Category: Rain.

Ticks and mosquitoes.

July 1, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

The Beekeeper is trying to make an old fashioned flower meadow. Looking good so far!

The day started with some sunshine before very thin clouds covered the sky but that didn’t really change much since I could see the sun 🙂 I think the first “shower” I use ” because it wasn’t especially much or shower like but it did rain for a while. It has continued like that until now when we have misty rain and it will continue like this for the coming five days. I don’t mind at all and the temperature has dropped down to 16C (60,8F) and that I really like 🙂

Well I wouldn’t want rain and such low temperature for the rest of summer but for now it’s perfect. The ticks think much the same. I stopped counting when I had picked over twenty from Alma after our morning walk and thankfully just a couple on the rest of us. Nasty animals those ticks! Still not many annoying flies but a gazillion mosquitoes instead 🙂 🙂 Nova decides where every walk should go and today she has chosen the forest. She’s not the one that wants to walk the same path every day, the other two prefers that I’ve noticed.

We’ve taken a long nap today and after that I started to weed the vegetable patch. I’ve had big parts of it covered because I sowed an Asian cabbage. Nothing much happened though so I sowed a winter radish I bought seeds to for a couple of years ago. I have no idea what to do with it except using it in salads but I wanted to try it anyway. So now when I pulled away the cover I noticed that I now have both cabbage and winter radish there 🙂 🙂 I’ll bring back the cover when the cabbage butterfly and cabbage moth starts to fly again. Also the lid to one of my mini greenhouses fell down over the Broccolo seedlings I have, so when the sun showed they all boiled away. I think there’s still time to sow the remaining seeds to get at least some to harvest. The entire plant is edible so I will get something from them if they germinate.

Besides this I’ve done very little 🙂 I did catch mosquito larvae to the aquarium fish but that only took a few seconds 🙂 🙂 I think this is just how a weekend should be spent 🙂 🙂 Tomorrow I’ll have to do all those things I didn’t do today, like dinner for work next week, the laundry and baking a bread but since it will rain I will at least not have to mow the lawn 🙂

The potato sprouts that I planted now have flower buds 🙂 Technically I then should be able to harvest my first potatoes when the flowering is over but I think I’ll wait a couple of weeks before I try it.

Have a great day!

Finally cool air and rain :-)

June 30, 2023June 30, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

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It rained quite a lot here this morning and it has also cooled down considerable so it feels like life is back on track again. It has also blown quite a lot so the walk after work was really nice since both flies and mosquitoes blew away from us 🙂 🙂 🙂

DSC_0003 (6) — Lots of apples on the crab apple tree in the forest, They are red and rather yummy 🙂

DSC_0010 (5) — I actually chased away the bumblebee before it came too close to the white spider. I do feel the spider is worth its meal but I prefer if it eats flies 🙂 :-)

I have two big water barrels in my garden and those are mosquito larvae heaven but what the mosquitoes don’t know is that those larvae are fed to the fish in my aquarium 🙂 🙂 🙂 My Platy loves to eat them and all larvae are gone within minutes but just in case someone of them would survive I cover the holes in the glass lid so that none can escape in to my living room 🙂 Also it looks like there’s spiders living in the thin space between the lid and the water because every time I feed them flakes some of those flakes get caught in the spider web 🙂 🙂

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We’ll have this cool and rainy weather for five days they’re guessing but after that it looks like the warmer weather will come back again, just in time for my vacation. I’m not sure I like that at all to be honest. Then again if I don’t work in the heat I might like it a bit better 🙂 🙂

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It is time to go to bed and I’ll have no problems at all to fall asleep, well I usually fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow, because today I’m so tired after this unforgiving hot work week. I’ll just check for ticks on the dogs again. I missed one walking on Alma because she just laid her hed towards my arm and when she walked away I could feel one walking on my arm, felt horrible!

DSC_0048 (2) — The old wheel barrow looks fairly good despite it drying out once.

