Category: Wildlife.

Wild hogs.

August 27, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

It was a nice and cool morning but those mosquitoes are just awful.

Even though the sun has been shining all morning and that it is fairly warm I still can feel it in the air, autumn has arrived. There’s a sort of bite to the air that I only can feel in autumn. Still the morning walk was really nice even though the mosquitoes doesn’t understand that they now just should fall down to the ground and die 🙂 🙂 🙂

Alma was just as annoying this morning as she was yesterday morning. She were all over the place and in the end she entangled both me and Albin in her leash. Both she and Albin also sniffed in the air all the time. Nova didn’t but instead of walking far ahead of us she walked by our side. I thought it was because I possible had taped her knee in a bad way. As soon as we had come to the long straight road towards the creek she resumed to her normal position, far ahead of us.

I saw something but couldn’t really say what kind of animal it was.

Then a much smaller one came out to the road too. Then I saw the ear of the bigger one.

I didn’t think more of it than that she perhaps didn’t feel that bad in her knee anyway. We walked up-stream the creek but neither her nor I wanted to walk in the high grass and in to the more dense old forest, so instead we went back the same way we came and I thought that we perhaps would walk in the forest where we walk out to the bog. I didn’t look especially much ahead of us but when I did I saw something I first couldn’t figure out what it was, an animal that I could guess but not what.

I think I could see seven or eight piglets.

Turns out that where Nova suddenly walked ahead of us again now stood a rather big wild hog sow 🙂 Thankfully far away from us but I am annoyed at myself for not bringing the right tele photo lens. Then suddenly a piglet came out from the trees and then one more and suddenly I think it was seven or eight piglets in total. This is the moment when Alma actually decides to stand still and be quiet. There’s something with wild hogs that makes her do that, never otherwise but always when we see hogs.

My spring flowering Clematis has restarted 🙂

The Sarracenia sure is slow to open up. I do hope that at least one of the four buds will before frost takes them all.

One can hate or love the Big Dragon flower (Nepeta sibirica) but bees love them and they flower from early summer till frost take them all.

The wild hogs crossed the road and in to the forest where I had hoped we would walk so no chance on doing that 🙂 🙂 I started to talk loudly to the dogs because I didn’t know where the boar could be or if there were more sows waiting to cross the road. Both Alma and Albin did look at the direction they had come from but that doesn’t mean there were any more out there. I don’t really like to come close to wild hogs but it is fun to see them from a safe distance 🙂

No more sightings of hogs though. I took a tour in the garden when when we had come home again. There are still flowers in bloom, even potatoes flower still. This is the time the Hardy Kiwi decided to finally start growing and I do hope it calms down before the frost arrives. I’ve re-potted all but one of my apricot trees and also the cherry plum tree seedlings I have. I’m not sure what to do with those cherry plum seedlings to be honest. I really don’t need any more but have no place to plant them and since they tend to spread like wildfire via their roots I’m not sure I can give them away either. Well I do live beside a forest 🙂 🙂 🙂

I have three Hardy Kiwi vines planted towards the fence around my vegetable garden. They have finally put some speed in their growing.

I managed to break the top of this vine when I tried to pull it through the loops in the fence. I have no idea if the top will grow new roots but I’ve put it in a pot and either it dies or it starts to grow new roots.

The third one is a sad one. It does grow but slowly and when it finally put some speed into it something ate the top of the vine 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

A15398_016 — Time flies and it won’t be long until we’re back to snow again 🙂 Taken with the Agfa Ambiflex.

Just a normal Sunday.

August 13, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

a (1)

Sometimes, well quite often actually, I wonder if our meteorologists actually get paid for their weather predictions or if they just are drunk and having fun every weekend 🙂 🙂 🙂 I must admit that they did get the raining we’ve had but today they said that we would have a cloudy day all day long. Is anyone surprised when I say that we had sunshine almost all day with the exception of the early morning? 🙂 🙂 🙂

a (2) — We didn’t even get a good fog, just this meh fog.

a (7) — Lingonberries. I think lingonberries are the most important berries for us Swedes, we have lingonberry jam to anything and everything 🙂

