Category: Walks.

I almost missed it :-)

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We woke up to a cold and foggy world today which, despite the cold, is one of my favourite weathers 🙂 So as soon as it was light enough the dogs and I walked out to the bog. If I had known the fog would stay all day we would have had a longer walk down to the creek and out on the bog there. Days like these are quiet days, not only does the fog dampen sounds from the big road but also no birds make any sounds at all. Well there was these two ravens flying above us who made their metallic sounds a couple of times but that was it.

Alma behaved so well so if there had been any animals out on the fields we would have been able to see them, at least if they were close enough because the fog was so thick sometimes that the camera couldn’t find places to focus on 🙂  we walked out on the peninsula and when we stood there looking out over the bog we could hear something moving around but it never came close enough for us to see it. It was most likely one or two wild hogs because if they know we are around they really don’t care if they can be seen 🙂 and really doesn’t care if we hear them. I always thought the wolves would hunt them but I’ve learned that wolves aren’t especially interested in wild hogs and I guess that’s why they don’t care about being heard or seen.

I sat in my recliner after we had come home and started to think about what time I was going to x-ray my hips tomorrow and after that see my doctor. I have experimental hip implants in my hips since I was too young to get hip prostheses since they would wear out way to fast. Turns out that these implants mostly were quite horrible to those getting them. They leaked lots of heavy metals in to the body and both the bones, muscles and tendon attachments could start to dissolve because of that. The doctor I had for my first surgery however is a snob 🙂 🙂 🙂 so he chose the most expensive kinds there was and therefore I have no such problems 🙂 My “new” doctor of course chose the same kind for my other hip 🙂 They do check my blood and take new x-rays every five years now (before it was every year) just in case something goes wrong. So if they can’t find any heavy metals in my blood I’ll do this again after five years 🙂

Anyway it turns out it was today I would go to the hospital 🙂 🙂 🙂 I still had lots of time going there so no panic 🙂 Normally I don’t mind driving around in fog unless it is dark outside or that it is colder then 0C (32F) since fog is water and when it hits the road it starts to freeze. Most of the way was fine though but it had started to freeze on my way home. No traffic at that time though so I could drive in the speed I felt safe, also it helps if one drives behind a tractor the last 500 meters before driving in on the village gravel road 🙂 

It started to become dark again as soon as I had come home otherwise we would have had another walk to the forest but since we have hogs, moose and eventual wolves here I didn’t want to meet any of them when it was dark 🙂 🙂 🙂 I haven’t figured out what to have for dinner so I guess it’ll be warm sandwiches with meatballs and sausages and lots of cheese 🙂 Plus I*ll of course have that last cup of tea for the day 🙂

Have a great day!

So this is my Korean spruce. Its top was destroyed long ago and it took may years before a branch decided to become the new top 🙂 So it does have an odd shape.
So the lights also have an odd shape 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Another cold day, the temperature reached 0C (32F) as highest and to be honest that’s not so cold this time of year now days. I remember one year, about 21 years ago when winter started with snow and below freezing temperatures all the time in October and it lasted until early May. Lots of snow as well so that was for me a nightmare winter 🙂 🙂 🙂 and I hope it’ll never happen again 🙂

I could hear the wind blowing in the tree tops but it never reached the ground. So even if the sun was hesitant to show itself we still had a nice morning walk, especially since Alma only whines once in a while.  She pulled the leash like insane some times though but rather that than her high pitched whining. For me that sound is like a fork drawn over a plate would be like for the rest of the world I guess and hearing it constantly on every walk (which lasts at least an hour, often much more) it’s like torture. So days when she only does it every now and again are joyful days 🙂

I got that light chain in the mail today, so I put it up in the spruce with an odd shape. No matter how I do the lights looks really odd 🙂 🙂 🙂 Still any light is a good light. I’ll take photos tomorrow. I have one in my phone but either I miss something or the transfer of a photo from a phone to an iMac computer is ridiculously complicated. In a PC one just mail the photo to oneself and voila! It’s in the computer easily reach when needed, in an iMac not so unfortunately.

