Category: Sunrise.

October 3, 2024 · 9 Comments ·

The coldest night so far but since the sun rose and there weren’t any clouds (but morning mist) it soon became a really pleasant morning. We went out to the forest as soon as I could see the sun rising through my kitchen window, no risk of any surviving moose flies in the air when it was that cold.

Nova is much better again and the first one to demand food in the morning 🙂 well Sara screams as soon as she think I’m awake but that could be about anything really 🙂 🙂 Nova is too thin though, even though the vet says that she looks great since she’s so old. I think I’ll start giving her more treats, even directly in to her food, better that way since the two other won’t notice it that much if I do it that way 🙂

The world isn’t a happy place right now, war in Ukraine, war in the middle east and the risk of Trump becoming a president again feels too big. plus that we have gang wars here in Sweden so it’s times like this it feels really nice to live in a village at the outskirts of the world. Very little happens here any time of the year. The dogs and I are almost always alone on our walks in the forest or out on the bog, the only thing we really need to look out for are angry moose and wild hogs 🙂 Yes we have wolves but they are almost never seen, only tracks made when they have passed by and to be honest, one can never know how moose and hogs will behave if one meet them 🙂

That I also have the best neighbors one can get helps a lot as well 🙂 The beekeepers cottage is still empty and not a single person came when they had an open house for buyers. No one wants to buy a place for double what it is worth. I do hope however that it won’t be empty for too long, rodents love that and when they start invading a place things can go down hill pretty fast. I won $ 9 US on the lottery yesterday but I’m afraid that won’t help me much 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Sara has sad eyes, even when she’s hunting Malkolm’s tail she look sad 🙂 The first time she chased Malkolm’s tail he looked horrified 🙂 🙂

My favorite autumn weather.

October 2, 2024 · 4 Comments ·

Another rather wonderful but chilly day. -2C (28,4F) and lots of fog in the morning and sunshine for most of the rest of the day. By the time we came outside it had mostly turned to morning mist which I liked better. The sun had started to rise and rather quickly evaporated the thick fog. Alma had rather early on managed to make the leash to a choke leash. I have no idea how she managed to do that but after that she walked the best she ever has 🙂 🙂 🙂

I don’t use collars on my dogs, especially not Alma because her neck would most likely be destroyed within a week or so but since this worked so well today I might have it the same way tomorrow. She was however more loud than usual so I guess that’s a price I have to pay for her not tearing my shoulders again 🙂 🙂 🙂

We walked down to the creek and it was so nice to not have to wear the hood in my hoodie, this was way too cold for any insects to fly around in 🙂 It won’t be long before even the moose flies will be gone now, there are usually no left in the middle of October. The good thing with these chilly but not awfully cold nights and mornings is that the vegetation slowly gets used to it. None of my potted Apricots, pear trees or citrus trees freeze to death when it happens this slowly. Back in the days our first frost usually killed off loads of the more sensitive potted plants (and those sensitive plants in the garden) because it usually dropped down to -5C (23F) for a couple of nights the first times. Long time since that happened here.

I think I finally has managed to do the right things at the unemployment insurance website 🙂 🙂 🙂 There are still a red dot saying I should do one thing more but I’ve understood that it should be done next week, I truly hope so anyway 🙂 🙂 🙂 I think that to fill in both the the employment agency site will be something one has to do if going to hell one day 🙂 🙂 🙂 So since I’m doing it now perhaps I’m already there 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is time for a last cup of tea for the day and if we’re lucky we’ll have the same weather tomorrow 🙂

Have a great day!

Chilly mornings.

