Category: Walks.

The nettles slid down my arm.

May 27, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

a (1) — I went up the my mailbox to see if I’d gotten any mail yesterday and took this photo on my way up the slope.

I have a thorn in one of my fingers and it hurts every time I press down a key with it so now I’m trying to not use it at all. I can see the thorn so I’ll get it out after this. I have the thorn there just because I cleared out another area in my garden. This one was filled with mostly False spirea, an old gooseberry bush (hence the thorn), a few wild raspberry bushes and lots of stinging nettles. I did manage to get a few stalks from the stinging nettles to slowly slide down my arm. The pain is gone but now it’s itchy and warm 🙂 🙂 So now it’s a new place where I’ll have to mow no matter what weather we’re having otherwise it’ll all come back again.

a (2) — And I took these on my way down again.

a (4) — Guess where I live 🙂 My cottage is barely visible behind the lilacs and that Rowan tree in bloom.

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I really need to stop drinking lots of water before going to bed, today we were up before the sun rose (and it rose at 4:19 today) and it sort of felt wrong to go back to bed because I know I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again anyway. So we went out just as the sun rose and it did feel quite chilly, I think it might have been around 5C (41F) but no wind and sunshine from the start. To be honest a walk with Alma will make anyone sweat like crazy anyway so I didn’t use the fleece sweater that I thought would be needed if we had been able to walk like normal humans and dogs 🙂 🙂

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I watered the vegetable patch and potato patch as soon as we came home , sowed some seeds and when the clock reached 10 am I started to mow the lawn. Before that I cleared that space of course.I really would like to plant my Persimmon tree there but all those roots makes it hard so I would have to rip them up (both the false spirea and raspberry roots are relatively easy to remove since they lay just beneath the surface but there’s a net made of those roots now so it wouldn’t be that easy because of that). I’ve also done some laundry so now I’m really tired, aren’t weekends supposed to be the time when we relax 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Suddenly most of the wildlife is gone again so I guess that the wolves are elsewhere at the moment. Today we only saw one young roe deer buck and he was sleeping in a field just beside the forest. I wish I could see any of them but I only hear from other people that they have seen at least one. The wolves are in trouble right now though, don’t think it is our pack but one in the neighbor county, because they killed a lot of sheep the other day. People here aren’t used to wolves so fences are way too low and not electrified in most places and to be honest the fences needed will cost a fortune. I think the government should pay most of that cost but the government we have right now instead wants to eradicate the wolves completely. Well the EU Court of Justice will not allow that thankfully 🙂

a (19) — I hate it when they put up those electric wires even when there are no cattle walking in the field. It is anything but easy to get those wires down so the dogs can pass, especially when I need to keep Alma calm. They do like that because they’re too lazy to have to do it when the cattle actually arrives.

Swedish forest authorities, experts and the swedish forest industry always complain about how other countries manages their forest, especially if we’re talking about those with rain forest but when we get complaints about how we take care of our forests we then always hear them say that we know better and that we have other conditions in this country than other countries 🙂 🙂 🙂 The Eu says we don’t have a sustainable forestry by only planting either spruce or pine and that when we cut down all trees at once we let too much carbon dioxide out into the atmosphere. Instead we should have a mixed forest and just thin out the biggest trees every now and again. Also we Swedes are complaining about how we treat the forests as well so now the authorities, experts and industry tries to tell us all how wrong we are 🙂 🙂 🙂 To be honest we’ve cut down so many trees now (yes we plant new ones as soon as possible) that we now have almost no older forest left. So when they cut down new trees they are either too young or they’ve cut down forest that should have been protected. I really hope the EU Court of Justice sues the shit out of them all 🙂

I had forgotten how much space there actually was behind that wooden box 🙂

There is this one really big root system that I think belongs to the old gooseberry bush. If new shoots grow up from it I’ll move it to a better place. The gooseberries were red and really tasty.

It is time for a last cup of tea and also to get that thorn out of my fingertip 🙂

Have a great day!

Not happy about it.

May 26, 2023 · 6 Comments ·

f (6) — Today the photos can come from today or any other day this week.

