Category: The Cat.

More snow to melt away.

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it was just grey and dull when we went out on our morning walk and from that it went downhill. First some lighter snow with tiny snow flies that couldn’t be seen when they landed on the ground, then rather big and lots  of them that really showed on the ground and then it started to rain. Still lots of snow on the ground but hopefully those slightly higher temperatures they’ve been talking about will arrive as they’re guessing.

I can never capture this old tree trunk properly but I still keep on trying 🙂

Canada geese, many of them refuse to leave when the nasty weather comes.

Besides that very little has happened, the most exiting being that the dogs and I had pancakes for lunch 🙂 The dogs are bored but every time they go outside they want to go inside again. So we have most been indoors being inactive watching tv or napping. The monster cat was active for a while though, one could think that if she tries to do a thing on and on again and fail she finally would understand that it won’t work next time either. I don’t know how many times she failed to pass an orchid by the windows and both she and the poor plant have fallen down to the floor 🙂 🙂

I guess it is time for that last cup of tea for the day but today I’ll try and stay awake since it’s a weekly science program I want to watch, they re-run it several time but for some reason I’ll still miss it if I don’t watch it the first time they show it 🙂

Have a great day!

There’s always a way.

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Computers are great to have, computers can be really fun but computers that behaves like they want to is a really big pain in the a..e 🙂 🙂 Well it isn’t the computer but the photo editing program. I really don’t want to do anything but reduce the size both in pixel size and MB size but it refuses to do the latter. I’ve figured out a way to go around this problem but it takes so much longer time.

I have a slight problem with what photos I post because the icons are so small and I can’t find anywhere to make them bigger in this folder so I can only hope I put in the better ones 🙂 🙂 🙂

Well life could be worse and I do have lots of time now days. Still really annoying. The hunters should have been here today but so far no one has arrived, so we had a walk in the forest and down to the creek. I figured that if they would come we still most likely already had come down to the creek and soon out of their way anyway. A bit windy but much calmer than the previous days.

I haven’t been totally idle today though, I did some laundry for instance. Now that doesn’t sound like a lot of work but I have a sort of manual washing machine. My bathroom is so small that I can’t fit in a normal sized one but since I’m not a big fan of washing laundry by hand I bought one that fits in a caravan. That means that I need to fill up water for washing and rinsing the laundry, no big deal, what is a bit annoying is that when the clothes are going to be centrifuged I need to move it to the built in centrifuge and load it by hand so that it is in balance, if I fail it’ll sound as if the centrifuge is on its way to fly out the cottage all by itself 🙂 🙂  I’ve had it like this for rather many years now so I’ve learned how to do it but still 🙂 🙂

I’ve also baked some French rolls, how much can one change the recipe without having to change the name? 🙂 🙂 I almost always use different flour and sometimes I have cheese in it as well. Turned out really well this time. A warm roll with melting cheese on it is hard to beat 🙂 Tomorrow I’ll keep on doing some laundry, I’m a bit behind, and after that the dogs and I will have pancakes for dinner, I’ve just bought a Black berry jam just for that 🙂

The beavers are back 🙂

It is time to get that last cup of tea for the day and I’ll most likely fall asleep in the sofa after that 🙂

Have a great day!

Snow and rain.

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Just a short one today, the weather is not nice and hasn’t been all day. Very windy with both rain and snow. It hasn’t at all been as warm as they  guessed yesterday so most snow is still on the ground and it’s impossible to walk outside without getting soaking wet. WE. have been in the garden though but the dogs have just done what they need and then wanted to go back indoors again 🙂

In any photo editor I know of in a PC the original photos that one has placed in a file they stay there no matter what one does with the copies we make to put in social media, that’s not the case in a Mac 🙂 🙂 If I reduce size in the copy the size will also be reduced on the original and if I delete that copy so will the original be deleted as well 🙂 🙂 🙂 So today I learned that I need to make a special file for the originals and place that file outside photos, a bit complicated to be honest 🙂 I’m learning more and more every day now 🙂

Have a great day!

