Category: Summer.

It missed us again.

May 31, 2024 · 6 Comments ·

The factory where I work is almost surrounded by fields and I really like to stand outside in nice weather just watching what ever they are growing, sometimes a fox pass by and deer kan be seen gracing there too. — Took this one with my camera at work today, I think it came out rather nice 🙂

Another day another thunderstorm passing by but to be honest even though it did go through nearby I couldn’t even hear it this time. It was much worse along the west coast where cities and town have been flooded and cellars being filled with dirty water. An old gardening enthusiast who grew up nearby well over 90 years ago told me that the bog I live beside is so big that during hot summers it creates a high pressure area all by itself, so when rain comes close it push it towards its sides. So the rain can pour down on the mountain but we can have sunshine. It also makes it much colder here when winter arrives and so far I can’t say that he was wrong.

View from my window upstairs. Some sheep in the foreground and behind them the ground is covered by morning mist. — Not bad views when driving to work 🙂 This one however was taken from a window upstairs.

Photos taken in the village on my way to work. The sun is breaking through the mist showing how it floats around in different patters when the sun heats it up. It doesn't take long before the sun burns it away but here the last of it is rising upwards behind the gravel road.

We’ve had mostly thin clouds that the sun has shone through or clear blue sky. There was a strongish wind blowing when I came home after work so even if I thought it might be too warm for both Nova and Malkolm I took the dogs for a walk, I thought the wind would cool us down. Turns out that the wind wasn’t strong enough to blow through the forest. The odd thing was that there were no mosquitoes?! The first horse fly annoyed us for a while and the first forest flies a bit longer but even they gave up, so I guess it must have been much warmer in the forest than I actually thought.

This and the next photo showsmostly the did up fields and a small bit of the creek and a thin layer of morning mist floating around over it all. — And tow from the lake.

Dog biscuits, a quite common flower that looks much like wild carrot and smells rather nice. — The Swedish name for the white flowers is Dog biscuit, have no idea how they came up with that long ago 🙂 It is edible and the root is said to taste like Parsnip. They are closely related. The problem is that several other flowers looking similar are deadly poisonous so one must know what one is doing if one wants to eat them 🙂 Also We have wild carrot growing here, believe me when I say that it’s like chewing on a stick 🙂 the taste is there though 🙂

A cloud slowly building up to become a Thunder cloud.

The morning was cool and nice though, 8C (46,4F) and I would rather have had a walk with the dogs than having to go to work 🙂 🙂 🙂 Morning mist floating above the ground and birds singing like crazy. I brought one of my cameras with me and managed to get a few photos with the morning mist before the sun burned it away.

I'm bad at butterfly names but lots are flying around here now, This one was feeding n Lingonberry flowers just when I saw it. — Lots of butterflies here now.

The forest is filled with strwberry plants. Thankfully we have the law called Right to access so we can pick any berries everywhere (unless it is in a garden of course). No land owner has the right to stop us doing that. — Wild strawberry flowers

Have no idea what these tiny yellow flowers are called but I like them :-) — No idea what these are called.

WE have lots of Veronica's growing in the wild, I think these are called Granny's' goggles. — These veronica’s’ are everywhere now and I think our name for these are Granny’s’ goggles 🙂

The birds just stopped to sing, it is oddly quiet so I checked the lightning app and there isn’t any thunder even close to here. There’s also a tractor working somewhere nearby that also just stopped making noise. I don’t think they are related in any way but it feels odd when it suddenly becomes totally quiet 🙂 Well th

Chamomile grows along the gravel raod towards the forest. — Chamomile.

The forst star loves living in the forest where it doesn't get too much sunlight that would dry out the ground. — Forest star.

More and more Buttercups are opening up now, soon the fields will shine yellow again nw after all the Dandelions have stopped flowering. — Buttercups.

This is a deep hole in the bog, it looks like it has a bottom rather shallow but it is in facy just roots that covers the water below. Hare tail cotton grass grows well there. — The little tjärn still has water in it and the hare tail cotton grass looks beautiful.

e birds are back and I hope they won’t drive that tractor any more 🙂 🙂 I noticed earlier when I was watering all the new trees that it is time to do something about some of my sowing, like the Hollyhocks and Morning glories, they are growing fast and I was wondering for myself if the best thing is to re-pot them (but I have very little soil) or just plant them where I want them to grow?

This small creek is almost dried out now but the ferns are covering it up instead.

Salmiak , the beekeepers cat, is sleeping on the patio table. We think he is as old as Nova, 18 years old. — Salmiak sleeping on the patio table.

These grow everywhere except in my garden 🙂

I sowed a Black Walnut almost 16 years ago and last year it gave nuts for the first time and this is the first time I've seen the male flowers :-) — The Black Walnut in bloom.

Also several more Giant Sequoias have germinated, still none of the Dawn Redwood but I still have hope 🙂 I have too much of the Greater celandine so I’ll remove some of them tomorrow, I’ll wear gloves when doing that because the sap in them are bright orange and it is more or less impossible to remove that color and I never know where smaller stinging nettles can hide 🙂 I also need to figure out where to plant that last Mulberry tree I bought and four Sea Buckthorn I have waiting as well.Plus the rose that I planted where Teodor the cat is buried seems to have died this winter, so I’ve bought another one, completely different. I doubt it’ll flower this year but it is much more hardy. Seems to spread happily with its roots though so perhaps I need to contain it with a bottomless big pot.