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and today they show the weekly science program on tv. I’ve slept badly for a couple of days now because I have gotten pimples on my earlobes 🙂 🙂 🙂 I didn’t know one could get pimples there but now I’ve learned something 🙂 They hurt like h..l when I rest my head on the pillow. One on each ear so it doesn’t matter on what side I sleep on 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

I guess he was hungry.

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So it is warmer but instead we got a wind that makes everything feel colder. The dogs and I have been in the forest mostly so we haven’t felt much of it to be honest. Nights can still be a bit chilly so the ground is frozen when we get out first thing in the morning.

I drove to the supermarket in Skara this morning, the big road was just fine but the smaller one just outside my village was a bit scary to drive on 🙂 I always do a test brake when I drive out on it now when it’s  cold in the morning and even though I have really good winter tires on the car still slid around as if it was drunk 🙂 🙂 So all the way to the big road I wished no hogs or deer would jump up on the road 🙂 🙂

We haven’t seen much of the sun except for when the clouds were so thin it shined through them. We walked down to the bog and out to my favourite island and walked in the forest there. I could hear one hunting dog bark in the distance , last time they were all over the bog. I couldn’t find a single track from wildlife oddly enough, not even from the wild hogs that I know are plenty out there. I guess the wind and generally cold weather made them stay in the thickets until they really needed to eat something.

Now when all the leafs have fallen down we can hear the traffic on the big road but out on that island it’s totally devoid of traffic sounds. Mostly because most of the trees there are spruces and they’re so thick that not even sounds go through. It is a nature reserve so no one has cut a tree there since I don’t know when. The thought is that when these trees have fallen more “natural” for this area trees will start to grow there instead. I guess the idea is nice but since 70 years back nothing than spruces have grown there there will also be lots of spruce seeds just waiting for a chance to grow up 🙂 🙂

Every time I see this old tree I start to think about the monsters in the movie Miss Peregrine’s home for peculiar children 🙂

There was a small Sparrow hawk sitting on the table in front of the bird feeder this morning just waiting to have a small bird as breakfast. Well the small birds were nowhere to be found oddly enough 🙂 🙂 🙂 I think it must have been a young male (because of the size, males are smaller) and that he hasn’t figured out that being seen by his food is not a good thing 🙂 🙂 Beautiful bird and even though I like the birds by the feeder I do hope this one will survive the winter.

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and then watch some tv if I can find anything that interests me, which I doubt.

Have a great day!

The photo was taken with my phone camera through a not so clean window 🙂

They say it’ll warm up again.

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So another really nice and sunny day but rather cold. I could see the wind power plants up on the mountain moving with the wind but that wind didn’t reach us down on the ground. We walked down to the mostly frozen creek and when we walked out on the field there I saw two White tailed eagles fly up from the ground just 50 meters (much the same in yards) away from us 🙂 I guess they were eating something but I didn’t check what it was 🙂

Instead of following the creek all the way down to the forest we took a turn and crossed the field and walked in to the forest further away. There’s an old road there no one ever use (unless when they cut down the trees) and followed it till the end where we then walked in to the older forest and later to the creek up-streams instead. This is wild hog area but we didn’t see or hear any today. Well I think the dogs might have since they both stared towards a thicket of spruces but that was it.

White tailed eagles.

I thought the water level in the creek would be lower now when we didn’t have any rain or snow but it is actually much higher.

They say that it will turn to warmer weather again already tomorrow and I’ll believe it when it happens. I will miss the dry ground if it’s right but then again I will also feel happy about the warmer air even though it might mean less sunshine. As the saying goes, we can’t have it all unless we are rich enough to travel to where the weather is to our liking of course 🙂 🙂

I haven’t been walking g in this part of the forest in many years, mostly because this is a very swampy area but frozen water is really great to walk on 🙂

I’ve ordered a new wallet, my old one is falling to pieces and I haven’t found any in any store so when I found one on the net I bought it. Younger people now days don’t use wallets, they sort of combine the wallet with their phone case but I really don’t like that. Yes I know I’m old 🙂 🙂 🙂  but I don’t want to lose it all by losing just one thing, like the phone. If I lose the phone I still have my wallet with everything important in it and if I lose my wallet I still have the phone so I can make those calls to stop anyone from using my cards and get a new driving license 🙂