Everything tasted bacon :-)

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I tried to aim on the mouse wearing a head lamp at the same time I took the photo, more tricky than one can think 🙂

No snowfall today but we’ll get rain later tonight instead and it will continue all day tomorrow and it will be mixed with a lot of snow as well, but according to the weather sites and the tv forecast it’ll stay above 0C (32F) so I guess it’ll all melt away quickly, at least I hope so. This is a cold hole so one never knows 🙂

We walked the same way today but in the opposite direction, Yesterday I noticed how much of those small fields were worked on by wild hogs and they had been busy last night as well. I do hope they’ll keep their distance because meeting wild hogs in the garden the first thing in the morning is not on my top ten things to do 🙂 🙂 🙂 I think however it will be easier for them to walk in to my neighbours garden since they  only have a thin hedge beside the electric fence that goes around the entire pasture and that fence hasn’t stopped them so far.

I think this is one of those stones they used way back in the days to grind flour. I wonder how old it is, after all people have lived around here since the Stone Age.

Writing about electric fences, today Malcolm learned how it feels to get stung by one and unlike all other dogs he didn’t blame me for it 🙂 🙂 He did keep his distance to the fence after that though 🙂 I was later thinking of the hogs when I was frying some pork for dinner, when I did that I came to think of my mother. She has never been a good cook, quite the contrary and that’s why I learned to make my own food already as eleven years old. She’s amazing making sauces and for some reason she has always been good at making mashed turnips and pork knuckle, well it is her favourite food 🙂 🙂 🙂 Her meatballs however were either hard as a bullet and used like one a moose wouldn’t stand a chance, or they could just disintegrate in to a powder 🙂 🙂 🙂

Anyhow she became a bit more interested later in life. She and her then fiancé were quite often out fishing and always caught a lot of Cottidae, a small and rather ugly little fish but that tastes really good, so she learned how to fry that. They also were out picking mushrooms in autumn and always found a lot of Puffballs, they are edible and quite nice as small and she learned how to like those too. One day I asked her what the fish tasted like and she said: It’s the oddest thing but it tastes like bacon. I asked her if that really was true and she said it was. Well why not but then I asked her if she liked the puffballs as well and yes she did, oddly enough those tasted like bacon as well. I eat that mushroom a lot and they sure doesn’t taste like bacon 🙂 🙂

This is the old well to the cottage the Beekeeper lived, clear and nice water but the well dried out almost every summer.
This was their spare well, never dried out but so much rust in the water that it was almost un drinkable.

My mother belongs to the old kind that if You fry something and there’s fat still in the frying pan she saves it for next time 🙂 Well I think You’ve guessed it, they tended to eat a lot of bacon so every time they fried something they did so in bacon grease 🙂 🙂 🙂 everything from broccoli to any kind of fish tasted like bacon 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day, I might have a banana too but I’m really not hungry after my dinner. It will at least stay above 0C (32F) the coming week but oh how I long for spring!

Have a great day!

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So this is the pasture the wild hogs now walk around in at night.

We did see the sun shine for a few minutes just as it was setting, otherwise the day has been rather depressing 🙂 A meh fog in the morning, later on just grey and dull.

    

Today I’ve been a bit busy though. First I ordered and downloaded an antivirus program, the easiest thing I’ve ever done. I paid the bill, pressed the link and voila finished 🙂 🙂 The Macworld said it was the best and it wasn’t especially expensive either, I also got a discount for being a new customer and that didn’t hurt 🙂 If all things computer was that easy! I never remember my passwords to anything so I rarely log out from anything but I need to get a new password now when I change computer, since I don’t remember them 🙂 So I tried Facebook. I could just as well hit myself in the head with a hammer! I thought I would get a link via my mail but no not any more. I tried to change it several times but no such luck I’m afraid, now I have no idea if the old one still is there so I can come in to Fb on my old computer 🙂 🙂 🙂

The last snow for this time 🙂

When the first wave of hate towards Fb had calmed down I finally found the old way but it sure wasn’t easy to find it 🙂 What angered me the most was when I tried to change the password their new way it didn’t work so a new page turned up so that I could change the password, the only problem was that I had to log in to be able to do it 🙂 🙂 🙂 Then I needed to do the same for my blog and it took four seconds to let me in again 🙂 🙂 🙂 To be honest I’m not sure I want to stay on Fb anyway but I want to have a chance to say bye if I do decide to log out totally. Now all I need to do is to slowly but steadily add my favourites so things can go back to normal again.

