Category: The fields.

There are places that need water, so why does all of it fall here?

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Now I know how effective that anti tick spray is, it is very much so. It had been raining all morning and I thought that since Malkolm would be so wet while walking around most of it would drop off pretty fast so I skipped it since he actually hate that smell. It’s a long time since I’ve picked so many ticks of any of the dogs who has lived here. Nova was the only one that didn’t have any and I guess it is because she walked after us all  after we just had walked there, so no more walks without it, no matter how awful it smells 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

My shoes hadn’t dried at all since yesterday so today I had to wear my winter boots 🙂 🙂 They are light brown but by the time we came home all the water had made them dark brown 🙂 My feet were dry though so 🙂 I placed my shoes towards the south heading wall and even after a day with at least some sunshine they still aren’t dry. I guess it doesn’t help when the humidity stays at 100% or just below 🙂 There will be even more rain tomorrow and much of the week. There are places on this planet that desperately need rain so why does it all have to fall here 🙂

Lots of Rowan berries this year, perhaps I should make some yelly or ade when it is time. They need a couple of frost nights to become less tart and then putting some honey in it will make them rather yummy 🙂

This is a rather unusual flower, it is a parasite and has no chlorophyll of its own. The Swedish name for it would be Pine wort in English.

I haven’t done much today, I was going to bake some bread but then I found two packages with hard bread I had forgotten so I skipped the baking 🙂 We did have our nap, I realized we napped for almost two hours but I can already say that it will not keep me awake after the usual bet time 🙂 Oh I forgot I also now potted some of the Quince seedlings. I must admit that I mostly had forgotten about them, so some have grown in a 90 degree angle, I’ll need to find some sticks so I can direct them in the right position again 🙂 Two more Giant Sequoia seeds have germinated as well but unfortunately none of the Dawn redwood seeds. Well they might need one more winter before they wake up, they do look ok when I check if they still exists.

Lots of lingonberries this year.

This one is rather delicious and it looks like it has a thick layer of clear coat put on it. It’s actually a thick layer of slime that protects it from pests, easily removed though and I usually pick lots of it.

It is time to go and look at at least the beginning of which team will be the European champions in football (soccer) England or Spain. I always hope for England but they have a tendency to never win when it really matters 🙂

I’ll get at least two pink poppies this year and if You look at the top of the photo You can see the leafs from the Californian poppy, no summer here without it 🙂
I wonder if he will continue to have that quilted fur in his neck when he gets older?

   

Have a great day!

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It has been a fairly nice day here, not much sunshine but warm. No rain so far but according to radar photography it’s on the way and we’ll get lots more both tomorrow and on Monday. It’ll stay fairly warm though so I won’t complain too much.

     

Lots of people in the village seems to have been busy today, I’ve heard hammering and lawn mowing plus what could have been someone trimming hedges. I haven’t done much at all, besides walks with the dogs the only thing I’ve done is to placed a “pot” (well it is actually an aluminium foil thingy for food 🙂 ) with Quince seedlings that needs to be re-potted. I have several more to re-pot but I need to buy more soil before I can do that. 

Lots of wild raspberries and they are so delicious!
The Shrike really like this area, so easy for them to see their prey.

   

The morning was quite nice, there was a bit of ground mist when we woke up and even some sunshine but as soon as we came out for our morning walk the sun was gone. Didn’t matter really because it was slightly cool and very few flies annoyed us while we were walking along the creek. We saw a hare running in front of us and two roe deer but that was it. In a way a bit boring but in a way quite nice since Alma has been reasonable calm for two mornings in a row and that’s pretty unusual 🙂

 

I think we might have beavers in the creek again. The water level is really high on one side of the road but rather low on the other.

