Category: The forest.

So many varieties of rain in one day.

Misty rain.

It is amazing how many different kinds of rains there are because we’ve had all sorts of it today. Misty rain which I think is the worst but it does at least look like thick mist or fog. The drizzle, not that annoying, light autumn rain and showers. The clouds were so thick that I needed to use ISO 3200 and 4000 to be able to take any photos at all.

No wind though so that was a big plus, so the dogs weren’t too disappointed when they had to go for a walk in the morning, well morning is the wrong word because it was pretty late before it was light enough to be able to see where we were going πŸ™‚ We might get a chance to see the sun on Thursday if we’re lucky. Now it’s so muddy that even the dogs and monster dislikes to walk on the “grass” outside the entrance door but I’m pretty sure that if we had walked out to the same place as yesterday it still would be just as dry in the ground there.

My neighbours are all having a cold and I met my neighbour when we went out for our walk and just seeing her made me want to stay far away from her πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I’m not sure if it is a common cold they’re having or this years influenza. What ever it is I’m sort of glad I already have my little cold because if one already has one kind of cold virus one can’t get any other at the same time, learned that last year when a doctor explained that on tv. Β At least one good news when having one of them while several other viruses is hitting the rest of the population πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I’m going to the supermarket tomorrow so I guess I’ll be safe from getting a new one since this little cold I’m having refuses to leave πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Β Well it is time for that last cup of tea for the day but today there’s a science program on tv so I’ll watch that instead of a dvd.

Even the Magpies need something to eat.

Have a great day!

It is much dryer than I thought it is.

Much the same weather today as yesterday so still quite nice. They say we’ll have a couple of warmer days before it drops significantly. By that it means below 0C (32F) during nights and just barely above during days. Well the ground will at least not be muddy any more so I guess I’ll be fine with that πŸ™‚

It isn’t as wet in the ground that I thought it would be and I didn’t think it would be especially wet at all but it is even worse. Normally this time of year, if the ground isn’t frozen it would be hard to walk out to my favourite island in the bog. I thought it would be less water but still very muddy. There was neither water nor mud but completely dry so we could walk out there without any problems what so ever.

Normally it would be hard to walk over this area because of water and mud. The mud can be up to half a meter (much the same in yards) deep πŸ™‚

Fun being able to get out there but still a bit worrying because this is what it is like out there during heatwaves and droughts in summer time but without the ticks and blood sucking flies. No hunters in this area but I could hear hunters all around us (safe distance so no risk of getting shot). I really would have liked to go on the north side of the island because it is much more beautiful there but trees have fallen during storms this year and since it is a nature reserve a fallen tree lies. It is possible to walk around them but if we do it means we’ll have to go through thickets and that’s not fun with two dogs in leash πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

We didn’t walk far on the south side, which is much easier to walk but less beautiful but now when I know we can go out there again we can do that later in the week instead. That was actually the first place I saw wolf tracks a couple of years ago and the dogs were anything but happy to be there. The tracks were as most an hour old because we had new snow on the ground that had started to fall just an hour before we went out. It showed that at least three wolves just had passed , could be more but they tend to walk in their own footsteps. I’ve never seen any wolf though but several in the village has and also some of the hunters have seen them. If I ever will I’m sure that I either have no camera or that it malfunctions when I try to take a photo πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I think this lichen is what they used to have ,back in the day when we had one glass windows, as insulation when they put in another one glass window (Is that perhaps what You call storm windows?)when winter arrived and we of course call it window lichen πŸ™‚

I think, if I’ve learned it right that this lichen is the one reindeer eat, so of course we call it reindeer lichen. It is more towards greenish than the photo shows.

I’ve ordered my Christmas present. I really don’t want it now but I’ll need it next winter. Before covid I would just have waited since they have things on sale every day and it wouldn’t have become any more expensive. Now however we have all learned that things have changed and prices will up because of tariffs and inflation (even though our inflation is lower than it has been in years now that’s not the case in all countries). So I bought myself an aquarium, a smaller one, because next year I’ll have goldfish in the little pond I’ve made and also in some of the water barrels I’ve put up. Those fish will be too big for the aquarium I now have changed to an aqua terrarium so they’ll need somewhere to stay the winter.

One problem though, I haven’t a clue where to place it πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Well it’s about a year until I need to have it up and running so I’ll figure it out by then πŸ™‚ Well it is time for that last cup of tea for the day and after that I still haven’t a clue what to do, absolutely nothing to watch on tv but I can always watch a dvd.

