Category: Wildlife.

Stormy weather.

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No photos from today but I have taken a few photos these last days. One day I do hope that I can be able to get a photo of the wolf that follows us when we’re out walking. Here’s another wolf though 🙂 🙂 🙂

First of all I want to thank You all for all the kinds words!

I of course still see here in the corner of the eye and still wonder why she take so long to get down to the kitchen in the morning 🙂 She was a wonderful dog and I only had to scold her once in all those years she lived here, back in the days she hated Hares and one day she saw one just beside us while we were out walking so she started to chase it but the problem was that she was leashed and the leash almost broke a couple of fingers and I couldn’t use my hand for a while 🙂 🙂 🙂 After that she never chased hares again and could walk leash free for the rest of her life 🙂

   

Turns out that the beavers aren’t back, There’s a log stuck in the tube beneath the gravel road 🙂 The water level is so high that I don’t feel it’s safe to walk on the small bridges. It isn’t deep but the water is cold and muddy 🙂

Looking out the window today one can see a rather pleasant day with lots of sunshine but one can also hear the winds roar through the forest. The steady winds are strong but still not so bad, the gusts however hit the storm force strength so we’ve mostly stayed in the garden today, it is just not safe to walk in the forest plus the fact that there is something out there that Alma doesn’t like. That something must have been outside the garden because even Malkolm got stressed and started to bark like crazy. He did that early this morning as well but since it was dark I couldn’t see anything, my guess a wolf but it could also have been wild hogs.

     

In one of those times we have been in the garden today Alma came back to me limping. Nothing is broken and she doesn’t show any signs of pain when I squeeze her legs or toes, I guess that she has stretched some muscle or tendon  but nothing worse, when those two play they do play tough. Sara the cat is just wild. It is amazing that she still walks around because if there’s a chance to get squeezed in between something she will be 🙂 She’s so quiet when she moves around that suddenly she’s attacking my feet just as I am moving forward and then she flies away for quite some distance because her claws didn’t get a grip on my foot 🙂 🙂 She climbs up the recliner and then jumps out in to nothing because she isn’t a good enough jumper to reach her goal 🙂 🙂 She too plays very tough with Malkolm and is a sore looser 🙂 🙂

     

So life goes on and I got an e-mail that I’m still in the running for a couple of jobs I’ve applied for. I am 60 though so that is always a disadvantage if there are younger people hoping for that job as well but I still see this as a success 🙂 Now when I’m not working I need to start spending less money even though there still is a long time before I won’t have any money left. It is better to start now than later when I really need to and I think I’m doing pretty well. I have spoiled myself a little though, I bought myself an orchid, Coelogyne cristata  ( klick on the red text and a new page should pop up on Google search)Here in the nordic countries we call it Snow queen orchid in our separate languages because this one flowers in the Himalayans when the snow is melting after winter.

     

It is a bit tricky and won’t flower in the winter temperature is  warmer than 10C (50F). Nothing to see now though because without its flowers it just looks sad 🙂 🙂 I do have that other orchid in bloom right now though, the one where I must have done something right but not knowing what to be honest 🙂 🙂 A mouse has visited the plants I have in the cool cellar during winter and apparently small Pawpaw seedlings taste delicious. So the only hope I have now is that their root systems were developed so much that they’ll send out shoots from them. The mouse also tried a Giant sequoia seedling and apparently those aren’t as delicious so lets hope they won’t try to eat those again.  Sara the cat is down there every now and again so lets hope the smell from her is enough to keep that mouse away from now on 🙂           

It is time for a pot of tea and a chocolate covered Hob nob, to be honest I never eat just one but it did look good while reading its 🙂

Have a great day!

It was there just for a second, then it was gone again.

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Sunny and warm today, it did feel like an early summer day with a lukewarm wind blowing as well. I wasn’t sure Nova wanted to follow us on a walk today because yesterday I was pretty sure she wouldn’t last till today. It was tough for her walking up stairs or even get up from the dog bed.

