Category: Summer.

Busy day.

August 21, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

c (6)

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

c (10)

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

c (14)

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

c (18)

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

c (25)

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

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

c (4)

Have a great day!

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

Lots of thunder lately.

August 19, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

The photos are taken with either my phone or my little Sony so they can be taken any morning since last week.

We’ve had lots of thunder lately and today is no exception. It has stayed calm for a while but now it’s closing in again. I don’t mind since the heat will cool down for at least a while.

Yesterday and before noon today the weather guessings showed that we could possibly get up to two inches of rain today but has since then calmed down considerable, as most we’ll now get perhaps a tenth of that.

On Wednesday I found a notice about a registered letter that I could fetch in Falköping. I had absolutely no idea what it could be so I took a couple of hours off from work to go and get it. When I get there they check and says I’ve already have fetched it? I don’t know what they are doing at the Swedish postal service because it turns out that it was the parcel I already had fetched!! So it wasn’t a letter and I haven’t gotten a paper note in my mailbox about anything I can pick up at the post office in so many years that I actually can’t remember when it happened the last time 🙂 🙂 🙂 The girl I talked to felt so sorry for me going there unnecessarily that when I bought a soft ice cream she made it so big that I had huge problems eating it 🙂 🙂 🙂

Today I went to the grocery store in Gudhem and picked up another parcel, this time by another company thankfully, it was my new coffee maker 🙂 I haven’t tried it yet, it is too late for tea or coffee if I want to have any sleep tonight so I’ll do it first thing tomorrow morning 🙂

20220819_064024

I can hear the thunder closing in again, the lightning map says it’s still several km, miles, before it is here but thunder can move fast sometimes.

Have a great day!

Two aggressive thunderstorms.

August 16, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

DSC_0004 (16) — This rather big spider lives in the big Rose bush.

We’ve had two incredibly aggressive thunderstorms passing by yesterday and today.The app the counts how many lightnings we had within thirty minutes jumped up to well over 1000 pretty quick. It also stayed there for well over two hours, both yesterday and today.

DSC_0005 (15) — The photos are as You can see not from today but Sunday morning.

DSC_0011 (15)

We didn’t get that much rain yesterday but nature fixed that pretty well today instead 🙂 🙂 🙂 We had three big power breaks today and one time the fire alarm started to shout, turns out the lightning hit the roof of the factory, No fire but the alarm was rather safe than sorry 🙂 🙂 🙂 I had a package waiting for me, for some reason they placed it in Falköping instead of Gudhem where it should have been. For the longest time I couldn’t decide whether I should pick it up today or tomorrow but it did look like the storm would move on so I decided to pick it up anyway.

DSC_0017 (13)

It is amazing how fast the weather can change 🙂 🙂 🙂 Suddenly I was at the center of it, lightnings in the air everywhere and suddenly it hit close to the road beside me. Besides the strong light I also could feel the pressure wave from the lightning hit the car and not forgetting the sound. The rain was pouring down so i barely could see the road and at one point if felt like the car was floating when I drove in to a big puddle I couldn’t see because of the rain 🙂 🙂 🙂 The storm has passed by but the Norwegian weather site, the one I trust more, says we’ll get more soon.

DSC_0025 (15)

Well I won’t need to water the vegetables today and that’s something 🙂 It is time for something to eat and after that watch the European Athletic championships 🙂

DSC_0038 (12)

Have a great day!

At least the morning was cool.

August 13, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

DSC_0002 (4)

Clear sky and 8C (46,4F) when we went out on our morning walk today. At 10:30 the sky was still clear and blue but the temperature had risen to 26C (78,8F). Still a clear and blue sky and now it’s 29C (84,2F) and I’m not sure if it stops there or will get even warmer. It is too warm for my taste as it is now so I do hope it starts to cool off now instead. They’re saying it will get warmer tomorrow.

DSC_0012 (4)

Alma decided that she would be a monster on our morning walk so I can’t say I enjoyed it especially much, even if it was just enough cool and no flies were flying around. Ok she had a lot of energy in her body since it was too hot to take walks the two previous days but she really can’t control herself. The second we were at home she changed to that wonderful nice and pleasant dog I rarely see outside my garden. My guess is that she either really doesn’t like to take walks or she loves it so much that she just can’t keep calm.