Four photos where You can see Alma and Malkolm playing. — It was too hot for Malkolm to have a walk but he and Alma could play for over an hour in the garden when we came home 🙂 🙂

It is time for a pot of tea and I bought a packet with gluten free oatmeal cookies. I’m pretty sure I’ll fall asleep in the retainer as soon as I’ve taken the last sip of the tea 🙂

Have a great day!

Thunder and rain.

May 30, 2024 · Leave a comment ·

Clouds are fascinating, I’m pretty sure this will grow up to a thunder cloud.

Thunder and rain again, at work the rain poured sown and thunder passed just outside the village. It doesn’t look as we had much rain here though and only the sound from the thunder reached this village. The rain did arrive shortly after I came home though and now we get the occasional shower passing by. They’re guessing we’ll have rain on and off all evening but tomorrow and Saturday will be rain free, well with our weather services that can mean anything but I do hope snow is out of the question 🙂

This is how a Gardenia looks like in nature, the same smell but the flower lasts less. One of my seed sown ones.

A Camellia flower that fell of the potted plant.

You see those white tipped leafs? They come from the male hardy kiwi vine. This one is so big that it almost has grown to the top of the apple tree behind it 🙂 The female ones froze this winter and has started to grow again. It’ll take many years until I get any kiwi fruits 🙂 🙂

I was so tired yesterday that I didn’t have energy to even write a blog, must be pollen because I did sleep like a that night and again last night. Alma hasn’t escaped the dog yard in a couple of days now but I did noticed that she had searched for a weak spot in several places. I fixed those and today there were no signs of her trying again. It’s just a matter of time though 🙂 🙂 She and Malkolm plays all day and now when they can’t be outside because of the rain they play just as wild indoors. No problems really unless Malkolm suddenly needs to pee because when he notice that he doesn’t have much time, if I don’t understand that immediately he will pee on the floor 🙂 🙂 I was just about to haste down to the door when he returned with one of my woolen socks 🙂 I traded it with an old handkerchief instead 🙂

Isn’t it strange how plants no matter how much one water and fertilize them always grow much better when it has rained? I looked at my small apricot trees and I have been watering and given them fertilizer all the time and nothing much has happened, they a couple of days with rain and they grow like crazy!Personally I feel it wouldn’t do much difference but the plants show it does. We almost always have a very high humidity here so that shouldn’t do any difference but rain and high humidity together might be so much better.

Yellow day-lilies. I used to have four different but only the yellow ones are still here, so by that I mean I have two different yellow ones 🙂

The residues of my woodland. Few flowers left but now it’s home to the Pawpaw trees, a Ginkgo and the rhododendron Catawbiense.

The little green dot grows bigger from the root of the Hybrid Persimmon that died 🙂

The surviving Pawpaw now has several small green dots which means leafs and new growth 🙂

It is time to go downstairs to watch the news, not much else to watch tonight. Well the Diamond league, competing in athletics might be something to watch because we do have a couple of Swedes competing, if boring it’s perfect to fall asleep to 🙂

Have a great day!

So slow today.

May 28, 2024 · 7 Comments ·

This day has been so slow! I’ve been able to do what I wanted to do and have had lots to do as well, still this day has been slow as cold molasses 🙂 We’ve been waiting for the rain and thunder to arrive but today it never did. Well I did hear some thunder at work, at least I think it was thunder but there were also some people up on the factory roof working and at one time it sounded more like they dropped something really heavy 🙂 I also hear the thunder once when I came home but it was from far away.

We had morning mist here in the village when I drove to work. I was already a bit late already from the start and it didn’t help that I stopped here and there to take some misty photos on the road to work 🙂 I made it just in time thankfully but I missed my morning coffee. I stopped drinking coffee for a while because my stomach got upset, well more upset than it usually was. Then we found out that I couldn’t eat gluten, my stomach became much better and now I dare to drink a cup of Cappuccino each morning, so far so good 🙂

We are supposed to kill all Lupines we can find in nature because they are invasive, they have even created a special day when everyone is supposed to go outside and remove them. The problem is that we love our Lupines so no one touches them 🙂 🙂 🙂

NO attempt from Alma to dig her way out of the dog yard today but I found evidence that she had tried after I went to work after getting the summer tires on. So I blocked it and put new obstacles in the way. This does not mean she’s given up, she’s just biding her time, checking out eventual weaknesses and will most likely try again soon. I was supposed to measure the length of the fence today so I can get what I need to repair the fence but now I can’t fine my tape-measure. I used it a few days ago and I was pretty sure I knew where I had placed it but no I didn’t 🙂 I had even borrowed tools from work to fix some things today so I guess I’ll need to do the same tomorrow, including a tape-measure 🙂

More from Falköping. The streets around the town square.

The original church that stood here almost a thousand years ago is actually still there, it’s built in to the “new” and bigger one.

Even Alma has figured out how to get the treats out of the little bottles I place in the dog yard every morning now so I better come up with something else soon, a few treats only keep her occupied for so long after all. I did have an amazing toy like that but old Sune, a dog who liked his treats for himself dug it down somewhere in the garden 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll need to buy something similar. I do have one in the kitchen but it’s been put away fro a while. looks like a turtle with a see through cover. It is supposed to be pushed by the dogs and the treats will sort of pop up through a hole in the back. Alma never got that one but happily stole the treats from Albin who to my very big surprise understood it after a few minutes and he wasn’t the brightest star in the sky 🙂 🙂 I’ll put it back on the floor as soon as Malkolm is big enough to at least get a few treats as well 🙂

The red house to the left is actually for sale.

