Category: Roe deer.

The new compost.

July 12, 2024 · 2 Comments ·

This morning was sunny and quite chilly with some morning mist hovering above the ground. It wasn’t supposed to be like that but since the sky was clear blue I thought I had some time before the more cloudy weather would start. It started as soon as we came outside the entrance door 🙂 The sun had evaporated the fog so it rose and then created a evenly grey layer between us and the sun. It had also warmed up the air a lot so the few flies we have here were really annoying.

All vegetation was soaking wet, both from the rain yesterday and the morning dew. So we just walked down to the creek, followed it up-stream and turned back homewards again. We did see a Roe deer and when we just had turned around to follow the creek down-stream again a wild hog gave us a friendly warning that it stood hidden on the other side of the creek and that we shouldn’t try to go over to that side 🙂 🙂 I never saw it though but it did sound as if it was big 🙂 🙂 🙂

I had just done some laundry when a package arrived. It was the new compost I’d ordered, the one that looks like a tombola and that one shall spin every now and again plus it is supposed to stand in direct sunlight so the things inside it sort of get so hot that it in a way boils into compost. I was naive to believe that it would be put together already in the package but oh how wrong I was 🙂 I also believed that it as most would be just to sort of pop it together in to the compost. Turns out nothing of that was remotely close 🙂 The package was rather flat and when I opened it the first thing I noticed was a bag with a zillion screws and Screws and nuts. I have to say that they had packed it really nice and there were even some Screws and nuts extra so it didn’t matter that one of the screws was defect.

I think this is the first year that the Beekeeper will get cherries on this little tree.

So I unpacked it all and at that time it was cloudy and not too warm. I started to put the pieces together and I’m really happy that I am ambidextrous (for those of You who don’t know what that is, I am both right and left handed since birth) because I think it would have been pretty tough to reach all the screws from the outside to the bolts on the inside otherwise. So I stood there in a bad posture of course and then the sun broke through warming up the air even more plus trying to fry my back 🙂 I’m glad I remembered to put the middle piece in while I still could (a sort of wall in the middle to make two compartments, when one is filled but not really ready to use one has a second compartment to start to fill up), it would have been impossible otherwise.

They had packed everything really well and I now have more plastic than the world needs this year 🙂

Each segment had to be screwed on individually and overlapping the previous one with eight tiny screws and bolts. I also got a screwdriver and for some reason I just can’t understand a pair of very thin gloves that only would have made me drop anything smaller than a tea cup 🙂 🙂

In this photo I thought I would show the middle wall but forgot to brighten up the photograph 🙂 🙂 🙂

So every time one puts anything in the compost one is supposed to spint it a few times and one must also spin it around every now and again so it composts evenly. This one is supposed to be totally smell free.

The normal flies acted pretty calm while I stood there sweating like a pig and to my surprise only one horse fly tried to bite me! Last winter really thinned out the fly communities and also the ticks seems to have been culled hard thankfully 🙂 Still plenty of them around though but clearly fewer than before. I moved the compost to the sunniest place in the garden, just in front of the vegetable patch and put in the fruit peels and other things in to the first compartment 🙂 So all needed now is that the sun actually makes a try to shine for more than an hour a day 🙂 🙂 I’ll have some twigs as soon as I’ve started to prune the bushes that now have grown too much and removing small plants that has spread too well with their roots. I do have a rather wild garden but even I have a limit to how wild it can become 🙂 🙂

My garden raspberries aren’t especially tasty but the birds love them.

I do however have plenty of wild raspberries, they truly behaves like weed 🙂 The wild one are probably the most delicious berries we have this far south in the country. We have even more delicious berries up far north but they can’t give any berries this far south.

