· 8 Comments ·
Today there’s a mix of photos. The female woodpecker is hard to scare away from the feeder, the male one flees as soon as he see me 🙂

Not much to write about today, we did get some snow but just a dusting. Strong northern winds blowing though and freezing temperatures. I woke up having pain in every single muscle so since every walk with Alma is a struggle I decided to not have a walk today. The cold winds seems to have been why the dogs didn’t want to stay outdoors especially much either.

     

There are few directions from where the wind can reach the garden and today we had one of those. I have been pretty tired today because Alma had an extremely rare accident in the living room last night. She must have a really bad stomach for that to happen. I’ve always wondered why she never alerts me but realized this morning that she does but in a very quiet way. She stands quietly beside my bed staring at me until she can’t hold it any longer. Well it is good that she tries but if I’m asleep I really need a lot of more sound than that 🙂 🙂 🙂 She stood beside me again this morning, I tried to fake sleep because I had no wish what so ever to go up when I realized what she wanted.

     

We were in a hurry down and made it all the way out without any accident 🙂 I should have been more aware that this could happen since they are changing their food. They’ve had an insect based food for a while now and started to scratch themselves around the neck and ears. I’ve had allergic dogs here before so I realized that the only thing that had changed lately was the food. It’s too early to know for sure that it was the food but they haven’t scratched themselves since the new food arrived. It’s a good sign anyway.

     

It is time for that last cup of tea and then watch some tv. My favorite show is on tonight, it’s called (På spåret) On the tracks and is a quiz show where two teams is going to guess what city (all over the world) they will end up at. In the beginning we watched views by seeing a film filmed on trains and get lots of really difficult clues, now days we also go by car. when they’ve reached the end of the trip follow questions comes. Plus now days even we viewers can guess on all questions via an app on our phones. There’s also two question about music where we hear an artist make their version of old songs and that’s the hardest ones in my opinion 🙂 🙂 🙂 I never remember what artist have done what even though I can the entire lyrics 🙂 🙂 🙂

One with old Nova 🙂

 

She has grown quite a lot since she came here 🙂

Have a great day!

· 8 Comments ·

I drove to the supermarket this morning. I started to drive when the ones going to work have passed already so just a few cars on the roads today and much the same on my way home. To my big surprise there weren’t especially many customers either. We to be honest there’s never much costumers on the times I’m doing my shopping but today there were even fewer. Perfect to be honest 🙂

These are from yesterday.

   

Yesterday was very different from today when it comes to the weather. Today we had sunshine and almost no winds, yesterday very windy and lots of snow falling, so I’ll show some of those photos today. Alma started out behaving well, she pulled the leash but was rather quiet for once, Malkolm however had decided that if she was pulling the leash so would he so I was quite grumpy when we reached the forest.

     

With all that rain that fell over the snow and then freezing temperatures and more snow on that it was like walking on tiny ice pebbles, sliding around a lot and impossible to get a grip in, despite that I wore studded shoes (was just the same today). We walked up a little slope when they both decided to surprise me with trying to run up, I got my feet stuck in the snow and of course fell like an old tree. Malkolm isn’t used to me scolding him really bad while Alma doesn’t really care about it 🙂 So I was so angry that I decided we would go back home.

So this is where I fell yesterday. Alma is thankfully very strong and big so I could use her as help to get up from the ground 🙂 🙂 🙂

So today when we were walking the same way Malkolm slowed down a lot 🙂 🙂 while Alma kept on like always. I didn’t fall this time though so we continued out towards the bog but there is just too much ice pebble snow out there now so we turned back homewards again. Still since the sun shone and the wind was absent we did have a rather nice walk after all. OK it did feel like we had walked a marathon when we came back home though 🙂 🙂 I must say though that even though Alma  didn’t behave her best she still almost didn’t whine at all 🙂

     

My entire body feels stiff and joint ache so I guess I might have a cold again, no fever though so perhaps it” stop with this. It’s always fun to have a mixed up immune system 🙂 🙂 🙂 Time for tea and a french roll and most likely fall asleep in front of the tv again 🙂

   

Have a great day!

· 12 Comments ·

I’m so glad that I decided to go to the supermarket yesterday instead of today, arriving a bit late the snowstorm still is bad. Despite that we have lots of snow now I doubt we’ll have much left on Wednesday because we’ll have above freezing temperatures and also lots of rain on the way.