October 1, 2024 · 6 Comments ·

Alma isn’t fond of cows and today there was a cow in the pasture just outside our gate when we went out for our walk 🙂 Later on when I had to drive to the store we had another cow but on the gravel road 🙂 They are usually quite easy to get back in the pasture again 🙂

I’m trying to figure out the unemployment insurance site and it isn’t easy 🙂 🙂 🙂 If there’s something I want to comment or check it says where I should look but nowhere in the site I can find that particular place 🙂 🙂 It could have been so easy to just put in a link but I guess they want us to feel that life is hard 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve done what I have been able to today without going insane and I’ll continue to figure out more tomorrow 🙂 🙂

Cold mornings with either morning mist or sunshine with a few clouds up in the air is what seems to be what we’re having in the mornings here. The rest of the days can be anything, today we had sunshine mixed with light showers. Really tricky to figure out when the showers would pass since the forest block most of any possible view. It’s only towards the mountain I really can see anything but then again almost only when my own tress are leaf free 🙂

I’m getting really tired of this last cold, it never gives up! It is the same for all of us that had the pleasure to get it 🙂 No more fever and not especially runny noses but the coughing just refuses to stop, plus it can be gone for a day but then come back again. Thankfully I only seem to have it during the days and not nights like many other have it.

Today when I was in the living room I hear some strange noises in the kitchen. At first I thought it was Sara playing around but the sounds were too loud. So I managed to sneak really quiet out to the kitchen and found Malkolm and Sara going through the trash bag. You should have seen Malkolms guilty face when I cleared my throat 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve realized that Malkolm can move really fast and quiet, I did that when I picked up the trash and he suddenly were nowhere to be found 🙂 🙂 🙂 He had run upstairs and jumped up in the bed 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is time to go downstairs and make a cup of tea. I’m not really hungry to be honest but the dogs demands cheese so I guess a sandwich or two could be eaten anyway. There’s actually two programs worth watching on tv tonight and they will of course be shown at the exact same time 🙂 I know I can go in and watch the programs on, in this case, SVT.Play but I’ll most likely have forgotten about it tomorrow 🙂

Have a great day!

She knows which one of the dogs she has the best naps with 🙂

September 29, 2024 · 6 Comments ·

Frost last night and this time it hit everywhere. I brought in some unripe tomatoes yesterday so I hope they all will ripen by the window where I’ve hung them. I haven’t actually checked those outdoors today but I doubt they’ll managed to go undamaged.

We had a really nice morning walk, it was so cold that not even the moose flies were out flying 🙂 The sun had been up in the sky for a while though so most of the frost had already melted away from the vegetation. I would have liked it to be a bit warmer for the rest of the day though but I guess one can’t have it all 🙂

I think Alma look at her self as the mother of all living things and she really is careful when she’s around children, puppies and kittens but for some reason she’s really the opposite when it comes to where she wants to sit or lay down. Today, two times she has either sat down on Sara or laid down over Sara and really haven’t understood why I tore her away or why Sara sounded as if she was fighting for her life, screaming very loud 🙂 🙂 🙂 Sara’s so small that I don’t think she could feel that she was under her 🙂 🙂 🙂

Besides that Sara is thriving now. She has now gained just as much weight last week that she actually weighed when we found her, almost 800 grams (1,76 pound)! Her eyes are now clear but I do think she might not have perfect sight, if I drop some food beside her she knows I’ve dropped it but it takes some time before she can find it. That can of course be totally normal since she’s so young. That in itself doesn’t matter to me but I’ll talk to the vet tomorrow afternoon about it.

I haven’t had any nap today so I am a bit tired, how on earth did I manage to stay awake when I worked all day 🙂 🙂 🙂 I haven’t done any chores either, I am already getting lazy 🙂 Well I did bake some bread yesterday but only because I didn’t have any at home and I did go to the store today because I didn’t have either dog or cat food. The dog food will most likely arrive tomorrow but that doesn’t help me today. The cat is now so important to both Alma and Malkolm that both mostly wants to stay indoors rather than to go outside to the garden or neighbors. It’ll be nice when this first obsession is over and she is big enough to start pestering them instead, dogs usually comes back to normal when that happens 🙂

Have a great day!

From now on it’ll rain for at least 24 hours.

September 26, 2024 · 4 Comments ·

We’ve had a really nice morning here, sunny and because of that rather pleasant except for in the darkest shadows. Now the rain has arrived and it’ll continue for well over 24 hours they’re guessing. They’re also guessing that we’ll get well over an inch of rain as well.