The Elderberry tree suddenly started to flower 🙂

The dogs are sleeping deeply right now. Malkolm on my left side and the other two in my bed. They’ve enjoyed a sunny afternoon being outside playing but quite often come in to drink lots of water. The weather will be mostly rainy this weekend but they’re guessing that our early mornings will be almost cool and sunny, so I better get up and go outside with the dogs as soon as we wake up 🙂

Doesn’t Malkolm look worried here? Two seconds after I took this photo he attacked Alma 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

The morning was really nice anyway :-)

July 8, 2024 · 11 Comments ·

The weather has been really mixed today. The morning was cool and nice with the sun warming up the air rather quickly, later on the clouds arrived and with it heavy showers but lots of sunshine in between. Now we have sunshine and rain at the same time 🙂 Thunder was heading towards us but went north on the other side of the mountain.

The cattle have now moved on to the pasture beside the one behind the beekeepers cottage and that means the road still is blocked with electric wires so therefore much more difficult to walk along the creek.

We saw this deer buck on our way to the bog. Well I can see that it is more or less impossible to see it in this photos 🙂 🙂 🙂

Besides the morning walk I’ve spent most of my first day of vacation with having a long nap 🙂 I’ve had a cold for quite some time now, it has spread all over the country it seems, so I’ve been unusually tired this summer. I’m hit much less hard than most who have had it but instead had it for a longer time. I didn’t miss much while I, well we, were asleep. Every time it stops raining I’ve had the kitchen door open but the dogs have refused to go outside, they were caught in a shower early in the morning that not even Malkolm liked 🙂 🙂 and they wouldn’t do that mistake again 🙂 🙂 🙂

Both the big weather sites are guessing we’ll have a rain free day tomorrow but loads of rain on Wednesday. I’ll have to go to a grocery store as well, I should have done that today but I looked in the fridge and decided I have enough at home to last until tomorrow 🙂 My neighbors did the same but decided to go today so they don’t need to go for the rest of the week instead 🙂 We all started our vacation today and none of us want to do anything unnecessary during these weeks.

I already have three composts but I ordered a new one today, a kind of tumbler. It is black and is supposed to stand in sunshine so it becomes a hot compost. One puts in the material, could be grass or what ever comes from the garden or kitchen, turns it around a couple of times and leave it until next time. This will make compost much faster than the other warm/ hot composts. I bought it mostly because I have a family of mice in one of the old ones and lots of ants in the second old one. I’ve tried to make them move by pouring lots of water through it but they refuse, plus it is hard to open up so I can use what’s in it 🙂 🙂 🙂

This is most likely not a Creeping bluebell because the flower grow out from the stalk n several sides of it.

This is a Creeping bluebell because the flowers all grow out from the same side of the stalk. Almost impossible to see the difference otherwise but my guess is that they both spread just as happily 🙂

I better start writing a list of what I need to buy tomorrow and put it in my wallet already today so I won’t leave it at home as I so often do 🙂 It is so much more expensive to forget that list because I keep guessing what I might need and come home with so much more and most of it is something I really don’t need 🙂 🙂

The peas are in bloom and have started to grow over to their neighbors 🙂 🙂

Malkolm is now almost as high as Nova is 🙂

Have a great day!

Väettir.

June 20, 2024 · 4 Comments ·

Today is actually the real midsummer but they’ve made sure that it always is celebrated on the first Friday after summer solstice. Midsummer eve isn’t a holiday (Midsummers day is though) but most people working in factories and offices still have the day off and it’s also a payed free day. This is the last holiday we have before Christmas. I would say that it is as big or perhaps even a bigger holiday here than Christmas. The bad traffic started already today because everyone wants to be where ever they are supposed to be already today.

This is an unusual Plantago major since it is variegated. Normally they are seen as somewhat irritating weeds but for some reason they aren't when they look like this :-) — A variegated Plantago is really unusual and if I had liked them I would have brought this one home. Normally they are seen as weeds but for some reason not when they look like this 🙂 🙂

I’ll write more about the celebrations and folklore the coming days. Today I’ll tell You about Vättar (Väettir). They are usually small beings dressed in grey clothes but they can easily change to something else like toads or little mice. Like all beings they can be rather grumpy but we rarely know that we have them around us since they can change what they look like. There are several different kinds of Väettir, it all depends on where they live, like lake väettir, mountain väettir and forest väettir. It isn’t unusual that they live just beneath our cottages and if there are unusually many toads hanging around in our gardens it might be because they actually are Väettirs 🙂

Bumblebee beetle. Some years there are plenty of them here and some years one is lucky to see one.

