We’ve had rather nice weather here this week, a bit cold perhaps and with both snowfall and hail but the sun has been shining quite a lot as well. Today was even better because finally it became a bit warmer again, that is after a nasty cold morning though.Thick and hard ice covered the car, so thick that the rising sun didn’t have a chance to soften it up before I had to go to work. We also hade a rather thick fog so I brought the camera with me and stopped by the lake for a few seconds.
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Alma has behaved unusually well on our walks this week! She’s extremely stressed about having to walk in the same pace as the rest of us but I can see that she’s really trying. Every now and again she flips out though but I will not complain or get angry at her those times. Compared to how she has behaved these last two years this last week has been wonderful 🙂 So I’ve started to think that she actually might not come from hell just to make my life miserable after all 🙂 🙂 🙂 She even stopped screaming like insane after just a few minutes after she saw a hare running in front of us, before she kept on screaming like insane for the rest of the walk which could be as long as two hours 🙂
Very few cranes by the lake this morning..
Now when my closest neighbors have gotten a second child they’ve been talking about moving to a bigger house or make this one bigger. It looked like they finally had decided to move and I wasn’t happy about it, they are amazing neighbors! but when they sat down and started to write down things about the cottage to a realtor they suddenly felt that they weren’t ready to move after all so guess if I’m happy 🙂 I can never get that good neighbors again, I just don’t have that kind of luck to be honest 🙂 So now can Alma continue to jump over to the neighbor to play with their eldest daughter 🙂
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I know that I don’t have space for any more trees in my garden so I guess that’s why I ordered a new one 🙂 🙂 This time it’s a Persimmon hybrid (crossed with its relative Kaki Persimmon). It isn’t as hardy as the American one though but I can’t find any “real” Persimmons for sale over here in Europe. I already have a few smaller trees in pots waiting to be planted but I’ll prioritize this one and the Pawpaw that also is waiting for a place to live 🙂 🙂 🙂 (plus I have seeds for more trees so I guess I really need to win the lottery so that I can buy lots of land so I can plant all the trees I already have plus all the ones I know I’ll be buying in the future 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Have a great day!
One from the Voigtländer Bessamatic, taken around a year ago.
I stopped by the lake Wednesday morning. The sky looked amazing so I took a few photos. Later that evening a new sow storm passed by but all of that latest snow melted away already on Thursday 🙂
So easter has begun, well at least the holidays because I guess one really should say that easter started on Monday. Weather has been so nice the week that no big amounts of cranes has gathered by the lake. twelve thousand as most but there’s still a wall of sound from the lake while they all trumpet like crazy. Instead they have now started to fly to the fields and meadows around the village. For some reason I think it’s more fun to see them here than standing by a fence down at the lake looking at them walking a couple of meters away and loads of them as well.
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This week another neighbor than the usual gave me a call at work telling me that Alma had escaped the dogyard again 🙂 🙂 🙂 I really don’t understand why she keeps on doing that since she’s miserable when she can’t get back in again. She is however very happy to see me coming back home again though 🙂 🙂 I stayed at home a bit longer this time, the weather was so nice so I made myself a pot of tea before I drove back to work. Alma has been pretty impossible on our walks this week, that is until this morning when she suddenly remembered how to behave. Well at least until we came close to some cranes and she started screaming like obcessed for a while.
I looked up in the sky yesterday to see if I saw any witches up there but all I could see was more cranes on their way to the lake.Today I saw what we call song swans and in America is called Trumpet swans.and of course cranes in the field.
Yesterday evening all witches flew to Blåkulla to have a party with the devil. There are a few places that is supposed to be Blåkulla and I think all of them are remote islands out in the ocean. More close to the ground however yesterday is the day when kids dress up as witches (and now days warlocks) and walks from home to home begging for candy. It is sort of our Halloween. This custom almost died out but has become popular again. But since yesterday was a work day for most of us they might do it on easter eve instead. I don’t think anyone will come here since I have Albin here but perhaps I should buy some candy just in case, it won’t last for long if no one should come anyway 🙂
We came pretty close, they didn’t care about us at all. That is until Alma started screaming as if she was possessed..