DSC_0050 (2) — I have four Hawthorn bushes to plant somewhere. The berries they give tastes delicious, something like passion fruit and oranges.

DSC_0051 (2) — I have also a Hazelnut bush I need to plant somewhere.

DSC_0049 (2) — The same water as they have indoors and still they prefer to drink it from this bucket 🙂

Have a great day!

Nice and gentle rain but we need more.

June 18, 2023 · 6 Comments ·

a (1) — It’s almost impossible to see that it had been raining for a couple of hours when I took this photo 🙂 🙂 🙂

It has been raining since early morning, a nice gentle rain far from what we actually needed, heavy showers would have been much better but I’m happy for what I got. They say we’ll get more rain in the coming week, not enough once again, and it’ll stay cool for a day or so before we go back to warmer again. The temperature dropped from 28C (82,4F) yesterday to 15C (59F) today. It has taken all morning to get the heat out of the cottage, it even became chilly for a while but I closed the doors and windows when I had baked my breads and let the oven stay open after I had shut it off. It was just enough with heat to make it feel rather nice indoors again 🙂

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I’ve done my chores for the day except for dinner at work next week. It’ll be a short work week since we celebrate Midsummer next Friday. I’ll make it easy for myself this week. I’ll fry some meatballs, some wiener sausages, two eggs and then pour half a tin of either baked white beans or baked brown beans over it 🙂 🙂 Perhaps not healthy but very yummy 🙂 🙂 I’ll go to the vegetable patch and pick some of the Goosefoot (Chenopodium album) that grows there, works very well as a spinach substitute.

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I didn’t win the lottery this week either, must say I thought it was my turn this time 🙂 🙂 🙂 So back to work tomorrow. Ok short week but I would rather have won the lottery 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve noticed that I spend much less time in front of the tv now days, instead I surf more on the net. I guess it sort of equals each other out. I mostly blame the hot weather, it has been so hot that it really has been impossible to do anything outside without jeopardizing our health. Still I wish I could have done something else really but I’ve been too lazy to come up with anything else to do 🙂 🙂 🙂

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It is time for the dogs dinners and perhaps I should make myself a cup of tea. I’m pretty sure I’ll sleep very well tonight now when it is cool and nice both outside and inside the cottage 🙂

Have a great day!

So we won.

May 14, 2023 · 6 Comments ·

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It is raining. We weren’t supposed to get rain today but this comes from thunderstorms nearby and it is very dry in the ground so I doubt that anyone is complaining about it. It isn’t dry in my garden though, like in winter when the cold temperatures flow down through my garden so does the water that still is in the ground until there’s none left. It does help a lot to live beside a huge bog too, there’s still water in the swamp behind my garage so the ground water is just two meters (much the same in yards) down.

My little Red oak is opening up its leafs. I can’t say that it grows especially fast but it is at least alive 🙂 I’ve always wanted a North American oak since I was a kid and noticed that the leafs looked different than our oak leafs when I watched Chip and Dale at Christmas 🙂

DSC_0004 (2) — The oaks are getting green in the forest as well.

I slept until 5 am today (and so did the dogs) because I watched the finale in the Eurovision Song contest. Our song won because it got almost twice as many votes from the juries around Europe. The peoples votes however went to Finland so he ended up as the silver medalist. So like in the US elections a president can win the popular vote but still lose the election 🙂 For me it didn’t matter who won of those two because I didn’t get the Finnish one and I still couldn’t hear what our singer sang 🙂 🙂 🙂 I hoped for France to wind and like always my favorite ended up somewhere in the middle to last 🙂 🙂 🙂 So here’s a link to YouTube to the french song: Evidemment It should open up in a new tab.

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I could hear cranes trumpeting when we went out on our morning walk today and when we reached the open fields they stood not far from the gravel road we were walking on. They didn’t care much about us (and both Albin and Alma behaved really well). They were communicating with other cranes so i didn’t think more about it. Just as we were about to cross the creek two more landed in front of us. They too trumpeted a lot and to my very big surprise three big flocks of cranes then flew towards us, circled a bit and landed in a neighboring field 🙂 Must have been around 40 cranes in total. I think those are the ones that still doesn’t have a place of their ow since they arrived in couples. If they were nesting only one would have come while the other one wrmed and defended the eggs in the nest.