The Blue vetch grows everuýwhere here and I like it a lot.

So if one lives a calm and orderly life and don’t disturb them they might become Your friend and then help you with the animals or perhaps give you and unusual amount of good luck. They really don’t like warm water so if one would toss out some from the home one should always warn them before one does. If one would meet a Väettir that needs help and help with what ever it is they usually give you a gift. It might look like an old pine cone or a stone, always take it and thank for it because they day after it can have turned in to gold or gemstones. If you don’t help them or disturbs them in any way they then instead might give You some terrible disease.

I woke up in the middle of the night by an awful screaming of fear (and the barking sound of an older deer), sounded like a small baby deer was attacked by something, probably a fox. I thought it must have been the young one that the doe in the cow patch was the mother too. I found the doe walking in the cow patch when I left for work and thought that she might look for her young one and felt so sorry for her.

She was still in the cow patch when I returned home (almost impossible to see her here) and she was completely calm. So either it was another animal screaming or she managed to scare what ever it was away 🙂

Väettirs are guardians of the area so I wonder if they live where gnomes doesn’t. Normally gnomes lives at farms while Väettirs seems to be more adaptable and live even close to poor people. They are my favorite beings to be honest just because they more often are kind than evil. Have I mentioned that there lives an unusual amount of toads in my garden? 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

It is at least warmer again.

June 15, 2024 · 2 Comments ·

Misty morning looking up the road before leaving for work. — No the coming photos with morning mist isn’t from today, I had those in my car camera.

It is raining outside, a nice gentle summer rain and the temperature rose up to 18C (64,4F) so it’s quite nice outside. It looks like Malkolm doesn’t mind rain after all, he’s the only one of them that willingly goes out no matter how much it is raining, Nova and Alma just stand by the door opening looking at him 🙂 🙂 I’m still trying to figure out what kind of dog he will be as grown up, when it comes to behavior I men. There are no signs of herding characteristics, not good at fetch but is truly gentle and like rain.

Fur photos taken in the village on my way to work when we had a few misty mornings. — My work friend once said that this isn’t a village but a wasteland 🙂 Big open fields in the middle with a few groups of houses and cottages spread here and there around it 🙂

That sort of fits with both Cockerspaniel and Golden retriever. Border-collie isn’t a retrieving dog so that fits with him, then again no herding 🙂 So it will most likely be something towards the golden and spaniel . All goldens and spaniels I’ve met have loved water 🙂 I tried to see how high he is now and he’s somewhere around (he wouldn’t stand still 🙂 🙂 ) 42cm-44cm (16-18 inches) high. That’s actually higher than what a Golden should be at that age?! He’s still the little guy here, Nova is 52 cm (almost 21 inch high) and Alma is 70 cm (28 inch high).

Malkolm yesterdxay when I had come home from work. The big package behind him is the dog food and toys I had ordered :-) — Malkolm waiting for me to walk in with him and as You can see the dog food and toys I’d ordered had arrived.

Buttercups, in the real those flowers are slightly tinged with green, really hard to get in a photo.

The haunted tree. Still can't remember the name on this one :-)

Our morning however was rather wonderful! Sunshine and cool enough to keep all mosquitoes calm but not cool enough to keep the flies calm. Still it was enough to wear a hoodie to keep them away from bot nostrils and ears 🙂 Later on a strong wind arrived so that kept most of the flies away as well. We walked down to the creek and Nova sort of thought that was a good idea, not great though so she did walk more slowly than usual 🙂 The only animal I could see, besides birds, was a deer. I had hope that we would meet the foxes again but perhaps tomorrow, They’re guessing that we’ll have much the same weather tomorrow, cool and sunny in the morning and warm but rainy in the afternoon. They are guessing much of next week will be much the same 🙂

Down at the creek, lots of flies there but surprisingly few mosquitoes.

