Category: Summer.

His rebellious phase seems to be rather calm, at least right now :-)

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We had a really nice morning today, rather cool and lots of fog and it lasted until I arrived at work. I brought a camera with me so I have a few photos to show today. One of the red spots was about to become a scab so I showed it as soon as I could and it didn’t take long before it started to form a scab, so i went home as they had told me to. I hope this is the last one so I can go to work again as soon as it falls off. I feel quite good but am rather tired and I guess that’s because of thew chickenpox.

     

I went by the grocery store to fill up the fridge and pantry since I won’t be able to go there while I’m still contagious, thankfully there was almost no one there when I arrived so I didn’t give this to someone else. I’m feeling ok though so I hope this will pass quickly. They managed to fix the problem at work though so they’ll start working tomorrow so someone else will have to do my work until I’m back again.

I was lucky that these cranes were walking around in a place where I could see if cars came behind me so early that there wasn’t any risk of a car crash just because I had stopped my car.

 

We had a walk as soon as I came home and it has been pretty warm when the fog finally evaporated. A bit too warm for Nova so we walked in the forest where the trees gave a nice and cool shadow. It is quiet out there now, no bird song but the tweeting we can hear until next spring and oddly enough no flies there either, perhaps their season is over now? one can always hope.

     

Malkolms rebellious period continues 🙂 Yesterday I realized that he has bitten a hole in the sofa cushion (I have one big on the entire sofa) from beneath, I realized that when I wondered what that white stuff on the floor was 🙂 Not a big hole so it can easily be repaired but still. Also today my neighbors texted me with a photo of him walking around in their garden (I’m so lucky I have the best neighbors one can have!). He did come back when I called the first time, the second time however he really didn’t want to because they were changing diaper on their youngest 🙂 🙂 So they too tried to make him jump back but he just didn’t want to. He didn’t come back home until I sounded really angry 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

Also Alma is in heat but thankfully he shows no interest what so ever, I don’t want to neuter him until he’s a year old. So hold You thumbs and cross You fingers that it stays that way 🙂 🙂 🙂 I think it’s time to have something to eat but no more tea, I’m tired of waking up in the middle of the night now 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Well that was a surprise :-)

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The Dog rose is flowering again.

First day back at work and it was a calm one, actually so calm that we didn’t especially much at all 🙂 Nothing in the painting department worked and it’s most likely because a heavy thunder storm passed by there yesterday. I got several warnings from my lightning app but nothing was close to the village, instead it passed over the village where the factory is.

     

So we did the little we could do and after lunch I went home. However I had to call the occupational healthcare because We suspected I might be ill even though I don’t feel sick 🙂 So I am for the fifth or sixth time having chicken-pox 🙂 🙂 🙂 Not something that usually happens to be honest. So I called them and described the suspected two red dots, the itching and the one scab I have so far  (I’ve never gotten lots of dots, five or six each time). So they were a bit skeptical at first but then the nurse said that one might get it several time if one has a really bad immune system, so I said I have Bechterews disease (my rheumatism) and then she laughed and said then You do have a really f.cked up immune system 🙂 🙂

     

That might sound strange coming from a nurse but we’ve met before and she heard my name but couldn’t put a face to it and her son has the same disease so we fully understood each other 🙂 🙂 I had already made sure that everyone at work already have had it before calling so there’s no risk of me giving it to anyone else and as long as I feel fine I can continue to work but if I get more rash I’ll have to stay at home until the last scab falls off. The one I have at the moment is covered to makes sure I don’t give it to anyone else. To be honest it might already be over since the two red dots also can be mosquito bites, we’ll only know if they too get that blister that belongs to it. Now of course it itches everywhere 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

I guess I’ll know better already tomorrow. I know there can be bad complications having chicken-pox, especially as an older person so I’ll make sure not to dismiss any other symptoms. So all in all it has been a rather nice day 🙂 It was supposed to be cloudy all day but the sun has shined quite a lot after I came home. It was a bit too warm for Nova when the sun shone so we walked mostly in the forest and she was unleashed so she could walk in her own pace. I also had the new dog food delivered today, both Alma and Malkolm have problems with their stomach and since chicken is the main ingredient in their food and chicken is the most common issue for stomach problems I bought one made from insects. They all loved it when I gave them some as treats so now I’ll slowly change from the old one to this new and see if they’ll get better.

