Category: Warm.

No sunshine but so nice.

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The first strawberry flower. For some reason these strawberries give very little berries now but will produce lots in autumn, it shouldn’t be like that but I have no idea why they behave like that 🙂

Today was really nice despite no sunshine but it was warm, no wind and a few times we had some rain. Showers of drizzle is perhaps a better name for it though 🙂 Alma woke me up at 5 am , was outside for a minute, came straight back in and went to sleep on the sofa 🙂 I wouldn’t have mind sleeping an hour or so too but I had a cup of coffee and a bowl of corn flakes instead 🙂

We walked down to the creek and it’s so nice to do that this time of year when there are no flies annoying us and what’s even better is that no mosquitoes did either. Unfortunately I can’t say the same about ticks, I picked six of them from the dogs by the time we had come home and I also found two already drinking the blood from Malkolm.

I tried three of a work friends allergy pills this week, the kind one can buy over the counter. First day nothing special happened beside the fact that I didn’t have any nose bleed any more, second day nothing happened at all but after the third pill I suddenly wasn’t that tired any more and now my nose isn’t that stuffed either, so I went online and bought a packet together with eye drops. It’s not a nice feeling when it feels like having sand paper under the eyelids 🙂 🙂 🙂

I also did what I always do on Sundays, the laundry and the dinner for next week ate work. I’ve promised to work overtime on Saturday and I’m already regretting it 🙂 🙂 🙂 Then again I’ll have to start saving money again so I can sacrifice one Saturday and still survive it 🙂 I have also sown melon seeds, I always fail with melons but always try it again 🙂 I have actually sown a lot of seeds both yesterday and today but can’t for my life remember what 🙂 🙂 I’ve also replanted tomatoes and some other things and brought out the last plants from the patio, the risk of frost the coming week is minimal.

I have a Fuchsia in my garden, Hardy Fuchsia (F. Magellanic), and it has survived outside this mild winter. All parts above ground will freeze but new shoots comes from the roots.

The fight with the nettles and cleavers is also going on and even if I’m successful at the moment I know both will win over me in the long run 🙂 🙂 I still have lots of vegetable seeds to sow, like beans and peas but I’ll with with those until the ground is a bit warmer. It is time for that last cup of tea and perhaps a sandwich too and after that some snoozing in front of the tv 🙂

Three of my worst garden enemies at the same place. Stinging nettles, cleavers and white bryony. The last one can cover an entire tree during one summer. I have no idea where it came from but it always grows so it’s hard to remove it. Smells bad and is also poisonous 🙂

Have a great day!

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I think this must be one of our most beautiful beetle but it wasn’t until I reduced the size of this photo that I noticed there actually were two beetles.

Yesterday after I had come home from work and the walk with the dogs I started baking a bread, I sat down in the recliner and woke up by the timer alarming that it was time to put the bread in the oven. I was so confused when the alarm started that I had no idea where I were, if it meant I was going to work and why in that case did the sun shine so bright 🙂 🙂 🙂 After that the entire evening was sort of strange 🙂 🙂 🙂 The bread was really good though 🙂 🙂 🙂

Today has been rather nice, mostly cloudy but with some sunshine every now and again and even a few drops of rain have been falling now in the afternoon. Pollen is hitting me hard now but I’ve still mostly been outside. I had to mow the lawn, well have to isn’t right because no one would care since no one can see it through my hedge anyway but the longer the grass is the more ticks will living here. I do like that wildlife likes my garden but I don’t like the ticks.

After that I dug up the last chunk of Kankakee mallows and replanted them in pots until I know where to place them. I already have three of them in the ground but now I have nine bigger or small plants in pots waiting to get a space somewhere. I know that it is endangered since it only grows on an island in the wild and it has struggled to survive for years, so if they ever need some help to save it I have plenty of plants (and perhaps seeds) to share 🙂 🙂

A few of the Kankakee mallows.