Have a great day!

A grey and dull day but since we didn’t have any wind it actually turned out to be a rather nice day even though the temperature never rose above 7C (44.6F) and as it looks it will not fall especially much during the night either.

The hunters were out in the forest today and I doubt they had any success, turns out they had hunting dogs Β but I couldn’t hear any barking until they were about to jump in the the cars again just before they left for the day. To be honest I’m a bit worried about the wild life here because it looks like we have very few of the bigger ones at all. I hope it is because of the wolves being here for a while and that they will come back when the wolves move back towards the south again.

I haven’t see a single hare either in a very long time. I really don’t like hares (or bunnies) to be honest Those front teeth can bite through anything and I’ve felt this way since, when I was a kid, my best friend had a pet rabbit πŸ™‚ I can’t remember it ever biting me but it is enough to see those teeth to be honest πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I do have the same feeling about water voles, they can grow pretty big to be honest and their front teeth are even worse (and very yellow with looks pretty nasty πŸ™‚ ) and if getting too close to them they’re pretty aggressive πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

No sights of any animals more than some ravens and woodpeckers when we finally could have our walk but there are lots of rather tine mushrooms growing up in the forest. Usually pale grey or sometimes the same brown colour as fudge. Actually quite pretty where they grow in dark green moss and it feels sort of christmassy πŸ™‚ One of our Christmas ornaments, especially in our advent candle sticks but some also have them in their Christmas trees are red toadstools. Have no idea why but I guess the red colour helps with that.

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and since there’s nothing I want to see on tv today I’ll need to find something else to do but can’t come up with anything, not because I have nothing to do but because I really don’t want to do any of it πŸ™‚

Have a great day!

The sunshine is still warm.

Dryer and colder winds will fly down over the country and I could feel it early this morning. 0C (32F) when the dogs and I went out for our morning walk. All the cars were covered in frost and the ground was slightly frozen so we weren’t especially muddy when we came back home.

Two male Bullfinches.

Sunshine all day long though and the heat from the sun was so strong that I could have the kitchen door open as long as the light hit the south heading wall. I can’t say it felt like early spring but it was really nice. This was however most likely the last sunshine we will see for at least ten days if the weather sites have guessed it right πŸ™‚

The temperatures will fall so from tomorrow it will be a bit chilly here. Not below 0C (32F) during the days but perhaps during nights. Β I took a look at the Kaki fruit kernels (an Asian relative to the Persimmon fruit) in the fridge, It does look as at least one might germinate so hold Your thumbs and cross Your fingers for good luck πŸ™‚ Β This time of year is a bit boring when it comes to gardening and sowing. Well some plants need a winter or two to be able to germinate so I’ll start with those but not until January.

I bought myself a big Amaryllis (Hippeastrum) bulb when I went to the grocery store in FalkΓΆping after our walkThe ones I’ve seen has been ridiculously expensive but these were manageable in price. It says this one will have red petals with a white string in the middle of every petal. I don’t care if it is or not (usually lots of those bulbs are wrongly marked but who cares just as long as they flower πŸ™‚ ) Have You ever sown the seeds from the Amaryllis? It is quite easy but it’ll take around three to four years until they flower and the flowers will most likely not look the same as the parent plant, sometimes one get the most amazing flowers from seeds.

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and later I’ll watch On the Tracks on tv, it’s really the only thing I watch now days πŸ™‚

Have a great day!

Normally or perhaps back in the days we would have winter now, mostly the temperatures would stay way below 0C (32F) at nights and barely reach above it if it even managed to do that. To be honest, I don’t miss it at all πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I know the greenhouse effect and climate change is anything but good for us but I must admit that I like these warmer days and nights.

I can’t tell You how warm it has been today because the battery died in the thermometer πŸ™‚ A new battery in today so I’ll know what it is like tomorrow πŸ™‚ They are however guessing that it might reach above 12C (53,6F) and it will stay like that until at least Friday. No sunshine though but cloudy and a bit rainy. With the sun shining it would have been t-shirt weather in my garden πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I went to the supermarket today and I saw a heard with Red deer not too far from the road and on my way home here in the village a young Fallow deer buck crossed the gravel road just in front of me. I saw it early so there was no risk of me hitting it with the car thankfully. Normally it is suicidal cats that cross the road way too close to the car so it was nice to see something else for once πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

This time of year is when I normally feel the Christmas feelings just to see them go away some time in the middle of December πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Not so far though, I guess I was annoyed enough to see a big Yule gnome (or Santa) standing by the entrance to the supermarket already in the middle of October. Personally I can’t understand those people who start with any holiday two months before it happens, I usually get tired of it after a week or two.

