Category: Sunrise.

Today is her 18th birthday :-)

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18 and still going strong 🙂

So this little lady moved here around 16,5 years ago. An animal rescue organisation called me one day, not especially long after I had had to say goodbye to my “little” girl Erna (she was in the same size as Alma is but the smallest in the pack 🙂 🙂 ) They asked me if she could come to me because the previous older owner had been hit by cancer. The organisation knew me because they got all the cut flowers that still was pretty but too old to be sold and they used those flowers to decorate old pet graves where the owners perhaps no longer were with us, this was back in the days when I had a Garden center. 

I took some photos on my way to work this morning.

   

I really didn’t feel like it, it was too early after old Erna but they sent me a photo and Nova looked just like old Erna but half the size so how could I say no 🙂 🙂 Nova’s first year consisted mostly of abuse and starvation and living in a dark cellar all the time. After they had rescued her she then went to the older couple who really built her up to an amazing dog but to be honest a completely brat 🙂 🙂 🙂 Just as it should be after a start like that. So it took a while but the big and older dogs soon taught her to behave 🙂 🙂 🙂 

     

She had this idea that hares are animals that should be eradicated from the surface of this planet so, since my dogs back then always walked without a leash, if I missed a hare out in the fields but she didn’t she always ran after them in high speed. Hares are smart though so she never caught any and I never had to worry about her getting lost because she either came back to me or back to the cottage 🙂 🙂 🙂 One day, when I had to have her on leash she saw a hare and ran after it, she didn’t come far and almost broke my wrist. That was the only time I’ve ever scolded her in her life and I must admit that when I scold I’m not quiet 🙂 🙂 After that she stopped caring about hares and I have always trusted her after that.

     

She’s had a 5 cm (2 inches) long tumor removed that grew between her right ear and eye so the eye was saved but her ear had to be closed, chronic ear infections, one vet said her ears were built to be infected, she has no cruciate ligament in her left knee but a cheap orthosis and duct tape keeps it together, so good actually that the vet was amazed and said I don’t know how You do it but continue with what ever it is 🙂 🙂 and she also has cancer but a “kind” one that mostly behaves like a fatty lump. It does spread bout so slowly that she won’t have any problems with it for as long as she has left. Then again she doesn’t seem to slow down especially much so who knows how log she’ll stay after all 🙂 🙂

     

With age she has become really fuzzy with what she will eat, can’t blame her 🙂 So at the moment she only eats boiled chicken and rice but allows me to also put in some of the dog food the other ton eat as well, not too much though because then she’ll refuse to eat anything 🙂 🙂 🙂 She also always wait to start to eat her food until she sees the two other is almost finished with theirs, she knows they aren’t allowed to touch her food (I stay close though because both Malkolm and Alma wouldn’t hesitate to push her away and eat her food themselves). She also takes her time to eat it and the other two stays close drooling until she’s had enough 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

She has never been a cuddly dog so the few times she has lately I’ve had a hard time sleeping because I always fear that that’s her good bye 🙂 🙂 🙂  So today they’ve all had some grilled chicken and they will all also have some extra treats (she will of course get more than the others but it can’t be shown, my life is really tricky 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

 

August was a shitty month but today it’s September.

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Yesterday morning. Today there will be a mix of photos from today and yesterday.

I’m sorry about not writing anything these last days but I’ve been a bit under the weather so to speak. No not in pain the medication really did its job but they also gave me a slight fever and a very wobbly stomach. I’ve been so tired that beside walks with my dogs I’v mostly been either napping or watching tv. So since I can’t have this anti inflammatory medicine I’m not sure there is any left that I can use, August has really been a shitty month this year 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

Today however is September and it started sunny with only 2C (35,6F) outside. I must admit that I loved it when we were out walking in the village. It was a bit tricky to figure out what clothes one should wear since it would be really cold in the shadows but as soon as the sun hit it would start to boil inside. Very little shadow when walking there so I just wore a hoodie and normal trousers. I’m glad that I decided to close all windows yesterday because that night it was just slightly warmer and I woke up freezing in the middle of night. I really didn’t want to get up to close all windows so instead I called for the dogs so they could warm me up 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

