Category: Windy.

It missed us again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   

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

Have a great day!

Rain and thunder and summer tires on the car :-)

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Whitebeams are quite popular to have in towns and cities around here, hardy enough and rarely get sick.

It’s so nice to have summer tires on the car again, it’s so much more quiet in the car now. I also asked them to check if there is a hole in the exhaust pipe because sometimes it does sound like there is one and sometimes as there isn’t one 🙂 🙂 🙂 The exhaust pie is really good they say but there is a place where two parts of the pipe connects and it doesn’t fit properly, when the pipe is cold so it sounds as if there is a hole 🙂 When it gets warm the heat make the two parts expand a bit and when they do the sound goes away 🙂 Nothing to care about they said so I won’t 🙂

On top of Ålleberg looking towards Mösseberg on the other side of the town.
Falköping is placed on two mountains and in the valley in between. If one is interested in status one should live on the other mountain called Mösseberg, Ålleberg as these photos are taken on is for some reason not as fancy to live on 🙂
The football (soccer) stadium. It isn't big but they are proud of it.
The football stadium in Falköping. Not big but they are and should be proud of it. If their football team ever should come to the higher divisions this would be way too small.

It's mostly smaller one family houses along the streets on theis side of town.

A little guy woke me up at three thirty five this morning, he needed to go outside to do his business. There wasn’t any use going back to sleep after that 🙂 So I’m really tired tonight.  He and Alma aren’t though, they are playing wildly here in the cottage because it is raining outside. It started when I drove to the garage and has continued more or less the entire day. Most seems to have missed the village though but it rained enough to make the dogs prefer to stay under a roof. Still I noticed that Alma had started to work her way out of the dog yard again so I’ve been working on that place as well 🙂 🙂 🙂 I hope it at least will keep her in there for a couple of days before she tries again.

There are also apartment buildings mixed in here and there, or is it that there are one household houses mixed in between the apartment buildings?
Apartment building s and one family household houses are mixed quite well in this town.
Murals are popular in this town, this one shows a knight on a horse and some kind of smiling blob beside and it is all in pastel colors. It looks like they are on a stage because one can see curtains on both sides.
Murals are popular here.

A red car stopping at a red light beside two apartment buildings, one of the buildings is yellow and the other one is sort of dirty pink. By the look of the houses they were built in the twenties last century. 

Any way, I had a little walk in Falköping while I was waiting for my car to be ready, it’s just a small part so it doesn’t really show how the town looks, I’ll walk elsewhere the next time. Falköping is at least one thousand years old but it is  köping and not a city or town to be honest. It had all to do with taxes and what rights the King gave the place. We have a similar town north of Falköping called Skara and Skara is a town so they celebrated Skaras one thousand year birthday as a town some years ago but that can never happen in Falköping even though it is just as old 🙂 🙂 Today we call everything towns or cities even though most of them aren’t 🙂

A brick building in red sort of hiding behind other houses. I've always wondered if This could have been a part of the old hospital? Have no idea to be honest.

A flower shop, one of many here, in a white building. A sign says Show that You believe in love and I guess they then want us to buy flowers to show that :-)
The sign on the flower shop says: Show that You believe in love. I guess they mean they want us to buy their flowers to show that 🙂 Another mural, a big one by a parking area. Bright orange and blue colors as background and in the iddle showing four people from different ethnicity painted in black and white. Looking uphill and can see some really small cottages by the side of the road. These are so small that I guess they must be some of the older buildings in town painted in bright red and at least one of them in yellow.

To be honest Falköping is a nice little place but quite boring 🙂 I think it once was voted to be Sweden’s most boring town 🙂 🙂 It’s a bit odd because it has two town centers. One is by the railway station and one is on the other side of the town. The one on the other side of the town is where I walked today and it is more like a real town square while the other one is open space, a grocery store, the station and very little else.

Standing at another place looking up-hill. Shops in wooden buildings to the left and a bank in a brick building to the right. Straight ahead is a long walkway in the shape of an avenue, trees on both side and the branches cover the sky above.

Standing in the twon square looking at something that I guess is art? To me it looks like they've cut off the tops of small hills and sliced the stone in to fairly wide pieces. To be honest it looks like lots of tightly put together head stones from a grave yard, very odd :-)
This looks like headstones from a grave yard to me. I guess it’s some kind of art they now are placing in the town square.

