Category: The bog.

Winter decided we shouldn’t think spring was here :-)

April 5, 2024 · 2 Comments ·

So this week has in many ways been rather terrible when it comes to the weather. On Tuesday we had around 40 cm (16 inches) of snow falling. I really didn’t like it at all, especially since it also went pretty cold. Easter was warm and friendly, it was fun to have a puppy in the house, You already know that a new puppy is living here again and during Easter we could stay outdoors all day. Then winter came back and I really couldn’t leave a puppy in the dog house/yard with that ammount of snow plus cold weather because a puppy wouldn’t understand that he would have to stay in the nice dog house all day long.

He would be playing with Alma and even though she would most likely have stayed in the garage it still wouldn’t be especially warm there. I really didn’t want to come home to a puppy with pneumonia. So thankfully they understood at work so I have been at home this week hating the weather because we really couldn’t take any walks while it snowed and was so cold. To make it even more fun it snowed again on Thursday, this time just a little but it was already impossible for a puppy to go anywhere. Well we were out but I had to carry him almost all the time.

Today however it’s warmer, tomorrow will be even warmer than today and on Sunday they’re guessing it’ll really warm and that we’ll have warm weather the entire next week. So back to work on Monday it is 🙂 So the new guy is nine weeks old on Monday and his ancestry is Border collie (50%) , English Cockerspaniel and Golden retriever (25% each). He didn’t look like any of his parents to be honest and was the most long haired of them all. My guess is that he most likely will look something like a wrong colored Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever 🙂 At first I guessed that he might look like a smaller wrong colored Golden though.

If You wonder why I don’t have any photos of Nova it’s because she tends to prefer staying indoors sleeping 🙂

Thankfully my neighbor works in a super market so I have been able to get what I need when it comes to food 🙂 I have a few tins in the cool cellar just in case something would happen so I mostly use them now because their dates are closing in. A couple are too old but can one eat them? they’ve been stored cool all the time so would it be ok to eat them? Two tins with ham are spoiled otherwise and that would be a shame. Well I just remembered that I’m on the internet right now and I micro biologist said no problem to eat but the taste might have become less tasty. Just put the tin in boiling water for a couple of minutes or more and it’s quite edible. Well I’ll do that with one of the ham tins and if it smells ok I’ll take a tiny bit and hope to survive 🙂 🙂 🙂

Male Chaffinch.

Alma has finally understood that it is ok to tell Malkolm when he goes to far, like chewing on her hamstring with his sharp teeth or chewing on her tail while she’s walking away 🙂 🙂 Nova does what she can to avoid him when he’s too much (which is almost all of the time 🙂 ) I’ll have to make her a raised bed so that he can’t terrorize her while I’m at work, she’s after all almost 18 now. He’s not a cuddly dog at all, he is very much Nova in that way. He usually sleeps on the floor on my slippers beside the bed. he has once or twice wanted to be in the bed but only for a few minutes. He’s very much Alma when it comes to energy though.

He did however sleep for hours after our walk this morning, despite him not walking much at all. So much new things to see, hear and smell so that was what tired him out. Many people believe that they need to run around and spend energy all day to be tired in the evening but it is actually using the brain that tires them out. So Alma wouldn’t have become a calm dog if I could have been running with her every day, she would just have become a dog with even more energy but with the same problems and I’m pretty sure that would have killed me 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is time to have something to eat and when I leave the computer Malkolm will wake up so I better pick him up and take him outside so he doesn’t pee in the cottage 🙂 🙂 🙂

Then he decided that he didn’t want to sit on the tree stump

but didn’t realize how deep the snow was 🙂

So I had him in a backpack when we went out and had it hanging on my front side so I could have an eye on him and make sure he wouldn’t try to jump out 🙂

Have a great day!

March 17, 2024 · Leave a comment ·

Chaffinches have arrived at the feeder with sunflower seeds in it. Some stay here over winter but most fly south. Now when they return the forest has changed and they need easy to get food until the insects starts to hatch. I’ve seen the second butterfly for this year today by the way.