I also replanted some of the seedlings I had in the kitchen and also then last of the trees I had in the cool cellar during winter. Two of the four giant Sequoias have survived winter and is now growing again despite the fact that mice tried to eat them during winter. Now I have to find out what kind of soil they like so I can fix that and repot them as well. They will not spend next winter in the cool clear, that’s for sure so I better think about how I can have them outdoors instead. The Pawpaw trees and slowly getting new leafs but it looks like the Persimmon has lost all of the twigs and branches this winter but the stem is good so lets hope it will grow new ones.

It is time to get something to eat, first the dogs and the monster kitten and after that me. Have no idea though what I’ll make to myself but if I can’t figure out something I can always have corn flakes again 🙂

Have a great day!

Warmer nights again.

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Yesterday I saw the mosnterkitten up the road having a chat with another cat but then I remembered that she never followed us outside. So this cat to the left must be a sibling to her 🙂

We were so close to having frost again last night that we almost could touch it, it must have been those very thin clouds that saved us from it.Mostly grey and dull today but suddenly the sun shone through the clouds at the same time I came home. So the dogs and I had a really nice walk down to the creek.

The birds were singing and it would have been odd if they hadn’t since this is the time of year when they really are supposed to do that. We even saw a roe deer goat, which I’ve learned the females are called, only the bigger deer have doe and the moose is called a cow for some reason. I wonder why the aren’t called the same since they all belong to the deer?

Yesterday I finally forced me to bring out all the cardboard boxes to the car, most of them were already opened up and mad flat but it still took me almost 30 minutes to get them all into the car 🙂 Mostly because I dropped so many on the ground before reaching the car, why not try to bring them all at the same time 🙂 🙂 🙂

The night temperatures will finally be well above frost again, it didn’t feel right to have to remove ice from the car when days have been so warm, it was like we had taken several steps backwards in to winter again and since I didn’t have to remove any ice from my car during winter it really didn’t feel nice at all 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and perhaps we’ll hear who the new pope is, I’m not catholic but I’m still curious 🙂

Have a great day!

Surprisingly pleasant day.

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We’ve actually had a really nice day here as long as one wasn’t too long in shadow 🙂 Ok , it wasn’t that bad there either but I preferred to sit in the sunshine and drink tea 🙂 I have moved a perennial that comes from Illinois, the Kankakee mallow (Iliamna remota). It has actually thrived in my garden beneath the Juneberry tree but it was time to move it because the ground is just too dry there during summer.

It actually started last weekend and removed a part of it just to see how well it would adapt to the move and it adapted really well. It sort of divided itself to smaller parts so there’s still one growing where it has been that easily can be four new plants and I’ve already have it in6 other places now 🙂 It has been a favourite of mine since I sowed it well over twenty years ago so I do hope it will thrive at the new places they can call their homes 🙂 Mine spreads via its roots but I’ve read that a fire will start the seeds but I didn’t have a fire when I bought the seeds back then so I think it will work again without it if I try again 🙂

The clouds covered the sun when we went out on our morning walk but as soon as we were almost at home the clouds opened up. We’ve had lots of smaller clouds in the sky all day but now it looks like bigger clouds are coming in again, they say we’ll get rain but they said we would last night as well and as far as I could see the only reason the grass was wet was because of dew. A day or two with cloudy weather and some rain will only be good for my Kankakee willows now when they have moved all over the garden.

We won’t get much rain though, mostly just enough to keep the soil surface slightly damp 🙂 I’ve also heard the Cuckoo bird for the first time this year. According to folklore it means different things from what direction one hear it for the first time. From north and summer will be dry, from east one will be comforted because if it comes from south it means death in the family but it is from the west we want to hear it because that’s the best 🙂 The coming year will be great. We here will have a dry summer this year 🙂

I think this could be a Red Kite or a brown. I’m not that good when it comes to birds 🙂

Besides that I’ve done very little. Mostly I’ve been sitting in the sunshine drinking tea or coffee.  Last year when the warm weather came the entire garden was buzzing because of the beekeepers bees, it is considerable more quiet this year. Yes we do have pollinators like bumblebees flying around but all those hives did make a big difference, so it’ll be interesting to see how it will be next year, to many honey bees can actually make life really tough for the wild bees by being too many for an area. Also everything started so early this year that there wasn’t much for the bumblebees to eat and that could have killed a lot of them. I think we’ll know better when summer starts and all workers starts to fly around.