 

The Persimmon branches growing up from the root of the dead persimmon hybrid looks good.
Lots of berries on my care tree, a Rowan tree. 

It is time to make a last cup of tea for the day and  after that I’ll mostly listen to the Olympics on the radio, Mondo Duplantis the Swedish pole vaulter is competing today and it will be a big surprise if he doesn’t win.

Have a great day!

The rebellious stage has begun.

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Mostly cloudy today but really nice. Just warm enough and no wind. The no wind did make the flies too happy but only while we were walking in the forest, here at home they mostly kept away. So I could walk around watering the plants that need extra attention without going crazy 🙂

     

Today I scolded Malkolm for the first time, three times actually 🙂 🙂 He has now gotten the idea to pull out my potted plants and then start to chew on them. He’s getting his real teeth now so I guess it itches something awful in his mouth right now. I caught him in action so I thought that it would stop after the first time but oh no, he tried again 🙂 He really look miserable after scolding him and refused to go inside after the first time, no such behavior the other times though, he almost looked proud instead 🙂 🙂 I think the time of rebellion has started 🙂 🙂

     

Otherwise I’ve mostly listened to the radio and the Olympics and I’ve also napped so I’ve only missed to nap twice during my vacation, always feel nice when I can keep a promise to myself to almost 100% 🙂 🙂 They warned about showers passing by but so far nothing has fallen here. They’re guessing that we will get rain tomorrow as well but the amount and when keeps changing all the time. I won’t mind if it will rain the entire day, sort of fitting since I’ll go back to work on Monday 🙂 🙂

Nova has had a bad day today. The walk was tough for her so I let her off the leash so that she could walk in her own pace. I haven’t noticed any signs of wolves in the area so I’ll do the same tomorrow.

   

My cold has come back, yay. I don’t have any fever but my throat is sour and my nose is runny. Summer colds are the best 🙂 🙂 They stay long and close as an old friend 🙂 🙂 So now I’ll have a cup of tea with lots of ginger in it and hope that will stop the cold from going worse.

These are the Guava seedlings, they haven’t grown much in the cold weather we’ve had but look really healthy.
Here are the Apricots, I have one more but I test planted it amongst the Siberian nepeta. It doesn’t look happy because the nepeta is too invasive.
My two peach seedlings. The one to the right was the first tree Malkolm decided to chew on 🙂
My strawberry plants are thriving now, I’ll get plenty of strawberries if the warm weather continues for a while.

Have a great day!

I’ve found two small squashes beneath the leafs, perfect size to have in the dinner.

He doesn’t look too guilty after chewing on my plants 🙂 🙂

Last day of vacation but still the weekend left.

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The test photo of the day, my and my neighbors trash bins. The brown one is for leftover food and the green for non recyclable trash. I’ve used the brown twice, once when the freezer broke and once fr some really old food that I managed to hid in the back of the fridge 🙂 Still if I don’t have that brown bin I’ll have to pay more. It is more or less impossible to refuse to have garbage bins over here.

Another really nice day but it was a bit too warm in the morning and absolutely no wind so the flies were quite annoying, no biting ones though and that’s always positive. We walked down to the creek and I had hoped we at least would see the Roe deer we’ve seen lately but I guess they too were a bit tired of the flies and instead had walked in to the forest and hid in the shadow amongst the trees.

A bad year for acorns, normally this little tree is full of them but today I found five.
The spring was amazing when it comes to Rowan berries though. Old folklore says that if there are lots of Rowan berries we’ll get a cold winter. We had almost no berries last year and got a nasty cold winter again 🙂 All it says is that the spring was amazingly good for Rowan trees.

