Category: Roe deer.

Finally some warm weather.

May 7, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

a (1) — The bog more or less starts just behind my garage, at the moment it is more like a swamp and sometimes ducks swim around there 🙂

My body aches after all the work in the vegetable patch and potato patch yesterday 🙂 🙂 It was of course as worst this morning but I can feel the muscle pain after every time I’ve sat down for a while. I’ll survive and since I’m walking all the time while painting at work this will most likely be gone by tomorrow. The day has been truly wonderful, sunshine all day and 0C (32F) as coldest in the early morning. Then the temperature rose to 17C (62,6F) and the wind that was was lukewarm. I was thinking I should mow the lawn but my muscles said no 🙂 Instead I planted that English walnut I’ve had in the cool cellar all winter. It had new fine white roots so it will at least survive this summer as long as I remember to support water it until autumn comes an all leafs fall off.

a (3) — Alma saw several deer at our walk but behaved unusually well even when they walked (or ran) away.

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I’ve also replanted eight apricot seedlings, six that shows above the surface and two that might make it. When the apricot seed starts to germinate it always splits in two, don’t know why, sometimes one half just sort of falls off and sometimes it gives a root that sometimes give a new plant. Lots of sometimes there but why not plant it and see what happens?

Quite often when we buy, for instance, grapes they are packed in these plastic containers. They work perfect as mini green houses.

I’ve also done the laundry and dinner for next week at work so now all I have to do today is to bake two breads because I’m out of normal bread and down to a minimum when it comes to hard bread. It is quite easy to bake gluten free bread because there is no kneading involved. It is so sticky that it would be impossible 🙂 🙂 It isn’t as runny as what You get when baking a sponge cake though. Thankfully easy to wash away. I’ve managed to get a bread that is quite close to a gluten bread so I’m quite happy with that but I still haven’t figured out how to come close to a french roll 🙂

This one was a bit hard to just let it run away without getting a bit hysteric 🙂 🙂

a (19) — This is some kind of plum tree, I don’t think it is a Cherry plum but the fruits are pretty small but not round as cherries. Bright yellow and tastes really nice. It flowers too early most of the time so the flower freeze and won’t give any plums at all. If it does this this year I’ll cut it down.

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Have a great day!

White wood anemone.

I’m ready for the vegetable season.

May 6, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

Flowering Bog myrtle (Sweet gale). Smells really nice.

We’ve had a really nice day here, it would have been wonderful if it hadn’t been for the pretty cold night and sometimes the wind being a bit too chilly. To be honest it was warm enough to have the kitchen door open all day and the little wind that actually reached the garden helped when I worked in the vegetable patch and potato patch. The vegetable patch mostly only had grass that I needed to remove but the potato patch also had dandelions, greater celandine, a few small elder bushes, wild raspberry bushes and that red leafed oxalis one can buy as a potted plant, usually have yellow flowers and really is a spreader. Many oxalis can be used in food but this one isn’t one of those but I musty admit that amongst weeds it’s quite beautiful.

I checked so that there were no bees visiting the dandelions before I removed them. There are plenty more dandelions in the lawn anyway so bees of all kinds won’t be hungry 🙂

The vegetable patch were much easier to clean out even though it’s almost twice the size.

The box is almost falling apart and I think I won’t have another there next summer.

I’m happy to say that today was one of those days when Alma behaved pretty good even though two Roe deer ran in front of her eyes and she even noticed a hare in a field without going insane. She did however almost fall of the entrance stairs and pulling me with her when we went out for our afternoon walk. I wonder if I should put on her harness when we’re not taking any walks because as soon as I put that one on she starts to tremble, panting and whining a lot. If I open the door and she doesn’t have it on she behaves like any other dog. When we start walking and I can keep her reasonable calm the first two hundred meters the rest of the walk usually works rather well. If not it’s horrible for both of us. She has become much better though, now days I can actually hear the birds sing, I couldn’t do that from the day she arrived until some time in the middle of the winter that just passed 🙂 🙂 🙂