Fences in the middle of the twon square and behind them they've dug up the ground.  Much the same here.

I was a bit lucky while walking around, even though it rained most of the walk the thunder that arrived kept its distance and didn’t arrive until I had my car and was back at work. It missed this village but was quite ferocious everywhere else. It hit somewhere close to the factory just as I was leaving for the day and the last thing I heard was the paint box alarming and it looked like they weren’t able to re-start it again. Well I’ll know better tomorrow. Hopefully I won’t have to work by the paint box tomorrow, it’s a pain in the a..e when that happens because it can take forever to make it start again.

Lots of art galleries in this town. I'm looking at a window display and it looks like a small leafless tree with white birds in it.
Plenty of art galleries in this town.

A toy store are selling to small action figures from two different English football teams.
Well if You want to but small action figures from Two different English football teams this is the place to go 🙂
A little white tree cottage hidden behind two bigger houses, quite common in this town. It used to be a thrift/ antique shop just a year ago. Last photo from Falköping today, more will come.
This little place used to be a thrift/ antique shop just a year ago.

It is still raining outside but little enough so that dogs can play outside. They are running in and out in full speed, up the stairs and down again and I can only hope they won’t break anything on themselves. I do hope it also means that Malkolm will sleep until the alarm starts tomorrow morning 🙂

Have a great day!

Sticky flypaper.

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I’m waiting for the rain and thunder, we already have the strong winds that usually comes with it. The dogs haven’t any energy to play. Every now and again they go outside to try and have fun but comes in again just to take a long nap. Even I joined them in one of their naps 🙂

     

We were up early today though, when it still felt a bit cool and the sun was shining. We took the short walk out to the bog and then back home again. None of them was especially enthusiastic about having a walk but they sure were when we headed back home again 🙂 🙂 🙂 I don’t blame them because there were about a gazillion mosquitoes out there and Nova is so badly bitten now that her face is a bit swollen and she has small wounds after scratching herself in the face. I can’t even imagine how bad it is for all the wild animals out there. Thankfully we don’t have any midges here. They are tiny and many and some years it can be so bad that if a Moose can’t get away from them all those midges actually can kill them. It’s a good thing this country have so many lakes they can flee out to.

     

So I haven’t done that much today, I’ve done the laundry and it dried up within a few minutes :-)I’ve watered the newly planted trees and also the Persimmon where the new branch is growing out plus the Pawpaw that survived the winter. I’ve also placed my summer tires in the car because tomorrow they’ll be put on and my winter tires taken off. I’m a bit late with getting that done to be honest 🙂 If the garage doesn’t have a car I can borrow I’ll just have a walk in Falköping while the job is done. I always do so when the car is in the garage and I always bring a camera. So if You want to see photos from Falköping wish that they don’t have a car, if You don’t wish to see Falköping just wish they have a car 🙂 🙂

     

If they don’t have a car I’m planning on buying a new garden hose and some other things while I’m there, that is if it takes long enough so that the stores open before the job is done and I have to go to work again. Some of them don’t open until 10 am and since I’ll be leaving my car at 7 am I might go to work long before that,unless the garage is really busy. Then again who says I need to go to work immediately 🙂 🙂

       

I haven’t done any dinner for work next week either, so I’ll buy something on my way to work for tomorrow and make dinner when I come home again for the rest of the week. I’m just looking at the thunder app and it is slowly closing in to us. It will feel good when it has passed and the temperature has dropped. I have done one more thing though, the first sticky fly papers now hang from the roof downstairs. A few have already found their way indoors even though I do have nets put up by the kitchen door and the windows. No matter what one does those flies always find a way in and thankfully they like to land on something close to the roof, those fly papers are heaven sent 🙂

The first bean is showing up 🙂
Potatoes keep comming up even though it was three years ago I had potatoes in that patch 🙂 Those red leafs looking like clover is actually an Oxalis, a popular annual pot plant. Turns out it thrives in this climate so now it’s one of the more common weeds we have in our gardens. I don’t fight it , instead I embrace it and it does get cute yellow flowers 🙂
This is a native annual Geranium (not the pot plants You call geraniums because those are actually Pelargoniums).
Columbines comes in all kinds of varieties.

