Category: Summer.

Elves and Alves.

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Saint Johns wort.

Malkolm woke me up at 4:08 am today with a loud but high pitched bark, he’s after all only four months old now 🙂 After that he ran as fast as he could and peed on the stairs all the way down to the kitchen 🙂 🙂 🙂 To be honest he’s really good in peeing outside almost all the time. Just before I was going to write here he once again barked, ran as fast he could down the stairs and peed all the way down again 🙂 🙂 He had been playing so much with Alma that he forgot that he needed to go outside 🙂 🙂

     

We don’t have Fairies in our folklore, the closest is Alves and Elves. I really don’t know a lot about Alves but there seems to have been two kinds of them, the darkness Alves who lived underground and the Light Alves who lived in the sky and shone brighter than the sun. It also seems many think they are the male equivalent to Elves but since I’ve read that there were male Elf kings I’m not sure of that. No matter what meeting Alves, who always came in groups was no good thing. Most of our beings seems to love hurting us 🙂

     

Elves however could be seen during early mornings and late evenings dancing in the fields. They were dancing in the morning mist and one can still see them when the mist comes in circles and is sort of uneven on its upper part, like small tops all around the circle, those tops are the heads of the Elves. So I can say that I see them fairly often here 🙂 Elves might be beautiful but their main purpose is to make humans sick, especially children. Sometimes so bad that they die but they mostly do this for fun and really doesn’t want to kill anyone 🙂 🙂

     

If one would get sick after meeting the Elves one could be cured by blowing towards them with Bellows or perhaps drop some pieces of gold in a nearby creek as a sacrifice 🙂 Elves can sometimes invite You to dance with them and mean no harm with that but time flows much much slower in that circle so it’s best to not be in a hurry if one accepts. They will make You sick if You don’t dance with them and they will throw illness upon You and that will most likely kill You. Sort of damned if You do and damned if You don’t 🙂 🙂

     

In the year 1656 a woman was put to trial when she said she had had sex with the Elf King and had seven children with him. He one day came and brought the kids with him wearing golden clothes. The verdict was that she had been that the devil had made her insane and that they all should pray for her. I’m so glad that they never have asked me to dance with them since I have two left feet and my hip replacements really aren’t made for dancing 🙂

Have a great day!

Mösakäringa.

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Foxglove to the right.

We’ve had everything from cloudy weather to sunshine to rain and thunder today.It rained when I came home from work and after that we had so dark clouds that I though more thunder was on the way so we stayed at home and in the garden. I and my dogs once got caught in a thunderstorm where I had to chose from being the highest point in the fields or standing between the trees in the forest 🙂 🙂 It was one of those fierce storms so the lightning flew all over the sky above us but none hit the ground here in the village.

Grape vines grow like weeds.
I apparently still have two grapevines in my garden 🙂 I thought I had removed this one several years ago but here it is 🙂

The broken old wheelbarrow. I always sow different poppies and morning glories in it.

The poppies will soon open up, the Californian poppies however is far behind.
I sowed this Mock orange around 20 years ago and it flowers nicely every year and has become pretty big.
I sowed this Mock orange well over twenty years ago. It is now huge and flowers nicely every year.

They are guessing that the weather will stabilize towards Midsummers eve and after that become warmer and more sunny but You all know by now that they aren’t too good at their work when it comes to guessing what the weather will be like here 🙂 🙂 🙂  I know that in some folklore the beings doesn’t like to be out and about in daylight but very few is like that here in our tales. Like the Skogsrå, a forest nymph. She has lots of local names and I think that when people talk about here in this area they call her Mösakäringa (would be something like the Bog hag, personally I call her the Bog Lady just in case I ever should meet her 🙂 ). Everyone knows that when the fog rolls in over the fields from the forests it’s the Bog hags that has poured water over their nightly fires.

I have more roses than I can remember and I really can't say I like roses :-)
Found another rose that I remember I brought home after a plant swapping day. It has had a tough life fighting with wild roses I now have removed.Turns out it was lying flat on the ground so I’ve now helped it up again.
Persimmon shoots.
New shoots from the roots of the dead Persimmon hybrid. I’ve read that it is easy to make those shoots grew new roots so I’ll try that with some of them.