I’m not a Christmas present guy at all but I usually buy myself a present this time of year, something I really want but perhaps normally wouldn’t buy, not because it is expensive but because I really don’t need it πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ One year I bought myself a Hasselblad camera for my birthday, I really didn’t need any camera since I do have way too many as it is anyway but I wanted to spoil myself with something πŸ™‚ Today I think I have around 60 cameras, both for film and digital ones πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ To be fair, most of them pretty cheap, like an over a hundred years old Kodak camera that I bought for less then $ 3 US πŸ™‚ It still works perfectly.

I have an idea about what I would like to buy this year even though I should be careful with money since I still am unemployed. So I will have to think a lot more about it before deciding. I’ll be just as happy at Christmas without it just as long as it doesn’t snow and is cold πŸ™‚ The last cup of tea for the day is standing beside me and after that there’s a science program on tv I want to watch πŸ™‚

Have a great day!

MΓΆsakΓ€rringar.

The mist rolled out from the forest when we went out for our morning walk and people growing up here says that it’s because MΓΆsakΓ€rringen ( I can’t find the phonetic letter but o and e goes together and so do the a and e so it should be something like this: Moesa Kaerringen) a translation would be something like the bog hags puts out there fires after a cold night. They are a local variation to wood spirits but I call them Bog Ladies because who knows they might exists and that sound much nicer πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I saw it at several places and sometimes in the forest. We were lucky to have sunshine when we were outside but mostly it has been cloudy today. Rather nice and warm though to be honest. We went out to the bog and when we reached the end of the peninsula we stood still there for a while and both the dogs and I could hear something walking behind some trees. I have no idea what but it really tried to be as quiet as it possibly could. It might have been the two moose we happened to scare away on our morning walk yesterday.

Do You remember when I pushed all those thorny rose branches through the compost grinder? Those tiny thorns are now aching their way out from my hands. The spot gets swollen and there’s usually a small blister filled with puss and that has been happening all over my hands for a couple of days πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Not nice but it’ll soon be over thankfully.

Today I put an entire chicken in the oven, I’ve done that so many times before but those times I mostly did it without any spices because it was meant for my severely food allergic dog Albin. He couldn’t eat any kind of fish or meat but he could eat chicken. Also he couldn’t eat all kinds of rice either so it was always rather tricky to get his food right. Mostly however he ate vegan dog food, the first time I bought it I must say it felt so wrong because dogs usually eat meat but it worked so great that I finally could stop cooking chicken and it too na couple of years before I tried chicken again πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

Since the oven was on I also baked a big loaf of bread and even though it didn’t rise especially much it still turned out to be rather good. No matter how tasty these gluten free breads can be when one doesn’t use readymade mixes nothing will beat a French roll with butter, cheese and a slice of bell pepper πŸ™‚ Oh how I miss them πŸ™‚

I’m drinking the last cup of tea for the day and since there’s nothing I want to look at on tv I’ll continue to watch Eureka before it is time to go to bed πŸ™‚

Have a great day!

Grey and dull.

Not the happiest weather today, cloudy and boring when we were out on our morning walk but on the way home the rain arrived and it continued to rain half the day or so. Even though the garden is rather muddy (and also my home) we still need more rain so the groundwater level finally rise to more normal levels. I’ve cleaned the bottom floor so much now that it feels that there isn’t much left of it πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I’ve now made an appointment for when my car will go through the annual vehicle inspection, December 29th. We used to have it every twelve month but we’ve it every fourteen month because that what they have down on the continent. I can’t see the logic in that but since we’re member of the EU we do what they do. I usually have it the last day I can because if there’s something that needs to be fixed I have one more month to drive before it is illegal πŸ™‚ Β I really don’t like to have to do it when it is winter but next year it can be done as late as late February to early March πŸ™‚ All problems are so much nicer when it is warmer and nicer outdoors πŸ™‚

It is Persimmon season now and it is one of my favourite fruits. This time however they sold Kaki fruits, a relative to the Persimmon, they taste much the same but You can eat the Kaki even though it isn’t fully ripe. These are always seedless but every now in a blue moon some have a seed in them and I’ve been lucky twice already πŸ™‚ Both Persimmon and Kaki fruits are just as cranny as Pawpaw seeds to germinate but I’ve done as I always do, put them in a moist paper towel and inside a plastic bag and placed them in the fridge so I’m hoping for good luck. I doubt these will be especially hardy though but I can have them in pots for several years before they grow too big. The problem I can see is that those pots will be nasty heavy and difficult to bring down to the cool cellar during each winter πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

All the chickens have moved, I’ll miss them.