 

I think the beavers are back in the creek, even though the water level is really high on one side of the place we pass on our way home it’s really low on the other side. Last time they were here they blocked the big pipe passing under the gravel road and it looks like that’s what happening again now. I’m happy about it but I know the land owners aren’t. Still that was what saved the fields along the creek last time we had a drought for well over two months here. The rest of the area was so dry that the trees started to lose their leafs but everything was green and lush along the creek.

     

No risk of that happening this year though since the ground water levels now are higher in this area than there’s space in the ground 🙂 Still my garden has mostly sand so even though there’s lots of water in the ground the surface still dries out really quickly, so now the first thing in the morning I’ll go out to water what is newly planted and those things where the roots don’t go especially deep. The good thing with having sand is that almost nothing even get close to rot away because of standing water and the dogs are usually quite clean after being outside in the garden after a shower 🙂

     

I was disturbed twice when I tried to have a nap today. First time it was a phone sales person, I never answer a phone call if I don’t know who’s calling but my phone said it was trash and second time it was a text message telling me that a package had arrived and stood outside my gate. I know I should turn off the sound while having a nap but I usually never get a call that time of the day and when I do turn off the sound I usually forget to turn it on again 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well I did get two short naps so I’ve fulfilled my vow to have a nap every day of the vacation 🙂 Today was the last day of my vacation but I still have the weekend to enjoy. Tomorrow will be much like today weather-vice but Sunday will be rainy they guess.

The perennial sunflower the Jerusalem artichoke is very early this year, they normally start to flower some time in Early September but I can already see buds. Badly eaten by snails this year.
I sowed sunflowers all over the garden this spring and the few that started to grow are still small and tiny. This one however, sown by birds I think, grows in the vegetable garden 🙂 🙂
My seed sown apple tree has lots of apples. They taste delicious but the tree almost always get attacked by fungus and the apples rot directly on the tree, doesn’t look like that will happen this year though. So this tree proves that seed sow apples always becomes sour and bitter.
The blueberries are coming fine as well but they ripe really unevenly, so I’ll have to pick and freeze them one by one.

Alma is in the dog basket, she isn’t sleeping but I can’t say what she’s doing either, could be chewing on something. Malkolm sleeps beside the vacuum cleaner, he has no fear of it what so ever and Nova sleep just beside me, both of them sleeps quite heavily and at least one of them has gasses and it’s bad 🙂 Time to have a last cup of tea for the day and then see if there’s anything worth watching on tv.

     

Have a great day!

Chicory. I tossed the left over seeds from yesterday all over the garden and one germinated. The ones that grew quite well last year died during winter.

If I’ve learned something today it’s that it is always best to be patient :-)

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I managed to take two photos of the morning mist from the window upstairs.

Much the same nice weather today as yesterday but with stronger wind so the flies kept calm even in the forest. There was morning mist left when I woke up but it was all gone by the time we went out on our morning walk. We might have a chance of morning mist at least tomorrow and possibly on Saturday but they’re guessing it will rain on Sunday.

     

I went to the hospital to get my new shoes and insoles today but first I had to drive in the opposite direction to get a package in Gudhem. I had had a pot of tea before I drove away and I also bought a soda in the grocery store. By the time I came to the hospital I started to feel the need to find a toilet but every time I went there it was occupied so I thought to myself that it wouldn’t take that long to get to the village where I work to find a toilet I could use.

     

I didn’t think of all the harvesters on the road now so it took much longer than I thought it would, so suddenly I felt rather desperate. No one at work today but I have the keys and the security code for the alarm. Then I had this genius idea to loosen the belt because it pressed towards the stomach. I want to teach You one thing while I’m on this little planet of ours, never do that!!! It was like opening a dam. Well I almost made it to work when I finally couldn’t hold it any more 🙂 🙂 🙂 I rushed in to a little wooded area beside the factory 🙂 It wasn’t that horrible because when the pressure became less I could hold it in but I still had to go inside the factory to clean up both me and my clothes 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

So have I learned something today? Yes never drink too much before going somewhere, be patient and wait so I can use the toilet where I am and I’m not young any more because if this had happened when I was in my twenties I would never have shared that with anyone 🙂 🙂 🙂  Besides this very little has happened today, I did however get a bag of plums from my neighbors. At first I thought I would make jam from them but then I tasted one and now I have no left, tomorrow will be a day spent not far from the bathroom I think 🙂