The Wisteria that I’ve tried to remove so many for years now but cut off a big piece of root is now growing in the Lathyrus, Golden shower. They have leafs looking very similar so if I’m lucky I’ll have both yellow and blue flowers in that tree 🙂

She’s the one that reigns over the forest /bog and all the animals and if she likes a human she will allow them to hunt in her area. In this region she’s always described as very beautiful and tries to lure men to follow her and, if she wants to, kill them or seduce them. Her backside looks different when it comes to where she lives, Here she looks like a hollow log on her back but further north she look just like a human but has a tail. In the Norse beliefs the god Odin hated her and often hunted her like an animal but she’s hard to kill, only a silver bullet could do that (and I guess that since there were no bullets back in Odins days he must have used something else made by silver. If one would meet any kind of beings when walking around in the forest it’s always a good idea to have  some pieces of silver, either as an apology if one has done something stupid or a way to become friends with them Preferable that silver should be begged while walking on a pilgrimage 🙂 To be honest I don’t think they are that picky now days since so few wear pieces of silver in their pockets while walking in the forest 🙂 🙂

Nepeta sibirica.
Rosa multiflora. Forbidden to have in many states in the US.
Rosa multiflora, Japanese climbing rose. It is still behaving nicely up here in Scandinavia but can spread fast and tends to push away other wild roses. Forbidden to have in many states in the US.

Have a great day!

Don’t try to catch a hornet.

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The only photo I have of Malkolm today 🙂 He and Alma learned that it isn’t a good idea to try and attack a Hornet, Alma was limping for a while and Malkolm as You can see was stung on the back.

 

More mixed weather today than what they guessed yesterday. It was sunny and rather cool in the morning while we were out on our morning walk but the clouds arrived much earlier, so by the time we came home the sky had an evenly dark grey color.

No ALT texts today, too tired in my brain :-)     

With darker day comes the mosquitoes and once again they attacked my ancles when I was watering the newly planted seedlings. The Dahlias were still there so perhaps the slugs still doesn’t know they are there. The dogs really didn’t want to be outdoors even though it has been warm but I guess they too are a bit sick of the insects now.

The little creek up by the bog is almost dried out oddly enough since it has been raining so much but the ferns shows where it usually flows.

 

Besides doing my chores it has been a rather uneventful day, perfect really 🙂 I’ve watched some football (soccer) and we took a nap, shorter than I had hoped for because a friend called on the phone. At least I didn’t sleep for too long so that I can fall asleep tonight 🙂 I have a short work week ahead of me because on Friday it’s Midsummers eve and that’s a big thing here.

   

To be honest I think it is even bigger than Christmas here and even though the church tried to make it a christian holiday (John the Baptist’s’ Birthday) it’s all pagan here to be honest 🙂 According to the folklore it’s a day when the Beings are out and about a lot and if we do it right we can keep us all healthy during winter and also see the future if we want to. For those new to this place but have been following me on post I think I’ve told You about the trolls and perhaps gnomes but there are a lot more to tell. I’ll start telling You more about the beings and how we celebrate Midsummer over here from tomorrow.

     

I have re-potted the Guava trees today. I think they have been a bit confused with the weather because first it was hot as h..l here, then almost autumn weatherwise plus all the rain, so they haven’t been growing that well, especially the roots have stopped to grow. I can only hope they’ll start growing again now when it has become a bit warmer. All apricots, peaches and pear trees are now re-potted as well.  and I had a few seedlings from the Lemonquat seeds I sowed just before the warmth arrived. It takes far less time to get a seed sown Kumquat, limequat, lemonquat and what ever other quat there is out there 🙂   than it takes for orange, lemon or lime trees sown from seeds. For those it can take up to ten fifteen years before they flower but perhaps, with a bit of luck, only four to five years for the quats. It is time for a cup of tea so I don’t fall asleep in front of the tv later. Only four more days before long weekend again 🙂

I totally forgot that I also planted the last potatoes in pots today. The sprouts were so long that I made them follow the inside of the pot 🙂
The Guava trees has changed color to red, normally a sign that they stand in too much sunlight but these doesn’t so I have no idea to why they’ve done that.
I hope the old Pawpaw tree that survived winter here also speed up the growth of the new leafs now when the warmer weather return.
Perennials and trees can take years to start germinate so I’m quite pleased that I now have Giant Sequoias growing.
The Himalayan Cedar is coming fine 🙂

 

If You want a flower that will keep on flowering until autumn, smells really odd and would spread like wildfire this is the one for You, Nepeta sibirica, Siberian catmint (our name for it is Siberian dragon flower). It is 5 feet high and smother any other flower to death within a year 🙂 Only just as invasive flowers can keep it in control 🙂 🙂 It is beautiful though.