Sara is quite annoyed downstairs, she is still too small to climb the stairs and she really wants to 🙂 It’s not like she’s alone down there, she has two big dogs looking after her 🙂 That could be what’s bothering her, she was sleeping in the recliner when we all passed her a minute ago and now the dogs taking care of her no matter if she wants it or not 🙂 🙂 🙂

We walked down to the creek this morning, at first I thought it might be too much for Nova, she dragged her legs and walked really slowly, that is until she realized we would have a walk where she wanted to walk and the road would mostly be in the shadow. She is a bit under the weather though, losing weight again and I don’t know how to turn that around. I’ll go to the super market tomorrow and buy vitamins and what ever she might need. She is after all 18 years old and it can go downhill fast.

Sara on the other hand is really good. I brought her outside for a short while so I could get fresh air in to the cottage. She wasn’t too happy about it though, not until I put her in the big pocket in my hoodie 🙂 She’s still so tiny that I have to give her her food on the floor in the bathroom, anywhere else and she would only be able to eat when I’m around, otherwise both Alma and Malkolm would eat her food before she even got close to it, once upon a time I made sure to be able to have the bathroom door semi open so that cats could go in there but not big dogs 🙂 🙂

Well they are all telling me that it is time to eat even though I think it is a bit early but I better do as they say 🙂 after that they all want some of what I’m eating as well but they’ll have to do with some cheese I think 🙂

Have a great day!

Well I guess I have a cat now :-)

September 23, 2024 · 16 Comments ·

I had my day planned, I would go to my old work place to get a employer certificate so I can show that I’ve worked there for as long as I have and had no complains and so on. Lots of other things planned to do as well but that didn’t happen, wasn’t even close 🙂 🙂 We had morning mist even though we were quite late going on our walk, it was quite a lot more chilly that it felt when I let the dogs outside after we had woken up. I was quite pleased with that because we were heading for the forest and the eventual moose flies. Nova was a bit slow today so I chose to just have a shorter walk.

When we came back out of the forest I could hear something screaming quite loud. Took some time before I realized it was a cat, so we walked down quite far on the road where Malkolm always is allowed to walk of-leash. I thought that it perhaps was a cat that had gotten stuck in the mud and needed help or perhaps been run over by the four wheeler the ones working with the cattle use, they tend to drive really fast. We had been walking quite far down the path when I finally saw it, it was a kitten.

I must say that I was quite disappointed by the way Alma and Malkolm behaved (Nova behaved like the lady she is, she took a sniff at it and walked away 🙂 🙂 🙂 ). I was just going to pick the kitten up when Alma tossed it up in the air as if it was a toy. I scolded her really badly but fell and then Malkolm did the same. I can happily say that it is very different now, they adore her 🙂 Anyway, Her eyes were filled with puss and she couldn’t open them. So I brought her home, cleaned her eyes and called the vet. So now she’s registered to me and chipped. Turns out she has cat flu, pneumonia and some other smaller infections, all treatable. The problem of living alone and having pets is that when You’ve been at the vet You usually need to go to the pharmacy as well. I can’t eave the kitten in the car and I can’t bring her to the pharmacy, so I had to drive home to leave her in the cottage, hoping that the dogs will accept the bribes since I need to go back again to almost the exact place again to get the medicines 🙂 🙂 🙂

I left her in the bathroom with water and beside the litter box but also had to buy her some food. I had a big bag with cat litter standing in the bathroom, only three or four years since I had a cat her last time 🙂 🙂 I was about to lift it up and then the bottom opened up 🙂 🙂 🙂 The dogs changed their minds as soon as re introduced them and have been more or less obsessed with her 🙂 I’ve blocked the bathroom door so that she can go in and out as she pleases but to narrow for the dogs to follow. The vet had to have a name for her and I really hadn’t had any time to figure out any, so we named her Sara 🙂 She will most likely be called The Cat in the future 🙂

She didn’t get her shots today just because she’s too sick but will get them next week. Her eyes have almost turned to green so we figured out that she’s around 7 weeks old and weighs 390 grams (less than a pound). She is a bit tired of me right now because I have given her her medicines, both antibiotics and eye drops. She is now oddly colored around the eyes because the drops are bright yellow 🙂 🙂 I’m pretty sure she’ll be ok soon, she has a temperament that show she’s not going to give up 🙂 🙂 🙂

She will look a bit miserable for some time but she has a lot of energy and have walked around in the cottage a lot, followed by Malkolm and Alma 🙂

Always a dog there to clean her up 🙂

Have a great day!

