Category: The fields.

Suddenly they came running!

December 30, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

Two days ago we had snow and quite a lot of it as well, yesterday we had mostly icy rods and some snow left in the forest, today we have some ice left on the roads but mostly meltwater lakes all over the place. Tomorrow it’ll turn towards colder weather again and more snow on Monday to Tuesday. I’m glad the snow is gone but it could just as well have stayed since we’ll get more of it anyway 🙂 🙂

We almost saw the sun when we went out on our morning walk, I could see that round disc shine through the clouds but it didn’t last for long. There was a hunting dog barking in the forest but none of our hunters were out today, so I guess the dog had followed what ever it was it followed for quite some distance. So for once I decided that we should try the fields again. It is well over a year since we were out there, mostly because both Alma and Albin behaves like obcessed every time a car passes by.

There were only two cars on the big road so it went rather well. They had put up more electric fences and since I didn’t want to try to open them up so we could go all the way down to the road we stopped when it was around a football field away from the road. We were just about to turn around when I heard a sound I at first couldn’t figure out what it was.

The Boar is a coward so he came running first of all the pigs.

Then it hit me, it did sound like when cattle is running around in panic. The thing is that there aren’t any cattle in the fields now when it is winter. Then suddenly they came around a small mound but it wasn’t cattle, it was wild hogs! Alma and Albin started to scream like insane but the hogs didn’t care about us at all, all they wanted to do were to get away from something chasing them. They came from the direction to the village but since I mostly tried to keep Alma and Albin by my side (nova is never a problem, she rarely cares about wildlife but I have to say that she looked a bit curious about these pigs 🙂 🙂 🙂 ).

I’m so glad that I managed to take some photos of the hogs this time 🙂 Normally they run sop fast in to the trees that it is impossible, the fields however have no trees 🙂 I never saw what it was scaring them that much but I guess it was a wolf or wolves because later today just as it had gone dark the dogs wanted to go outside but as soon as they did they refused to leave the entrance stairs, just sniffed in the air and wanted to go back indoors again.

I’ve done the laundry and we’ve had our pancake day so from now on it is just relaxing for me 🙂 I might have to go to the supermarket tomorrow because I have no bird seeds. I could also fill up with other things to be honest. It would be nice if I didn’t have to do it on Monday and Tuesday because of the snow that will fall and after that they’re guessing it will be nasty cold again. Always better to stay at home in the cottage when it is nasty cold 🙂

Have a great day!

Snowstorm and new car.

December 22, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

The snowstorm Pia passed by yesterday evening and all night long. I had borrowed my neighbors car and if there’s one thing one doesn’t want to do is to wreck their car because one was driving careless 🙂 🙂 🙂 So even though I went home half an hour earlier I still came home a few minutes later than I normally would have done 🙂 🙂

A15659_001A — As You can see this photo wasn’t taken today but was taken last spring (with my Agfa Flexilette) but it shows the only big building, besides the castle, that still stands in what once was a thriving village.

20231222_111056 — This is just beside the previous building.

The car dealer and I had agreed to meet around 1pm and I was going to get there by bus. The bus would leave my bus station at 12:05 and on a sunny and nice day in spring or summer it takes around 45 minutes to walk there,so since the world now once again is filled with that white crap (and the fact that it rained a lot before the snow fell and it went cold) I decided to start early, I’m so glad I have studded boots because the snow didn’t stick well to the ice covered road. Today it took almost exactly one hour.

20231222_113302 — This is the creek where it flows out in to the lake.

I think I would have thought the world was beautiful if I hadn’t had to walk in this mess 🙂 🙂 I only brought my phone so only a few photos today. The wind was still blowing pretty hard and it was bitterly cold. Well walking and wearing really good winter clothes did help but standing and waiting for the bus still made me pretty cold inside.

20231222_113436 — The road leading to the castle. Big oaks grown on each side of it.

I managed to get there in time and went to the grocery store on my way home. They usually like when I tell them about my car problems 🙂 🙂 So we had a good laugh before I finally drove home again. I haven’t had much sleep to be honest but I think the short nap I had in my recliner will help me to stay awake until at least 9 pm 🙂 🙂

20231222_114423 — There once was a big yellow house standing behind those Birches. I guess it was the rectory but now days priests usually don’t live beside the churches they work in.