We’ve had a rather nice week over here sunny and warm but not too warm. The rain that they said would fall here, and it would be well over an inch, never arrived. I have no idea where it went instead though but none at work had gotten any. So instead I’ve been watering both the vegetable patch and potato patch. To be honest I’m not sure I really had to but at least those tiny seeds lie close to the surface and most likely liked the little help they got. The first potato leafs are now showing.

I planted this tulip two years ago and never saw anything of it. Turns out it shows up so late that all the higher flowers (and stinging nettles) grow up before it shows. I will move the few I have already tomorrow.

No idea what this really tiny flower is called.

We were called to a meeting at work first thing in the morning on Thursday and that’s never a good sign. Times are hard so they will now shut down those departments that gives little to no money and my job is of course one of those that will stop to excist. I won’t lose my job though but September first I’ll go back to my old department again and will start working evenings instead. Not happy about it but it’ll be fewer hours but slightly more in pay. Also we’ll get two hours more in compensation hours than if we would work normal day shift. Things can still change all depending on how things go in Ukraine and it can all go to h..l if the Republican party doesn’t do the responsible thing and allow the US to borrow more money.

I wanted to go home two hours early on Wednesday, no special reason just because I really just wanted to 🙂 No problem as long as nothing turns up where they need my help. So of course it did. I had to pick off maskings from things we had painted. So instead I could take those two hours on Thursday instead. Of course they then was supposed to paint the same things again and I would be needed there again, so instead I officially took two hours today. The thing was that the maskings never arrived before I was going home the normal time on Thursday anyway 🙂 🙂 🙂 Today however nothing could stop me, so I went to the store and bought what I needed for the weekend, drove home and passed the factory and it felt rather nice 🙂

Nova limped after being outside in the early morning but I couldn’t find any spot that seemed to hurt. She didn’t limp at all when I came home but I let her decide on where we should go on our walk. Normally she loves the longer route but today she chose to go to the bog instead. slightly shorter but mostly in the shade from the big trees in the forest Now she’s sleeping beside me and snores quite loud 🙂 🙂 🙂 She always does and I’m surprised that I don’t wake up because of it 🙂 I’ve had a neck pain for slightly over a week now and I just couldn’t figure out why, yesterday however I realized that it was because of Alma pulling the leash. She is very much better now than she was but every now and again she decides that no one should enjoy the walk and pulls the leash and is quite loud and whines a lot and the neck ache started after one of those days. Turns out that every time she rush ahead in a high speed and the leash it stretched my neck hurts like insane. That dog will kill me one day and she will eb happy while doing it 🙂 🙂 🙂

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It is time for a cup of tea and a few oatmeal cookies with chocolate drops in them 🙂 It is so far the only gluten free cookie that is edible because it has milk and butter in it. I’ve realized tyat lots of gluten free things also are vegan and vegans don’t eat anything that comes from animals, including honey for example. So now at least I know why everything taste really sad 🙂 🙂

A15397_004 — One from the Meopta Milona just so we remember what we’ve just left behind us 🙂

Have a great day!

The sunshine is really hot.

May 21, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

a (4) — Clematis *Propertius’. It has a weak but pleasant scent.

We were supposed to have a gray and dull day here with little to no sunshine so is anyone surprised when I say that we’ve mostly had sunshine all day? 🙂 🙂 🙂 21C (69,8F) but really hot in the sunshine. I even hesitated to take the dogs for a walk because of how hot it was. Albins fur is so short that I doubt it can regulate heat especially well, Nova is old and Alma starts panting as soon as I open the door before the walk 🙂 🙂 🙂 But we did take a short one i the forest where it’s mostly shadowy. Still they are now all sleeping on the floor beside me here on the upper floor. The windows are open and there’s a wind blowing so it feel almost chilly here now.

a (1) — 35 meters (much the same in yards) of this and I’m not happy about it but also too lazy to do anything about it 🙂

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c (6) — I got this one from my friend who owns a garden center. They didn’t have time enough to take care of it and bring it back to what it once was and was going to toss it away. I have the time and now new leafs are on the way. This is by the way a Calamodin. The fruits can be used for jam but aren’t that wonderful to eat as they are.