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day. I’m thinking of perhaps having an ice cream at the same time but I have already had two today πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

Have a great day!

It was at least not raining today.

Waiting for his turn at the bird feeder. The photos will be from both yesterday and today.

I haven’t done much today or yesterday to be honest, well I drove to the store in KvΓ€num and was surprised over how much it costed but I really shouldn’t have because everything is nasty expensive now days. Didn’t think I bought that much but then again I did but a quite big chunk of cheese and Wiener sausages, they do cost more than the others but it is worth it πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Also I bought a few batteries and even though they’re not especially big the price on them is so after a while I realised it wasn’t that bad after all πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I have two old dvd players, one that doesn’t open up so I can put a dvd in it and one that do open up but for some reason doesn’t put out the sound when it should so people can talk like crazy but no sound, however it does come after a while at the wrong place πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ So I had bought a new cheap one to replace them. Well something didn’t work as it should on that one either, it might be as simple as something is wrong with the HDMI cable. I’ve tried everything, even the old screen to my last computer. I was in the kitchen when I tried it but nothing happened. So a bit annoyed I ripped out the cable to the screen and would bring it back from where I fetched it. Well I didn’t rip out the right cable so the dvd player fell down on the floor in a quite high speed.

So that one doesn’t work either now πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ That’s when I remembered my old laptops have dvd players so I brought one of them down to the living room and put in a dvd. All worked just fine until it didn’t. So since I now was a bit more annoyed I hit my fist over the laptop and everything stopped and the screen froze πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Nothing worked so since I do need this laptop when I want to write out documents for the road association meetings I shut it off and then on again. Now the dvd player works just as it should and everything else seems to be working fine as well πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

When I was in KvΓ€num I also visited my old work friends and I talked with my old apprentice about that I need to get a banked on my new phone and that’s always tricky as best. so he showed me what to do and that worked so easily that it surprised me, so now I don’t have to worry about the old phone shutting down again because now I have it on my new phone πŸ™‚ Yesterday we had muggy weather with rain on and off but today the sun shone all day long πŸ™‚ Also the sun warmed up the cottage so much that I could turn off the radiators πŸ™‚ The muggy and rainy weather will return again tomorrow though. We do need it but days get so boring when we have to stay indoors all the time, then again I can now watch my dvd’s so that’s better πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I bought all seasons of an old favourite of mine called “A town called Eureka” it has not aged bad at all πŸ™‚

It is time to give the animals their food and after that I guess I’ll watch a couple of programs on my old laptop πŸ™‚ Of course I’ll make a pot of tea before I start πŸ™‚

Have a great day!

It could have been so nice if it wasn’t for the biting cold wind.

This could have been a really nice day if it wasn’t for the wind that has been blowing all day long, a cold biting wind that made it hard to stay outside for any longer period of time. Not even the dogs wanted to stay out for especially long and kept coming to the door to go inside again.

Cold and frosty in the morning and despite the sun hitting my car I still had to scrape ice from the windows at 9:30am, not a favourite thing to do πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Still the morning walk was quite nice because the wind hadn’t arrived yet and the sun still giving some warmth. We walked out to the bog and while we stood at the end of the peninsula we could hear something walking towards us. We never saw what it was but it did sound relatively big, like a red deer or perhaps a moose.

The dogs didn’t really react to it more than that they stared in the direction the sound came from and looked curious πŸ™‚ It was impossible for anything to walk silently in the forest because of all the frozen leafs on the ground, it sounded like we all were walking on cornflakes spread on a hard floor πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I went to the supermarket after we had come home because I had very little to eat in my fridge.