Have a great day!

     

I didn’t mind they were wrong about today’s weather :-)

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So today was supposed to be all cloudy and hot but without any wind. It started out that way but then the sun broke through so the hot part was right because we now do have a wind blowing thankfully. Before it started it was like living in a steam bath here. I couldn’t move a meter without sweating like a pig.

 

The cattle walking in the pasture outside the beekeepers place for the first time this year.
Rowan trees usually don’t grow especially high, this one is at least fifteen meters high (much the same in yards). We had one much bigger but that one was a victim this years thinning. A bit odd because it seems they’ve saved almost all other Rowan trees this time and we do have lots of them here.

We walked down to the creek while it still wasn’t too warm, we couldn’t follow it down stream though because now they let the cattle walk in to the pasture outside the beekeepers so they block the road with those electric wires and I really didn’t want to go through passing them with Alma 🙂 🙂 🙂 I really didn’t want Malkolm to learn from her how to do it 🙂 🙂 🙂 So we walked it up-stream for a while until the grass became too high, damp grass close to a creek is a tick magnet. After that we walked back the same way and suddenly four wild hogs ran out in front of us, perhaps ten meters (much the same in yards) away from us. Alma reacted like always so no photos of them I’m afraid 🙂 🙂

This flowers Swedish name is Hag’s tooth 🙂

   

We actually woke up at 3:45 this morning because someone needed to go outside to do his business 🙂 Normally we would all just stay up and then take a walk as soon as the sun would start to rise. No sun was supposed to shine today though so we all just went back to bed and slept for two more hours and that is really unusual! The sun was shining when we went up again, went back in to the clouds while we were out walking and then came back and has stayed here all day and by the looks of it it’ll stay until it sinks down beyond the horizon. One good thing with yesterdays heavy showers is that I didn’t have to water anything today 🙂

The first Buttercups to flower.

   

The Persimmon hybrid that I bought last year and that looked healthy all winter through until that last snow storm is dead. Since it was a variety however it’s always grafted on a root from the actual persimmon, Diospyros virginiana, and I have hoped that the root has survived because it is so much hardier than the rest of the trees in that family. Today I noticed that a new branch is growing up from the root 🙂 🙂 So since I bought a real Persimmon this year I now will have two 🙂 Lets hope that one is female and one is male so I can grow my own fruits in the future 🙂 So now I have two Persimmon trees and with the my own seedlings nine Pawpaw’s 🙂

Can You see the little green dot at the base of the dead tree trunk? That’s new growth from the Persimmon roots 🙂
This is a new variety of White Mulberry tree with tasty berries. Normally the white mulberry tree gives edible fruits but someone said if one likes the taste of dry grass they’r pretty good 🙂 🙂 This one however gives sweet and tasteful berries. It was quite damaged by frost before it arrived here but it is coming back again.
This is on the other hand another Mulberry tree with the name variety name Mulle 🙂 (Morus accidosa). I once had a smaller tree here but one day my two big dogs dug it up and had lost of fun tearing it apart 🙂 🙂
I’ve bought a tea bush as well this year (Camellia sinensis). It’s just as picky as the Camellia we have as pot plants or in the gardens where the climate allows it but it doesn’t flower until late spring I’ve read plus if it gets big enough I can always try to make a cup of tea from its leafs 🙂 🙂 🙂

We’ve had our pancake Saturday, I’ve sown almost all of the flower seeds I still had (but there’s at least two more but I just can’t find the seed bags 🙂 ) and we’ve had a short nap when it was as warmest. I don’t think we slept for especially long but that nap did more for me than the two more hours in the morning did 🙂 So for the rest of the day I’ll just relax. I didn’t win the Euro jackpot yesterday which is strange since so many really hopes that I will win 🙂 I’ve promised that if I win that much money (around 100 million US dollars) no worker at my work place would have to work any more 🙂 (not even the ones I dislikes). With that much money I still would have perhaps 25 million US dollars left to myself and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t miss the other millions 🙂 🙂 🙂

I did sow Salvia pratensis seeds last year and I think this is it 🙂 The Swedish name for it is Meadow sage and it looks like it’s the same in English!
When You think all the Greater celandine have died out but then You remove some grass and cut away some branches and suddenly it’s everywhere in the garden 🙂 🙂
This is a rhubarb but not an edible one, this is the Chinese rhubarb. Well it is used in traditional medicine but don’t try it for a pie 🙂 Mine has grown in the shadows and too dry for too long so this year I moved it. It can become really big and is quite beautiful as an ornamental plant.

