The photos today can be from today but also from a day or two back.
I don’t know where yesterday went! It passed by so fast that I all day today have believed it is Monday today 🙂 🙂 Two days with no Alma escaping the dog yard, it feels like it’s my turn to win the lottery tonight 🙂 🙂
It has been really warm today so we didn’t take any walk after work, Malkolm is after all only three months old and 25C (77F) is a bit too much when being so Young. Still he and Alma played in the garden both before and after their dinner so it wasn’t that much of a difference to be honest 🙂 🙂 Well they were close to water any time they wanted to drink.
I watered the planted trees and the vegetable patch on the part where I had sown seeds and Malkolm thought it was really funny to catch the water jet 🙂 🙂 Alma kept her distance from it though, the risk of getting clean really scares her 🙂 🙂 Nova slept in the kitchen 🙂 🙂 Sleeping is mostly what she does now days but every now and again she starts to play with the others just as though as they do 🙂
I cut Malkolm’s claws today, he’s really good at screaming in pain long before I’m even close 🙂 🙂 Any imagined pain is gone as soon as he sees the treat bag though, sometimes that bag is so good that he forgets to complain at all 🙂 Alma really doesn’t care, just cut the claws and give me the treats 🙂 Nova is also easy since I can cut them while she’s sleeping, I will however wake her up for her treat 🙂
Three of my four apple trees are in bloom now.
and so is the quince.
They’re guessing that we will have this wonderful weather for at least ten more days. Back in the days we knew that if May was warm and nice June would be cool and rainy and July when most people have their vacations over here would then be warm and nice. Today we never know, it can switch pretty fast. Last year my entire vacation was rainy and rarely warmer than 20C (68F) and for me that was quite ok, I’ve rarely felt so relaxed after a vacation because one couldn’t do anything outside anyway so I had long naps every day 🙂
I marked where I’ve sown seeds with small stones along the lines 🙂
The first leafs on my Black walnut.The melons decided to start flower now, I haven’t even separated them yet 🙂 🙂
I think today has been even better than yesterday, we woke up to a blue sunny sky and fairly chilly morning, it had dropped to 0C (32F) during the night. This is not unusual for this area, the last frost usually arrives at June sixth and after that, normal summers, nights regularly have temperatures down to 3C (37,4F). Well if the days are sunny, cloudy days the temperature usually don’t sink especially much, the clouds keep the warmth from escaping upwards.
We went out as soon as we woke up and that was way too early really because I watched the Eurovision last night and I think it stopped just before 1 am and we woke up just after 5 am 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well even after napping I still think I’ll sleep very well tonight 🙂 I, Nova and Alma didn’t see any animals this morning but Malkolm did so he started to growl. That of course made Alma running around looking for what threat we might meet and after that she couldn’t relax at all 🙂 🙂 Malkolm stopped caring about it as soon as we had passed where he saw what ever it was.
I’ve started to move the citrus trees I have from the less sunny north side of the cottage out to the sunny garden, even if we would get frost now and blazing sun during the days they’ll manage it. I’ve also sown iceberg lettuce, squash, chard and some kind of Japanese cabbage today. Iceberg lettuce is hard to fail but both the chard and squash seeds were a bit old so I’ll better start to look for what I can sow in those places nothing germinates. Peas and beans will be sown later when the temperature is more reliable. I’ll sow most of the potatoes in buckets this year so as soon as I buy more soil I’ll start with them.
The rest of this day I’ve mostly just watered the trees I’ve planted and I’ve had a couple of short naps 🙂 The dogs have been rather calm since it has been so warm. The wind can’t reach us down here so when it becomes warm it’s always a couple degrees warmer here and the opposite when it comes to cold weather. It’s almost never cold weather that kills plants here during winter, it’s because we have such a long time when it is dark here. So if we have a warm and sunny summer most of the less hardy plants make it till next year, is it cool and rainy most of those will die. They need that warm and sunny weather to collect so much energy that it lasts all winter through. It’s the same with how good plants flower and how much fruit/ berries they give, it all depends on what last years summer was like.
