Category: Walnuts.

I managed the first week but I’m soo tired now :-)

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View from my window upstairs.

So my first evening shift week is over and I must say it worked better than I thought it would. I did get more and more tired as the days passed and this morning I was so tired that I would have preferred to stay in bed all day long 🙂 🙂

My black walnut is finally greening up.

The weather was perfect for that because it has been raining constantly since yesterday and will continue through the weekend. I don’t mind the rain though, wee need it because even the weeds started to look sad now 🙂 🙂 I do mind the temperature though, 4C (39,2F) as lowest during the day and it dropped down to 2C (35,6F) on my way home just after midnight.

No flowers in my woodland but Solomons’ seal has some buds now.

It’s a strange feeling driving home at night, even though I’ve driven that road so often during daylight it’s a totally different thing when it is pitch dark. There are almost no lights from the few houses along the road so even though I really can’t drive the wrong way I still don’t really know where I am :-)It isn’t before half way home when I pass the village Gudhem that I know where I am because there’s a petrols station that brings some light to the area and after that it’s pitch black again 🙂 🙂 If the sky is cloud free it really isn’t really dark here anyway this time of year, the sky is already becoming brighter after midnight so there aren’t any stars in the sky at all. o if one wants to look at stars here one better do it in winter when it is cold and nasty 🙂 🙂

I got my first pay check today so I drove to the grocery store in the village where I used to work, I’ve been doing most of my grocery shopping there since I moved to this area, must be 28 years now so many of them are like friends and they know more about me than most people 🙂 🙂 Also I know where everything is placed in that store so without the chats with the employees the shopping goes really fast 🙂 🙂 After that I visited my old work place, well my old work friends and told them how I really like working at this new place and how fast I just became one in the gang. It has never been like that in my old work place, if one is a bit shy it really is hard to get to know people there and that I know have work friends and bosses that actually treat people with respect., they asked me how that felt 🙂 🙂 🙂

The dogs have been behaving really good during this week. Ok Alma did one thing I wasn’t especially happy about, My kitchen door is to be honest just an old balcony door with no insulation in it, so I had put up insulation but not yet covered it. I now need to buy new insulation 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’m actually now thinking of making the insulation much thicker and covering it with a sort of box so that I can have potted plants there during winter. I will check with friends who now better than I how to do it so it just doesn’t comes loose drop off the door one day 🙂 🙂 🙂

My Red oak shows leafs as well.
It’s easy to see why this rose is called Red leafed rose in English.
The Kankakee mallow has adapted well to where they grow now, I think I have six more in pots though and they look fine today, I think they liked the rainy and cooler weather a lot.

It is time for a cup of tea and perhaps baking some bread but I am so tired so I might skip the bread until tomorrow since I bought hard bread today.  I will not spend much time outside because of the rain but it is a bit warmer now at least.

Have a great day!

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The morning weather was a bit dull and grey so I went to the grocery store before we had our walk, no wind to speak of but it felt like the weather was a bit depressed, out of energy. Could be because the hard winds that passed during the night 🙂 I had just driven out from the parking lot when I for some reason remembered that I hadn’t bought any milk or cheese, I can’t live without either so back to the store I went.

     

It was quite nice when I came back home again, a little bit more wind and sunshine every now and again. We only had a short walk in the forest because Nova had rather stayed at home continuing to sleep in the sofa 🙂 She didn’t look too happy when I showed her the harness 🙂 Alma is getting better when walking leashed but so far we’ve only tried this when walking in the forest where it mostly is quiet. Today not so quiet though because some trees had fallen during the windy night and every time there came a gust they squeezed towards other trees and then making a noise that sounded like something was screaming very loud 🙂 🙂

     

Only one walnut had fallen down during the night so there’s still four or five up there on the branches. It’ll take some time before they turn from green to black and I can pick out the nuts. I really don’t need more walnut trees but perhaps I should poke down some nuts here and there when we’re out walking in the forest and by the bog 🙂

     

I think it is time to have that last cup of tea for the day and perhaps a slice or two from my new baked breads 🙂 I’m not that hungry to be honest but the first ones tasted pretty good 🙂

The last Wildapple apple.
My two Pawpaws still have green leafs and I don’t like that. It would have been better if they’d dropped them and prepared for winter. My seed sown ones are finally in tune with nature and are now spending winter in the cool cellar.
But they aren’t the only ones. The sand cherries have just started to get colors and the peach tree is also still totally green.