I’ve also ordered Christmas lights for my oddly shaped Korean spruce. If one looks at that spruce it looks like some kind of armchair made in the sixties 🙂 🙂 You know those laid back space inspired ones 🙂 🙂 Well it is the only one I have bog enough so this year I’ll have some outdoor lights. The lights is eleven meters long (much the same in yards) and battery driven. It can either shine all the time or shine for six hour and then start at the same time next day. No one here is outside at night anyway so that will be great. I will of course take a photo of it when the light chain has arrived and dressed around the spruce 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and later today I’ll watch the game show On the Tracks. My oldest brother and I send texts to each other when we think we know the answers, we are usually very wrong 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Nasty wind.

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I doubt the monster wanted the bird seeds 🙂

 

Less cold today but we’ve had a nasty, bitterly cold wind blowing almost all day so it has been rather unpleasant to be outdoors. It was totally calm on our morning walk though so that was nice. I think I might have a fever now, I woke up last night felling awfully hot but my bedroom is anything but and today I’ve had a slight fever and sneezed a lot all day. I’m not sitting here feeling sorry for myself though but I do hope this isn’t the beginning of something worse like what my neighbours had last week.

Nothing special is happening here at the moment.  I have been thinking on Christmas decorations for some reason. I haven’t had a lot of that because cats and having rather big dogs that picked anything in their reach and chewed on them if they liked the taste 🙂 🙂 I do have a nice plastic Christmas tree and I’ve used it for two years but now I have a cat again 🙂 🙂 I do remember having a nativity set back in the days that I liked a lot but then one day I couldn’t find it, turns out my mother had given it away without asking me, quite common behaviour from her I’m sorry to say.

So I went online to see what they had there. Lots of different ones and they cost a fortune! Some I think I would be able to do better myself to be honest. I did find one I liked meant to be hanging on a wall I guess but it is oddly enough supposed to be filled with water?? Is it a kind of snow globe perhaps and every time one shakes it snow will fall down over the people? 🙂 🙂 🙂 To be honest, I have seen worse and I think that one would be the one working best because it would hang like a painting on the wall and the monster wouldn’t care about it. I’ll better check it once again 🙂

I took an extra look at it and no there’s no snow in it 🙂 🙂 🙂 It’s called a lantern with LED lights in it but why the water? Also rather expensive to be honest. Well I’ll keep on looking or perhaps I should try to make one myself even though making the humans and animals will be very tricky 🙂 🙂 I do of course have the advent candlestick I made from clay last year.  It’s not the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen but I did it myself, perhaps I should order some clay again and make the nativity set 🙂 🙂 I will at least have lots of fun making it 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and then go out on the net to see whether I’ll buy some clay 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Still waiting for that snow.

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View from my kitchen window.

Still waiting for that snow to arrive. Well to be honest we have actually had some but so little that it’s hard to find 🙂 🙂  They are threatening us with more later on though so I guess we’ll get it sooner or later. There has been snow chaos in other places though and I’m so glad it never came to us.

We have had fog though, so thick in the early morning that it was hard to see anything and then it slowly started to thin out just to come back again later. I do like fog so I didn’t complain but it did make the day a bit dark to be honest. The eyes didn’t notice it that much but the camera did 🙂

I had prepared for a snowy day so I made lots of rice porridge and learned that it worked just as well on a foggy day 🙂 Rice porridge is not something one make unless it is cold and snowy because it takes a long time to make, easily gets burned and if it is burned one has to toss it away because it tastes awful. Making it on a stove is hot and boring since one must stir it around pretty often. I however make it in the slow cooker so even though it takes almost three hours to make one only have to stir it a few times.