The big dogs are sleeping beside me but by the sound Malkolm is chewing on a stick in my bed 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve done dinner for next week at work and the laundry so for the rest of the day I’ll do as little as possible 🙂
I’m so glad I didn’t have to go anywhere with the dogs today 🙂 Life is so much calmer and easier when we’re all at home 🙂 We woke up pretty early today and I saw the most red sky I think I’ve ever seen in my life, unfortunately I only had the phone with me and after dropping it so many times on the ground the camera is having problems showing the right colors, the best I got was a pale pinkish color. It didn’t last for long because clouds soon covered the sky.
The last of the nights rain.Grape elder and this is as much colors we get from flowering trees here, the Maples are quite yellow as well but most tree flowers are white.
It was around 5C (41F) and even without the sun quite bright outside. I like our cool mornings for many reasons but one of the best reasons is that the ticks tends to not catch us while we walk by, also it had rained during the night and even though ticks like damp areas they truly dislike wet. I had hoped Nova would want to go to the bog today but down to the creek is what she wanted, I did however manage to make her walk up-stream and in to the old forest. Nova and Malkolm stopped at every spot that had some kind of smell, there were lots of spots 🙂 Alma ran around whining and hated that we didn’t move when she wanted to see the entire world in five minutes 🙂 We did thankfully not see a single animal because today I think that would have been a bit too much for her 🙂
The sun did come out of the clouds shortly after we had come home and with it higher temperatures. It even reached well over 20C (68F) today and with very little wind it almost was too warm when I mowed the lawn for the first time this year. I was a bit worried about Malkolm for a while because he sort of lost his energy, mostly he just wanted to sleep indoors and I did worry that it could be tick related. It took a while for me to understand what was wrong, Malkolm has never experienced warm weather! 🙂 He was born when it was cold, he moved here just before the last push of winter and snowstorm. After that it has been unusually cool here but today it went warm and he learned that warmth will make You tired, especially if one plays a lot in the sunshine 🙂 🙂
So I mowed the lawn and after that I’ve re-potted all the apricot trees and the two peaches. I’ve planted the two Pawpaw trees, one seed sown and one variety. I will not do anything with the ones I sowed, not until they start to grow again after the winter in the cool cellar and I’ll also wait with the tiny pear trees. My four year old neighbor made a bracelet for me today and I’ll wear it with pride. It is made with metallic blue beads and white beads with letters on. Now she is only four so the letters doesn’t say anything 🙂 She loves Alma as long as Alma doesn’t lick her in the face and Alma is constantly licking her in the face 🙂 🙂 She is still a bit unsure about Malkolm though be she has nothing against him licking her hands 🙂 🙂
I’ve also weeded the vegetable patch. Mostly grass, dandelions and geraniums that moved it but also some raspberry bushes and a weed called Catchweed or Cleavers. It has an ability to stick to anything passing by and especially long haired animals are full of the seeds later in summer. It is apparently full of vitamin C and the fresh seeds are good in a salad they say and dried seeds can be used as a coffee surrogate. Doesn’t matter how good it is I don’t want it in my garden but probably will because of my dogs 🙂 🙂 I don’t mind the dandelions so much though because the entire plant is edible even though the root is bitter but can be cut down, roasted and used as another coffee surrogate 🙂 The flowers and leafs are really tasty in a salad. Just think of only taking small leafs since they too can be a bit bitter when big.
The Harness is too big for him but he’s growing so fast that it soon will fit really well.
All the dogs are completely knocked by this warm weather so they are all sleeping heavily on the floor beside me. I had hoped the ice cream lorry would come today because it could be nice to have some ice cream when I’ll be watching the Eurovision song contest tonight. The Netherlands have been disqualified because the singer apparently attacked a film crew?! It is said that he asked the crew not to follow and film him and when they didn’t give a shit about that he did something. Israel on the other hand can compete despite killing thousands of small children in the Gaza strip, strange how different we can see the world!
I’ve planted the Pawpaws I bought.
The vegetable patch before the weedingand after. A good thing with almost only sand in the ground is that it isn’t hard to remove weeds, a bad thing is that it dries up way too fast but as long as one cover every bare spot with grass cuttings the ground will stay damp and the decaying grass cuttings will work as fertilizer.My new lawn mower, I always think it looks like a formula one racing car 🙂The bracelet my four year old neighbor made to me 🙂
It is time to make a pot of tea and then hope I won’t fall asleep during the competition 🙂
The sky just before the thunder arrived yesterday.