It was a costly trip, much more than I had expected πŸ™‚ I did buy everything on the list but I also went in to the pet shop (can one say it’s a pet shop supermarket because it’s really big that store?) I found a prefect food for my aquarium fish and it costed a fortune but then again the fish are few and will eat very little so it might last for the rest of my life πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Also I bought two new ceramic food bowls for the dogs, Malkolm seems very unwilling to eat from his old one made from some kind of metal. Those weren’t cheap either but oddly enough didn’t cost more than the fish food πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

After that I went to the Dollar store just around the corner and bought seeds for the wild birds in the garden. They also coast a little fortune but compared to any other store they were cheap πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ I don’t want the birds to stop eating what they can find in the nature so I’ll only feed them when I know nights will be frosty. They still need to know how to find food if I for some reason can’t help them. They have noticed that birds who live in areas where lots of people feed them forgets how to find food elsewhere and even what things they can eat. I also only give them seed mixes even though they all most likely would love to just have sunflower seeds for much the same reason. We have very few sunflowers flowering here since those who do comes from either what we sow in our gardens or from bird seeds that birds brought with them from the feeders and dropped them on the way to where they can eat them safely.

It is time for a cup of coffee I think, it’s way too early for that last cup of the yet. I actually bought peanuts for the bird feeder by my kitchen window, I know mice climb up and eat those peanuts but that was before the little monster moved here πŸ™‚ She’s outside most nights and I’m pretty sure the mice soon will stop eating the peanuts because she’s a really good mouse hunter πŸ™‚

I have now two bigger and four smaller apricot trees in my garden and this is the only one giving me autumn colours.

Have a great day!

Despite we’ve had so many really cold nights here now the moose fly still flies, very few others show themselves even when the sun shines now but moose flies just refuse to give up. I do wonder why we even have them now since we have almost no moose left around here.

I thought this was a hole in the tree but it isn’t. For some reason the place where the branch once sat has gone completely black πŸ™‚

The morning walk was nice though, despite the moose flies, and since we had a cloudy sky and on and off rain it was fairly warm. There are still some leafs hanging on the trees but every day get less colourful and a bit more dull. Some Yarrow still flowers but very few other flowers.

Most people stay in their homes as well, only the tractors are still active, farmers rarely have some time over to do other things. Even the hunters seems to have given up this year, I’m not complaining because that means I’ll be able to be in the forest without getting disturbed πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I just found the wildlife camera but so far nothing have shown in the garden. The only thing it has taken photos of is the dogs and I πŸ™‚

These are the best tasting tomatoes I’ve eaten in years but I have no name so I’ll save some seeds and sow them next year again πŸ™‚

The little cold I’ve had for some time now just refuses to give up and today I was freezing all the time so nothing much has happened here but I’ve had a lot of ice cream πŸ™‚ I think it is time for that last cup of tea for the day and after that I’ll most likely will fall asleep in front of the tv πŸ™‚

Have a great day!

Wolves, eagles, ravens and a try from someone to scam my mother.

Yesterday mornings sunrise. We didn’t see much of the sun until just before it set.

So my mother just called me because she had gotten a text message from me saying I couldn’t manage any more, meaning needed money. Well the thing is that I haven’t sent her a message because I know she most likely don’t know how to answer πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ So the one sending it wanted to scam her for money. What that person doesn’t know is that she barely knows how to make a call and wouldn’t be able to send any money until Monday when the banks open and only if she could get a ride πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I really don’t know how this works, if they can do the same to other relatives so I’ve been calling around to relatives so if they get the same message they won’t answer to it. This is at the moment a popular way to trick money out go people because who won’t help a child/ relative in need if they can? I’ve told my 89 year old mother to report it to the police even if it actually won’t help because like everywhere they have too little staff and no money to check in to it. Just imagine how much good these people could do if they tried to help people instead!

Yesterdays morning walk was a disaster πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ All of a sudden Malkolm refused to walk in front of me and Alma when we were walking on the very narrow path beside the creek. He did everything to avoid walking and it almost resulted in he almost tied my feet together with his leash. I just couldn’t understand what he was doing but after a long while we managed to continue. Normally he walks with his nose close to the ground but this time he looked straight ahead and pulled the leash unusually hard, then suddenly Alma joined him and they almost made me fall and they didn’t calm down until we were at home.