But I have done other things as well, like baking bread, well very flat French rolls 🙂 🙂 🙂 and to dinner I made a shrimp and vegetable pie, not bad at all 🙂 I had a bit too much though so now I’m burping shrimps and Broccoli 🙂 🙂 I think it is time for that last cup of tea for the day. I had too much too late yesterday so I’ll have this cup early so I don’t have to get up in the middle of night again 🙂 The hunters will be here tomorrow morning again, they have noticed that the wild hogs now walk around in the pasture just outside my gate. Wild hogs are good for nature but not gardens 🙂

My hardy Rosemary, survived -18 C (-0,4 F) beside it some Oregano but they survive everything 🙂
The Himalayan Cypress also looks good but the most dangerous time for plants here is when spring starts and those late frosts suddenly kill them.

Have a great day!

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So I picked up the new antenna cable yesterday and after connecting it to the antenna and tv I had better picture than before. I hadn’t seen Malkolm chew on it but since he quickly ran away when I saw what had been done it wasn’t that hard to understand 🙂 So this morning when we were supposed to go out on our morning walk I was putting on my shoes when I looks at him happily chewing on the new cable!!!

 

Two Ravens playing in the strong winds we had yesterday.

I have never really had the need to scold him for doing something he isn’t supposed to do here in the cottage, he has never really done anything wrong or dangerous but chewing on cables, even if the antenna cable is sort of harmless next time it could be an electric cable I really had to do something drastic. I have big lungs so I screamed at him at the same time i picked him up so I could look directly in to his eyes. I feel so sorry for him but that scared the s.t out of him, well pee actually. He is still a bit skittish when he must pass that place. I really hope this helped because I never want to scare him like that again 🙂 🙂

     

Yesterday morning was quite nice, it had been cold during the night with a clear sky and the sky stayed mostly clear all through the walk. There was a thin cloud layer that the sun had to shine through but that didn’t do much to stop the sunlight, Today it was warm all through the night and has stayed that way but the clouds were pretty thick. I can’t really complain about it since it is warm but it would have been nice to see the sunlight again. It’ll be like this for at least ten days, or so they guess at least. Then again I still get daylight and I haven’t had this much daylight at this time of year so that’s a good thing.

     

It’s time for that last cup of tea for the day, I’ve just had dinner so I won’t have anything else today, I have no bananas so I’ll buy more tomorrow 🙂 The roads will be good though, almost no ice left either now, just in a few places where the sun never reach this time of year.

     

Have a great day!

The night crew were still working when we woke up in the morning 🙂

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I went out to throw garbage in the bin and thankfully had my phone with me, the sun was setting and now it’s almost as cold as it was early this morning.

I must admit that when I let the dogs outside early this morning I really didn’t think it felt especially cold at all, I followed them and filled the bird feeders while they did their thing. So the first thing I did when we came back in was to check the thermometer, it was -14 C (6,8 F) 🙂 :-)There was no wind and for once the humidity was rather low and that helped a lot to make it feel warmer of course.

     

We went out for our morning walk as soon as the temperature had risen to -9 C (15,8 F) and since would be walking down to the creek the sun would warm up the air quite fast when walking between the trees on the gravel road. Alma wouldn’t make our walk especially enjoyable today and she showed that as soon as we started to walk but I couldn’t figure out why, not until we came closer to the creek and I saw that the horse guy was working today. It is something with Alma and especially horses and the cattle in the neighbor pasture.

     

So she could smell them long before we even came close and no matter how fun it is to see those horses working I really would have preferred that they had stayed at home today 🙂 🙂 🙂 I guess he worked today because the storm is closing in and better be done before it arrives. It’ll be just wind this time and later on warm weather, so they guess at least, so no more snow thankfully 🙂 Perhaps one can hope for lots of snow melting as well so it will be easier to walk in the forest again. I feel however that will be too much to hope for 🙂 🙂

     

My cold is neither better nor worse, I cough sometimes but thankfully not at night, I freeze sometimes but not all the time and every now and again my nose is runny but nothing worse. Sara the monster kitten kept us awake for quite some time yesterday evening with lots of bumps in the night, except for that time when she broke my last tea cup. Lots of sharp pieces spread over the floor. She came running up and annoyed the dogs when she had done that. So now I had to find my thermos and make a big pot so I could use the small coffee cups I almost never use. I must remember to write down I need to buy a new one when I’m writing my shopping list.