The thunder did arrive not long after I posted the blog. It struck somewhere in the northern part of the village and not especially much south of my cottage. Thankfully none of the dogs react to thunder so we just relaxed while it was here. The showers were quite hefty though and washed away the grass seeds I had spread here and there in the garden, well I have plenty left so I can continue to sow if this would happen again 🙂
We woke up to a wonderful foggy morning, it was so thick that it even was foggy in the forest, that rarely happens here. We walked out to the bog and I could hear Cuckoo birds all over the area. We have a saying here when it comes to Cuckoo birds and the first time we hear it every year, so here’s some Swedish: Norrgök är torrgök, södergök är dödergök, östergök är tröstergök men västergök är bästergök. Gök is the Swedish name for the Cuckoo bird. So the saying say that if one hear the Cuckoo bird from north the first time it’ll be a dry summer, if You hear it from south someone close will die. If You hear it from east You will need comforting but it’s best to hear it from west which means it’ll be a great year. I heard it from east and I hope that included poor Albin because I don’t want more of comforting this year 🙂
Even though we took an hour long nap today I’ve been fairly busy. I’ve done two sets of laundry, I’ve made pancakes, I’ve re-potted all the tomato plants and also all bell peppers.Plus of course I have been watering all those trees I’ve already planted in the garden. I have defrosted some meat to make as dinner for work next week but I’ve forgotten to do anything with it and now I feel it’s too late in the day to start doing it. So I’ll do it tomorrow instead, just as well because I barely had any vegetables at home, I thought I had something more than tomatoes but I was so wrong 🙂
Only three working days next week though, holiday on Thursday and what we call a squeeze day on Friday. Some will work on Friday but I really didn’t want to when I don’t have to.Will not be any great weather according to the weather sites but I don’t care. I’ll just relax all four days until next working week 🙂
A Jackdaw inspecting the Magpies nest. I wonder if it would have used it if the Magpies haden’t used it right now? Jackdaws usually nest in chimneys and my neighbors chimney has always been a target 🙂
Alma inspected the pastures on the other side of the gate a long time this morning. She sat there with me as well for a long time when we waited for the laundry to be ready 🙂It is time to bring in the laundry that hangs outside. The sky is dark grey around the village so I better bring it in. The first round dried in a few minutes but we had sunshine and a very weak wind, now we don’t have any of that.
This is how it looks when one forgets or delays the re-potting of the tomato plants 🙂90% of the plant is now below the surface and the plant will create roots all the way there making it much stronger than it otherwise would be.I decided four potted tomato vines would be enough the rest I either planted in the ground like here or in a raised bed I still have where a redberried gooseberry bush grows.
The day has been really nice and still is even though thunder is lurking at the outskirts of the county. It has never come especially close but I can hear it and we’ve had a gentle rainfall while the dogs and I had a nap. More rain is on the way but the different weather sites shows either more thunder tonight or no thunder at all. 20C (68F) today but now we’ll have two slightly cooler day without sunshine and with rain. We’ll know better after those two days if they were even close to guessing it right 🙂 🙂
I can see the windows at both ends of my cottage from my bed and this morning the sky was bright orange when I woke up. It was so nice because none of the dogs were in a hurry to get up and out so we stayed in bed for quite some time. So for once our morning walk was late, not because of the weather but because we all were a bit lazy 🙂 🙂 That has never happened with any of the old dogs that once lived with me 🙂
I’ve continued to plant the trees and bushes, some of them I’ve bought and some sown. I’ve also placed all the Pawpaw seedlings and Guava seedlings on the north side of the cottage. I’ve tried to place them so that the bigger citrus trees that I have shield them from the burning sun. Just like us plants get burned if one just place them in the sun after having them indoors for a longer time. Five pear seedlings of one of the two kinds I’ve sown seems to have survived the winter indoors and four of the other kind. Still a bit cloudy on a few of the seedlings that sort of looks dead but still have a chance 🙂
A goose couple flew just in front of us while walking along the creek. I think it is Greylags. Sorry but I don’t think You can see them if You look through Your phone, they are hard to see even on the computer screen.