Have a great day!

Warmish.

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The four walnuts I found on the ground yesterday.

It’s quiet in my cottage, the dogs and kitten are sleeping and even though the tv is on downstairs I can’t hear it. We went out to the bog this morning and I tried something old with Alma, I thought she has become older so perhaps it will work this time. It is more quiet out there and even though we do see animals every now and again that still can’t compare to a huge tractor passing in front of us, curious calves running towards us and dogs barking in dog yards 🙂

     

To my very big surprise it worked really well! This was only one day but we’ll continue with this for a while and if it works I’ll tell You what we did 🙂 It was fairly warm already in the morning and with almost no wind it did feel like an early spring day.  No birds singing of course but some tweeting from smaller birds flying by and I could hear a Jay screaming from somewhere in the forest plus a few Ravens as well. One moose fly that I managed to get rid of when we had arrived here at home again, they should all be dead by this time of the year but there’s always a few that survives for a longer period I’m afraid.

     

I found eight more walnuts on the ground today and since almost all leafs are gone from the tree now I found seven more up there just waiting to fall down. This year I’ll use a hammer to crack them since they destroyed my very sturdy nut cracker last year 🙂 🙂 🙂 It wasn’t the best nut cracker to be honest but since it was made from thick iron I never thought they would break it 🙂 🙂 🙂 They’re still green on the outside so it’ll take some time until I can crack them open. I hope that they aren’t empty like the few hazelnuts I got 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

It will stay relatively warm and nice for a while now, with that I mean up to 59F as most but it looks like the sun will stay away most of it. I won’t complain even if the sun will hide behind the clouds as long as it is around that temperature. I’m not a fan of winter, truly dislike below freezing temperatures, hate scraping ice from the car windows and hate even more to shovel snow from the ground. To be honest it’s just four meters I really need to shovel and some around the car but I really can’t stand it. Now days winter tends to arrive when we usually was waiting for spring, some time in March and with fierce snow storms. Like this year when it arrived twice, the last time it came at easter just when I had brought home Malkolm. We had had spring for a few weeks by then when the snow arrived again and forced me to take a week of vacation because I couldn’t leave a small puppy in a dog house/ yard when we had well over 40 cm (16 inches) of snow everywhere 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day but I think I’ll skip anything to eat. I’m not hungry and don’t even crave anything sweet, a first time to be honest 🙂

I must say that this little compost works really well.     

Have a great day!

Going through the garden.

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I think the birds want me to make sure the feeder is full of peanuts 🙂

I just realized that there are no hunters in the forest yet and it’s lunch time now. The sign they always put up is turned to show the back side and if it is no hunting is going on. My guess is that if they come they’ll come around 1pm-2pm. It could also be that they’ve given up for now and they all will be here during the weekend. The weather predictions have changed again, we’ll get rain from now on and all day tomorrow, lots of it as well but the storm will still miss us.

The seed sown Pawpaws are finally dropping their leafs so I can bring them down to the cool cellar.
The peach tree however looks like it still is summer.
I have a potted Ginkgo that I think needs to stay in the cellar as well this winter. Its leafs/ needles look a bit different from the one already growing in the garden.
The fun thing with sowing ones own trees is that one never know how they will look like. Now when they’ll drop their leafs some have quite red leafs while some turns to yellow.