I’ve never seen as many flowers on my lilac hedge as there is this year. It’ll be horrible when they all open up but even worse when they wither away. It is too much work to remove it though so here I am complaining every spring when they open up 🙂 🙂 It will rain tonight they say, anything from light drizzle to heavy rain. They are guessing that we’ll get nothing up to 25 mm (an inch) of it during the night and early morning. They are also guessing that the warm weather will stay but one day or two the temperature might not reach 20C (68F). I can live with that 🙂

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I’m continuing to sow seeds and today it was mostly for flowers but I do have some more vegetables to sow but I want to see what of the seeds I’ve already sown will come up before I continue. Any bare spot will be filled with something new. I’m also pretty sure I won’t get any walnuts this year either, not a sign of “flowers” on my black walnut and the one I just planted barely has any branches or twigs at all 🙂 🙂 🙂 My Pawpaws looked fine until that rain/ hail and snowstorm passed by but now they look dead. There will be new leafs some time during the summer but it is annoying and that will make it harder for them to survive next winter if it is a tougher one.

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So back to work tomorrow since I didn’t even get one number right on the lottery ticket 🙂 🙂 🙂 The laundry is done and so is dinner at work for next week. I’ll only have to add baked beans and fried eggs. I I didn’t want to fry eggs today for something that won’t be eaten until next Friday and I don’t know how fried eggs make it if they are frozen.

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Have a great day!

Presummer is here.

May 20, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

I’ve always been like this but I still feel it’s wrong to wake up earlier on a weekend than on the days I need to go to work 🙂 🙂 🙂 I woke up just as the sun slowly should have risen but there were a few clouds at the horizon that blocked it for a while. The rest of the day however has been sunny without even a single cloud.

View from behind my gate yesterday when the sun was slowly setting.

We all had something to eat before we went out on our morning walk. It was still a bit chilly so I was stupid enough to wear a sweater, ok it was one with a zipper in the front but it didn’t take long before I started to boil. Walking with Alma does that to me but also the sun started to heat up the air and there was no wind at all. The first thing we did was of course to see a roe deer cross the road and Alma went from just stressed to quite insane. She did calm down a bit though but she gets so excited when she see wildlife that she can be impossible to walk around with.

The first deer we met. She must have seen us since long becausee the forest is cut down on the left side. She was in no hurry at all.

A crab apple tree on the right side of the gravel road. It gives red and rather nice apples.

Of course just when she finally had calmed down properly we went out on a field and what do we see? Another roe deer. So I was prepared for the worst but then she almost didn’t care at all 🙂 🙂 🙂 I will never be able to figure out how she will react to anything to be honest 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’m so glad that she and Albin never saw the badger strolling along some bushes when we were almost at home. when we came home I finally baked those breads that I should have baked yesterday 🙂 🙂 and they turned out quite ok. I think I had a bit too much flour though so the loafs didn’t rise as much as I had hoped. To be honest though, the taste is the only thing that matters as long as it is edible 🙂

The rest of the day has been nice and calm. Alma has been over to the neighbors and played with their daughter. Alma is apparently great with kids. Not so great with Albin because she goes too far and never stops in time. Today I sprayed water on her since I was watering the vegetable patch and that calmed her down considerable 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve sowed two kinds of Asian cabbage, one edible flower and then lots of draught resistent flowers, mostly those we have as spices like Thyme. I was going to sow Oregano (the Swedish name for it is Kings Mint) but I just can’t remember where I put those seeds 🙂 🙂 🙂 Plus I’ve sown all kinds of poppies, morning glories, canary nasturtiums, normal nasturtiums and Black-eyed Susan vine. If they all would grow I’m pretty sure it will look amazing and sort of a mess at the same time 🙂 🙂 🙂

The second one and he too took it a bit to calm for my liking. It’s a miracle if these deer survives the wolf pack we now have here because they react slower than cold molasses 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is time for something, I’m thinking yogurt and perhaps corn flakes or some kind of gluten free granola. I must say that gluten free granola is a bit sad when comparing to the normal one but one takes what one can eat 🙂

Have a great day!

Long weekend.

May 19, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

I’m having a long weekend and the weather is quite wonderful. Yesterday was a bit chilly even though the sun shone most parts of the day but the cold feeling from the day before when we had thunder, rain, hailstorms and snow falling really didn’t want to leave. Today it was gone though, no wind, sunshine, birds singing and the first annoying flies have arrived 🙂 🙂 It almost feels like summer.

We saw this fox in the field just beside a little grove, he was looking towards the grove and didn’t notice us at first.