Winter has come back but it won’t stay for long. Snow fell yesterday but not more than a centimeter (two fifths of an inch) so most of it melted away since we have had sunshine all day long 🙂 Now there’s snow in places where the sun couldn’t reach it.

The night was a cold and so will the coming nights so I guess that we’ll have snow on the ground until Wednesday comes with warmer weather. Now the Cranes are so many by the lake that I can hear them when I go out in the early morning. It’s the sound of spring 🙂

I have so little laundry that I skip to do it today but I have made dinner for next week and I’ve baked a bread. I could only find frozen gluten free bread in the german grocery store and it wasn’t a yummy kind but it worked really good when toasted. So I tried a new recipe today but had to have it in the oven for much longer time because it had a hard time to be baked all the way through, so I guess I won’t try that one again 🙂 🙂

I was told I should talk with the optician with an referral to an eye specialist about the cataract, so I’ll have a talk with them when I get my new glasses on Maundy Thursday. Better to be early than late. Not much else has happened this weekend beside me sowing some seeds that I have had in the fridge in damp paper towels in plastic bags. I filled up an old balcony flower box and placed another broken one over it so no birds or mice can reach them. Also I bought another Ginkgo tree that I planted in an big old clay pot but that one I need to have indoors until it’s farther between rather cold nights than it is now.

It is time to watch Biathlon on tv, the season is ending and the last competitions is held in Canada so for once I’ve had all mornings free to do other things 🙂

Have a great day!

Winter weather again.

March 10, 2024 · Leave a comment ·

So the Swedish rounds of the Eurovision Song Contest is over for this year. Two Norwegian brothers, twins, won this year and their win was really big. Not my cup of tea but they can sing without taking a single false tune, can dance and seems to be genuinely nice guys so I’m pretty sure they’ll end up amongst the top five when the Final is in May here in Sweden. Malmö is hosting, our third biggest city just opposite Copenhagen in Denmark. My favorite came second and is very different to the winner but both the international jury and we Swedes wanted the twins to win and when both agree we usually end up amongst the top five.

I doubt we’ll win because down in Europe they’ve come to dislike our songs just because we tend to end up amongst the top five 🙂 🙂 🙂 We have after all now won the whole shebang seven times. Only Ireland has done that before. The weather has been indoor weather for two days now, cold, windy and some snow falling. Ok the snowfall was so tiny and so were the flakes that it was hardly noticiable on the ground but it was annoying anyway 🙂

I stayed home from work last Thursday and Friday because of an accident, nothing serious happened to me, bruising and a scrape. We were lifting things weighing 44Kg (97 pound) and we do that with a magnet. This thing is flat on the side I stood and has a sort of sharp edge all around. I was prepared with hooks when it was high enough to be hanged on the chain that transports the thing through the factory. Suddenly the magnet came loose and the thing fell down. I was hit on my right hand, then it hit my left knee, scraped my right shin and had it come just a half centimeter (a fifth of an inch) it would have cut off my toes on the right foot. Now it landed on the toe-cap instead so I didn’t realize that until I tried to walk away 🙂 🙂 🙂

No serious injury but I have been fairly sour until now. It’s still a bit tender but nothing worse. Even though it was very unlucky to be hit I did have luck with the weather those two days, no wind, sunny and warm enough to have the kitchen door open all day 🙂 But as I said today and yesterday were quite different. Winter jacket on and I should have worn mittens because the wind made it so cold that I couldn’t feel my fingers when we came home again this morning 🙂

I’ll be warmer again in a couple of days and I think the Cranes will arrive with the warmer weather and better winds. I’ve seen a few circling around high up in the air but that’s it. Lots of geese and swans here now though plus all the smaller birds already singing their spring songs. Still plenty of birds by the feeders though, especially many forest birds because they are now thinning out the trees, they’ll only take the biggest trees and leave the rest but before they started they also cut down almost all those smaller trees and bushes where the smaller birds nests and find food. We’ll I’ll continue to feed them for as long as they come here.

