Category: This and that.

It’s raining, it’s pouring.

May 24, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

No photos from today. This is the beginning of a cherry plum tree 🙂

The day started nice but went downhill after that. It’s a bit chilly, the humidity is up to 94% and it is mostly raining. Sometimes it stops raining but not for especially long. The rain will continue more or less for at least five days. It seems that the Cuckoo bird I heard didn’t have a clue to what weather we’ll have this summer 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Thankfully the dogs refuse to take walks when it rains and I’m not complaining about that 🙂 🙂 Even the birds seems to think this is a bit much and it looks like most of them hide beneath the roof on my patio, so nice to get more poop on everything in there 🙂 🙂 I did however take advantage of this rain and I’ve spread lots of flower seeds on the lawn pieces I’ve placed over the stinging nettles. I do hope they grow large before the nettles manages to grow through it all.

Yesterday I woke up pretty grumpy, I can’t remember what I had dreamt but that grumpyness stayed all day. Today I woke up even more grumpy, still no idea what I had dreamt about and I’ve felt both grumpy and cranky all day 🙂 🙂 I do hope I dream about something funny tonight because the days get so slow when feeling grumpy 🙂 🙂 I once woke up in the middle of the night laughing like crazy, have no idea what I had dreamt about then either but I did feel very happy when I finally went back to sleep. I wish that could happen again because it felt just great!

Never a good sign when ants gather like this, there are most likely aphids hiding in those leafs.

b (149) — I’ve sown lots of these today.

We have a holiday on Thursday (Ascension Day) and I hope I have nothing to paint on Friday because if I haven’t I will go home early. They are so busy where I worked before so they’ll have to work and that sort of feels nice, for me that is 🙂

Have a great day!

I’ve started to remove the lawn.

May 22, 2022May 22, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

DSC_0002 (9) — Do You remember that big old crabapple tree that grew outside the dog yard but fell down in a storm a couple of years ago? Root shoots from it have now grown so big that they’ve started to flower.

I woke up pretty early this morning, let the dogs outside and saw that everything still was pretty wet after yesterdays rain. So as soon as they had come back in I went up to bed and slept for an hour and a half more 🙂 Really nice and the dogs didn’t seem to mind either 🙂

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The day has mostly been cloudy, sometimes there’s been a gap between clouds so that the sun has reach us down on the ground. No rain really but the occasional drop has fallen every now and again. I did hang out the laundry to dry because an occasional drop doesn’t make much difference. The humidity has been rather high though, 88%.

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I’ve started to remove the lawn where the potato patch will be, so far I’ve removed perhaps a quarter of it and I’ve also planted three mini kiwi vines (I think they also are called hardy kiwi vines). I’ve done enough for the day I feel so I’ll continue to remove lawn tomorrow. The parts I’ve removed I’ve started to cover lots of stinging nettles. It won’t stop them from growing but it will at least slow them down a bit. Stinging nettles are an indicator plant, they only grow where there’s lot of nutrients, especially nitrogen, in the ground. I hate stinging nettles no matter how useful they are but I refuse to get rid of my dogs who are the source of all that nitrogen just to get rid of the nettles 🙂 🙂 🙂

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It looked like the frost took those tiny peaches that grow on my new peach tree but that might not be after all. The peaches are still there and they aren’t soft as they would be if the frost had damaged them. The color however is towards brown but perhaps that is what is supposed to as they grow? I do hope they hang on so I at least once can have a taste of my own peaches 🙂 I’ve also ordered another apricot tree. Unfortunately I had to order from the same place so lets hope they’ll do it right this time, there’s only place for so many trees in my garden and one peach tree is enough, especially since I never wanted one in the first place 🙂 🙂 🙂

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I think I’ll have a last cup of tea for the day. I didn’t win the big winning in any of the lotteries this week, so I’ll have to go to work tomorrow. Well I would have stayed that month we have after telling them one will quit working anyway but I think I would have felt much happier about it if I had won 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Have a great day!

