I had the wrong lens with me so it’s hard to see what I have photographed. It’s a Jay (or Nut screamer as the direct translation would be from it swedish name). They are really shy so one must hide and have patience if one want a good photo of them.
Another rather wonderful day here. The night was pretty cold but after the sun rose the temperature also rose fairly quickly. Yesterday we had around 20 cm (8 inches) of snow on the gravel roads and today big parts of the roads were snow free 🙂 They still haven’t changed the wetaher forecasts so we’ll have this weather until Good Friday (or as we call it Long Friday) with temperatures just below 10C (50F) during the sunny days. Friday will be cloudy but from then on nights will be less cold and sunny days will gives us temperatures above 10C (50F).
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I’ll have to change Novas and Almas food again. Nova doesn’t like it any more 🙂 I did buy the same food but with chicken in it and she loves that one but one day I ordered the wrong food, it has rein deer instead. She gulped it down in the beginning but now she just sniffs at it and only eat it when she gets really hungry. She has however no problems what so ever to eat my food or treats 🙂 🙂 Alma eats anything that is put in front of her and also things I thought I had placed so high that she wouldn’t be able to reach it. I’ve now learned that Alma can reach anything she want to reach 🙂
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Sometimes when I have had film rolls developed and scanned some photos are quite grainy. I used to have Adobe Photoshop organizer 11 (I think it was)and it fixed the graininess if I just brightened the photo one step. I don’t have that any more any the one I currently uses for down sizing my photos are quite helpless towards graininess. So I downloaded a program called Gimp and it is so advanced that I can’t understand it at all 🙂 🙂 The only things I do are down sizing photos and tries to fix graininess. It did fix the graininess but when I tried toi save the photo it either didn’t do it or placed it somewhere where I can’t find it 🙂 🙂 🙂 I still haven’t figured out how to down size the photos though 🙂 🙂 🙂
These are from the Voigtländer Bessamatic..
I still have problems after daylight saving time started and will most likely have problems for another couple of weeks. i’m always tired now and it doesn’t help that I had a really nasty cold two weeks ago. So I’ll go downstairs after this and make myself a nice cup of tea, I doubt that any ammount of tea can keep me awake tonight 🙂 🙂 I’ve just made dinner for work next week and it’s time to portion it out in my lunch boxes. Have a great day and see You next Friday perhaps otherwise next Saturday.
We got a white christmas, or Jul as we call it, after all. Just a few days ago we had lots of snow and it was bitterly cold when suddenly a warm front arrived with some rain and melted it all away. Ok it also gave us freezing rain which made it rather exciting to drive home from work one day and to work the next 🙂 But with the warm weather the feeling that life most likely would go on arrived and it felt rather nice. The cold weather however hadn’t given up it seems, so suddenly the temperature dropped again and we also got a thin cover of snow. I must admit that it was beautiful this morning, when first the sun rose and then fog rolled in over the village. The fog didn’t last more than a few minutes before the cold light from the sun pushed it away again.
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Christmas eve, or Julafton as it’s called in Swedish, is the big day here in Sweden. Today is trhe day when children will meet the Yule Gnome, or jultomten as we say. He usually arrives around noon and even though there will be lots of packages under the branches of the Yule spruce he still has a sack filled with presents. Well perhaps this year with the running inflation and high power prices it’ll be slightly less filled to be honest. Personally I hated to have to go to the yule gnome to get a present, he scared the c..p of me 🙂 🙂 and I for one never felt sad when I heard he wasn’t real 🙂 🙂 🙂 Most families then let the kids play with their new toys until three pm when they show Donald Ducks christmas on tv. This is a tradition that has been going on since 1960 here in Sweden. Every year they think less people will watch it because they rarely change any of the films during the years, still it is one of the most watched tv programs we have in this country 🙂
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The eating starts after Donald Duck and the menu is much the same every year, a christmassy smorgasbord. Pickled herring in more variations You would ever guess there is. Salmon in one way or the other. The christmas ham of course and lots of sausages and meatballs. It varies depending on where one lives of course, some must have smoked eel. some baked brown beans, and perhaps oven made omelette covered in a chanterelle stew. Red cabbage or brown cabbage are big in some parts of the country and we always have beetroot salad which goes perfect with the sausages, meatballs and the ham. Preferable there will be lots of different cheese there as well. At least one made from cream which is impossible to get slices from but very rarely any kind of blue cheese or camembert. When everyone is so full that they want to puke the rice porridge is served and lots of it. Many make way too much so there will be quite a lot of the porridge left until christmas day when we make Risalamande from it. Just mix the rice with lots and lots of whipped cream and then use what kind of fresh fruit of berry You want to have with it. Some let the fruit and berries lay on the surface while others, like me, whisk it down into the rice and cream mix. Of course lots of sugar should be added as well, preferable vanilla sugar.