They’re guessing that it’ll be really warm the coming week and so high temperatures at night that the risk of frost will be zero percent. Some places in this area did have frost during the night but for once it didn’t happen here, I sure hope it takes a long while because only two of my tomatoes are half ripe, the rest are still green. I also hope that I get them before the dogs do because I already had two ripe tomatoes but one morning when I went out to get them most of them were eaten by the dogs 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

I’ve also started to cut down my Aronia bush, I really can’t stand the berries (the dogs and birds love them though) because too many berries and a couple of winters with lots of snow have bent down the branches so much that they were laying on the ground. It was a bit tricky to remove each branch because they were all entwined with each other. I still have some to cut off but there’s no hurry to do that. It will grow up again so already next summer it will become a new little bush. However I was thinking of planting one of my Red mulberry trees there, if it grows fast enough it will soon be higher than the Aronia and I hope they’ll co exists well together.

At least two different varieties of apples hanging on this apple tree.

   

It is time to make some dinner, I haven’t had that much of an appetite lately 🙂 but I think I can have some pancakes, if not I can have them as dinner at work tomorrow. Just bring some jam and since they are just as tasty cold as warm it’ll be fine 🙂

The biggest of my five seed sown Giant Sequoias, they’ll spend the winter in the cool cellar.

I do hope the flowers open up on this Butterfly bush before the frost comes, won’t be many butterflies around though.

The white flowers on the Woodland tobacco really shines when it’s getting dark around it and the smell is amazing.

My Christmas cactus loves staying outdoors all summer.

Have a great day!

       

Autumn flowering strawberries?!

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I did see the sun slowly rising above the forest when I woke up so the first thing we did was to have our morning walk. It didn’t take long before clouds covered the sun but the walk was quite nice anyway. WE walked in to the village again and today one of the dogs was outside when we passed.

This was the last we saw of the sun while we were out walking but it did come back for a long time later in the day.

If I as a human would walk on old stone age tombs or move a single stone they would arrest me but cattle can damage it as much as they can and the owner wouldn’t risk being arrested 🙂

We have quite a lot of crab apples in the village, these apples taste horrible 🙂 🙂

I was so glad to see that all my dogs behaved perfectly while the dog we passed barked like crazy, it was especially fun to see how the owner opened the door to try and quiet the dog, didn’t work at all 🙂 🙂 🙂 So I must say that Alma’s behaviour has become so much better. Ok she pulled the leash a lot after all that excitement but she didn’t make even the tiniest sound and that’s a huge change. Malkolm did sort of bark twice but since Alma and Nova were quiet he stopped as well. Really good for a seven month old puppy 🙂

   

The branch doesn’t look that big but it was and it was quite heavy as well 🙂

The only problem I’ve had today is my back. My immune system attacks my spine (and most of the cartilage in my joints, slowly but steadily, I got my first hip implant when I was 38) and most of the time I can take it but times like today it’s just nasty. The best thing I can do is to move use my back a lot and after a while the pain goes away, so today I picked up things that had flown around in the storm yesterday, I even moves away a big branch that fallen down on the gravel road and also watering the trees and bushes with the big water pitcher. Didn’t that hurt You might ask? Yes like insanely but now in the early evening it feels much better 🙂 Tomorrow and several mornings ahead will be much the same but this will pass. I can’t take any anti inflammatory medicines because I destroyed my stomach with one of those, it was amazing as long as it lasted though 🙂

   

This little oak always have lots of acorns even when other trees haven’t.

