Category: The fields.

Sunny and nice.

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That cold we’re having going around here never want to leave. I’ve talked to those getting hit by it before me and just like me they still have it! No fever what I know but runny noses and coughing. So I’m pretty sure this must be covid, I’ve never heard of a cold staying for this long. It’s annoying but it doesn’t seem to want to kill us anyway 🙂 🙂 🙂

    

The odd thing is that at least I don’t cough at nights, only in the early mornings and in the afternoons. Well I’ve had worse things so it’s just annoying to be honest.  We’ve had rather nice weather here for two days, lots of sunshine and rain only last night. We had a walk in the village yesterday just after noon. Alma had one of her impossible days, that dog wasn’t quiet for a second and she became even worse when first the mailman drove by and even more so when we met some villagers out walking as well 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

This mornings walk was better thankfully. At least she didn’t pull the leash that much. Both yesterday and today we passed dogs in dog yards, a under stimulated labrador in his garden. Nothing wrong with him really but to be honest I’ve never seen them taking him out for a walk and another little yapping dog in his garden but not close to the gravel road so none of the dogs cared about him at all 🙂 She didn’t care about all the bulls we passed though which I’m happy about because I really don’t want her to anger them up 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

Malkolm and Sara have played all day, even upstairs and it did sound as if they tore down everything up here 🙂 After that Sara went to Nova for a nap 🙂 Alma is still a bit unsure about what she can do since the day I had to rip her out from the couch when she twice sat down on Sara and not moving when the cat screamed for her life 🙂 🙂 🙂 Alma does after all weigh 35 kg (77 pound) and Sara 0,5kg (around a pound). So if the cat is with me and Alma in the sofa I quite often lift over Sara to Alma so that she knows she’s allowed close to the cat, as long as she doesn’t sit on her 🙂

 

It is the upper part of my little cottage You can see here 🙂

Again it is time for a last cup of tea for the day and perhaps a banana as well.

Have a great day!

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It did rain a lot in the early morning and should have continued to do so all day. So no hunters were here in the morning. The raining stopped however and even though we didn’t get any sunshine it still turned out to be a rather nice day. The hunters did arrive later on but I think it mostly was because it was the first day and I guess they mostly sat in the hunting lodge, having a nice fire and perhaps grilled some sausages 🙂

I wasn’t going to bring in any of the Camellias this winter but then I noticed they are full of buds.

   

The storm Kevin was supposed to hit us later this week and they predicted lots of wind and rain, now they’re guessing it wont hit that bad, the wind will be quite normal and the rain won’t fall. They can change this prediction loads of times until then so who knows what will happen 🙂  Anyway I was going to have a phone meeting with the employment agency today, some time between 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm to talk of my strategies to get a new job. So at around 11 am I thought why not take a nap? I put the timer on my phone at 59 minutes. I can’t pretend I slept especially well or much at all to be honest so I gave up and looked at the timer, turns out that I had put it on one hour and 59 minutes 🙂 🙂 🙂 I must have slept much better than I thought because it was only 15 minutes left until I was going to have that meeting 🙂 🙂 🙂

   

The stalk to the self sown sunflower had broken so I brought it to the feeder so the birds cane have the seeds. Just as I came in and looked out the window some kind of mosquito landed on it under side.

So they called and asked what I had done so far and what I was planning on doing next. After I had explained they simply said: Well it’s clear that You know what You’re doing and won’t need any help from us, we’ll schedule for another meeting later and leave You to do what You’ve planned. It took around 10 minutes 🙂 🙂 🙂 After that I baked a bunch of french rolls, they turned out good but sort of floated out over the pan but who cares, the important things is that they taste good 🙂

     

It is time for a last cup of tea for the day and perhaps I’ll have one of those rolls as well  🙂

Have a great day!

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Grey and dull here this morning but cool enough to keep any remaining moose flies calm. I hadn’t slept especially well, have no idea why though. Nova needed to go outside at 4 am so we all joined her in to the garden. I really didn’t want to stay awake so we walked to the bedroom again but I can’t say I slept for especially long.

     

I had to go to a grocery store today, I wasn’t going to buy especially much to be honest, so I decided I would go to the grocery store in the village I worked in. I’ve been shopping my food there since I moved to this area, so 27 years and being unemployed is not going to stop me for continue to do that even though it has to be fewer times since it is much further to that place.