We were out in the early morning and when we came home I tossed everything in the washing machine, I was a bit behind so I really didn’t have any clean clothes left. So as soon as the machine started working the sun broke through 🙂 🙂 Well since I didn’t have any clothes I really couldn’t mow the lawn so I’ll have to do a little every day after work next week instead.

a (14)

We’ve just come home after another walk and the weather was much nicer and the wind had helped to dry the high grass we walked in so for once my shoes are dry! They were soaking wet when we came home in the morning so I placed them in the sunshine so they could dry. They have been constantly wet the last week so it was a nice change 🙂

It feels like I’ve done very little today but I have actually been pretty active. I’ve done the laundry as I said, I’ve made dinner for next week at work. I’ve re-potted a lot of plants and checked the sowings of perennials I have outside. They’ll grow big enough to survive winter outside if it stays as warm as they say it will, just above 20C (68F). They’re guessing that we won’t get much sunshine but that it at least will stay warm. The hunting season starts on Wednesday and they’ll be out in the forest the week out so I hope that the pasture outside my cottage is open and animal free so we at least can take walks there.

I think the Sarracenia flower will open up tomorrow 🙂

Have a great day!

Finally a day without rain.

August 11, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

We’ve had a day without any rain!! It feels amazing but that will change already tomorrow evening. They’re now guessing that we’ll get more than an Inch of rain from tomorrow evening until early Sunday morning. So no matter what, tomorrow I’ll have to mow the lawn before the rain arrives 🙂 🙂 🙂

I have survived the first week after the vacation, yay. The one who decides what I should paint and when was still on vacation so I did things I normally doesn’t, like grind down paint where there were dirt or someone had damaged the paint in some way. We were a bit behind on that job so I could do that the entire week 🙂 On Monday I’ll be back painting things again and I’ll continue to do so until September fourth when I must start to work evenings. Can’t pretend I like that but I will at least have a job.

A storm passed by this week, the Norwegians named it Hans and Hand was a trouble maker. There were floodings all over the southern parts of Sweden and in some places up in the north as well. One train derailed because the embankment was swept away by running water. Loads of water filled cellars everywhere, Roads were closed because they were more like ponds 🙂 🙂 but I didn’t hear anything about boats floating away like they always do during storms 🙂 🙂 It was much worse in Norway though, one house was swept away, mud slide all over the southern parts of the country and one smaller dam broke. They were just about to blow away a safety hatch when the entire wall beside it just broke down. No problems here though and like always I didn’t notice much of the wind because my neighbors cottage and garage takes all the wind 🙂

Nova wanted to take a shorter walk after work today but I managed to persuade her to take a slight longer one down to the creek and in to the forest there. Yesterday we most likely had a wolf following us because all the dogs were suddenly in a hurry to get out to the field on the other side of the forest. No wolf following us today but there were signs that wild hogs were close, especially the smell from them, so I talked loudly to the dogs because one really doesn’t want to surprise wild hogs, I rather have wolves following us than having to meet wild hogs or moose because those two are totally unpredictable when they get scared or surprised.

Two of my Sarracenias have flower buds now 🙂

I’m cooking chicken in the slow cooker for the dogs right now. They’ll get it as treats or in their food if they don’t want to eat (it is Nova I’m talking about 🙂 ). I think it’s ready now and I hope it is because the smell is a bit annoying right now. No spices and no salt make it smell less nice 🙂

Have a great day!

Lots and lots with rain.

July 28, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

So after this weekend I’ll only have one week of vacation left, well until Christmas time when I’ll use my last week. We have no holidays at all until then so I really hope I’ll like working evenings again. AI’ll at least get fewer hours to work with slightly more in pay but I still don’t look forward to work evenings. Still I’ll have a job so I won’t complain too much.

This week had been rather chilly and we’ve had so much rain that I haven’t had to water anything out in the garden. I really didn’t mind that much but some of those showers were so bad that I thought much of what’s growing in the garden would break. That didn’t happen but I still hope that the coming rain next week will be less heavy 🙂

Nova decided that we should walk in the forest this morning. She went out to the peninsula in the bog and I hoped that there would be lots of fog because we had fairly thick fog everywhere else. I was sort of disappointed because there was almost no fog at all. We hadn’t been out there for especially long when the dogs suddenly wanted to walk home again and they seemed to be in a hurry. We hadn’t walked far when we heard the deer “barking” around the place we had been at so my guess is that a wolf must have arrived.