The dogs and I have been outside in the garden for quite some time today though, Nova stayed indoors because she usually only go out when she needs to, she’s so old that playing isn’t that fun but sleeping is 🙂 Alma and Malkolm however got rid of lots of energy 🙂 Malkolm is so big now that even though Alma is still much faster she does have problems catching him while they’re playing and that frustrates her so much that she starts barking like a hunting dog while she’s chasing him 🙂 🙂 🙂

The peach tree in the garden also still has green leafs, I would like for them to drop as well so I can spray sulphur on it to get rid of the curled leaf disease. It would most likely be the last time I need to do that.
The shoots from the now dead Persimmon hybrid looks fine. They are touched by frost and will soon drop their leafs, so now all I can do is to hope they’ll survive the winter. The tree I planted last spring has already dropped its leafs.
I’ve tried to get rid of a Wisteria that I once planted in the wrong place, to be honest it shouldn’t survive here but grows like a weed 🙂 I’ve tried to kill it for several years now but it just comes back. Last year I once again dug it up but this time planted it beside a Laburnum and it survived. Still don’t know if the old one will come back again though 🙂 🙂 🙂

I can’t remember when the leafs stayed on the trees for this long. Some still have green leafs as well. I need those that will spend the winter in my cool cellar to start dropping their leafs, well the tea tree/ bush will keep its leafs so I can bring it in already now but the small pear trees, peach tree, all the apricots and what else still is out there need to drop them now, I really don’t want all those leafs on the cellar floor 🙂 Also I need to dig down the rest of the plants that will spend the winter outside but I still haven’t figured out where to plant them 🙂 I guess I’ll just do the panic thing and dig them down together in the ground with the pots still on and then figure out where to plant the survivors next spring.

The Black walnut thrives and I can see some walnuts hanging way up in the tree. This year I’ll use a hammer to crack those nuts 🙂 🙂 🙂
The bought Pawpaw trees still look to much like summer is here, I want them to be ready for winter now. The little one that only had a few leafs this summer is still alive but has dropped its leafs now.

The little Ginkgo looks fine as well. I’ll thin out the branches on the apple tree next spring so that it’ll get more light and rain reaching it.

Sara the cat is pestering Malkolm by playing with his tail 🙂 At first he looked horrified every time she did but now he’s just a bit annoyed 🙂 🙂 Alma is a bit worried every time Sara comes close to her when she’s in the sofa, it’s because she twice laid down over Sara and she screamed like she was being crushed and I had to rip her away but otherwise she adores the little cat. I’ve been trying to undo the damage by not letting Alma jump of the couch when Sara is there and it seems to have helped quite a lot, Alma is after all the mother of all living things 🙂

       

It’s time to figure out what to eat. I think I’ll make a couple of warm sandwiches. I have some mackerel in tomato sauce in the pantry or perhaps with meatballs? and perhaps sprinkling some curry over it all? I could do a real dinner of course but then it would mean so much more work 🙂 🙂 🙂

A really tired little kitten 🙂

Have a great day!

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This is the pot with the self sown flowers. Canadian Goldenrod, catnip, Californian poppy and also an Aaron’s rod but I managed to break that stem .

It wasn’t much cooler today so the factory was nasty hot today, it’ll be slightly cooler tomorrow but now the ovens are building up the heat indoors. We do have two big gates where forklifts can go in and out of the factory but the problem is that the sun shines towards both almost all day, so it’s only when it is really windy it actually helps to open them up 🙂 🙂

I found these photos in the camera, must have taken them during the vacation I think.

   

No walk today either, the dogs didn’t want to go outside at all, they did follow me outside when I walked around watering all the trees I’v planted this year but as soon as I went towards the door to go inside they ran to be first indoors again 🙂 We did have a weak wind blowing so I opened up the windows upstairs but as soon as I did the wind died 🙂

The new shoots from the dead Persimmon hybrid, I will cover them with something to give them a better chance during our winter.
This and the one You can see behind it slightly towards the right are the Pawpaws I bought this spring.
The seed sown pawpaws. I think they still are confused about the year. They germinated the absolutely wrong time of year to be honest.
The first Black walnut I could find 🙂 I’m sure there are more but really tricky to find up there 🙂

I met a villager out running when I came home to the village. I can’t think it i especially healthy to do that in this heat. He also wore a back pack, ok a smaller one but still. Back in the days when I was out running almost every day I never ran if it was over 23C (73,4F), I would not have been able to carry that much water 🙂 🙂 🙂 Also I used to bike every day as long as it wasn’t colder than 0C (32F). I actually liked to bike when it was cold but I never could find gloves or mittens that could keep the cold away from my fingers and I hate cold fingers 🙂

They didn’t have the energy to play, only to eat apples 🙂

   

It is time for a last cup of tea and then bed I think, I start an hour earlier on Fridays so best not to stay up too late 🙂

Have a great day!