I put on a new collar on the monsterkitten yesterday and she wore it for almost half a day before she lost it 🙂 🙂  This time I wrote my phone number on the collar so I got a call just minutes ago, she had lost it at the farm just up the slope 🙂 So I’ll get it tomorrow when I’ll check if I’ve gotten any mail. I guess that’s the place she mostly walks to because she does tend to smell like a cow  now days. I’m pretty sure her mother was one of the feral cats living there and that’s where the cat looking almost identical to her lives at as well 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day. It is pitch black outside and the temperatures will drop considerable so tomorrow morning might be the coldest morning so far this winter.

Have a great day!

The snow is closing in.

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We might get up to two decimeters (eight inches) of snow from tonight and until Friday afternoon so I decided to go to the store already today so I don’t have to drive in that garbage weather on Friday. I know, snow is pretty but I truly dislikes it. The only time I actually liked it was rather many years ago when I spent Christmas in a cottage even more remote than where I live now.

I rented a cottage back then in a region called Dalsland, close to the Norwegian border, and I had the best Christmas ever (I think that I have written about it here in my blog a year or two or perhaps even more years ago 🙂 ). Over half a meter of snow (much the same in yards), -28C (-18,4F), no electricity but a fire stove and my then two dogs and one cat. There’s no light pollution at all there so even if I can see lots of stars here it’s nothing compared to there. I spent an entire week there and as I said it’s the only time I actually have liked snow 🙂

This and the rest of the photos are taken with analog cameras and if I remember it right it’s an Agfa Ambiflex I took these six first ones, then two with a Nikon F90 and the four last ones with an Agfa Colorflex (can be wrong with that last one though).

Back then mobile phones just started to become popular so to hope for any kind of signal there was to hope for a miracle 🙂 🙂 🙂 I would have loved to live there but I think there’s a bigger chance to find a job on the planet Mars than in that region 🙂 🙂 🙂  Well I’ll have to endure the snow here no matter what but I do think that if I ever won the lottery I would buy something small in southern France so I could stay there during winter and move back here when spring arrives 🙂

I didn’t bring any digital camera with me on our walks today but it looks much the same as it did a few days back and I also have some wintery photos taken with film cameras last winter so perhaps I’ll put in a few of those. I think it is time for that last cup of tea for the day, I will not bake a mug cake today no matter how yummy it was so I’ll just have that tea and perhaps watch some tv even if I doubt that there’s anything I want to watch, there rarely is.

Have a great day!

Cold.

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Pretty chilly here and even though I ‘m not that fond of cold weather I still have to admit that it is nice to walk on ground that isn’t muddy and as long as we have almost no wind it’s quite nice. Ok no wind means higher price on electricity but I guess that’s something we need to take wether we like it or not.

Nothing has happened here so I have very little to write about. We did have the first real snow this morning but it was so little that I only could see it lying on my entrance stairs. If I knew we won’t have any more I would even say that I liked it 🙂 🙂

I was planning on having a little nap every day now when I am at home but so far I’ve had none. The morning just flies by and when I think of having one it’s too late, at least if I want to have any more daylight hitting my eyes. The sun sets already at 3:43 pm now and it is a long time left until it turns again. I really should have been born so much further south where the sun stay up longer during winter and the temperatures never drops 🙂 Then again I would miss our summers here when it never gets especially dark, just a couple of hours in the middle of the night.

I made a mug cake today. I can’t remember if I ever have done that before. I wasn’t hungry but wanted something so I went out on the net to see what I could find. The recipe said to use cocoa but I put in a piece of mashed banana and some cinnamon instead and it turned out really yummy. I would have made one more if I hadn’t eaten my last banana 🙂 Well now I know what I can do if I feel that way again 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I really wish I had made that mug cake now instead 🙂

Have a great day!

So cold!