     

I think it is time to have that last cup of tea for the day. I can’t remember if this particular thermos keeps the heat well though. I have one I couldn’t find today that keeps it for almost 24 hours, I’ll see if I can find it so I know the tea will be warm tomorrow morning 🙂

       

Have a great day!

I turned around after tossing the garbage in the bin and saw that it most likely is a full moon night.
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Today there’s a mix of photos. The female woodpecker is hard to scare away from the feeder, the male one flees as soon as he see me 🙂

Not much to write about today, we did get some snow but just a dusting. Strong northern winds blowing though and freezing temperatures. I woke up having pain in every single muscle so since every walk with Alma is a struggle I decided to not have a walk today. The cold winds seems to have been why the dogs didn’t want to stay outdoors especially much either.

     

There are few directions from where the wind can reach the garden and today we had one of those. I have been pretty tired today because Alma had an extremely rare accident in the living room last night. She must have a really bad stomach for that to happen. I’ve always wondered why she never alerts me but realized this morning that she does but in a very quiet way. She stands quietly beside my bed staring at me until she can’t hold it any longer. Well it is good that she tries but if I’m asleep I really need a lot of more sound than that 🙂 🙂 🙂 She stood beside me again this morning, I tried to fake sleep because I had no wish what so ever to go up when I realized what she wanted.

     

We were in a hurry down and made it all the way out without any accident 🙂 I should have been more aware that this could happen since they are changing their food. They’ve had an insect based food for a while now and started to scratch themselves around the neck and ears. I’ve had allergic dogs here before so I realized that the only thing that had changed lately was the food. It’s too early to know for sure that it was the food but they haven’t scratched themselves since the new food arrived. It’s a good sign anyway.

     

It is time for that last cup of tea and then watch some tv. My favorite show is on tonight, it’s called (På spåret) On the tracks and is a quiz show where two teams is going to guess what city (all over the world) they will end up at. In the beginning we watched views by seeing a film filmed on trains and get lots of really difficult clues, now days we also go by car. when they’ve reached the end of the trip follow questions comes. Plus now days even we viewers can guess on all questions via an app on our phones. There’s also two question about music where we hear an artist make their version of old songs and that’s the hardest ones in my opinion 🙂 🙂 🙂 I never remember what artist have done what even though I can the entire lyrics 🙂 🙂 🙂

One with old Nova 🙂

 

She has grown quite a lot since she came here 🙂

Have a great day!

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I drove to the supermarket this morning. I started to drive when the ones going to work have passed already so just a few cars on the roads today and much the same on my way home. To my big surprise there weren’t especially many customers either. We to be honest there’s never much costumers on the times I’m doing my shopping but today there were even fewer. Perfect to be honest 🙂

These are from yesterday.

   

Yesterday was very different from today when it comes to the weather. Today we had sunshine and almost no winds, yesterday very windy and lots of snow falling, so I’ll show some of those photos today. Alma started out behaving well, she pulled the leash but was rather quiet for once, Malkolm however had decided that if she was pulling the leash so would he so I was quite grumpy when we reached the forest.

     

With all that rain that fell over the snow and then freezing temperatures and more snow on that it was like walking on tiny ice pebbles, sliding around a lot and impossible to get a grip in, despite that I wore studded shoes (was just the same today). We walked up a little slope when they both decided to surprise me with trying to run up, I got my feet stuck in the snow and of course fell like an old tree. Malkolm isn’t used to me scolding him really bad while Alma doesn’t really care about it 🙂 So I was so angry that I decided we would go back home.

So this is where I fell yesterday. Alma is thankfully very strong and big so I could use her as help to get up from the ground 🙂 🙂 🙂

So today when we were walking the same way Malkolm slowed down a lot 🙂 🙂 while Alma kept on like always. I didn’t fall this time though so we continued out towards the bog but there is just too much ice pebble snow out there now so we turned back homewards again. Still since the sun shone and the wind was absent we did have a rather nice walk after all. OK it did feel like we had walked a marathon when we came back home though 🙂 🙂 I must say though that even though Alma  didn’t behave her best she still almost didn’t whine at all 🙂

     

My entire body feels stiff and joint ache so I guess I might have a cold again, no fever though so perhaps it” stop with this. It’s always fun to have a mixed up immune system 🙂 🙂 🙂 Time for tea and a french roll and most likely fall asleep in front of the tv again 🙂

   

Have a great day!