I went outside in the storm yesterday just before it went dark. I already knew I had planted my Black walnut way too close to the cottage, I did that just because I never thought it would survive 🙂 🙂 17 years now and it still stands 🙂 🙂 However when we have winter storms it doesn’t move that much but with all leafs still on it it almost reached the roof of the cottage, not good! I really don’t want to remove it but I might have to in a year or two. What worried me more though was the two huge Birches over at my neighbors, if they fall half of my cottage will follow them to the ground 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well I have home insurance so I’ll get another one built up if that would happen. The only thing is that my bedroom would be the first thing they hit 🙂 🙂 🙂

My Hardy Hibiscus finally shows the colors of the coming flower.

I seem to have autumn flowering strawberries, didn’t know that excisted, so I’ll pick each ripe berry when they are ready and put them in the freezer. 

A few Apples had fallen off as well so I bent down and picked them up, took a bit longer to stand up straight again 🙂 🙂 and went in and made an apple crumb pie, it tasted so yummy 🙂 I did add some coconut to it and that made a big difference.

     

It is raining outside, it isn’t supposed to but what does the rain care about that? It’s a misty rain, You know the kind that looks like mist or fog and that always eat its way through the clothes no matter how You dress. They’re guessing it’ll be like that most parts of tomorrow as well so it’ll be a perfect day to take a long nap 🙂

     

Have a great day!

I took this photo on my way to work one morning, nothing special a Roe deer in a field but take a look behind it.

I never saw the giant Red deer standing in the shadow by the trees just behind it 🙂 🙂 🙂

I didn’t expect that after 17 in the same work place.

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I’ve been a bit distant lately and that’s because after working for 17 years at my work place I’ll have to quit my job. Not because I’ve done something wrong in any way but because my employer decided that I should start working four days a week (Monday till Thursday) from 4:25 pm to 03:00 am the next day. I told them I can’t do that for several reasons, I normally sleep from 9 pm to around 4:am and can’t just change my sleeping habits like that. They did this to me last autumn and I still have problems from that. I also can’t have my dogs in the dog yard because they bark like crazy as soon as any animal passes by.

     

The badger walks along my garden every night now days, deer pass by, our fox comes for visits and not forgetting all the cats that live here. If they bark they’ll wake up my neighbors and both the adults and the kids need their sleep and it’s illegal to have the dogs locked up in the cottage for so many hours without contact with humans plus I would have to clean up the entire cottage every morning when i come home every morning because they do need to do their business and I can’t let them out to do it. Unfortunately employers here can treat their employees just as bad as they want to without the union doing anything when it comes to at least my union.

     

If I come to work in the morning instead to work I won’t be paid and if I don’t come in the afternoon when they say I must work I will be charged (is that the right word?) with unauthorized absence and when that has happened too many times I’ll be charged with refusal to work and then they’ll fire me and I will never be able to find a new job with that hanging over me. So my last day will be on September 16, the day after I’ve had my sixtieth birthday. Anyway this is all I really can write about it now because I will still work there for a few more weeks. I must admit though that I’m feeling just fine, no worries at all and since I’m willing to take any job as long as I don’t have to work at night I’m pretty sure I’ll find a new job fairly quick, I at least hope so 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

The rain has poured down here today so for the first time in a long time I didn’t have to water anything when I came home after work 🙂 The Ice cream lorry passed by but since I now need to keep an eye on my finances I never went out to buy any ice cream, it felt a bit sad but better start now than when it is too late. On the other side I now I have two more Red mulberry trees 🙂 🙂 🙂 To my defence I bought those before I knew about this 🙂 🙂 🙂 These two will stay in my cool cellar during winter and then I’ll find a place for them in the garden next spring 🙂 The one I already have will be planted this weekend I think, I wonder where 🙂 🙂

The Rowan trees gives loads of berries this year. One can make the most delicious jelly from them even though the berries themselves are pretty tart.

This is a Jerusalem artichoke called Bianca. Normally it starts to flower at the end of September so it’s around a month early. I guess it’s because we had that long heatwave in May.

Time for a last cup of tea and then snooze in front of the tv 🙂

Have a great day!