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It was a bit colder this morning than I thought it would be, it had dropped down to -9,4C (15,08F) as coldest. No wind and sunshine all day made our walks really nice though. I wore my studded boats because it is no fun sliding on ice and breaking something while being out at the bog where it would be very hard to find me 🙂 🙂 🙂 That however made it impossible to walk silent, those studs against the gravel road sounds like I’m crushing the stones 🙂 So instead of seeing them we could hear them run away in panic in all directions 🙂 🙂

It is much the same when I have them while shopping, people don’t run away but everyone looks around to see what it is breaking down 🙂 but it’s only in the beginning of winter that happens because after that most people use studs in either ones that can be removed from the shoes (no one will because they are horrible to try and get back when going outside again) or shoes with studs already in them. Even teenagers use them now days, might be nice to not have to go to school but no fun not being able to go anywhere anyway 🙂

Lots of hunting dogs moving around us while we were at the bog, not from this area but dogs doesn’t know any borders, especially not if they follow what ever it is they’re hunting. So we didn’t walk as far as I wanted to. Not that those dogs actually would care about us but because Alma would go nuts and start to screaming like crazy and I really didn’t want the hunters believe that their dogs was mauled by wolves 🙂 🙂 🙂 I hope there are less out hunting tomorrow 🙂

Despite it being so cold now I haven’t heard a single mouse in the cottage walls, it looks like the monster is doing a good job 🙂 It is time for that last cup of tea for the day.

Have a great day!

I took lots more photos today so perhaps I’ll save them for another day 🙂

Tiny, tiny snowflakes.

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Yes they fell yesterday evening but they were tiny and I think all of them melted away as soon as they hit anything because of all the rain we had just before they started to fall. When I say tiny, imagine misty rain, drops just slightly bigger than fog drops becoming snow instead.

It want cold during night though so I was happy I had bought new studded boots so I could walk anywhere even if it was mostly ice. -4,8C (23,36F) as coldest and just before we went out on our morning walk. Lots of frost everywhere so I must admit that the world did look rather pretty and it even gave me some Christmas feelings 🙂 We walked down to the creek and I was a bit hesitant to walk on the road over the creek. Last time we had this much water in it I fell down in to a sink hole created by water flowing beside the concrete pipe that usually leads the water. I was lucky that time because I happened to fall so my feet hit the concrete pipe and I also still had my shoulders high enough up so I could get out from there 🙂 🙂

The little metal bridge isn’t especially visible any more 🙂 I really didn’t want to try and walk on it so we followed the field until I found a place where we could pass and in to the forest.

All worked well this time but it was impossible to cross over to the forest on the other side of the fields so we had to walk quite some distance before the ditch that follows the edge was dry enough to walk over to the forest. The reason by the way that the water level is as high is because of beavers, they’ve more or less plugged the entire concrete pipe with sticks and mud 🙂 🙂 🙂  The rest of the walk wasn’t that exciting 🙂 🙂  and I never saw any beaver. Just as well because it happens that they attack people if they get too close and there’s also that beaver that for some reason walked up to a bust stop in a bigger city here in Sweden and bit a woman (I think it was) that was waiting for the bus. Just imagine those huge, yellow sharp teeth cutting in to Your leg!

Normally however beavers are very shy so no reason to be afraid to see one close by 🙂 I also went to a grocery store in Falköping today. I had bought what I wanted when I realised that it was a really long time since I had eaten reindeer, back in the days those packages were rather small. just enough for one or perhaps two dinners. Have You ever eaten it? If not You’ll either hate or love it. Reindeer with boiled potatoes and a mushroom stew is delicious according to my tastebuds. Anyway, I noticed that the price is nasty high now, even more expensive than filet of beef and the package was almost a pound so I had to skip it. To be honest, anything tastes great with a good mushroom stew 🙂

The reason I want to Falköping to buy groceries instead of Skara like I usually do was because I was going to pick up a small package on my way home. I had ordered some Narcissus bulbs and seeds to a small banana plant with edible bananas (if they ever would like to show up) and another seed I can’t remember at the moment. What looked like a good idea last week when it still would be fairly warm (when it comes to the bulbs) is now a slightly less good idea 🙂 🙂 Bulbs can be planted as long it is possible to make a hole in the ground and it will stay pretty chilly here for a long while it looks so I’ll most likely plant them in a pot and keep the in the cool cellar during winter and plant them when they have flowered next spring.