Have a great day!

41 cm (16,4 inches) of frozen mud.

February 18, 2024 · Leave a comment ·

The morning looked quite beautiful but this only stayed for a few minutes and after that the sky stayed evenly grey. Yesterday morning we went down to the creek, I knew there would be lots of water because they have flood warnings about the creek and where it flows out in to the lake. That however wasn’t the big problem, the big problem was where the road makes a dip before reaching the creek.

There’s almost always water here but now there’s a ditch on the right side that is supposed to lead away that water that instead lets more water in because of the high water level. So I thought why not jump over the smaller ditch to the right and then go through the forest until we can go out on the road again and then follow the ditch. Alma had been unusually annoying and really didn’t walk well. Anyway we reach the ditch and I tell the dogs to jump and both Nova and Albin did, Alma however stood absolutely still for the first time in her entire life. I made a total stop in the air because I held her leash and then went down in to the frozen mud.

It was much deeper than I thought it would be 🙂 🙂 🙂 Yesterday was the day that Alma learned how strong voice I actually have and after that she walked really well and didn’t whine even once 🙂 🙂 🙂 The odd thing was that I never got cold feet but above the boot I froze quite a lot 🙂 🙂 Alma and I are now the best of friends again and we made a deal yesterday evening that if she stopped whining all the time while we’re walking I would be less angry when she pulled the leash. The morning walk today started a bit shaky but after that we both kept to the deal 🙂 🙂

Today Nova wanted to walk to the bog again and it is more and more looking like the shallow lake it once was, there’s water everywhere. Just a little more water and I’m pretty sure ducks soon will swim around there 🙂

I didn’t see any ducks but lots of geese flew above our heads, it looked like Greylags mostly but I’ve already seen lots of Canada geese as well. They always come a couple of weeks before the first Cranes but we do normally have one or two cranes here around this time and when they arrive we’ll get a snowstorm passing by 🙂 🙂

They’re guessing it might stay warmish during days and most nights but a few nights will be freezing cold. Also we’ll most get rain for most of the week and perhaps some snow mixed in it as well. I don’t mind if it rains, then perhaps the bog will become a lake again and who doesn’t want a lake property 🙂 🙂 🙂 but why does it have to be freezing after that rain? I’m really tired of driving on icy roads now.

I’ve heard that the air high up, I think it was the stratosphere, might become really warm next week and that the polar vortex therefore most likely will collapse and that can give us nasty cold weather again. If so I hope it does so over Siberia since they are used to it anyway 🙂 Could perhaps help to keep the permafrost stay a bit longer 🙂 Well with my luck it will happen here so I won’t put away my winter clothes just yet 🙂 🙂

If it is this much water in the creek up here I can only guess how bad it is down at the lake.

I need to fill the peanut feeder every day now and now when I work day time again I’ll have to do it the evening before. That will keep both the night shift and day shift happy. I must say though that the night shift (house mice) are eating way less than the day shift 🙂

Have a great day!

February 11, 2024 · Leave a comment ·

It started to snow when we were out this morning, if it had been rain I’d call it misty rain but it was snow and the flakes so small that it mostly looked like mist from a distance 🙂

I wouldn’t call what we’re having a storm but the wind is quite strong and the temperatures below 0C (32F) so it hasn’t been especially enjoyable to be outside today and since the wind comes from eat it also reach the cottage and garden. It will stay much the same until tomorrow evening and after that the snow will arrive instead. Damned if You do and damned if You don’t is the feeling about it 🙂 🙂 🙂

It’ll snow until Tuesday morning and they’re guessing we’ll get up to 15 cm (6 inches of the garbage. The fun thing is that already on Wednesday it’ll get warmer and we’ll get lots of rain instead, yay. Nights will mostly stay cold though so it’ll be anything but boring to drive to work the coming days 🙂 🙂 🙂

The rest of the photos were taken yesterday.