Alma and Malkolm is playing wildly at the moment, they’r running in and out of the cottage, up the stairs to me, run back out and chase each other like crazy. Even Alma seems to be on the edge of what she can managed and not collapse 🙂 🙂 🙂 I hope that means I’ll get just as good nights sleep tonight as I had yesterday, they were playing just as much yesterday as the’re doing now 🙂 🙂 🙂 Unfortunately Alma just decided that she would go on a hike by herself to the other side of the little lake behind my garage to eat wild hog poop, it’s a gift she has, to sort of ruin the fun they had and have a breath that smells horrible 🙂

Sibylla sell hotdogs, hamburgers and other things like schnitzel. They were here before the big hamburger chains moved in and to be honest they are so much better.

If You want me to calculate how much more expensive our petrol is compared to Yours I’ll do it. This was the last photo of Falköping for this time. And if You wonder why there were almost no people in the photos it’s because Falköping is more or less dead until the shops open around 10 am 🙂

It’s time to prepare something to eat at work tomorrow, I think I’ll save that chicken I bought for next week instead 🙂 I’ll see what I can find in the freezer and put together something from that 🙂

Have a great day!

Rain and thunder and summer tires on the car :-)

May 27, 2024 · 5 Comments ·

Whitebeams are quite popular to have in towns and cities around here, hardy enough and rarely get sick.

It’s so nice to have summer tires on the car again, it’s so much more quiet in the car now. I also asked them to check if there is a hole in the exhaust pipe because sometimes it does sound like there is one and sometimes as there isn’t one 🙂 🙂 🙂 The exhaust pie is really good they say but there is a place where two parts of the pipe connects and it doesn’t fit properly, when the pipe is cold so it sounds as if there is a hole 🙂 When it gets warm the heat make the two parts expand a bit and when they do the sound goes away 🙂 Nothing to care about they said so I won’t 🙂

On top of Ålleberg looking towards Mösseberg on the other side of the town. — Falköping is placed on two mountains and in the valley in between. If one is interested in status one should live on the other mountain called Mösseberg, Ålleberg as these photos are taken on is for some reason not as fancy to live on 🙂

The football (soccer) stadium. It isn't big but they are proud of it. — The football stadium in Falköping. Not big but they are and should be proud of it. If their football team ever should come to the higher divisions this would be way too small.

It's mostly smaller one family houses along the streets on theis side of town.

A little guy woke me up at three thirty five this morning, he needed to go outside to do his business. There wasn’t any use going back to sleep after that 🙂 So I’m really tired tonight. He and Alma aren’t though, they are playing wildly here in the cottage because it is raining outside. It started when I drove to the garage and has continued more or less the entire day. Most seems to have missed the village though but it rained enough to make the dogs prefer to stay under a roof. Still I noticed that Alma had started to work her way out of the dog yard again so I’ve been working on that place as well 🙂 🙂 🙂 I hope it at least will keep her in there for a couple of days before she tries again.

There are also apartment buildings mixed in here and there, or is it that there are one household houses mixed in between the apartment buildings? — Apartment building s and one family household houses are mixed quite well in this town.

Murals are popular in this town, this one shows a knight on a horse and some kind of smiling blob beside and it is all in pastel colors. It looks like they are on a stage because one can see curtains on both sides. — Murals are popular here.

A red car stopping at a red light beside two apartment buildings, one of the buildings is yellow and the other one is sort of dirty pink. By the look of the houses they were built in the twenties last century.

Any way, I had a little walk in Falköping while I was waiting for my car to be ready, it’s just a small part so it doesn’t really show how the town looks, I’ll walk elsewhere the next time. Falköping is at least one thousand years old but it is köping and not a city or town to be honest. It had all to do with taxes and what rights the King gave the place. We have a similar town north of Falköping called Skara and Skara is a town so they celebrated Skaras one thousand year birthday as a town some years ago but that can never happen in Falköping even though it is just as old 🙂 🙂 Today we call everything towns or cities even though most of them aren’t 🙂

A brick building in red sort of hiding behind other houses. I've always wondered if This could have been a part of the old hospital? Have no idea to be honest.

A flower shop, one of many here, in a white building. A sign says Show that You believe in love and I guess they then want us to buy flowers to show that :-) — The sign on the flower shop says: Show that You believe in love. I guess they mean they want us to buy their flowers to show that 🙂

Another mural, a big one by a parking area. Bright orange and blue colors as background and in the iddle showing four people from different ethnicity painted in black and white. — The sign on the flower shop says: Show that You believe in love. I guess they mean they want us to buy their flowers to show that 🙂

To be honest Falköping is a nice little place but quite boring 🙂 I think it once was voted to be Sweden’s most boring town 🙂 🙂 It’s a bit odd because it has two town centers. One is by the railway station and one is on the other side of the town. The one on the other side of the town is where I walked today and it is more like a real town square while the other one is open space, a grocery store, the station and very little else.

Standing at another place looking up-hill. Shops in wooden buildings to the left and a bank in a brick building to the right. Straight ahead is a long walkway in the shape of an avenue, trees on both side and the branches cover the sky above.