I gave the dogs their first raw hide bones today. Long time since that happened because Albin was allergic to everything so I couldn’t really give them that. Nova have had before but this was the first time for both Alma and Malkolm 🙂 Nova really didn’t want to chew on it so instead she hid it beneath her 🙂 Alma really liked it and so did Malkolm even though he was a bit slow chewing it. So in the end Alma stole all three and wasn’t the least ashamed of what she did 🙂 🙂 There is one piece left and Alma took a look at me and dropped it on the floor 🙂 🙂 Malkolm is now doing his best to hide it and every time Alma comes close he takes it and chews for a while again 🙂

       

It is time to give the dogs their dinner, I haven’t had anything either, well ice cream but I’m not sure that counts 🙂 Tomorrow I’ll start packing all the card board in the car so I can take it to the recycling center. I have so much now that the kitchen will look very different when I’ve removed it all 🙂 I have absolutely no space to have it in this cottage, I have one closet and this winter mice found it so now I need to find where they came in and try to block it, I also need to buy new clothes 🙂 🙂

   

The first time she stole the chewing rawhide.
The second time she made sure that Malkolm didn’t notice her leaving 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only one more day :-)

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I always save photos for days when I can’t take any and put them in a folder called “For a rainy day”. All photos today comes from that folder. They can be taken earlier this year or some time during last year. The only important thing is that it doesn’t show snow 🙂

The weather is what I would call rather unstable right now, heavy showers coming and going. Pretty chilly here as well and it’ll be like this over the weekend they guess. No use in looking at what they are guessing for the coming week they change those predictions more or less every hour. Everything from sunny and warm all week to quite the opposite 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

Lots of things to do at work and due to bad planning they asked if people wanted to work overtime, they never come to me even if they are desperate since they know I’ll just laugh at them 🙂 To be honest only three people wanted to work, most of us will after all start our vacation now.

     

Only Malkolm liked to be outside in the rain so we haven’t had any walk. Not good for any of us so it’s nice that vacation starts now because it is very rare that it rains all day, so in between showers we’ll be able to go out and get rid of some of all that energy that is building up in the dogs now. Normally during weekends and vacations we’re out on walks at least three times a day but the weather lately has really stopped us to do that. In winter time, before Alma, we usually had walks in the empty cow pastures and normally we walked a bit more than 9km (5,6 miles) but Alma being like she is and after tearing my shoulder twice we haven’t been able to do that last winter. I am hoping that she will have calmed down enough until next winter. They say hope is the last thing to leave us 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

Tomorrow is the last working day before vacation starts and at first they said we would stop working with the painting early, then a bit later than they thought and today that we most likely will continue as normal 🙂 🙂 🙂 It doesn’t really matter because I won’t be back in four weeks anyway 🙂

     

Have a great day!

Väettir.

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Today is actually the real midsummer but they’ve made sure that it always is celebrated on the first Friday after summer solstice. Midsummer eve isn’t a holiday (Midsummers day is though) but most people working in factories and offices still have the day off and it’s also a payed free day. This is the last holiday we have before Christmas. I would say that it is as big or perhaps even a bigger holiday here than Christmas. The bad traffic started already today because everyone wants to be where ever they are supposed to be already today.

 

This is an unusual Plantago major since it is variegated. Normally they are seen as somewhat irritating weeds but for some reason they aren't when they look like this :-)
A variegated Plantago is really unusual and if I had liked them I would have brought this one home. Normally they are seen as weeds but for some reason not when they look like this 🙂 🙂

I’ll write more about the celebrations and folklore the coming days. Today I’ll tell You about Vättar (Väettir). They are usually small beings dressed in grey clothes but they can easily change to something else like toads or little mice. Like all beings they can be rather grumpy but we rarely know that we have them around us since they can change what they look like. There are several different kinds of Väettir, it all depends on where they live, like lake väettir, mountain väettir and forest väettir. It isn’t unusual that they live just beneath our cottages and if there are unusually many toads hanging around in our gardens it might be because they actually are Väettirs 🙂

Bumblebee beetle. Some years there are plenty of them here and some years one is lucky to see one.

  The Blue vetch grows everuýwhere here and I like it a lot. 