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Nature loves it.

May 21, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

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It has been raining all day, sometimes just drizzle and sometimes a nice presummer rain. We managed to take a walk while the rain wasn’t too bad but after that every time I’ve opened the door to let the dogs out they’ve just looked outside and turned back in again.

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I think we might have reached 10C (50F) and even though it wasn’t especially warm it still has felt rather nice outside and I have been able to have the kitchen door open for a while. There’s one radiator working to push out any dampness that would have filled up my cottage otherwise.

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Nature loves this weather though so I’m not complaining too much. I’ve done very little today, I’ve taken a long nap and I’ve made pancakes 🙂 I just bought 32 eggs from a work friend, just in time actually because the day after I got them a fox found its way in to the hen and killed all but five of them. She knows it was a fox because it was still standing there when she went to clean up in the hen house. Well foxes need food too.

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There’s absolutely nothing I want to watch on tv tonight and I suddenly realized that the book I’ve started reading was a bit too familiar, I’ve already read it before. I do have some dvd’s I haven’t watched yet and have lots of other books I haven’t read either so I might do one of those instead.

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Have a great day!

DSC_0003 (5) — My two Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) trees have survived winter. Two small green dots that will become leafs 🙂

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DSC_0016 (8) — Sorbus domestica, apple rowan I think it’s called. Its fruits becomes pretty big and is said to taste good.

DSC_0018 (8) — Two of my camellias are still in bloom.

DSC_0020 (8) — Vitis amurensis, Amur grapevine.

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DSC_0024 (8) — I’ll unfortunately get loads of lilacs this year.

We didn’t get much but more will fall.

May 20, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

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The showers never passed above us here so we didn’t get that much rain but then again it’ll rain all weekend, perhaps no showers but I’m pretty sure we’ll get enough to fill up my water barrels. Today has been pretty nice though, just below 20C (68F), a little windy with cool air blowing and mostly cloudy with rather thin clouds.

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I had planned to dig up the potato and vegetable patches today but I felt too tired by the time I was supposed to do it so I’ll do that tomorrow instead, if it doesn’t rain too much of course 🙂 I do wake up early every day but 3:30 am is a bit early even for me but that’s when I need to get up on Fridays since I need to be first at work to go through (literally actually) the big washing machine before anyone else starts to work 🙂 There’s so much to do in the powder paint department that they need to work the entire weekend and they’ll also work on Thursday when we’re having a holiday here. Guess if I’m glad I don’t work in there any more 🙂 🙂

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We walked down to the creek after I had come home today and I must say that Almas behaviour has improved a lot. She still pulls the leash and she still shouts and whines but not even close to what she used to. Unless she see anything moving of course 🙂 🙂 She loves t watch birds or just even listen to them and now she can hear the Cuckoo bird everywhere. I don’t think I’ve ever heard as many as this year and the first one I heard Cuckooed from north and according to old folklore that means we’ll have a dry summer. Spring and now presummer has been dry so far so who knows if that one is right 🙂 🙂

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It is time for a pot of tea and I think I still have a few digestives I can have with it. I also think I might have some blue cheese to put on them and if the rain waits to start falling I even might have it while sitting on te kitchen stairs. No sunshine now but birds are singing and it’s quite nice outside 🙂

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Have a great day!

Yay! The mosquito season has started :-)

May 19, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

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I really didn’t need to paint anything today but the weather was so nice and we had summer temperatures so I did it anyway 🙂 🙂 It was so warm in the factory but so nice where I paint so that half of the day I was there was so nice and time just ran away. It didn’t when I had to go back to the heat again 🙂 🙂

DSC_0002 (7) — The cherry flowering is almost over and now starts the apples 🙂

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The clouds arrived before I drove homewards though and now it rains but just a nice spring rain. It can change pretty fast though if the showers that can give us up to an inch of rain comes this way. We do need the rain though so I won’t complain if those showers comes here. That would also fill up my water barrels so that’s another reason not to complain.