The wind didn’t reach us when we walked in the forest though so it was quite nice to be out there. Unlike yesterday when we walked down to the creek and the wind hit us when we walked by the fields. The wind managed to go through my wind proof jacket so that says a lot about how strong that wind was 🙂 🙂 So we have mostly stayed indoors this weekend.

The cold made a comeback and I’ve been freezing a lot every now and again but it seems it has left me for this time at the moment. I did however miss a step when I walked down to the cool cellar so now my back feels quite sour. It’s always something isn’t it?

I have managed to change my sleeping hours though, took one day 🙂 🙂 🙂 So it feels like I’ll have no problems with going to work in the morning again. I can’t even pretend it feels fine to go to work but it feels fun to meet all my old working friends again. Some of them had already stopped working for the day when I arrived at work.

Have a great day!

Back to day shift again.

February 9, 2024February 9, 2024 · Leave a comment ·

This hasn’t been the best of weeks for five people at work. The economy is bad over here and we don’t have as much to do as we used to so on Monday we were told that the evening shift would stop but that we all would start working day shift instead.

We were told that we would get info about it already the same evening. That didn’t happen but we were told we most likely would get the info on Tuesday or more likely on Wednesday but that didn’t happen either so of course we understood that it must be more serious than that. So yesterday we finally got the info and they have to let five people go. I’ve been working there for so long so there was never any risk that I would have to leave. The rules here is that last one in is first one out when people have to leave. They can do some exceptions when it comes to competence and since I’ve been working there for almost 17 years now I do have lots of competence.

I feel so sorry for those who has to leave because this is happening all over the country right now. There is however a light at the end of the tunnel because the inflation is going down and they haven’t risen the the loan interest and will most likely lower it in late spring and when people see at least the interest rate going down they will feel hopeful for the future and start to spend money again, so perhaps they will return to work before summer starts (well it starts quite late here to be honest but it will start even if it doesn’t feel like that right now).

We’ve had lots of snow falling lately, light fluffy snow that is impossible to get a grip in while walking 🙂 🙂 and we’ll get a bit more than three inches next Monday if they’re guessing it right. The fun thing is that it will start to melt away again already on Tuesday 🙂 🙂 Nights will be chilly though so once again we’ll have slippery icy roads that makes it exiting to drive to and from work again. I’ll stop working at five pm Mondays to Thursdays and four pm on Fridays, crappy hours to be honest but way better than the ones I have so I’m not complaining.

Today I woke up to nasty cold but sunny weather and we went out for a walk as soon as we woke up. I couldn’t feel any wind blowing, unusual since we seem to have a constant storm blowing here otherwise. Nova is usually the first one to want to take a walk but today she preferred to stay in my bed, I can fully understand her because she is after all 17.5 years old now. I did worry for a while that something was wrong with her because she slept really heavy and didn’t eat especially much. The afternoon meal however was gulped down so I guess it is the changing of when we sleep and eat once again that disturbed her. Now they’ve been used to eat after noon and around three am and suddenly we’re going back to normal hours again.

The swamp behind my garage is now a little lake instead.

More and more birds have realized that they can get an entire peanut if they go in to the feeder 🙂

So even if I finally get to go up early in the mornings like I’ve always had it still is difficult to change back but perhaps I finally will get a good nights sleep again, haven’t had that since my christmas vacation. Today however have been a day of tiredness. I baked a bread and while waiting for it to be ready I fell asleep in my recliner, with Albin sleeping on my stomach 🙂 🙂 🙂 I had set the timer but didn’t understand what it meant when I woke up 🙂 🙂 Took around five minutes until I remembered that I had the bread in the oven 🙂 Turns out that it was a perfect time for the bread to stay in the oven, I must remember that till next time 🙂

Have a great day!