When he did he didn’t seems to care about us at all. It’s most likely a male fox hunting food for all the cubs he’s a father to now. He can have several litters but will help with feeding them all and will also stay long enough to play with them every day.

Then he scratched himself a bit while we were leaving. As soon as we had started to walk away he ran away towards the creek.

Today I was expecting a package. Normally they just leave it outside my door but since it weighed more than 20 Kg (44 pound) I for some reason had to stay at home to get it. No problem since I had taken the day off anyway. My cottage can be seen very clearly when one drives down the slope but still the postal service employees can’t find my cottage!! I was standing by my gate looking at the driver passing my cottage, passing my neighbors cottage and stopping just before she reached the beekeepers cottage. There she stood for at least five minutes while I was shouting towards her and jumping and waving my hands. Turns out that she had called a college to ask for where I lived. Turns out that it helps to threaten to call the police if they missed me again 🙂 🙂 🙂

He most likely knew that this doe was in the grove close to her youngling. she would have defended the young one so unless the fox had been desperate he wouldn’t try and take it as long as she was close.

I’ve done one set of laundry today, all my work t-shirts. I’ve also mowed the lawn, the grass started to grow way too fast for my liking so I did it today, normally I do it on Saturdays or more often on Sundays. I have an electric mower, not a battery driven one, they just cost way too much and one need two batteries (and the batteries are insanely expensive) even to mow a small garden as mine is. So instead I have a long cord, well actually I have plenty of shorter ones and it works fine as long as I plan how to mow so I don’t have to cross the cord risking to cut it off 🙂 🙂 Instead I tend to step on is to the cord gets unplugged. I always sound as if i planned that stop by saying to my dogs why have You put that thing there 🙂 🙂 🙂

All I have left to do today, because the dogs and I had our pancake Sunday already today 🙂 is to bake two loafs of bread. I’m almost out of hard bread and I haven’t had any other kind of bread for several days, I must admit that I’ve been way too lazy to bake and the store bought ones are just gross. Turns out that my work friends wife just found out that she too most likely is gluten intolerant, she’s just a few years younger than me. So I told my work friend who I think bought everything gluten free he could find, that she should bake her own bread because she will not like the one she can buy unless she loves toast insanely much 🙂 🙂 I tried two new gluten free cookie variants I found in the store, they were just as awful as all other cookies I’ve bought. So so far there’s only one edible cookie and it’s an oatmeal cookie with chocolate chips in it.

It’s time to give the dogs their dinner and after that a walk in the forest and then baking those breads. I’ll sow something as well, most likely broccolo (a sort of in between broccoli and cauliflower) Looks more like a greenish cauliflower but tastes more like broccoli, a good thing since I really don’t like cauliflower 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

So we won.

May 14, 2023 · 6 Comments ·

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It is raining. We weren’t supposed to get rain today but this comes from thunderstorms nearby and it is very dry in the ground so I doubt that anyone is complaining about it. It isn’t dry in my garden though, like in winter when the cold temperatures flow down through my garden so does the water that still is in the ground until there’s none left. It does help a lot to live beside a huge bog too, there’s still water in the swamp behind my garage so the ground water is just two meters (much the same in yards) down.

My little Red oak is opening up its leafs. I can’t say that it grows especially fast but it is at least alive 🙂 I’ve always wanted a North American oak since I was a kid and noticed that the leafs looked different than our oak leafs when I watched Chip and Dale at Christmas 🙂

DSC_0004 (2) — The oaks are getting green in the forest as well.

I slept until 5 am today (and so did the dogs) because I watched the finale in the Eurovision Song contest. Our song won because it got almost twice as many votes from the juries around Europe. The peoples votes however went to Finland so he ended up as the silver medalist. So like in the US elections a president can win the popular vote but still lose the election 🙂 For me it didn’t matter who won of those two because I didn’t get the Finnish one and I still couldn’t hear what our singer sang 🙂 🙂 🙂 I hoped for France to wind and like always my favorite ended up somewhere in the middle to last 🙂 🙂 🙂 So here’s a link to YouTube to the french song: Evidemment It should open up in a new tab.