Only one previous owner and it has a new cam belt, that was the thing that made me want to have it without even seeing it in a photo 🙂 🙂 It has six gears, something I need to get used to. The only things I really made sure to know about before I drove home was to know how to open the fuel filler flap, something I didn’t understand with the borrowed car, I had to phone them to know how 🙂 how to handle the different lights and how to control the heat in the car, it took me over a day before I understood it in the borrowed car 🙂 🙂 🙂 Cruise control and how to manage to radio can be learned later 🙂 🙂 🙂

20231222_125854 — This is at the bus stop in a village called Ljung. I like how they decorated the tree like that. Back in the days before they brought in spruces at christmas they often brought in a young crab apple tree, dressed it and if they were lucky it had green leafs and perhaps even small flowers when christmas arrived.

Winter vacation started today so no more work until January 8 🙂

Have a great day!

20231222_150507 — My new car and a very happy Alma 🙂

Quickly melting away :-)

December 17, 2023 · 6 Comments ·

No ice and now snow if I would have taken this photo today.

I was just about to put the harnesses on the dogs when I got a text message that a hunter was going out to the bog using one of his dogs, so no walk this morning. Then again it has started to rain so the dogs wouldn’t be happy about a walk anyway. I can hear the hunting dog bark a lot so there’s something he follows though and perhaps we’ll be able to go out before it gets dark.

We were out yesterday though so that’s when I took the photos You see today. We’re having a strong wind blowing, it’s almost 10C (50F) outside and the rain falling so there’s a lot more snow in these photos than it is outside today. Even the ice seems to have melt away during the night and that makes life so much more easy 🙂

We walked down to the creek and there I could see some paw prints in the snow that were slightly bigger than Almas and like Alma the animal spread their toes while walking in the snow and that’s what wolves do. It didn’t stress the dogs though so either there’s another big dog walking around here that spreads it toes like that or a younger wolf had passed by most likely during the night.

Only four more working days before christmas vacation and I really long for that now. I didn’t win the lottery so christmas vacation is what I can look forward to 🙂 🙂 I have been thinking long and hard of what to buy myself as christmas present. I have now ordered a tin box with Quality Street Chocolate, 2500 grams (5,51 pound) 🙂 🙂 🙂 That’ll last a day or two I guess 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve also put a bid on a telephoto lens for my Agfa Ambiflex, they are rarely up for sale so I do have my hopes up. So far I’m the only one that have placed a bid and I do hope no one else will see this on our Ebay called Tradera. So hold Your thumbs and cross Your fingers for good luck!

Have a great day!

The lamps really help!

December 15, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lots of Great tits eat from that feeder though.

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

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

Have a great day!

the lamps are up and I’ll continue to record my voice :-)

December 10, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

It has been above 0C (32F) all day and will most likely stay there even though it’s just barely. With warmer weather it always looks like strong wind will follow. I can hear it roar outside but it is still coming from a direction that doesn’t hit the cottage. We’ll have a few days that slowly will go colder but then warmer weather will arrive again. How warm it’ll be is hard to guess since the different weather sites says different temperatures. I do hope it’s the Norwegian one because it shows the highest temperatures 🙂

The day has been quite nice since the wind arrived fairly late in the day. We walked down to the creek and no problem getting grip in the snow now when it slowly melts away (we’ll probably still have plenty left when the colder weather starts again though. Lots of the more shy forest birds have now returned there when the sno falls off the vegetation, so no more Bullfinches for a while I guess. The pheasant however comes for a visit every day and I’m starting to think it might be a juvenile rooster because of its size. If it is I do hope it returns for visits when it gets the new darker feathers. I’ve seen photos of melanistic pheasant roosters and they are truly magnificent when the sun hits the feathers.

I’ve put up the two lamps in and outside the dog yard. I tried them yesterday and they worked fine but today they didn’t start to shine when my neighbor drove by. No matter what I did it just stayed dark. Then I remembered that they had a switch on the attachment at the back and voila suddenly they weer glowing like the sun 🙂 🙂 There are three modes to chose from. Number one is that the light continues to shine 100% for twenty seconds after the last movement it can detect but as long as there’s movement it shines. The second mode is that it continues to shine all the time but only 60% of what it can. The third one is the same but 90% all through the night.

So I guess I’ll have the one shining outside the yard on mode three while I have mode one for the one shining in the dog yard. I’ve also started to read the first of the Harry Potter books for the dogs. So far I’ve read two chapters and that took around 48 minutes, great now I’ll only have to read for eight more hours to make sure they can hear my voice all the time after I’ve gone to work 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll continue to record my voice for several days so I do hope these lamps will help a lot!