Almost like the old lake is back :-)

January 27, 2024 · 2 Comments ·

They were up early waiting for more peanuts 🙂

Our painter at work managed to crack a lot of his ribs last weekend so guess who had to take his place while he is at home recovering? I truly hate that job and especially the heat that’s constant there because of the huge oven on one side of the painting box and the huge washing machine on the other side. The washing machine also adds humidity to it all making it even more nasty. Plus I wear the white overall that doesn’t breathe at all so it’s like walking in ones personal sauna all the time. I truly hate it!

I’m glad I didn’t have to drive anywhere today, usually one slides to the right and down again though and not to the left and down in to the cow pasture 🙂

Still I’m the only one that can do it and after fifteen years painting with powder paint I know what I’m doing. Side effects to the heat and personal sauna is leg cramps and lots of peeing since I drink loads of water all the time and I’m tired every second I’m awake. Working only four days a week doesn’t make it better at all since I’m napping away the Friday and still is really tired on Saturday. I think weekends would be better if we had more daylight, as it is now it still gets dark so early that I really can’t do anything outdoors, instead I mostly half sleep in front of the tv, yippee.

Today I woke up to a really nice and sunny morning, they said we wouldn’t get any sunshine today so I shouldn’t have been surprised when I saw that the sun was slowly rising behind the mountain 🙂 -) 🙂 I had to fill the bird feeders before we went out on our morning walk, the birds were sitting close to the feeders just waiting for me to wake up 🙂 After that we went out to the peninsula by the bog. No wind and sunshine made the walk really nice, I could even feel heat from the sun and I think that was the first time this year that happened.

I think these paw marks comes from Salmiak, very few other cats walk down this road normally.

Not much snow left after this weeks rain but there was still some frozen snow on the ground in the forest. When everything else is quiet it sounds like small explosions when walking on frozen snow 🙂 🙂 so there wasn’t any chance what so ever to be able to see any wild animals today. I could have stayed all day (well at least for as long the sun still wasn’t covered by clouds) out on that peninsula. Back in the days with all the old dogs we quite often did stay out there for hours but today suddenly all the dogs wanted to go home so I guess a wolf might have been close to us or perhaps lots of wild hogs, the dogs don’t like them especially much either to be honest 🙂 🙂 🙂

So much water in the bog now that it almost looks like the old shallow lake they once dried out here.

We’ve had our pancake Saturday, some of the laundry is done and we’ve also napped in front of the tv. All that is left to do today is to hope for that big lottery winning 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Snowstorm and Dog-Igloos.

January 19, 2024January 19, 2024 · Leave a comment ·

This has not been the best of weeks, not the worst either to be honest but bad enough. Nasty cold at nights and a snow storm passing by. I’m not sure how much snow that fell but the storm strength wind also spread the snow that already was on the ground making huge snow drifts on the roads.

It doesn’t look that bad to be honest but that road is anything but even so in some placed there’s three feet of snow. Wind and snow really evens out the world.

Looking here where the wind didn’t reach I would say that we didn’t get that much new snow.

I wasn’t even sure I would be able to even leave the village but unfortunately they came and plowed the roads just in time for me to leave for work 🙂 🙂 Not early enough for me to get the package I was waiting for though 🙂 🙂 To be honest I didn’t think they would be cruel enough to actually force the employees out on the roads in weather like that but suddenly I got a call where they driver said the package was here but she didn’t dare drive down my road since there was so much snow, so I had to walk up that road with snow up to my knees as best 🙂 🙂 🙂

I was waiting for the new dog beds I had bought for the dog house. Alma always tear apart any protection I put up to cover the way out to the dog yard making it way too chilly in the dog house, so I ordered some dog beds called Dog-Igloos. Two smaller ones for Alma and Nova and one big for Alma. Two fitted in the dog hose and one will be placed in the garage where Nova prefers to stay while I’m at work. I do understand her because Alma can be a pain in the a..e to be honest. I know I shouldn’t have been either surprised or disappointed to see that Alma had destroyed the smaller one when I came home.