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and today I’m so tired that I most likely will fall asleep in the sofa 🙂

In my woodland right now.

Have a great day!

Not this one though, it grows in full sunlight and dry soil.

I didn’t rest on the workers’ day :-)

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Yesterday was supposed to be the last nice day before wind and rain would arrive. We would get some light rain here in the morning and the rest of the day would be rather dull. So I’m not the least surprised that no rain arrived and we’ve even had a lot of sunshine 🙂 So I don’t trust what they say about the rest of the weekend, we’ll know when it happens 🙂

The cherry trees have started to flower on the mountain. There’s a mountain on the way to a town called Skövde and when one takes the train to go there there’s an entire mountain side that it pure white this time of year, so beautiful.

So instead of taking it easy and enjoying the day I instead started to mow the lawn early in the morning. Mowing the lawn when the grass is wet and one have an electric mower (with a cord) is stupid and also wet grass clogs up the entire mower and I’ll have to stop mowing every five meters dig out that green mess that sticks to the mower, The fun thing is that when one person starts to mow the lawn the rest of the neighbours starts too 🙂

We saw two pairs of geese walking in the field beside the creek, they had this field totally for themselves and still they really disliked each other 🙂

I continued my war against the nettles and the cleavers as well, I dislike those plants even more that the actual work it takes to keep them away 🙂 One thing though is that they are indicator plants, they show that the ground is rich in nutrients and I’m not surprised having dogs and cats in the garden for well over 24, soon 25, years by now 🙂 If the dogs hadn’t been here it would be quite the opposite since all I have is sand in the ground.

I don’t think this crab apple tree will get any apples this year because it’s the only one in bloom.

I found to my very big surprise this Shadbush in bloom in the forest 🙂

I also realised that I hadn’t prepared any food to bring to work. Instead of making something I instead baked a loaf of bread and had a few sandwiches to work instead. After that I was so tried that I fell asleep in the recliner 🙂 🙂 🙂 Now I’ll have to work full work weeks until June sixth when we have our national day and thankfully it’s on a Friday 🙂 It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and after that I think I’ll doze off again 🙂

Have a great day!

Heavy frost last night.

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My blue White wood anemone.

-6C (21,2F) here this morning. One could feel it in the air already late afternoon that it would be cold but I didn’t think it would drop down that much. The morning walk was really nice though because the sun was blasting heat towards us at the same time as the ground still was so cold that it evened itself out in a way. Alma was really bad at yesterdays walks but today she behaved really well again. For some reason she behaves like crazy when we pass our new neighbours even though we’ve met them several times and she likes both the humans and the dog, Can’t say she likes they cats though even though they run away long before we come close 🙂 🙂 🙂

This morning we didn’t walk that way so she was calm all the time, she even managed to stay reasonable calm when a deer ran away from our path and even though she saw a big goose in one of the fields she still didn’t start to scream and pull the leash, I so wish that behaviour could continue from now on but I now that’s just wishful thinking 🙂 🙂 🙂 we went down to the creek and it might have been even colder there because there were ice in some places almost all the way down to the water. The plus side with that cold mornings are no ticks waiting to attack us because they have dug down into the ground so they don’t freeze to death.

Otherwise I’ve mostly done chores today, like mowing the lawn, doing most of the laundry (I still have my working clothes to do, for some reason this company doesn’t provide a laundry service for working clothes and that’s the first time that has happened to me, so I’ll do that tomorrow. I still have to bake some bread if I want a sandwich for breakfast though. I do have hard bread at home but I’ve had that for two days now and is a bit tired of it to be honest. We’re having a short work week next week again 🙂 May first is the workers day here but I’ll need to work on Friday again but that’s ok.

I guess it is time to start baking that bread, it’ll most likely be French rolls and since it is a weekend I’ll most likely will have a cup of tea even though it might keep me up all night 🙂 🙂

Some managed the frost really well.
Others not so.
I’m starting to fill up the blue barrel with stinging nettle roots, I can win the battle but not the war 🙂

Have a great day!