Standing in the twon square looking at something that I guess is art? To me it looks like they've cut off the tops of small hills and sliced the stone in to fairly wide pieces. To be honest it looks like lots of tightly put together head stones from a grave yard, very odd :-) — This looks like headstones from a grave yard to me. I guess it’s some kind of art they now are placing in the town square.

Fences in the middle of the twon square and behind them they've dug up the ground. Much the same here.

I was a bit lucky while walking around, even though it rained most of the walk the thunder that arrived kept its distance and didn’t arrive until I had my car and was back at work. It missed this village but was quite ferocious everywhere else. It hit somewhere close to the factory just as I was leaving for the day and the last thing I heard was the paint box alarming and it looked like they weren’t able to re-start it again. Well I’ll know better tomorrow. Hopefully I won’t have to work by the paint box tomorrow, it’s a pain in the a..e when that happens because it can take forever to make it start again.

Lots of art galleries in this town. I'm looking at a window display and it looks like a small leafless tree with white birds in it. — Plenty of art galleries in this town.

A toy store are selling to small action figures from two different English football teams. — Well if You want to but small action figures from Two different English football teams this is the place to go 🙂

A little white tree cottage hidden behind two bigger houses, quite common in this town. It used to be a thrift/ antique shop just a year ago. Last photo from Falköping today, more will come. — This little place used to be a thrift/ antique shop just a year ago.

It is still raining outside but little enough so that dogs can play outside. They are running in and out in full speed, up the stairs and down again and I can only hope they won’t break anything on themselves. I do hope it also means that Malkolm will sleep until the alarm starts tomorrow morning 🙂

Have a great day!

Sticky flypaper.

May 26, 2024 · 2 Comments ·

I’m waiting for the rain and thunder, we already have the strong winds that usually comes with it. The dogs haven’t any energy to play. Every now and again they go outside to try and have fun but comes in again just to take a long nap. Even I joined them in one of their naps 🙂

We were up early today though, when it still felt a bit cool and the sun was shining. We took the short walk out to the bog and then back home again. None of them was especially enthusiastic about having a walk but they sure were when we headed back home again 🙂 🙂 🙂 I don’t blame them because there were about a gazillion mosquitoes out there and Nova is so badly bitten now that her face is a bit swollen and she has small wounds after scratching herself in the face. I can’t even imagine how bad it is for all the wild animals out there. Thankfully we don’t have any midges here. They are tiny and many and some years it can be so bad that if a Moose can’t get away from them all those midges actually can kill them. It’s a good thing this country have so many lakes they can flee out to.

So I haven’t done that much today, I’ve done the laundry and it dried up within a few minutes :-)I’ve watered the newly planted trees and also the Persimmon where the new branch is growing out plus the Pawpaw that survived the winter. I’ve also placed my summer tires in the car because tomorrow they’ll be put on and my winter tires taken off. I’m a bit late with getting that done to be honest 🙂 If the garage doesn’t have a car I can borrow I’ll just have a walk in Falköping while the job is done. I always do so when the car is in the garage and I always bring a camera. So if You want to see photos from Falköping wish that they don’t have a car, if You don’t wish to see Falköping just wish they have a car 🙂 🙂

If they don’t have a car I’m planning on buying a new garden hose and some other things while I’m there, that is if it takes long enough so that the stores open before the job is done and I have to go to work again. Some of them don’t open until 10 am and since I’ll be leaving my car at 7 am I might go to work long before that,unless the garage is really busy. Then again who says I need to go to work immediately 🙂 🙂

I haven’t done any dinner for work next week either, so I’ll buy something on my way to work for tomorrow and make dinner when I come home again for the rest of the week. I’m just looking at the thunder app and it is slowly closing in to us. It will feel good when it has passed and the temperature has dropped. I have done one more thing though, the first sticky fly papers now hang from the roof downstairs. A few have already found their way indoors even though I do have nets put up by the kitchen door and the windows. No matter what one does those flies always find a way in and thankfully they like to land on something close to the roof, those fly papers are heaven sent 🙂

Potatoes keep comming up even though it was three years ago I had potatoes in that patch 🙂 Those red leafs looking like clover is actually an Oxalis, a popular annual pot plant. Turns out it thrives in this climate so now it’s one of the more common weeds we have in our gardens. I don’t fight it , instead I embrace it and it does get cute yellow flowers 🙂

This is a native annual Geranium (not the pot plants You call geraniums because those are actually Pelargoniums).

Columbines comes in all kinds of varieties.

Have a great day!

I didn’t mind they were wrong about today’s weather :-)

May 25, 2024May 25, 2024 · 4 Comments ·

So today was supposed to be all cloudy and hot but without any wind. It started out that way but then the sun broke through so the hot part was right because we now do have a wind blowing thankfully. Before it started it was like living in a steam bath here. I couldn’t move a meter without sweating like a pig.

The cattle walking in the pasture outside the beekeepers place for the first time this year.

Rowan trees usually don’t grow especially high, this one is at least fifteen meters high (much the same in yards). We had one much bigger but that one was a victim this years thinning. A bit odd because it seems they’ve saved almost all other Rowan trees this time and we do have lots of them here.