Warm.

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I’ve found more Hazelnuts 🙂

It took two days to mow the lawn, it was just too warm to do it all during one evening. Today was even warmer but with almost no sunshine. Too warm to have a walk especially for Nova. I was worried for a while that she was near her end but then suddenly she started to eat a lot again (I boil chicken and rice only for her and since there’s almost no fat in chicken I also give a hand of a special food for senior dogs) so now she’s almost back to normal again 🙂

Four different colors on the five Petunias that germinated late this summer. There’s a fifth one that still not shows any flowers but it’s on its way 🙂

   

The cattle is now walking in the pasture behind my cottage. Alma hates cattle, the first time she saw them she ran straight into the electric fence. It was of course my fault but she forgave me quickly but she has not forgiven the cattle 🙂 🙂 🙂 Malkolm isn’t that happy about them either but he is happy to just bark towards them 🙂 No herding instincts shows so he hasn’t inherited that from the brodercollie that he’s 50% of. He’s more like a English Cockerspaniel that loves to follow tracks and much like Golden retriever when it comes to how he behaves otherwise and how he looks. Very much cockerspaniel head though.

The English walnut, a better photo than I had the last time.
Aronia berries, if You love tart and very bitter berries these are the ones for You. No ammount of sugar can make them taste good but the birds and Alma loves them 🙂 🙂
My seed sown apple tree. Delicious apples but they are easily attacked by fungus.
Finally! Bell peppers on the way 🙂

He is a very soft dog in his behavior, loves to meet new people but shows clearly that he isn’t dangerous. If I call he comes immediately even though he sometimes walks very slow 🙂 🙂 🙂 Learns easily except for when it comes to putting on a harness 🙂 🙂 Even Alma has started to understand that, only took three years 🙂 🙂

Every morning when I let them out in to the garden both Alma and Malkolm runs straight to the gate, looks over it and down on the ground, when they don’t see what they think should be there Alma runs a few laps in the garden while Malkolm follows Nova. I couldn’t understand what it was they were looking for until I was going to mow the outside parts of the grass. The badger that was climbing over the fence at nights here now instead follows the fence around the garden, I can now see the typical little shallow holes in the ground they make while digging for insects and slugs 🙂

     

It is time for a last cup of tea and then see if there’s anything worth to watch on tv.

Have a great day!

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Two cranes passed over us on their way to the bigger lake.

Today has been really nice, sunshine all day, 20C (68F) and a rather strong wind that dried up most of the grass, tomorrow I’ll mow the lawn because it will be exactly the same weather, at least that is what they are guessing 🙂 So no blog will be written.

     

WE walked out to the bog early this morning. I could hear both cranes and geese flying by. This time of year they fly between the two lakes, the one in the bog and the one I pass every time I go to work, every morning and every evening. I have no idea why they do that though. I know there are more fish and vegetation in the the I drive by but perhaps it’s safer for them to overnight in the bog lake?

     

We met  Roe deer doe and her kit on our way out and they are now so used to us and Alma slightly insane behavior that they don’t care about us 🙂 They stood in front of us just looking at us, the youngling scratched its leg and then they slowly walked in to the forest. I had hoped that we would see more animals today when we reached the end of the peninsula but I couldn’t see anything. The dogs didn’t mind us walking away from there so I guess there might have been a moose, wild hogs or perhaps even a wolf even though I doubt that last one would be there, the roe deer were just to relaxed. It was most likely a moose, the dogs really don’t like them.

     

I’ve done all my chores, it’s fun I’ve had all week to do them but still wait until the last minute 🙂 I have even harvested some potatoes, You know the ones I planted in two different pots. I found everything from thumb nail small to one really big and these will last for the rest of the week. Next week I’ll check some of those that survived the winter. I forgot to bring in some peas, chard and squash though, I don’t think I’ve ever had this many peas before, still no beans though.