Well the smaller lottery is today with “only” 7,5 millions US dollars as minimum maximum winning. I think it might be higher at the moment. I’ve said that if I “only” win those millions all they can expect from me is a cup cake 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Rain and thunder is close but won’t reach us.

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There’s thunder nearby but looking at the radar sequence on all weather sites it will miss us, I wouldn’t mind if we had gotten the rain because my two big water barrels are closing in to be empty and the cooler air would be nice as well. The cool air will come tonight though but only stay for one day, it’ll be warm again on Saturday.

A tiny part of my Lilac hedge, I have around 30 meters (much the same in yards) of it and I truly dislike Lilacs 🙂 🙂 In front of it stands a Red leafed Rose.

Whitebeam. A close relative to the Rowan tree and can become fairly large. I would like to have one in my garden but I have so many other trees growing now so it’ll have to wait until I win the lottery and can buy lots of new land 🙂 🙂 🙂

We haven’t had any walk today because it is just too hot for a puppy and an eighteen year old dog, it was bad enough yesterday when we were out for a short walk. Still I’m not yet complaining about it being too warm 🙂 Alma and Malkolm have been outside playing a lot though and now they sleep here beside me on the cooler floor while Nova sleeps on two fleece blankets and snoring loudly as well 🙂

  

Alma has stayed in the dog yard all day today, Yay 🙂 funny because today had been the perfect day for her to do it when it comes to me and my job. The same company all day long, only one color and long series of what I painted. She always escapes those days when it is most inconvenient 🙂 🙂 🙂 I must admit though that the dog yard hasn’t been this clean and tidy in a long time. I’ve been there fixing and cleaning almost every day and all eventual plants that tends to grow in there are almost totally gone 🙂 Nothing bad that doesn’t bring something good with it as we say over here 🙂 🙂

     

So I’ve mostly hand watered the vegetable patch and all the potted plants. The vegetable patch has only been fried by the sun but the wind can’t reach it, so the ground was actually a bit damp on the surface now in the evening. The potted plants however needed a lot of water. It’s always a bit tricky to water all the potted trees and bushes because some need acidic water, like the Pawpaw and other preferres water with lots of lime in it, like peaches and Apricots. So now I need to place them in two groups so that I don’t use the wrong water.

One of the Ginkgo’s I had in my garden survived the snow storm, the other one seems to have died.
My seed sown Pawpaw’s. Three of them now have new leafs growing out and three have leafs since during winter and I think those need to drop before they too get new leafs.
Can You see the tiny green dots? New leafs on the outdoors Pawpaw!
This and the next one shows the two Pawpaws I bought this spring.

I can also tell You that the Pawpaw that stayed in the garden all winter has survived because today I could see the first tiny leafs growing on it 🙂 The Columbines are opening up now and the tree peony has big buds 🙂 My seeds sown Gardenias are either flowering or just about to. The seeds sown aren’t filled with petals like the ones we can buy and has a slightly weaker scent so they are easier to have if one has problems with strong smells.

Columbine. If You look at the petals they look like a dove seen from the side, hence the name, columbine means dove like.
This and the next one is the same species but since they self sow all kinds of varieties can show.

 

I “won” almost nine dollars US on the lottery yesterday 🙂 I use ” because if I don’t win on Saturday I’ve only lost 3 dollars US 🙂 🙂 🙂 It’s a bit sad when one is happy because one only lost three dollars 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

We have at least nice weather.

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A short one today because my back is killing me. I have rheumatism in my spine and mostly it’s ok, well I always have back pain but it is bearable. Today however it isn’t. I once destroyed my stomach with an anti inflammatory medicine, it was amazingly good but also pretty aggressive towards my stomach, so now days I can’t even take anti inflammatory medicines for kids.