It was while standing here the dogs suddenly wanted to hurry back home.

I read an article that most dogs when smelling a wolf nearby reacts just like that, they want to leave unless they are terriers because they want to attack 🙂 🙂 but as the article said since they were so aggressive towards wolves the wolf would most likely run away even though they were so small. Well one terrier didn’t react like that and that was the Amstaff, Albin really doesn’t like other dogs and would love to be able to attack but as soon as he smells wolf he reacts just the opposite 🙂 and I’m glad he does 🙂

I haven’t been able to do much because of the rain but I have weeded (well to be honest that sounds a bit lame because I used spades and secateurs to get rid of what was growing there. I used to have blueberry bushes there but all the sand that I dug up while doing the root zone had to go somewhere and that was the best and closest place to put it. I did find three blueberry bushes still in there amongst the high grass, wildflowers and grapevines though 🙂 I let the blueberries stay and added some peat around them. After that I placed all the pots with the apricot seedlings and some citrus trees there but couldn’t stop myself from planting the seedlings I had this year. I have even sowed some seeds from perennial Hollyhocks and they’ll look good already next year . I also found lots of things I forgot I had placed there before the weeds and grass started to grow in the sand 🙂 🙂 🙂

This is the after photo. The angle of the photo make the place look smaller than it is but it is around 4 square meter (much the same in yards).

a (4) — I also placed the rubber sheet from my old pond over all those shoots from the thorny sloes, roses and the false spirea.

I’ve “pruned” (with big and heavy tools 🙂 🙂 ) the Rowan tree that grows beside the plum tree. It sowed itself and I like it but it was starting to push away the plum tree plus it was so dark and dry on the ground that almost all ferns that grew there had died.

No all the plums will get sunshine and ripe nicely 🙂

It is time to have something to eat and after that I have no idea. Nothing worth watching on tv so perhaps I’ll start reading a book?

Have a great day!

Much the same weather all week long.

July 21, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

We haven’t had much rain this week, a shower now and again. The weather has been very much the same each day though, lots of clouds, sunshine in between. Rather chilly when cloudy but really nice when the sun shone. One day it did reach above 20C (68F) but mostly it has been lower than that. Sunshine in the early and cool morning so not many flies or mosquitoes annoying us while having our morning walk.

The Norwegian site says it will be warmer than the Swedish one but then again they say we’ll get more rain. I looked at the weather sites early this morning and none of the sites said rain tomorrow, they do now. So I sort of regrets that I didn’t mow the lawn today while it was quite windy and the grass was dry. Well we know how great they are in predicting the weather over here so it might be sunny and warm all day 🙂 🙂 🙂

I have gotten the carpet/ furniture cleaner but I haven’t tried it yet. So I guess I’ll try it tomorrow if the rain actually arrives. I think I’ll start with something not as thick as the big cushions I have on my sofas, they will after all have to dry up before I can put them back on the sofas. I have a couple of those thin mattresses on my bed, I can easily sleep one night without one of them.

It was quite nice when we were out walking early this morning. No wind but cool enough so that most flies stayed calm, at least until we came closer to home and the sun had warmed up the air. Nova decided that we should walk along the creek again. We have lots of morning dew here right now and there’s a lot of relatively high grass along that way so we were soaked by the time we came home. What surprises me each time we’ve walked there is how few ticks I need to remove from the dogs. It should be tick paradise there and lots of animals full of ticks walks there as well but each time I go through the dogs there are just a few. Well I can’t say I feel sorry about that 🙂

Nothing much is happening in the garden right now. My Persimmon seems to do very well, my Pawpaws grow and look healthy and so so my Ginkgos. The English walnut still grows but it is hard to see it since the plant in front of it is so big that I barely can see it 🙂 🙂 🙂 The last two Nectarine kernels that I’ve had in and out of the fridge finally started to germinate this week. Mostly it’s enough with one round to the fridge to make them start but these two needed several times in and out. I think that means that they come from a tougher area (climatewise) and that their spring can be as treacherous as ours, like really warm and sunny in early March but then full blown winter in April 🙂 🙂 🙂 The Apricots are growing fine and the biggest ones are now over 30cm (one foot) high.