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I need to buy more fence. I put up fences around the places where I’ll have the potato patch and the vegetable patch and even though I do feel those spaces were smaller than I expected I still spent an entire roll of fence 🙂 🙂 🙂 I haven’t started to remove the grass yet, I’ll do that tomorrow unless it rains then too. I’ll place the removed lawn on top of stinging nettles, it won’t kill them but it will at least slow them down a little.

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The frost we had the other night killed almost all the small peaches on my new tree, they have turned brownish. I hope that at least the two that still just were withered flowers might grow in to peaches though. It also killed all my corn plants, that annoyes me a bit more actually. I do however have more seeds to sow so I’ll do that this weekend and I’ll cover the ground so that any small seedlings that show won’t freeze if we’ll get frost again.

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Yay, the mosquito season has started 🙂 We were walking in the forest when they suddenly attacked us. I have a few bites on my back but the most annoying one is on the side of one of my fingers. I don’t even know how it managed to go there since I held two leashes with that hand. Just a few minutes ago a woman with a stroller and a small dog passed my cottage and went up to my neighbors. The poor woman must have been scared to death when Albin and Alma suddenly started huffing and puffing and barking just as she walked beside my fence 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Have a great day!

Frost in the morning.

May 17, 2022 · Leave a comment ·

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From what I’ve been able to see we’ve had a rather wonderful day. It started with frost though and I was a bit worried that the tiny peaches would freeze and fall off but they were still hanging on this afternoon.

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I did start to paint some things this morning but when the first things were painted it turned out that I didn’t have any place to put them while continue painting other things. We have so much to do now in the factory that all places where one can place materials are occupied. So I had to stop and do other things in the factory instead. Time flew while I was painting but it sure didn’t fly when I had to do other things instead. It is amazing how boring jobs can make time stand still.

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I was planning on fence in the area where I’ll have my potato patch and also the place where I’ll have the vegetable patch today. The fence is a self standing one covered in a thin layer of plastic so it will be quite easy to put it up. On my way home however I remembered that I don’t have any cutting pliers hare at home so tomorrow I’ll borrow one from work instead. We’ll get some rain tomorrow night and quite a lot on Saturday if they’re guessing right so it would be a good thing if I could have prepared those two areas before it starts on Saturday.The potatoes would love it.

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We walked down to the creek after work and I must say that Alma has started to behave much better. Ok she still behaves insane but in a calmer way 🙂 🙂 🙂 She even stopped screaming to a couple of cars passing by after just a few seconds 🙂 🙂 Albin continued a bit longer and the beekeeper thought he sounded like a Tasmanian Devil 🙂 🙂 🙂 To be honest he does sound much like it 🙂 🙂 🙂

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It is time for a cup of tea, I’m pretty sure I’m tired enough so that I still can fall asleep tonight 🙂

Have a great day!

f (2)

Sunny and warm.

May 15, 2022 · 5 Comments ·

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We’ve had a rather lovely day, sunshine almost all the time, some occasional clouds have passed by but I didn’t mind. The wind is weaker than before and today it was just cool enough when I mowed the lawn. Not that much of the wind reach the garden but the little that did was really nice.

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We walked down to the creek this morning and then followed it up-streams and walked through the forest on our way back home again. I think we scared away some wild hogs but I could still feel the smell of them when we passed that place. It’s a good thing they rather run away than stay to see what’s walking up the road 🙂 🙂

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I’ve also done the laundry and mowed the lawn so I feel that I’ve done more than enough for the day 🙂 When one plant a tree like I did the other day one must water at least ten liters of water every day for around ten days, even if it rains so that’s the only other thing I’ve done today. I was thinking for a while that I should bake a sponge cake or something like that but I didn’t have any baking powder and I didn’t have the energy to do anything else so instead I’ve longed for something sweet all day long 🙂 🙂