So if one lives a calm and orderly life and don’t disturb them they might become Your friend and then help you with the animals or perhaps give you and unusual amount of good luck. They really don’t like warm water so if one would toss out some from the home one should always warn them before one does. If one would meet a Väettir that needs help and help with what ever it is they usually give you a gift. It might look like an old pine cone or a stone, always take it and thank for it because they day after it can have turned in to gold or gemstones. If you don’t help them or disturbs them in any way they then instead might give You some terrible disease.

 

I woke up in the middle of the night by an awful screaming of fear (and the barking sound of an older deer), sounded like a small baby deer was attacked by something, probably a fox. I thought it must have been the young one that the doe in the cow patch was the mother too. I found the doe walking in the cow patch when I left for work and thought that she might look for her young one and felt so sorry for her.

She was still in the cow patch when I returned home (almost impossible to see her here) and she was completely calm. So either it was another animal screaming or she managed to scare what ever it was away 🙂

Väettirs are guardians of the area so I wonder if they live where gnomes doesn’t. Normally gnomes lives at farms while Väettirs seems to be more adaptable and live even close to poor people. They are my favorite beings to be honest just because they more often are kind than evil. Have I mentioned that there lives an unusual amount of toads in my garden? 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

Have a great day!

Elves and Alves.

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Saint Johns wort.

Malkolm woke me up at 4:08 am today with a loud but high pitched bark, he’s after all only four months old now 🙂 After that he ran as fast as he could and peed on the stairs all the way down to the kitchen 🙂 🙂 🙂 To be honest he’s really good in peeing outside almost all the time. Just before I was going to write here he once again barked, ran as fast he could down the stairs and peed all the way down again 🙂 🙂 He had been playing so much with Alma that he forgot that he needed to go outside 🙂 🙂

     

We don’t have Fairies in our folklore, the closest is Alves and Elves. I really don’t know a lot about Alves but there seems to have been two kinds of them, the darkness Alves who lived underground and the Light Alves who lived in the sky and shone brighter than the sun. It also seems many think they are the male equivalent to Elves but since I’ve read that there were male Elf kings I’m not sure of that. No matter what meeting Alves, who always came in groups was no good thing. Most of our beings seems to love hurting us 🙂

     

Elves however could be seen during early mornings and late evenings dancing in the fields. They were dancing in the morning mist and one can still see them when the mist comes in circles and is sort of uneven on its upper part, like small tops all around the circle, those tops are the heads of the Elves. So I can say that I see them fairly often here 🙂 Elves might be beautiful but their main purpose is to make humans sick, especially children. Sometimes so bad that they die but they mostly do this for fun and really doesn’t want to kill anyone 🙂 🙂

     

If one would get sick after meeting the Elves one could be cured by blowing towards them with Bellows or perhaps drop some pieces of gold in a nearby creek as a sacrifice 🙂 Elves can sometimes invite You to dance with them and mean no harm with that but time flows much much slower in that circle so it’s best to not be in a hurry if one accepts. They will make You sick if You don’t dance with them and they will throw illness upon You and that will most likely kill You. Sort of damned if You do and damned if You don’t 🙂 🙂

     

In the year 1656 a woman was put to trial when she said she had had sex with the Elf King and had seven children with him. He one day came and brought the kids with him wearing golden clothes. The verdict was that she had been that the devil had made her insane and that they all should pray for her. I’m so glad that they never have asked me to dance with them since I have two left feet and my hip replacements really aren’t made for dancing 🙂

Have a great day!

Don’t try to catch a hornet.

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

   

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

     

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

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

 

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

Have a great day!

It is at least warmer again.

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Misty morning looking up the road before leaving for work.
No the coming photos with morning mist isn’t from today, I had those in my car camera.