Plum pie, is that a thing?

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My neighbor is working with what I think is a trimmer in their garden, could be a chain saw but the sound is to persistent for that. I guess the grass have grown very un-evenly so it’s easier to use a trimmer instead. Personally I would still have used a lawn mower, trimmers aren’t good for the back.

     

I have no idea if there have been any hunters out in the forest today, We have walked in the village instead. It was cloudy but the sun broke through just as we went out on our morning walk. Both Alma and Malkolm behaved much better today. I’m not expecting my dogs to walk right beside me all the time but I really don’t want them to run around like crazy or pull the leash like insane 🙂 🙂 I just want them to smell everything they can on the walk and not stress around. I do understand that all smells and scents are exciting but they are more or less the same we have all over this area, just other animals leaving them 🙂

   

Can You see those rocks just where the tree line is? Those are old tombs and I think they are from the Iron age.

The sun stayed for a couple of hours and then the clouds came back and for a while it looked like we would have rain falling but that never happened. I still went out to water all the new trees and bushes, no risk of over watering in sandy soil 🙂 My neighbors texted me to ask if I wanted some plums, so now I have a big bucket with plums in my kitchen 🙂 I really have no wish of get all those kernels out of the plums but since I can’t eat that many I’ll have to and then I’ll make some jam from them. Plum pie is that a thing? Because I’m not sure I have enough with sugar to make that much jam 🙂

   

I’ve done the laundry but I still have to do dinner for work next week. I’m not sure what to do but I have some sausages in the fridge, bacon in the freezer, eggs in the cool cellar and then perhaps go outside to see how many potatoes I can find or just have rise nudels, that works well too. Time for a cup of tea and then start with the food.

     

Have a great day!

     

Insurance companies aren’t there because they love to help, they are there for the money and nothing else.

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No it didn’t look like this her this morning but it’s the test photo and it looks so much better than what it did in the real 🙂

Sunshine in the early morning and lots of wind so almost no insects around to annoy us 🙂 Nova have had a really good day again, healthy appetite and lots of energy so we walked down to the creek and followed it down-streams. She walked unleashed so sometimes she was far behind us and sometimes the opposite 🙂

   

There are three fields with buckwheat, first time I’ve ever seen buckwheat like this.

No Red deer today but perhaps wolves was close, hard to say when the wind is strong and carries smells quick and far away. Alma kept on looking around us all the way down to the creek but after that nothing like that at all. The only animal we met (excluding birds who flew high above us was the Fox we meat quite often and I think it is the same fox we can see sometimes in the cow pasture outside the cottage.

     

It rained some just before we came home and the weather has been mixed with some showers, lots of clouds but also lots of sunshine. Always a bit tricky to be outside when the weather changes so often and quickly 🙂 So we’ve only been outside for short moments and since Alma is in heat I really don’t want her to be outside if I’m not there 🙂 Thankfully still no signs that Malkolm has any interest in her in that way. I really should have neutered her long time ago but I need to take a week off from work so I’m with her while she is healing. After that it’ll be Malkolms turn.

Lingonberry.

The first Hedgehog mushrooms, they are just as delicious as chanterelles.

 

Like always I let Malkolm off the leash the last part of our walk and he is really good in coming when I call him 🙂 Unfortunately I had to leash him because of a cat from the farm up the slope. I really don’t want him to chase it and get hurt by that cat, they are all semi wild and know how to defend themselves so Malkolm wouldn’t know what hit him and I really don’t want to go to the vet during a weekend, emergency vets costs a fortune even if they really don’t need to do anything because it’s a false alarm 🙂 🙂 🙂

   

The fox sat there and just looked at us 🙂

Almost all animal hospitals here in Sweden have been taken over by venture capitalists so costs has sky rocketed and since the insurance companies get their money anyway they don’t complain. It is actually cheaper for us to travel a week to Spain for a week and get the procedure done than to do it here. People complain of course but since the insurance companies walk hand in hand with the venture capitalists nothing happens. Just remember that insurance companies aren’t there because they love to help, they are there to make lots of money and really doesn’t care about anything else. That’s why I have put aside money for my dogs so I don’t have to deal with insurance companies that always find ways to not have to pay anyway.