     

I can take some of the ointments (not too much though because then I get stomach problems) but I don’t have any at home so the only thing that helps is to move around, it’s when I’ve been still for a minute or two that the pain starts again, so it’ll be fun to try and go down stairs after writing this 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll put the rice bag in the micro and towards my back and hope for the best. No use in staying home from work either because if there anything I do at work while painting is to move around and stretch my body in all kinds of strange angles 🙂 🙂 🙂

  It was rather warm when we were out walking.  

Wonderful weather here today though, even though the wind is even stronger today. I need to water those trees I planted yesterday and after that fall down in to my recliner. If the back gets too bad and I can’t get up a recliner is amazingly nice to sleep in 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll make sure to bring an ice cream on the way there 🙂 🙂 🙂

In my garden right now. Marsh marigold in the root zone.
My two Nanking cherry bushes now have loads of buds
and even some open flowers. I do hope I’ll get loads of berries this year 🙂
White Checkered lily.
The Yellow wood anemone is starting to spread, normally the white one is stronger and push a lot of other flowers away but this yellow one have pushed away the white one 🙂
This one looks like a failed experiment to be honest but give it a week and it’ll look very different. Also a Yellow wood anemone.

Have a great day!

Always that wind.

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

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

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

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

     

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

   

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

Have a great day!

It finally arrived :-)

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The warm and sunny weather sure took its time to arrive today, the morning was chilly and rainy so we didn’t go out for our morning walk until just before noon and it was still really cold. Then suddenly it changed and the temperature has risen to 20 C (68 F), the sun is shining even though there are big clouds in the sky and, of course, there is now a strong wind blowing.

     

That has helped the laundry to dry in five seconds so I really can’t complain too much 🙂 I don’t think it took fiver minutes after the sun started to shine through the gaps in the clouds before I heard the first mower 🙂 Yes the grass has grown pretty much but why can’t they just relax at least for one day before they start 🙂 🙂

     

I didn’t care about mowing the lawn, instead I’ve brought up almost all plants from the cool cellar. I only have four cacti down there still because I need to get more plants outside before I have enough space by the windows 🙂 I even brought the pawpaw seedlings I had down there outside, three of them but decided that the three I have indoors by the kitchen window can wait for a while. One never knows when we’ll get a nasty cold frosty night again.

The Camellias started to flower in the cool cellar.

 

I bought a hardy Fuchsia (Fuchsia magellanica) and it too was touched a bit hard by frost, like the trees I also got delivered late this week. So I decided to take a few cuttings that can over winter in the cool cellar neat winter. I took a few photos of how I do that that You can see here below. The Hardy Fuchsia doesn’t survive like a big bush here though but the roots survives and starts all over next year. It’s always best to put dry leafs over it all just in case we do get another cold winter. One can of course also have it as a pot plant and keep it light but cool during the winters.

The best soil to have while planting cuttings are usually sowing soil. I didn’t have any so I mixed ordinary soil with some sand from my garden, mix it well.
As You can see the cuttings did look a bit sad after the frost so I don’t know if they’ll work but it’s worth a try. I can take new ones later in summer.
One only need a short stem, just make sure that at the bottom there have been leafs. Take away those because that’s where the new roots will start to grow. This one didn’t have any leafs at all but they usually work anyway.
This one looks better. Two leafs taken away at the bottom and two leafs at the top. Most people think this is too short but it’s actually just enough.
Plant the cuttings along the edge of the pot, more oxygen will reach where the leafs will grow and the risk of them rotting because of too much water is lesser. Normally I don’t put a see through cover,, like plastic, around the pot but since there were hit by frost I thought it might help. Place the pot by a window that doesn’t get any sunshine and wait for them to grow to new plants 🙂

Tomorrow will be a bit cooler than today but still above 10 C (50 F) and then on Tuesday it’ll go back to more what we’ve had this afternoon, I do hope this was the last cold period until autumn arrives again, I’m really tired of the cold weather we’ve had lately. I wonder how Malkolm think about warmer weather, so far all his life has been pretty cold, all three months of it 🙂

Alma and Malkolm have been playing all day long so they are both now snoring loudly 🙂

Have a great day!

If it wasn’t for the wind.

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The sunrise this morning.

It could have been so nice today if it wasn’t for a biting cold wind blowing. Thankfully it comes from north so I can still have the kitchen door open but just walking a few steps from the door makes the world bitterly cold and nasty.