     

I also checked the English walnut. I suspected that it had died and was sort of right 🙂 The variety that once was grafted on the roots of what I guess is a seed sown walnut had died but instead I now have two stems growing up from the root! Just as it is with the Persimmon I bought last year but from those roots I have lots of new stems, they grow slow though. I think I’ll cover those with either grass or leafs when winter is approaching. Now when the warm weather finally came after our vacations things really started to grow, with a bit of luck I might actually have the chance to see the seed sown dahlias flower 🙂 🙂 and I’m sure I’ll see that self sown sunflower open up soon 🙂

This is to be honest an impossible photo because it’s impossible to actually see what it is 🙂 It shows the two new stems on my English walnut. Well You can at least see the leafs, it is the dead trunk that still is standing there. I think I’ll use that as a support during winter and then remove it.
The Wisteria started to grow really well but then it stopped. The canopy above was so dense that almost no rain water reached the ground, it was the same where the Pawpaws grow. So I’ve started to remove branches so that both water and sunshine can reach the ground.
The Hardy Fuchsia likes to get more light. I’ll cover it over winter with lots of leafs and grass.
The Troll grapes has been opened by the birds so now the seeds can be seen.
My seed sown Pawpaws. They are a bit slow because they did start to grow very late in the autumn, then started their winter rest just when spring started here. I hope they have adjust to how it really is already next year.

Today they actually show some tv programs I want to see, on the knowledge channel of course so after this I’ll make myself a cup of tea and most likely doze off in front of the tv 🙂

     

Have a great day!

Cooler days and soon long weekend :-)

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Old Nova, she's 18 years old now and still going strong :-)

It is finally a bit cooler outside. Not so much when being in the sunshine but a lot when staying in the shadow. I had to water everything when I came home yesterday and suddenly it was evening and time to go to bed, so that’s why I didn’t write anything. Today the ground still was damp so I only watered the trees and bushes I’ve planted in the garden this spring. Well to be honest we haven’t had much of a spring this year, it went from winter to summer in a day or so 🙂 🙂

More and more wild flowers flowers now.  Cooler and nicer in the forest but oh so many biting insects.  The Swedish name for this flower is Hags' tooth.  On our way out on the peninsula out to the bog.

Something is chewing on the new beans, have no idea what it can be but oddly enough only the ones sown in a straight line, I had a few beans left so I just put them down close to the fence and those are untouched. I also had a few peas left so I sowed those in the old broken wheel barrow, they seems to grow even better than all other plants I’ve sown this year 🙂 🙂 Lots of potato plants showing up in the vegetable patch I don’t use this year, I have instead sown seeds (not too successfully I might add) I haven’t had potatoes there for three summers and they still pop up 🙂 🙂 Can I cal them hardy now? 🙂 🙂 🙂

Despite the harw wind this place was packed with mosquitoes, that sort of dampens the joy of having a walk even in plsces where one loves to walk otherwise.    The bog is now full with Hare tail cotton grass.  They are already releasing their seeds now.

Yesterday we had a strong wind and walked out to the bog, normally that ,means the mosquitoes and flies will stay away from us, now we have so many mosquitoes that we were attacked badly when we arrives at the Birch woodland. So today with less wind we stayed at home, Nova is once again so badly bitten all over her head that I thought it would be cruel to bring her out to even more biting insects, it’s bad enough here at home to be honest. It’s a price we have to pay for having so many trees and bushes in this little garden of mine.

Malkolm grows so fast now.