We walked down to the creek while it still wasn’t too warm, we couldn’t follow it down stream though because now they let the cattle walk in to the pasture outside the beekeepers so they block the road with those electric wires and I really didn’t want to go through passing them with Alma 🙂 🙂 🙂 I really didn’t want Malkolm to learn from her how to do it 🙂 🙂 🙂 So we walked it up-stream for a while until the grass became too high, damp grass close to a creek is a tick magnet. After that we walked back the same way and suddenly four wild hogs ran out in front of us, perhaps ten meters (much the same in yards) away from us. Alma reacted like always so no photos of them I’m afraid 🙂 🙂

This flowers Swedish name is Hag’s tooth 🙂

We actually woke up at 3:45 this morning because someone needed to go outside to do his business 🙂 Normally we would all just stay up and then take a walk as soon as the sun would start to rise. No sun was supposed to shine today though so we all just went back to bed and slept for two more hours and that is really unusual! The sun was shining when we went up again, went back in to the clouds while we were out walking and then came back and has stayed here all day and by the looks of it it’ll stay until it sinks down beyond the horizon. One good thing with yesterdays heavy showers is that I didn’t have to water anything today 🙂

The Persimmon hybrid that I bought last year and that looked healthy all winter through until that last snow storm is dead. Since it was a variety however it’s always grafted on a root from the actual persimmon, Diospyros virginiana, and I have hoped that the root has survived because it is so much hardier than the rest of the trees in that family. Today I noticed that a new branch is growing up from the root 🙂 🙂 So since I bought a real Persimmon this year I now will have two 🙂 Lets hope that one is female and one is male so I can grow my own fruits in the future 🙂 So now I have two Persimmon trees and with the my own seedlings nine Pawpaw’s 🙂

Can You see the little green dot at the base of the dead tree trunk? That’s new growth from the Persimmon roots 🙂

This is a new variety of White Mulberry tree with tasty berries. Normally the white mulberry tree gives edible fruits but someone said if one likes the taste of dry grass they’r pretty good 🙂 🙂 This one however gives sweet and tasteful berries. It was quite damaged by frost before it arrived here but it is coming back again.

This is on the other hand another Mulberry tree with the name variety name Mulle 🙂 (Morus accidosa). I once had a smaller tree here but one day my two big dogs dug it up and had lost of fun tearing it apart 🙂 🙂

I’ve bought a tea bush as well this year (Camellia sinensis). It’s just as picky as the Camellia we have as pot plants or in the gardens where the climate allows it but it doesn’t flower until late spring I’ve read plus if it gets big enough I can always try to make a cup of tea from its leafs 🙂 🙂 🙂

We’ve had our pancake Saturday, I’ve sown almost all of the flower seeds I still had (but there’s at least two more but I just can’t find the seed bags 🙂 ) and we’ve had a short nap when it was as warmest. I don’t think we slept for especially long but that nap did more for me than the two more hours in the morning did 🙂 So for the rest of the day I’ll just relax. I didn’t win the Euro jackpot yesterday which is strange since so many really hopes that I will win 🙂 I’ve promised that if I win that much money (around 100 million US dollars) no worker at my work place would have to work any more 🙂 (not even the ones I dislikes). With that much money I still would have perhaps 25 million US dollars left to myself and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t miss the other millions 🙂 🙂 🙂

I did sow Salvia pratensis seeds last year and I think this is it 🙂 The Swedish name for it is Meadow sage and it looks like it’s the same in English!

When You think all the Greater celandine have died out but then You remove some grass and cut away some branches and suddenly it’s everywhere in the garden 🙂 🙂

This is a rhubarb but not an edible one, this is the Chinese rhubarb. Well it is used in traditional medicine but don’t try it for a pie 🙂 Mine has grown in the shadows and too dry for too long so this year I moved it. It can become really big and is quite beautiful as an ornamental plant.

Well the smaller lottery is today with “only” 7,5 millions US dollars as minimum maximum winning. I think it might be higher at the moment. I’ve said that if I “only” win those millions all they can expect from me is a cup cake 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

The Mosquitoes love the rain.

May 24, 2024 · 6 Comments ·

The plastic bag You can see is covering the handle on my old lawn mower, mostly because the birds ten to poop on it.

When I looked at the weather sites yesterday they said really warm all next week with almost only sunshine, today they say almost no sunshine and quite a lot of rain 🙂 🙂 🙂 So Your guess to how it will be is as good as mine 🙂 I won’t mind some rain just as long as it doesn’t continue for too long plus the farmers need it so at least they will be really happy when it starts to fall 🙂

The last peat in the yellow plastic bag was so dry that this rain really helped 🙂

It is hard to catch the rain drops when taking photos.

Today they were almost right though, they guessed cloudy all day but no rain. It has been cloudy all day but just before I arrived here at home after work the clouds opened up and the rain started to pour down. My water barrels that were almost empty are now three quarters full. The ground here is still very wet so we here really don’t need the rain but it is nice to see that the barrels are full of water again.

Can’t remember the name on this weed but it does look harmless enough. It isn’t though because it becomes so dense that nothing else can grow up from the ground. Really good to stop water evaporating from the ground though, never dry beneath it.

The rain however stopped us from taking a walk and now there are so many mosquitoes flying around that it’s a bit nasty to have walks. Well they are guessing we’ll have sunshine and hot weather tomorrow again so we’ll just take an extra long morning walk before it gets too hot. This rain has unfortunately brought out both slugs and snails so some of my sowings (in containers) has been eaten. Tomorrow I’ll see if anything can be saved.