On the other hand both she and Albin had managed to sleep together in the big one, now sure how but they’ve done that two nights in a row now 🙂 🙂 The third one will be placed in the garage but I have to figure out how to protect it from Alma so she doesn’t destroy that one too. I think it might be possible to repair the third one but I do need better things that needle and threads, I’ll check online if I can find something that would work, perhaps those needles they use when sewing leather (even though that would be a bit much to be honest, the Igloo is made from felt I think but needs to be streangthened before I try to fix it. Also she chewed off a few sticks made from glass fiber so I need something to replace those as well. That dog drives me insane sometimes 🙂

This is the smaller Dog-Igloo, enough big for Nova or Albin. I have no idea how Alma and Albin managed to be together in the big one (a slight smaller than one yard wide) but they did 🙂 🙂 There was no space for the fluffy extra blankes though 🙂 🙂

Tomorrow will be the last cold and sunny day for a while because we’ll get above 0C (32F) degrees and both rain and snow now (and pretty strong winds again they say), so we better enjoy tomorrows walk because one never know when we’ll be able to enjoy another walk. We’ll be out on walks but we will perhaps not enjoy them in that weather 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

January 13, 2024 · Leave a comment ·

Thursday morning. On our way out to the island in the bog.

The weather this week has been really nice, lots of sunshine and no wind. I couldn’t enjoy it especially much though because the cold I had during the christmas vacation didn’t want to leave me. It has been an odd one. Sometimes I’ve felt rather fine just to minutes later freeze like a dog or boil like a kettle. Runny nose and lots of sneezings but thankfully less coughing. Also the throat couldn’t decide whether it should hurt or not so that has come and gone as well 🙂 🙂 🙂

I have been on walks with the dogs though. Alma is in heat and she’s more annoying than usual, none of us can stand her for more than a few minutes at a time 🙂 🙂 🙂 She has been really annoying on our walks as well So at the moment she’s not the most popular girl here 🙂 🙂 🙂

Our fox is very much alive thankfully, I managed to take photos of it in the cow pasture on the other side of the gravel road. The fun thing is that I didn’t see it while I took some photos on the frost covered trees in the pasture 🙂 🙂 🙂 I had the wrong telephoto lens on to be honest but then again if I had had the bigger one I might not have caught the fox at all.

DSC_0007 - kopia

Today the weather sites first guessed that we would have fog in the morning, then they changed that to snow. So I wasn’t surprised that we had misty rain when I woke up, that changed to drizzle when we went out for our walk. Naturally it then turned to heavy rain for a short while to finally become snow. We did actually get fog too but well after noon. So I guess it would be hard to complain about those weather sites since we actually had both snow and fog plus the bonus rain 🙂 🙂 🙂

From now on it’ll get nasty cold again and I’m not happy about it. Alma removes all covers I hang in the opening at the dog house, so all warmth in there goes away. Really annoying! So now I’ve ordered three Dog-Igloos. One really big for her and two smaller for Alma and Albin. So when Alma has removed and obliterated the cover once again they still can be warm and cozy when they go inside their Igloos. Alma will of course try to get in to the smaller ones as well since why wouldn’t she so I can only hope that Albin wants to stay in the bigger one so she can stay there at the same time as well. They are so big that she can’t drag them outside but I guess she will try to do that anyway 🙂 🙂 🙂

Today we walked out to the peninsula by the bog.

All puppies and younger dogs tend to destroy anything that isn’t solid concrete, so especially things made from cloth will be teared in to zillions of pieces but I do hope she for once can stay away from destroying these Igloos, they were quite expensive. Then again, why would she.

Have a great day!