DSC_0038 (1) — Parts of the three flocks that came after.

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I’ve sown iceberg lettuce, chard and salsify in the vegetable patch today. I’ll sow much more later but these are quite safe to sown now since they can manage a chilly morning and we might have just that on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. The temperatures will drop considerable for two days and then go back up when our long holiday starts. Ascension Day is on Thursday and I took Friday off as well. Not all at work could do that unfortunately but since no one actually celebrates holiday like they did back in the days they’ll instead work on Thursday and take Friday off instead. I think that if they had done that when I was a kid they would have been flogged 🙂 🙂 🙂 Not that we Swedes were especially religious back then (and even less now days) but one just simply didn’t do anything like that then.

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The dogs have had their dinner and now I’ll go down to the kitchen and make dinner for work tomorrow. After that I too will have something but I haven’t figured out what I want to eat 🙂

Have a great day!

The wind is the same but now it’s raining.

May 1, 2023May 1, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

So if yesterdays weather looked nice from indoors todays wetaher doesn’t and isn’t either 🙂 There was at least no wind in the earky morning when we went out for our walk but it did rain consistently for the entire hour we were outside. To be honest, none of the dogs wanted to take a walk but I forced them because I wanted them to get rid of some energy. Albin and Alma can destroy an entire house when they’re going full force playing 🙂 🙂 🙂

The rain did stop and naturally during the time I did the laundry. Almost as soon as I’ve finished it the rain came back 🙂 🙂 During that time I also saw the sun for almost ten whole seconds 🙂 🙂 I wouldn’t mind that much if the wind just could stop blowing, especially since it is just as cold as it was yesterday. The birds doesn’t seem to mind the weather as much though, they sing a bit less I guess but then again lots of them are on the ground eating what ever they can find and it looks like they find a lot.

I did my taxes today and even before I made the car deduction for driving to and from work because I really can’t use public transportation (it would take 150 minutes one way and it takes 30 minutes with a car) I would get a few dollars back 🙂 Can’t remember when that happened the last time With the deduction I’ll get a few more back but since our inflation is insane here that money won’t last for long 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well it’s better than to have to pay back 🙂 🙂 🙂

A15398_002 — Four from the Agfa Ambiflex. A bit too wintery but they make today look nice and cosy in comparison 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Around five? years ago I sowed some Gardenia seeds, I’ve tried before but have always failed. This time however I got five little plants and I still have five living even though one really look more dead than alive 🙂 🙂 🙂 Today I found flower buds on the two of them that I looked at!! I also noticed that they were attacked by something, can’t really say what I only saw the larvae or what it was. So now I’ve sprayed them with soapy water. Soapy water suffocates everything insect-wise and I do hope I didn’t destroy the coming flowers by doing so.

A15265_020A — Four from the Agfa Ambi Silette. These photos on the other hand make today look like a nasty november day 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Tomorrow’s a working day again so back to work it is. I actually almost won back all the money I spent on the lottery, not quite but very close 🙂 🙂 🙂 not enough to stop working but I’ll at least not have to pay more than less of a $ US next week 🙂 🙂 🙂

A15266_004 — Why not ad a wintery photo from the Flexaret VI too.

Have a great day!

Nice spring rain.

April 23, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

I can’t say that I wouldn’t have preferred to have that sunny and warm weather we’ve had the rest of the week but it hasn’t been that bad today either. Around 10C (50F) and mostly a nice spring rain but also some misty rain that eats its way through all clothes no matter what one is wearing. The kitchen door has been open quite a lot to be honest.