I took my time doing this of course but so far I can say that my back isn’t any worse, not much better either but at least not worse 🙂 I think that it’s all that ice cream I’ve been eating that has done the trick 🙂 🙂 🙂 Still sunny outside but the thunder is closing in. It’s a bit south of here and when it is it usually follows the mountain and miss us totally. When it comes however it’s usually furious. The worst time was when the lightning split in two and four of the homes here were hit. The light ramp on my aquarium jumped up in the air and sort of exploded in a bright light, my closest neighbor had a arch of light in their bathroom (from a fan straight in to the wall on the other side), the third down the road didn’t notice anything because they are heavy sleepers but the fourth home was hit so bad that the entire electrical cabinet blew in to pieces 🙂 🙂 🙂
I would have liked to have another walk now when the weather is nice but thunder nearby is no good thing. Once we were surprised by how fast the thunder arrived and I had to chose between being the highest point in the fields or walk in amongst the trees and hoping the lightning wouldn’t hit a tree 🙂 🙂 🙂
Have a great day!
Nova has always loved to sleep in the sunshine, no matter how hot it has been 🙂
IT has been a lovely day, lots of sunshine, 20C (68F) warm and no wind. Thin clouds cover the sky at the moment but that’s ok. I was thinking of wearing a hoodie on our walk but decided a t-shirt would be enough and I’m so glad I decided that 🙂 It was more than enough when walking in the shadows but almost too much in the sunshine, after all it wasn’t that long ago we had snow here so we aren’t used to warm weather yet. Even the dogs thought it was a bit too warm in the sunshine.
The wild hogs have really concentrated to dig up all roots on one side of this field. It’s just 20 meters (much the same in yards) away from the Beekeepers cottage.
A new tree growing up from an old tree stump.
My back is worse today but as long as we were walking it felt quite ok. I opened the kitchen door when we came home so the dogs could go in and out as they pleased. Went to the toilet and while sitting there my neighbor called and told me that Alma was walking around in the cow pasture up the slope 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well I was in no position to do anything about it, just trying to stand up would take quite some time 🙂 🙂 🙂 So my neighbor helped me to get her back home. That dog is going to give me problems if she continues like this 🙂 🙂 🙂 She doesn’t like cows so I have no idea what made her think walking around close to them while having several new calves would be a good idea 🙂 🙂 🙂
Lots of butterflies flying around today. If this one had opened its wings they would be bright sky blue.
Well my neighbors had a good laugh anyway 🙂 🙂 🙂 I was thinking of planting more trees and bushes today but I felt it was enough to just water what I’ve already have dug down. I couldn’t find my rice bag to warm in the micro but I did find my old electric heating pad. I’m always a bit worried to used that one because it’s so old that if the insulation inside it is broken it might start to burn while using it 🙂 🙂 So far so good though. It does help a lot though.
I have several blue-berried honeysuckle bushes and the bumblebees love them. Unfortunately for me I didn’t know one needed at least two different varieties of this to get berries so I hope this will be the year I’ll get berries because last summer I bough two other ones 🙂
More flowers are opening up now and the grass is growing so I’m afraid I might have to mow the lawn tomorrow because we might get both rain and thunder during the night and mowing wet grass is a nightmare. I’ll just have to put together the new mower that I bought last autumn, I haven’t even removed it from it’s box yet so I do hope nothings wrong with it because who has a receipt left after a long winter 🙂 🙂 🙂
This is an oddity because it’s a natural crossing between the white wood anemone and the yellow wood anemone. It’s sterile but spreads happily via its roots. I’ve never bought one so this crossing is from my own white and yellow ones.This is the yellow one and it has a much deeper yellow.
Vinca minor.
It is time to go down to the recliner and the heating pad again and I will have ice cream but perhaps also a cup of tea?
A short one today because my back is killing me. I have rheumatism in my spine and mostly it’s ok, well I always have back pain but it is bearable. Today however it isn’t. I once destroyed my stomach with an anti inflammatory medicine, it was amazingly good but also pretty aggressive towards my stomach, so now days I can’t even take anti inflammatory medicines for kids.