The bird feeder is now even closer to the ground 🙂 It was even hard to fill it when it’s that close to the ground.

North eastern winds so the snow gets stuck in the lilacs and barely reaches the Pawpaws and Camellia.

A couple of hunters did actually come here today but I doubt that they even went out, these gusts and heavy snow on that makes it dangerous to walk around in the forest, so I guess that they sat in the hunting lodge, started a fire and perhaps grilled something over the open fire 🙂 When they finally drove away the weather was so bad that the dogs and I stayed at home, I hope we’ll get a chance tomorrow even though it looks like it’ll rain all day and night.

     

I slept rally bad last night and I did so mostly because the monster kitten now is able to almost jump up on tables and counters. Either she jumps straight in to things and while falling down to the floor she grabs everything in reach so it falls with her or if she’s successful she walks around pushing things down on the floor. We had lots of things going bump in the night here 🙂 🙂 🙂

       

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and then I’ll most likely will fall asleep in the recliner 🙂

Have a great day!

After nasty cold comes snowstorm and then rain.

· 4 Comments ·
Since we never came out on any walks today the photos are either from my garden or older ones. This one is from this morning looking out over the cow pasture.

 

I can’t pretend to look forward to the coming snowstorm and the following warmer temperatures with what looks like lots of rain but it’s sure better than the -18 C (-0,4 F) we had this morning. It was so nasty cold that I was afraid the front doors lock had frozen like it did last winter when the temperature dropped to -22 C (-7,6 F) 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve hung drapes in front of the door to make sure all that cold air wouldn’t get indoors and it sure worked 🙂 🙂 🙂  Well it seems that it wasn’t cold enough last night 🙂

Somewhere in there is the bird feeder, I could reach it without drowning in snow 🙂

 

I had decided that it was better to go to the super market today, despite the low temperature instead of tomorrow, they are warning that if one doesn’t need to be driving tomorrow one should stay at home. I can say that my car wasn’t happy 🙂 It started without problems but it sure protested 🙂 The right front door was frozen solid, I tried to open it because I had the combines ice scraper and brush on that side. That gave me a problem when I arrived at the supermarket, the car refused to lock itself when I tried to. Turns out that I actually had managed to move the door just a tiny bit so that it couldn’t lock that door. So first I had to push all my weight towards it and then drag the door from the inside as much as I could until I finally could lock it 🙂 🙂 🙂

I need rainwater to most of my potted plants so I had to crush the ice to reach it 🙂
This is truly the test to see if the Camellias can survive here.

Not that I think it would have been stolen because we were just a few fools being outside at that time 🙂 🙂 🙂  I let the dogs out as soon as I was at home and it was so cold that Alma got foot cramps and wanted to go indoors. Yesterday Malkolm had another problem, tiny snowballs formed between his toes on both sides, over and under, that’s something I’ve never seen before. So I decided it was just too cold for them to have a walk, instead they’ve had the garden to roam in but they weren’t especially happy about being out there either. 

 

My neighbors huge Birches.

It has finally started to be less cold so the snowstorm is closing in, the snowing has already started but it’s a nice snowfall right now. I have a big bag with deer food that I need to get rid of, when an old neighbor lived here he always fed the deer on winters like this but when he moved no one else was interested in continuing that so I did instead, in my garden. I could have up to ten deer at a time eating that food and they never cared if my then dogs were outside at the same time, they knew them well since we often met on our walks. Orvar and Hector were their names and they never behaved like Alma 🙂 🙂 🙂 I wonder if I have any photos in one of the old computers, unfortunately I can’t remember the pass words 🙂 🙂 🙂 

   

So anyway I have this bag just waiting to be used so I’ve started to pour out some food outside my fence on the backside of the garden, there’s a high fence there so the deer never comes in to the garden any more but I can easily toss out food to them. Since the snow have kept on falling and the wind blowing I haven’t been able to see if any deer has been there but I have placed my wildlife camera so if I might have some photos of them. I’ll bring in the camera tomorrow.

   

Have a great day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

· 2 Comments ·

The temperature had dropped down to -15 C (5 F) during the night but when I had to clean the car from all snow, I think there was at least 30 cm (12 inches) of snow at the roof of the car it has become balmy -11 C (12,2 F) 🙂 🙂  It had helped a lot with the snow so the ice on the wind shields was very thin and easily removed thankfully.

You can always see where the wild hogs have been.