     

It is time for something to eat and perhaps a last cup of tea for the day 🙂

Have a great day!

The first autumn colors. This maple always starts in the middle and sometime those leafs fall off before the rest of the tree get yellow leafs 🙂

I walked up to my mailbox and said hello to this pig 🙂

A Kestrel.

The church in Vilske-kleva.

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It was supposed to be cloudy here today and rainy as well. It was cool and sunny when we went out on our morning walk, Nova have had a good day so we walked down to the creek but up-stream than following it down-stream. The sun would be rather hot for her so I thought it best to stay in the forest so she could walk without getting cooked in the sunshine.

     

I really didn’t need to worry about that for the clouds arrived and kept the sun away until we arrived here at home. It started to rain when we reached the cottage but it didn’t last for long and after that the sun has shone quite a lot. It was supposed to rain a lot tomorrow but now they’ve changed that to very little in their predictions 🙂 🙂 The rain will now arrive on Friday they guess 🙂 🙂  We’ll know better when it happens 🙂 It would be nice if we had a heavy shower though because there isn’t much water in my water barrels now.

     

I have done very little today because there isn’t much to do. I have continued to take a nap but since we are home alone in this part of the village any sound that can be heard is really interesting for Alma 🙂 🙂 🙂 She runs between the open windows and sometimes down to the entrance floor, it is hard to have a good nap then 🙂

     

The ice cream lorry comes today , should be here in around 40 minutes, and I’m looking forward to it. I bought food enough to last the week but nothing like sweets or chocolate so now I really am looking forward to have some ice creams 🙂 🙂

     

Have a great day!

     

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!

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!

A morning I liked.

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The morning was almost perfect here today, only almost because as usual the vegetation was so wet that Malkolm was soaking wet when we came home even though he barely walked in the high grass today. It was cool, morning mist and the sun slowly rising. We skipped having breakfast before going outside hoping to be in the fog as much as possible. The mist actually stayed our entire walk so I was more than happy 🙂

I went up to the mail box before we went out on our walk, back in the days I would have had all dogs with me, unleashed, because they would stay close to me. If I tried that today Alma would be all over the place, most likely chasing cats at the farm, Malkolm would follow her and Nova would have turned back home again 🙂

   

I did hope that we would see some bigger animals since the sun just had started to rise but we only saw one and that was a wild hog down by the creek. It was passing the gravel road perhaps twenty meters ahead of us (much the same in yards). At first it stood still just watching us but decided to pass since we had stopped only looking at it. The thing is that wild hogs never comes alone and I had no idea if this was the first or last of them I decided to turn around and walk back home instead.

     

It is getting more tricky to have our walks now days. Nova is old and I’ve noticed how much slower she is compared to just a year ago. So it is a bit tricky to understand what speed we should walk in. First we have Alma who most likely would love to run around as fast as she can, last is Nova who now days mostly enjoys to just walk really slow sniffing on everything she can find on the ground and Malkolm in the middle 🙂 Malkolm is more like Nova, more interesting in smells than speed so it is Alma who has to adapt the most and adapt is not her strong side 🙂 🙂 She too can find smells interesting but can’t concentrate for more than fifteen seconds, I’ve actually measured the time and it’s rare that she can be interested in anything for up to twenty seconds 🙂 🙂

     

She did behave pretty well when we met the hog though, I must give her that! The weather after that was rather nice, lots of sunshine and just a weak wind blowing. the rest of the walks she behaved really well. I thought of mowing the lawn but even though it was fairly warm and the sun shone the grass was still soaking wet, no mowing tomorrow either because it has just started to rain again and it will most likely last until early morning tomorrow. One newspaper shouted out that after this rain we’ll get higher temperatures again and lots of sunshine so I checked the weather sites. Yes we’ll get one day with high temperatures and then it’ll drop down to 20C (68F) again 🙂 🙂 They always do like that when they know most people are desperate to at least get some sunshine before work starts again 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

It is time for a last cup of tea for the day and then bed I think. I guess it’s stupid to hope for another morning like we had today but I’ll be happy if it is cool and with some sunshine 🙂

     

Have a great day!