I let both Nova and Malkolm walk without a leash on the last part of our walk, turns out Nova had quite a lot of speed in her legs 🙂 🙂 She did stop and look after us every now and again but we were never really close to her until we came back to the gate 🙂 🙂 🙂 Malkolm followed her for a while but decided to run back to Alma and me. He is very slowly accepting the smell from the anti tick spray and I could only find one tick on him when I checked him before I let him go inside. Alma had five and Nova only one.

Quite often we meet a fox here but I guess she has learned when we come by :-) I'm pretty sure that if the deer hadn't moved I wouldn't have seen him at all but they are more cautious now when we have wolves here.

Besides that I haven’t done much today, I did plant the dahlias I’ve sown but I don’t think they’ll last for long. Lots of hungry snails and slugs now when the weather is like it is. We don’t have the feared Spanish forest slug here, it behaves like a forest machine when cutting down trees, it eats anything and everything in its way but our native slugs and snails are enough as it is. One advantage we do have here though is the Panther slug, it eats other small slugs so we take really good care of those 🙂 🙂 So to be honest, it could have been much worse.

Nova and Malkolm walking ahead of us. She did stop every now and again to check where we were :-) Malkolm stopped and waited for us.

Time to go down to the tv and watch the European championship in football (soccer for You Americans). I’m not a huge football fan but I do like to see these big championships 🙂

Malkolm then decided he wanted to walk with me and Alma.

Have a great day!

I had forgotten to bring in the water bowl and (lying inside the bowl) the treat cup yesterday :-) — The water bowl I forgot to bring in yesterday 🙂

The dog yard fence is now slowly covered in Boreal vetch (and stinging nettles) on one side and

One neighbor once threw away hops he had in his garden not knowing how great it is at surviving. Male plants though so nothing to use for either scent or beer making :-) — hops on the other.

Sunny, warm and unpleasant.

June 2, 2024 · 2 Comments ·

A Roe deer doe half hiding in the high grass, most likely the baby is there too.

Malkolm woke me up at 4 am today, so up we went so that he could go outside to pee. There was some morning mist just above the ground but instead of having our walk then we went indoors again and slept for an hour and a half instead.

The dog rose showed its pink buds for the first time yesterday. — I noticed that the Dog rose now is full of buds.

The deer was at almost the same place this morning. This one is actually closely related to the pink flower I've shown several times this spring.

It was still rather cool in the air when we finally went out but I could feel that it became warmer and warmer for every minute, so we just took a short walk before it went too hot for old Nova. Yesterday just before we went to bed I could see a Roe deer doe just on the other side of the gravel road and she was still there this morning. The grass is high so I think she had her baby there as well. She’s been hanging around for a while now so she knows us well and didn’t bother to even try and hide when we walked out the gate.

The Haunted tree :-) This is a favorite amongst all pollen drinking insects and also a favorite with spiders who there can get an easy meal. This trailer used to be where all the hunters gathered before the hunt started. The little tjärn still have some water visible.

I mowed the rest of the lawn and the outside parts as early as I could, then I did the laundry and the temperature dried it up within minutes. It did look like we would get thunder and rain again today but it all passed to the east and west of is. The day has been unpleasant though with the high humidity and temperature plus the fact that we’ve had very little wind, so we have mostly stayed indoors taking long naps instead.

The little creek is almost totally dried out but ferns will soon cover it.

I was outside for a few minutes an hour ago, the wind has started to blow but despite that I sweated like a pig when I planted some of the sowings (Hollyhocks and Morning glories). Also there were so many mosquitoes biting us that we all went in, closed the doors and now only have windows covered with mosquito nets open. They are guessing that tomorrow will be mostly cloudy and perhaps not warmer than 20C (68F) and that fits me fine 🙂

Today the first dog rose opened up.

My tree peony, bought last year, have already given me two flowers and a third is on the way. — My tree peony has two flowers and one bud now, unfortunately these flowers look down to the ground.

I wasn't sure if my lemon tree would survive last winter but it did anjd now it has lots of buds. — Lemon flower.

The second daylile flowers too now.

Have a great day!