The potatoes are down.

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Today I could feel that I was a bit faster while working than yesterday even though I’m still pretty slow 🙂 I got a better flow while working. I had a short day at work though because today I had my kidney x-rayed again. I guess I’ll have the result in one or two weeks. The ones x-raying aren’t allowed to say anything about what they can see just in case they misinterpret anything. I had my appointment at 12:40 but was lucky so they let me in twenty minutes earlier. It was much the same last year when I had that first x-ray.

After that I had some grocery shopping to do since easter is a four day holiday here and I really dislike having too do any shopping during that time 🙂 So I drove to the village where I worked before and did my shopping there and wished them all a happy easter, I have after all been shopping there for 28 years now 🙂 I also bought more solid so I can fill up the big box where I have my straw berries. The weather has been amazing today so I also put down the potatoes in the ground, a bit early for me but if there’s any risk of night frost I’ll cover them so they don’t freeze.

One of my favourites because of its wonderful smell, Bog Myrtle.

The Goose berries in the forest are in bloom, mine at home isn’t even close to 🙂

It will cool down considerable already tonight, northern winds will press down cold air from the arctic, still it won’t fall down below 0C (32F) but compared to today it will feel cold. They still keep saying we’ll get rain as well but the closer awe come the less rain will fall 🙂 🙂 I don’t mind the rain because it is so dry in the grass and forest now that if it will start to burn it will escalate quickly. The ground though is still not especially dry.

Finally the Dandelions are in bloom 🙂

This White Wood Anemone will become pale blue.

It isa time for that last cup of tea and perhaps a sandwich or two 🙂

The wild plum in bloom.

Have a great day!

The last day of my seven month long vacation :-)

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The first plum flower. There are so many buds that the tree will be completely white in a couple of days.

They said it would be more cloudy today but I haven’t notice that much difference to be honest. the big difference is the strong wind and that we had frost and morning mist when I woke up. A good thing when it is this warm during the days is that the frost is pushed upwards by the warm ground so no frost damages on those plants I just planted in my garden.

It was a really nice walk early in the morning despite it being chilly. Birds sand and geese flew just a few meters (much the same in yards) above our heads. Alma behaved really well but Malkolm decided that he wouldn’t stop pulling the leash even if I got angry at him 🙂 🙂 Still he doesn’t pull that hard so I could live with it. I’ve been busy today, I’ve baked bread, dinner in the slow cooker, the ham in the oven and also boiled potatoes and done the last of the laundry.

So this is the last day of my seven month long “vacation” 🙂 I’m really glad to have a new job but I must admit that I have enjoyed every day of this involuntary vacation. I haven’t had to worry about the money and that makes the difference. For those having nothing saved this must be horrible, constantly thinking of how to pay bills and food.

It is time for a last cup of coffee since I don’t have any tea at home and refuses to drive to the store for just one thing 🙂 I could have coffee later but since I really need to fall asleep tonight so that I’m not too tried tomorrow morning when I’ll drive to my new work place I better stay on the safe side 🙂 🙂 I think I’ll also have a couple of sandwiches with some of that ham.

Have a great day!

Now I know the lawn mower works.

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I used to have a really nice woodland in my garden but then dogs used that area to play so lots of plants died. Today I found Trillium leafs so I’ve put up sticks around them so the dogs won’t kill them when they run around there 🙂

We woke up really early today, at 4:10 am. It was already quite bright outside even if the sun wouldn’t rise for another two hours. We went out for our morning walk as soon as the sun started to rise above the horizon and as soon as we stepped outside the clouds arrived and no more sunshine until we came back home when the clouds suddenly vanished 🙂 🙂 🙂

I planted three more Primulas in there as well.
Scilla sibirica is usually blue but every now and again they can give other colours like white but I’ve seen pink as well.

