The angle of the photo make the place look smaller than it is but it is around 4 square meter (much the same in yards).

a (4) — I also placed the rubber sheet from my old pond over all those shoots from the thorny sloes, roses and the false spirea.

I’ve “pruned” (with big and heavy tools 🙂 🙂 ) the Rowan tree that grows beside the plum tree. It sowed itself and I like it but it was starting to push away the plum tree plus it was so dark and dry on the ground that almost all ferns that grew there had died.

No all the plums will get sunshine and ripe nicely 🙂

It is time to have something to eat and after that I have no idea. Nothing worth watching on tv so perhaps I’ll start reading a book?

Have a great day!

The weather is anything but boring today :-)

July 16, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

The Chinese Catalpa isn’t happy about the wind.

I’m not sure if we’re having a storm but the winds are strong and the gusts roar through the forest. The winds even reach my garden and that’s unusual. We had rain almost all morning, except for when we were out on our morning walk, it started shortly after we had come home so I took a long nap while it continued to rain for a couple of hours 🙂

a (3) — Some of its flowers have opened up now.

I don’t know why but the strawberries are finally in bloom, very late and the Magpies takes all the berries 🙂 🙂

I’ve bought two Hardy Hibiscuses. They should be planted in early spring so it has time to establish itself. They aren’t that hardy to be honest so they also need the best spot in the entire bgarden to survive the winters here.

After that we’ve had sunshine, some showers and grey skies so one can’t say that the weather has been boring 🙂 More rain is on the way and it’ll pour down tomorrow plus the wind will stay they say. I really don’t mind to be honest, I can’t do anything outside so I’ll nap instead 🙂 🙂 🙂 Alma is bored though, especially since the little girl next door also stays indoors during this weather.

Nova wasn’t allowed to walk along the creek this morning because we would have been soaking wet after just a couple of steps, so instead I told her that we would continue on the gravel road. She didn’t like that at all 🙂 🙂 🙂 and when I noticed that her knee support had broken and I wanted ti fix it she just refused to come to me, even started to run away from me when I tried to fix it. So the little lady is pretty cranky, has been that all day 🙂 🙂 🙂 Albin on the other hand is sad because I scolded him. If was after we had come home and I had to clean his ear.

I know he hates that but I really needed to do it since he shook his head all the time. I poured in the cleaning fluid and started to massage the ear when he just had to shake his head violently. I really tried to hold him still but he’s strong 🙂 🙂 🙂 Now my entire kitchen is full of oily drops and his entire head is too. He always get sad if I scold him and has continued to stay that way all day. So one angry old lady, one sad old man and one really bored girl have been rather annoying all day 🙂 🙂 🙂

I think I will take one more walk around the garden before the next rain arrives. The coming week will have some rain but it’ll mostly be sunny and around 19C-20C (66F-68F) and that sounds rather nice 🙂 It looks like we’ll have a normal Swedish summer for once 🙂

I was trying to photograph my Persimmon tree when Alma thought she would be in the photo as well 🙂

The Persimmon tree to the right seems to like where it’s growing. It stands too close to the peach on the left and it does so because I was pretty sure the peach tree would die already this summer. I sprayed the peach tree with sulfur before the leafs started to grow because peach trees are always hit with curled leaf disease and sulfur is said to be the only thing that can kill that fungi. So I was disappointed when all leafs it had started to curl. To my big surprise the tree started to grow and get new leafs instead of slowly dies as they always do. I have no idea if it is because of the sulfur or anything else but now I’ve started to believe it will survive anyway 🙂 🙂 🙂

Something that didn’t survive the drought was the App,e rowan. It was sad already after last years drought and this time it couldn’t manage it any more. So now I have a new spot for another tree 🙂

Have a great day!

cleaning my sofas will be easier, I hope :-)

July 15, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

The day has mostly been gray and dreary. Rather chilly in the beginning but not chilly enough to keep the flies calm though. Later in the day rain passed by and now there are some cracks in the clouds where the sun can peak through and it’s also much warmer. Still it won’t last for long because it’ll start raining tonight and we can either get almost nothing to very little or just as much as we had the last time. It all depends on where the heavy showers will pass.