DSC_0022 (5)

The two sofas I’ve ordered will arrive here on Monday some time before noon so I had to break down the old corner sofa I’ve had for at least twelve? years. Ever since I got the recliner from my neighbors I’ve left the sofa to my dogs and it was almost sad to see how bad it had deteriorated since then 🙂 🙂 🙂 The seat cushions had holes in them and one is so bad that the stuffing fell out from it while I carried it to the wood shed (well I need to place it somewhere until I can get rid of it 🙂 🙂 ). The two for the back and the smaller one to sit on is now placed in the dog house. Normally I give my dogs my old sweaters and other warm and sort of fluffy things to have in there but every young dog I’ve had here them drags it out into the dog yard, I would really like to see Alma drag these huge cushions outside 🙂 🙂 🙂

DSC_0029 (2)

I did actually try to unscrew all screws in the sofa when I was picking it apart but It took just too much time, not that I was in a hurry until Monday morning but it did start to be a bit too warm to do any kind of job 🙂 So instead I just broke it down into smaller pieces, yes that was a bit more job but it was a faster way to get rid of it 🙂 🙂 🙂 It was impossible to clean the floor where the sofa was standing without having to place all other furnitures outside while I moved that sofa around to be able to vacuum there, so it wasn’t a nice sight when the sofa was gone 🙂 🙂 🙂

DSC_0033 (1)

I was pretty sure that Bertil and Teodor had done something there and yes they had plus that the dogs had pushed in lots of things too. So first I removed all bigger pieces, then I vacuumed the floor and after that I washed the floor with chlorine. Nothing says clean and bacteria free as good as chlorine does 🙂 🙂 🙂 I took all the dog blankets outside and cleaned them up as good as I could and placed them on the floor where the sofa had been standing, the dogs aren’t happy and they all tried to climb in my lap in the recliner 🙂 🙂 🙂 As soon as the new sofas are in place I’ll start looking after a “new” table and a couple “new” low book shelfs. I have some big oil paintings on that wall so they need to be low 🙂 I’ve looked at where the second had places are in Falköping and they all have odd opening hours, now I’ll see what the other towns around here has. I did see one table in one of the second hand stores in Falköping but I doubt I’ll manage to get it inside my car.

I’ve had the front door (towards north) open all morning but now the sun shines there so it’s time to open the kitchen door so the dogs can go in and out as they please. Ok it’s too hot for them to do anything but if they suddenly get a burst of energy and wants to go outside the kitchen door will be open 🙂

Have a great day!

Another heatwave on the way.

August 9, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

DSC_0002 (3) — Yesterday when we were about to take our walk I saw a shower pass by, it didn’t reach us but I did feel a few drops hitting my arm.

I’ve survived the two first day back to work 🙂 It hasn’t been that hard to be honest and I’m not sure half of us are back yet. When I grew up all industries had the summer vacation period at the same time, four weeks so it was called general industrial holiday.

DSC_0008 (4)

Suddenly Volvo I think it was decided that we would be able to change that slightly so half of all working in the company could take two weeks earlier than the rest, then the factory would close for two weeks and then the ones that had that earlier vacation started to work while the rest had their vacation. They thought it would be a good idea to only close for two weeks so the production could continue without too much disturbance. Well that didn’t work because they forgot that if only half of the workers were aty work things would move very slowly 🙂 🙂

DSC_0012 (3) — Even dead butterflies are beautiful.

DSC_0019 (4)

Nowdays it varies slightly, at my work place we can have one week before they close for three weeks or one week after. Also one can work during summer if there’s anything to do if one want a later vacation, so some people only have three weeks vacation during summer and take the last two weeks later if they perhaps wants to travel somewhere. I always take four weeks in the summer and save one for christmas. If we’re lucky those five working days together with the holidays can make that one week up to almost three weeks vacation 🙂 🙂

Yesterday was on the cool side, today was more towards early summer warm. Tomorrow will be vacation warm and after that it’ll be nasty hot if they’re guessing right. The weekend will be the worst and Monday as well but they’re guessing it will start to cool down after that. I don’t mind if autumn waits a bit before it arrives but I really don’t want another heatwave again. I guess however that it’s better than what happened in South Korea yesterday. It fell well over a foot of rain during one hour!