     

There was no wind when we had our morning walk though but then again the temperature had barely rose anything since I watched the thermometer when we got up, -6C (21,2F). We went down to the creek again but continued it up-stream and then in to the older forest. Lots of Ravens in the air and the Jays started to scream as soon as we closed in to the forest. The Swedish name for them is, if directly translated, Nut screamer 🙂 Sort of spot on to be honest, they behave like nuts and scream all the time 🙂 🙂 

     

Both Nova and Malkolm wanted to stop every second meter to sniff on something and they did so for a very long time every time, so in the end I had to hurry them up because they were driving Alma crazy 🙂 🙂 🙂 She really have no patience to stand still while they sniff around 🙂 

     

Malkolm really dislikes the collar he has to wear now when the harness is too small, it itches so when ever he can he stops to scratch where the collar is. I’ll try and find the harness I know I have somewhere here in the cottage, I never throw away things that isn’t broken and still can be used so I know it is here somewhere. Otherwise I’ll buy a new one when I order their food the next time. The problem is that I have no idea how big he’ll be 🙂 it can be anything from English Cockerspaniel to Golden Retriever. Thankfully I do have a big one that can be used if I would buy a too small one.

     

I think I’ll get the new table tomorrow. I know it already is here in my county waiting for being delivered but I haven’t gotten any text or mail that tells me when 😦 I can’t just stay at home (even though it would be nice 🙂 ) and hope that it’ll come 🙂 I’m sure they’ll call just as they enter the village and then it’ll take me around thirty minutes to get home. Last time it was like this, several years ago, the driver just left it inside my gate even though he really should have seen my drivers license. I do hope it can be fixed like this this time as well, if he can’t wait for me that is.

It isn’t easy to keep the balance while scratching because of the collar 🙂 

Then some more scratching. Thankfully no scratching at all when collar is removed.

I do know however that some time this week a Tea tree will arrive at the grocery store in Gudhem and on the 25th all the trees and bushes I’ve bought will arrive. I don’t need to stay at home for either of them thankfully so that makes it so much easier. I’ve done the laundry today and yesterday I baked a couple of breads, they turned out quite ok 🙂 I haven’t however made any dinner for work next week, so I guess it’ll be sandwiches for work tomorrow and then I’ll buy something after work that I can have for the rest of the week 🙂

Have a great day!

Storm again.

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I could find five House sparrows in the wild rose, can You find them 🙂 I had at least the big original photo to look at 🙂

If You don’t think about the rain that fell or the storm strength winds all day this has been a really nice day 🙂 🙂 🙂 We have actually had a lot of sunshine as well so the laundry dried up really fast 🙂 I had some extra laundry today because Malkolm the little monster decided it would be nicer to stay in bed and pee than to go out to the rainy world 🙂 I really have no good place where thick fleece blankets can dry so I was at that moment and only then quite happy about the strong wind and sunshine 🙂

     

I was a bit hesitant about having a walk today. We did eventually go out and walked to the bog, I really didn’t want to get caught in any eventual shower passing by, then again walking in the forest when the winds were as strong as they were today wasn’t a good idea either. The trees swayed a bit too much and at one place big branches fell off a pine just after we had passed it.

     

After our walk not only did I do the laundry I also baked a bread and tried to make a pizza base. I left some of the dough from the bread, added some more flour (today I added rice flour since it doesn’t taste much in it self) and spread it really thin on the baking sheet. It was ok but rose unevenly and it was over all a bit too thick. I have at least now tried it and will try something else next time.

     

After that we all had a long nap. Alma and Nova in one of the sofas and Malkolm and I in the recliner. One really sleep well in a recliner 🙂 Then I realized that I had forgotten to wash my working t-shirts so I had to do that as well. This time I just put them in a bucket and washed them by hand, they are easy drying, sort of feels like wearing some kind of plastic but always feel dry no matter how much one sweats 🙂 Just as I hung them outside to dry in the wind and sunshine a hail storm passed by followed by some rain, something the weather sites said didn’t happen (they also show what kind of weather we’ve been having) 🙂 🙂 🙂

   

After the willows the Grape elder is always first to flower.