     

Don’t try to catch a hornet.

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The only photo I have of Malkolm today 🙂 He and Alma learned that it isn’t a good idea to try and attack a Hornet, Alma was limping for a while and Malkolm as You can see was stung on the back.

 

More mixed weather today than what they guessed yesterday. It was sunny and rather cool in the morning while we were out on our morning walk but the clouds arrived much earlier, so by the time we came home the sky had an evenly dark grey color.

No ALT texts today, too tired in my brain :-)     

With darker day comes the mosquitoes and once again they attacked my ancles when I was watering the newly planted seedlings. The Dahlias were still there so perhaps the slugs still doesn’t know they are there. The dogs really didn’t want to be outdoors even though it has been warm but I guess they too are a bit sick of the insects now.

The little creek up by the bog is almost dried out oddly enough since it has been raining so much but the ferns shows where it usually flows.

 

Besides doing my chores it has been a rather uneventful day, perfect really 🙂 I’ve watched some football (soccer) and we took a nap, shorter than I had hoped for because a friend called on the phone. At least I didn’t sleep for too long so that I can fall asleep tonight 🙂 I have a short work week ahead of me because on Friday it’s Midsummers eve and that’s a big thing here.

   

To be honest I think it is even bigger than Christmas here and even though the church tried to make it a christian holiday (John the Baptist’s’ Birthday) it’s all pagan here to be honest 🙂 According to the folklore it’s a day when the Beings are out and about a lot and if we do it right we can keep us all healthy during winter and also see the future if we want to. For those new to this place but have been following me on post I think I’ve told You about the trolls and perhaps gnomes but there are a lot more to tell. I’ll start telling You more about the beings and how we celebrate Midsummer over here from tomorrow.

     

I have re-potted the Guava trees today. I think they have been a bit confused with the weather because first it was hot as h..l here, then almost autumn weatherwise plus all the rain, so they haven’t been growing that well, especially the roots have stopped to grow. I can only hope they’ll start growing again now when it has become a bit warmer. All apricots, peaches and pear trees are now re-potted as well.  and I had a few seedlings from the Lemonquat seeds I sowed just before the warmth arrived. It takes far less time to get a seed sown Kumquat, limequat, lemonquat and what ever other quat there is out there 🙂   than it takes for orange, lemon or lime trees sown from seeds. For those it can take up to ten fifteen years before they flower but perhaps, with a bit of luck, only four to five years for the quats. It is time for a cup of tea so I don’t fall asleep in front of the tv later. Only four more days before long weekend again 🙂

I totally forgot that I also planted the last potatoes in pots today. The sprouts were so long that I made them follow the inside of the pot 🙂
The Guava trees has changed color to red, normally a sign that they stand in too much sunlight but these doesn’t so I have no idea to why they’ve done that.
I hope the old Pawpaw tree that survived winter here also speed up the growth of the new leafs now when the warmer weather return.
Perennials and trees can take years to start germinate so I’m quite pleased that I now have Giant Sequoias growing.
The Himalayan Cedar is coming fine 🙂

 

If You want a flower that will keep on flowering until autumn, smells really odd and would spread like wildfire this is the one for You, Nepeta sibirica, Siberian catmint (our name for it is Siberian dragon flower). It is 5 feet high and smother any other flower to death within a year 🙂 Only just as invasive flowers can keep it in control 🙂 🙂 It is beautiful though.

Have a great day!