Have a great day!

Apricot and banana jam :-)

August 5, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

DSC_0019 (2) — The photos comes from today and also yesterday.

So today is the last day of my vacation, tomorrow is just an ordinary weekend. One could say that the vacation actually goes on until Sunday but I prefer to feel that Sunday’s just another Sunday and the day after is a work day, feels less dramatic that way 🙂

Still I could win the big winning in the lottery but I would still work that month that we are supposed to just so that they’ll get a chance to get someone else to continue after I’ve left. It is very easy to be generous as long as that winning actually hasn’t happened 🙂 🙂 We were supposed to have a sunny day here with a temperature around 20C (68F). They have actually gotten the temperature right but the sun has been absent most of the day. It showed itself a short while in the morning but very little after that.

Yesterday was very different though, we had sunshine now and again and the temperature was nasty high as also the humidity was. Rather unpleasant to be honest. Then the rain and thunder arrived. I have to say that it was a magnificent thunderstorm and it continued from around 5pm way in to the night. Strong winds created havoc in some places in this region and what the wind didn’t destroy the hail did. The wind didn’t do anything here but the hail perforated all bigger leafs it hit. I looked at my lightning app and it showed that at one point we had more than 500 lightning hits between Skara and Falköping, I live exactly in the middle of those towns. I can tell You that there’s no need to water anything today, on the contrary, I’ve needed to empty almost all pots I have 🙂 🙂 🙂

DSC_0030 (9)

I really should mow the lawn before I get back to work. It isn’t particularly high yet but with all this rain falling I can already see how it is growing. I’ll use all that cut off grass to cover the ground in the vegetable patch. It will keep the sand moist at the same time the mouldering grass will fertilize the ground, a win win situation 🙂 Also after doing like that a couple of years I’ll have more real soil than sand in there. I still only have male flowers on my squash plants, a bit annoying but there’s still plenty of time to get some squashes before autumn arrives. The beans are flowering and I have plenty of lettuce and chard growing. The cabbage is struggling though, I do remove any eggs and caterpillars I find but something is still eating those cabbage leafs. I also think we now can start to pick up potatoes 🙂

DSC_0038 (10)

It is time to give the dogs something to eat, no rush really because they’ve all had one pancake each already 🙂 🙂 Yesterday, when it still was nasty hot but the thunder was on its way I made some jam. I had some apricots that were too old but not really enough to make jam from it, so I tossed in a couple of mashed bananas too plus a pinch of cardamom. To my very big surprise it turned out really well 🙂 🙂 🙂 It’s actually quite tasty so I had that on my pancakes today 🙂 I should perhaps have put in an apple or two from my crab apple tree because those apples contains lots of pectins that will stop the jam from being a bit runny. Still it runs very slow so it’ll work on toast as well 🙂

DSC_0047 (8)

Have a great day!

DSC_0017 (1)

I’ve failed the only goal I had :-)

August 3, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

a (1) — These photos are from yesterday.

I’ve failed the only goal I had for this vacation and it was such an easy goal to reach to be honest. I had decided that I should take a nap every day all four weeks but I’ve only really done it since last Friday 🙂 🙂 🙂 (I don’t count dozing off in front of the tv though).

a (6)

It wasn’t the nicest weather when we woke up today, not especially chilly but the rain was pouring down. I really didn’t mind the rain but I had to force the dogs outside so that they would do their businesses 🙂 🙂
The rain has come and gone every now and again the entire day and it stayed on the cool side, it was quite nice being outside to be honest. Then the sun suddenly showed itself and when it did it suddenly became rather
warm and with the high humidity it went from nice to rather nasty. I looked at the weather sites and yesterday they showed that it would stay on the cool side today but now they suddenly show that we’ll have temperatures
up to 27C ( F). It’s just for on day thankfully, already tomorrow evening a cold front will pass by with lots of rain and most possibly thunder as well.