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I could hear cranes trumpeting when we went out on our morning walk today and when we reached the open fields they stood not far from the gravel road we were walking on. They didn’t care much about us (and both Albin and Alma behaved really well). They were communicating with other cranes so i didn’t think more about it. Just as we were about to cross the creek two more landed in front of us. They too trumpeted a lot and to my very big surprise three big flocks of cranes then flew towards us, circled a bit and landed in a neighboring field 🙂 Must have been around 40 cranes in total. I think those are the ones that still doesn’t have a place of their ow since they arrived in couples. If they were nesting only one would have come while the other one wrmed and defended the eggs in the nest.

DSC_0038 (1) — Parts of the three flocks that came after.

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I’ve sown iceberg lettuce, chard and salsify in the vegetable patch today. I’ll sow much more later but these are quite safe to sown now since they can manage a chilly morning and we might have just that on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. The temperatures will drop considerable for two days and then go back up when our long holiday starts. Ascension Day is on Thursday and I took Friday off as well. Not all at work could do that unfortunately but since no one actually celebrates holiday like they did back in the days they’ll instead work on Thursday and take Friday off instead. I think that if they had done that when I was a kid they would have been flogged 🙂 🙂 🙂 Not that we Swedes were especially religious back then (and even less now days) but one just simply didn’t do anything like that then.

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The dogs have had their dinner and now I’ll go down to the kitchen and make dinner for work tomorrow. After that I too will have something but I haven’t figured out what I want to eat 🙂

Have a great day!

Buzy morning.

May 13, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

I woke up pretty early (4:20 am), well I was woken up pretty early by the dogs. With my bedroom window open they now hear everything that happens outside and obviously they then need to go outside to check it out 🙂 🙂 If the window had been closed they would hear something and then they obviously would have to go outside and check what it was anyway so there’s no way I can win from now on 🙂 🙂

We had our breakfast and then we went out on our morning walk. Alma did behave pretty well even if two hares around 200 meters (much the same in yards) away ran around some and made her a bit crazy 🙂 Also there was this squirrel that caught her interest but she could just hear it so she lost interest quite fast. When we had come home again I brought out all the seed potatoes. I have bought two different ones, the most disease resistent I could find, and one kilo ( around two pound) of each. I also had a few that were green last autumn so I had saved those as well.

There were some old garden tools left when I moved here 23 years ago. I think this one was a sort of multi tool with a rake on one side but smooth on the two other. I use it for when planting potatoes.

One net was already in the ground when I remembered to take this photo. The ones in the egg carton are green potatoes from last year.

This is the “harvest” 🙂 of sprouts that broke off and a couple from the green ones as well and two tiny from last year that had way too long sprouts to be easily planted in the ground.

I don’t have much soil at home so I had to plant too many sprouts in each pot/ bucket. I’ll show the result in the autumn 🙂

When one buy seed potatoes, at least over here, they always comes in a net bag. Since they always arrive (if one buy them online as I did) too early the sprouts then start to grow through the net and many will of course break off from the potato. So when I had put down all the potatoes in the ground I then had lots of sprouts that had broken off. So I fixed a bucket and three pots and planted the sprouts there. It’ll take a bit longer time to get potatoes but there will be potatoes. Last year I harvested enough of them in one bucket to last for an entire weeks dinners.

After that I mowed the lawn. I can’t say that it had grown an awful lot but some spots were worse than others. There was actually very little grass growing at the place where all the thorny bushes and roses grew but instead shoots had started to popping up from the ground instead. I really can’t skip mowing there because otherwise all those thorny bushes will grow up again. Yesterday I realized that stack ants had a nest in my compost so I had to poison them. Stack ants and all kinds of red ants are really aggressive and their sting is pretty nasty so if I hadn’t done that it would have been impossible to be in my garden at all. Looks like I managed to do the job because I can’t find a single ant there now. I’m sorry about the ants but it was them or us this time.

Tonight is the big finale in the Eurovision Song Contest and as I’ve told You our song is the huge favorite. Finland is the second favorite and then France. I’ve heard the Finnish one and I can’t understand why it is so popular, I guess I’m getting old 🙂

Have a great day!

Finally some warm weather.