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They are finally putting more gravel on the road outside our cottages 🙂 The “big” road in the village belongs to the village and all of us are responsible for it but the roads leading from it are private roads and are supposed to be taken care of us who live along them. The problem is that it is timber lorries that destroys it so therefore it’s the forest owners responsibility to keep it in good shape. This winter was warm and the road was soft so now we have huge holes in it and the forest owners have been no where to find but finally one of them said he’s taking care of it. I don’t know how many times I’ve done what I have been able to to fix the holes outside my cottage but that doesn’t help when a new lorry arrives and just makes it worse again, also I live at the lowest point of the road so all water runs down to me and sometimes I have to wade in water when I’m trying to go out from my garden (well wading is a bit much but there’s at least 5 cm (2 inches of standing water there, five meters (much the same in yards) wide) 🙂 🙂 🙂

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It’s the finale in the Eurovision Song Contest next Saturday. To be honest they have been really quiet about it so I didn’t know until a few days ago. Our song is the absolute favorite an it is Loreen, who already have won this with the song Euforia, who sings for us. The music isn’t that much different than when she won the last time but I can’t for my life hear what she’s singing 🙂 🙂 I’m not sure if anyone actually can hear that but she’s like always very dramatic in her performance so I guess that’s what they fall for. I must admit that even if I can’t hear what she sings it still was the only song that should win, the rest were actually total crap and probably the worst I’ve heard in years 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Have a great day!

A15398_008 — One from the Agfa Ambiflex.

Easter continues.

April 8, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

DSC_0004 (4) — Not the first butterfly for the year, I saw some in February when it was a bit warmer than now but it was the first one I managed to photograph. Lots of other ones were flying around but they refused to stand still so I could take a photo of them 🙂

So easter continues and today most families gather for easter dinner (well could be lunch as well, the thing is that relatives who can’t stand each other normally now do and after this they usually don’t meet until midsummer again 🙂 🙂 ) Like always we swedes eats loads of pickled herring, personally I can’t stand it but I belong to the very few who just refuse to eat it. They will also of course eat pickled salmon or cold smoked salmon. We who don’t like food that isn’t cooked eat meatballs, sausages, oven omelette with a stew made of chanterelles, lots of eggs and now days also easter ham. Easter ham is the exact same thing as christmas ham but they’ve changed the name so it fits the season 🙂 🙂

DSC_0014 (3) — I manage to distract Alma and Albin so they nere saw the deer 🙂

DSC_0016 (2) — Wild hogs at work during winter. Doesn’t look that bad but they can dig down to half a yard deep but it can’t be seen in this photo.

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Since it isn’t especially dry in the grass or the ground there will be lots of bonfires burning, to scare away the witches who now flies home after the party on Blåkulla. This tradition is strongest here in the southwest and out on the islands outside of Gothenburg, the town I was born and raised in, the tradition has gone a bit out of hand.They are, since at least 100 years back, competing in what island has the biggest bonfire. I’ve heard stories about how they go over to other islands and steal what ever they can to make their own bonfire bigger, including old tires and christmas trees. It will burn but they are also polluting both the area around the bonfire as well as the ocean surrounding the island. Now days it’s so bad that they call in extra polices to keep it reasonable calm.

p (16) — The Honeysuckle is always early with new leafs.

I went and visit my friend with the garden center. No I didn’t bring any camera, I’ll do that when the spring season has started. Easter eve was pretty calm back when I had my garden center, most people had already bought the flowers they were about to give away, so I was happy to see they she had lots to do today. So I had some time to walk around and I always like to see what they have hidden away. I found a Calamodin, a citrus relative that gives small orange looking fruits. They taste bitter sweet with emphasizing on bitter. It works great for marmalade though. All leafs were gone but it looked really healthy but she was going to toss it away, so now it stands in my cottage 🙂 My guess is that it was hit by cold air and didn’t like it so it dropped all the leafs. Takes too much time to come back for a garden center but I have all the time in the world 🙂

A15264_002A — These three photographs were taken with a Minolta X700 but it broke down after that so I moved the film to the Bessamatic instead.