After nasty cold comes snowstorm and then rain.

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Since we never came out on any walks today the photos are either from my garden or older ones. This one is from this morning looking out over the cow pasture.

 

I can’t pretend to look forward to the coming snowstorm and the following warmer temperatures with what looks like lots of rain but it’s sure better than the -18 C (-0,4 F) we had this morning. It was so nasty cold that I was afraid the front doors lock had frozen like it did last winter when the temperature dropped to -22 C (-7,6 F) 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve hung drapes in front of the door to make sure all that cold air wouldn’t get indoors and it sure worked 🙂 🙂 🙂  Well it seems that it wasn’t cold enough last night 🙂

Somewhere in there is the bird feeder, I could reach it without drowning in snow 🙂

 

I had decided that it was better to go to the super market today, despite the low temperature instead of tomorrow, they are warning that if one doesn’t need to be driving tomorrow one should stay at home. I can say that my car wasn’t happy 🙂 It started without problems but it sure protested 🙂 The right front door was frozen solid, I tried to open it because I had the combines ice scraper and brush on that side. That gave me a problem when I arrived at the supermarket, the car refused to lock itself when I tried to. Turns out that I actually had managed to move the door just a tiny bit so that it couldn’t lock that door. So first I had to push all my weight towards it and then drag the door from the inside as much as I could until I finally could lock it 🙂 🙂 🙂

I need rainwater to most of my potted plants so I had to crush the ice to reach it 🙂
This is truly the test to see if the Camellias can survive here.

Not that I think it would have been stolen because we were just a few fools being outside at that time 🙂 🙂 🙂  I let the dogs out as soon as I was at home and it was so cold that Alma got foot cramps and wanted to go indoors. Yesterday Malkolm had another problem, tiny snowballs formed between his toes on both sides, over and under, that’s something I’ve never seen before. So I decided it was just too cold for them to have a walk, instead they’ve had the garden to roam in but they weren’t especially happy about being out there either. 

 

My neighbors huge Birches.

It has finally started to be less cold so the snowstorm is closing in, the snowing has already started but it’s a nice snowfall right now. I have a big bag with deer food that I need to get rid of, when an old neighbor lived here he always fed the deer on winters like this but when he moved no one else was interested in continuing that so I did instead, in my garden. I could have up to ten deer at a time eating that food and they never cared if my then dogs were outside at the same time, they knew them well since we often met on our walks. Orvar and Hector were their names and they never behaved like Alma 🙂 🙂 🙂 I wonder if I have any photos in one of the old computers, unfortunately I can’t remember the pass words 🙂 🙂 🙂 

   

So anyway I have this bag just waiting to be used so I’ve started to pour out some food outside my fence on the backside of the garden, there’s a high fence there so the deer never comes in to the garden any more but I can easily toss out food to them. Since the snow have kept on falling and the wind blowing I haven’t been able to see if any deer has been there but I have placed my wildlife camera so if I might have some photos of them. I’ll bring in the camera tomorrow.

   

Have a great day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winter is here and it will stay I’m afraid.

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It rained almost all day yesterday but later the temperature dropped and the rain became snow. The dogs had so much fun in the snow, they had been bored all day because they didn’t want to go outside in the rain so when the snow started to fall they really enjoyed to run around 🙂

     

It didn’t feel that cold when I let them out in the morning but that was because we didn’t have any wind, it was nasty cold 🙂 So I filled the bird feeders before we went out on our morning walk. The horse guy came pretty early so we went out into the forest and out on the peninsula in the bog. The sun was shining but it was unusually quiet, normally sunny days in winter means lots of birds twitting but I only hear a few but the ravens could be heard flying above us. I do like ravens but I really don’t like how they hunt. it is a nasty way that they even use on calves here (I will not explain what they do because of its nastiness) , still they are so smart and they always fly around playing up in the air on stormy days.