Now I fear the phone when I’m working :-)

April 26, 2024 · 6 Comments ·

Nicer morning yesterday so I’ll start with some from then.

Now days when the phone rings while I’m working my anxiety levels rise quite high and when I see it’s my neighbors the level hits the roof 🙂 Especially since we are way too few painters at work right now, so I wasn’t especially happy when the phone rang and it was my neighbor 🙂 🙂 🙂

Yes she had escaped once again and this time the hole was so small that it even looked like it would be impossible for Malkolm to get out through it 🙂 My neighbors said that she sat down by the fence towards the gravel road and looked up the slope. She knows I’ll be coming home not too long after she has done this 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’m going to check the fence this weekend to make sure there are no weak spots left.

Grape elder. the flowers will soon open up, nothing special to be honest but they are usually the first and yellow so I like them a lot.

This is the place where Alma saw piglets for the first time and she’s always calm and quiet here so we go there quite often 🙂 🙂

I have also noticed that one of the dogs, almost 100% sure it is Alma, has tried to dig her way out of the garage so now I’ve blocked that way with old car tires, with rims, and those are so heavy that it’ll take even her quite a lot of time to remove them before she can try again 🙂 🙂

Bog Myrtle in bloom. One of my favorite smells!

We’ve had rather nice weather today, lots of sunshine and slightly below 10 C (50 F). The morning was a bit meh though, grey and dull and -2 C (28,4 F) so the car was covered in ice, easy to remove though. Nova wanted to go out to the bog today so out there we went. Lots of small birds singing but not a sound of any other animals, normally we can hear them run away when we come too close but today nothing.

I was going to photograph this when Malkolm jumped up on the tree stump 🙂

Tomorrow it’ll both rain and snow during the night, great because can one ever get too much water 🙂 🙂 🙂 Same temperature as today but no sunshine until late in the afternoon, on Sunday it’ll be really warm, too bad it couldn’t be the same tomorrow since I’m at home and would be able to enjoy it. Malkolm took a mud bath in the root zone (where all my dish water, shower water and washing water goes to be cleaned) so today he had his first bath. He now refuses to be close to me, didn’t even follow us up to the computer, he’s really grumpy and sleeps down stairs in the dog igloo 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Winter is here and I can’t stop it.

November 26, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

a (7)

-10C (14F) here last night but despite it being well below 0C (32F) all day it still was a pretty nice day. The sun was even so warm that all snow on the south side of the cottage roof melted away. It was the lack of wind that did the trick.

a (13)

I haven’t done a single thing of what I usually do on Sundays. No dinner for next week, no laundry done and no vacuuming either which is really needed now. Then again the dirt won’t go away and now when it is as cold as it is none of us will bring in any more dirt anyway. The only good thing with these temperatures, even the dust has frozen to the ground 🙂 🙂 🙂

a (18)

I have done rice porridge but I forgot to start it in the early morning, I did it however early enough so that I could have some after a later walk 🙂 I was thinking, for a second, that I should decorate the tree as well but I’ll wait with that because the tree is nice enough with only the lights shining in it. The advent candlestick will have to wait since the snow covers all moss and lichens I would be able to find if there wasn’t any snow on the ground. The sad thing is that we’ll get more snow later next week so it’ll be even harder to find anything.

I better go down and launder at least some t-shirts so I have anything to wear at work. I have enough of the rest to last at least until Thursday 🙂

Have a great day!

BURREL — the best photo of the fox from last night.

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 🙂

Falling down :-)

June 3, 2023 · 1 Comment ·

My kitchen stairs are just two steps but when a slipper gets caught in a nail that has grown up from the wood it still is pretty high when falling down to the ground 🙂 🙂 🙂 Most of me hit a sack of peat and my first thought was that I had broken the lens on my camera, after that I started to check if I was ok 🙂 🙂 🙂 Nothing broken but my strained neck, because of Almas constant pulling of the leash, that was back to almost normal again is now back to being very strained.