     

Today it was quite the opposite She was the first one out jumping the stairs as if she was young again and really enjoyed our walk 🙂 🙂 The only time she wasn’t happy was when I vacuumed the floors, she hates the vacuum cleaner and for good reasons because she was severely abused as a puppy when they hit her with the tube and scared her and her siblings almost to death with the machine on. She does accept that I do it but isn’t happy about it, that’s why I usually use a cleaning brush most of the time.

     

Now the sun rise so late that I can’t say we went out in the early morning 🙂 we did however go out as soon as the sun had risen above the few clouds we had in the sky. We walked out to the bog and on the way we could hear people shouting over at the castles grounds. At first I thought someone was shouting after their dog but then I hear the shots, they were hunting. So instead of going down to the creek we went out to the bog. No moose flies today thankfully but lots of small dragonfly relatives, they are really small but still beautiful even though they doesn’t seem t have any colors. 

     

When we had been out there for a while we slowly walked back homewards. It was time to continue with what I do with Alma now to try and calm her down (so far so good even though all the shouting from the hunting party had stressed her up quite a lot) so we stopped and everything worked as I hoped. That’s when I looked up and ahead of us when a fox slowly walked in front of us. Not even Alma made a sound oddly enough. I picked up my camera, took one photo but didn’t have any time to adjust it and then the fox was gone. To be honest I do think that photo turned out amazingly well 🙂

   

There it was, just for a second and then it was gone again.

The hunters, well those who shouted to scare the animals towards the hunters anyway, came a bit too close, I think they went over to the wrong side and if they do and are being found out they can actually be seen as poachers, by scaring away animals to be hunted on their area so there’s less animals for other hunters. They could of course have permission but I doubt that. We walked homewards slowly just to be able to enjoy the wonderful weather we had. After that they day has been relatively calm and I’ve baked some french rolls plus the vacuuming, a tough day 🙂

     

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day,watch some tv and then bed.

Have a great day!

Sunny and nice.

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That cold we’re having going around here never want to leave. I’ve talked to those getting hit by it before me and just like me they still have it! No fever what I know but runny noses and coughing. So I’m pretty sure this must be covid, I’ve never heard of a cold staying for this long. It’s annoying but it doesn’t seem to want to kill us anyway 🙂 🙂 🙂

    

The odd thing is that at least I don’t cough at nights, only in the early mornings and in the afternoons. Well I’ve had worse things so it’s just annoying to be honest.  We’ve had rather nice weather here for two days, lots of sunshine and rain only last night. We had a walk in the village yesterday just after noon. Alma had one of her impossible days, that dog wasn’t quiet for a second and she became even worse when first the mailman drove by and even more so when we met some villagers out walking as well 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

This mornings walk was better thankfully. At least she didn’t pull the leash that much. Both yesterday and today we passed dogs in dog yards, a under stimulated labrador in his garden. Nothing wrong with him really but to be honest I’ve never seen them taking him out for a walk and another little yapping dog in his garden but not close to the gravel road so none of the dogs cared about him at all 🙂 She didn’t care about all the bulls we passed though which I’m happy about because I really don’t want her to anger them up 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

Malkolm and Sara have played all day, even upstairs and it did sound as if they tore down everything up here 🙂 After that Sara went to Nova for a nap 🙂 Alma is still a bit unsure about what she can do since the day I had to rip her out from the couch when she twice sat down on Sara and not moving when the cat screamed for her life 🙂 🙂 🙂 Alma does after all weigh 35 kg (77 pound) and Sara 0,5kg (around a pound). So if the cat is with me and Alma in the sofa I quite often lift over Sara to Alma so that she knows she’s allowed close to the cat, as long as she doesn’t sit on her 🙂

 

It is the upper part of my little cottage You can see here 🙂

Again it is time for a last cup of tea for the day and perhaps a banana as well.