Finally! One of the Texas lupines that looks like it is supposed to, all the other ones has had just a few flosers at most except one that only had one flower. So I’ll make sure to save the seeds from this one and hope that the seedlings will turn out as its parent.
I’ve always believed that all strawberries were spring flowers, my starts now 🙂

 

Nova has finally gotten her appetite back and today she even spent some time with the rest of us in the garden 🙂

I think I’ll skip the tea tonight 🙂 but I think I’ll have some yogurt or quark with vanilla taste, it’ almost as good as ice cream to be honest and since I’ve eaten the last ice cream and the ice cream lorry doesn’t come here until next Wednesday I’ll have the quark 🙂

Have a great day!

One of those summer days one remembers from childhood.

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Yesterday morning.

The weather has been so nice today, an almost perfect summer day like the ones one tend to remember from childhood even though here most summers used to rain away and the only reason one had to remember those warm and sunny summer days was because summer breaks were so long as a child 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

We walked down to the creek this morning and thankfully there was a strong wind blowing so mostly we weren’t that annoyed by the flies, some did try and bite us but it was mostly the small really irritating forest flies that managed to keep up with the wind. Also the wind and sunny weather has now dried up the grass so for once none of us was soaking wet when we came back home and even better I couldn’t find a single tick on the dogs when I checked them before going inside. They do tend to calm down this time of year but normally I always find one or two anyway.

Couldn’t see any damselflies today but quite a lot very active small dragonflies. None would sit down long enough to be photographed though.

   

How come is it that every time one is waiting for more than one package they never arrive at the same day? I was up at the grocery store in Gudhem yesterday to pick up that tree I had ordered, today the next package arrived!!! I didn’t want to go there again today, just didn’t have the energy to be honest. I will however have to leave home tomorrow to pick up those new shoes and insoles. The rather annoying thing is that I have to drive the opposite way to pick up the package and then turn around to go to the hospital, almost back to home, and drive all the way to Lidköping. I know it’s a first world problem but oh so annoying 🙂 🙂

     

I haven’t done much today to be honest and that’s just how it is supposed to be while having vacation. I have watered all the trees, potted plants and all the newly planted perennials, there’s very little soil in the ground here, it is mostly sand, slate and bog ore so the ground dries up really fast as soon as it gets warmer and dryer. We have lots of Iron in the ground here so that’s why the water in the creek has that rusty color. Luckily not enough for anyone to start trying to bring it up and at the same time destroying the area. We also have one of the biggest deposits of Uranium in the mountain north of the lake. At the moment it’s forbidden by law to try and mine it but the right wing government that supports on the fascist party wants to remove that law. It is never a good thing for the environment to have a mine and especially not when it’s about Uranium. Well the people stood up and fought the government the last time they tried and they will again 🙂

     

It is time for a last cup of tea and today I won’t drink as much as I did yesterday, I woke up around three am and desperately needed to go downstairs 🙂 🙂 Oddly enough I managed to go back to sleep again and didn’t wake up until after six am 🙂

This is Salmiak, the kindest cat in the world. His biggest problem is that he believes that there’s good in everything and that has given him huge problems with dogs. My Albin tried to take him and I think at least three other dogs bitten him badly. Now days he tries to have some distance between himself and dogs. He is at least as old as Nova, so eighteen years old by now.

   

Have a great day!

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Through my kitchen window early this morning.

We didn’t get a morning with cool air and morning mist, instead we had fairly warm morning with a thick layer of clouds above us. So instead of having a really nice and cool walk we had a walk in the forest where flies and mosquitoes reigned.  Still we’ve had worse walks so I’m not complaining too much 🙂

One of the cats living at the farm next door.

   

I think there was just one horsefly flying around and it found my hand so now it itches something nasty. Another one found me when I mowed the outside space but that one will never bother anyone else any more 🙂  To be honest this year has been pretty good when it comes to flies, with that I mean fairly few. If we get in to an area where suddenly lots of flies fly around it means animals are close, most likely wild hogs because there are always many together and therefore draws more of those annoying insects.