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Back in the days our Yule Gnome looked slightly different than today, today he looks very much like Santa Claus to be honest. If one look at old christmas cards he usually was rather thin and most likely dressed in green (and of course on cards he usually was quite small but I doubt that was especially important). He also brought the presents in a small sled pulled by a goat or if it was a wealthy family a sled pulled by a horse. We’ve never had reindeers here and our gnome lives in Lappland, a huge and sparsely populated area in northern Sweden (where they funnily enough have lots of reindeers 🙂 🙂 ) Our Yule Gnome is of course based somewhat on our folk lore gnomes, some from Sinterklaas and also some from Santa Claus and I’ll come back either tomorrow or the day after to tell You a bit about our gnomes and perhaps a little about our other beings and folk lore.
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I now am on a two week christmas vacation. I started yesterday by going home a bit early (most people had already taken the day off and we who still came went home a bit earlier than usual. As soon as I had come home and the dogs had gotten their food we all took a long nap. It looked like we all were just as tired after we woke up so we had an early night 🙂 Today I’ve had my rice porridge for breakfast, so easy now when I once again have a slow cooker 🙂 Befor that however we went out on our morning walk. The sun rose and fog rolled in over our little village. It didn’t last for long though because the sun, even though it didn’t give away and noticeable heat still burned the fog away. Today I used my “new” camera that I bought as a christmas present (julklapp in Swedish) to myself. A Nikon D7100. I bought it from our ebay called Tradera fairly cheap and they hade only taken around 8000 photos with it, in digital camera world that means it’s almost unused since a digital camera should be able to take 150000 photos before it starts to break down. We are still getting used to each other but I have figured out the basics.
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I couldn’t understand why several photos were so blurry since I do have stabilization in the lens. Turns out that one can chose shutter priority or focus priority in this camera?! So either the shutter close no matter if one is focused or not or it tries to focus no matter what until the photo can be taken. I’ve now changed it to focus priority and I’ll see what happens tomorrow 🙂 The camera itself will of course not make my photos better (except for perhaps a bit sharper) because that’s all up to me I’m afraid 🙂 We’ll have below 32F temperatures until the night towards Monday and I can’t pretend I like that but knowing how horribly cold it has been and perhaps still are in big parts of the US I really shouldn’t complain. I also must admit that my home, especially the floors, are much cleaner when the ground is frozen. Still I really prefer above 32F nex week since that’s when they decide what my electricity will cost per kilowatt hour in January. A warm and windy last week in December will lower the price pretty much so hold Your thumbs for nicer weather for all of us 🙂
We’ve had a rather nice day here today. My thermometer says it reached 15C (59F) when it was as warmest. We had sunshine for quite some time as well and that was not predicted in the weather forecasts just a day ago. We went out for our morning walk as soon as the sun rose (that was at 8:14 today, tomorrow it’ll rise at 7:16 because we’ll go back to standard time tonight).
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Alma has calmed down quite a lot even though no one seeing us would believe me if I said so 🙂 🙂 🙂 Today however I really didn’t want to have to struggle all those 4,4 km (2,73 miles) we were walking so i attached an old choke collar to the leash. This one actually stops long before it would choke her but is uncomfortable enough so that she stops pulling the leash as much as she usually do. Well she still does pull a lot but not nearly as much as before.It was so nice that for once not sweating like a pig when coming home after a walk 🙂 🙂 🙂
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A couple of months ago I bought one of those small and handy hand chain saws. All I had to do was to attach the tiny sword and the tiny chain and then pot on the small cover. My brain has for some reason made it up to be something hard and complex, even though I really know it isn’t 🙂 🙂 Today however I finally did it and it took almost a minute to do it, well one and a half because I put on the chain so that it didn’t saw, just jumped on the branches 🙂 🙂 My work friend told me his father had bought one from a different brand and that it immediately was filled up with saw dust.