January 7, 2024 · Leave a comment ·

It fell down to -20C (-4F) last night but now they’re saying, on tv, that it’ll turn towards warmer again. The weather sites doesn’t show it that well though but how often are they right in their guessings 🙂 🙂 🙂 I do hope they’re right because I’m really tired of having a real winter again 🙂 🙂 🙂

We went out to the bog when we finally came out on our morning walk, I wanted it to get less cold but the snow was still enough cold to give Albin problems with his paws. Snow cramp isn’t funny. None of them seemed to hesitate going out there so I guess no wolves have been close for a while. I did however see lots of tracks after moose and the dogs really don’t like them either, not enough to stop them from going out on a walk there though 🙂

The only animal we heard was an over active raven, it was totally alone and I guess it had found something to eat and was calling after its friends. If there were any smaller birds they must have been amongst the trees on the island. I guess if one is used to all the sounds there are in a city it could feel scary to walk around in an almost completely silent world like it is out there 🙂

I had hoped the cold would give up by now but instead it seems like it has gotten new strength. I’m sitting here very well dressed and still feels that it is way too cold 🙂 Sneezing a lot but also coughing more than before. I still feel that it is going the right way, after all I’ve had it for quite some time now.

Time to make something to eat and then stay up till really late just to get the right hours in to my brain for when I start working again 🙂

Have a great day!

Good Yule!

December 24, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

x (6) — They had decorated a tree like this in a small village where I had to change bus to get to my new car. It reminded me of something I’ve read about, that before we started to bring in the christmas trees like spruces and pines here in Sweden, sometimes they brought in young apple trees and decorated them and if the timing was right the young apple tree started to flower just around christmas.

So I’ve done all the important stuff today, I’ve made the christmas ham and at the same time I also put the prince sausages and meatballs in the oven together with the ham 🙂 I’ve eaten some of the Quality Street bonbons, I’ve watched the Donald Ducks christmas show and also fallen asleep a few minutes in to it. I did however just doze off for a few minutes so I watched most of it anyway 🙂 🙂 The birds did get more seeds than usual and we had a rather nice walk in the morning when the temperature was as low as -12C (10,4F). No wind and sunshine made it really nice even though I couldn’t feel any warmth from the sun what so ever.

It wont look this wintery for long though, it will start raining already tonight and the temperatures are now slowly move above 0C (32F). It’s snowing at the moment, tiny flakes and I guess that if they’re guessing it right we’ll have very little snow tomorrow. It will rain even more tomorrow but it will unfortunately be sunny on Boxing day. I write unfortunately because the hunters will be out and they’ll hunt for hare and fox. I wished them good luck with the hares but they already know that we truly and deeply dislikes them for hunting fox here. We need them to keep the ammount of rodents down, these mild winters have really suited the rodents, so everyone in this part of the village hates when they hunt for fox.

I was going to bake gingerbreads but didn’t have any energy to do it but over here we say that christmas lasts till easter so I have plenty of time to do that 🙂 🙂 I did however defrost the freezer yesterday. It was cold enough outdoors so it was the time to do it if I ever was going to. I must admit that i didn’t realize how much ice there was in there 🙂 🙂 🙂 It took well over five hours even if I had placed a bowl with boiling water in there and even though there is a shallow sort of gutter at the bottom of the freezer that is supposed to lead the water in one direction out to bowl collecting it, it really doesn’t 🙂 🙂 so now the floor around it is nice and clean as well 🙂 🙂

This morning when I was about to put everything back in the freezer I also looked if anything in there contained gluten, so now my freezer is quite empty 🙂 🙂 🙂 Only the things I’ve made myself were gluten free. The reason I did that (because I’m pretty sure I would have forgotten normally) is because I bought a Julmust with orange flavor. I was talking with one of the owners of the grocery store I buy my food from because they were offering taste samples of bread with something on and I said I couldn’t eat it. So then they said that at least I could drink the Julmust. Turns out they were pretty wrong about that 🙂 🙂 🙂 I did wonder why my stomach suddenly gave up now when I’ve been so careful with having nothing with gluten. So I checked the internet and voila, the Julmust contains gluten.

Most other, if not all, Julmust only have the flavoring of malt and not the real thing so it was an honest mistake but I will inform them about it. There’s nothing more I’ll do today than watch the British crime drama “Vera” and perhaps a program about the smaller wild cats we have around the world. I’ve watched it before and to be honest, those small wild cat species are really much more interesting than the bigger ones, perhaps because we always almost only see programs about the big ones. Tomorrow starts the time of leftovers, sandwiches with ham, sausages and meatballs. I’ll make them a bit more fun by adding blue cheese as well 🙂

Taken through my kitchen window, these birds truly loves peanuts 🙂

I wish You all a Good Yule!