I’ve been rather busy doing the laundry, making our Sunday pancakes, walking with the dogs and baking a bread. I’ll also make dinner for work tomorrow before I can sit down and relax again. I was planning on doing lots of things this weekend but I just didn’t have the energy, pollen season has started and even though the worst ones, birch and pines, haven’t started yet I still can react some to hazel if there’s a lot of that pollen around.

A15264_022A — From the Voigtländer Bessamatic.

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Once again I didn’t win the lottery so I’ll need to continue to work for a while longer 🙂 🙂 The coming week will be gry, a bit chilly and a bit rainy they’re guessing and it really is a perfect week for sowing annuals and spices outdoors. I don’t know how much of those spices I would use but they usually like to live on sunny and rather dry places and my entire garden contains mostly of sand so that’s what they’ll get 🙂 🙂 Also bees and butterflies love them and who doesn’t want many of those in the garden?

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Have a great day!

A day of relaxation :-)

December 26, 2022 · 6 Comments ·

a (2) — Older photos today, no snow left and no photos taken since we couldn’t take any walk in the forest while we had daylight.

Today has been a day of relaxation, well the previous ones as well but today we took an extra long nap after lunch. The hunters were out for the most part of the day when we still had daylight and it has also rained quite a lot so none of the dogs were outside for any longer period of time. I could hear the hunting dogs every time I went outdoors so I guess they never met any of the potential wolves out there.

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I was planning on going to the grocery store tomorrow but we’ll have sunshine so I’ll postpone it until Wednesday instead (it looks like the rest of the week will be mostly rainy here, I don’t mind but it would be nice if we could have some sunshine and above freezing now when I have my vacation). I really don’t need that much but seeds for the birds are running low and I forgot to buy gingerbread last week so I haven’t had any this entire christmas, to be honest I haven’t eaten more than a couple this entire December so I feel that is one thing I need to correct 🙂 I’ll also buy some julmust, haven’t had much of that either.

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It’s the season to start thinking of seeds again. Either one buy seeds for perennials that needs a winter to start germinating or buy those vegetable seeds one want to grow this summer. I wasn’t that successful with peas but I did get a lot of beans. My white cabbage never became bigger than a tennis ball so I’ll sow some other kind instead. The lettuce however grew better than expected but then again lettuce isn’t especially hard to grow, they don’t like hot summers so spring or early autumn usually works perfectly. So far my Pawpaws look living and healthy and I do hope that if winter decides to come back again that it at least stays just below freezing and not much lower, they are still really small and need a few years before they manages our rather long dark period during winter.

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It’s time to get something to eat and then see if there’s anything worth watching on tv. I don’t dare to fall asleep again because I’m pretty sure that would make it impossible to fall asleep later tonight 🙂

Have a good continuing of the yule!

We never see wild life any longer.

November 5, 2022 · Leave a comment ·

The weather has been rather pleasant today, we went out as soon as I noticed that the sun rose but since it felt a bit chilly I decided to put on the winter jacket. Too bad that Alma decided that today was the day she would stop behaving at all 🙂 🙂 It felt like I was walking in a sauna in that jacket. It felt like I had run a marathon after just have passed the beekeepers cottage and that’s just 150 meter (much the same in yards) away from home 🙂 🙂 🙂

I needed a long nap after that walk and the sun shone when I woke up again. I went downstairs and opened the kitchen door and noticed that while the sun was shining the rain was also pouring down. There was a tine cloud just above us but I didn’t think that it was big enough to pour down that amount of water.

Nothing much else has happened here. We never see much wild life any more because of Almas shouting and me scolding her for pulling the leash 🙂 but we do here a lot of ravens and jays. I guess those are the only birds that manages to be louder than us 🙂 🙂 🙂 I did put down my carnivorous plants in my cool cellar today though, the venus fly traps and the pitcher plants. All north american but not hardy enough to stay outdoors all winter. Well so far it has been much warmer than normal so they could have stayed outdoors much longer but I tend to forget to bring them in before it is to late normally.