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Mine didn’t. The saw dust is sucked in to the machine but there’s an exit hole below the chain where it comes out again so all saw dust blew out. I tried it on several smaller trees and branches and it’s really good! I sawed off dead branches from my apple trees so now I’ll be able to mowe the grass there without risking getting stabbed by hard and dead branches and twigs 🙂 I also cut off those big branches on the Hungarian lilacs that sort of had laid down on the ground, old age and heavy snow that fell last winter weighed them down and they never rose up again. Now I’ll cover those holes in the hedge where Alma tends to jump over when she wants to see what the neighbors are doing 🙂 🙂
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We might get almost as nice weather tomorrow as we’ve had today, clouds have arrived but will perhaps open up every now and again tomorrow. If it is nice I have a couple of small trees to plant. Two cherry plum trees and one hawthorn and a small sweetberry honeysuckle. I have several sweetberry honeysuckle bushes but since I never remember what variety I have I have most likely been buying the same one and one need two different to get berries 🙂 🙂 🙂 So this time I bought an entirely new one for us so perhaps in a year or two I’ll finally get berries 🙂 🙂 Also the plum cherry trees have a tendency to spread via roots so I’ll need to put down a barrier around them so that the roots just can grow downwards. I’ll most likely just dig down the pots tomorrow and then I’ll have the winter to think about where they should grow permanently.
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Since it’s a weekend and I’ll get an hour more tomorrow I’ll take the risk of having a cup of tea after writing here. I didn’t win the 1 billion 195 million kronor winning in the lottery ( depending of the balance between the US dollar and the Swedish krona you can divide that sum with something around 10 or eleven) yesterday but no one else did either so I’ll just win the 1,3 billion kronor winning on Tuesday instead 🙂 🙂 🙂
I noticed that they’d marked this tree with number 17 and really have no idea what that means.Then I saw this tree with number 14 on it so I guess they’ve marked individual trees for cutting down. We have a huge debate on how the big forest owners and companies should take care of their forests here right now and like always our “experts” suffer from the delusion that they know better than experts all around the world so they refuse to do the best for both the ones owning the forests , the forest itself and us who visits it. If I remember I’ll write about it tomorrow...
It was supposed to be cloudy all day here so I wasn’t the least surprised that we’ve had sunshine for most part of the day. Ok there has been clouds but the sun has had long periods of shining through. It has been fairly warm as well, 17C (62,6F) so the radiators have been turned off and the kitchen door has been open quite a lot.
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My winter apples that usually aren’t ripe until the middle or late October are already ripe and quite delicious 🙂 I got lots of plums from my neighbors and I realized that I wouldn’t be able to eat them all before they would go bad, not many plums last for any longer period of time I’m afraid. So i cored them out and put them all in the blender. I almost had enough for a big jar but added one of my apples and two satsumas as well 🙂 The apple makes it easier for the jam to harden and I could have used lemon juice but why not use satsumas when I have lots 🙂
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I also added some cardamom because that’s my favorite spice when it comes to sweet things :-)The jam turned out really well so I’ll have some of it on my pancakes tomorrow 🙂 Alma almost behaved on our walks today. Now when she pulls the leash she only pulls it forward and in a steady pace so it’s easier to keep control of her. She also almost only shouts like insane as long as we pass the neighbors cottage and later on the Beekeepers cottage, after that she only whines a lot but at least rather quietly 🙂 🙂 🙂 She still can’t concentrate on anything for more than fifteen seconds though, I’m pretty sure she has some kind of dog ADHD 🙂 🙂
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I almost always bring a plastic bag with me on our walks now so I can pick those mushrooms growing on or just on the side of the roads we’re walking. It may look like much when I come home but after frying them there’s very little left 🙂 🙂 My favorite mushrooms to photograph though are the Red Toadstools. Over here we have plastic ones as decorations in our Advent candlesticks 🙂 so when I see the first ones looking up from the ground I start to think of Christmas, almost as early as the advertisers 🙂 🙂 🙂
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We aren’t supposed to have any sunshine tomorrow so i guess we’ll see quite a lot of the sun 🙂 🙂 They’re also guessing that we might get some rain. The coming week will be chillier and we’ll get lots of rain as well according to their guessing. We do need rain so I won’t complain too much if we actually get it. I wouldn’t mind if it became a bit warmer than they are guessing but if they are right about the clouds being here 24/7 we will at least not have frost at nights and therefore I won’t have to scrape ice from my car 🙂
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It is time to get some hot cocoa and since there’s absolutely nothing I want to watch on tv tonight I might look at a dvd instead. I usually don’t fall asleep when I watch a movie so I will be tired by the time I go to bed 🙂 🙂 🙂
We might get up to 80 mm or three and one fifth inches of rain this weekend (or possibly even more, it all depends on where the showers will pass). At the moment we’re having a nice gentle summer rain and almost no winds to speak of. The dogs won’t go outside in it but it’s actually quite nice.
