Category: Rain.

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!

I went out and took a look at the label :-)

May 13, 2022 · Leave a comment ·

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So just before I was going to bed yesterday evening I suddenly started to think about the label on my new apricot tree. I thought it looked a bit odd but also thought it must be a standardized thing they put on and then the text would say what it was. Well I went out to look at it a second time.

DSC_0018 (2) — Cherry trees are in bloom everywhere now.

Turns out it wasn’t a standardized label, I haven’t gotten an apricot tree 🙂 🙂 🙂 Instead I got one of those flat peaches 🙂 🙂 🙂 So the last thing i did before going to bed was to email the company. It costs the same and has the same hardiness so I wondered if they wanted me to send it back to them or if I could take this tree instead since I really didn’t want to find a new box, since I had cut it down 🙂 🙂 🙂 The sort of fun thing about this is that they don’t even sell that peach yet so someone must have made a big mistake.

They answered that I could keep it if I wanted so now I have a peach tree instead 🙂 I do like them a lot those flat peaches but peach trees have huge problems with a fungus that kills them after a few years so I wasn’t sure at first but then I found out that they now have a good pesticide that kills the fungus (it contains sulfur which kills off the fungus and one need so small ammounts that it isn’t dangerous for anything else). One need to spray the tree with it after the leafs have fallen in autumn and one more time before the new leafs grow out.After doing that the problems will go away. I do like apricots though so I might order one anyway but most likely from another business 🙂

DSC_0034 (1) — We have a few Elm trees that still look really healthy so I hope that the Dutch Elm tree disease stays away.

I’ve been a bit worried about Nova for a couple of days again because she really didn’t want to eat, not even treats and she is on her sixteenth year. Turns out her stomach was wobbly again so today she had no problems what so ever to gulp down her food again 🙂 I’ve also bought the old food she likes better again and I’m pretty sure that helped as well. Still I need to find one she likes and keeps her stomach well so I better check out other varieties again.

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It rained some when we were out walking but we also had some sunshine. It’ll rain again later tonight but after that the skies will keep the water to themselves for quite some time, at least that is what they’re guessing. It is time for something to eat and after that I’ll doze off in front of the tv, like always 🙂

h (1) — In my garden right now. I hope the wheel-barrow will look good again this year.

h (2) — Marsh marigold in the root zone.

h (4) — Yellow wood anemone. These came with the perennial sunflowers that You can see the first leafs from around it.

Have a great day!

h (5) — I have three Serviceberry trees in my garden.

I had to apologize to Alma.

April 7, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

a (1)

The snow started to fall yesterday and I think it stopped some time before I went up this morning, that would be around 4:40 am. They had siad that we would have below 0C (32F) temperatures during the night but I think it stayed at that temperature all night. (Most photos today are from yesterday when we took a walk after work)

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All roads were ice free but the smaller ones were covered in a thick layer of snow. They have been warning us for more snow today and strong winds but it looks as if that nasty weather has passed further north of here. The winds are sort of reasonable strong and the rain is pouring down. Everything is wet and muddy now and every time the dogs have been outside, just to quickly do what is necessary, I need to scrub the floors again. They are still guessing that we’ll get more snow later tonight and that the temperature will drop for a short while so that we’ll have a snow white world again at least for a short while.

a (10)

I went to the physiotherapist today and she checked how well or not my arms worked. We talked about my rheumatism but she didn’t think it would make any difference on this and we talked about Alma as well 🙂 🙂 Well I had to apologize to Alma when I came home today because she’s not guilty for this, she may have hastened the symptoms but she isn’t responsible for this. I have what she called an inpintchement ( I hope I heard that right, she’s Danish but spoke Swedish really well) in both my shoulders but the right one is much worse than the left.

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It means that my nerves are getting squeesed and therefore gives me pain. I got some exercises I should do and was told to stay at home for at least five working days. I’ll meet her in two weeks and if these exercises doesn’t help she will hand me over to a doctor. If I get better I’ll get more exercises to do and we’ll continue like that until I’m back to much better. This is a rather common thing to get when working with the hands above the head for way too many times and for too long periods without any chance to rest the arm and shoulder. Painters are especially common amongst those who get it.

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They are very helpful at work and now they started to discuss other people who risk getting this too. Nothing bad that doesn’t bring some good with it! I stopped by the lake on my way home and there are some cranes but I could see at least as many in the fields just outside my village. The last counting said 17200 and that was two days ago, it snowed way too much for them to be able to count any yesterday 🙂

Have a great day!