Alma hadn’t escaped the dog yard today either 🙂 This morning I took all small plastic bottles I could find here at home and put dog treats in them, I tried it with Malkolm at first and when he saw what I did to get those treats out he understood it. I don’t think Alma has a clue still because some of those bottles were heavily chewed so that the treats could come out 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well at least she has been busy 🙂

This container has not been visited by slug or snails so I moved it temporarily to a table on the other side of the cottage.The biggest leafs to the right are from Morning glories, beside them are Hollyhocks. Then comes False Dragonheads followed by Alpine Aster and Siberian Larkspur.

My little Red oak, it grows so slow here. I need to remove the vegetation around it so that it gets some sunshine.

So far only columbines and Giant Sequoia seeds have germinated in this container. Still no Chinese dogwood, Dawn redwood, Tulip tree or Sea kale. This one did have a small slug in it so that container has also been temporarily moved.

It is time to go out to check where I can place my Pawpaw seedlings so that the slugs and snails at least have a harder time to reach them. I’ll do it quickly because those mosquitoes mean business when they start arriving, Nova is already scratching herself badly, the other two have only been outside when they really needed to.

Have a great day!

Rain and thunder is close but won’t reach us.

May 23, 2024 · 8 Comments ·

There’s thunder nearby but looking at the radar sequence on all weather sites it will miss us, I wouldn’t mind if we had gotten the rain because my two big water barrels are closing in to be empty and the cooler air would be nice as well. The cool air will come tonight though but only stay for one day, it’ll be warm again on Saturday.

A tiny part of my Lilac hedge, I have around 30 meters (much the same in yards) of it and I truly dislike Lilacs 🙂 🙂 In front of it stands a Red leafed Rose.

Whitebeam. A close relative to the Rowan tree and can become fairly large. I would like to have one in my garden but I have so many other trees growing now so it’ll have to wait until I win the lottery and can buy lots of new land 🙂 🙂 🙂

We haven’t had any walk today because it is just too hot for a puppy and an eighteen year old dog, it was bad enough yesterday when we were out for a short walk. Still I’m not yet complaining about it being too warm 🙂 Alma and Malkolm have been outside playing a lot though and now they sleep here beside me on the cooler floor while Nova sleeps on two fleece blankets and snoring loudly as well 🙂

Alma has stayed in the dog yard all day today, Yay 🙂 funny because today had been the perfect day for her to do it when it comes to me and my job. The same company all day long, only one color and long series of what I painted. She always escapes those days when it is most inconvenient 🙂 🙂 🙂 I must admit though that the dog yard hasn’t been this clean and tidy in a long time. I’ve been there fixing and cleaning almost every day and all eventual plants that tends to grow in there are almost totally gone 🙂 Nothing bad that doesn’t bring something good with it as we say over here 🙂 🙂

So I’ve mostly hand watered the vegetable patch and all the potted plants. The vegetable patch has only been fried by the sun but the wind can’t reach it, so the ground was actually a bit damp on the surface now in the evening. The potted plants however needed a lot of water. It’s always a bit tricky to water all the potted trees and bushes because some need acidic water, like the Pawpaw and other preferres water with lots of lime in it, like peaches and Apricots. So now I need to place them in two groups so that I don’t use the wrong water.

One of the Ginkgo’s I had in my garden survived the snow storm, the other one seems to have died.

My seed sown Pawpaw’s. Three of them now have new leafs growing out and three have leafs since during winter and I think those need to drop before they too get new leafs.

Can You see the tiny green dots? New leafs on the outdoors Pawpaw!

This and the next one shows the two Pawpaws I bought this spring.

I can also tell You that the Pawpaw that stayed in the garden all winter has survived because today I could see the first tiny leafs growing on it 🙂 The Columbines are opening up now and the tree peony has big buds 🙂 My seeds sown Gardenias are either flowering or just about to. The seeds sown aren’t filled with petals like the ones we can buy and has a slightly weaker scent so they are easier to have if one has problems with strong smells.

Columbine. If You look at the petals they look like a dove seen from the side, hence the name, columbine means dove like.

This and the next one is the same species but since they self sow all kinds of varieties can show.

I “won” almost nine dollars US on the lottery yesterday 🙂 I use ” because if I don’t win on Saturday I’ve only lost 3 dollars US 🙂 🙂 🙂 It’s a bit sad when one is happy because one only lost three dollars 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Doing everything while it is cool.

May 19, 2024 · 2 Comments ·

Another warm day here, My thermometers aren’t to trust when it comes to how warm it has been since both are hit by the sun. But I think that 25C (77F) is most likely. So everything I had to do today had to be done before it went too warm. So I watered vegetables, trees and a rose while it still was fairly cool, after that we went out for our morning walk.

Lots of water still and the reason for all the mosquitoes we have around our cottages.

It could have been much nicer if it wasn’t for all the mosquitoes and the first of the oh so annoying forest flies. Forest flies don’t bit or anything like that, they annoy! They come in big swarms flying around our heads and do their best to try and fly in to nostrils and ears. They are usually quite calm in the very early morning when it still is cool, almost chilly, after that I need to wear a mosquito hat while walking in the forest because they drive me crazy! On one hand I truly hate them on the other it is amazing we have so many and that they are food for lots of birds and other animals. Now days when driving during summer there’s no need to wash off all crushed flies on the windshields because there are no crushed flies any more. I guess they all moved to this bog 🙂 🙂 🙂

The laundry is done as well and everything dried within 20 minutes 🙂 despite the lack of wind and hanging in the shadows. We will get stronger winds again the coming week they’re guessing and I won’t mind, strong winds means no mosquitoes or forest flies, they will do what they can to hang on to vegetation and not blow away 🙂 More wind however mean more watering. The ground is still damp but the surface will dry up and since I’ve just sown seeds that mustn’t happen until the roots have grown deep to more reliable water sources. The ground water is just 2,5 meters (much the same in yards) down here.