a (14)

It does look as if the anti tick spray works pretty well. Neither Nova nor Alma have had more than a couple of the nasty buggers walking on them. The lemon scented collar on Albin is harder to say anything about. I have
found a couple on him but he rarely have any walking around or biting him anyway. Flies are biting them all though so neither the spray or the collar helps towards them I’m afraid. I guess it’s the same insects that bite me when I walk
barefoot on my lawn. It itches for a short while and the red markings that show also disappears pretty quick but it had made me not walking barefoot outside before going to bed 🙂 🙂 🙂

a (21)

I went to buy groceries and pick up a package as soon as the stores opened today. I had ordered a new filter for my aquarium. The fish I have (platyfish) likes it so much that they are too many and it takes no time at all before I need to change the water. It is nice that they like it there but the joy of changing the water quickly fades off 🙂 🙂 🙂 I do use that water in my vegetable patch though so at least I have some good use for it. I haven’t picked it all together yet though but it will be up and running at least tomorrow 🙂 I really would like to have a 600 liters ( 158,5 gallon US) like I once had but I doubt that the over 100 years old floors here would managed to carry that kind of weight 🙂 🙂 🙂

a (26)

It is time to have something to eat and after that most likely fall asleep in front of the tv 🙂 I haven’t checked but I doubt they’ll show anything interesting on any channel, summer is re-run time.

a (40)

Have a great day!

DSC_0012 (1) — My Black Walnut tree looks pretty good. It seems to fight the tree cancer with good results, I haven’t seen any new damages from that disease.

DSC_0023 (1)

So many ticks.

July 30, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

k (2)

Nothing much has happened here. Yesterday morning started out much like the previous one, cold and sunny, so the morning mist was just starting to build up when some clouds came and destroyed it all. They prevented the heat from the sun to evaporate the cold morning dew so no morning mist.

DSC_0037 (7) — The Chamomile still flowers.

This morning had no clouds but it was too warm (over 10C (50F) ) so no mist today either. I really didn’t want to take a walk because of the constant war between me and Alma but I had noticed yesterday that the new harness actually does make a difference. I can attach the leash on the front and since it’s fairly low every time she pulls the leash she turns around because the leash moves towards her front leg and disturbs her balance. So far she hasn’t figured out a countermove but I can see that she’s trying 🙂 🙂 🙂

DSC_0043 (5)

It was warm enough for flies to fly around but not especially many did. I’m not sure if the fly season now is over, which I hope, or if they were busy elsewhere. It could be that they all are in my garden though because there’s no lack of them here 🙂 🙂 🙂 There’s absolutely no lack of ticks though. After we came home I combed Nova and took two from her. None was caught from Albin or Alma but then suddenly I saw plenty walking around on Almas head and also one on Albins. I don’t know where the one on Albin hid because he has plenty of white on him so it’s hard for a tick to hide. All in all I picked seven more from those two.

DSC_0048 (4)

I had hoped the pet store would be open today but during summer he tends to have Saturdays closed. He sells a anti tick spray that is made only with scents ticks hate and it works pretty well. Albin is allergic to it but I can use it on the other two. It is after all so much easier to have to go through only one dog with extremely short fur 🙂 🙂 I can also spray it on my trousers. Pretty expensive though but it is well worth it. I’ll go there first thing on Monday morning instead. They even get them here in the garden and that’s because a deer seems to be visiting us when it knows we’re all asleep. I do like deers but I wish they could wait to visit us until the tick season is over 🙂 🙂

DSC_0056 (2)

I think it is time for a cup of tea and after that perhaps a nap. We’ve been up since before the sun rose and since I still am on vacation a nap sounds pretty nice 🙂 I do have some ice cream in the freezer and I think that would go nicely with a nice tea 🙂 Today I’ll only do one thing, every now and again I’ll go out to the vegetable patch to check the cabbage for butterfly eggs and caterpillars. It is amazing how fast even the tiniest caterpillar can eat those leafs!