I’ve a bread in the owen and the smell has spread in the entire cottage. The kitchen door is open because the sun shines and it gets so warm towards the south heading wall that the radiator in the kitchen is turned off. We’ll have another walks as soon as the bread is out of the oven because they’re guessing we’ll have a cloudy afternoon. From tomorrow we’ll have 10C or over (50F) during the days and a day after or so we will also have above 0C (32F) temperatures during nights 🙂 It does feel like spring has sprung after all 🙂
I had the wrong lens with me so it’s hard to see what I have photographed. It’s a Jay (or Nut screamer as the direct translation would be from it swedish name). They are really shy so one must hide and have patience if one want a good photo of them.
Another rather wonderful day here. The night was pretty cold but after the sun rose the temperature also rose fairly quickly. Yesterday we had around 20 cm (8 inches) of snow on the gravel roads and today big parts of the roads were snow free 🙂 They still haven’t changed the wetaher forecasts so we’ll have this weather until Good Friday (or as we call it Long Friday) with temperatures just below 10C (50F) during the sunny days. Friday will be cloudy but from then on nights will be less cold and sunny days will gives us temperatures above 10C (50F).
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I’ll have to change Novas and Almas food again. Nova doesn’t like it any more 🙂 I did buy the same food but with chicken in it and she loves that one but one day I ordered the wrong food, it has rein deer instead. She gulped it down in the beginning but now she just sniffs at it and only eat it when she gets really hungry. She has however no problems what so ever to eat my food or treats 🙂 🙂 Alma eats anything that is put in front of her and also things I thought I had placed so high that she wouldn’t be able to reach it. I’ve now learned that Alma can reach anything she want to reach 🙂
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Sometimes when I have had film rolls developed and scanned some photos are quite grainy. I used to have Adobe Photoshop organizer 11 (I think it was)and it fixed the graininess if I just brightened the photo one step. I don’t have that any more any the one I currently uses for down sizing my photos are quite helpless towards graininess. So I downloaded a program called Gimp and it is so advanced that I can’t understand it at all 🙂 🙂 The only things I do are down sizing photos and tries to fix graininess. It did fix the graininess but when I tried toi save the photo it either didn’t do it or placed it somewhere where I can’t find it 🙂 🙂 🙂 I still haven’t figured out how to down size the photos though 🙂 🙂 🙂
These are from the Voigtländer Bessamatic..
I still have problems after daylight saving time started and will most likely have problems for another couple of weeks. i’m always tired now and it doesn’t help that I had a really nasty cold two weeks ago. So I’ll go downstairs after this and make myself a nice cup of tea, I doubt that any ammount of tea can keep me awake tonight 🙂 🙂 I’ve just made dinner for work next week and it’s time to portion it out in my lunch boxes. Have a great day and see You next Friday perhaps otherwise next Saturday.
Another snowstorm passed by yesterday, must have been the third in four days, so ow the world is covered in white garbage again. I do have to say though that the days has been rather wonderful with sunshine and above freezing temperatures. The photo shows the morning mist we got and it was better than nothing 🙂 🙂 🙂 They’re guessing that we’ll continue to have this weather until at least Thursday, with cold nights but sunny and warm days, after that the cold nights most likely will give up and most likely the sunshine as well but to be honest they aren’t that great in guessing the weather over here so a new ice age might start before the week is over 🙂
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We now have a pack of wolves that made my county their territory. Their sort of home area isn’t that far south of the town Falköping so I guess we’ll have many more visits from them in the future unless hunters do what they usually do and poach them. Hunters can be nice people but they really don’t like competition about the wild life they themselves wants to kill. I do know however that the hunters in my village wouldn’t shoot them, they are usually the first ones to see the wolves and then spread the news to us in the village so we all can keep our eyes open and see them ourselves. No such luck for me yet but I know that at least one followed us, out of sight, at at least one of our walks because the dogs clearly showed me that something was close to us for quite some distance and they really didn’t like it.