     

I had to go to the store in Gudhem today because the package with the Red Mulberry tree had arrived and it was just in time, the soil in the pot was so dry that I had to put it in a bucket of water as soon as I opened the package. As soon as the soil was wet I planted it in a bigger pot and I think I’ll keep it like that until next spring, down in the cool cellar. Now I have three different mulberry trees. This red one, a white mulberry with tasty berries and one called Mulle which is a Morus accidosa. I can’t find any info about M. accidosa so I think it must be some kind of hybrid. It gives black berries, really tasty ones, but they are smaller than the ones the Black Mulberry tree gives. So lets now hope we get a mild winter so that they all survive plus of course the Pawpaws and persimmons 🙂

 

Snails and slugs live in paradise when they find my Root zone.

So this is the last week on my vacation and I’m desperately hoping for that lottery winning 🙂 🙂 🙂 I wouldn’t hesitate to quit my job immediately even though that is frowned upon (I really don’t hate my job but I’m not crazy in love with it either 🙂 🙂 ). Normally we have one month to work after we’ve given notice but since I wouldn’t plan on going back to work again ever so why bother 🙂 🙂 🙂 However until that happens, most likely five minutes before I leave this earth 🙂 🙂 🙂 I will have to keep on working, at least until I can retire and I think I’ll start with part time retirement when I’m 64, just a few years left 🙂 I think I would be really pi…d if I died before I could retire 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

It is time for a last cup of tea for the day and later on I’ll watch Midsommer Murders, unfortunately they show Death in Paradise at the same time in another channel but since I’ve watched all the murders in Midsommer from the beginning the choice is easy tonight 🙂

     

Have a great day!

The village.

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It’s quiet in the village. The only sound one can hear is the occasional pig up at the farm and a neighbor hammering on his house, they are making their kitchen bigger. Nothing wrong with that but they are making the most beautiful house in the village rather ugly, the extension of the house looks like a box and really doesn’t have the same style as the rest of the house. Well the main thing is that they will like it and that they get the space they need.

     

We had the most wonderful morning here today, 7C (44,6F), sunshine and no wind. Morning mist flowed above the ground but most of it was gone by the time we came out for our walk. Today we walked in a place we haven’t walked in over two years, we walked in to the village. Now when I say in to the village it doesn’t look like that there’s a village there to be honest 🙂 In the middle of this village is a rather big cow pasture and then there are cottages and houses scattered around it. There used to be lots of small homes here and every family living here worked at the castle, Bjurum castle. If the one/ ones living here stopped working in the castle they had to move. If they didn’t hire someone new those small homes were just left and fell apart. Now days there’s 22 homes here, well 21 to be honest as You’ll see in my photos, but once they say there were almost 60 homes here.

     

If one knows where to look one can see the old village road but it is unfortunately hard to get on a photo but that road is almost older than the village. This used to be a burial place since the stone age and one can find old graves since the Iron age, nothing from the viking age though. Also later on the had a church in the village so there should be Christian graves but most of them were covered.  For some reason they stopped using that church, they think it might be because the black death hit this area badly and they thought that it could be spread again from the graves. The church was demolished and the stones were used to build the church down by the lake. Two more churches were torn down to build that church. Unfortunately there’s almost nothing left to see from that old church.

     

The reason we haven’t walked there in such a long time is because of Albin and Alma. If they saw a deer or a flying bird or a car or anything that might possibly move like a leaf those two started screaming like insane 🙂 🙂 🙂 That most often happened when we passed a home and since we were out pretty early in the morning we always woke people up. Also lots of dogs here now days so I have been unsure of how Alma will react if they are outside. She would love to greet them but would she do that quiet? 🙂 🙂 🙂 She has however calmed down considerable since Albin’s not here any more and Malkolm is a really quiet dog. Nova? well she doesn’t react much at all and now days she can’t hear much with her ear and doesn’t see that well either 🙂 Today everything went well but a couple of dogs barked like insane when we passed their home, they were indoors and a window was open so they could hear us pass by. I’m pretty sure the people living in that house woke up while we passed 🙂 🙂 Alma however was quiet as a dormouse 🙂

   

This is what happens when there’s a family feud. The owner has always refused to sell the place so no one else that is supposed to be one of those supposed to inherit the place will get as little money as possible.