Have a great day!

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Grey and dull here this morning but cool enough to keep any remaining moose flies calm. I hadn’t slept especially well, have no idea why though. Nova needed to go outside at 4 am so we all joined her in to the garden. I really didn’t want to stay awake so we walked to the bedroom again but I can’t say I slept for especially long.

     

I had to go to a grocery store today, I wasn’t going to buy especially much to be honest, so I decided I would go to the grocery store in the village I worked in. I’ve been shopping my food there since I moved to this area, so 27 years and being unemployed is not going to stop me for continue to do that even though it has to be fewer times since it is much further to that place.

     

I was really surprised over how much I actually bought 🙂 🙂 🙂 I did follow my list but an extra thing here and an extra thing there and suddenly it cost me three times as much as I had planned 🙂 🙂 🙂 Now I won’t have to go to any grocery store again for quite some time 🙂 🙂 I brought the camera with me so a few of the photos today were taken on the way there. I like driving there and it is never as beautiful as it is this time of year.

     

The moose hunt starts tomorrow and it will rain more or less for the rest of the week. If one is a hunter one really doesn’t want to miss this week even though we don’t have any moose to talk about any longer. Some hunting groups are even refusing to hunt moose now days because we have too few (still around 300 000 of them but they get fewer each year now and we don’t know why to be honest). The only ones wanting the hunters shooting more moose are the big forest owners because they eat lots of small trees. Anyway, the hunters still don’t want to miss being out this week so lots of people have a few vacation days now. I haven’t seen any tracks from moose since early summer here, at the same time, an old work friend not living too many miles away have lots of them.

 

 

It is time for a last cup of tea for the day and lots of ice cream I think 🙂 It’s plain vanilla, perhaps not my favorite but still in the top five 🙂 I think today they don’t make ice cream any more, they make frozen candy. It’s chocolate chips and caramel and toffee and everything must be covered in salt. I like when it is just one flavor and perhaps raisins in it because I like raisins. Or perhaps vanilla with strings of chocolate or strawberries or any kind of flavor with strings of hazelnut but I really don’t like when it is more like a frozen chocolate bar like Snickers. I have by the way never eaten a Snickers in my life because when I was around seven years old I got so angry when they treated me as a customer as an idiot. That’s when I started to refuse to buy anything where the commercial treated me as if I was dumb, there are so many things I never buy now days 🙂 🙂 🙂

       

Have a great day!

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My neighbor is mowing their lawn, I haven’t mowed in weeks 🙂 I’ll do it when this tiresome cold has went away. Ill have to wait until the afternoon because we have so much dew here now that the grass is soaking wet in the mornings but just very wet in the afternoon.

     

It was sunny during our morning walk again and I just took a little to long time to go out so a few moose flies were already flying around, only in the sunshine though, it was still below 4C (39,2F) in the shadow. These flies are sort of rubbery so one can’t smash them to death, one needs to sort of roll them between the fingers. They won’t burst open but the wings will fall off (something they do themselves when they have landed on a victim) and they won’t be able to reach any other animal. So now I have at least made sure fewer of them will fly next year.

     

Alma has a really bad stomach, because she eats too many apples and other berries. She woke me up last night and was in a hurry. I did try my best to get downstairs but was a couple of seconds late. I am however very happy that I managed to go down as fast as I could anyway because she ran straight in to the Jerusalem artichokes (these are never eaten but seen as any other flowers in a flower bed) and then I heard sort of three explosions 🙂 🙂 So now the rather difficult job has come to convince her to stop eating all berries and apples still around 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

Otherwise we’ve mostly slept today, I in the recliner and all three dogs in the sofa. I had my feet towards Alma’s head so there was no risk my feet would feel cold 🙂 The kitchen door has been open quite a lot too, not much sunshine but almost 20C (68F) anyway, the weather will continue being warm they’re guessing so lets hope they’ve guessed it right 🙂

     

Have a great day!