Only twelve more days before it starts to turn towards longer days again and I do long after that day! Also only twelve more days before Christmas vacation starts and I long for that even more to be honest 🙂 🙂

A15265_030A — Four photos taken with the Agfa Ambi Silette last March, that was when winter arrived last time. I do hope that since we now started with winter that when the warmer weather arrives it also means it won’t return 🙂 🙂 🙂

A15265_033A

Have a great day!

Lots of snow.

December 2, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

We have lots of snow now, I can’t pretend to like it but the dogs are at least clean when they come in from being in the garden. we’ve had two really cold nights, -15C (5F) but mostly it has been between -4C to -8C (24,8F to 17,6F).

There’s so much snow now that the forest birds have problems reaching their food so yesterday I saw the first Bullfinches. I didn’t get any good photos of them, the best is the one shown below. That is a male, the females are more towards mauve colored. I also have a, in this area, very rare visitor and she comes by every day, a Wood Grouse. The roosters can weigh up to 7 kg (15,4 pound) but the hen usually around 3kg (6,6 pound). I’m not sure what she is eating here, they usually eat pine needles. So my guess is that she eats buds from the lilacs and some of the seeds on the ground. We haven’t had a wood grouse in these parts since long before I moved here 23 years ago so it’s kind of cool that when one comes it chose my garden 🙂

We went down to the creek this morning. The snow that the weather sites said wouldn’t fall started to fall already yesterday evening 🙂 It didn’t stop falling until we were almost at home again 🙂 Lots of tracks from animals in the snow, mostly from wild hogs, roe deer, hares, a fox (possibly the one visiting my garden every night and either a small mosse or a big red deer. Only one human had walked there since the dogs and I walked there last time and that was a couple of days ago. My guess is that it is the beekeeper who has made those tracks, very few other people walk there in winter.

Alma was a bit impossible on our walk today so my back feels a bit sour. She has behaved so much better lately but today was a day when she just couldn’t. Turns out that she isn’t especially quiet at nights when I am at work so now I have to figure out a way to either make her quiet down or dampen the sound from her barking. I’ve ordered two sun powered lights that will shine as soon as she’s outside in the dog yard, if that doesn’t help I’ll have to put up a wooden fence instead. Turns out that she sometimes is so loud that she wakes up my neighbors youngest daughter. They are the kindest and best neighbors one can wish for so I wish they would have told me when this started. Well I’ll figure out something to make her at least not sound as much.

I’ve baked a bread today, I checked recipes online and the recipes are either really complicated or they all use a ready mad mix. So I just checked how much flour/ mix they were using and tossed in what I had (in this case oat flour, sorghum flour and rice flour) in the same ammount 🙂 I haven’t tried it yet because as soon as the bread was ready I put in french fries and meatballs in the oven. I’ll have a sandwich with meatballs, christmas ham and beetroot salad after writing this 🙂 As worse it’ll just taste like the breads one can buy and they work if one toast them 🙂

Hunters out in the forest tomorrow and I hope they will hunt for wild hogs because we have so many of them now. They are now slowly destroying the forest roads I usually walk on and it is hard to see where they’ve been now when the snow covers everything. It is very surprising when there’s a deep hole beneath my foot when I can’t see it by looking at the snow 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

A lazy day.

November 19, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

Blue tit. I’ve seen people asking where all the Blue tits have gone when looking on the net, it used to be one of the most common birds by the feeders. They’ve always been around here until this year. It wasn’t until yesterday I saw the first ones by my feeders so they are becoming more rare. I did read however that they are the tits that most common migrates during winter so I do hope that’s the reason we don’t see them as much now days.

I woke up way too early today, just before seven am but I’m still not tired so I do hope the tiredness doesn’t come too early because I need to stay up quite late since I’ll be working tomorrow. We had a rather nice morning here today, no wind, just below 0C (32F) and almost sunshine. We walked down to the creek and Alma behaved pretty well for most of the time.

Nova on the other hand is still pretty annoyed because she’s leashed and she really don’t like that. I’ve told her that if she can’t behave and come when I call her (and sign for her to come, I’ve always learned my dogs signs for different things since many of them lost most of their hearing when going old) she will be leashed whether she likes it or not 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is winter so I thought I should make lots of rice porridge, so I put the ingredients in the slow cooker and it was ready to eat when we came back from our walk to the bog later on. It takes around three hours to do it in the slow cooker but the risk of the porridge being burned is almost none to nothing. It takes at least an hour if doing it on the stove and then it just takes one mistake and the porridge will burn 🙂 🙂 I made the porridge a bit sweeter today because I was also longing for cookies 🙂 🙂 To make it even sweeter I also put some jam in it just before eating it, no craving for cookies after eating that 🙂 🙂 🙂

The sun, so close but still so far away 🙂

I have however not done the laundry and no dinner for next week at work. I just didn’t want to to be honest. So I’ll do the laundry tomorrow before work and I’ll see what I can find in the freezer, I think I have meatballs and sausages in there and I can add an egg or two and perhaps some pasta or potatoes as well. It’ll be exciting to see how many that will turn up to work tomorrow, there are still a few people that weren’t sick last week so it might be their turn now.