It is raining outside, a nice gentle summer rain and the temperature rose up to 18C (64,4F) so it’s quite nice outside. It looks like Malkolm doesn’t mind rain after all, he’s the only one of them that willingly goes out no matter how much it is raining, Nova and Alma just stand by the door opening looking at him 🙂 🙂 I’m still trying to figure out what kind of dog he will be as grown up, when it comes to behavior I men. There are no signs of herding characteristics, not good at fetch but is truly gentle and like rain.

Fur photos taken in the village on my way to work when we had a few misty mornings.
My work friend once said that this isn’t a village but a wasteland 🙂 Big open fields in the middle with a few groups of houses and cottages spread here and there around it 🙂

   

That sort of fits with both Cockerspaniel and Golden retriever. Border-collie isn’t a retrieving dog so that fits with him, then again no herding 🙂 So it will most likely be something towards the golden and spaniel . All goldens and spaniels I’ve met have loved water 🙂 I tried to see how high he is now and he’s somewhere around (he wouldn’t stand still 🙂 🙂 ) 42cm-44cm (16-18 inches) high. That’s actually higher than what a Golden should be at that age?! He’s still the little guy here, Nova is 52 cm (almost 21 inch high) and Alma is 70 cm (28 inch high).

Malkolm yesterdxay when I had come home from work. The big package behind him is the dog food and toys I had ordered :-)
Malkolm waiting for me to walk in with him and as You can see the dog food and toys I’d ordered had arrived.

Buttercups, in the real those flowers are slightly tinged with green, really hard to get in a photo.

The haunted tree.  Still can't remember the name on this one :-)

Our morning however was rather wonderful! Sunshine and cool enough to keep all mosquitoes calm but not cool enough to keep the flies calm. Still it was enough to wear a hoodie to keep them away from bot nostrils and ears 🙂 Later on a strong wind arrived so that kept most of the flies away as well. We walked down to the creek and Nova sort of thought that was a good idea, not great though so she did walk more slowly than usual 🙂 The only animal I could see, besides birds, was a deer. I had hope that we would meet the foxes again but perhaps tomorrow, They’re guessing that we’ll have much the same weather tomorrow, cool and sunny in the morning and warm but rainy in the afternoon. They are guessing much of next week will be much the same 🙂

Down at the creek, lots of flies there but surprisingly few mosquitoes.     

I let both Nova and Malkolm walk without a leash on the last part of our walk, turns out Nova had quite a lot of speed in her legs 🙂 🙂 She did stop and look after us every now and again but we were never really close to her until we came back to the gate 🙂 🙂 🙂 Malkolm followed her for a while but decided to run back to Alma and me. He is very slowly accepting the smell from the anti tick spray and I could only find one tick on him when I checked him before I let him go inside. Alma had five and Nova only one.

  Quite often we meet a fox here but I guess she has learned when we come by :-)  I'm pretty sure that if the deer hadn't moved I wouldn't have seen him at all but they are more cautious now when we have wolves here. 

Besides that I haven’t done much today, I did plant the dahlias I’ve sown but I don’t think they’ll last for long. Lots of hungry snails and slugs now when the weather is like it is. We don’t have the feared Spanish forest slug here, it behaves like a forest machine when cutting down trees, it eats anything and everything in its way but our native slugs and snails are enough as it is. One advantage we do have here though is the Panther slug, it eats other small slugs so we take really good care of those 🙂 🙂 So to be honest, it could have been much worse.

Nova and Malkolm walking ahead of us.  She did stop every now and again to check where we were :-)  Malkolm stopped and waited for us. 

Time to go down to the tv and watch the European championship in football (soccer for You Americans). I’m not a huge football fan but I do like to see these big championships 🙂

Malkolm then decided he wanted to walk with me and Alma.     

Have a great day!

I had forgotten to bring in the water bowl and (lying inside the bowl) the treat cup yesterday :-)
The water bowl I forgot to bring in yesterday 🙂

The dog yard fence is now slowly covered in Boreal vetch (and stinging nettles) on one side and

One neighbor once threw away hops he had in his garden not knowing how great it is at surviving. Male plants though so nothing to use for either scent or beer making :-)
hops on the other.