I can take some of the ointments (not too much though because then I get stomach problems) but I don’t have any at home so the only thing that helps is to move around, it’s when I’ve been still for a minute or two that the pain starts again, so it’ll be fun to try and go down stairs after writing this 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll put the rice bag in the micro and towards my back and hope for the best. No use in staying home from work either because if there anything I do at work while painting is to move around and stretch my body in all kinds of strange angles 🙂 🙂 🙂
It was rather warm when we were out walking.
Wonderful weather here today though, even though the wind is even stronger today. I need to water those trees I planted yesterday and after that fall down in to my recliner. If the back gets too bad and I can’t get up a recliner is amazingly nice to sleep in 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll make sure to bring an ice cream on the way there 🙂 🙂 🙂
In my garden right now. Marsh marigold in the root zone.My two Nanking cherry bushes now have loads of budsand even some open flowers. I do hope I’ll get loads of berries this year 🙂White Checkered lily.The Yellow wood anemone is starting to spread, normally the white one is stronger and push a lot of other flowers away but this yellow one have pushed away the white one 🙂This one looks like a failed experiment to be honest but give it a week and it’ll look very different. Also a Yellow wood anemone.
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 🙂 🙂 🙂
He stops at every spot he can find something to sniff on 🙂 Drives Alma insane because she wants to walk and walk and walk 🙂
We’ve had two really nice days here. Yesterday was a bit cooler but after having a long cold winter and a few weeks where the temperature didn’t rise above 5 C (41 F) anything above that feels like summer temperatures 🙂 Even the dogs were panting when we were out walking 🙂 🙂 We had frost last night though and that can keep on happening until the first week in June. June sixth is usually the last night we have frost here.
None of us wanted to get out of bed when the alarm started this morning, it seems that Malkolm loves to stay in bed after we’ve woken up, that I like 🙂 but not even Alma wanted to leave the bed today and that was surprising. No need to hurry up tomorrow morning though, it’s May first, the workers day in big parts of the world. So I guess we’ll all get up at normal time just because we actually can stay in bed 🙂 🙂
Today however is Valborgsmässoafton, Walpurgis night which is celebrated here. No one actually knows who Valborg or Walpurgis as her English name was, is. She was actually an English princess I’ve read. She became a nun (and a couple of her brothers became monks) and was apparently really good in making pagans christians. She later became a saint and is the patron saint for those being infected with rabies. So as I said no one here knows who she was 🙂 🙂 Perhaps she does hold her hand over us because we haven’t had rabies here in this country since 1886.
So today they’ll start huge bonfires, choirs, usually men only choirs, will sing when the bonfires burn and singing spring songs. Today is a bit unusual because we have nice weather, all too often I’ve been standing is rain and / or snow freezing my b..t off not feeling the warmth from the fire because I had a tendency to always be placed on the other end far away from the fire 🙂 🙂
Tulipa tarda, spreads happily in my garden.White checkered lily buds.Checkered lily.Lung worth. I was trying to photograph the Bumble bee that You can almost see at the bottom in the middle.Leopards bane.White wood anemone.Yellow wood anemone and Corydalis.
So this will be a short working week but next week will be even better because next Friday is what we call a squeeze day. Thursday is Ascension Day and a holiday here so no one wants to work on Friday. Unfortunately most must but I applied for being free the right way so I won’t work 🙂 I’ll also stay at home on Friday the seventh of June because our national day is on Thursday. To be honest very few know why we celebrate our national day that day, we just don’t care that much as long as we don’t have to work 🙂 🙂 No it isn’t because of some war or something like that, we haven’t been to war since we helped to beat Napoleon. There’s actually two reasons but I’ll tell You all about it then.
The dogs are sleeping all over the cottage. Nova because she’s old and tired but Alma and Malkolm because they’ve played wildly in the garden just before clouds covered the sky. I think I’ll join them in a while. The best tomorrow though is that the Ice cream lorry comes, I’m out of Ice cream and it’s stay warm a while they say so I’ll but more than I usually do 🙂
The warm and sunny weather sure took its time to arrive today, the morning was chilly and rainy so we didn’t go out for our morning walk until just before noon and it was still really cold. Then suddenly it changed and the temperature has risen to 20 C (68 F), the sun is shining even though there are big clouds in the sky and, of course, there is now a strong wind blowing.