It was even colder tonight than the previous one, -2C (28,4F) and this time I was worried that much more would have been damaged. The new walnut tree is badly frozen but I hope it will make a comeback later in summer. One of my ginkgos was touched at its top branch and so was the Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) but otherwise everything looks ok. The sun took its time to show as well this morning so we didn’t go out until well after 6am, normally we’re out at the same time the sun rise.

I went to Skara to buy soil and they were selling pitcher plants this year as well, so I bought three new ones to replace those two that didn’t make it through winter. I also went in to the super market and now I’m trying two new cookies. I’ve said it before and I say it again. They also make most of the cookies vegan so no butter or milk and nothing really tastes good because of that. I did however find hobnobs, normally not one of my favorites but these are quite ok, perhaps because the other ones I tried tastes like shit. They would most likely have been great with milk and butter in them. I’m not against veganism in any way but if food or edibles need milk and butter to taste good there really is no use in trying to make them without either of them.

I’ve planted my new Ginkgo today. I planted it close to the rose that stands above Teodors resting place. The rose seems to struggle so I thought Teodor most likely wouldn’t mind if ginkgo took its place 🙂 I also planted my Persimmon hybrid. The big problem was that the only place it really should be planted at was filled with roots of roses, sloe and false spirea. So I chose the only place where only the false spirea had grown. It really is a out of control weed that plant but it is fairly easy to remove because the roots grow just beneath the surface and can be ripped up. Except for the fact that they also grow like they are spiderwebs. So I had to rip up roots for almost half an hour before I could start digging for the tree 🙂 🙂

The Persimmon. You can see some of the roots in front of it.

Old Broccolo (a variety of broccoli) germinates much better than I thought 🙂

I cut out the bottom of a bigger pot,m placed it in the hole and planted the tree inside it. The put is deep enough so no roots will grow in to it from the false spirea. Next year when the tree is established (if it survives the winter) I’ll remove the pot bu just pulling it up from the ground and over the tree. I think it is time for a cup of tea and perhaps a couple of hobnobs. The other ones I bought would have been great as dog treats if they hadn’t contained chocolate. I hate tossing away anything edible so I guess that I’ll have to eat them but I will drink lots of milk while doing it 🙂

Photo taken while falling down the stairs 🙂

I think almost all potatoes have leafs now 🙂

Columbine. Looks like almost all mine are either pink or dark purple. I think I have one white and one blue.

Have a great day!

The nettles slid down my arm.

May 27, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

a (1) — I went up the my mailbox to see if I’d gotten any mail yesterday and took this photo on my way up the slope.

I have a thorn in one of my fingers and it hurts every time I press down a key with it so now I’m trying to not use it at all. I can see the thorn so I’ll get it out after this. I have the thorn there just because I cleared out another area in my garden. This one was filled with mostly False spirea, an old gooseberry bush (hence the thorn), a few wild raspberry bushes and lots of stinging nettles. I did manage to get a few stalks from the stinging nettles to slowly slide down my arm. The pain is gone but now it’s itchy and warm 🙂 🙂 So now it’s a new place where I’ll have to mow no matter what weather we’re having otherwise it’ll all come back again.

a (2) — And I took these on my way down again.

a (4) — Guess where I live 🙂 My cottage is barely visible behind the lilacs and that Rowan tree in bloom.

a (5)

I really need to stop drinking lots of water before going to bed, today we were up before the sun rose (and it rose at 4:19 today) and it sort of felt wrong to go back to bed because I know I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again anyway. So we went out just as the sun rose and it did feel quite chilly, I think it might have been around 5C (41F) but no wind and sunshine from the start. To be honest a walk with Alma will make anyone sweat like crazy anyway so I didn’t use the fleece sweater that I thought would be needed if we had been able to walk like normal humans and dogs 🙂 🙂

a (11)