a (17)

So we’ve done very little today. Alma has been really bored because none of us wanted to go outside to play and the neighbors daughter has been indoors as well. So no one to play with and all that energy has made Alma a very talkative dog 🙂 🙂 🙂 She’s normally not a quiet dog but today she’s been worse 🙂 🙂

a (21)

I’ve just ordered a small carpet and furniture washing machine 🙂 I was thinking about how I was supposed to be able to clean the big cushions on my sofas and was thinking of a pressure washer. I’ve seen how good they work on carpets but then again those cushions are quite thick and would become so heavy with all that water that it would take ages for them to dry if at all in this cool and rainy weather 🙂 🙂 🙂 So instead I found this little machine where the only complaints about it is that it is very loud. Does its job really well though. It’s called Bissell SpotClean Pro 1558N. I even looked at international reviews and all said just the same, does its job really well but is very loud. Well I have earplugs at home so I’ll use those.

a (25)

The odd thing was that I couldn’t buy the detergent at the same time as the machine, as soon as I had pressed the button there was no turning back to buy anything more. So annoyed as I was I bought the detergent from another business 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll let You know what I think about it when I’ve tried it and I do hope I’ll say the same thing as the reviews 🙂

My big apple tree will get loads of apples this year, the rain came just in the right time because it had already dropped lots but now it looks like no more small apples have fallen off.

I have a patio that I haven’t used for well over twenty years, well I put a lot of things there but never sit there any more. It is mostly covered by a big rose, a grape vine and a climbing clematis so now House sparrow fledglings practice their flying in there. Magpies tried to hide there when it was raining but I think I finally managed to scare them away, they are big birds and will have to manage anyway. Every now and again though those little fledglings comes outside very close to my kitchen window and I managed to take a few photos through the rather dirty window 🙂

a (11)

Have a great day!

First week soon to be over.

July 14, 2023July 14, 2023 · 3 Comments ·

Magpies, funny birds but also bl…y annoying 🙂 🙂 🙂 They can terrorize an entire neighborhood and attack cats and dogs and are really intelligent.

The weather has been rather mixed this first week of my vacation. Everything from sunny and hot to a bit chilly and heavy raining. Today is really nice though, mostly sunshine, a nice breeze and around 20C (68F). It was supposed to be like this yesterday but like always our weather service managed to miss that we would have rain almost half the day 🙂 🙂 🙂

The rain started quite nice on Wednesday

Another one on the back by my kitchen door. It needs to be a lot of rain to create a lake there because it’s only sand and runs down through the sand as soon as it hits, normally that it 🙂 🙂

We’ve gotten well over two inches of rain this week and nature loves it. Well I don’t complain about it either to be honest 🙂 Unfortunately the ticks loves it most of all. After every walk I’ve picked over twenty ticks from Alma while the two others have had perhaps five together. I have no idea why Alma is such a tick magnet but they do seem to love her. Nova decided that we should walk along the creek this morning so I was a bit worried that they all would have lots more walking around on them but to my surprise they had just a few, not even Alma had more than six walking around on her.

Yesterday morning felt quite chilly so not a fly was flying around annoying us.

The weather has made it more or less impossible to do anything outside and it has been perfect 🙂 🙂 🙂 I can’t remember when I slept this much before. The heavy rain day I must have slept well over six hours during the day (mostly with the window open so I could hear the rain hit the ground and cottage, until it changed direction and it started to rain in through the window 🙂 🙂 🙂 ) and I still fell asleep at my usual hour and sleeping all night without any problems. I guess I needed it but have no idea why 🙂 🙂

We could pass this doe without Alma screaming like insane 🙂 🙂

The flies have calmed down because they’ve now cut down all the grass and made silage balls of it. That always happens when they do that so I guess that flies prefer to stay in high grass instead of trees during nights and perhaps even during days and when it’s gone the flies go to? Well there’s plenty still but not near enough to what we had before. I don’t even bring my mosquito hat on our walks, it’s enough with a hoodie. Alma has calmed down even more now, she still pulls the leash but the screaming when seeing anything move is almost gone! So now days we even see the odd deer again, still hares do make her a bit too excited but we’re working on that. The sitting down until she’s calmed down seems to work pretty well 🙂