 

Almost no traffic on the road to the super market (one car far behind me  and two on the way back home 🙂 ) so I could take it slow . They had removed the snow really well though so I didn’t feel that it was especially slippery to drive. I realized that I had forgotten the list I wrote before leaving so I was guessing what it could have been what I wanted 🙂 🙂 I did need a small package of dog food just in case they’ll get problems delivering it the coming week because of the heavy snow fall we’ll have on Monday and then because higher temperatures and rain the days after.

     

So of course I returned with two bags of seeds for the birds, sometimes I do wonder about myself since I actually went there for the dog food and still missed to buy any 🙂 🙂 So I’ll have to go to the supermarket again tomorrow, normally I always drive early in the morning so there will be as few customers there as possible but they’re guessing it’ll be just as cold tomorrow morning so perhaps I’ll wait a bit longer 🙂

I was thinking of walking out on the peninsula but no way I’ll have us all covered in cold snow 🙂

The entire road in the forest looks like this. Wild hogs are good for nature but not for us trying to walk on the roads 🙂 🙂

We could almost see the sun when we went out for our morning walk and it looked like we would get a really nice walk but Alma had one of those days when nothing seemed to be good. It wasn’t until we were almost at home that she finally calmed down. As soon as we’re at home though she’s the best dog in the world. I think today she was stressed because wild hogs had been everywhere last night until this morning, they most likely only moved because we arrived.

   

I really don’t want to go to the supermarket tomorrow but it is after all better to drive when it is cold than if we’re having a snow storm or after when it’ll be warmer and most likely rain. Swedish winters are the best 🙂 🙂 🙂

 

Have a great day!

· 8 Comments ·

The wind did blow pretty hard when I woke up early this morning and it also snowed pretty much and towards my entrance door, so it looked like we had gotten much more snow than it actually was. Still around 20 cm (8 inches of the white garbage) in average I would say.

     

The wind did calm down to almost nothing just before we went out on our morning walk and after a while the sun also showed itself. We were lucky that the horse guy had arrived so we could walk in the tire tracks, light and fluffy snow like that is hard to walk in, one sort of slides back a bit with every step one takes 🙂 We never saw the horses though because they were in the forest working.

     

Thanks to the sun shining and no wind blowing the walk actually was really nice,  despite the deep fluffy snow and Almas’ constant whining. I’m never sure if she likes the horses or dislike them but when ever we see one or she can smell them she’s going rather annoying, lots of whining in a high pitched note that sorts of cuts the brain in to small pieces plus the pulling of the leash gets worse. No horse guy here tomorrow though so I’m pretty sure she’ll stay much calmer.

We all were covered in snow after walking down to the creek 🙂

   

I had planned on going to the super market today but I will not do that in a snow storm and we only had sunshine for a short while, then the clouds came back and with them more snow. Right now they are plowing the road again by the way. So I need to go either tomorrow or on Sunday, the problem is that it might be as cold as -13 C (8,6 F) and I’m not longing to get all snow of the car in those temperatures. I really don’t like winter.

     

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I’ll continue to read the book I’m reading. I’m slowly but steadily forcing my brain to start working again 🙂

     

Have a great day!

     

Winter is here and it will stay I’m afraid.

· 11 Comments ·

It rained almost all day yesterday but later the temperature dropped and the rain became snow. The dogs had so much fun in the snow, they had been bored all day because they didn’t want to go outside in the rain so when the snow started to fall they really enjoyed to run around 🙂

     

It didn’t feel that cold when I let them out in the morning but that was because we didn’t have any wind, it was nasty cold 🙂 So I filled the bird feeders before we went out on our morning walk. The horse guy came pretty early so we went out into the forest and out on the peninsula in the bog. The sun was shining but it was unusually quiet, normally sunny days in winter means lots of birds twitting but I only hear a few but the ravens could be heard flying above us. I do like ravens but I really don’t like how they hunt. it is a nasty way that they even use on calves here (I will not explain what they do because of its nastiness) , still they are so smart and they always fly around playing up in the air on stormy days.

It’s almost always completely dry beneath the branches on a spruce so it’s a good place for animals to stay on rainy and snowy days. We used to have a huge spruce not far from the village where I and the dogs could take cover when we were surprised by heavy showers or hail. Just a few drops would reach us.