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The day started boring and grey but it was at least above 0C (32F) but later on teh sky cleared and we’ve had sunshine all day long after that. Tonight will be a bit chilly, well almost warm after previous week but days will now be at least around 10C (50F) so I’m planning on bringing out some of what I have in my cool cellar to slowly get it used to be outside until the frost comes back in autumn again.

A15266_010 — And one from the Flexaret VI.

Have a good continuing of easter!

New lenses.

September 22, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

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Once again I had to scrape ice from my car before leaving for work, I really don’t like it 🙂 Still it doesn’t seem to have been that cold in the garden because nothing looks frozen at all. I guess that my high hedge and the fact that my cottage and my neighbors cottage stays warm enough during the night to keep the frost away until the morning comes.

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I left work a couple hours early today. I went to get my new contact lenses and wanted to try them for a couple of hours today so I would know what they were like. I don’t think it would have been a good idea to put them on tomorrow morning and then drive to work 🙂 🙂 These are test contacts, just to make sure they’ve made them right and I’ll have them until Monday two weeks when I’ll go to the optician again so we can see what I think of them.

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They aren’t perfect, I can see clearly from about 60cm (15 inches) to around 3 meters (much the same in yards). Then there’s a long distance where everything is slightly blurry but I could see the trees on the mountain very clear 🙂 (a mile or so away). It can depend on the light because the lenses are most sharp for shorter distances like reading in the middle because when one reed there’s brighter light and the pupil will become much smaller. The sun shone really bright today so I guess my pupils were quite small all the time. It’ll be exciting to drive to work tomorrow morning when it still is quite dark 🙂

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The lenses work really well together with the camera though, everything is sharp no matter what distance it is from me and the camera. I have no problems putting in lenses in my eye, old habits die hard or what they say but I did have huge problems getting them out 🙂 🙂 🙂 No matter what I did those lenses sat on the eye as if they were glued, no risk of them falling out by accident though 🙂 🙂 🙂 Then I remembered that one should always look up when picking them out. Didn’t take more than a second when I remembered that 🙂 🙂 But I think I need to buy eye drops because the air in the factory tends to be rather dry, except beside and inside the big washing machine and I’ll be working inside it tomorrow afternoon 🙂

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I think it is time for a big cup with hot cocoa and perhaps a couple of digestives. I’m really tired today, don’t know why, so it’s a good thing I took out those lenses because the odds of me falling asleep in front of the tv are pretty low 🙂 🙂

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Have a great day!

Busy day.

August 21, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

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The weekend has been rather nice. Fog a big part of yesterday morning and sunshine in the afternoon. Today chilly and sunny in the early morning with just a tad of morning mist and this afternoon is just enough warm with a light but cool breeze. High humidity though and that sort of brings down it all a bit.

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The hunting season has started, they start with Roe deer bucks and it’s usually over after a couple of days. Here the hunters counts how many bucks there are and after that they decide how many they think can be hunted and usually the older and bigger ones are protected, just to make sure the most fit stays so the coming generation of deer benefits from it. No bigger animals are allowed to hunt yet except for wild hogs, they can be hunted all year long as long as it isn’t a sow with piglets.