That has helped the laundry to dry in five seconds so I really can’t complain too much 🙂 I don’t think it took fiver minutes after the sun started to shine through the gaps in the clouds before I heard the first mower 🙂 Yes the grass has grown pretty much but why can’t they just relax at least for one day before they start 🙂 🙂
I didn’t care about mowing the lawn, instead I’ve brought up almost all plants from the cool cellar. I only have four cacti down there still because I need to get more plants outside before I have enough space by the windows 🙂 I even brought the pawpaw seedlings I had down there outside, three of them but decided that the three I have indoors by the kitchen window can wait for a while. One never knows when we’ll get a nasty cold frosty night again.
The Camellias started to flower in the cool cellar.
I bought a hardy Fuchsia (Fuchsia magellanica) and it too was touched a bit hard by frost, like the trees I also got delivered late this week. So I decided to take a few cuttings that can over winter in the cool cellar neat winter. I took a few photos of how I do that that You can see here below. The Hardy Fuchsia doesn’t survive like a big bush here though but the roots survives and starts all over next year. It’s always best to put dry leafs over it all just in case we do get another cold winter. One can of course also have it as a pot plant and keep it light but cool during the winters.
The best soil to have while planting cuttings are usually sowing soil. I didn’t have any so I mixed ordinary soil with some sand from my garden, mix it well.As You can see the cuttings did look a bit sad after the frost so I don’t know if they’ll work but it’s worth a try. I can take new ones later in summer.One only need a short stem, just make sure that at the bottom there have been leafs. Take away those because that’s where the new roots will start to grow. This one didn’t have any leafs at all but they usually work anyway.This one looks better. Two leafs taken away at the bottom and two leafs at the top. Most people think this is too short but it’s actually just enough.Plant the cuttings along the edge of the pot, more oxygen will reach where the leafs will grow and the risk of them rotting because of too much water is lesser. Normally I don’t put a see through cover,, like plastic, around the pot but since there were hit by frost I thought it might help. Place the pot by a window that doesn’t get any sunshine and wait for them to grow to new plants 🙂
Tomorrow will be a bit cooler than today but still above 10 C (50 F) and then on Tuesday it’ll go back to more what we’ve had this afternoon, I do hope this was the last cold period until autumn arrives again, I’m really tired of the cold weather we’ve had lately. I wonder how Malkolm think about warmer weather, so far all his life has been pretty cold, all three months of it 🙂
Alma and Malkolm have been playing all day long so they are both now snoring loudly 🙂
The old wheel barrow is finally starting to look nice again. Still not even close to having a night with frost here so now we’re 23days late of having that, I’m not complaining though 🙂
We’ve had a sort of meh weather today, sometimes rain, sometimes not but always a humidity that ate its way through the walls so I had to turn on the radiators. Warm though so they didn’t have to work for any longer period of time to dry out the cottage. Still we never went out on a walk but I did go to Falköping to get some light bulbs for the car.
The Common Spindle always has a nice color on its leafs.My November cactus or Christmas cactus, back in the days they hadn’t mixed the species that much so one could still call them after the month or date they were flowering. Nowdays they’r so mixed that it can be anything really 🙂This one is supposed to be a Selenicereus grandiflorus, we call them The Queen of the Night. It changed how it looked when I planted a cutting from it though so now I doubt that it is the queen. I sowed it myself for at least ten years ago.
It’s quite complicated to actually get the right light bulb now days, or perhaps not at all 🙂 🙂 I was pretty sure I should buy one called H4 but the computer in the petrolstation said H7. The woman working there said that one can have the same light bulb no matter which of the different lights one wanted to use. Back in the day it was one kind of bulb for low beam and another for high beam. So I bought the H/ but guess if I was surprised when I found a bulb in the car called H1 🙂 🙂 🙂 So to be honest I have no clue what so ever if I actually have the right ones or if it actually is the H4 I should use 🙂 🙂 🙂
This is the original plant, a nasty one that truly hates me and when ever I get close to it it throws one of those stems out and hits my arm. Last time I sat and tried to get those nasty little thorns out from my skin for oven an hour.This is, I think, a Giant Bell Flower. It does however grow in almost darkness now days that it is pretty small instead. I’ll thin out the Laburnum so that the ground can get more light again.I still get the occasional rose flower.The hips are more common now though and almost like a second bloom.