The fox came for several visits last night again. I did cheat and put out some dog food but it still moved a bit too fast so most photos were blurry. I’l see what I can do about that tonight, I’ve placed the camera a bit lower this time and I’ll place the dog food in one place and not just throw it out like I did yesterday. The reason I just threw it yesterday was because I had two dogs that would have loved to eat it and I had to do it while they were busy with other things 🙂 🙂 🙂

I talked with a friend on the phone today and told him about my new hours. He has been a boss in several big grocery stores and he said those hours sounded horrible and only people one want to get rid of would get hours like that 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well at least I don’t have to work Fridays when it starts 🙂 🙂 🙂

BURREL — I’ve polished the lens on the camera today so I hope that will help with the blurriness.

Have a great day!

There was a tinge of peanuts.

November 10, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

It has been raining so much lately that I slid on flat ground yesterday and fell to the ground like an axed tree , it’s so wet that the grass no longer can keep the soil together. The fog arrived already yesterday afternoon, sometimes it was so foggy that I didn’t know where I was 🙂 🙂 To my big surprise we still had fog when I woke up so I hurried the dogs and myself so that we would have a chance to have at least a part of our walk in it.

Turns out that I hurried unnecessary, the fog stayed all day even though it became less thick just before the sun was on its way down 🙂 🙂 The cold that never breaks out really worn me down this week, so as soon as we had come home and had had something to eat I decided that I should have a nap in my recliner. Just as I had covered myself in a blanket Albin decided that he should join me in a nap, on the recliner 🙂 So for an hour and a half I had a 60-ish pound pitbull sleeping on my chest and stomach 🙂 🙂 I can tell You that I really didn’t need that blanket 🙂 🙂

I bought myself an Amaryllis (Hippeastrum) this week. I haven’t had one in over a decade if I remember right. I just picked one up without checking what color it will have on its flowers, turns out it is going to be white. That surprised me a bit because around here white flowers means death since they only have them when it’s a funeral. I have nothing against white flowers though but those labels are quite often wrong, so to be honest it can look very different to what the labels shows. I’ll put it out in the garden when spring arrives and with a bit of luck I’ll remember to bring it in again when autumn arrives, I tend to forget and that’s the reason I haven’t had an Amaryllis in over a decade 🙂 🙂 They are easy to sow though but it takes at least three years before it’ll give You a flower.

I’ve baked some french rolls today. They didn’t turn out like rolls though, they sort of flattened out instead 🙂 🙂 Instead of rice flour I used oat flour and it turns out that one need much more oat flour than rice flour, otherwise the dough gets too sticky and soft. I haven’t tried them yet but they smell really nice and I’m pretty sure they’ll taste really nice as well. Last week I hung out a net with peanuts for the birds outside my kitchen window. It tok a while before the birds found it but it became pretty popular after a while. One morning the net was gone and I knew they couldn’t have finished it so fast. At first I thought it was Magpies that had removed it but I think it was too heavy even for them. Then suddenly one of my dogs (I won’t say her name but she’s big and looks like a German shepherd) farted really loud and there was a tinge of peanut in the smell that followed 🙂 🙂

It is time to try that bread and after that I’ll most likely fall asleep in the recliner in front of the tv. I do hope this is the end of that cold, it has stayed for way too long now.

Have a great day!

I still prefer rain to snow.