Have a great day!

It is at least warmer again.

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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.

A flower on the tomato plant.

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Fuchsia Magellanica, Hardy Fuchsia.
Do You remember all the cuttings I took from the Hardy Fuchsia? These ones are not any of those because they all died 🙂 Turns out that the peat free soil I bought turns in to concrete after a while, perhaps works better for big plants but really bad for cuttings 🙂

Another chilly day here, some sunshine but rain as well. The clouds covering the sun brings out the mosquitoes and I have quite a lot of them because of all the vegetation I have in my garden. It doesn’t itch that much after a bite though so it won’t take long until the itching is over for this year. It can still hurt while the mosquito bites though.

Despite the cold weather the first tomato flower has opened up.
This tomato plant grows in the ground beside my cottage and now it flowers 🙂

I’m not fond of roses and still have plenty of them 🙂 So since I don’t like roses that much I naturally bought a new one 🙂

Camellia sinensis, Tea bush.
The tea bush (Camellia sinensis) looks pretty healthy.

These gooseberries will soon turn red.
The gooseberries are slowly going bigger.

Nothing much has happened today, just as I like it 🙂 but even if I had to do a lot at work time passed really slowly. It’s strange that the same amount of time at home pass so much faster 🙂 🙂 Time started to fly as soon as I left the factory and besides re-potting one of my Jacaranda trees I only had a walk in the garden while being attacked by both mosquitoes and flies and get slightly wet from rain I have no idea what I’ve been doing 🙂

Four photos of Alma and Malkolm playing.
Sometimes a sort of failed photo still look pretty good. This one is too bright but by being that we also can see Malkolms face so much better.

   

They had a sale in one of my favorite seed businesses, it was dirt cheap, and I had forgotten about it so I was really surprised when a thick envelope came in the mail today 🙂 I have forgotten most of what I had ordered but too a quick look and there are some perennials, some annuals and some vegetables waiting until next year. They have quite a good expiration date as well so the results should not be bad because of that 🙂

I have no name for this rose I'm afraid.
This rose has been growing in this garden for almost a hundred years I’ve been told. It has changed places where it has been growing though. I moved it here a couple of years ago and after fighting with wild roses for years it now has its own place.

Smells nice and it also grows in the beekeepers garden, a shoot from the roots of this one.

I do have a lot of roses for someone who doesn’t like them 🙂 🙂 This is one bush from the ground up to the top of the photo 🙂

We call this violet for Stepmother violet.
Lots of Heartsease growing in my garden.

I did take a few photos while walking in the garden and most photos shows Alma and Malkolm playing 🙂 They weren’t out for especially long because of the weather but if they’re guessing it right we will have a sunny and cool morning before warmer weather and rain will arrive. We’ve gotten so much rain now that even if we should have a month long drought we would still have a ground water level so high that there wouldn’t be any risk of water shortage 🙂

Four more photos of Malkolm and Alma playing.     

Have a great day!

P.S. Alma just scared the shit out of me because she kept on walking to Nova who was sleeping beside my desk, she never does that, so I had to check on the old girl because for a moment there I thought she had passed on 🙂 🙂 🙂 She’s fine and looked just as surprised as I was 🙂 🙂 🙂

It isn’t the printer that doesn’t work as I want :-)

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I’ve been trying to print out some documents and it has been so annoying! It’s actually not the printer that makes me angry, it’s the Open office documents I at the moment put all my hate towards 🙂 🙂 I use an old laptop and don’t have a mouse to it, so I use the touch sensible thing on the laptop. As soon as I have managed to get it just like I want it and have saved it and by accident touches that area  it suddenly totally changes the look of the document, doesn’t matter that I’ve saved it. So then I need to go though it all again, fix all that has changed and ever so carefully try to print it out.

   

The Iceberg lettuce and also the Chard is growing fine.