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More and more cranes arrive now and so does the crane tourists. long time since I saw that many caravans and mobile homes down by the lake. Lots of other birds arrive here too of course and I do hope that I one day will see at least one of the very few Black Storks that comes here every year. I know that they one year actually nested here but that’s very rare. They are usually more at home on the other side of the Baltic sea.
These were taken with my Agfa Ambi Silette. .
Last year I bought a pair of shoes that were nasty expensive but they were the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever walked in. Unfortunately the price didn’t show that they were a high quality shoes, I guess they lasted a month or so and the reviews of the company showed that there was no use in trying to send them back or get a new pair. Turns out that the soles just were glued on and with a low quality glue as well. So I’ve been looking at the shoes with some kind of disgust 🙂 until I realized that if I tore the soles off they would work very well as slippers instead 🙂 So now I instead have really comfortable slippers 🙂 🙂 Still to be honest they weren’t worth the price but now I can at least use them again.
. . Sixteen and a half years old, with a bad knee and still has no intentions on walking at the same pace as the rest of us 🙂 🙂 🙂
It’s time to make dinner for the dogs so see You tomorrow again.
It really was spring like here for a while so I thought I might start here again, then the rain came and now it snows. They tend to change the weather forecasts faster than a spinning wind power plants but at the moment it looks like we’ll get nasty cold nights and barely survivable warm days. That will of course change next second but that’s what I’ve read so far.
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So what has happened since christmas? Well I’ve learned, after 58 years why I’ve always had a wobbly stomach. Turns out I can’t eat gluten. I was at the companies health care service and talked with a nurse there. She asked if I had tried to stop eating products with gluten and I said I had bought one of those rather expensive home tests and it didn’t show anything at all. So she said try and stop eat anything with gluten and see what happens. Well I can tell You that I really don’t use much toilet paper now days 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Now days it isn’t that hard to avoid gluten since it has become fashionable to not eating it. however the bread one can buy is an abomination to anything living so I’ve tried different ways to bake bread with other kinds of cereal and now I have bread that is just like any other except I really can’t make a good French roll but I’ll keep on trying till I get close enough.
I had a few rolls of film developed and these two photos were taken with the Flexaret II
The dogs are all fine and I must say that Alma has calmed down considerable. She would still be considered awful compared to other dogs but she has really tried to listen to what I tell her. Last time we saw a deer she only screamed for five minutes after she last saw it and that’s a huge improvement. More and more cranes are around now and now I can hear them trumpeting from the lake in the mornings. Well I can hear them for the cow pasture on the other side of the road as well but so far they’ve stayed behind a tiny mound so I haven’t been able to see them yet.
These three were taken with the Agfa Ambi Silette..
Well since the wetaher will be more wintery than what I prefer I’ll come back next weekend again.
Last Sunday when we took a walk out on the bog I found some tracks in the snow when we walked on my favorite island out there. beneath the canopy there was just a thin layer of powdered snow so I really couldn’t see what animals they came from but it was clear that they weren’t from pigs or any kind of deer or moose. Fairly big and my dogs were really unhappy about them. From what I could figure out there must have been at least three of these animals passing by. It looked like the animals had done their best to walk in each others foot steps though. Since the dogs were so unhappy about them I guessed that we must have wolves here again. Today I thought we should walk the same way again but it didn’t take long until suddenly the dogs refused to go on, they all sniffed in the air and just wouldn’t walk. So we turned back and I think that must have been the first time all dogs had the same goal, just to leave the area as fast as possible. So I guess those wolves are still out there and who knows perhaps they were watching us while we left in a hurry.