Tomorrow will be much the same as always. I’ll wake up early, start with the laundry. After that I’ll make dinner to have at work next week and I’ll use the slow cooker of course. I’ve been really lazy lately so I’ve just made pasta and meat sauce and will do so for the coming week as well. I might change my routine if I would win lots of money in the smaller lottery today (the one where I only 🙂 can win 150 millions 🙂 🙂 The big one didn’t have any winner yesterday so anyone winning it in the end will be filthy rich 🙂 Well to be honest 150 millions isn’t that bad either 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is time for something to eat and I think I’ll have warm cocoa with it.

Have a great day!

20221105_160740 — I think most of us call this one Christmas cactus now days. Back in the days however there were several different species we had, some flowered in November so they were called November cactus here and the other ones were called Christmas cactus just because they were in bloom around Christmas. Now days they are so mixed with each other that they flower any time of year really. This one used to be clear white but like always they tend to turn pink after a few years.

The rain keeps her indoors :-)

October 25, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

DSC_0003 (3) — My Black Walnut still has almost all its leafs left. It stands very protected against the winds though so they might hang on for another week. The tree is now almost as high as my cottage.

The rain has been pouring down for two days now. So no walks after work since none of the dogs would follow me outside 🙂 🙂 The grass on the entrance side is now so wet and soggy that not even the dogs will walk there, well walk is the wrong word since sliding in the mud is more accurate.

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One really good thing with the rain though is that Alma has stayed indoors in the dog houseand the old garage the entire time so she hasn’t been outside to try and escape again 🙂 She’s quite intelligent when she likes to. She really listens to everything I tell her to do when we’re at home. She studies the weak points in the dog yard and starts to work on them when she has figured out what and how to do it. She however still can’t walk properly when leashed 🙂 🙂 🙂

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I have things to paint at work but the one putting them in to our computer system is sick so I can’t paint them. A bit annoying to be honest. I have had loads to do anyway so time has passed fairly quick anyway.lots of people have colds now and many have been staying at home so there’s no risk I would get time over to be bored 🙂 🙂 It would be nice if I for once missed one of these colds, I feel I’ve had way too many this year as it is 🙂

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I think it is time for a cup of warm cocoa and perhaps a couple of digestives. I have no blue cheese at home but to be honest any kind of cheese works with digestives 🙂

Have a great day!

Sound travels well in sandy soil.

October 23, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

A13795_011 — From the Hasselblad camera.

I’ve done all my chores early today and to be honest there weren’t that many to do. The laundry, dinner for next week and dinner for today. We had pancakes today and we also had pancakes yesterday 🙂 The dogs get one each and I’ll have as many I can get out from the batter 🙂

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Most of yesterday morning and also this morning rained away, I didn’t mind really because today the hunters were out hunting so we couldn’t do much anyway and yesterday the afternoon was quite nice even though there was no sign of the sun. It’ll be much the same the coming week, rain in the beginning of the week but just grey and dull for the rest of it.

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No one won the big lottery last week so now one person can win one billion Swedish kronor on Tuesday (that would be something around, depending on the value of the US dollar,$ 90- 100 million US. That’s so much money that I can’t understand it but I’m willing to win it just to try and actually understand how much it is 🙂 🙂 So I didn’t win the jackpot but I did get back twice to what I payed so that’s always nice. I know of only two universal truths, one is that anything that lives will die and the second one is that I’ll never be happy with how much I’ll win on the lottery 🙂 🙂 🙂 but I am willing to be proven wrong in that latter one 🙂 🙂 🙂

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I checked the place where Alma had escaped the dog yard and she had already started to work hard on that place again, so I have now strengthened that area so that it at least will take a day or so before she can do a real try to get out again. I will also buy more toys and put in the dog house. The problem is that either one or all of them do their best to hide the things from the other dogs. A bit annoying to be honest. I’m sometimes lucky to find one toy because the one responsible for digging it down did a lousy job not covering it properly 🙂 🙂 🙂

DSC_0035 (4) — These are called Finger mushrooms here.

DSC_0037 (4) — The castle owners have cut down lots of trees lately. Only Spruces though because of the bark beetle.