Finally, the Nectarines germinated. They are now planted in two small pots so cross Your fingers and hold Your thumbs for good luck 🙂

I think I’ll make myself a cup of tea even if it is well after 4pm. I have vacation, it doesn’t matter if I can fall asleep normal time or not 🙂

I’ve planted one of the Cherry plums on the north side of my cottage, close to the gate. I’ve put a bottomless tub around it so that the roots can’t spread and give new Cherryplums. I’ll plant one on the other side of the gate when I can find another tub I can remove the bottom from.

The Hazelnut bush has also found a place not far from the Cherry plum.

The House sparrow fledglings learns how to fly under the roof of my old patio, which I haven’t used in over twent years. Now some are daring enough to fly outside it, a whole meter (a yard) out to my Apricot tree 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Now I hope I can start what I planned to do during my vacation, lots of napping :-)

July 9, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

So yesterday was mowing day and today it was filling the holes, or perhaps ravines is a better word, with gravel. We were four people with shovels and rakes and one with a tractor with a huge scoop. So we worked quite fast and effective to be honest. We might have worked for forty minutes but after we stood and spoke for at least an hour and a half 🙂 🙂 🙂

I was a bit worried about my back because it felt really bad this morning when I woke up but it didn’t bother me especially much at all to be honest. I am however a bit worried about my back right now because it really bothers me and I know this is nothing compared to how it will be tomorrow morning 🙂 🙂 🙂 Anyway now the job is done and now I hope I can start with how I planned this vacation to be, lots of napping and doing nothing 🙂 🙂

It was cool in the early morning when we went out on our morning walk and not a fly could be seen or heard but as soon as the sun started to heat up the air things changed rapidly. I’m glad I brought my mosquito hat because I think there were a gazillion flies just waiting to annoy us, no biting ones though, they all seems to have moved to my garden and the cows in the pasture beside. Lots of butterflies where we walk but none in my garden. Lots of bees though but to be honest they aren’t as beautiful as butterflies.

Tomorrow will be hot as well but the rain will arrive in the evening and with northern winds it will cool down quite a bit. The guessing about how much rain we’ll get varies quite a bit but at the moment the Norwegian site says almost an inch and the Swedish one four fifths of an inch. This morning they guessed we would barely get anything. One could say that we’ll know for sure about how much rain we’ve gotten afterwards but to be honest they usually says we’ve had a very different weather than we’ve actually have had 🙂 🙂 🙂 That’s what happens when they trust computer programs instead och checking the real world 🙂 🙂 🙂

A perennial sunflower. It took ages for it to start spread and when it finally did it spread to a place where I don’t want it 🙂 🙂

This is a rose that has been here in this part of bthe village for well over 70 years. Have no idea what it is called though.

I’ll get ten Sand cherry cherries this year. This one is really drought tolerant but this early summer managed to make them let go of their berries.

I will need to go to the supermarket soon but I think I can wait until Tuesday when the weather won’t be anything else than rain anyway. I have enough to eat, I have enough with milk and I have enough with ice cream so I’m pretty sure my planned napping will happen tomorrow 🙂

Catmint and it loves dry and sandy places and spreads happily but I’m not swarmed with cats 🙂 🙂

The worst parts of the road was upp the slope here but I didn’t want to walk up there to photograph it because of all the biting flies.

Have a great day!

The nettles slid down my arm.

May 27, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

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

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

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

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

a (5)

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

a (11)

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

a (16)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a great day!

Presummer is here.

May 20, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a great day!

Long weekend.

May 19, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a great day!

So we won.

May 14, 2023 · 6 Comments ·

DSC_0009 (1)

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

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

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

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

DSC_0017 (2)

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

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

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

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

Have a great day!

Finally some warm weather.

May 7, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Have a great day!

White wood anemone.

I’m ready for the vegetable season.

May 6, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Have a great day!

A15398_008 — One from the Agfa Ambiflex.