DSC_0058 (1) — The new harness, it is called “Military harness”. I have no idea if they used something like this in the army anywhere but it sort of looks like it. The leash can be attached at her back but also in the front which the next photo almost shows 🙂

DSC_0025 (11)

Have a great day!

Sometimes I do wonder about our postal service!

July 28, 2022 · 6 Comments ·

20220728_045036

So I woke up to e clear sky just before the sun started to rise and we went out for our morning walk as soon as I had put on my clothes and the dogs their harnesses. I did take a look at the thermometer before we went out and it showed 4C (39,2F). It was wonderful to take a slightly longer walk in that temperature because not a fly or mosquito were around to bite and annoy us 🙂

DSC_0033 (6)

Alma had once again decided that she would be impossible but she did at least not scream loudly when we passed our neighbors and Albin didn’t even look for Salmiak. Salmiak however is totally ok and it might actually be that Albin never tried to bite him but just push him down with his nose but as I said to the beekeepers I’m not willing to try it again just to see if that’s the case 🙂 🙂 🙂 Anyway we walked down to the creek and followed it down-streams. Alma was everywhere as usual and when Albin wanted to walk out on one of those small bridges that cross the creek she naturally had to follow and since Alma is like she is she then fell down and in to the rather muddy water 🙂 🙂 🙂

DSC_0040 (3)

That didn’t calm her down especially much and we had a full blown war between us all the way home. It’s fun but as soon as we pass the gate she calmes down and becomes that wonderful dog she is here at home. She smelled of mud and rust, lots of rust in the waters here so I had to shower her. I could have and should have done it outside with the garden hose but instead decided I should do it in my tiny bathroom. I decided that she would follow in her own pace and everything was going fine until both Nova and Albin decided they too had to go in to the shower. Well I did manage to get in there but she wasn’t happy. At least until she realized it wasn’t that bad, perhaps even rather nice 🙂

DSC_0046 (4)

After that I had to go to the store. I decided I should go to the one in the village where I work, mostly because I needed duct tape. They are the only ones I know that sell a kind where one can split it in half and get two thinner strips. All other ones are difficult to do that with. So off I went. At the same time I got two text messages that told me I was going to have two packages delivered to my home but I didn’t need to be at home at the delivery. Just before I left the store I also got a text message that Almas new harness had arrived and that I could pick it up in Gudhem. I could have waited but thought I really want to try it as soon as possible.

DSC_0052 (3)

When I came home again my neighbor told me that a guy had been here to deliver my packages but went to them instead. My neighbor told him to leave the packages with him or just put them in my garden around 20 meters beside. No problem the delivery guy said, tossed the packages in the car again and drove off??!! I then got a message that the packages had been delivered but I didn’t have them and my neighbor hadn’t either. So I called our postal service and was pretty angry, asked something about if the driver possible had some mental challenges or other problems (I’m not proud of that) (I did say to the girl in the phone that I wasn’t mad at her but she was the one who unfortunately had to take my anger). She fully understood and after perhaps ten minutes waiting she then asked how my neighbors house looked like. The delivery guy had told her he had placed the packages close to the post boxes (around a 100 meters, much the same in yards)Turns out that he had placed my packages at the farm up the slope!

DSC_0059 (1)

I know I have a high hedge but my cottage is very visible when driving down the slope so I have no idea why he though my neighbor next door meant the farm up the hill??One package weighs 20Kg (44,1 pound) and the other package was very big but not heavy at all, so I had to go back home and take my car to get it back home 🙂 🙂 🙂 On the other side, I did get my neighbors mail in my mailbox instead 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well everything was solved and now I don’t have any more packages so everything is as it should but if I can chose who will deliver my packages in the future it will never be our postal service again!

DSC_0064 (1)

Have a great day!

e (5) — If Albin doesn’t want to play Alma is fully capable to entertain herself with an apple 🙂 🙂

e (10)

Terrible morning.