Ash tree. The first to drop its leafs in autumn and the last to get new ones in spring.

I’ve also re-potted most of my orchids. I’ve now placed them all on the north side of the cottage and after a week or so I’ll place them in the trees and leave them there doing nothing (unless we’re having a drought, then I’ll water them but not otherwise). I’ll also place my Christmas and easter cacti there as well. All I have left to do now is to make dinner for work next week and take a look at my notes for the road association meeting next week. We’ve already had a long nap but I’m still just as tired, pollen season does this to me. Then again the warm weather arrived so fast that the heat does this to me as well but I refuse to complain about that 🙂 🙂

I do need to check the melon vines I planted this morning as well. I think I better cover them with something now when the wind will arrive, they really can’t manage dry soil especially well. I haven’t seen many Cabbage butterflies yet but I better start to think about covering the little cabbage seedlings as well. The sun is coming back from behind the clouds we’ve had for an hour or so so I better go out and check those melon vines!

The extremely hardy Rosemary. It is said to survive -25C (-13F).

I have to protect the young Tree peony so the dogs don’t break it 🙂

One Ginkgo and most of my smaller citrus seedling plus all of the Guava seedlings to the right.

Three of the first kind of pear tree seedlings survived winter in the cool cellar

Here are the bigger citrus trees, they all need more iron, hence the yellowish leafs.

Have a great day!

I have a few Sand cherry trees in my garden, I love the berries but birds are fast.

There isn’t any big difference between the subspecies but the first one seems more easily hit by mildew.

My new Persimmon tree (Diospyros virginiana).

Old Nova was outside too before it was too hot even for her.

The snail had a long shower while I was watering the vegetable patch 🙂

If it hadn’t been for the mowing.

May 18, 2024 · 4 Comments ·

If it hadn’t been for having to mow the lawn today would have been a perfect day. Cool but sunny and wind free morning, ok it gave the mosquitoes a good opportunity to drink our blood and we will all probably scratch ourselves a lot tonight 🙂 🙂 I am lucky in a way though because I get immune pretty quickly from the itchy thing we got so after four or five bites I usually don’t feel it any more, I can only hope the dogs are lucky that way too 🙂

We now have pine pollen everywhere, my car is now covered in yellow pollen every morning.

I think this is a Greylag feather (well could be crane as well) I should have brought it with me and made a quill pen 🙂

We walked down to the creek, the birds were singing like crazy and I could also hear lots of geese honking up in the sky. Lots of animals had followed and passed the gravel road so both Nova and Malkolm had to stop everywhere to sniff to get what animals it might have been, Alma ran around like crazy as always 🙂 The dogs had already eaten before the walk but I had my breakfast as soon as we had come home. They said that it would be rather warm today and yes it has been and still is. So I went out and watered the vegetable patch and all the potted plants after that.

I let it be for a while so the water could sink down into the ground and then I went out to sow more flower seeds in the old vegetable patch and after that I sowed split beans, two different peas, carrots and one more thing I at the moment can’t remember what it is 🙂 🙂 🙂 I have lots of different vegetable seeds waiting to be sown in places where what I originally sowed won’t start to grow. A few days ago I also sowed different flower seeds and also some of the seeds I sowed when it still was cold are now germinating as well 🙂

I still plants that needs new spaces in the garden but I still haven’t figured out where 🙂 After the sowing we all had a long nap before I went out to mow that lawn. I didn’t drink enough with water so after a while I was bone dry in my mouth and not even thinking on lemons gave any result 🙂 🙂 I usually aren’t careless about that since I need to drink a lot of water at work because my workplace is close to a big oven so if I don’t drink a lot during the day I will get headaches. Only Alma kept me company while I mowed, Malkolm who now learns what warm weather is slept at the coolest place he could find, north side in the cottage just beside the entrance door and Nova slept in the kitchen close to the open kitchen door.

The vegetable patch. I’ve gone back to more traditional way of growing them. If one co plant with other vegetables if one doesn’t grow all of it will be a mess.

Six photos showing what’s in bloom in my garden right now.

They are all still sleeping but now close to me, I opened the window on the opposite end of the cottage so that the little wind there is now can blow through the upper floor. It is time for them to have something to eat and after that I think I’ll sow some more flower seeds, they are getting old so I’m not sure how well they are but to be honest one can’t have either too many trees or too many flowers 🙂

Aronia. The berries might be super berries as they call them but they taste like shit to be honest. To say they are tart is an understatement 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

She will drive me crazy one day :-)

May 17, 2024 · 2 Comments ·

The morning was quite wonderful today, sunny but also cool enough to keep the mosquitoes calm. I had to go a bit early because I needed to fill up the car with petrol. I had worked perhaps ten minutes when I noticed my neighbor had called me six times! It is a very noisy job to clean the paint box so I hadn’t heard the phone.