It is quite often not enough to be ever so careful, so I’ve printed out three pages at least five times now 🙂 🙂 🙂 The last copies came out alright, not perfect but close enough to just give up and accept that the universe hates me 🙂 🙂 🙂 The strange thing is that the printer always works as it should!!?? Normally printers die just when one need it the most but not this one. I’ve started to call it the old faithful 🙂 🙂 🙂

   

My first strawberry 🙂

The weather has been really mixed, well the temperature hasn’t been mixed at all, 10C (50F) or just around that. Lots of sunshine but even more clouds, rain and thunder plus the addition of strong winds. I guess the relatively low temperature has kept the grass fairly calm and I haven’t had to water anything 🙂 Now I can start using the vegetables I’m thinning out on especially sandwiches 🙂 The tomato vines have stopped growing though, too chilly for them I’m afraid. Also I think me melon vines dies, it looks like they have though 🙂 🙂 🙂

My Pawpaw seedlings are a bit confused I guess because they never experienced winter but it was cool in the cellar and then were tossed out into hot summer just to be thrown in to chilly weather again 🙂 but they all live and only two of them refuse to let the old leafs drop 🙂

My Mango tree has just been re-potted.

Lupinus texensis. I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed when the flowers became white instead of blue but now I at least have lupines here 🙂

I’ll get new working hours, again 🙂 , from next Tuesday but this time they’ve only changed it from 6:20 am- 3:20 pm to 7 am- 4 pm. I’ll be a resource person that they can put in anywhere in the painting department because I know it all. I would have preferred to leave the painting department for ever but for some reason they’ve decided that I’ll stay there till I die or retire 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

I think my cold is calming down now, I’m really sure it isn’t pollen because after all this raining there can’t be any pollen left in the air. Lots of tea with sliced ginger in it and I think the ginger has helped but then again i really like the taste of fresh ginger so if it hasn’t helped it did at least make the tea delicious 🙂

Have a great day!

A day with warmth and sunshine, it’ll rain tomorrow.

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Every year since long before I moved here poppies have grown outside the Beekeepers garage.

I have two really happy dogs beside me right now. Warmer weather and no rain so now they’ve been playing outside all afternoon/ evening 🙂 Also a short walk after I had come home was really liked. Unfortunately the Forest fly season has started so after walking to the bog we all hurried out of the forest again 🙂 These flies are really harmless in all way but they always try to get inside the ears and nostrils and if they can’t they just walk around on the hair. So annoying!!! So I better find my mosquito hat otherwise I’ll refuse to take any walk after it becomes warmer than 10 C (50 F).

Clouds missing my village, they pass south or north of us :-)

This is some kind of Lathyrus, Sweet pea relative and it grows along the gravel raod.
I can’t remember the name but this is a close relative to Sweet Pea. Could be Spring pea perhaps ?

The first wild strawberries, they grow all over the forest and in to our garden :-)
The first ones for the year. I didn’t eat any because too many dogs walk by there and god only knows how many pee on them 🙂

They’re guessing that it’ll stay this warm tomorrow again but with rain and thunder. After that a few days with lower temperatures again and then up to summer temperatures and with rain almost the entire time, I guess the mosquitoes will be happy about that 🙂 🙂 🙂 I think it might be time to go fishing and put what ever I catch in the little lake behind my garage, a few fish can eat a lot of mosquito larvae 🙂

White beam, not especially common growing in the wild outside this village. Whitebeam isn't rare here normally but I can't find it anywhere in this area except for in this forest.
Whitebeam.

The Birch wood on the way out to the tip of the peninsula in the bog. 

Lots of butterflies here now :-)
I’m not good at butterfly names 🙂

I found a new anti tick, horsefly, mosquito spray in the pharmacy last Friday. The last one I had smelled like really bad deodorant, the kind of buy while being abroad somewhere warm and wonder why one never find something like that at home and when You do come home fully understands why not 🙂 🙂 This one doesn’t seem so bad to be honest, it smells like a very flowery perfume older ladies used in the sixties. Sort of discrete but powerful. The thing is that it sticks around and if some of it has hit the floor or a wall that discrete smell sort of grows and fills the entire home and in the end forces You out of Your own home 🙂 :-)Nova doesn’t care much, Alma shows her displease and Malkolm starts to roll around in anything that might smell so bad that it at least kills the flowery smell 🙂 🙂 🙂

The bog.     