May 7, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

a (1) — The bog more or less starts just behind my garage, at the moment it is more like a swamp and sometimes ducks swim around there 🙂

My body aches after all the work in the vegetable patch and potato patch yesterday 🙂 🙂 It was of course as worst this morning but I can feel the muscle pain after every time I’ve sat down for a while. I’ll survive and since I’m walking all the time while painting at work this will most likely be gone by tomorrow. The day has been truly wonderful, sunshine all day and 0C (32F) as coldest in the early morning. Then the temperature rose to 17C (62,6F) and the wind that was was lukewarm. I was thinking I should mow the lawn but my muscles said no 🙂 Instead I planted that English walnut I’ve had in the cool cellar all winter. It had new fine white roots so it will at least survive this summer as long as I remember to support water it until autumn comes an all leafs fall off.

a (3) — Alma saw several deer at our walk but behaved unusually well even when they walked (or ran) away.

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I’ve also replanted eight apricot seedlings, six that shows above the surface and two that might make it. When the apricot seed starts to germinate it always splits in two, don’t know why, sometimes one half just sort of falls off and sometimes it gives a root that sometimes give a new plant. Lots of sometimes there but why not plant it and see what happens?

Quite often when we buy, for instance, grapes they are packed in these plastic containers. They work perfect as mini green houses.

I’ve also done the laundry and dinner for next week at work so now all I have to do today is to bake two breads because I’m out of normal bread and down to a minimum when it comes to hard bread. It is quite easy to bake gluten free bread because there is no kneading involved. It is so sticky that it would be impossible 🙂 🙂 It isn’t as runny as what You get when baking a sponge cake though. Thankfully easy to wash away. I’ve managed to get a bread that is quite close to a gluten bread so I’m quite happy with that but I still haven’t figured out how to come close to a french roll 🙂

This one was a bit hard to just let it run away without getting a bit hysteric 🙂 🙂

a (19) — This is some kind of plum tree, I don’t think it is a Cherry plum but the fruits are pretty small but not round as cherries. Bright yellow and tastes really nice. It flowers too early most of the time so the flower freeze and won’t give any plums at all. If it does this this year I’ll cut it down.

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Have a great day!

White wood anemone.

I’m ready for the vegetable season.

May 6, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

Flowering Bog myrtle (Sweet gale). Smells really nice.

We’ve had a really nice day here, it would have been wonderful if it hadn’t been for the pretty cold night and sometimes the wind being a bit too chilly. To be honest it was warm enough to have the kitchen door open all day and the little wind that actually reached the garden helped when I worked in the vegetable patch and potato patch. The vegetable patch mostly only had grass that I needed to remove but the potato patch also had dandelions, greater celandine, a few small elder bushes, wild raspberry bushes and that red leafed oxalis one can buy as a potted plant, usually have yellow flowers and really is a spreader. Many oxalis can be used in food but this one isn’t one of those but I musty admit that amongst weeds it’s quite beautiful.

I checked so that there were no bees visiting the dandelions before I removed them. There are plenty more dandelions in the lawn anyway so bees of all kinds won’t be hungry 🙂

The vegetable patch were much easier to clean out even though it’s almost twice the size.

The box is almost falling apart and I think I won’t have another there next summer.

I’m happy to say that today was one of those days when Alma behaved pretty good even though two Roe deer ran in front of her eyes and she even noticed a hare in a field without going insane. She did however almost fall of the entrance stairs and pulling me with her when we went out for our afternoon walk. I wonder if I should put on her harness when we’re not taking any walks because as soon as I put that one on she starts to tremble, panting and whining a lot. If I open the door and she doesn’t have it on she behaves like any other dog. When we start walking and I can keep her reasonable calm the first two hundred meters the rest of the walk usually works rather well. If not it’s horrible for both of us. She has become much better though, now days I can actually hear the birds sing, I couldn’t do that from the day she arrived until some time in the middle of the winter that just passed 🙂 🙂 🙂

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They are finally putting more gravel on the road outside our cottages 🙂 The “big” road in the village belongs to the village and all of us are responsible for it but the roads leading from it are private roads and are supposed to be taken care of us who live along them. The problem is that it is timber lorries that destroys it so therefore it’s the forest owners responsibility to keep it in good shape. This winter was warm and the road was soft so now we have huge holes in it and the forest owners have been no where to find but finally one of them said he’s taking care of it. I don’t know how many times I’ve done what I have been able to to fix the holes outside my cottage but that doesn’t help when a new lorry arrives and just makes it worse again, also I live at the lowest point of the road so all water runs down to me and sometimes I have to wade in water when I’m trying to go out from my garden (well wading is a bit much but there’s at least 5 cm (2 inches of standing water there, five meters (much the same in yards) wide) 🙂 🙂 🙂