Now I remember what the other seed bag is, an edible passion flower species, Barbadine I think it’s called in English. I already have the common passion fruit flower seeds and thought that now when I have a greenhouse I’ll try them in there during summer. They usually germinate quite easy but to get fruit one need two different vines. By that I mean You can’t take a cutting from one and think that it is another plant because it is the exact same one that You took the cutting from. So two seed sown plants are needed and they will not give any fruit the first year. Passion flowers grow like weeds to be honest so as long as one treat them as they like they’ll never die 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is already (5:13 pm) almost as cold outside as it was this morning so I don’t want to guess how cold it’ll be tomorrow when I wake up 🙂 Sunny all day though so it might be nice anyway. It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and after that, later tonight, watch my favourite quiz program On the Tracks.

Have a great day!

Still raining.

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We were lucky today to have our morning walk before the rain arrived, well sort of because it did start to drizzle on our way home but drizzle doesn’t count 🙂 It has continued to rain all day and still does. Now even all those wood chips seems to slowly sink down into the mud beneath so even if I’m not happy about colder weather coming it will at least freeze the ground some so that it is walkable again.

There are two mushrooms on that tree stump and they’re both well over 30 cm (a foot) long.

Today the second package with an aquarium arrived and this one was actually not broken by our postal service 🙂 I was pretty surprised about that 🙂 🙂 🙂 They always wants us to grade how they did and possibly write a comment as well. So I wrote that perhaps they should teach people not to put other heavier packages on the ones having stickers saying Fragile on them 🙂 🙂 🙂 I think they truly dislike me at the postal center in Falköping because I once threatened them by calling the police on them if they didn’t stop placing my packages anywhere where I don’t live 🙂 🙂 🙂 That is however a non existing problem now days 🙂 🙂

It’ll be fun for those driving to work tomorrow morning when all this rain that has been falling turns to ice. We will have below 0C (32F) in the morning and it will not be that much warmer during the day. I’ll need to drive to a grocery store (and also a petrol station) tomorrow but I can do that later when the ice is gone. I could wait until Saturday but even if I don’t have a job to go to it still feels wrong to do that on a Saturday or Sunday 🙂 🙂

I have forgotten to make any dinner today 🙂 🙂 I was thinking of making pancakes but I’m just not hungry. So I’ll make them tomorrow instead. Yesterday I thought I went to be at normal time but I must have seen wrong when I walked upstairs because I had a text message that I thought arrived after nine but today when I checked the time it says it arrived at 8:30 pm 🙂 🙂 🙂  I did think it took some time to fall asleep 🙂 🙂 🙂 It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and after that perhaps watch a dvd.

Have a great day!

So dark and dreary.

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Even darker today even though it did light up some every now and again.

Rain all day except for in the morning plus strong winds blowing so we’ve mostly been indoors today. Still rather warm for this period of the year but what good does that make when we can’t be outside enjoying it 🙂 🙂 Still, the morning walk was nice since the wind hadn’t reached us yet.

The aquarium I had ordered arrived yesterday and as soon as I saw the package I guessed that it was broken. Too bad I was right. No real damage to it but one could see that they had placed other heavier packages on it because that is what one does when the package is more or less wrapped in red Fragile stickers, well that is at least what the Swedish postal service think is the right way to do it.

Lots of glue and tape and it might become a mini greenhouse 🙂

So I mailed the business I bought it from and they shipped away a new one as soon as they saw the photo of the damages and it will arrive tomorrow!! They didn’t want the broken one back so with some glue and tape I guess I will be able to use it as a mini greenhouse 🙂 I do wonder about our postal service though, back in the days even if a letter had the wrong address they still managed to get it to the right person but that a package marked fragile isn’t supposed to be placed at the bottom with other packages on to of it seems to be a mystery for them 🙂 🙂 🙂

Also a couple of years ago the constantly placed my packages at the wrong places even though they said they used the GPS. In the end I had to threaten to report it to the police as a harassment if they missed one more time. Haven’t had the slightest problem with that since then 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is so muddy now in places we walk all the time in the garden that I started to pour out those wood chips I got after I’d cut down all those branches from the trees.
It works really well and I have more chips to use in other places 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea and after that I’ll watch a dvd I think. I have so many but no place for them 🙂 🙂 Storage units is nothing I really have in this small cottage. I have one closet and mice went in there and chewed on all my clothes 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!