 

I haven’t had a raven as pet but a European Jackdaw, a small cousin who are very intelligent as well and the most fun bird there is. Now that happened before it became illegal to have them as pets and this one had a broken wing that never healed the way it should have, so he couldn’t fly. So instead he lived with me and the pets I had back then 🙂 Two dogs and a rat called Hamlet 🙂 Anyway, the walk was really nice especially since we had sunshine all day.

     

We had been at home for a while when the dogs suddenly wanted to go outside again and since it was so nice in the sunshine I followed them. Turns out that my neighbor and her children were in their garden so the dogs jumped over the fence and played with the children 🙂 It has been a while since I saw the dogs so happy 🙂 It felt much colder staying still in the garden though so we had to go indoors. Yes I could have let the dogs stay outside but Malkolm has a tendency to walk around and suddenly he walks away towards the forest or the big swamp/ little lake behind the garage and then one never know where he ends up 🙂 🙂

     

They’re guessing we’ll have lots of sunshine tomorrow as well and I do hope the horse guy is elsewhere tomorrow or arrives late because it would be nice to be able to walk down by the creek and/or in the older forest. Well I think that perhaps the water has frozen enough so we can walk out to the island in the bog, it isn’t nice to sink down half a meter /yard in half frozen mud 🙂 🙂

     

Have a great day!

     

I wish You all a good ending of this year and a good new year!

· 19 Comments ·

Looking out over the field towards a neighbor cottage.

So this year is coming to an end and I can’t say I’ll miss it much 🙂 Well finding the little monster kitten Sara was a good thing but the rest has been crappy to be honest 🙂 🙂 and getting Malkolm here was definitely a good thing as well! I forgot that he hasn’t been here a year yet 🙂

     

Early in the year I was told by my optician that I have the beginning of cataract in my right eye, it could develop really fast but it could also stay this way for a really long time, I must admit that I haven’t noticed anything so I guess this is the kind that will move really slowly and I feel that that’s a good thing. Summer was a bit crappy with all that rain and very little sunshine though.

     

Then I had to quit my job because I couldn’t work from 4:25 pm to 3:00 am but just before that I had a Kidney stone. Now I’ve realized that it was most likely not the kidney stone that created all that pain because the spot where the pain came from wasn’t especially close to the kidneys 🙂 🙂 Just as I got that stone I must have entered a period when my rheumatism also hit as hard as it could 🙂 🙂 🙂 I did however have stone because they found it when they x-rayed me. It was when they x-rayed me again when they found a small growth on one of my kidneys and of course that was a tumor.

     

However it was so small yet that they couldn’t take a biopsy from it because they would then likely hit my kidney instead and the doctor said that if we do that it’ll never stop bleeding, so next spring I’ll do another x-ray so they can see if it has grown so that finally can take a biopsy from it. They need to so that know if it is, which they thing, is cancer or something else. She did say that the prognosis is the best one can have because they are aware of it and can start treatment as soon as they know what it is so I guess that pain and following x-rays were sort of good after all 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

So all I do right now is to hope for very little snow, it is snowing right now but it’ll melt away tomorrow when it will rain all day just to get cold again to get more snow that will melt away and then it will get really cold again 🙂 🙂 I’m so glad I have studded shoes 🙂 I hope we’ll get an early and warm spring and why not a job soon as well. Still I have really nice days now when I can get daylight every day, spend lots of time with the dogs and cats so who am I to complain too much 🙂 🙂 🙂 Plus I’ve baked french rolls again and at the moment I’m making rice porridge and what’s left tomorrow I’ll make Risalamande or as we call it here Ris à la Malta. Rice porridge whipped together with whipped cream, normally one use orange slices to mix in but I’ll use the berries I picked this summer and perhaps slice down some plums in it as well 🙂

       

So now I wish You all a Good Ending of this Year and a Good New Year as well!

· 6 Comments ·

Yesterday was warm, grey and dull and a bit windy, today was warm, grey and dull but with sunshine for a few seconds and very windy and some misty rain when we went out for our morning walk. Not the funniest weather to be honest but it is still better than cold and snow.