July 26, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

a (7)

So we went out for our morning walk and while Alma was quite calm yesterday she today had decided not to be. It went fairly well to be honest but as we were passing the beekeepers home I was more concentrated on keeping her quiet since she has a tendency to start shouting when we pass that place.

a (11)

So suddenly Albin jumped to the side of me and went for Salmiak who happened to be in the grass beside the gravel road. This time it looked as if Albin actually managed to get to Salmiak. I managed to lift away Albin and Salmiak ran away. So I went home with the dogs while scolding Albin and then went back to the beekeepers cottage starting to look for Salmiak. I also phoned the beekeeper to tell what had happened. So we all walked around to look after Salmiak and it took some time before I could find him. He was of course not happy seeing me but he looked ok but went and hid elsewhere.

a (15)

They did find Salmiak after a while but he didn’t have any bite marks and they have kept an eye on him all day and if Albin had managed to injure him he would have shown signs of that by now. Also I checked Albins mouth to see if there was any cat fur in there but couldn’t find anything. So either Albin never bit but instead just pressed poor Salmiak to the ground or Albin just missed. Anyway I’m so happy that Salmiak wasn’t injured!

a (19)

Besides this rather awful start of the day the rest has been pretty calm thankfully. Windy and rather cool day with little or no sunshine. I must admit that I’m enjoying these cooler days because one never knows if we’ll get another heat wave before summer ends. It doesn’t look like it now but one never knows 🙂 Almas new harness has now reached the Netherlands so with a bit of luck it might reach us before Friday 🙂 🙂 🙂

DSC_0014 (8) — A Marigold with a Berry fart resting on it 🙂 Berry farts are relatives to Stink bugs.

a (4) — The Venus flytrap will soon flower 🙂

a (5) — Something has been eating my carnivorous plants! It might be the deer that Alma scared away from just outside the lilac hedge.

It is time for us all to have something to eat. Tomorrow morning Albin will have a short leash so he can’t jump anywhere, I’ll still try and keep Alma calm and Nova can walk without leash, she never does anything stupid so I don’t have to worry about what she wight do 🙂

DSC_0001 (8) — Finally the rose on Teodors grave is in bloom.

By the way, I think we had well over an inch of rain yesterday 🙂

Have a great day!

I thought they had some in stock :-)

July 24, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

We’ve had a rather nice day here. According to the weather sites it should have started sunny and pretty early on slowly turn towards cloudy, so I wasn’t the least surprised when it started cloudy but then slowly turned towards sunny 🙂 🙂 🙂 We had a few hours of sunshine and the temperature rose to around 20C (68F) quite perfect really 🙂

DSC_0006 (10)

I didn’t need to water anything today because yesterday night we had some rain falling and since it was as cool as it was the ground still was pretty wet. I do however need to check anything cabbage because now is the time that both the Cabbage butterfly and Cabbage moth lays their eggs on anything that is cabbage or in that family. I just scrape off the eggs laid on the undersides of the leafs and I also spray water mixed with soap so that any egg that I might miss will be covered and therefore will suffocate because the soap won’t let any oxygen through.

DSC_0005 (9)

We walked sown to the creek and a bit up stream but stayed away from the high grass and bushes because this is a tick year. Albin rarely have any but both Nova and Alma are tick magnets, so the first thing I do when we come home is to comb through their fur with a very dense comb almost like a louse comb. None today but there’s always one or two that I miss so I’ll do it again later today. Nova is back to normal again after the ear infection but I must admit that I was worried there for a while.

DSC_0013 (9) — They’ve now removed almost all branches and twigs after the deforestation.

DSC_0012 (10) — There’s still some logs left but the big pile will become pellets and briquettes fore fire heaters.

We’ll have a couple of days with below 20C (68F) temperatures and tomorrow we’ll also get lots of rain, if they are guessing it right but one never knows about that. They have risen the amount of rain for every update but right now they’re guessing we will get an inch of it. I don’t mind at all but I do hope it starts out gentle so that the ground gets moist first and therefore can let the rest of the rain actually sink down into the ground and not just run away in to creeks and ponds/ lakes (or in my case the bog/ swamp behind the garage).