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I watched the eurovision last night but I went to bed before the voting started. It was around 11:30pm by the time they had stopped singing and I have no idea for how long that program continued. Ukraine won as expected, United Kingdom came second, Spain third and our song fourth, not bad at all. The Italian song ended further down and I have to say that if one insists on singing big parts in falsetto like the Italian guys did one really should be able to do that without getting out of tune, it just sounds horrible 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Well I didn’t win the lottery this weekend either so I’ll go to work as usual tomorrow morning. The coming week will be rather warm, some days well over 20C (68F) but they are also guessing that there will be more clouds hanging around. I’m so glad I don’t work in the powder painting department any longer, it’ll be nasty hot in there already on Tuesday. I’ll be able to have an open gate when I paint so I’ll just enjoy the warmer days 🙂

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Have a great day!

I can always use it as a berså later on.

May 14, 2022 · 3 Comments ·

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It looks nicer outside than it is. Mostly sunshine, I can hear the wind blow pretty hard but I can’t say it feels warm even in the sunshine. They keep saying warmer weather will come soon but they’ve said that for some time now. Most likely it’ll arrive when we work and go away again when the weekend comes 🙂 🙂

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I’ve planted the peach tree today and when I watered it I suddenly saw that there are tine peaches on it 🙂 Seven for sure but it looks like two more withered flowers might give two more. I do hope the tree hasn’t been too stressed by being shipped in a box so that these peaches grow to become big and I’ll be able to eat them. My hopes aren’t high but I’ll hold my thumbs and cross my fingers for good luck 🙂

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I saw cats, hares and foxes on our morning walk today but thankfully none of the dogs did 🙂 So Alma was actually behaving rather well almost all the walk. Too much to see when walking by the fields so she was a bit hyper there but as soon as we entered the forest she calmed down again. She didn’t even scream when we met and left the Beekeepers. Normally it would sound as if she knew they were walking towards their bitter end 🙂 🙂 🙂

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I fell asleep in front of the tv and woke up to the American Song Contest. I had already heard who won it all but I didn’t know the end result. Turns out that my three favorites ended up amongst the four first. I did not like the one who came second though but three out of four isn’t bad. Our big final is tonight. Ukraine is going to win, not only because the group got special permission to go by the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy (they are after all in war) but the song is not that bad. So the fight is really about second place and our song is one of three (the other two are United Kingdom and Italy) that will fight about it.

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Tomorrow will be lawn mowing day, I noticed that my neighbor mowed outside my garage, we have our trash bins there so he tends to mow that part for me 🙂 I’ll also do the laundry as usual but esides that I’ll do very little. The fence I’ve bought is self standing so to make it easy I might make my two vegetable patches round. The fence is rolled tightly so trying to make the corners in90 degrees will be a bit hard. I’m also thinking of planting my mini kiwi vines towards one of those fenced in vegetable patches so they will keep that fence at place when they start growing.

f (11)

If I in the future doesn’t want a vegetable patch there I can use that space as a what we call berså (from the french word berceau and is pronounced much the same way). A berså is a place where one can sit and have coffee with friends and normally there’s a horse shoe shaped hedge around it. Typically here they use lilacs as the hedge. No roof above it though. Mostly the hedge is high so no one can look in and to keep the wind away but I’ve seen those with lower hedges too. So my “hedge” would be a fence covered in mini kiwi vines, not bad at all to be honest 🙂

DSC_0031 (1) — Four small peaches in this photo and five more on the way if the tree isn’t too stressed by the move in a package.

Have a great day!

I went out and took a look at the label :-)

May 13, 2022 · Leave a comment ·

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So just before I was going to bed yesterday evening I suddenly started to think about the label on my new apricot tree. I thought it looked a bit odd but also thought it must be a standardized thing they put on and then the text would say what it was. Well I went out to look at it a second time.