It’s supposed to be for humans as well so I sprayed some on myself as well. That smell has now followed me at work and it’s really hot where I work and I can tell You that heat really make this smell grow thousandfold. The bottle is new and it seems to do the job so I’ll keep on using it until I find something else 🙂 Can’t they come up with something that works but at least doesn’t stink so much 🙂 🙂

Maianthemum bifolium, relative to Lady in the valley and smells really nice.
Maianthemum bifolium, the Swedish name for it is Squirrel berries and I have no idea why 🙂

   

I won’t write anything tomorrow, too much to do but I’ll return on Thursday. I used to take Wednesdays off from the blog when I helped my friends daughter with her French homework and that continued even after she left school for good but instead of Wednesdays I’ll have a break every Monday, I never seems to be able to do what I should on Mondays any more 🙂 It is time for a cup of tea and perhaps something to nibble at as well 🙂

I guess You want a photo of Malkolm 🙂

Have a great day!

Our National day and why.

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No ALT text today, it takes a long time and it's getting late.

Sorry about yesterday, first I visited my friend at the garden center and I can proudly tell You that I didn’t bring home and plants this time 🙂 I had been tired since the moment I woke up and when I came home I took a nap for well over an hour but was just as tired as before so I went to bed and slept all night long. I guess that I actually am having a cold because after our morning walk today I napped well over two hours but this time I’m not that tired again 🙂

     

So I was going to write something about our national day and why we celebrate it. There are two reasons for it, the first is that June sixth Gustav Vasa became king here in Sweden. Sweden was at that time occupied by Denmark and their king (we call him Christian the Tyrant 🙂 ) made a blood bath killing lots of the nobility in Sweden including Gustav’s father.  He wanted revenge and fled north to gather the support of the people in Dalarna (a region in Sweden that sort of have become the picture of what Sweden is when it comes to traditions). No one really did support him but he did eventually get their support and he of course promised them a lot in return. The Danish king was driven out and when the good people in Dalarna actually expected to get what he had promised he happily slaughtered them.

     

Before him the nobility here always chose the next king but after him it became an inherited title. He had three sons all more or less insane and all became king over Sweden and Finland (which was a part of Sweden for centuries). The first one I guess had schizophrenia, married his non nobility mistress which wasn’t liked at all so his brothers put him in prison and eventually poisoned him with arsenic. They spared his wife and children though but she had to move to Finland, promising never to claim the throne for her children and what I know they had a great life there.

     

The second reason is that we got a new constitution 1809 that removed most of the Kings power, that I see as a really good reason to celebrate though but very few know about it here. The king by the way was a French buddy to Napoleon which he then turned against and we helped to win over him. Denmark’s capital Copenhagen was heavily bombarded by the Brits so that Napoleon wouldn’t be able to use their harbors so they sided up with Napoleon instead. So after Napoleon lost Denmark was punished by giving Norway to Sweden. There was however a big problem with that because Norway had already declared they were now independent of Denmark. So they were pissed of by this (in my opinion they rightfully were so) but back in the days You really couldn’t do anything unless You were prepared to go to war with the big powers in the world. To be honest we really didn’t want Norway because we wanted to get Finland back from the Russians who had taken it from us by winning a war against us but Russia was also on the winning side so Norway it was. Lasted until 1905 when they finally became a free country. Not that the Swedish king wanted that but he was wise enough to not start a war. To be honest I don’t think we ever have won a war against Norway, the last time we tried our own troops finally shot our king with a big button. 

     

So anyway we haven’t had a national day for that long anyway, until 1983 it was the Swedish flag day (the next oldest country flag in the world, only the Danes have an older one) and it didn’t become a holiday until 2005. So since most people don’t know why we celebrate and to be honest Gustav Vasa was a horrible dictator, we never have sort of understood how to celebrate it (and to be honest they removed another holiday that we wanted to have much more so that sort of dampened the cheers 🙂 🙂 ) They do try to make it more festive but so far it is sort of a meh celebration we’re having 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

The morning walk was really pleasant, cool enough to keep flies and mosquitoes away but still sunny and no wind. We met two foxes and the deer doe was outside the garden once again, she doesn’t even react when we go out now days. Now however the rain is pouring down and it is quite chilly and we might get thunder later today. The weather will be much the same tomorrow, sunny morning and rainy before noon and with lots more rain. I don’t mind even though it would have been nice if we could have reached 20C (68F), we’re not even close today.