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I don’t mind wolves myself but I really don’t want to risk meeting several of them while walking in an area where we not easily can get away from them. A dog is just another wolf in their eyes and will kill and eat them if they can. I’m not sure if they would have come even close to use while me, a human, is with the dogs but I’m not willing to try and test it 🙂 🙂 🙂 There weren’t any tracks from any other animal but hares and a fox out there either and that’s usually a sign that something has changed, like wolves staying in the area. So instead we walked down to the creek and back home again. I talked with my neighbor and he had seen some paw prints behind one of his cars so we took a look at them. The prints were much bigger than Almas but perhaps not as big as the only real paw print I’ve seen in snow that actually came from a wolf, so either a really big dogs or a rather young wolf I guess. Kind of cool that they’ve passed just outside my garden but at the same time I better follow my dogs outside in to the garden now when it’s dark outside. Just in case it will return. Anyway I did send a text message to the hunters that will be out hunting tomorrow, they’ll be using dogs and I really don’t want any dog to risk getting killed by a wolf. To be honest, if I hadn’t had the dogs with me today and thought there might be wolves around I would have continued out on the bog just to see if I could see any 🙂 🙂 🙂
.This is where we stopped and walked back when the dogs refused to continue.Up at the left corner is where we were so we walked back and down to the creek instead.Fortunately I took some photos last Sunday while we were out walking there 🙂
These are the times to also keep an eye open fro trolls and other beings while out walking according to our folklore. Trolls, who actually origins from the Norse faith can be out and about any time of day since they look much like us humans. Well not the mountain trolls up in the north of course, they are really big and human like even though they quite often are rather ugly, shrewd as few but not especially smart and they really dislike us humans. The other trolls however are much more like us but with the difference that they have a long tail. Sort of downy all they way to the tip where they have a big fluffy “ball” of hair. If one leave them alone they’ll leave us along but they will be forever grateful of one help them when they are in need. They occasionally tends to swap their children with ours but it is easy to make them swap back again, just threaten to hit the child and the troll mother will be there in no time to get their child back. A troll would never ever hurt their own child no matter what. Most of the rest of the beings will mostly come out when it gets dark and this time of year it’s dark almost all the time, especially if it is cloudy as it has been today. Never interact with them unless it is to help them (happens extremely rare), they will reward anyone who will give them a hand when they need it. Also it is a good thing to have some pieces of silver in the pockets, they love silver and will help if one give them some of it.
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The gnome is, from what I’ve read, never seen during daytime. The house gnome or perhaps more correct the farm gnome is said to be the spirit of the first owner of the farm, the one who once built the place. He stays just because he wants to make sure the place is well taken care of. He helps with the animals on the farmers do their best as well. However if the farmer is lazy the gnome will punish him one way or the other and if the farmers are really bad it happens that the gnomes simply burns the place down. The gnome is always a male and he usually wears grey or green, rather worn woolen clothes. One shouldn’t however bring him new clothes as a thank you because if he feels he is too well dressed he most likely will leave for good, he will of course not wear good clothes while working in the barn 🙂 The gnome can live in the barn but he can also live in the care tree that should be growing in every home. A care tree (or vårdträd as we call it in swedish) is a tree that is planted just for eventual sprits and beings to live in. Normally it would be an Elm tree, Ash tree or perhaps a Linden but it could also be, like in my garden a Rowan tree or perhaps an Oak or a Chestnut tree. What ever one does ever never hurt a care tree, not even by mistake, because the spirits and beings living there will punish You, perhaps even with death, if one does. On the other hand if one takes good care of it they will instead make sure one will have a good life.
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It is time to give the dogs their dinner and I might even have something myself. I’ll be back tomorrow but after that I won’t write anything until new years eve I think.