     

I didn’t expect that after 17 in the same work place.

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I’ve been a bit distant lately and that’s because after working for 17 years at my work place I’ll have to quit my job. Not because I’ve done something wrong in any way but because my employer decided that I should start working four days a week (Monday till Thursday) from 4:25 pm to 03:00 am the next day. I told them I can’t do that for several reasons, I normally sleep from 9 pm to around 4:am and can’t just change my sleeping habits like that. They did this to me last autumn and I still have problems from that. I also can’t have my dogs in the dog yard because they bark like crazy as soon as any animal passes by.

     

The badger walks along my garden every night now days, deer pass by, our fox comes for visits and not forgetting all the cats that live here. If they bark they’ll wake up my neighbors and both the adults and the kids need their sleep and it’s illegal to have the dogs locked up in the cottage for so many hours without contact with humans plus I would have to clean up the entire cottage every morning when i come home every morning because they do need to do their business and I can’t let them out to do it. Unfortunately employers here can treat their employees just as bad as they want to without the union doing anything when it comes to at least my union.

     

If I come to work in the morning instead to work I won’t be paid and if I don’t come in the afternoon when they say I must work I will be charged (is that the right word?) with unauthorized absence and when that has happened too many times I’ll be charged with refusal to work and then they’ll fire me and I will never be able to find a new job with that hanging over me. So my last day will be on September 16, the day after I’ve had my sixtieth birthday. Anyway this is all I really can write about it now because I will still work there for a few more weeks. I must admit though that I’m feeling just fine, no worries at all and since I’m willing to take any job as long as I don’t have to work at night I’m pretty sure I’ll find a new job fairly quick, I at least hope so 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

The rain has poured down here today so for the first time in a long time I didn’t have to water anything when I came home after work 🙂 The Ice cream lorry passed by but since I now need to keep an eye on my finances I never went out to buy any ice cream, it felt a bit sad but better start now than when it is too late. On the other side I now I have two more Red mulberry trees 🙂 🙂 🙂 To my defence I bought those before I knew about this 🙂 🙂 🙂 These two will stay in my cool cellar during winter and then I’ll find a place for them in the garden next spring 🙂 The one I already have will be planted this weekend I think, I wonder where 🙂 🙂

The Rowan trees gives loads of berries this year. One can make the most delicious jelly from them even though the berries themselves are pretty tart.

This is a Jerusalem artichoke called Bianca. Normally it starts to flower at the end of September so it’s around a month early. I guess it’s because we had that long heatwave in May.

Time for a last cup of tea and then snooze in front of the tv 🙂

Have a great day!

Plum pie, is that a thing?

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My neighbor is working with what I think is a trimmer in their garden, could be a chain saw but the sound is to persistent for that. I guess the grass have grown very un-evenly so it’s easier to use a trimmer instead. Personally I would still have used a lawn mower, trimmers aren’t good for the back.

     

I have no idea if there have been any hunters out in the forest today, We have walked in the village instead. It was cloudy but the sun broke through just as we went out on our morning walk. Both Alma and Malkolm behaved much better today. I’m not expecting my dogs to walk right beside me all the time but I really don’t want them to run around like crazy or pull the leash like insane 🙂 🙂 I just want them to smell everything they can on the walk and not stress around. I do understand that all smells and scents are exciting but they are more or less the same we have all over this area, just other animals leaving them 🙂

   

Can You see those rocks just where the tree line is? Those are old tombs and I think they are from the Iron age.