Alma reacted as if she had injured the ball when it started to squeak, I don't think she'll touch it again until I've removed the squeaker :-)
Alma with the new toy, she loved it until it in, her ears, started to scream 🙂 It’s a squeaky thing in that ball and neither she nor Malkolm liked that 🙂 🙂
Those two are playing all day 🙂

I had a little walk in the garden before the mosquitoes chased me indoors. The Black Walnut is flowering, the English is living and now have two branches. The trees I plated this year all look great and the Pawpaw from last year now have green small dots all over the branches, even the ones I thought had frozen. The green dots are tiny, tiny leafs. Also the Persimmon hybrid that dies but where the Persimmon root (Diospyros virginiana) now creates at least eight new branches 🙂 I’ve read that it’s fairly easy to take some of those branches to create new trees from. Well they will. technically all be the same tree but I did also buy a new real persimmon this spring so I hope that at least that I’ll get both male and female trees from this.

This is a favorite in parks and everywhere really, Rose rugosa. It is now seen as invasive and I have no idea how they'll be able to remove them all, especially since it does spread like wildfire :-)
Rosa rugosa, the Swedish name for it would be something like Grumpy rose 🙂
We call this Iris for Swords lily.
Yellow flag.
See all those new branches the Persimmon tree creates now when the hybrid is dead :-)
Lots of new growth from the roots of the Persimmon tree 🙂 The inoculation dies during this winter but the Persimmon root survived and now gives lots of more branches 🙂
I found Morning glories, peas, poppies and Californian poppies growing here now. The poppies refuse to grow in my garden but always grow well in the wheelbarrow for some reason and no summer without Californian poppies at my home :-)
The old wheelbarrow will look good this year 🙂

Tomorrow will be the last working day this week, we have our national day on Thursday and I took Friday off. The weather will be cooler as I’ve already said and they are guessing we’ll get rain as well. I don’t care as long as we at least have sunshine when we’re out on walks, the rest of the time will be good napping times 🙂

Have a great day!

It missed us again.

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The factory where I work is almost surrounded by fields and I really like to stand outside in nice weather just watching what ever they are growing, sometimes a fox pass by and deer kan be seen gracing there too.
Took this one with my camera at work today, I think it came out rather nice 🙂

Another day another thunderstorm passing by but to be honest even though it did go through nearby I couldn’t even hear it this time. It was much worse along the west coast where cities and town have been flooded and cellars being filled with dirty water. An old gardening enthusiast who grew up nearby well over 90 years ago told me that the bog I live beside is so big that during hot summers it creates a high pressure area all by itself, so when rain comes close it push it towards its sides. So the rain can pour down on the mountain but we can have sunshine. It also makes it much colder here when winter arrives and so far I can’t say that he was wrong.

View from my window upstairs. Some sheep in the foreground and behind them the ground is covered by morning mist.
Not bad views when driving to work 🙂 This one however was taken from a window upstairs.

Photos taken in the village on my way to work. The sun is breaking through the mist showing how it floats around in different patters when the sun heats it up.  It doesn't take long before the sun burns it away but here the last of it is rising upwards behind the gravel road. 

We’ve had mostly thin clouds that the sun has shone through or clear blue sky. There was a strongish wind blowing when I came home after work so even if I thought it might be too warm for both Nova and Malkolm I took the dogs for a walk, I thought the wind would cool us down. Turns out that the wind wasn’t strong enough to blow through the forest. The odd thing was that there were no mosquitoes?! The first horse fly annoyed us for a while and the first forest flies a bit longer but even they gave up, so I guess it must have been much warmer in the forest than I actually thought.

This and the next photo showsmostly the did up fields and a small bit of the creek and a thin layer of morning mist floating around over it all.
And tow from the lake.

Dog biscuits, a quite common flower that looks much like wild carrot and smells rather nice.
The Swedish name for the white flowers is Dog biscuit, have no idea how they came up with that long ago 🙂 It is edible and the root is said to taste like Parsnip. They are closely related. The problem is that several other flowers looking similar are deadly poisonous so one must know what one is doing if one wants to eat them 🙂 Also We have wild carrot growing here, believe me when I say that it’s like chewing on a stick 🙂 the taste is there though 🙂
A cloud slowly building up to become a Thunder cloud.

The morning was cool and nice though, 8C (46,4F) and I would rather have had a walk with the dogs than having to go to work 🙂 🙂 🙂 Morning mist floating above the ground and birds singing like crazy. I brought one of my cameras with me and managed to get a few photos with the morning mist before the sun burned it away.