We got a white christmas, or Jul as we call it, after all. Just a few days ago we had lots of snow and it was bitterly cold when suddenly a warm front arrived with some rain and melted it all away. Ok it also gave us freezing rain which made it rather exciting to drive home from work one day and to work the next 🙂 But with the warm weather the feeling that life most likely would go on arrived and it felt rather nice. The cold weather however hadn’t given up it seems, so suddenly the temperature dropped again and we also got a thin cover of snow. I must admit that it was beautiful this morning, when first the sun rose and then fog rolled in over the village. The fog didn’t last more than a few minutes before the cold light from the sun pushed it away again.
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Christmas eve, or Julafton as it’s called in Swedish, is the big day here in Sweden. Today is trhe day when children will meet the Yule Gnome, or jultomten as we say. He usually arrives around noon and even though there will be lots of packages under the branches of the Yule spruce he still has a sack filled with presents. Well perhaps this year with the running inflation and high power prices it’ll be slightly less filled to be honest. Personally I hated to have to go to the yule gnome to get a present, he scared the c..p of me 🙂 🙂 and I for one never felt sad when I heard he wasn’t real 🙂 🙂 🙂 Most families then let the kids play with their new toys until three pm when they show Donald Ducks christmas on tv. This is a tradition that has been going on since 1960 here in Sweden. Every year they think less people will watch it because they rarely change any of the films during the years, still it is one of the most watched tv programs we have in this country 🙂
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The eating starts after Donald Duck and the menu is much the same every year, a christmassy smorgasbord. Pickled herring in more variations You would ever guess there is. Salmon in one way or the other. The christmas ham of course and lots of sausages and meatballs. It varies depending on where one lives of course, some must have smoked eel. some baked brown beans, and perhaps oven made omelette covered in a chanterelle stew. Red cabbage or brown cabbage are big in some parts of the country and we always have beetroot salad which goes perfect with the sausages, meatballs and the ham. Preferable there will be lots of different cheese there as well. At least one made from cream which is impossible to get slices from but very rarely any kind of blue cheese or camembert. When everyone is so full that they want to puke the rice porridge is served and lots of it. Many make way too much so there will be quite a lot of the porridge left until christmas day when we make Risalamande from it. Just mix the rice with lots and lots of whipped cream and then use what kind of fresh fruit of berry You want to have with it. Some let the fruit and berries lay on the surface while others, like me, whisk it down into the rice and cream mix. Of course lots of sugar should be added as well, preferable vanilla sugar.
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Back in the days our Yule Gnome looked slightly different than today, today he looks very much like Santa Claus to be honest. If one look at old christmas cards he usually was rather thin and most likely dressed in green (and of course on cards he usually was quite small but I doubt that was especially important). He also brought the presents in a small sled pulled by a goat or if it was a wealthy family a sled pulled by a horse. We’ve never had reindeers here and our gnome lives in Lappland, a huge and sparsely populated area in northern Sweden (where they funnily enough have lots of reindeers 🙂 🙂 ) Our Yule Gnome is of course based somewhat on our folk lore gnomes, some from Sinterklaas and also some from Santa Claus and I’ll come back either tomorrow or the day after to tell You a bit about our gnomes and perhaps a little about our other beings and folk lore.
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I now am on a two week christmas vacation. I started yesterday by going home a bit early (most people had already taken the day off and we who still came went home a bit earlier than usual. As soon as I had come home and the dogs had gotten their food we all took a long nap. It looked like we all were just as tired after we woke up so we had an early night 🙂 Today I’ve had my rice porridge for breakfast, so easy now when I once again have a slow cooker 🙂 Befor that however we went out on our morning walk. The sun rose and fog rolled in over our little village. It didn’t last for long though because the sun, even though it didn’t give away and noticeable heat still burned the fog away. Today I used my “new” camera that I bought as a christmas present (julklapp in Swedish) to myself. A Nikon D7100. I bought it from our ebay called Tradera fairly cheap and they hade only taken around 8000 photos with it, in digital camera world that means it’s almost unused since a digital camera should be able to take 150000 photos before it starts to break down. We are still getting used to each other but I have figured out the basics.