I think we’ll have the same walk tomorrow morning if the weather is just as nice as it was today. I like walking there, I’m not soaking wet when we come home, no flies unless the cattle are close to us and no ticks either 🙂 Couldn’t be much better to be honest 🙂

   

 

Have a great day!

Nice day and bread baking.

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I always take test photo before we walk away and today this was the one.

 

I’m baking bread, well not yet it’s still rising and will do so for an hour more.  Most of the gluten free recipes seems to be for tiny breads that’ll last for a day or so. A bit annoying because they won’t go bad so quickly, so I tend to double it all. I never have the right ingredients either so I just take what I have. In this recipe I should have had potato flour and brown rice flour, I had neither. So instead I had normal rice flour, oatmeal flour and since I didn’t have enough with rice flour I also put in Sorghum and buckwheat flour 🙂 🙂  They all react very different so one never really knows what the dough will be like 🙂

     

I was mixing it all and it behaved like concrete, that’s when I remembered that I hadn’t doubled the amount of water, slightly stressed I poured in cold water and less of what i should have, really glad that I didn’t take all the water I was supposed to because if I had done I would have been able to pour it in baking tin and this one isn’t supposed to be poured 🙂 For some reason they always want the dough to rise in a separate bucket and when it is ready one should just place it in the baking tin. Why? One isn’t supposed to do anything with it after it has risen. So I just put it in the baking tin from the beginning so there isn’t any risk that I press out the air in the bread while doing something unnecessary.

     

We walked out to the bog this morning and the flies were quite nasty. They behaved like we might have thunder but there were no signs of that. Turns out that there has been thunder but it has been everywhere around us but not here. I got warnings on the lightning app all day long but here the sun has been shining the entire time.  I can’t say I’ve done a lot today, mostly listening to the radio and the Olympics. Had a short nap but was woken up by a text message and couldn’t fall back to sleep. I have also planted some perennials, Six Coneflowers (Echinacea). I put them in the old vegetable patch where I was hoping our meadow flowers would like to live but only a few showed up 🙂 They’ll look amazing next year. Since they grew in a pot I’ll need to water them every day because since their roots isn’t attached to the soil yet the old soil in the pot will dry up much faster than the ground surrounding them. I’ll have to keep an eye on them until late autumn even if it will rain a lot. It’s the same with trees and bushes, they need lots pf extra water the first year.

     

I just took a look at the bread and it is rising a bit too good 🙂 🙂 Looks like it will over flow the baking tin 🙂 🙂 smells really good though!

     

It is time to go down and put that bread in the oven and I’ll also have a last cup of tea for the day. I might go to the grocery store tomorrow but the one thing I need to do is to mow the lawn, I might wait another day to mow the parts outside my garden, after all I’m still on vacation 🙂

This one is from yesterday, the dogs have mostly been close to me all day so it was a bit difficult to get a good photo 🙂

 

Have a great day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m finding potato plants everywhere now :-)

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We’ve had so much nicer weather than they guessed yesterday that we would get, as best we could hope for smaller gaps in the clouds where the sun might get a chance to shine through. Instead we’ve had plenty of sunshine since just after we had come home from our morning walk. We’ve also had a wind blowing, not strong but enough, so I’ll probably be able to mow the lawn tomorrow without the mower getting full of green gunk 🙂 I checked the new compost and I must say when the sun shines it works really fast. It was packed full just a week ago and now almost all of its contents has sunken down to just some left at the bottom of it! I’ll continue to fill it and see how it works but at the moment I’m impressed.

     

Autumn is on its way now, no it won’t happen for some time but the signs are there. Almost no birds sing here any more and every evening I can hear the Cranes gather in bigger flocks. Now I’ve seen the older ones mix with the newcomers out in the fields and it’s the same with the geese. Some of them will move south as early as they can but lots will stay until they are forced to move by the weather. The trend is that they stay longer and longer now because of the late start of winter. 