Our National day and why.

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No ALT text today, it takes a long time and it's getting late.

Sorry about yesterday, first I visited my friend at the garden center and I can proudly tell You that I didn’t bring home and plants this time 🙂 I had been tired since the moment I woke up and when I came home I took a nap for well over an hour but was just as tired as before so I went to bed and slept all night long. I guess that I actually am having a cold because after our morning walk today I napped well over two hours but this time I’m not that tired again 🙂

     

So I was going to write something about our national day and why we celebrate it. There are two reasons for it, the first is that June sixth Gustav Vasa became king here in Sweden. Sweden was at that time occupied by Denmark and their king (we call him Christian the Tyrant 🙂 ) made a blood bath killing lots of the nobility in Sweden including Gustav’s father.  He wanted revenge and fled north to gather the support of the people in Dalarna (a region in Sweden that sort of have become the picture of what Sweden is when it comes to traditions). No one really did support him but he did eventually get their support and he of course promised them a lot in return. The Danish king was driven out and when the good people in Dalarna actually expected to get what he had promised he happily slaughtered them.

     

Before him the nobility here always chose the next king but after him it became an inherited title. He had three sons all more or less insane and all became king over Sweden and Finland (which was a part of Sweden for centuries). The first one I guess had schizophrenia, married his non nobility mistress which wasn’t liked at all so his brothers put him in prison and eventually poisoned him with arsenic. They spared his wife and children though but she had to move to Finland, promising never to claim the throne for her children and what I know they had a great life there.

     

The second reason is that we got a new constitution 1809 that removed most of the Kings power, that I see as a really good reason to celebrate though but very few know about it here. The king by the way was a French buddy to Napoleon which he then turned against and we helped to win over him. Denmark’s capital Copenhagen was heavily bombarded by the Brits so that Napoleon wouldn’t be able to use their harbors so they sided up with Napoleon instead. So after Napoleon lost Denmark was punished by giving Norway to Sweden. There was however a big problem with that because Norway had already declared they were now independent of Denmark. So they were pissed of by this (in my opinion they rightfully were so) but back in the days You really couldn’t do anything unless You were prepared to go to war with the big powers in the world. To be honest we really didn’t want Norway because we wanted to get Finland back from the Russians who had taken it from us by winning a war against us but Russia was also on the winning side so Norway it was. Lasted until 1905 when they finally became a free country. Not that the Swedish king wanted that but he was wise enough to not start a war. To be honest I don’t think we ever have won a war against Norway, the last time we tried our own troops finally shot our king with a big button. 

     

So anyway we haven’t had a national day for that long anyway, until 1983 it was the Swedish flag day (the next oldest country flag in the world, only the Danes have an older one) and it didn’t become a holiday until 2005. So since most people don’t know why we celebrate and to be honest Gustav Vasa was a horrible dictator, we never have sort of understood how to celebrate it (and to be honest they removed another holiday that we wanted to have much more so that sort of dampened the cheers 🙂 🙂 ) They do try to make it more festive but so far it is sort of a meh celebration we’re having 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

The morning walk was really pleasant, cool enough to keep flies and mosquitoes away but still sunny and no wind. We met two foxes and the deer doe was outside the garden once again, she doesn’t even react when we go out now days. Now however the rain is pouring down and it is quite chilly and we might get thunder later today. The weather will be much the same tomorrow, sunny morning and rainy before noon and with lots more rain. I don’t mind even though it would have been nice if we could have reached 20C (68F), we’re not even close today.

Magpie younglings photographed through mosquito net and window 🙂

 

Looks like it has rained over my car but it hasn’t, lots of morning dew here so this is normal every morning.

 

Remember I told about how easy it is to propagate tomatoes? Some tomato plants grow like a bush and others like vines. The vine ones are supposed to be pruneed by removing all shoots that grow out and those are easy to just put in soil.