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It’s the finale in the Eurovision Song Contest next Saturday. To be honest they have been really quiet about it so I didn’t know until a few days ago. Our song is the absolute favorite an it is Loreen, who already have won this with the song Euforia, who sings for us. The music isn’t that much different than when she won the last time but I can’t for my life hear what she’s singing 🙂 🙂 I’m not sure if anyone actually can hear that but she’s like always very dramatic in her performance so I guess that’s what they fall for. I must admit that even if I can’t hear what she sings it still was the only song that should win, the rest were actually total crap and probably the worst I’ve heard in years 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Have a great day!

A15398_008 — One from the Agfa Ambiflex.

It’s greening up :-)

May 5, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

The week has been mostly sunny but with a nasty cold wind from north. Also well below 0C (32F) every morning. Most days though the sun has melted away most of the ice on the car so it was only this morning I had to use the ice scraper again.I was a bit worried when the dogs and I was going out on our walk after work because the last two ones Alma has been horrible. Mostly because hares run out in front of us and instead of running out in to the forest continued in front of us for quite some time. I really wouldn’t feel sad if all hares just died out 🙂 🙂 🙂

Today however, despite some other hares, she behaved really well again. I don’t know it it was what I told her yesterday that helped, that I would let a hunter shoot her to oblivion 🙂 🙂 🙂 She’s smart but I’m not sure if she’s so smart that she would have understood what I told her but I think she could understand how tired I was after those walks 🙂 🙂 🙂 So today she’s forgiven again. It’s so fun because my neighbors like when she jumps over the fence to them because she’s so calm when she plays with their oldest daughter, sometime I wonder if we’re talking about the same dog 🙂 🙂 🙂

The road association meeting is next week so I have put out notices about it in the mailboxes here in the village. The village road is more or less a circle so if I would do it all by car before going to work I would have to pass my mailbox twice and if I did that the dogs would have thought I was on my way home again and would have started to bark like crazy. Not a good thing at six am, so I decided I would walk to the four closest. I haven’t been able to walk there in a long time since both Albin and Alma behaves like they do when seeing wild animals, they would wake up the entire village. So I brought my camera and took a few photos since it was not just sunny but also so cold that we had morning mist. I realized how much I miss walking there but I just can’t reach those two when they start behaving like that and those times are the times I miss my old dogs the most 🙂 🙂 🙂

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More and more flowers are in bloom in my garden now. I hadn’t checked that this week so I was surprised to see so many flowers 🙂 I also found a flower I tried to plant in my garden when I moved here, 23 years ago. They survived a winter or two but suddenly they were gone. Now I found a lump of them in my hedge and I’m pretty sure I didn’t see them there last year. I have no idea how they managed to get there but who cares 🙂 Also I now have six apricot trees growing from kernels I saved from last autumn and it looks like three nectarines are on the way too 🙂 I have no space for them really but who cares, I’ll make space for them when that day comes 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Have a great day!

Yellow wood anemone and the now everywhere growing Nuns worth and Scilla of course.

I still have a Trillium but since first Albin and then Alma arrived they’ve slowly died away, those two run over them and dig everywhere.

This is the one I thought I had died out in my garden, the Pilewort.

The wind is the same but now it’s raining.

May 1, 2023May 1, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

So if yesterdays weather looked nice from indoors todays wetaher doesn’t and isn’t either 🙂 There was at least no wind in the earky morning when we went out for our walk but it did rain consistently for the entire hour we were outside. To be honest, none of the dogs wanted to take a walk but I forced them because I wanted them to get rid of some energy. Albin and Alma can destroy an entire house when they’re going full force playing 🙂 🙂 🙂

The rain did stop and naturally during the time I did the laundry. Almost as soon as I’ve finished it the rain came back 🙂 🙂 During that time I also saw the sun for almost ten whole seconds 🙂 🙂 I wouldn’t mind that much if the wind just could stop blowing, especially since it is just as cold as it was yesterday. The birds doesn’t seem to mind the weather as much though, they sing a bit less I guess but then again lots of them are on the ground eating what ever they can find and it looks like they find a lot.