After that the sun has been shining almost all day with a few exceptions when clouds passed by. Still 17C (62,6F) and almost no wind made a perfect day. I sat on the kitchen stairs and had a cup of coffee and Malkolm sat beside me and it was so hot that we had to go indoors for a while 🙂 🙂 So while we were cooling down a bit I did a round of laundry. I’m still a bit behind on that but I’m starting to come closer to just have to do it once a week now. I could of course have done a couple of rounds but I’m in no hurry 🙂

I have actually been quite busy today, beside the laundry I also mowed the lawn!! Not a too tough job since the grass had grown quite unevenly 🙂 I also ripped up more stinging nettle roots, cleaned away more plastic pots and actually also planted one apricot tree and the peach tree. They have been standing in the porch for several day and since they say we won’t have any frost the coming days I just thought I better start planting those trees now or it will not be done. To be honest it is a bit much to call them trees because they are after all only one year old yet and kind of tiny 🙂

Soon all I will have left in the cool cellar will be the citrus trees and if it looks like frost will stay away I’ll bring those out to the patio as well. To my very big surprise I also found one of the petunias I thought I had killed during winter show a tiny green shoot. The soil was bone dry but still it started to grow again so when I found two more that looks totally dead I watered them too and hopes for the best 🙂

I do have some tea left so I think I’ll make that last cup of tea for the day and also go down in the cellar again to see if there’s more to bring outside.

The apricot I planted yesterday, that black lid You can see behind is the grey water filter. I need to cover iy every winter because I use too little water and then it tends to freeze in there 🙂
The lawn newly mowed.
The peach.
My Grape elder always produce leafs too early so the next frost will kill all this green and then it takes quite some time before new leafs come and it looks miserable until autumn 🙂

Have a great day!

The wild hogs comes closer and closer.

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The wild hogs are now just 50 meters (much the same in yards) away from my cottage, in the cow pasture beside the dog house/ yard. I did wonder why the dogs kept running around like crazy during the night 🙂 🙂 🙂

-6C (21,2F) as coldest last night but it can’t have lasted that long because it was close to 0C (32F) when we went outside after we had woken up. They said the sun would start to show around 8 am, so of course it didn’t arrive until after noon but when it did the world warmed up properly again 🙂

I haven’t done much today, I sowed some leek seeds and was about to sow some bell pepper seeds but for some reason I still haven’t 🙂 🙂 I’ll do it after writing this 🙂 I can’t start sowing especially much yet because I don’t have the space indoors and we’ll most likely have frost several nights the coming week, days will be warmer again though.

Chionodoxa.
Vinca minor.
This is how it looks after I removed the grapevine. I think I’ll plant an apricot tree there.
Can never remember the name on these, spreads really happily everywhere though.

I started to clean up my garden yesterday and continued for a while today. I also gathered all the pots I’ve spread around the garden 🙂 🙂 For some reason I never empty them in the autumn so I really need to do it now before weeds grow and cover them so I can’t find any when I need to 🙂 🙂 I’ve also continued to rip up stinging nettle roots and this time I managed to stay away from those nasty leafs. I have way too many nettles in the garden but then again they are edible so it is perhaps not such a bad thing to have just in case the orange idiot does something really stupid (worse than what he has so far and he’s done some really stupid things) 🙂

I also tried to nap in the sofa while the sun shone through that window. Stupid idea when one has two dogs and a cat 🙂 🙂 🙂 I can however tell You that when I gave up they finally decided it was time for them to have a nap 🙂 🙂 🙂

The orchid that flowered earlier this winter decided to give me more flowers, didn’t see that until I thought it was time topwater it 🙂

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day. I must remember to buy more tea tomorrow when I’ll drive to my health care place to give blood before the kidney x-rays. Some time this week I’ll know if I got a job at the coffin factory, if not it sounds like I have another one on the way, they promised to call back this week and give me a job if I didn’t got the coffin job.

Have a great day!

The ticks and mosquitoes are back, yay.

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Below 0C (32F) again this morning, nothing strange to be honest because that’s how it used to be back in the days. April here back in the days could be anything from what we have now to bitterly cold and snowstorms, usually the latter. This year the warm weather started so early that it isn’t until now we can see and especially hear bumblebees in the air. Also the ticks are active, yay, and yesterday I killed two mosquitoes that tried to drink my blood.