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I couldn’t understand why several photos were so blurry since I do have stabilization in the lens. Turns out that one can chose shutter priority or focus priority in this camera?! So either the shutter close no matter if one is focused or not or it tries to focus no matter what until the photo can be taken. I’ve now changed it to focus priority and I’ll see what happens tomorrow 🙂 The camera itself will of course not make my photos better (except for perhaps a bit sharper) because that’s all up to me I’m afraid 🙂 We’ll have below 32F temperatures until the night towards Monday and I can’t pretend I like that but knowing how horribly cold it has been and perhaps still are in big parts of the US I really shouldn’t complain. I also must admit that my home, especially the floors, are much cleaner when the ground is frozen. Still I really prefer above 32F nex week since that’s when they decide what my electricity will cost per kilowatt hour in January. A warm and windy last week in December will lower the price pretty much so hold Your thumbs for nicer weather for all of us 🙂
It has snowed again and it looks like this snow will stay all day but melt away tomorrow. It was quite nice this morning, despite it being chilly with snow in the air because there was no wind. We actually went out quite late for being us because I had forgotten to turn off the alarm. So up we went at 3:30 in the morning (well night might be a better word for it 🙂 🙂 ) because the dogs really wanted to go outside.
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I sat down in the sofa after that and fell asleep, I didn’t sleep well but for quite a lot of hours 🙂 🙂 Alma behaved reasonable well but I was worried when we reached the fields because we have lots of hares here now and I really didn’t want to deal with her screaming as soon as she see some wildlife. No wildlife in sight thankfully but I could hear the cranes trumpeting all around us.
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I fell asleep again as son as I sat down in the recliner 🙂 I should have had a pillow behind my neck but I must say it is really comfortable. I’ve also done the exercises I got from the physiotherapist and that is much what my day has been like. I’m still just as tired though and days like these I often wonder how on earth I manage to work all day and not fall asleep all the time 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I think I’ll do a peach cobbler tomorrow or apricot or pear one, I bought canned apricots, peaches and pears yesterday so why not make something like that, after all I have my ice cream to have with it 🙂 It looks like it finally has stopped snowing and now the sun shines as well 🙂
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I think it is time for a cup of tea and perhaps go outside for a while to enjoy some of the sunshine. After that I’ll most likely fall asleep in front of the tv 🙂
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.
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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 🙂
It snowed a lot on my way home after work yesterday, even after I had come home but I still didn’t get a photos with falling snow and most of it had melted away by the time we came out on our walk. I must admit that it did annoy me a bit, photos with falling snow can look really nice.
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What I didn’t know was that it was going to snow even more after I’ve gone to bed, so I woke up to a white world and I must admit that it annoyed me even more 🙂 🙂 I was lucky though because the snow was easy to remove from the car but a rather unlucky because the roads were shining with a smooth surface of very slippery ice. Took forever to get to work.
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The day has been rather nice though and time away at work so I really can’t complain too much. It was enough warm again today so almost all of it had melted away before I came home. We’ll get more snow tomorrow night and the night after that but the days will be warm enough to melt it away. They say that the spring warmth will return just before Easter, I do hope they’re right!
This morning on my way to work...The “mail box” I thought I saw stood at the end of this road and I had much the same light.
Yesterday morning when I drove on the forest road I noticed something, far ahead, that sort of looked like a big mail box. Sort of brownish-black and it didn’t make sence to have a mail box there because the closest house are at least 500 meters (much the same in yards). I drove fairly slowly so it took some time to get close to it. It wasn’t a big mailbox, it was probably the same wild hog that I thought was a little bear some weeks ago 🙂 🙂 🙂
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It is time to sit down in my recliner, it is so comfortable that I fear I won’t get up from it when it is time to go to bed 🙂 🙂 Alma and Albin aren’t happy though, they both want to get up and sit in my lap but I refuse, this recliner is mine and mine alone 🙂 🙂
The Cottage by the crane lake. 