To be honest I would love to have another long nap, I’m just as tired as I was before. It’s pollen time so I guess that’s why. Runny nose,eyes that feels old and always tired, life is wonderful sometimes 🙂

Have a great day!

Cataract in my right eye.

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It’s snowing outside, still just tiny flakes but I’ve seen photos taken not far from here where they are much bigger. It has rained on and off all day and now when the temperature is dropping it turns to snow instead. Tomorrow will be sunny they say but above freezing temperatures (barely) so hopefully it will all melt away quickly.

     

More and more Cranes are arriving to the lake and today the nesting couple nesting closest to my cottage arrived, they started trumpeting loudly when they landed in the cow pasture on the other side of the gravel road. I know it’s too early to say winter won’t make a come back but those trumpeting Cranes made it easier to actually believe it won’t 🙂

     

I had an appointment with my optician yesterday, I need new glasses and they always do a eye health check when I’m there. Turns out I have cataract in my right eye. I have actually suspected something was going on, sometimes I feel like I have something in the eye that sort of make my eye sight even less good. He said that this can go quickly, six months and I’ll need a new lens or it can stay like this until the day I die, feels good that he could narrow it down that much 🙂 🙂 🙂 So I guess I’ll call my health center to see what to do next.

     

I’m not surprised because lots of people in my family have had it so I guess I would be the next in line. Two pair of glasses, progressive, and now $ 520 US poorer 🙂 It’s almost that I look forward to new lenses in the eye, just imagine how nice it would be to not having to wear glasses all the time, if for no other reason that it will be much cheaper  🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll pick them up on Maundy Thursday. She asked when in the day I would like to be there and I said that any time that I can leave work but not having to go back again that day, so I’ll be there just after noon 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

Have a great day!

 

Winter weather again.

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The little lake behind my garage.

So the Swedish rounds of the Eurovision Song Contest is over for this year. Two Norwegian brothers, twins, won this year and their win was really big. Not my cup of tea but they can sing without taking a single false tune, can dance and seems to be genuinely nice guys so I’m pretty sure they’ll end up amongst the top five when the Final is in May here in Sweden. Malmö is hosting, our third biggest city just opposite Copenhagen in Denmark. My favorite came second and is very different to the winner but both the international jury and we Swedes wanted the twins to win and when both agree we usually end up amongst the top five.

     

I doubt we’ll win because down in Europe they’ve come to dislike our songs just because we tend to end up amongst the top five 🙂 🙂 🙂 We have after all now won the whole shebang seven times. Only Ireland has done that before. The weather has been indoor weather for two days now, cold, windy and some snow falling. Ok the snowfall was so tiny and so were the flakes that it was hardly noticiable on the ground but it was annoying anyway 🙂

     

I stayed home from work last Thursday and Friday because of an accident, nothing serious happened to me, bruising and a scrape. We were lifting things weighing 44Kg (97 pound) and we do that with a magnet. This thing is flat on the side I stood and has a sort of sharp edge all around. I was prepared with hooks when it was high enough to be hanged on the chain that transports the thing through the factory. Suddenly the magnet came loose and the thing fell down. I was hit on my right hand, then it hit my left knee, scraped my right shin and had it come just a half centimeter (a fifth of an inch) it would have cut off my toes on the right foot. Now it landed on the toe-cap instead so I didn’t realize that until I tried to walk away 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

No serious injury but I have been fairly sour until now. It’s still a bit tender but nothing worse. Even though it was very unlucky to be hit I did have luck with the weather those two days, no wind, sunny and warm enough to have the kitchen door open all day 🙂 But as I said today and yesterday were quite different. Winter jacket on and I should have worn mittens because the wind made it so cold that I couldn’t feel my fingers when we came home again this morning 🙂

     

I’ll be warmer again in a couple of days and I think the Cranes will arrive with the warmer weather and better winds. I’ve seen a few circling around high up in the air but that’s it. Lots of geese and swans here now though plus all the smaller birds already singing their spring songs. Still plenty of birds by the feeders though, especially many forest birds because they are now thinning out the trees, they’ll only take the biggest trees and leave the rest but before they started they also cut down almost all those smaller trees and bushes where the smaller birds nests and find food. We’ll I’ll continue to feed them for as long as they come here.

     

Have a great day!