 

Take those shoots and remove all but the to leafs and put them in a new pot.

 

They will create new roots along the stems and then You have new tomato plants. Normally our summers are too short to get any tomatoes on them but these had already flower buds so perhaps I’m lucky 🙂

Have a great day!

Close but still no thunder or rain.

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The path down to the creek is bordered with Dog biscuits.
The path that eventually leads down to the creek is full of Dog biscuits. I’m glad they have driven four wheelers there, otherwise we would have been drenched in water from the rains and morning dews.

Hot again today so it was really nice that we were able to have our morning walk in the early morning while it still was cool. Not cool enough to keep the mosquitoes away but cool enough for them to not attack us to hard 🙂 Malkolm woke me up at 3:27 am today but after he had been outside we all went back to bed and slept for another hour.

A Roe deer buck is eating in the field.
This wasn’t the only animal we saw this morning. It is a Roe deer buck.

 

Still lots of water in the creek.
There’s so much vegetation along the creek now that it is hard to see it 🙂

All the dogs are at the moment a bit wobbly in their stomachs so today I boiled rice and fish for them. Nova loved it, Alma loved it and Malkolm put his nose in the air and refused to eat anything until he realized they all had the same food 🙂 He did eventually eat all of his food but I can clearly say that he’s not a fan of boiled fish 🙂 Too bad for him because he’ll get this tomorrow as well 🙂

The path along the creek is very narrow now days.
The path along the creek is now so narrow that we need to walk in a line, something Alma have big problems understanding 🙂

  There's a little brige at the both ends of the creek where we alk so I had to stand on one of those to be able to see more than a couple of meters of it.

My camera refused to do as I wanted so here are two rather bad photos of fox cubs running away from us.
Some previous owner of my camera thought it was a good idea to adjust the camera to being able to go through the photos when turning the shutter speed wheel. Idiotic since if I need to adjust the speed after just taking one photo instead of changing the shutter speed I then started to go through my photos already taken. So instead of actually capture these two fox cubs so it would be easier to see them I instead took several photos that an editing program then tried to make at least some better. We met the mother later on but it happened so fast that I wasn’t able to take any photos of it.

Thunder and heavy rain is nearby again but it looks like it’ll go either south or north of us. I wouldn’t mind if we at least got the cool air that always follow thunder but even if we don’t get it today it will cool down considerable next week. It’ll drop from today’s  26C (78,8F) to 14C (57,2F). It will stay that cool during the entire long weekend and I think I’ll enjoy it a lot, cool weather plus what they are guessing rain as well sort of forces us to just relax all the time 🙂

Nova didn't like that I wanted to go down to the creek, she wanted to go out to the bog. So she dragged her feet all the time until I let her go un leashed, then suddenly she had all the energy in the world :-) :-) :-)

Malkolm decided to not follow Nova and instead kept himself close to me and Alma.

Nova did stop and look after us every now and again :-)
Nova checked after us on and off, last time she walked away like this she too a wrong turn and it took some time until she finally found us. She’s more or less deaf so no use in calling after her 🙂

I moved the lawn, well most of it, when the grass had started to dry up some. I drank too little water while doing it so now I have a slight headache. What’s left will be moved tomorrow and it’s on the north side of the cottage and beside the woodland where the Pawpaws are growing. I do hope we’ll have a wind blowing because that’s where all the mosquitoes are and I have already been bitten quite a lot. I was bitten by a horse fly this morning as well, they’ve started their season a bit early unfortunately. Last month was unusually hot here and I guess that kickstarted them.

I do like the European Hornet, a gentle giant unless one comes too close to their nest. If one do one must run fast :-)
The European Hornets are back, favorites ogf mine :-)

Alma and Malkolm playing in the garden :-)
Alma and Malkolm had a few minutes to play before it became too hot.