I’ve had the kitchen door open quite a lot despite the weather so the dogs have been able to go in and out as they’ve pleased but they haven’t pleased at all, so I guess they disliked the weather we’ve had as much as I have 🙂 🙂
The Jerusalem artichoke with what looks much like a lot of adult aphids on it...I bought a small Chrysanthemum a week ago and now I’ve planted it. If winter is mild enough this one will be much higher next year and most likely have slightly smaller flowers as well. I really wanted another flower but this was all that was left.
Nova has become more and more picky with her food and since she is 17 years old she really needs to eat, which she doesn’t if it isn’t perfect according to her taste. So I’ve been mixing in what ever she has preferred at the moment, mostly some rather expensive blue cheese 🙂 🙂 That worked until a few days ago and then she just wouldn’t eat. So now I’ve bought some of those truly expensive tiny packages with luxury wet dog food and now she’s eating again 🙂 🙂 This one is called Ceasar and contains so little food that I doubt that even a Chihuahua would think it was enough. She loves when I mix it in to her regular food though so who am I to complain. I have however told her that this will force me to continue to work long after I really would have been able to retire 🙂 🙂
My Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) still looks fine and it looks like something has eaten some of the leafs.The Black walnut looking fine.I won’t bring in this orchid until it is hit with the first frost, after that I hope it’ll flower in late winter again.The perennial Sunflower and what looks like a hoverfly resting on it.
So the photos You can see today are all from the garden. They are guessing that tomorrow will be sunny though (and even on Sunday as well) so we’ll see what road the old Lady will chose to walk in the morning 🙂
We’ve had a really nice day here today. Yesterday evening I watched when the fog slowly rolled in and became rather thick, all dogs outside in the village was barking like crazy at the time so I think a wolf or a couple must have been walking around here. This morning I woke up just before the fog was disappearing again. After that we’ve mostly had sunshine and a weak wind blowing which made the day rather wonderful.
...Still some fog up on the mountain.
We walked down to the creek just after the fog had vanished, lots of animals had been running around because the dogs had to sniff all the scents on the ground every second meter or so 🙂 Birds were tweeting but we didn’t see any animals at all. We had come all the way down to the creek and started to follow it up-stream when the dog suddenly walked close together and a bit faster than before.
...As You can see no Nova in front of the rest of us, I could see that they weren’t happy about something around us.
They kept on walking like that until we had passed the creek and was on the other side again. I have no idea if wolves were close or not but they must have been there shortly before we arrived. It’s when wolves have been around that is the only time Alma is quiet and actually does what I tell her to do 🙂 🙂 🙂 I did put out the wildlife camera, I hung it on my gate but the only thing it caught was a car and a cat passing twice. Well I’ve just looked at the screen so far, it could have been a fox as well but I’ll know better when I’ve downloaded those photos. I’ll have the camera there again tonight.
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Otherwise I’ve had a rather calm day. I took a long nap and after that I mowed the lawn. I think I need to buy a new lawn mower, once again I managed to hit something, this time the teeth of a rake hidden in the high grass 🙂 , so now the rotation disk is so tilted that the entire mower shakes like it has some kind of disease 🙂 🙂 🙂 We have also had our pancake Saturday like always. The dogs get one pancake each and I get the rest that I make 🙂 Today I had apple sauce with my pancakes. I gave my neighbors some of my apples and got a jar with applesauce made from them. Tomorrow I’ll use my new fruit picker so I can reach the bigger apples higher up in the tree. I’ll have some myself but the rest will go to my neighbors. They are the best neighbors one can have 🙂
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The sun is setting and it is time for something to eat. The dogs will have their food later tonight, slightly earlier than when they would get it on a work day because if I’m not working it’s impossible for me to stay awake for that long 🙂 🙂
The Cottage by the crane lake. 