The sun stayed for a couple of hours and then the clouds came back and for a while it looked like we would have rain falling but that never happened. I still went out to water all the new trees and bushes, no risk of over watering in sandy soil 🙂 My neighbors texted me to ask if I wanted some plums, so now I have a big bucket with plums in my kitchen 🙂 I really have no wish of get all those kernels out of the plums but since I can’t eat that many I’ll have to and then I’ll make some jam from them. Plum pie is that a thing? Because I’m not sure I have enough with sugar to make that much jam 🙂

   

I’ve done the laundry but I still have to do dinner for work next week. I’m not sure what to do but I have some sausages in the fridge, bacon in the freezer, eggs in the cool cellar and then perhaps go outside to see how many potatoes I can find or just have rise nudels, that works well too. Time for a cup of tea and then start with the food.

     

Have a great day!

     

Walking in the village.

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The first hunter arrived at the same time we were going out on our morning walk, I had already planned for us to walk in the village. There were morning mist floating in the cow pasture outside my cottage so I have to admit that I felt a bit disappointed when I saw that there wasn’t any up in the village. Still cool almost cold morning and with some sunshine. Alma managed together with Malkolm tangle the leashes to a knot already before we got out of the garden and both behaved just as bad for almost the entire walk 🙂 🙂

     

Here in Sweden You can’t just buy a license and then go out and hunt anything. The land owners own the hunting rights and then rent out the rights to hunt to hunting groups (some big land owners also allow single people or small groups of people to hunt there, it’s usually trophy hunters who rent some time on those places). The hunting groups are well organized and the same people year after year so it can be hard for younger people to actually get a chance to join those groups. Also You must go through a course to even get a license and if You can’t pass You will not get any license. Back in the days lost of hunters were drunk and could shoot anything that moved but now days they aren’t allowed to drink alcohol. It is rare that humans get shot these days.

There’s a tiny dark dot just before the trees in this photo, that’s the deer I could see today 🙂

We have lots of stone age tombs around here. They aren’t sure if this is one, could also be stones gathered from the field to make it easier to grow crops in it.

This one however is one and as far as they know it isn’t looted.

The same with this one.

I remember one year when I was in my twenties and listened to the news that the custom service had stopped a van full with people with Germans. They claimed to have shot a herd of Moose, around twenty if my memory is correct. Well they didn’t have any license to hunt here in Sweden and also Moose don’t live in herd. Turns out they had shot a bunch of Reindeer. I think they shouted something about The right to public access (all mans right, a law that allows us to walk anywhere, pick berries, camp at least for 24 hours without having to ask for permission and much more as long as we don’t do it in other people’s gardens). They really should have learned more about that law 🙂 🙂

     

I did see a deer on our walk but it was far away and I also heard lots of cranes and geese in the air somewhere over the forest. Normally Nova would have been without a leash but since I knew hunters would arrive everywhere around the village and some drive like crazy, not the ones in my part of the village, they know they can meet all kinds of animals coming from our gardens at any time of the day, they drive really slow 🙂 🙂 so today she had to be leashed. She always show very clearly what she thinks about that 🙂 Today she stopped and sniffed on the ground for unusually long every second meter or so 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

I haven’t done much otherwise but to water the new trees and bushes. Even though the ground water is just 2,5-3 meters down (much the same in yards) sand can’t keep water but instead dries up really fast. So even though I now have a lake behind my garage (it’s usually a swamp as worst) the ground in our gardens are now bone dry. Older vegetation manages this fine but plants that hasn’t grown here for two years usually struggles until the roots have grown down to the ground water.

     

It is time to go downstairs to have a last cup of tea for the day, there’s nothing worth watching on tv so I’ll probably fall asleep in the recliner and wake up with an aching neck 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Finally the Lupinus texensis looks like they do in photos, my first ones only had one or two flowers and they were also white.

The Hardy Fuchsia likes how much more sunshine it gets after I thinned the Golden rain (laburnum)

One Honey bee, one spider and one species of Hymenoptera. Could be that the tiny hymenoptera actually is after the spider while the spider is after the honey bee. The honey bee managed to escape though.

My Butterfly bush finally shows buds 🙂

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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!

An unusual sight.