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So we’ve mostly been out in the early morning. I hoped that we would see the wolf that walks around here but I didn’t have that luck I’m afraid. I haven’t seen or heard any hog since they saw the wolf so I think it still is in the area. Yesterday when I went to bed I also hoped that I would hear it howl, the sky was clear and the moon shone but it stayed quiet all the time 🙂 🙂 🙂 I do have a camera in the car and I’ll have it ready just in case the wolf shows up on my way to work 🙂

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I did one big load of laundry yesterday and another one today. I also have the dinner for the coming week cooking in the slow cooker at the moment. It will be some kind of pasta sauce, well not quite because I’ll also have green curry, bamboo shoots, corn, haricots verts (from my own vegetable patch, squash also from my own vegetable patch and chard that also is growing there 🙂 and I’ll have it with pasta so I guess I can call it a pasta sauce 🙂 🙂 🙂

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WE had pancakes (thin European ones) for dinner and IU must say that my apricot and banana jam actually tastes better now. After this I’ll make an apple pie (well it will most likely be an apple crisp since I’m a bit lazy 🙂 🙂 🙂 and I’ll have both cardamom and cinnamon in it. and I’ll have custard poured all over it 🙂 I’ll either sleep like a baby tonight or my stomach will give me so much trouble that I won’t sleep at all 🙂 🙂 🙂

c (1) — My new coffee maker. Finally I can get a decent cup (well two if I count my tea cup or eight if I count coffee cups 🙂 ) of tea.

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Have a great day!

DSC_0001 (5) — One of Albins absolute favorite spots in the garden, close to the gate on the north side of the cottage.

That was a day I’ll never get back.

June 4, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

The photos are from the last three days.

So the company I work for started a sort of club for us working more than eleven years in the company, to “strengthen the community feeling” (and do fun things together) as I remember them saying. We even got a golden pin with the company logo on. Nothing much happened after that until yesterday when we all were going on a trip together.

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Sounds fun doesn’t it? I did try to get out of it but had no such luck 🙂 🙂 So we were going to the coast and so far so good. We had a really nice breakfast at a small hotel and that was quite nice too, we had the view over the ocean just outside the windows. It was after that it sort of went downhill. I can’t for my life understand how they thought us going to a company that makes similar things to what we do and then listening to how they met certain regulations during at least two hours in any way would “strengthen the community feeling”???

a (9) — They’ve started to cut down all the trees in this place. It has been one of my favorite places to walk. The bark beetle will most likely kill all trees anyway.

I was so bored that I for a while thought of just pretending to go to the bathroom and run away to the train station to go back home without them knowing 🙂 🙂 🙂 When that meeting finally was over we went to a factory one of the Owners of the company I work for owns. First however we had lunch and the food was actually worse than the one we used to have before we changed to another restaurant and we finally got food that was cooked and actually spiced too 🙂 🙂 🙂

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By then I thought it would have been better just to die there and when but we went to the factory, after all it could be fun to see what and how they were doing things there. Well Friday afternoon is perhaps not the best time to visit any other company since they are preparing for going home and nothing much happens? So the best I can say about yesterday is that it is a day I’ll never get back and that I now know I’ll refuse to go on another. I still can’t understand how they thought this in any way would do any good in any way. If anything it just showed us that those higher up in the hierarki really live in another world and most likely have no life outside work. I actually feel really sorry for them.

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The walk this morning went fairly well until we met a deer. I really tried to make the deer move before Albin and Alma noticed it but that stupid animal just stood there and watched us. I shouted, jumped around and insulted its intelligence for not running away but it just stood there watching us until Albin and Alma started to scream like insane. The walk was not fun after that and I’ve decided I will not have another walk with those two today. The shoulder pain is enough reason for not taking any more walks today.

If one finds lilacs in the forest one can know with certainty that there once was a house built there.

It is time to start mowing, perhaps I’ll just do half the lawn today and the rest tomorrow. I’ll also continue with removing the lawn in the potato patch and later on the vegetable patch too. Before anything else though I’ll have a cup of coffee 🙂

I will cut this one down if I don’t get grapes this year. I got some two summers ago and they hid behind big leafs so the sun never reached them and they were quite sour 🙂

Have a great day!

Biting wind.