 

It looks like both the thunder and rain will miss us so I better put together the new hose and spray gun so I can water the vegetable patch. Something is eating the beans I sowed but the rest looks untouched, the carrots however hasn’t shown them selves yet so I’m starting to wonder whether I’ll have to sow something else in that spot. I’ll give them a couple of more days before I do anything.

Have a great day!

If it hadn’t been for the mowing.

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If it hadn’t been for having to mow the lawn today would have been a perfect day. Cool but sunny and wind free morning, ok it gave the mosquitoes a good opportunity to drink our blood and we will all probably scratch ourselves a lot tonight 🙂 🙂 I am lucky in a way though because I get immune pretty quickly from the itchy thing we got so after four or five bites I usually don’t feel it any more, I can only hope the dogs are lucky that way too 🙂

We now have pine pollen everywhere, my car is now covered in yellow pollen every morning.

 

I think this is a Greylag feather (well could be crane as well) I should have brought it with me and made a quill pen 🙂

We walked down to the creek, the birds were singing like crazy and I could also hear lots of geese honking up in the sky. Lots of animals had followed and passed the gravel road so both Nova and Malkolm had to stop everywhere to sniff to get what animals it might have been, Alma ran around like crazy as always 🙂 The dogs had already eaten before the walk but I had my breakfast as soon as we had come home. They said that it would be rather warm today and yes it has been and still is. So I went out and watered the vegetable patch and all the potted plants after that.

     

I let it be for a while so the water could sink down into the ground and then I went out to sow more flower seeds in the old vegetable patch and after that I sowed split beans, two different peas, carrots and one more thing I at the moment can’t remember what it is 🙂 🙂 🙂 I have lots of different vegetable seeds waiting to be sown in places where what I originally sowed won’t start to grow. A few days ago I also sowed different flower seeds and also some of the seeds I sowed when it still was cold are now germinating as well 🙂

     

I still plants that needs new spaces in the garden but I still haven’t figured out where 🙂 After the sowing we all had a long nap before I went out to mow that lawn.  I didn’t drink enough with water so after a while I was bone dry in my mouth and not even thinking on lemons gave any result 🙂 🙂 I usually aren’t careless about that since I need to drink a lot of water at work because my workplace is close to a big oven so if I don’t drink a lot during the day I will get headaches. Only Alma kept me company while I mowed, Malkolm who now learns what warm weather is slept at the coolest place he could find, north side in the cottage just beside the entrance door and Nova slept in the kitchen close to the open kitchen door.

The vegetable patch. I’ve gone back to more traditional way of growing them. If one co plant with other vegetables if one doesn’t grow all of it will be a mess.

Six photos showing what’s in bloom in my garden right now.

       

They are all still sleeping but now close to me, I opened the window on the opposite end of the cottage so that the little wind there is now can blow through the upper floor. It is time for them to have something to eat and after that I think I’ll sow some more flower seeds, they are getting old so I’m not sure how well they are but to be honest one can’t have either too many trees or too many flowers 🙂

The English Walnut has it first leafs 🙂

Outside my kitchen window.

Aronia. The berries might be super berries as they call them but they taste like shit to be honest. To say they are tart is an understatement 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

The vet visit.

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Salmiak, the beekeepers cat. He’s getting old now, I think he’s 17 years old by now and have used lots of his nine lives because he’s too friendly towards dog that aren’t friendly towards him.

We had meh weather here when I woke up this morning, misty rain and a bit too cool and since we were going to the vet in a few hours I said to the dogs “Going for a walk or sleep again?” To my very big surprise they all went indoors again 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

So I was wondering if it would be best to let Alma and Nova stay at home in the dog yard while Malkolm and I went to the vet for his shot or should I bring them and when we come home have that walk? Last time I left with one dog he never came back (Albin) so knowing Alma I thought it best to let her follow and Nova would be there to keep her company for those five minutes we would be indoors. It sounds good doesn’t it 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