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WE were lucky to have sunshine this morning and I could see morning mist in the village when looking out the window. I knew we wouldn’t get out in time to catch it with the camera so I took a couple of photos from my window. It was so chilly outside so I could see my breath when breathing 🙂 🙂

                  

It was much warmer just a few minutes later when the sun started to heat up the air. Nova has had a really good day today, so we walked down to the creek and followed it up-stream for a while. I didn’t spray the anti tick spray on any of us otherwise we would have walked down-stream instead. I saw an owl flying away from us, a rather big one but I know very little about owls so I have no idea what kind it was. But we met some other animals that I did catch with the camera, Red deer. For You Americans they are as big as the Elk/ Wapiti.

I rarely see Red deer here, sometimes a couple of does but today I also saw a youngling and a bull, a very young one because the antlers are really small.

   

They are usually really shy here but today they were in no rush at all even though they knew we were there, Alma made it impossible not to know where we were 🙂 🙂 🙂 I thought that we also would meet wild hogs, due to how Alma behaved but I guess they weren’t that interested in meeting us 🙂 No flies while we were walking but the mosquitoes were quite active. It must be other species flying around this time because suddenly those bites itch again. Yesterday my feet itched so badly that I had to use a cortisol ointment 🙂 🙂

Looks quite good with the pink flowers and silvery leafs but the silvery colors is unfortunately mildew, we have unusually much of that this year.

   

It didn’t take that long after our walk that the rain arrived, heavy showers and a strong wind so the dogs refused to go outside unless they really needed to 🙂 So now the dogs are quite restless and I can see in their eyes that they accuse me of the rainy weather and oddly enough it isn’t better if I open the other door 🙂 Less rain tomorrow they’re guessing but Sunday will be nice they say. I’ll believe it if it happens 🙂

     

Nothing on tv tonight. Back in the days when I was young Fridays were the big family tv day in the weeks. Families gathered in front of the tv to watch something fun for all. These days they seems to have given up totally since so many stream programs and can see anything any time. I don’t stream anything and only have the free channels and now during summer they all show reruns that we already have seen loads of times 🙂 🙂 We have one channel called the Knowledge channel, my favorite channel that shows science programs but even that channel only show reruns now.

     

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and perhaps have some more of that cortisol ointment all over my feet 🙂 🙂

   

Have a great day!

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Through my kitchen window early this morning.

We didn’t get a morning with cool air and morning mist, instead we had fairly warm morning with a thick layer of clouds above us. So instead of having a really nice and cool walk we had a walk in the forest where flies and mosquitoes reigned.  Still we’ve had worse walks so I’m not complaining too much 🙂

One of the cats living at the farm next door.

   

I think there was just one horsefly flying around and it found my hand so now it itches something nasty. Another one found me when I mowed the outside space but that one will never bother anyone else any more 🙂  To be honest this year has been pretty good when it comes to flies, with that I mean fairly few. If we get in to an area where suddenly lots of flies fly around it means animals are close, most likely wild hogs because there are always many together and therefore draws more of those annoying insects.

     

I had to go to the store in Gudhem today because the package with the Red Mulberry tree had arrived and it was just in time, the soil in the pot was so dry that I had to put it in a bucket of water as soon as I opened the package. As soon as the soil was wet I planted it in a bigger pot and I think I’ll keep it like that until next spring, down in the cool cellar. Now I have three different mulberry trees. This red one, a white mulberry with tasty berries and one called Mulle which is a Morus accidosa. I can’t find any info about M. accidosa so I think it must be some kind of hybrid. It gives black berries, really tasty ones, but they are smaller than the ones the Black Mulberry tree gives. So lets now hope we get a mild winter so that they all survive plus of course the Pawpaws and persimmons 🙂

 

Snails and slugs live in paradise when they find my Root zone.