Must be the warmest September in ages and I like it :-)

September 21, 2024 · 10 Comments ·

Almost frost again this morning, lots of morning mist, no wind and a rising sun. Mornings really can’t be much better. The mornings this week have felt like early summer, despite the yellow and red leafs. Lots of different bees on what still is in bloom as well. Very few wasps though, to be honest I haven’t seen especially many of them this summer, loads of different kind of bees but very few wasps.

I’ve tried to have naps many times today but every time someone or something has interrupted it. I’ll have to take a few more tomorrow instead 🙂 Alma is slightly better in her stomach so I hope we all can have a long nights sleep tonight. The problem is that she doesn’t wake me up, she just walks to the stairs and down to the door, I’ve been sleeping very light lately because of that 🙂 🙂 🙂 I realized that I wouldn’t have enough fish for her so I had planned to go to the supermarket tomorrow but thankfully my neighbor called, she was on her way to go home after work and asked if I needed something 🙂 so no supermarket tomorrow 🙂

besides that I have to say that today has been a really nice day and if it hadn’t been for Malkolm constantly jumping over the fence and continue to the little lake behind the dog yard so that I have had to have the kitchen door closed most parts of the day. He isn’t that old yet and soon the moose hunt starts and that’s not a time to be running around in the forest. So if he’s out in the garden I must be there too. A fun thing is that if he’s gone I just tell Alma to fetch him and she does 🙂 🙂 🙂 It takes a while but he does follow her home.

It’s time to brush my teeth and then go to bed, I do hope all stomachs are calm, otherwise I’ll be even more tired tomorrow 🙂 Very little sunshine tomorrow they’re guessing but still temperatures above 20C (68F). This must be one of the warmest Septembers in ages and I’ve enjoyed every warm day we’ve had 🙂

Have a great day!

It feels like it is going the right way.

September 20, 2024 · 6 Comments ·

Sorry about not writing yesterday, I was so tired that I didn’t have any energy over. To be honest I did feel better but once again the night had been disturbed by Alma’s stomach. She’s now on a fish and rice diet and I think I might have to start Malkolm on that too unless he’s better by tomorrow. They are full of energy though and soon there will be no apples on the ground for them to eat 🙂

This morning.

I did go to the grocery store yesterday morning and found everything I wanted. I even went and bought myself a couple of trousers. I can’t remember when I bought trousers the last time 🙂 🙂 It’s so much easier to just wear the working trousers when coming home from work and walk out into the forest. I realized however that I really need to have at least one decent pair of trousers if I’m going job hunting 🙂 🙂

The thing is that sizes on work trousers aren’t remotely similar to what one find i the stores. I did remember the length size and thinking back I really isn’t even close to how fit I was back then 🙂 🙂 🙂 I took a wild guess and hit it at first guess 🙂 So I grabbed a second pair and was done in fifteen minutes 🙂 I don’t think I was that quick even when I knew my size 🙂 🙂

The cold is going the right way, I still have some fever but most of the coughing is gone. It was the right week to get this cold because we’ve had early summer weather here. Cold nights, close to or frost but slightly above 20C (68F). Only a weak wind and yesterday evening started with fog and it stayed all night so we had morning mist until we went out on our morning walk. Today it was cold enough to keep the moose flies calm but I did wear an almost white hoodie, they don’t seem to like them, with the hoodie up. One really don’t want them to crawl around on the head getting stuck in the hair 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

First frost but a beautiful day.