I fasten my dogs in the seat belt when they’re with me on the roads, I could have had them in the back but the thought of getting hit from behind and what that would do to the dogs has always made me use the seat belts instead. So I thought everything would be easy when letting them in to the car. Malkolm and Nova were no problems, Alma started screaming as soon as I tried to get her in 🙂 🙂 After that she kept on screaming all the way to the vet and also tried to come to the front seats, so I had to push her back with one hand 🙂

     

So we arrived at the vet and thankfully it was still rather cool and cloudy outside so I lowered the windows and as soon as we started walking to the entrance door Alma screamed like insane and tried to dig her way out of the car. I shouted at her that no digging is allowed and oddly enough she stopped. No such like when it came to the screaming though. We came in and were shown to a room on the other side of the building and while we were waiting I could hear Alma very clear, it sounded like someone stabbed her over and over again 🙂 🙂 The vet hadn’t arrived yet so I hurried out, shouted at her to calm down and went in again.

     

I arrived at the room at the same time the vet did. Malkolm thought that when I was gone it would be a good time to both poop and pee on the floor 🙂 So the first thing the vet had to do was to clean the floors 🙂 He kept on smiling and laughing to himself because Alma was so loud by now that anyone hearing her could have called the police reporting animal cruelty 🙂 🙂 🙂 As soon as I and Malkolm were back in the car she went silent and slept the whole way home 🙂 🙂 🙂 She’s a wonderful girl that dog but sometimes I think she will be the reason for my death 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

Have a great day!

Thunder closing in.

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The day has been really nice and still is even though thunder is lurking at the outskirts of the county. It has never come especially close but I can hear it and we’ve had a gentle rainfall while the dogs and I had a nap. More rain is on the way but the different weather sites shows either more thunder tonight or no thunder at all. 20C (68F) today but now we’ll have two slightly cooler day without sunshine and with rain. We’ll know better after those two days if they were even close to guessing it right 🙂 🙂

     

I can see the windows at both ends of my cottage from my bed and this morning the sky was bright orange when I woke up. It was so nice because none of the dogs were in a hurry to get up and out so we stayed in bed for quite some time. So for once our morning walk was late, not because of the weather but because we all were a bit lazy 🙂 🙂 That has never happened with any of the old dogs that once lived with me 🙂

     

I’ve continued to plant the trees and bushes, some of them I’ve bought and some sown. I’ve also placed all the Pawpaw seedlings and Guava seedlings on the north side of the cottage. I’ve tried to place them so that the bigger citrus trees that I have shield them from the burning sun. Just like us plants get burned if one just place them in the sun after having them indoors for a longer time. Five pear seedlings of one of the two kinds I’ve sown seems to have survived the winter indoors and four of the other kind. Still a bit cloudy on a few of the seedlings that sort of looks dead but still have a chance 🙂

A goose couple flew just in front of us while walking along the creek. I think it is Greylags. Sorry but I don’t think You can see them if You look through Your phone, they are hard to see even on the computer screen.

   

I took my time doing this of course but so far I can say that my back isn’t any worse, not much better either but at least not worse 🙂 I think that it’s all that ice cream I’ve been eating that has done the trick 🙂 🙂 🙂 Still sunny outside but the thunder is closing in. It’s a bit south of here and when it is it usually follows the mountain and miss us totally. When it comes however it’s usually furious. The worst time was when the lightning split in two and four of the homes here were hit. The light ramp on my aquarium jumped up in the air and sort of exploded in a bright light, my closest neighbor had a arch of light in their bathroom (from a fan straight in to the wall on the other side), the third down the road didn’t notice anything because they are heavy sleepers but the fourth home was hit so bad that the entire electrical cabinet blew in to pieces 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

I would have liked to have another walk now when the weather is nice but thunder nearby is no good thing. Once we were surprised by how fast the thunder arrived and I had to chose between being the highest point in the fields or walk in  amongst the trees and hoping the lightning wouldn’t hit a tree 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

Have a great day!

Nova has always loved to sleep in the sunshine, no matter how hot it has been 🙂