I’m waiting for the package delivery car to come. I’ve ordered dog food and I have almost no dog food left so these packages will arrive just in time 🙂 🙂 I’ve just recieved a text message that they are on the way. So anytime from now until 5pm I’ll need to stay at home. Just a few weeks back they changed it to that packages below 20Kg ( 44,1 pound) can be delivered without me being at home but above that I need to be at home to recieve it. I’ve just bought a new kind of food for Alma and Nova because they didn’t really like the one I had and they have been a bit wobbly in their stomachs since we started with it. So today I’ll get one package that weighs well over20Kg and one well below. Does that mean they then would deliver the lighter package while bringing back the heavier if I weren’t at home? 🙂 🙂 🙂

Nova can be the most stubborn dog in the world 🙂 🙂 I called for her because she went away on her own and to a road we weren’t going to take. She could hear me very weel and she knows the sign for coming back and she just didn’t give a crap 🙂 🙂 🙂

After around five minutes she slowly came towards us.

Then she stopped again and just stood there for another five minutes 🙂 🙂 🙂 She finally started to walk towards us again but refused to go all the way and instead went to where we were going to walk but through bushes and high grass instead 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Not much in bloom in my garden at the moment but the Creeping Bellflower has opened up. It’s voted to be the worst weed one can get in a garden 🙂 🙂 Here it has to fight with other plants almost as bad as itself so it’s no problem here.

A Perennial Sunflower is almost as bad as the bellflower.

The Nepeta sibirica or as its Swedish name is Great Dragon flower can also compete with it.

the Large yellow loosestrife isn’t much weaker.

Hotas are however not a match and would lose the battle fairly quick 🙂

The coolest looking beetle.

July 2, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

a (3) — The Venus Flytrap has also been growing rather slow. I still have two left from last summer and the second one grows even slower.

Really mixed weather here today, very windy, sometimes sunny, sometimes cloudy and a lot of the time rainy. Most of the times a nice gentle summer rain but every now and again heavy showers. It’s exciting to stay outdoors because one never knows what will happen 🙂 🙂 The weather was stable when we had our morning walk though. I did bring the mosquito hat but only used it once while we walked along the creek because the wind couldn’t reach us there. Still not so many flies anyway but they still have time to show up before their season is over.

a (19) — but Nova wanted to go this way instead.

Nova is the one who chose where we’ll walk every day and I had preferred if she had chosen only the gravel roads but she wanted to walk along the creek so that’s where we walked. The grass was wet and high so I feared that I would have ti pick ticks until late night but to my surprise I only found two in total!? It should have been perfect for them along the creek but who am I to complain about the lack of ticks 🙂 🙂 While we walked there I checked after dragonflies and damselflies. I did see one dragonfly but long before the creek and only one damselfly along the entire creek. Perhaps I’m too early to lok after either? I have seen both earlier but there are always a couple that show up early.

a (23)

My dinner for work next week is boiling in the slow cooker. I made it easy for me by making meat sauce and I’ll boil the pasta before going to work. I’ve also done the laundry and we’ve had our pancake Sunday as usual. I will however, unlike a neighbor somewhere, not mow the lawn. That persons lawn mower must be a mushy mess when it is over 🙂 🙂 🙂 I don’t think it is fun to clean the mower on a normal day but it is awful on days when the grass is long and wet.

a (29)

I’ve also planted two of the Chicory seedlings I have, a third is on the way but they can be slow to germinate. It’s a perennial and its leafs look surprisingly much like dandelion leafs so I better remember where I planted them next spring 🙂 🙂 I also had several bell pepper seedlings. It was so hot when I sowed them that nothing happened until it started to cool down and then it went hot again so they barely grew at all. I don’t expect to get any bell peppers from them but since I had the space in the vegetable patch I planted them there anyway. I’m pretty sure they’ll start to grow good now when it will rain until Thursday and stay cool as well. After that they’re guessing the heat will come back again on Friday, my last day before vacation starts 🙂

A golden fly, have no idea what it can be called.

This is one of the coolest beetle I’ve ever seen I think.

Have a great day!