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The morning weather was rather different though. Just below 10C (50F), ground mist and a rising sun. There are no birds singing any more unless one counts the trumpeting from Cranes. When we first hear them it’s a typical spring sound but now when we hear them it’s a typical autumn sound. Lots of them are heading south now together with lots of geese. Some will stay for much longer but those who plays it safe move south already now.
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No flies were around to annoy us thankfully. Well most of the forest flies are gone but it is worrisome that the moose flies already have arrived. They will usually stay until late October or early November unless the worst night frost that will come is nasty cold. It isn’t that many years ago that we didn’t have those nasty flies here but warmer and especially shorter winters have helped them to survive till next spring. We do have lots of spiders this year though and since there has been plenty of annoying forest flies (but actually not especially many horse flies) they’ve had plenty to eat.
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This weekend is the last one with summer temperatures they believe, already on Monday it’ll fall below 20C (68F) and it will stay like that for at least eight days. I don’t want summer temperatures for too long so I’m ok with it but I sure don’t want winter to start early either 🙂 🙂 A perfect climate would be a very long and not too cold autumn followed by a not too early spring, I really don’t mind us skipping winter even though that most likely would mean more ticks, horse flies and moose flies 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I’ve just watched the latest Ghost Buster movie, afterlife I think it’s called. It isn’t that bad to be honest. Sometimes a bit slow between when things happens but otherwise I think it carries on the tradition rather well. Later today I’ll most likely watch Spiderman: No Way Home. I’ve seen so many trailers from it that I feel I’ve actually seen it 🙂 🙂 🙂 First though I’ll need to feed the dogs and force them outside to make their businesses no matter how much it might rain 🙂
It is still rather warm here, 25C (77F) and I can’t remember when we had this high temperatures this late in August the last time. It’s actually quite nice since we also have had a nice breeze blowing. It will continue like this until at least the weekend if they’re guessing right.
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It is amazing how fast one can forget ones last work when one wants to 🙂 I had to go to my old work place for a while today and I managed to shut down the entire painting program and instead get out on the internet and I just couldn’t get back again 🙂 🙂 🙂 (to be honest, I didn’t even know we could reach the internet from the painting box). We had to shut down the entire box and restart it again 🙂 🙂 🙂 I even offered to do the cleaning program when we were going to use another color but they thought it best to let me do other things instead 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I went to the optician yesterday to ask if they could do progressive contact lenses. I had heard that they can do that now days and why not try it if they can. Turns out they can so I now have an appointment in September. I’ve had lenses before but had to stop when I started to work with powder paint. The pain when something as tiny as a dustgrain comes between the eye and the lens is horrible so it wasn’t possible to wear contacts when I worked there. So they’ll do a check on my eyes and after that I hopefully can have contacts again.
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I had ordered a hand chain saw so that I can trim some branches of my apple trees and also lots of branches from my lilacs. I’ve been waiting for it to arrive for over 14 days but today it arrived. Doesn’t any company have anything in stock now days? Several things I’ve ordered lately have taken around 14 days to arrive and I have been able to follow the order all the time. It also seems that anything one buys today comes from Yunnan in China, or Shanghai :-)Well the sofas did come from a place in sweden and the coffee maker from Germany but for some reason I think they most actually were made in Yunnan in China anyway 🙂
.Still some flowers on my Catalpa.Lots of seed pods too but they are usually too late to give any seeds that will germinate.
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.
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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.
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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 🙂
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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 🙂 🙂 🙂
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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 🙂 🙂 🙂
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...
Have a great day!
One of Albins absolute favorite spots in the garden, close to the gate on the north side of the cottage.
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.
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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.
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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 🙂 🙂 🙂
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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 🙂
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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.
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.
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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.
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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 🙂 🙂 🙂
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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 🙂 🙂 🙂
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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.
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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 🙂
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 🙂
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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.
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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 🙂 🙂 🙂
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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 🙂
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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 🙂
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.
...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 🙂 🙂 🙂
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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.
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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 🙂 🙂
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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!
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 🙂..
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 🙂
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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 🙂 🙂 🙂
.Those three trees are the last ones in the WOW trees 🙂.
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 🙂
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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.
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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!
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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!
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Have a great day!
If Albin doesn’t want to play Alma is fully capable to entertain herself with an apple 🙂 🙂..
The Cottage by the crane lake. 