I watered the vegetable patch and potato patch as soon as we came home , sowed some seeds and when the clock reached 10 am I started to mow the lawn. Before that I cleared that space of course.I really would like to plant my Persimmon tree there but all those roots makes it hard so I would have to rip them up (both the false spirea and raspberry roots are relatively easy to remove since they lay just beneath the surface but there’s a net made of those roots now so it wouldn’t be that easy because of that). I’ve also done some laundry so now I’m really tired, aren’t weekends supposed to be the time when we relax 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Suddenly most of the wildlife is gone again so I guess that the wolves are elsewhere at the moment. Today we only saw one young roe deer buck and he was sleeping in a field just beside the forest. I wish I could see any of them but I only hear from other people that they have seen at least one. The wolves are in trouble right now though, don’t think it is our pack but one in the neighbor county, because they killed a lot of sheep the other day. People here aren’t used to wolves so fences are way too low and not electrified in most places and to be honest the fences needed will cost a fortune. I think the government should pay most of that cost but the government we have right now instead wants to eradicate the wolves completely. Well the EU Court of Justice will not allow that thankfully 🙂

a (19) — I hate it when they put up those electric wires even when there are no cattle walking in the field. It is anything but easy to get those wires down so the dogs can pass, especially when I need to keep Alma calm. They do like that because they’re too lazy to have to do it when the cattle actually arrives.

Swedish forest authorities, experts and the swedish forest industry always complain about how other countries manages their forest, especially if we’re talking about those with rain forest but when we get complaints about how we take care of our forests we then always hear them say that we know better and that we have other conditions in this country than other countries 🙂 🙂 🙂 The Eu says we don’t have a sustainable forestry by only planting either spruce or pine and that when we cut down all trees at once we let too much carbon dioxide out into the atmosphere. Instead we should have a mixed forest and just thin out the biggest trees every now and again. Also we Swedes are complaining about how we treat the forests as well so now the authorities, experts and industry tries to tell us all how wrong we are 🙂 🙂 🙂 To be honest we’ve cut down so many trees now (yes we plant new ones as soon as possible) that we now have almost no older forest left. So when they cut down new trees they are either too young or they’ve cut down forest that should have been protected. I really hope the EU Court of Justice sues the shit out of them all 🙂

I had forgotten how much space there actually was behind that wooden box 🙂

There is this one really big root system that I think belongs to the old gooseberry bush. If new shoots grow up from it I’ll move it to a better place. The gooseberries were red and really tasty.

It is time for a last cup of tea and also to get that thorn out of my fingertip 🙂

Have a great day!

Not happy about it.

May 26, 2023 · 6 Comments ·

f (6) — Today the photos can come from today or any other day this week.

We’ve had a rather nice week over here sunny and warm but not too warm. The rain that they said would fall here, and it would be well over an inch, never arrived. I have no idea where it went instead though but none at work had gotten any. So instead I’ve been watering both the vegetable patch and potato patch. To be honest I’m not sure I really had to but at least those tiny seeds lie close to the surface and most likely liked the little help they got. The first potato leafs are now showing.

I planted this tulip two years ago and never saw anything of it. Turns out it shows up so late that all the higher flowers (and stinging nettles) grow up before it shows. I will move the few I have already tomorrow.

No idea what this really tiny flower is called.

We were called to a meeting at work first thing in the morning on Thursday and that’s never a good sign. Times are hard so they will now shut down those departments that gives little to no money and my job is of course one of those that will stop to excist. I won’t lose my job though but September first I’ll go back to my old department again and will start working evenings instead. Not happy about it but it’ll be fewer hours but slightly more in pay. Also we’ll get two hours more in compensation hours than if we would work normal day shift. Things can still change all depending on how things go in Ukraine and it can all go to h..l if the Republican party doesn’t do the responsible thing and allow the US to borrow more money.