     

I was really surprised over how much I actually bought 🙂 🙂 🙂 I did follow my list but an extra thing here and an extra thing there and suddenly it cost me three times as much as I had planned 🙂 🙂 🙂 Now I won’t have to go to any grocery store again for quite some time 🙂 🙂 I brought the camera with me so a few of the photos today were taken on the way there. I like driving there and it is never as beautiful as it is this time of year.

     

The moose hunt starts tomorrow and it will rain more or less for the rest of the week. If one is a hunter one really doesn’t want to miss this week even though we don’t have any moose to talk about any longer. Some hunting groups are even refusing to hunt moose now days because we have too few (still around 300 000 of them but they get fewer each year now and we don’t know why to be honest). The only ones wanting the hunters shooting more moose are the big forest owners because they eat lots of small trees. Anyway, the hunters still don’t want to miss being out this week so lots of people have a few vacation days now. I haven’t seen any tracks from moose since early summer here, at the same time, an old work friend not living too many miles away have lots of them.

 

 

It is time for a last cup of tea for the day and lots of ice cream I think 🙂 It’s plain vanilla, perhaps not my favorite but still in the top five 🙂 I think today they don’t make ice cream any more, they make frozen candy. It’s chocolate chips and caramel and toffee and everything must be covered in salt. I like when it is just one flavor and perhaps raisins in it because I like raisins. Or perhaps vanilla with strings of chocolate or strawberries or any kind of flavor with strings of hazelnut but I really don’t like when it is more like a frozen chocolate bar like Snickers. I have by the way never eaten a Snickers in my life because when I was around seven years old I got so angry when they treated me as a customer as an idiot. That’s when I started to refuse to buy anything where the commercial treated me as if I was dumb, there are so many things I never buy now days 🙂 🙂 🙂

       

Have a great day!

I did it again :-)

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So I did the same mistake yesterday as I did the last weekend, slept too much 🙂 This time I wasn’t supposed to have any nap but I was sitting in the recliner watching something on tv when Malkolm crawled up on my lap. He is rather big now and quite heavy so I leaned the back some so he could fit. It was quite nice and cosy and then I fell asleep 🙂 🙂  I don’t know for how long but I was even more tired when I woke up than before he climbed up 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

The thing was that we were supposed to have quite a dreary weather so I had planned to do all those indoor things one doesn’t want to do when the weather is nice. We had a really nice weather after 10 am but I was sort of locked in by myself for doing those things anyway. So I had finished what I was supposed to do and was just having some tea and a break before we could go out on a walk again 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

It wasn’t supposed to be especially nice today either so we’ve had a wonderful weather. The morning was once again quite chilly but with sunshine and no wind. We walked in to the village because I knew hunters would be out in the forest today, preparing for the start of the moose hunt the eighth. No morning mist when we went out but a sort of a haze. Last time we were out on a walk both Alma and Malkolm behaved poorly to be honest. so it was a really nice surprise that they behaved quite the opposite today. Well there was this cat passing in front of us that made them go insane for a few minutes but besides that they were really good 🙂

     

Alma wasn’t even upset when we walked beside the bulls in the big pasture. She accepts the cows and the bull in the pastures around us but never liked any other cattle. I don’t know why but she didn’t care at all about the bulls, to be honest I’m not that fond of them. OK they are usually really kind and friendly but they are huge and always look like it’s just seconds before they’ll attack 🙂 🙂 🙂

 

Every now and again we have some black bulls in the pasture and I always name the biggest one “El Diabolo” 🙂

It is time for a last cup of tea for the day and for once there’s actually something worth watching on tv. I’ll probably fall asleep anyway but I will try and see an entire program for once 🙂 🙂

   

Sara taking a break from chasing Malkolms tail 🙂 She climbs up my trousers to have a small nap between my thigh and the recliner 🙂

Have a great day!

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It looks like this was the last morning with cold temperatures, sunshine and morning mist for at least a week or so. I’ll miss it but then again both days and nights will stay a bit warmer instead. We’ll also get rain next week, still don’t need more water from the sky, especially not now when the trees drop their leafs and also stop drinking so much water. I guess next year will start with full ground water levels. Still compared to have it has been down on the continent and other parts of the world the little water we’ll  get is nothing.