September 15, 2024 · 8 Comments ·

The weather has been really wonderful today! Sunshine from the start and a bit chilly, we had the first frost last night. -2C (28,4F). I’m so glad that I decided to start two radiators last evening because if I hadn’t I would have been frostbitten as well 🙂 🙂

Most of the vegetation in the garden weren’t damaged though. I have so many bushes and trees that it creates pockets of warmer air and that’s where I have the least hardy plants. So my Dahlias and tomato plants look as healthy as they did yesterday. They’re guessing that it will be warmer at nights again but I’ve brought a few more plants indoors just in case.

We walked down to the creek as soon as the sun rose and mornings like this one doesn’t have to worry about moose flies, even they tend to be calm when it is that cold. One night of frost won’t kill them though, they are nasty tough little critters. Nova walked without a leash and normally that goes fine but then there are those days when she suddenly doesn’t give a s..t about where we are supposed to walk and she decides on walking elsewhere 🙂 🙂 🙂 So today she went ahead before we were close to her and walked a road we haven’t in years, mostly because we have to pass a rather loud barking dog that seems to be outside 24/7 🙂 🙂 🙂 and since both old Albin and Alma tended to scream when they met other dogs I did my best to avoid that place.

We didn’t reach Nova until half way there and then it just felt that we could go through a screaming/ barking match at least one time 🙂 🙂 🙂 Turned out that the dog for once was indoors. I could smell that they had started a fire so I guess both the humans and the dog were inside having breakfast.

The rest of the day has been really calm, the kitchen door has mostly been open and Malkolm and Alma has been over at my neighbors playing with their kids. Malkolm had decided that he wanted to see more of the world by jumping over their fence as well but one stern call to come back from my neighbor made him realize that she has the power even if he doesn’t think so 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve napped a lot as well because coughing is not a good friend at nights.

Can You see the little black dot close to the tree line? That’s Nova 🙂 🙂

I had seen Nova just on the other side of this little slope, so I could finally catch her and put the leash on 🙂 🙂 🙂

There were lots of telephone calls and text messages to answer because today I turned to 60. I’m not a big birthday celebrator so I’m not disturbed by the cold even if it had been nice to not have it 🙂

It is time to make another cup of tea and most likely fall asleep in my recliner in front of the tv 🙂

Have a great day!

Coughing and sneezing.

September 14, 2024 · 4 Comments ·

So it isn’t the three or four day cold I’m having, it’s the sneezing coughing all night cold I have 🙂 🙂 🙂 No fever though so I guess I’ll survive it 🙂 🙂 🙂

I’m so glad I turned on the radiator in the kitchen last night. The heat goes straight up to the upper floor and in to my bedroom. I do like a cool bedroom but ice cold is a bit too much for me 🙂 It took a while though but until it became warmer I had Alma as a living radiator sleeping beside me, she kept on sleeping all nigh at the same spot so I must admit that even though I was grateful for the help when it was cold it did become a bit too warm in the end 🙂 🙂 🙂

The outside thermometer said 1C (33,8F) as coldest and I think it must have been right because the vegetation weren’t covered in ice but the cars had more ice on them than yesterday morning. We also had lots of morning mist so we had our walk in the village. We met a villager, a woman who always are out running. At first I thought she just was one of those people who are obcessed with running because one can see her far from the village at any time of the 24 hours a day contains.

Anyhow, turns out that she is competing in long distance team running 🙂 I had heard she was attacked by a dog, a well know aggressive dog, that the owners had in the garden that simply jumped over the fence and attacked her. So since Alma and Malkolm jump over jump over the fence too play with my neighbors kids I stopped her (since we were just beside her home) and asked her if she wanted to greet my dogs so she knows what she meets. So she said that Alma had met her several times so she wasn’t worried about her but she wasn’t sure about Nova and Malkolm 🙂 Malkolm was so polite that he didn’t even try to reach her head when they greeted and I said Nova is 18 and You’ve met her several times so she’s so well behaved that she never is noticed when she’s around 🙂

I think it is time to have some tea and a table spoon with honey. Never heat up honey because the good enzymes and bacteria in it dies when it is too hot, lukewarm is enough. If You kill them the honey will only become very expensive sugar. So I usually have a spoon of honey either before or after having the tea.