I wanted to go home two hours early on Wednesday, no special reason just because I really just wanted to 🙂 No problem as long as nothing turns up where they need my help. So of course it did. I had to pick off maskings from things we had painted. So instead I could take those two hours on Thursday instead. Of course they then was supposed to paint the same things again and I would be needed there again, so instead I officially took two hours today. The thing was that the maskings never arrived before I was going home the normal time on Thursday anyway 🙂 🙂 🙂 Today however nothing could stop me, so I went to the store and bought what I needed for the weekend, drove home and passed the factory and it felt rather nice 🙂

Nova limped after being outside in the early morning but I couldn’t find any spot that seemed to hurt. She didn’t limp at all when I came home but I let her decide on where we should go on our walk. Normally she loves the longer route but today she chose to go to the bog instead. slightly shorter but mostly in the shade from the big trees in the forest Now she’s sleeping beside me and snores quite loud 🙂 🙂 🙂 She always does and I’m surprised that I don’t wake up because of it 🙂 I’ve had a neck pain for slightly over a week now and I just couldn’t figure out why, yesterday however I realized that it was because of Alma pulling the leash. She is very much better now than she was but every now and again she decides that no one should enjoy the walk and pulls the leash and is quite loud and whines a lot and the neck ache started after one of those days. Turns out that every time she rush ahead in a high speed and the leash it stretched my neck hurts like insane. That dog will kill me one day and she will eb happy while doing it 🙂 🙂 🙂

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It is time for a cup of tea and a few oatmeal cookies with chocolate drops in them 🙂 It is so far the only gluten free cookie that is edible because it has milk and butter in it. I’ve realized tyat lots of gluten free things also are vegan and vegans don’t eat anything that comes from animals, including honey for example. So now at least I know why everything taste really sad 🙂 🙂

A15397_004 — One from the Meopta Milona just so we remember what we’ve just left behind us 🙂

Have a great day!

Presummer is here.

May 20, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

I’ve always been like this but I still feel it’s wrong to wake up earlier on a weekend than on the days I need to go to work 🙂 🙂 🙂 I woke up just as the sun slowly should have risen but there were a few clouds at the horizon that blocked it for a while. The rest of the day however has been sunny without even a single cloud.

View from behind my gate yesterday when the sun was slowly setting.

We all had something to eat before we went out on our morning walk. It was still a bit chilly so I was stupid enough to wear a sweater, ok it was one with a zipper in the front but it didn’t take long before I started to boil. Walking with Alma does that to me but also the sun started to heat up the air and there was no wind at all. The first thing we did was of course to see a roe deer cross the road and Alma went from just stressed to quite insane. She did calm down a bit though but she gets so excited when she see wildlife that she can be impossible to walk around with.

The first deer we met. She must have seen us since long becausee the forest is cut down on the left side. She was in no hurry at all.

A crab apple tree on the right side of the gravel road. It gives red and rather nice apples.

Of course just when she finally had calmed down properly we went out on a field and what do we see? Another roe deer. So I was prepared for the worst but then she almost didn’t care at all 🙂 🙂 🙂 I will never be able to figure out how she will react to anything to be honest 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’m so glad that she and Albin never saw the badger strolling along some bushes when we were almost at home. when we came home I finally baked those breads that I should have baked yesterday 🙂 🙂 and they turned out quite ok. I think I had a bit too much flour though so the loafs didn’t rise as much as I had hoped. To be honest though, the taste is the only thing that matters as long as it is edible 🙂

The rest of the day has been nice and calm. Alma has been over to the neighbors and played with their daughter. Alma is apparently great with kids. Not so great with Albin because she goes too far and never stops in time. Today I sprayed water on her since I was watering the vegetable patch and that calmed her down considerable 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve sowed two kinds of Asian cabbage, one edible flower and then lots of draught resistent flowers, mostly those we have as spices like Thyme. I was going to sow Oregano (the Swedish name for it is Kings Mint) but I just can’t remember where I put those seeds 🙂 🙂 🙂 Plus I’ve sown all kinds of poppies, morning glories, canary nasturtiums, normal nasturtiums and Black-eyed Susan vine. If they all would grow I’m pretty sure it will look amazing and sort of a mess at the same time 🙂 🙂 🙂

The second one and he too took it a bit to calm for my liking. It’s a miracle if these deer survives the wolf pack we now have here because they react slower than cold molasses 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is time for something, I’m thinking yogurt and perhaps corn flakes or some kind of gluten free granola. I must say that gluten free granola is a bit sad when comparing to the normal one but one takes what one can eat 🙂

Have a great day!