Magpie younglings photographed through mosquito net and window 🙂

 

Looks like it has rained over my car but it hasn’t, lots of morning dew here so this is normal every morning.

 

Remember I told about how easy it is to propagate tomatoes? Some tomato plants grow like a bush and others like vines. The vine ones are supposed to be pruneed by removing all shoots that grow out and those are easy to just put in soil.

 

Take those shoots and remove all but the to leafs and put them in a new pot.

 

They will create new roots along the stems and then You have new tomato plants. Normally our summers are too short to get any tomatoes on them but these had already flower buds so perhaps I’m lucky 🙂

Have a great day!

Cool and nice!

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Malkolm sitting in the middle of the garden doing nothing, very unusual :-)

The mornings was quite cool here today, so cool that no mosquitoes or flies were pestering us even though we went out to the bog. Nova wanted to go down to the creek but since she has been a bit off since the last walk there I’d rather have her walking a shorter distance but at least come out so she could sniff on every track she found. Good appetite though so she’s not ill. She did get grumpy though so she dragged her feet all the way until she realized we were on our way home again, then she suddenly could walk really fast 🙂 🙂

The village on the mountain bathing in sunshine but they too got this mixed weather after a while.  The haunted tree :-)  Not all photos will have an ALT text, this is a piece of the log from a pine that was cut down earlier this year.  Cool summer mornings has a special kind of light that I like a lot.

It has been less cool than what they were guessing in the weather sites and so far we’ve had a couple of small showers but that’s it. Lots of sunshine between the clouds as well. After we came home we had a little nap, well I tried to but Malkolm decided he would play with a nasty sounding plastic bottle so he woke me up every now and again. I guess the good thing was that I still just relaxed and most of the time even Alma stayed with me and Nova 🙂

Guelder rose in bloom. This one is unusually fine, they are almost always attacked by tiny pests.      There's still water in the tiny tjärn.

I only found three ticks crawling around on the dogs when we came home, cool mornings keep those calm as well 🙂 The deer was outside in the cow pasture again this morning, I still haven’t see her young one but I’m pretty sure it’s out there with her. My neighbor, the Beekeeper, saw a doe with two young ones a couple of days ago. I guess that Alma and I are just too loud so that they can hear us from a long distance, Alma shouting and whining like always and me scolding her for it like always as well 🙂 The thing with Alma is that if she can keep calm until we pass the Beekeepers she’ll stay reasonable calm for the rest of the walk as well, if not we’ll have a constant war between us all they way 🙂 🙂 🙂

  The first wheel shaped spider web for the year.    Now when the forest has been thinned lots more ferns grow big.

I’m thinking of buying some fish to have in my water barrels again, there are so many mosquito larvae in them and I can’t find the fishing net so that I can bring them to the fish i my aquarium. The problem is that they now have so tough rules for pet shops to be allowed to sell aquarium fish that most just don’t care to do it, I’ve heard that the license to be able to sell fish just costs too much. Good thing for the fish, annoying for us humans. Well I can always go down to the creek and see if I’m lucky fishing there 🙂 🙂 🙂

The first wheel shaped spider web for the year.    Now when the forest has been thinned lots more ferns grow big.

You don't want this one in Your garden, it can cover a big tree during a summer. The Swedish name foe it is Dog turnip :-) Its scientiffic name is Bryonia alba.
Bryonia alba is nothing You want in Your garden, it can cover a tree during one summer, smells nasty and I have had lots in my garden. Thankfully I’ve got rid of most of them.

Sorry but can't remember the name of this one at the moment :-) I have lots of our wild flowers in my garden, one can say that I'm lazy or say that I care for the pollinators :-) Chose the one You like most :-)
I have lots of wild flowers mixed with garden flowers in my garden. Some would say I’m lazy not weeding them out and some would say I think of the pollinators 🙂 🙂 🙂

Male flowers on Hardy Kiwi.
This is the male flowers on the Hardy Kiwi. My female plants are always freezing during winters (this one did in the beginning as well) so I’ve never seen those flowers but I think they look much the same.