It’s almost always completely dry beneath the branches on a spruce so it’s a good place for animals to stay on rainy and snowy days. We used to have a huge spruce not far from the village where I and the dogs could take cover when we were surprised by heavy showers or hail. Just a few drops would reach us.

 

I haven’t had a raven as pet but a European Jackdaw, a small cousin who are very intelligent as well and the most fun bird there is. Now that happened before it became illegal to have them as pets and this one had a broken wing that never healed the way it should have, so he couldn’t fly. So instead he lived with me and the pets I had back then 🙂 Two dogs and a rat called Hamlet 🙂 Anyway, the walk was really nice especially since we had sunshine all day.

     

We had been at home for a while when the dogs suddenly wanted to go outside again and since it was so nice in the sunshine I followed them. Turns out that my neighbor and her children were in their garden so the dogs jumped over the fence and played with the children 🙂 It has been a while since I saw the dogs so happy 🙂 It felt much colder staying still in the garden though so we had to go indoors. Yes I could have let the dogs stay outside but Malkolm has a tendency to walk around and suddenly he walks away towards the forest or the big swamp/ little lake behind the garage and then one never know where he ends up 🙂 🙂

     

They’re guessing we’ll have lots of sunshine tomorrow as well and I do hope the horse guy is elsewhere tomorrow or arrives late because it would be nice to be able to walk down by the creek and/or in the older forest. Well I think that perhaps the water has frozen enough so we can walk out to the island in the bog, it isn’t nice to sink down half a meter /yard in half frozen mud 🙂 🙂

     

Have a great day!

     

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Misty rain and meh fog here in the village today. The fog was much thicker outside the village and all the way to the grocery store in the village where I used to work. I still go to that store every now and again because that’s where I started to buy my groceries when I moved up to this region over 27 years ago. It’s as if I know them all by now even though I’ve seen plenty of the workers come and go during the years 🙂

This is an old fox trap and it has been standing here since long before I moved to the village. No it didn’t kill the animal, they used it for trapping foxes to see if they were healthy. Fox scabies (a sort of mange) is a horrible way for a fox to die, they scratch themselves to death more or less. So if the fox was hit by it they ended its life so it wouldn’t have to suffer if it wasn’t they let it loose again. It did however not only trap foxes, my dogs were in it so many times that they finally stopped using it because it needed to be replaced (it’s rotten since long) 🙂 🙂 🙂 They put all kinds of goodies in it and of course my dogs went in and got trapped 🙂 🙂 🙂 This was back in the days when I had dogs that actually listened to what I told them 🙂 🙂 🙂

   

There was almost no traffic either way so I could drive in the speed I like and that’s usually slow 🙂 On the way home I listened to a radio program about language and our dialects and the difference between them. It was rather fun to hear words in different dialects and how I actually understood lots of the words from southern Sweden, I don’t use them but heard many of them growing up because my grandparents came from the south and used them all the time 🙂 They didn’t have much of the dialect left but all the words 🙂

     

Winter is on its way says our weather services. We’ll have a couple of days with warm air and rain left, then it’ll turn and the temperatures will drop and the rain turn to snow, can’t pretend I like that even though it does look nice in photos when there’s 20 cm (8 inches) of snow covering the world. The only good thing is that I at least won’t have to drive around in it 🙂 🙂 🙂 I also have very little snow to shovel because the gate to the garden is just 4 meters away from my door, I only have to shovel some around the car as well and the rest the guy shovel the roads will take care of 🙂 Plus it will be easier to see if wolves are around, always good to know for us with animals.

     

Sara the monster kitten is now in to destroy all my orchids 🙂 Those that look like grass when they don’t flower. She likes to play with the leafs and when she does get a grip on them she tears them down on the floor 🙂 🙂 She also attacks the dogs all the time, not that they care especially much but one day her claws and teeth will reach the skin and then they might 🙂 🙂 On the other hand Malkolm plays rather tough when he plays with her so I guess it evens out 🙂 🙂

     

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I’ll continue to read the book I started on but every time I sit down to read both Alma and Malkolm wants my attention so it’s going slow but forward 🙂 I wish You all a good continuing of Yule!

     

Have a great day!