     

After our morning walk I had to go to the super market, I had a few things I needed and came home with nothing of that except for milk 🙂 🙂 So tomorrow morning I’ll have porridge for breakfast 🙂 🙂 I did however suddenly remember that I need window putty. I guess it’s the same all over the world, birds just love to eat window putty so every now and again I need to buy more to put where it is needed 🙂 I think I bought too little though but now at least I know where to find it.  I remember when I was a kid one could find a glaziery in almost every neighborhood, today I think we can be happy if there’s one in any town in the county.

     

Sometimes I miss those good old days that weren’t that good at all to be honest but back in the days we did have grocery stores everywhere. In my neighborhood there was three just around the apartment building where I lived. We also had a vegetable shop, she only sold vegetables and tiny chocolate bars for us kids. We had a candy shop and at least two tobacco shops as well. One butcher and one fishmonger just down the street but that ended the day the butcher found out that the fish monger had an affair with his wife 🙂 Also a haberdashery shop, I still remember the smell from all the different fabrics she had.

     

I do actually know about a haberdashery shop in this region but that’s the only one. I don’t think we have fishmongers here any more and butchers? well they do sell meat from the farms around here but it isn’t the same, for one thing it is hard to find them 🙂 🙂 You really don’t want to get lost on the roads here, the risk of never coming home is too big 🙂 🙂 🙂 It is easier and cheaper now days though, buy everything online, even fish and meat, and it’ll come straight to the door. Even vegetables and fruit straight from the orchard man living down in Spain or Greece or where ever will come straight to the door. The only problem with that is that one need to be at home when it arrives and even though I love mango the quantity of what one need to buy must be quite a lot to not spend a fortune on it.

   

It is time for a last cup of tea for the day. Perhaps I’ll have a banana as well. I bought a banana the other day that had deep red peel. I’ve never done that before and it tasted much like a common banana but more like it was a bit old and very sweet, just like I like my bananas but to that price I rather wait until the common bananas just gets old enough 🙂

     

Have a great day!

She doesn’t care if the dogs still are eating, she jumps in their food bowls and helps them eat it all. So now I need to pick her up as soon as the dogs get their food 🙂 🙂 🙂
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The coldest night so far but since the sun rose and there weren’t any clouds (but morning mist) it soon became a really pleasant morning. We went out to the forest as soon as I could see the sun rising through my kitchen window, no risk of any surviving moose flies in the air when it was that cold.

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

Have a great day!

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

My favorite autumn weather.

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

Have a great day!

They have started to ripen 🙂

Chilly mornings.

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

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

Have a great day!

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

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

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

Have a great day!

     

It feels like it is going the right way.

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Yesterday evening.

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

 

This morning.

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

     

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

     

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

       

Have a great day!

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My neighbor is mowing their lawn, I haven’t mowed in weeks 🙂 I’ll do it when this tiresome cold has went away. Ill have to wait until the afternoon because we have so much dew here now that the grass is soaking wet in the mornings but just very wet in the afternoon.

     

It was sunny during our morning walk again and I just took a little to long time to go out so a few moose flies were already flying around, only in the sunshine though, it was still below 4C (39,2F) in the shadow. These flies are sort of rubbery so one can’t smash them to death, one needs to sort of roll them between the fingers. They won’t burst open but the wings will fall off (something they do themselves when they have landed on a victim) and they won’t be able to reach any other animal. So now I have at least made sure fewer of them will fly next year.

     

Alma has a really bad stomach, because she eats too many apples and other berries. She woke me up last night and was in a hurry. I did try my best to get downstairs but was a couple of seconds late. I am however very happy that I managed to go down as fast as I could anyway because she ran straight in to the Jerusalem artichokes (these are never eaten but seen as any other flowers in a flower bed) and then I heard sort of three explosions 🙂 🙂 So now the rather difficult job has come to convince her to stop eating all berries and apples still around 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

Otherwise we’ve mostly slept today, I in the recliner and all three dogs in the sofa. I had my feet towards Alma’s head so there was no risk my feet would feel cold 🙂 The kitchen door has been open quite a lot too, not much sunshine but almost 20C (68F) anyway, the weather will continue being warm they’re guessing so lets hope they’ve guessed it right 🙂

     

Have a great day!

     

First frost but a beautiful day.

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

     

Have a great day!