     

I still have small trees/ bushes to plant in my garden and I had, of course, to buy another little tree this week. A Red Mulberry tree 🙂 🙂 I already have problems finding out where I can plant those things I already have here but it looks like my English walnut died some time during this summer, have no idea why because it started really well after surviving the cold winter we had. I’ll try to reach it and take a closer look at it but if it is gone I will have space for the Red Mulberry 🙂 🙂 The perennials will be easier though because of the old vegetable patch that now is where I wanted wildflowers to grow but failed miserable 🙂 🙂 

     

I’m also thinking of getting rid of my wild grape vine, I don’t think I’ll get a single grape this year and it has been cheap with giving any at all. The easiest way to kill a grape vine is to cut it off just above the ground in spring, it’ll bleed to death quite quickly because they really don’t heal well at all. I’ll also most likely strip off the bark at the base of my plum tree, Google and other translators says it’s called to ring bark and it is the same name we use. The tree has to stand for two years before one can remove it but by doing like that it will not give any root shoots. I can always plant a climber beside it so it doesn’t look too awful during that time. It only gives a few plums every year and I only got it so that my neighbor would get plums on his tree. My “new” neighbors are thinking of getting rid of theirs so then there’s little meaning to keep mine. The space will soon be used for something else though 🙂

I think this is buckwheat.

   

At the same time it really hurts to get rid of a tree but not even the birds or rodents have any use of it since it doesn’t give fruit for them to eat. Well I still have to start with the mowing 🙂 I can find more and more tomatoes now but the bell peppers still only have buds, I guess it has to do with all the raining and relatively cool weather. They say this is the warmer weather since they started recording the climate but I’m pretty sure that next time they show that map of the world where it shows the average temperatures in anything from blue (colder than normal) to deep red (hotter than normal) the Nordic countries and perhaps Britain will be colored light blue 🙂 To be honest I do prefer that than deep red and now there’s no risk of forest fires anywhere in that area. 

     

It is time for a last cup of tea for today. I might turn off the tv and start listening to the radio because I don’t have the channel that shows the Olympics but I can listen to it on radio and also do something else at the same time 🙂

Four of my Giant Sequoia seedlings.
Now all they have to do is to start getting red 🙂

 

Have a great day!

 

Some of the Aaron’s rod becomes pretty high, I think this one just about touches three meters (much the same in yards) 🙂
I had forgotten that I put down potatoes here and there in the garden and now I can find them all over the place 🙂 🙂  

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It looks like all but one of my sown Petunias will have this color.

We’ve had unusually much sunshine today  since we weren’t supposed to have any 🙂 Still mostly cloudy anyway and it has been just enough warm so it has been rather nice, we even had a nice walk later in the day because the flies in the forest really didn’t care much about us. Well there was this one horse fly that insisted on paying me a visit and I can happily say that she will visit no more.

This time it is evening fog I show.

   

Yesterday I went to a pet store rather far away, a work friend lives just beside it so I had a cup of coffee first. He has one of those really modern and I guess rather expensive coffee makers so I think it is impossible not to make a really good cup of coffee 🙂 The pet shop is rather big and it turns out they sell snakes, spider, turtles, scorpions and aquarium fish. I have nothing against snakes so I took a look at them, I think it was mostly boas and pythons of different sizes but I skipped to look at the spiders and scorpions 🙂 🙂 🙂 I bought myself some fish and went home again. Took a bit longer than it should since I got a bit lost, I also was a bit lost on my way there too so now I’ve seen places in this county I never would have otherwise 🙂 🙂

Lots of Rowan berries this year.

 

I’ve never seen this butterfly before so I’ve asked the knowledgeable people on FB what it can be.

We had our nap, so so far I’ve still only missed to have one during this vacation 🙂 It was a bit too noisy today though, I have a neighbor with five horses and they are making hay bales and that tractor of theirs have been working quite a lot lately 🙂 I think I snoozed for twenty minutes and today I wished it could have been more because Alma woke me up at 3:10 this morning and it took some time to fall back to sleep again. No stomach problems though, just needed to go an hour earlier than usual.