So this is the last week on my vacation and I’m desperately hoping for that lottery winning 🙂 🙂 🙂 I wouldn’t hesitate to quit my job immediately even though that is frowned upon (I really don’t hate my job but I’m not crazy in love with it either 🙂 🙂 ). Normally we have one month to work after we’ve given notice but since I wouldn’t plan on going back to work again ever so why bother 🙂 🙂 🙂 However until that happens, most likely five minutes before I leave this earth 🙂 🙂 🙂 I will have to keep on working, at least until I can retire and I think I’ll start with part time retirement when I’m 64, just a few years left 🙂 I think I would be really pi…d if I died before I could retire 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

It is time for a last cup of tea for the day and later on I’ll watch Midsommer Murders, unfortunately they show Death in Paradise at the same time in another channel but since I’ve watched all the murders in Midsommer from the beginning the choice is easy tonight 🙂

     

Have a great day!

A bit too close :-)

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100% humidity, no wind but towards the cool side should still make a rather nice day but both the dogs and I thought the humidity was just too much and that it made it feel much warmer than it actually was. We walked down to the creek in the morning when it still felt a bit cool but the flies were nasty and there were a few horse flies that tried to bite me. Oddly slow so now there are fewer horse flies to worry about 🙂

   

Winter food for the cattle. Lots of beans in it this year, they’ll cut it down and make silage from it.

I think we were close to wild hogs because Alma became a bit excited and looked straight at the point where we met one last week. We didn’t see or hear anyone though, I guess they too thought it felt a it nasty with the humidity and kept as still as they could to avoid the attention of the flies. We did see a Roe deer though but now Alma rarely cares about it. She has become so much better on our walks now and I do hope it continues that way 🙂

Roe deer don’t eat the beans, they only eat the most delicious herbs, that’s why they have problems surviving the old fashioned winters when the ground used to be covered with snow.

   

I got warnings from the lightning app when we had our nap but since the sun shone I really didn’t think much of it. Not even when the rain started to pour down because I really couldn’t hear any thunder. The dogs wanted to go outside so I opened the door so they could see how the rain was pouring down it was even too much for Malkolm. Just as I was about to close the kitchen door the lightning hit. I was close to peeing in my pants if I should be honest 🙂 🙂 🙂 I saw how it came from the mountain and passed my neighbors cottage rather close and hit the ground around 100 meters (much the same in yards) behind out cottages 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’m so glad that I had almost closed the door because it is amazing how much it sounds 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

No rain tomorrow they’re guessing but the humidity will stay at 100% or close to it. Almost no wind but a bit of sunshine so I guess it will feel like living in a steam bath tomorrow. Well I’ll go to the pet shop tomorrow and will be closer to the big lake so I hope that helps some.

   

I took a look outside my bedroom window and realized that almost the entire eastern top half of the apple tree is covered in white bryony (Bryonia alba). It’s a poisonous vine that when it’s older can cover entire trees. It’s something I never would bring to my garden and it isn’t native here but back in the days people thought it was a great vine to cover big areas. It spreads easily with birds since they eat the berries. I did taste one berry when I was a kid and it tastes horrible 🙂 🙂 🙂 So even if one can die from eating the berries one need 40 of them and I’m pretty sure that no one can come even close to do that 🙂 🙂 This one is a young plant and only had three vines growing up from its root, still it managed to cover so much of the tree. They always grow where it is the hardest to get rid of them.

    

So we haven’t done much today, even before the rain the dogs preferred to stay indoors. Sunshine at the moment but still a chance/ risk of more thunder. I don’t mind thunder as long as I’m not caught outside when it arrives. I have had to chose between being the highest point in the fields or hiding beneath tress, a sort of choice between having plague or cholera 🙂 🙂

Ten seconds after I took this photo the lightning struck 🙂

The smell from the Woodland tobacco is wonderful but it only smells in late evenings and nights.

I took a photo from below on the bryonia, we call them dog turnips 🙂

It is time to have a last cup of tea for the day and perhaps I’ll have a couple of oatmeal cookies 🙂

Have a great day!