The first bumblebee of the year 🙂

We are thankfully out on our morning walks so early that it is too cold for ticks to be active, the ground is still frozen after the nights low temperatures. It will be less warm the coming days with especially Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights being pretty chilly but we’ll have sunshine and almost 10C (50F) temperatures during the days so it will not be as bad as they first guessed.Tuesday will be the start of rising temperatures again. So I took a bit of a chance today by sowing annuals in the little area where I’ll have flowers for pollinators. I most likely did this too early so that those more sensitive flowers might get killed even if they during those chilly nights still only will be seeds.

I’ve also brought up more trees from the cellar but those will be covered with fibre cloth so the freezing temperatures won’t reach them. It’ll be nice when I can bring out all those plants down there so that I can use it as an earthen cellar. The cool cellar works fine as a farther cellar but if summer is hot it will be a bit too warm down there as well. It is perfect during winter though when the temperature usually stays just above 0C (32F) as coldest, especially now days when it doesn’t get as cold as it used to be.

I think it is time for a cup of tea and perhaps some hard bread with cheese and jam 🙂

I have a couple of old piles with branches I’ve cut of from trees and bushes and yesterday the monster kitten went in to one of them and Malkolm was upset, he couldn’t follow her 🙂

Have a great day!

The first butterflies and being lost in Falköping :-) :-) :-)

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I’m glad I didn’t have to remove the ice from the car windows when I drove to Falköping 🙂

 

-5C (23F) here this morning, it wasn’t especially nice at all 🙂 But the sun did show itself and as soon as it did it became rather warm. We walked down to the creek and everywhere the sun hadn’t reached yet was covered in white frost. I only worse a thin anorak but it still rose the temperature beneath it so it almost felt too warm 🙂

I was going to be at the coffin factory at 1pm but they said don’t stress because that’s when the lunch break ends and it will take some time before everyone is working again, that was a good thing to know 🙂 🙂 I had plenty of time when I drove from home and when I reached Falköping I turned on the GPS on the phone and when I did I realised it didn’t work as it should 🙂 🙂 🙂 it refused to show where I was and I could only get instructions on how to get there from Stockholm, our capital around 350 km away 🙂 🙂 🙂

Falköping also seems to be ridiculously bad at putting up the street names so I just couldn’t figure out where I was so I had to call them and ask for directions 🙂 🙂 🙂 Turns out that I had passed the factory twice 🙂 🙂 🙂 This isn’t the first time this has happened to me. When I looked for a job the last time, 18 years ago, I did much the same. That village is tiny and I’ve lived close to it but I just couldn’t find the factory I was looking for, so I drove to another one, the building actually looks more like a office building, to ask for directions. Since I was there I asked if they had a job for someone who worked at Volvo Cars as a painter and assembler for well over twenty years the CEO shouted, our painter is quitting and I haven’t found another, can You start tomorrow 🙂 🙂 I could and stayed there for over 17 years.

Anyway it was a nice little factory with way too much to do and as someone not being there before I couldn’t figure out the logistics in there 🙂 We did the tour and had a chat afterwards. He wanted to know if I would stay until the day I retire and when that would be because he wanted someone who would stay for quite some time. I answered that I’m 60 years old and have no ambition to look for other jobs until I retire, It’s not like I wants to start a career and looking for other jobs 🙂 The pay is more or less what I had but I’ll have a shorter distance to the job. So he said that I’ll know some time next week if I get the job. I usually say that I’ll call at the beginning of the week but that never happens but some time next week at least.

So You will have to continue to have Your fingers crossed and or hold Your thumbs until some time next week 🙂 Now it’s time for that last cup of tea for the day. Tomorrow will be even nice than today and Thursday almost summer like and Friday winter might return 🙂 🙂 To be honest it won’t be that bad but temperatures will drop significant.

This is actually the second butterfly I saw today, the first one was a bright yellow Lemon butterfly. A slo finally heard the first Bumblebee.

Have a great day!