Geum urbanum, much smaller and sort of shy comparing to all the garden varieties there are.
This is a Geum urbanum, grows everywhere here and beside it a wild pink Geranium.

The reasn this old flowerbed look so wild is that it actually grows a Sand cherry tree there, it is impossible to mow that area or keep in well maintained :-)
It grows a Sand cherry tree is that old flower bed so I can’t mow the area or remove all flowers we tend to call weeds 🙂

Another shower is just passing by and when they do the temperature drops a lot, then again it gets really hot when the sun shines instead so it evens out during the day 🙂 I forgot to write about our National day and what we are celebrating (most people doesn’t know why to be honest. So most just take this day as a day free from work and if the weather is nice they’ll barbecue something and just relax. I’ll try to remember to write about it tomorrow instead!

     

Have a great day!

Cooler days and soon long weekend :-)

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Old Nova, she's 18 years old now and still going strong :-)

It is finally a bit cooler outside. Not so much when being in the sunshine but a lot when staying in the shadow. I had to water everything when I came home yesterday and suddenly it was evening and time to go to bed, so that’s why I didn’t write anything. Today the ground still was damp so I only watered the trees and bushes I’ve planted in the garden this spring. Well to be honest we haven’t had much of a spring this year, it went from winter to summer in a day or so 🙂 🙂

More and more wild flowers flowers now.  Cooler and nicer in the forest but oh so many biting insects.  The Swedish name for this flower is Hags' tooth.  On our way out on the peninsula out to the bog.

Something is chewing on the new beans, have no idea what it can be but oddly enough only the ones sown in a straight line, I had a few beans left so I just put them down close to the fence and those are untouched. I also had a few peas left so I sowed those in the old broken wheel barrow, they seems to grow even better than all other plants I’ve sown this year 🙂 🙂 Lots of potato plants showing up in the vegetable patch I don’t use this year, I have instead sown seeds (not too successfully I might add) I haven’t had potatoes there for three summers and they still pop up 🙂 🙂 Can I cal them hardy now? 🙂 🙂 🙂

Despite the harw wind this place was packed with mosquitoes, that sort of dampens the joy of having a walk even in plsces where one loves to walk otherwise.    The bog is now full with Hare tail cotton grass.  They are already releasing their seeds now.

Yesterday we had a strong wind and walked out to the bog, normally that ,means the mosquitoes and flies will stay away from us, now we have so many mosquitoes that we were attacked badly when we arrives at the Birch woodland. So today with less wind we stayed at home, Nova is once again so badly bitten all over her head that I thought it would be cruel to bring her out to even more biting insects, it’s bad enough here at home to be honest. It’s a price we have to pay for having so many trees and bushes in this little garden of mine.

Malkolm grows so fast now.

Alma reacted as if she had injured the ball when it started to squeak, I don't think she'll touch it again until I've removed the squeaker :-)
Alma with the new toy, she loved it until it in, her ears, started to scream 🙂 It’s a squeaky thing in that ball and neither she nor Malkolm liked that 🙂 🙂

Those two are playing all day 🙂

I had a little walk in the garden before the mosquitoes chased me indoors. The Black Walnut is flowering, the English is living and now have two branches. The trees I plated this year all look great and the Pawpaw from last year now have green small dots all over the branches, even the ones I thought had frozen. The green dots are tiny, tiny leafs. Also the Persimmon hybrid that dies but where the Persimmon root (Diospyros virginiana) now creates at least eight new branches 🙂 I’ve read that it’s fairly easy to take some of those branches to create new trees from. Well they will. technically all be the same tree but I did also buy a new real persimmon this spring so I hope that at least that I’ll get both male and female trees from this.

This is a favorite in parks and everywhere really, Rose rugosa. It is now seen as invasive and I have no idea how they'll be able to remove them all, especially since it does spread like wildfire :-)
Rosa rugosa, the Swedish name for it would be something like Grumpy rose 🙂

We call this Iris for Swords lily.
Yellow flag.

See all those new branches the Persimmon tree creates now when the hybrid is dead :-)
Lots of new growth from the roots of the Persimmon tree 🙂 The inoculation dies during this winter but the Persimmon root survived and now gives lots of more branches 🙂

I found Morning glories, peas, poppies and Californian poppies growing here now. The poppies refuse to grow in my garden but always grow well in the wheelbarrow for some reason and no summer without Californian poppies at my home :-)
The old wheelbarrow will look good this year 🙂

Tomorrow will be the last working day this week, we have our national day on Thursday and I took Friday off. The weather will be cooler as I’ve already said and they are guessing we’ll get rain as well. I don’t care as long as we at least have sunshine when we’re out on walks, the rest of the time will be good napping times 🙂

Have a great day!