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My neighbor is out chopping fire wood. For some reason sandy ground lead the sound really well so I can hear it here in my cottage, the sound when the chopped logs fall to the wooden floor in their wood shed sounds really strange. At first it sounded as if someone fired away fireworks 🙂 🙂 For a while I did wonder if the Russians possibly could attack us so I went downstairs and opened the door and that’s when I realized he was chopping fire wood 🙂 🙂 🙂 I can also hear when they use a hammer in their cellar, it’s really odd 🙂 🙂

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It would be nice to take a nap but I’m pretty sure that if I do I won’t be able to fall asleep tonight. Then again I know I’ll most likely fall asleep in front of the tv tonight so perhaps I just as well should take a nap 🙂

Have a great day!

Concrete ice.

October 19, 2022 · Leave a comment ·

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Yesterday night I didn’t get much sleep. Nova got some kind of stomach flu and had to go outside every now and again, usually just as I started to fall asleep again. Also at 1:30 am I needed to go to the bathroom myself and after that it was even harder to fall asleep.

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So I was so tired at work that I went home a couple of hours early. I wanted to leave earlier than I could but suddenly some job came in (that we’ve been waiting for a long time) so I had to finish that before I could leave. So I thought it would be too late to take a nap because I didn’t want to have trouble falling asleep in the evening again. I made fish and rice for Nova (well the other two got some too of course) and after that I sat down in my recliner.

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I did wake up every now and again to let the dogs go outside in to the garden but mostly they wouldn’t since the rain was pouring down the entire day and well into the night. So when it was time to actually go to bed I just went upstairs and fell to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow 🙂 🙂 🙂 Novas stomach had calmed down so I didn’t have to get up because of her either. I still was nasty tired when I woke up but that feeling just vanished when I had my big cup of tea 🙂

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The world outside was pretty cold when I let the dogs out. Didn’t feel that bad because there was no wind but I realized how cold it was when I was about to scrape off the ice from the car. Concrete ice I call it. I managed to scrape off enough so I could drive till the end of the village road, there I stopped and scraped off the rest 🙂 🙂 Tomorrow morning will be much the same they say and I’m not looking forward to it.

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Have a great day!

I hope it helps the ground water levels.

October 17, 2022 · 6 Comments ·

DSC_0004 (4) — There was some early morning mist yesterday morning.

The rain is pouring down and even here where the ground mostly contains sand it’s now impossible to walk around on the lawn without sliding around 🙂 🙂 Still we need it so that the ground water levels finally rise again. We’ve had a warning about our ground water levels for well over half a year now so I do hope this rain will help some.

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The heaviest showers have passed but it will continue to rain well into the night. We had rain yesterday as well and also lots of thunder. I didn’t hear much of it because I fell asleep in the sofa when it passed this area 🙂 🙂 We did have lots of sunshine yesterday as well and it was fairly warm so we did manage to take a walk after the hunters had left and before the rains arrived.

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I hadn’t used my water boiler for quite some time until yesterday. One day when it was rather nice outside I sat on the kitchen stairs and wanted a cup of te, for once I used tea bags. So I went indoors fetched the water boiler and poured the hot water in my cup. That was when I noticed that some potted plants needed water and though: well I can’t use boiling water, so I went to the rain water barrel and dipped the boiler into it.

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Not a smart thing to do since the electric wired to the heat source is at the bottom of it and not water proof 🙂 🙂 🙂 So I’ve let it dry for several weeks and yesterday I tried it for the first time. I was prepared to have to change the fuse but nothing happened 🙂 🙂 I’ve missed it and now I don’t have to buy a new one. I looked ad ads via google and it is amazing how much some of those boilers can cost!

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The most expensive one I found would cost something around $ 300 US! The cheapest one would cost something like $ 9 US. I do wonder what that expensive water boiler either did to the water or could do more than just boiling it to excuse that nasty high price. I must admit though that it did look rather nice 🙂

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Have a great day!