Have a great day!

I doubt that this Red Mulberry will ripen even though I plan to bring this little tree down to the cool cellar. I don’t want to bring in the little tree until it lost its leafs.

September 8, 2024 · 4 Comments ·

Another warm and sticky day, the morning was nice though and as long as we were out on our morning walk the sun shone and it was just enough warm. It was cloudy for a while after that so it continued to stay nice but as soon as the sun showed itself it went down hill 🙂

Then again that made the laundry dry up fast so I won’t complain too much 🙂 I’ve forgotten to make dinner for work next week but I did make pancakes for me and the dogs, I’ll eat oatmeal porridge at work tomorrow instead 🙂

The heat made me tired so we’ve actually had two long naps today, the first one in my recliner and that really is a great place to nap, the second one in my bed and I was joined by Alma and Malkolm I had started a timer so I wouldn’t sleep for too long but it felt nice to be in bed awake so we stayed there for quite some time 🙂 Normally I just get up and start doing what I am supposed to do so this was a nice change, that of course made me not doing what I had planned to do and therefore no dinner for work 🙂 but it is worth it 🙂

It will stay warm tomorrow until the evening when a cold front will fly in from west bringing cooler weather and lots of rain. I won’t mind the rain since it is quite dry in my garden. I really don’t want any cold weather for quite some time, or not at all but that won’t happen 🙂 The weather pattern has changed quite a lot though, winter used to start in late October and then, if it was really bad, continue in to May, I don’t miss that at all. Now winter comes as earliest in late February, stays a short while and then hopefully spring starts, this year we had summer in May instead, sort of normal rainy summer until August and now summer again in September 🙂 🙂

It is time for a couple of sandwiches and a cup of tea I think and then most likely dozing off in front of the tv 🙂

Have a great day!

September 7, 2024 · Leave a comment ·

We started our morning walk before the sun slowly started to rise up in the sky, around 15C (59F) and it felt like an early summer morning, even some birds sang. I wasn’t sure if there were hunters out in the forest because some of them were here yesterday evening. I wasn’t sure if it was to prepare for today or staying the night to hunt wild hogs and to be honest I was too lazy to check if the sign was up that they put up every time they’re out there, so we had a walk in the village instead. That also guarantees that we wont have to be creeped out by moose flies that has started flying around. I truly hate those flies!

I had hoped for some morning mist and even though I actually saw some it was in a sort of sad way, barely visible and only just above the ground in two places 🙂 🙂 🙂 OK one hovered over the old iron age graves and one was hovering over the old stone age tomb but that one was even harder to see. Nova, as always held her own pace, either far behind or far ahead 🙂 It is like she’s a bit ashamed to walk with us and rather not be seen with the rest of us 🙂 🙂

This is a sorry excuse for a morning mist 🙂 🙂

Since then the temperature has risen a lot, still nice outside because of a breeze but it is getting warmer and warmer now. So both the doors downstairs are closed and all drapes are covering the windows and doors to keep the heat outside but both windows upstairs are open because the breeze blows through the entire upstairs. It’s like a cool wind with a warm touch flows around us all.

I made a pie and used the apples from my seed sown apple tree and they really work good for pies. I had some vanilla ice cream to it so I must say that they day became a bit better while eating it 🙂 🙂 Not that the day has been bad in any way but pie always make even a good day better 🙂 Otherwise I’ve done very little besides watering those plants that need watering and I might do that again later today when the sun can’t reach the garden.

It is time to have something to eat and I still have some chicken and potato salad left from yesterday so I’ll share that with the dogs. After that I think I’ll have a short nap before it is time to give the dogs their dinner. Nova also wants to thank for the birthday wishes 🙂

This dahlia doesn’t look like any of the varieties I bought this spring but that’s what I like 🙂

Have a great day!