I can’t figure out what I didn’t understand him until I realised that they behaved like they did the first time we had wolves close to us πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ This time the reaction was much stronger so I guess that if I had looked around I might have seen it but I was more occupied in not getting tied up and fall πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ So I think we better avoid the creek for a while, not because I think the wolf still might be there but because it is still too fresh in his memory. So we walked out to the bog instead and today he was like he always is, nose glued to the ground and slightly pulling the leash. It was pretty cold and the temperature was quite low, -6C (21,2F). Thankfully we had sunshine and the sun is still warming up the air quite a lot.

So I have actually had the kitchen door open as long as the sun hit the southern wall. It is sad to see all the leafs falling off but when they are gone the sun hits that wall for a much longer time πŸ™‚ I could even turn off the radiators for several hours. Now it’s dark outside and the temperature will drop quite a lot again tonight.

I’m making rice porridge in the slow cooker and it’s almost time to have some πŸ™‚ So I’ll skip that last cup of tea for the day and enjoy the porridge instead with lots of raspberry jam πŸ™‚

Sometimes White tailed eagles flies over the cottage and they always have ravens chasing them.

The Raven is a rather big bird but looks pretty small beside the eagle.

Have a great day!

T-shirt weather.

I woke up in the middle of the night because too much tea I guess πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ and naturally I couldn’t fall asleep especially quickly leading to me sleeping unusually long and when I looked out the window I could see the ground was covered in unusually thick fog. The dogs and I rushed to go outside, took perhaps as most ten minutes and by that time almost all of it had vanished. I was a bit annoyed to be honest but then the sun shone and the leafs in the trees looked like they were burning, so I stopped being annoyed πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

I wouldn’t say it was cold but I can say it wasn’t warm so even if we went out to the bog only one moose fly showed any interest in us, meaning me πŸ™‚ Deer were barking so something out there were scaring them but I doubt that it was a wolf, deer have a tendency to think anything is scary as long as it moves. Could have been a fox or perhaps wild hogs passing by. Lots of small birds flying between the trees, Jays arguing further up close to the tree tops and ravens flying towards the bigger roads to see if breakfast was served (meaning something gotten hit by a car or lorry during the night).

the temperature never rose above 12C (53,6F) in the shadow but the sunshine was so warm today that I had to change from a sweater to a t-shirt. It was impossible not to enjoy it so we spent a big part of the day outside in the garden. I really didn’t have anything to do so I decided that those roses I had cut down and would put in the compost grinder next year (mostly because of the thorns) would be better if I did that today πŸ™‚ This rose has millions of small but awfully sharp thorns but they soften a lot if being wet for a longer period of time so the branches can be handled without too much problems. The problem is that not all become soft so now I have lots of tiny thorns in my hands because why would I use gloves πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

The old vegetable garden looks a bit odd now when the fence is gone. I didn’t remove any weeds after I had harvest all but some leeks and the potatoes so half is green and half brown where the potatoes grew πŸ™‚ There are still some tiny leeks in there though πŸ™‚

Since I now have found my jigsaw I thought why not cut those barrels open so I finally have those extra rainwater barrels I’ve been talking bout to do as soon as I found the jigsaw πŸ™‚ I do like to play with machines but I must admit I’m not good at it πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ So I cut one open at the top and placed it by the entrance door. Then I thought that it is actually impossible to have too many rainwater barrels and I knew I had two more barrels I could use (blue plastic ones, I’m not much for the aesthetics to be honest. Yes a rainwater barrel in oak do look good but costs a fortune especially since we don’t have any distillery where one can get them for free anywhere near πŸ™‚ So blue plastic ones will do great πŸ™‚

So I made one more to the greenhouse and realised I have at least one extra barrel in the old garage (so two more instead of one more) but by then I’d started to look at those thorny branches so I might do another rainwater barrel tomorrow and place it Β on the other side of the greenhouse πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ Β in between I went indoors to have some tea and ice cream πŸ™‚ Β Now it’s dark outside and I could hear rain hitting my window so tomorrow I’ll check how much water has fallen in to the new barrels πŸ™‚ At the moment however my biggest concern is to try and remove as many tiny thorns I can from my hands, they itch like crazy right now πŸ™‚

I’ll skip that last cup of tea for the day, it is much nicer to be able to sleep all night instead πŸ™‚ Also if I go up the dogs go up as well and if they go up they want to go outside and if they go outside I’ll have to go first to check there’s no badger walking around looking for food and since it’s chilly at night I’ll have problems falling asleep again πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

My big apple tree is actually only half a tree, the other half fell one summer because that side grew too big.

Have a great day!