I'm bad at butterfly names but lots are flying around here now, This one was feeding n Lingonberry flowers just when I saw it.
Lots of butterflies here now.
The forest is filled with strwberry plants. Thankfully we have the law called Right to access so we can pick any berries everywhere (unless it is in a garden of course). No land owner has the right to stop us doing that.
Wild strawberry flowers
More Forest star flowers.
Have no idea what these tiny yellow flowers are called but I like them :-)
No idea what these are called.
WE have lots of Veronica's growing in the wild, I think these are called Granny's' goggles.
These veronica’s’ are everywhere now and I think our name for these are Granny’s’ goggles 🙂

The birds just stopped to sing, it is oddly quiet so I checked the lightning app and there isn’t any thunder even close  to here. There’s also a tractor working somewhere nearby that also just stopped making noise. I don’t think they are related in any way but it feels odd when it suddenly becomes totally quiet 🙂 Well th

Chamomile grows along the gravel raod towards the forest.
Chamomile.
The forst star loves living in the forest where it doesn't get too much sunlight that would dry out the ground.
Forest star.
More and more Buttercups are opening up now, soon the fields will shine yellow again nw after all the Dandelions have stopped flowering.
Buttercups.
This is a deep hole in the bog, it looks like it has a bottom rather shallow but it is in facy just roots that covers the water below. Hare tail cotton grass grows well there.
The little tjärn still has water in it and the hare tail cotton grass looks beautiful.

e birds are back and I hope they won’t drive that tractor any more 🙂 🙂 I noticed earlier when I was watering all the new trees that it is time to do something about some of my sowing, like the Hollyhocks and Morning glories, they are growing fast and I was wondering for myself if the best thing is to re-pot them (but I have very little soil) or just plant them where I want them to grow?

This small creek is almost dried out now but the ferns are covering it up instead.

Salmiak , the beekeepers cat, is sleeping on the patio table. We think he is as old as Nova, 18 years old.
Salmiak sleeping on the patio table.
These grow everywhere except in my garden 🙂
I sowed a Black Walnut almost 16 years ago and last year it gave nuts for the first time and this is the first time I've seen the male flowers :-)
The Black Walnut in bloom.

Also several more Giant Sequoias have germinated, still none of the Dawn Redwood but I still have hope 🙂 I have too much of the Greater celandine so I’ll remove some of them tomorrow, I’ll wear gloves when doing that because the sap in them are bright orange and it is more or less impossible to remove that color and I never know where smaller stinging nettles can hide 🙂 I also need to figure out where to plant that last Mulberry tree I bought and four Sea Buckthorn I have waiting as well.Plus the rose that I planted where Teodor the cat is buried seems to have died this winter, so I’ve bought another one, completely different. I doubt it’ll flower this year but it is much more hardy. Seems to spread happily with its roots though so perhaps I need to contain it with a bottomless big pot.

Four photos where You can see Alma and Malkolm playing.
It was too hot for Malkolm to have a walk but he and Alma could play for over an hour in the garden when we came home 🙂 🙂

   

It is time for a pot of tea and I bought a packet with gluten free oatmeal cookies. I’m pretty sure I’ll fall asleep in the retainer as soon as I’ve taken the last sip of the tea 🙂

Have a great day!

Always that wind.

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We’ve had a really nice day here today. Mostly sunshine and almost 20C (68F). The only thing that sort of made the day less nice was the wind, the gusts were too strong and dried out the trees I have and had planted these last day. It’ll stay warm and so will the wind but I guess it is good all those wind power plants produce all that electricity so the price stays low.

     

We had a pancake day today so now I need to buy more jam, the one I had made myself is long gone 🙂 Nova has been unusually picky with her food lately. I know she liked it because they sometimes get that dry food as a treat so I just couldn’t understand why she refused to eat it. I always boil up water and pours it over the food and then cools it down with cold water so it isn’t too hot. Turns out that this food instead of swelling just falls apart and becomes some kind of porridge and that’s what she hates. So later in the morning I gave it to her dry and everything went down in a hurry. So I wasn’t sure if she would eat much pancake shortly after that but she gulped it down and did the same with her afternoon meal. It’s nice when problems are so easily solwed.