November 4, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

Long working Friday means slow Saturday. I really can’t understand the genius at work who thought it would be a good idea to make the last working day in the week also the longest (start earlier in the day and stop one hour later in the night). Ok it’s only every second week that happens but to be honest that idea is really stupid 🙂 🙂 🙂 A good thing is that we don’t work the Friday before the christmas vacation starts 🙂

It was so foggy when I drove home last night that I sometimes had no idea where I was. Not even when I was only a few hundred meters (much the same in yards) away from the village 🙂 🙂 I was of course driving really slow and since there were so many Roe deer on and beside the road I most likely would have anyway. I had hoped that there would be lots of fog left when I woke up today but by the time I got up the fog was already on its way to dissolve. I was going to fetch a package at the grocery store in Gudhem so I did that as soon as the dogs had had their breakfast, so I also missed the sunshine we had those few minutes I was away to get that package 🙂

Still it was still quite bright when we were out walking and since there was no wind what so ever it really was quite nice. No bigger animals out in the fields so I was pretty sure no bigger predators were in our part of the forest, deer and other bigger animals tends to go out to the fields when predators are around, so they can see them earlier and therefore flee in time. We did hear some walk away when we passed them on our walk though, running in a dense part of the forest isn’t something one does quiet 🙂

Hunters will be out in the forest tomorrow if the weather isn’t too bad and when looking at the different weather sites it looks like the little rain we’ll get will come in the afternoon. They usually never stay for long though so I guess we’ll have our first walk for the day rather early anyway. It’ll stay fairly warm the coming week and that means it’ll also rain some every day and it doesn’t look like we’ll have a day without rain for at least a week. I must admit that I’m really tired of the rain now, even my sandy soil is now constantly wet and muddy (which is really hard for sand to become 🙂 🙂 🙂 ). I guess however that I wouldn’t like snow and cold weather any more so let the rain come 🙂

20231104_114430

Have a great day!

They are actually pretty good.

October 29, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

The rain is pouring down and sometimes sideways because of the strong gusts we have right now. The dogs refuse to go outside and I so understand them. Also they think I’ll have more of the gluten free gingerbreads I baked earlier today 🙂 🙂 The ones one can buy are an abomination towards any living thing, they are actually so awful that not even Albin and Alma wanted any and those two eat any kind of garbage they can find 🙂 🙂

I found this recipe online and it is called “The best gingerbread recipe ever”. Well they are really good but I’ve had normal gingerbreads that have been slightly better. Still these are gluten free so I guess it is true for being gluten free cookies. I had to do some changes in the recipe though. It said agave syrup or maple syrup. This recipe is obviously made by a rather rich person because both those syrups cost close to what gold costs 🙂 🙂 🙂 It also said Coconut sugar? Didn’t even know that excisted so I used normal sugar instead.

They do taste really good but it is really important that they stay the exact time in the oven because bring them out a bit early they will be kind of soft and really brittle but the exact time and they’re like any other home made gingerbread. Also the original recipe said 150 cookies and that’s insanely much for a first try, so I halved the recipe and I managed to get 24 cookies. I’m not sure what size they make their cookies in but they must be really tiny 🙂 🙂 🙂 Anyway, I’ve tried it and can now do these again closer to christmas.

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I found another walnut on the ground today but the weather wasn’t the nicest so to look up a tree to find one small green thing amongst the still green leafs made it hard to see if it was the one I’ve been looking at or if this was another one that came from elsewhere in the tree 🙂 It’ll rain a lot these coming days so I’ll check the ground for walnuts instead of looking up the tree 🙂

The House sparrows had taken a bath and were cleaning and drying themselves before the rain arrived.

DSC_3901 - kopia

The morning walk was really nice though, no wind and no rain. No sunshine either but that was to be expected. Well I almost saw the sun for half a minute when a thinner layer of clouds flew by. It looked really nice during that half minute and I guess that is what we’ll be able to see until after christmas, if we’re lucky 🙂 🙂 We might get fog though and that’s my second favorite weather but I don’t have high hopes for that either, the last time they said we would get fog what we got was what could best be called a thin haze. It is time to pack my dinners for the coming week at work. I bought some small pieces of chicken the other day, so I fried them just enough to get that fried surface, I also fried a big onion. After that I tossed it in the crockpot together with water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, potatoes and some kind of Asian cabbage, it tastes actually much better than I thought it would 🙂

Have a great day!

Strong winds.

October 14, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

WE had a lovely morning with sunshine and slightly chilly temperature, The wind was strong though and the gusts even stronger. No hunters out in weather like that (and certainly not in the kind of weather we’re having now), so we went out for a walk. Nova finally got what she wanted so out to the bog we went.

The moose fly season hasn’t ended, I found out that after we had come home when one of them were walking on my neck, that fly is no more 🙂 Anyway, we walked out on the peninsula that she loves to walk to and while we stood there for a while I think I actually could hear two wolves howling. They must have been far away and the wind drowned the sound every time a strong gust passed by. So I can’t say that I’m sure I’m right but when that sound reached us the dogs suddenly were in a hurry to go back home again. Due to their reaction I’m pretty sure it was wolves howling.