She asked me if I had arrived at work and if so said I better come home again because Alma and Malkolm were in her garden. I really can’t be angry at Alma but god knows she does test my patience a lot 🙂 🙂 🙂 Thankfully no hand painting for the two coming jobs so I left to get home again. My neighbor had tried to find where Alma had escaped from but couldn’t find any place and it was the same when I looked the first time as well 🙂 🙂 🙂

We went out to the bog again. It was a bit warm but a wind was blowing so I didn’t think it would be too warm for the dogs.

Well I think now that it was, so it’ll be nice to have walks in the cool morning air this weekend.

So I went in and checked in the dog yard and even then I first couldn’t figure out how she had managed to get out. There are two tree trunks lying along the fence and they are both attached to the fence with steel wires and both were still there 🙂 She had managed to squeeze her self beneath the trunks and the ground and then managed to bend up the fence and if she had managed to get out properly before Malkolm understood what was happening he would never had the chance to follow her but Malkolm is where Alma is.

The Lingon berry bushes are full of flower buds now 🙂

We call this little flower for Forest Star.

If it only had been Alma I just wouldn’t have cared to go home, everyone knows she’s either out of the garden or the dog yard and never walks anywhere all the time 🙂 🙂 🙂 My neighbors two daughters had had really fun playing with them both until I came home again 🙂 🙂 🙂 and everyone at work loved to see the photos my neighbor sent me showing that even an almost two year old kid can have lots of fun with both the big Alma and the puppy Malkolm 🙂 🙂

Clematis ‘Propertius’ has a weak but nice scent.

One of the Himalayan Cedar trees is alive and gives new needles now 🙂

We call this flower Troll Grapes. Gives very poisonous deep red berries in autumn.

I’ve made sure that those two trunks can’t be moved again and during the weekend I’ll check the rest of the fence, again 🙂 I will soon start to repair that fence properly but even then I’m pretty sure Alma will find a way to escape, I know Malkolm will be able to since he now can climb up net fences 🙂 🙂 My neighbor tried twice to put him in my garden but gave up since he pretty quickly sat by her side again 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Almost late to work :-)

May 16, 2024 · Leave a comment ·

The first buds on the lilacs. I really don’t like lilacs but have a hedge almost 30 meters long (much the same in yards) and two big Hungarian lilac bushes outside my bedroom. The photos today are a mix from today and yesterday.

I am the secretary in the Road association board (sounds fancy doesn’t it 🙂 🙂 🙂 ) for our village so it is my responsibility to send out the invitations to our annual meeting. I remembered that yesterday so I started up the old laptop I have for that and when I wrote down the password it didn’t work!!

I was totally sure about that password to the laptop because I wrote it down on a piece of paper and left it in the laptop 🙂 🙂 It didn’t matter how many times I wrote it down and even though I knew it was the right word I even tried to write some variations with small and big letters. I think I had tried thirty times and then suddenly it allowed it?! I was thinking that I would have to write don the invitations by hand so it might have felt my desperation when it finally opened up 🙂 🙂

I once bought a printer for this once in a year job and it has always worked oddly enough, the one I had before always did the most off things, like only allow me to print out text if I used the red color 🙂 🙂 🙂 This one only have black and is some kind of powder and always works. This time however it smelled like there was an electrical fire inside of it 🙂 🙂 One year with dust burning away when the printer gets warm does that 🙂 🙂 🙂

They have for once been very careful when they’ve placed all the twigs and branches in piles after they thinned out the forest, they were very careful to not damage the crabapple tree beside the road.

So I had to deliver all invitations on my way to work this morning and therefore I had to stop at each and every mailbox, the thing is only house owners get an invitation, not renters and some villagers have passed away, some moved and I have no idea in which homes they live in or if the new ones bought the homes or are renting. So I was pretty soon a bit late to work even though I started earlier 🙂 🙂 I also had to drive to the castle because the owners do own land in the village, the only thing is that few mail boxes are marked properly so I have no idea if I put the invitations in the right boxes 🙂 🙂 🙂

It didn’t help that I also took a few photos on my way but I made it in time to work, I even managed to have a cup with machine made cappuccino, well it almost taste like it but the machine really do the milk in a perfect way. Besides that it has been really nice. The sun will continue to shine and even though a cold front will pass by during the weekend it still will be around 20C (68F) and sunshine during the days. They are also guessing that some rain might pass by but it will only be showers. I don’t mind some rain but then again it might be a good idea if we didn’t get more in a while, this year will otherwise be a mosquito paradise, it has already started.

It is time to cook some food for work tomorrow and then mail the last invites for the meeting. Now days we all enjoy these meetings but just a few years back they were horrible 🙂 🙂 This meeting is only about the road and nothing but the road but back then we had some people who always would bring up every feud there ever was in the village and everyone would shout at each other 🙂 🙂 🙂 They had all lived together in this village their entire lives so they knew every weakness the others had, they never even dared to talk to me about anything because I was an outsider and they knew nothing about me but also knew I’ve been told everything about them 🙂 🙂 🙂

Perhaps two meters of my Lilac hedge, the smell will be horribly strong.

If You want Tulips that comes back year after year buy wild tulips (the species). The bulbs You buy from modern varieties are rarely surviving more than one year. They also grow well outside flower beds.

This is a Violet that has been growing here since long before I moved here. Have no idea what kind it is and it was gone for a couple of year but yesterday I found it in a lot of places again 🙂

Have a great day!