I did my taxes today and even before I made the car deduction for driving to and from work because I really can’t use public transportation (it would take 150 minutes one way and it takes 30 minutes with a car) I would get a few dollars back 🙂 Can’t remember when that happened the last time With the deduction I’ll get a few more back but since our inflation is insane here that money won’t last for long 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well it’s better than to have to pay back 🙂 🙂 🙂

A15398_002 — Four from the Agfa Ambiflex. A bit too wintery but they make today look nice and cosy in comparison 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Around five? years ago I sowed some Gardenia seeds, I’ve tried before but have always failed. This time however I got five little plants and I still have five living even though one really look more dead than alive 🙂 🙂 🙂 Today I found flower buds on the two of them that I looked at!! I also noticed that they were attacked by something, can’t really say what I only saw the larvae or what it was. So now I’ve sprayed them with soapy water. Soapy water suffocates everything insect-wise and I do hope I didn’t destroy the coming flowers by doing so.

A15265_020A — Four from the Agfa Ambi Silette. These photos on the other hand make today look like a nasty november day 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Tomorrow’s a working day again so back to work it is. I actually almost won back all the money I spent on the lottery, not quite but very close 🙂 🙂 🙂 not enough to stop working but I’ll at least not have to pay more than less of a $ US next week 🙂 🙂 🙂

A15266_004 — Why not ad a wintery photo from the Flexaret VI too.

Have a great day!

This could have been such a nice day.

April 30, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

Today should really have been a wonderful day. The sun has been shining all the time and the temperature rose to 10C (50F) but there has been a nasty and bitterly cold wind blowing and that has sort of destroyed the entire day. I couldn’t even have the kitchen door open because the wind came from the only direction where it actually can hit my cottage and it chilled down the entire cottage. Still when we were walking in the forest where the wind had troubles reaching us it felt quite ok.

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Everything comes in cardboard boxes and everything in those cardboard boxes are wrapped in enormously much plastic, usually bubble wrap and I have finally got my thumbs out of my a..e and started to break it all down in smaller pieces. It is insanely boring in the long run to be honest 🙂 🙂 🙂 It doesn’t take especially much space when I’ve packed it all in the car though. I also vacuumed the entire cottage and by entire I also mean the ceilings 🙂 I thought I had removed all spider webs from the ceilings a couple of weeks ago but the spiders are either really fast in making new ones or I was half blind when I did it the first time 🙂 🙂 I realized that I had missed one place so I’ll get a stick and remove the rest later today.

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I found a dead kitten in my garden a week ago. I noticed that Albin was licking on something and realized it was a small cat. I called my neighbors and asked if they had all their cats but they weren’t at home so they sent me a photo of their cats and thankfully it wasn’t one of them. I couldn’t find any injuries on the kitten (can’t have been more than half a year old) so I don’t think Albin has killed it. He is a cat hater and have tried to take the beekeepers cats, I must admit that I’m afraid. He did (nor Alma) not show any signs of interest when I removed the kitten and not the place where it was lying so I don’t think he did anything to it. Anyway, it hadn’t been in that spot a couple of hours earlier so what ever has happened it must have happened almost just before I noticed it. I have a tradition that when one of my cats has died I bury it and plant something above it.

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Cosmos the kat is buried beneath some Irises, beside a big rose (rosa rugosa), Bertil i buried beneath a small cherry tree and Teodor beneath a rose that first gives orange flowers that then fades to almost white. This little unknown kitten is now buried beneath a Nanking cherry. Cosmos the Cat will have something else this summer because I plan to reduce the size of that rose, or remove it totally and the Irises never liked that place to be honest. Perhaps that’s the place where I’ll plant the Walnut, it is rather protected from the wind by the neighbors cottage and it will get sunshine all day.

We’ve had our pancake Sunday and I checked on the box what the mix is made from. Turns out it’s mostly corn flour! Had no idea. I have now also learned that the brand of oat flour I’ve bought lately can contain gluten so that’s the explanation to why my stomach is so upset again 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well I better keep my eyes open the next time I go grocery shopping. I might come back tomorrow since it’s a holiday here, otherwise I’ll see You next Friday.

A15398_028 — These four ate taken with the Agfa Ambiflex.

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Have a great day!