The lamps really help!

December 15, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

Like the geese I would love to move south during winters but I’ll need a big lottery winning to be able to do that 🙂

I’m not that happy about my new working hours even though it works better than I thought. The thing that annoyes me most is that even though I stop working two hours later every day I still start to work only 25 minutes later. So since I can’t go to sleep until after three am I need to sleep until at least ten am and that makes the day at home before going to work two hours shorter. It’s only the first week like this but I did feel constantly stressed before going to work.

Fog and misty rain today. I only wore a hoodie when walking with the dogs so I didn’t appreciate the misty rain. Otherwise the temperature made it really nice outdoors.

Having the Friday off is nice but since I feel tired most of the time I don’t do much anyway. I’ll get used to it I know but it is still annoying. Well only one work week left before christmas vacation starts and then I won’t work again until January 8 🙂 The good thing is that I only will have to use my five remaining vacation days and no compensastion hours since I only work four days every week 🙂 Also I really can’t complain about the traffic no matter which way I drive. I go to work just before people start going home from work so very little traffic then and I drive home before people start driving to work. Still I do meet a couple of lorries on my way home and sometimes smaller cars in the middle of the forest. I guess we’re both thinking what the other driver is doing on a forest road in the middle of the night 🙂 🙂 🙂

Putting up two lamps in the dogyard, one shining in the dogyard and one shining towards the gravel road just outside made a huge difference. Now Alma only barks occasionally instead of constantly before the lamps were put up. I am also still recording my voice on the Ipad but filling up ten hours with my voice does actually take ten hours 🙂 🙂 🙂 and I’m not even half way there yet 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’m doing my best though.

Tuesday night was pretty cold here after a day when snow had thawed and some of it found its way in to the padlock I have on my garage doors. Normally no problem but when Nova decides she wants to sleep in the garage and goes in through the hole they’ve dug up from the dogyard and refuses to go back that way it is a problem 🙂 She’s half blind and half deaf and with only one ear she can’t understand from where a sound comes. So when the padlock was frozen solid I first tried to defrost it with spraying something called 5-56, I’m pretty sure it excists all over the world, and lots of it flowed down on my hands I still couldn’t open it. So instead I went in to the dogyard and called after her through the hole.

The swamp behind my garage has more water in it than it has had since I moved here.

It took me 15 minutes before I managed to make her go to the hole, she was hesitant of course so I reach towards her with my hands. The old lady could of course only smell the 5-56 so she backed away and went to the garage door again 🙂 🙂 🙂 I did manage to defrost the padlock with my two very frozen hands after a while and let her come out to the rest of us 🙂 🙂 🙂 The padlock is broken though but the door handle to the garage is removeable so it is still not possible to open the garage without the handle. I don’t think I’ll ever put a padlock there again 🙂 🙂 🙂

The bright red male Bullfinch is rather shy and stays close to the seed bird feeder.

The females are bolder though and makes visits to the peanut feeder but I don’t think they like peanuts.

Lots of Great tits eat from that feeder though.

I have some kind of hibiscus, not the one we can buy anywhere though. I took cuttings from it before the frost and even though the cutting isn’t more than perhaps 5cn (two inches) high it still has produced a flower bud!

The pheasant is still popping in for visits every day and doesn’t seem to be too bothered when the dogs chase it away when they go out in the morning, it returns again after a short while. The forest birds are also still visiting but we’ll have rather high temperatures here the coming week so when the snow melts away they’ll return to the forest again. Nice to have them visiting for a while though.I’ll stay up for a couple hours more, normally i would be in bed by now but I think it’s best to try and keep the sleeping pattern I have now, well staying close to it because I love the early mornings even though an early morning now is around eight am 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!