DSC_0018 (2) — Cherry trees are in bloom everywhere now.

Turns out it wasn’t a standardized label, I haven’t gotten an apricot tree 🙂 🙂 🙂 Instead I got one of those flat peaches 🙂 🙂 🙂 So the last thing i did before going to bed was to email the company. It costs the same and has the same hardiness so I wondered if they wanted me to send it back to them or if I could take this tree instead since I really didn’t want to find a new box, since I had cut it down 🙂 🙂 🙂 The sort of fun thing about this is that they don’t even sell that peach yet so someone must have made a big mistake.

They answered that I could keep it if I wanted so now I have a peach tree instead 🙂 I do like them a lot those flat peaches but peach trees have huge problems with a fungus that kills them after a few years so I wasn’t sure at first but then I found out that they now have a good pesticide that kills the fungus (it contains sulfur which kills off the fungus and one need so small ammounts that it isn’t dangerous for anything else). One need to spray the tree with it after the leafs have fallen in autumn and one more time before the new leafs grow out.After doing that the problems will go away. I do like apricots though so I might order one anyway but most likely from another business 🙂

DSC_0034 (1) — We have a few Elm trees that still look really healthy so I hope that the Dutch Elm tree disease stays away.

I’ve been a bit worried about Nova for a couple of days again because she really didn’t want to eat, not even treats and she is on her sixteenth year. Turns out her stomach was wobbly again so today she had no problems what so ever to gulp down her food again 🙂 I’ve also bought the old food she likes better again and I’m pretty sure that helped as well. Still I need to find one she likes and keeps her stomach well so I better check out other varieties again.

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It rained some when we were out walking but we also had some sunshine. It’ll rain again later tonight but after that the skies will keep the water to themselves for quite some time, at least that is what they’re guessing. It is time for something to eat and after that I’ll doze off in front of the tv, like always 🙂

h (1) — In my garden right now. I hope the wheel-barrow will look good again this year.

h (2) — Marsh marigold in the root zone.

h (4) — Yellow wood anemone. These came with the perennial sunflowers that You can see the first leafs from around it.

Have a great day!

h (5) — I have three Serviceberry trees in my garden.

A bit higher than I thought :-)

May 12, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

a (28) — The photos are from the folder “For a rainy day”. This is what my Black walnut tree looked like last summer. It actually looks as if it is fighting the tree cancer with some success!

The winds are so strong today that I didn’t want to take a walk in the forest because the gusts might push some trees to the ground and I really don’t want to get one over anyone of us. Besides that it’s a really nice day, just enough warm and sunny. We did get some drops of rain and more will come tomorrow but that’s nothing compared to what we got yesterday.

a (37)

I left work a bit early yesterday because some papers would have to be signed before the road association meeting. The rain had started early and then the thunder arrived. To be honest most of it passed north of us but we did get the showers and the hail. I walked five meters from the car to the house door and was soaking wet before I arrived at the house 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’m so glad that the dog food I had ordered arrived the day before 🙂 🙂 The meeting went very well, we were only five people there so the meeting didn’t take long and after that we had some coffee and biscuits 🙂 I wasn’t away from home more than an hour including the drive there and back 🙂

a (84)

Today my apricot tree finally arrived so I had to pick it up at the big package delivery center in Falköping. I did wonder why I couldn’t fetch it at my normal place in Gudhem but I had forgotten to check how high it actually was. It is just as or slightly taller than I am and I did have some problems getting it in to my car 🙂 🙂 🙂 I had to cut off just enough of the box it arrived in to be able to shut the tailgate. Another problem was the wind.