Sunny, warm and unpleasant.

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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!

Close but still no thunder or rain.

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The path down to the creek is bordered with Dog biscuits.
The path that eventually leads down to the creek is full of Dog biscuits. I’m glad they have driven four wheelers there, otherwise we would have been drenched in water from the rains and morning dews.

Hot again today so it was really nice that we were able to have our morning walk in the early morning while it still was cool. Not cool enough to keep the mosquitoes away but cool enough for them to not attack us to hard 🙂 Malkolm woke me up at 3:27 am today but after he had been outside we all went back to bed and slept for another hour.

A Roe deer buck is eating in the field.
This wasn’t the only animal we saw this morning. It is a Roe deer buck.

 

Still lots of water in the creek.
There’s so much vegetation along the creek now that it is hard to see it 🙂

All the dogs are at the moment a bit wobbly in their stomachs so today I boiled rice and fish for them. Nova loved it, Alma loved it and Malkolm put his nose in the air and refused to eat anything until he realized they all had the same food 🙂 He did eventually eat all of his food but I can clearly say that he’s not a fan of boiled fish 🙂 Too bad for him because he’ll get this tomorrow as well 🙂

The path along the creek is very narrow now days.
The path along the creek is now so narrow that we need to walk in a line, something Alma have big problems understanding 🙂

  There's a little brige at the both ends of the creek where we alk so I had to stand on one of those to be able to see more than a couple of meters of it.

My camera refused to do as I wanted so here are two rather bad photos of fox cubs running away from us.
Some previous owner of my camera thought it was a good idea to adjust the camera to being able to go through the photos when turning the shutter speed wheel. Idiotic since if I need to adjust the speed after just taking one photo instead of changing the shutter speed I then started to go through my photos already taken. So instead of actually capture these two fox cubs so it would be easier to see them I instead took several photos that an editing program then tried to make at least some better. We met the mother later on but it happened so fast that I wasn’t able to take any photos of it.

Thunder and heavy rain is nearby again but it looks like it’ll go either south or north of us. I wouldn’t mind if we at least got the cool air that always follow thunder but even if we don’t get it today it will cool down considerable next week. It’ll drop from today’s  26C (78,8F) to 14C (57,2F). It will stay that cool during the entire long weekend and I think I’ll enjoy it a lot, cool weather plus what they are guessing rain as well sort of forces us to just relax all the time 🙂

Nova didn't like that I wanted to go down to the creek, she wanted to go out to the bog. So she dragged her feet all the time until I let her go un leashed, then suddenly she had all the energy in the world :-) :-) :-)

Malkolm decided to not follow Nova and instead kept himself close to me and Alma.

Nova did stop and look after us every now and again :-)
Nova checked after us on and off, last time she walked away like this she too a wrong turn and it took some time until she finally found us. She’s more or less deaf so no use in calling after her 🙂

I moved the lawn, well most of it, when the grass had started to dry up some. I drank too little water while doing it so now I have a slight headache. What’s left will be moved tomorrow and it’s on the north side of the cottage and beside the woodland where the Pawpaws are growing. I do hope we’ll have a wind blowing because that’s where all the mosquitoes are and I have already been bitten quite a lot. I was bitten by a horse fly this morning as well, they’ve started their season a bit early unfortunately. Last month was unusually hot here and I guess that kickstarted them.

I do like the European Hornet, a gentle giant unless one comes too close to their nest. If one do one must run fast :-)
The European Hornets are back, favorites ogf mine :-)

Alma and Malkolm playing in the garden :-)
Alma and Malkolm had a few minutes to play before it became too hot.

 

It looks like both the thunder and rain will miss us so I better put together the new hose and spray gun so I can water the vegetable patch. Something is eating the beans I sowed but the rest looks untouched, the carrots however hasn’t shown them selves yet so I’m starting to wonder whether I’ll have to sow something else in that spot. I’ll give them a couple of more days before I do anything.

Have a great day!