Especially since it’s the last two days of the moose hunt premiere no humans would be out there shouting and to be honest I doubt that any hunters, even in the neighbor hunting areas would be out a day like today. Trees will be falling in these gusts so even an avid hunter wouldn’t risk their life today. So since the dogs were in a hurry we hurried back to the village. I can’t say I was worried though because they were far away and the wind wasn’t in the direction towards the wolves so they would be able to figure out where we were. They did calm down the closer we came to the village though.

Yesterday when I walked around in the garden I suddenly found the last of the cacti I had placed in the trees during summer. I had apparently placed it high up in the summer apple tree. It wasn’t damaged by the frost so I replanted it in a bigger pot and brought it indoors. I have no idea what kind of soil it should have but I think it is one of those living as an epiphyte on trees and I figure that epiphytes can’t get any lime from the rain water so it shouldn’t require lime in the soil, so I used some of the rhododendron soil I still have. I finally did find a spot for it but anything I now find outdoors that needs to be brought inside will live in the cool cellar during winter, no matter what it is 🙂

One thing I’ve really missed now when I realized that I can’t eat gluten is Digestive crackers. I used to eat them almost every week, preferable with some blue cheese or cheese like camembert or just a strong normal cheese. The ones I’ve found in stores are more or less inedible and only a person that lacks any kind of taste buds would eat them with joy 🙂 🙂 So I found a recipe on the net and baked them yesterday. They are much better than the bought ones but still just barely ok. Too brittle and way too sweet. The sweetness is easily fixed but fixing brittle is a bit more difficult. There are plenty of recipes out there though so I’ll continue until I find the best one.

The weather now is very different from this morning. The wind is even stronger and the gusts have reached storm strength. I can only hear it because my neighbors cottage an´d garage takes almost all the wind. The roaring in the trees when the gusts comes are so loud now that even Alma has started to look out the windows to see what makes that noise 🙂 🙂 Tomorrow will be sunny and less windy so I guess the hunters will be back but hopefully they’ll be gone before the sun sets so we can have a nice walk.

Have a great day!

Not warm but not cold either.

October 13, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

We had meh weather here this morning. It wasn’t cold but not especially warm either, It was cloudy but it didn’t rain and no gaps in the clouds where the sun had a chance to shine through but it was still kind of nice. Nova wanted to go out to the bog but I thought that we had been there almost too often lately so we walked down to the creek instead. Then she wanted to walk in to the forest there but I managed to persuade her to follow the creek down-stream instead. I was a bit surprised that she wasn’t cranky for the rest of the walk because she usually is when she doesn’t get her way 🙂 🙂

We were out to the bog yesterday morning, the hunters weren’t out at all. Yesterday we had a lovely but somewhat chilly day here so it was nice to walk in the forest where the ever lasting wind couldn’t reach us that well. We walked out to the bog and on our way back, Nova walked like always ten meters ahead of the rest of us, suddenly a huge wild hog bor rushed out from the bushes beside the path we were walking on and in the the bushes on the other side 🙂 🙂 🙂 It happened so fast that neither Nova nor Albin even noticed it 🙂 🙂 Alma did however and for a couple of minutes she was screaming like obcessed and then suddenly calmed down like nothing had happened 🙂 🙂 🙂

I think that we might have reached the end of the moose fly season now. Not a single one landed on me or the dogs yesterday or today. The mosquitoes are all gone so it would be nice if we from now on also could be moose fly free as well. Still ticks though but very few, it is getting too chilly for them as well. Wasps however seems to find their way in to my home every day now though. Every now and again a big wasp queen tries to fly through my windows and I have to catch and release them. They do a lot of good by eating flies all summer so if I can save them I’ll do it.

The only orchid I now have has been hanging in the apple tree all summer. I’ve watered it once or twice but that’s it. I brought it in just before the last frost and hung it by my kitchen door. I was looking at it yesterday when I was thinking it perhaps was time to water it again. It did look a bit odd and then I realized that what I looked at was a bunch of flower buds. If I see the signs right there is at least three more bunches on the way. Many months earlier than I though any would show but who cares 🙂 🙂 I almost broke the stem when I lowered the pot in to a bucket full with rain water 🙂 🙂 I really need to replant is and perhaps divide it in to two or four new plants but when ever I do that to orchids they die, also I have no idea what kind of soil or substrate it should grow in. Well I don’t need to think about that until after the new year has started.

Have a great day!