DSC_0038 (7)

I ordered a new harness for Alma, she’s becoming too big for the one she has and I did it the 17/7. Normally it will take five days or so to get it delivered but this one takes its time. I can check the status of the order and it turns out that the one I buy it from buys it from Canada. They however order if from China. So I have now been following it as an order from Sweden to Canada, then the order went to Shanghai where it finally was packed. Now it looks like it’s shipped to Canada and after that to Sweden and hopefully me 🙂 🙂 🙂 It says something about it arriving in seven days 🙂 🙂 🙂 To be honest I thought that the seller at least had a couple of each size in stock but oh how wrong I was 🙂 🙂 🙂

DSC_0042 (7) — I’ve found even more grapes to be 🙂

DSC_0022 (5) — This is a kind of Lime tree where the fruits doesn’t give wedges but instead it looks like some green kind of caviar 🙂 I almost killed it last winter so I’m just happy that it has survived 🙂

DSC_0054 (1)

Have a great day!

DSC_0048 (3)

Finally cooling down!

July 22, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

Yesterday was horrible. We didn’t set a new heat record but it was still the hottest day in 73 years. Here in the village it reached 36C (96,8F) before it slowly, slowly started to get less hot. I really don’t want to go through that kind of heat again but most likely I will because of the climate change.

DSC_0004 (8) — The Creeping Bellflower is quite beautiful but seen as one of the worst weeds one can get in the garden. The roots grows so tight and it becomes too dense for anything else to survive with it. The roots are edible though so why not eat it to death 🙂

DSC_0013 (6)

One hot summer isn’t any proof of the climate change but when this happens frequently year after year, when it perhaps happened once every tenth year before it is one of the evidence of that the climate is changing. There were areas of rain and thunder all around this area but none reached us, the same today and I really wish it would come to us as well because the flies are soo annoying as they always are when thunder is about to arrive (well or at least it’s nearby). It is much cooler today though, 18C (64,4F) and hopefully dropping. This village is more or less in the eye of a low pressure so the rain just keep circling around us but it does at least cool us down.

DSC_0006 (9) — Potato flowers are quite beautiful. I hope that these gives fruit, looks like small green tomatoes (rather poisonous so don’t eat them). One can sow those seeds and get all kinds of different potatoes from those seeds. Be aware of that those new potatoes might get all kinds of diseases they’ve managed to get rid of on those one took the seeds from. Best to grow in a big bucket if one tries.

DSC_0016 (4)

Nova was the one taking the heat best of us all. She didn’t seem to care especially much and even slept in the sunshine on the kitchen stairs 🙂 🙂 Albin can’t take any heat at all, then again he can’t take any cold weather at all either, he truly is a lukewarm weather guy 🙂 🙂 🙂 Alma and I took it in much the same way, not as well as Nova but lots better than Albin. The night was horrible, the fan worked at maximum speed but I can’t say it felt much better. Also a fly had found my bedroom and did its best to annoy the heck out of us. The sticky fly paper has been full of flies so that was another thing I really needed to buy today. They didn’t have it in the big store I went to and the one I asked said Do You have flies? We all working here were just discussing about the lack of them! I said they all could come home to me but none seemed too interested to be honest 🙂 🙂 🙂

DSC_0019 (7) — Finally big buds on the rose planted on Teodors resting place.

DSC_0020 (7) — It’ll look like this when opening up.

I was out watering the vegetables and a few other plants and small trees already at 5 am 🙂 I went to the store quite early too since I wasn’t sure if it actually would calm down or not, one never knows with our weather services 🙂 🙂 🙂 I had almost nothing left to eat for breakfast and I also needed to renew my lottery tickets. I know the chances of winning the big lottery winning (today around 1,265 billion swedish kronor (around 126,5 million US dollars) is slim to none but it is a bigger chance to have a couple of tickets than to have none at all 🙂 🙂 🙂 I wonder if I would go insane if I won that much money, it’s so much that I really can’t understand how much it really is 🙂 🙂 🙂 I would never tell You if I did win but then again You would most likely notice that I had taken an early retirement 🙂 🙂 🙂

DSC_0001 (7) — The Chinese Catalpa really need some rain now.

The coming ten days they’re guessing that it’ll stay around 20C (68F), give or take a degree up or down and also some rain. I will not believe it until it happens but I do sure hope it’s right and that we’ll get even more rain than they are guessing 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!