April 23, 2022 · Leave a comment ·

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The sun is shining, the sky is mostly blue and there’s an ice freezing wind there to destroy it all. At first it hit from south east so it was impossible to stay in the garden for more than a minute or two but now it has moved to blow from north so we can finally stay on the south side of the cottage without freezing.

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We stayed mostly in the forest on our morning walk today but we had to pass a couple of fields and of course we then met eight roe deer. I managed to stop Alma from seeing them but that didn’t stop her from shouting like crazy 🙂 It passed fairly quickly though and the rest of the walk she behaved reasonable well.Too bad I had to occupie her because I therefore couldn’t take any photos of the deer

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I sowed twenty kernels of corn in a small container about a month ago and they have all grown together, so today was the day I needed to do something about it. They are quite big now and that helped. I filled a bucket with water and after that I just put the entire lump with corn plants and soil in it. It took around an hour but finally the soil was so wet that I could separate them from each other so now I’ll just plant each and everyone of them in separate pots. Have no idea where I’ll place them because even though the pots are small they will need a lot of space 🙂

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Also it looks like Alme believes this is grass for her to eat, she tried to chew one of them but I managed to stop her 🙂 🙂 Perhaps I’ll place them in my cool cellar with the plant light. The cooler temperatures will slow down the growing but no dog will be able to chew them down 🙂 My brother’s cherry plum tree is in full bloom now, he lives by the coast. So I took a look at mine and it turns out that a few of its flowers also are open now. I wish it would calm down because frost and flowers aren’t a great thing if one want fruit and we can after all have frost at nights until at least June sixth.

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I better replant those corn plants and after that I think I’ll sow some cabbage and Broccolo. It looks like a green cauliflower but the taste is more like common broccoli. I’ve grown it before I moved from my old home town and I remember liking it a lot. Well I better get started or I’ll forget to do any of it 🙂

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Have a great day!

Nights will get warmer, finally.

April 12, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

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It has been a rather wonderful day here today, yesterday wasn’t that bad either to be honest but we did have some wind that made it feel a bit more chilly than it actually was. Today started chilly and frosty but it changed quite fast and the rest of the day has been warm, nice and sunny.

DSC_0008 (6) — I’ve noticed that the more blurry a photo is the better those sparkly dots show 🙂

Well the sun is hiding behind clouds now but it is still rather warm. A low pressure will pass tomorrow and on Friday but the temperature won’t drop especially much, could this mean spring has come to stay now? I do hope so. The birds seems to think so anyway but then again they were singing spring songs almost as much as now when we got that last snow 🙂 🙂

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I woke up with a really sour throat today and I’ve had some neck pain/ head ache. No fever though and I wonder if it is the corona virus I’ve gotten? So ever since the early morning I’ve eaten small ammounts of honey and as soon as I’ve done that my throat has felt much better. I’ve also had a lot of tea with ginger but I would have had that anyway 🙂

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One more day at home and then back to work for one day, after that we’re having a four day holiday since it is easter and then on the Friday after that back to the physiotherapist. If my shoulder is better we’ll continue with the exercises if not she’ll send me to the doctor. So far I can’t say I feel much change though, well slightly better to be honest but there’s still time for it to change.

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I planted the rose on Teodor’s resting place today. We might still have chilly nights though so I’ve placed a big clay pot over it. Both to protect it from the cold nights but also from the burning sunshine. No risk of sunshine tomorrow though so I’ll remove the pot in the morning so that the opening leaf buds can get used to daylight and later on the sun shining.I’m a bit late but I’ve also sown melon seeds and the tomato seeds will be sown tomorrow.

DSC_0017 (5) — These four were taken yesterday when we walked down to the bog, it was way to wet to walk out there though.

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I’ve also started to sow annuals, like poppies and cornflower in the old wheel barrow. Later on I’ll sow californian poppies and nasturtium so I think the wheel barrow will look just as nice this year. I also need to sow morning glories and Black-eyed Susan vines soon so they get a chance to flower at all, they are a bit slow with that I’m afraid.

Have a great day!

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