     

I have as I mentioned planted most of the trees I had delivered the other week. No matter what place I found it would mess with other plans for the future 🙂 🙂 🙂 Plus having two walnut trees makes it a bit harder. Walnut trees tend to spread a toxin called juglone in the ground to keep other plants away from them, but to be honest I have the Black walnut which is said to be the worst of them and so far everything around it is just as healthy and happy looking as they were the day the walnut was planted and that was well over 15 years ago. Still it is a bit risky to plant anything that might be sensitive to it too close and in my little garden everywhere is a bit too close 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

Also all good places are already having trees growing there 🙂 I do have a plum, gives tiny yellow plums but usually flowers too early so frost takes both flowers and fruits that I’ve planned to remove so I did plant my Persimmon tree close to it. The tricky thing with cutting down all kinds of Prunus (plums, cherries and so on) is that they tens to spread a lot via its old roots so the best thing one can do is to ring bark it. That means one will remove a ring of bark around the stem so that no water and nutrients can move up the tree. it tales two years before one can remove the dead tree but it will not start making new stems from the roots. I really don’t like to cut down trees but there will at least grow a new tree just beside where the old one stood.

The early flowering plum tree has lots of flowers and buds right now.

This and the rest of these photos show the newly planted trees and are actually quite useless since it’s hard to see the thin stems and needles 🙂 🙂 🙂 This is the Apricot.
The Persimmon.
The white mulberry.
This is the best looking Himalayan Cedar, There are new needles growing in between all the dead ones.
This is the Persimmon hybrid and peach tree I planted last year. Both are alive anf
d healthy.
This is the Cedar I think might be doomer already but there are green needles even towards the top so I thought I would give it a chance.

I’ve also planted an Apricot ‘Hargrand’, one of the hardiest there is and a white mulberry tree (can’t remember the name of it). The white mulberry tree usually gives berries that tastes somewhat like grass 🙂 🙂 but this one will have pretty tasty berries they say. So now and for at least a week ahead I’ll have to water everything I’ve planted with at least ten litres of water every day and continue to help with water all summer long if we’ll have a dry summer. Good thing I don’t have to pay for my water 🙂 I still have two Pawpaw trees to plant but I want to buy more peat because they like a slightly acidic soil.

     

All the Apricots and pears I sowed last year and have survived will have to stay in the cool cellar for two more winters, well except for those two Apricots I’ve already planted, I thought I would test how they manages a winter already that young, I have after all four more Apricots and very little space in the garden 🙂 🙂

   

Just look at Alma’s eyes, she’s not impressed 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

They are actually pretty good.

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

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

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

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

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

Have a great day!

They’ve changed it to rain.

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They’ve now changed the weather predictions from snow to rain and it’ll also be “much” warmer than they guessed yesterday. Instead we’ll get loads of rain and my neighbor and I wondered if that was better because we really don’t need more rain now and everything is just muddy when we go indoors again.

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I was thinking of what I might buy myself as a christmas present this year. It shouldn’t be anything I really need because that I should buy anyway. So my first thought was a telescope to watch the stars at night. The problem with that is that it’s usually cloudy almost all winter when it is dark enough to actually watch the stars and in summer when the sky is clear it’s never really dark here at all, just a couple of hours in the middle of the night because even when the sun has set or before it rise again it’s really quite bright here.

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So no telescope, that would just be a waste of money. Then I’ve been thinking of one of those terrariums, You know where one quarter is like an aquarium and three quarters are for plants. The problem is that my cottage is rather small so I don’t have the space for one except if I built it myself to fit upstairs but then again I’m as handy as a drunk badger so that’s not going to happen 🙂

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So I guess it’ll be a big tin box with Quality Street chocolates, 2,5 kilos (slightly more than 5 pound), I’ll most likely have two weeks vacation then and if the weather is nice I could walk all that chocolate off 🙂 🙂 🙂

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It is still hanging there, the last walnut 🙂
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Have a great day!