     

I went to the grocery store in the village where I work today and they had cheap strawberries and cherries as well, so when I’m done here and have had something to eat I’ll make some jam. It is hard to find cherry jam here and if one would it costs a small fortune and since strawberry jam works for anything that needs jam I thought I might as well do some of that as a well. The few cherries I get from my sand cherry trees won’t go far and they are still unripe, just like the three plums I’ll get 🙂 🙂 and my strawberries gives the odd berry but they tend to start producing berries now, really odd since all other strawberry plants give berries in spring and early summer 🙂 🙂

     

I better stop writing here and go downstairs to clean those berries and the jars so I can start making that jam. Also the dogs are waiting for me to have a couple of sandwiches so they can get a slice of cheese each 🙂

Have a great day!

A bit too close :-)

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100% humidity, no wind but towards the cool side should still make a rather nice day but both the dogs and I thought the humidity was just too much and that it made it feel much warmer than it actually was. We walked down to the creek in the morning when it still felt a bit cool but the flies were nasty and there were a few horse flies that tried to bite me. Oddly slow so now there are fewer horse flies to worry about 🙂

   

Winter food for the cattle. Lots of beans in it this year, they’ll cut it down and make silage from it.

I think we were close to wild hogs because Alma became a bit excited and looked straight at the point where we met one last week. We didn’t see or hear anyone though, I guess they too thought it felt a it nasty with the humidity and kept as still as they could to avoid the attention of the flies. We did see a Roe deer though but now Alma rarely cares about it. She has become so much better on our walks now and I do hope it continues that way 🙂

Roe deer don’t eat the beans, they only eat the most delicious herbs, that’s why they have problems surviving the old fashioned winters when the ground used to be covered with snow.

   

I got warnings from the lightning app when we had our nap but since the sun shone I really didn’t think much of it. Not even when the rain started to pour down because I really couldn’t hear any thunder. The dogs wanted to go outside so I opened the door so they could see how the rain was pouring down it was even too much for Malkolm. Just as I was about to close the kitchen door the lightning hit. I was close to peeing in my pants if I should be honest 🙂 🙂 🙂 I saw how it came from the mountain and passed my neighbors cottage rather close and hit the ground around 100 meters (much the same in yards) behind out cottages 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’m so glad that I had almost closed the door because it is amazing how much it sounds 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

No rain tomorrow they’re guessing but the humidity will stay at 100% or close to it. Almost no wind but a bit of sunshine so I guess it will feel like living in a steam bath tomorrow. Well I’ll go to the pet shop tomorrow and will be closer to the big lake so I hope that helps some.

   

I took a look outside my bedroom window and realized that almost the entire eastern top half of the apple tree is covered in white bryony (Bryonia alba). It’s a poisonous vine that when it’s older can cover entire trees. It’s something I never would bring to my garden and it isn’t native here but back in the days people thought it was a great vine to cover big areas. It spreads easily with birds since they eat the berries. I did taste one berry when I was a kid and it tastes horrible 🙂 🙂 🙂 So even if one can die from eating the berries one need 40 of them and I’m pretty sure that no one can come even close to do that 🙂 🙂 This one is a young plant and only had three vines growing up from its root, still it managed to cover so much of the tree. They always grow where it is the hardest to get rid of them.

    

So we haven’t done much today, even before the rain the dogs preferred to stay indoors. Sunshine at the moment but still a chance/ risk of more thunder. I don’t mind thunder as long as I’m not caught outside when it arrives. I have had to chose between being the highest point in the fields or hiding beneath tress, a sort of choice between having plague or cholera 🙂 🙂

Ten seconds after I took this photo the lightning struck 🙂

The smell from the Woodland tobacco is wonderful but it only smells in late evenings and nights.

I took a photo from below on the bryonia, we call them dog turnips 🙂

It is time to have a last cup of tea for the day and perhaps I’ll have a couple of oatmeal cookies 🙂

Have a great day!