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The package was high but not especially wide to be honest but the strong wind caught it and I’m lucky it didn’t use us as a kite 🙂 The tailgate was headed just towards the wind so at first I couldn’t open it up. It was a bit tricky to hold the package at the same time 🙂 🙂 It was almost as difficult to shut it when all wind pressed in the the car and I tried to push the tailgate down 🙂 🙂 We now I have it at home and it will be standing at the north side of my cottage where the wind can’t reach it until it calmes down and I can find some place to plant it.

a (220)

I’ll leave work early tomorrow as well since I’m going to the physiotherapist again. I won’t go back to work after that since there will be very little time left until I stop working for the day. I’m waiting for another package as well, I’ve ordered a fence so I can make it higher so that Alma won’t jump over it (well at least I hope she won’t 🙂 🙂 ) and I’ll also fence in my vegetable patches since Albin would eat anything edible he could reach 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

I solved it quickly.

May 10, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

a (27) — The photos comes from the folder “For a rainy day” because it is actually raining today and just enough much so the dogs won’t go outside 🙂

I had a really bad night, woke up several times because of heartburn. Also lots of gasses 🙂 So I went home a couple of hours early from work today just because I could. The first thing I tried to do was to take a nap.

a (89)

Unfortunately the dogs thought I should do other things 🙂 🙂 But I guess that of the one hour I set the alarm for I did doze off for perhaps twenty minutes. It did feel so much better afterwards anyway so I didn’t mind that both Alma and Nova constantly demande belly scrubs and Albin standing beside me growling loudly while wagging his tail 🙂 🙂 🙂

a (112)

I also went home early because tomorrow we’ll have the annual road association meeting. Well it hasn’t been annual in a couple of years now because of the virus. I know I’ll have a problem with the printer, I always do, so I thought that more time would help me from at least going insane while trying to make it work.

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It did of course not work as I thought but this time I figured out why pretty fast. For some reason it had chosen another printer, one that has never been used with this laptop or even ever used in this cottage. I can’t understand why it decided that but as soon as I changed that I got my papers and still hade time to do other things after 🙂

a (157)

Today I’m prepared so that the night won’t be as bad as last one. I bought Novalucol, anti acid pills. My stomach seems to have settled down as well so I’m holding my thumbs 🙂

Have a great day!

An attempted fraud?

May 8, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

We’ve had a really nice weather here today, a few clouds in the morning but the rest of the day has been totally free from them. Not as warm as yesterday though and the wind was a bit chilly but since it couldn’t reach my property I really didn’t mind 🙂

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We walked down to the creek and in to the forest this morning and Alma behaved really well, to my very big surprise! I so wish that this is the way (or even better of course) she’ll behave from now on. I won’t hope too much though, she has behaved well occasionally before 🙂 🙂 🙂

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I don’t know if You have the Swish app, an app that one can use for sending smaller ammounts of money to other peoples accounts? One connects ones phone number to the bank account so it’s really easy to use if someone wants to lend money or to pay in stores as well. There are of course lots of frauds done that way too and today I got a text message from someone I don’t know who claimed that he had, by accident, swished me some money.

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I really don’t know how anyone can use this to scam anyone else from money but apparently one can. I used to have this app but that was several phones ago and I’m not planning on getting it again. So I texted back that: He had to do this via his bank because I don’t have the app any longer and won’t get it again, because You know too many frauds are done that way. 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve also called the bank and told them about it and they said I did the exact right thing. It will take a bit longer for that person to get his money back but he will get them back as soon as they’ve talked to me and I say it’s ok.

I’ve mowed the lawn today as well, well spots of it anyway 🙂 Mostly I actually mowed stinging nettles and that always make it feel more as a fun job that mowing grass. Stinging nettles thrives when one have several dogs peeing and pooping in the garden and they also spread very easily both by seeds and roots. They are edible (they stop to sting when heated up) and are full of nutrients but I can’t say that they taste delicious even though many actually think they do.

I didn’t win the lottery yesterday so back to work on Monday as always. Well I would actually have stayed the month we are supposed to after giving notice but I would not have to come to work until I’ve had a visit to the bank to make sure the money had found their way in to my account 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!