 

The moment we almost had sunshine 🙂

The wise weathermen are however guessing that we will get plenty of snow the coming days but day temperatures will be warm and night temperatures will be cold as long as we have snowy weather so I guess that by the end of next week when temperatures will drop we’ll just have a icy covering over our little area here at the outskirts of the world. So I’ll drive to the store tomorrow so I don’t need to be out driving around in that weather 🙂

     

It is after all when we should have winter so no use in complaining I guess 🙂 Nothing much has happened here, it rarely does 🙂 I haven’t seen many signs of animals except for foot prints from mostly wild hogs and Roe deer. Not even the feral cats have been seen lately so that really says we have bad weather 🙂  I still have an old antenna on my roof, I refuse to get up on the roof to remove it because I know that if I fall down I won’t die, I’ll just injure myself badly and it will hurt 🙂 🙂 🙂 Normally the wind doesn’t reach my cottage but sometimes it does reach my roof and that antenna.

We had one raven following us today, too bad they never sit still so I can get a good photo of them.

 

When it does I sometimes can hear a sprrroing sound through the cottage and it took me a long time to understand that the wind made the old antenna vibrate and starting making that sound 🙂 🙂 🙂 Even though I now know what it is I still think it sounds creepy 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and perhaps I’ll have one of my newly baked french rolls, today they turned out delicious but since I always bake from the hip I’ll most likely never be able to do it the same way again 🙂

Have a great day!

· 8 Comments ·

Misty rain and meh fog here in the village today. The fog was much thicker outside the village and all the way to the grocery store in the village where I used to work. I still go to that store every now and again because that’s where I started to buy my groceries when I moved up to this region over 27 years ago. It’s as if I know them all by now even though I’ve seen plenty of the workers come and go during the years 🙂

This is an old fox trap and it has been standing here since long before I moved to the village. No it didn’t kill the animal, they used it for trapping foxes to see if they were healthy. Fox scabies (a sort of mange) is a horrible way for a fox to die, they scratch themselves to death more or less. So if the fox was hit by it they ended its life so it wouldn’t have to suffer if it wasn’t they let it loose again. It did however not only trap foxes, my dogs were in it so many times that they finally stopped using it because it needed to be replaced (it’s rotten since long) 🙂 🙂 🙂 They put all kinds of goodies in it and of course my dogs went in and got trapped 🙂 🙂 🙂 This was back in the days when I had dogs that actually listened to what I told them 🙂 🙂 🙂

   

There was almost no traffic either way so I could drive in the speed I like and that’s usually slow 🙂 On the way home I listened to a radio program about language and our dialects and the difference between them. It was rather fun to hear words in different dialects and how I actually understood lots of the words from southern Sweden, I don’t use them but heard many of them growing up because my grandparents came from the south and used them all the time 🙂 They didn’t have much of the dialect left but all the words 🙂

     

Winter is on its way says our weather services. We’ll have a couple of days with warm air and rain left, then it’ll turn and the temperatures will drop and the rain turn to snow, can’t pretend I like that even though it does look nice in photos when there’s 20 cm (8 inches) of snow covering the world. The only good thing is that I at least won’t have to drive around in it 🙂 🙂 🙂 I also have very little snow to shovel because the gate to the garden is just 4 meters away from my door, I only have to shovel some around the car as well and the rest the guy shovel the roads will take care of 🙂 Plus it will be easier to see if wolves are around, always good to know for us with animals.

     

Sara the monster kitten is now in to destroy all my orchids 🙂 Those that look like grass when they don’t flower. She likes to play with the leafs and when she does get a grip on them she tears them down on the floor 🙂 🙂 She also attacks the dogs all the time, not that they care especially much but one day her claws and teeth will reach the skin and then they might 🙂 🙂 On the other hand Malkolm plays rather tough when he plays with her so I guess it evens out 🙂 🙂

     

It is time for that last cup of tea for the day and I’ll continue to read the book I started on but every time I sit down to read both Alma and Malkolm wants my attention so it’s going slow but forward 🙂 I wish You all a good continuing of Yule!

     

Have a great day!

· 8 Comments ·

Most of You are celebrating Christmas today unlike us Swedes so I’ll just pop in for a few minutes. We had our morning walk down to the creek and Alma once again behaved really well, that is until we happened to see two people in front of us when we went out on a field following the creek down-stream 🙂

     

It was the farmer up the slope and a friend of his and after that Alma really couldn’t calm down 🙂 🙂 🙂 Besides walks we’ve done very little today, I was thinking about watching the Ingmar Bergman movie “Fanny and Alexander”. Even though I think that’s the only really good movie he ever did I just couldn’t see myself spending 5 hours watching it 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

I did eat the leftovers from yesterday but I saved some sliced ham to have on my sandwiches tomorrow. Now I’m planning on spending some time with one of two books I bought myself as yule knocks 🙂 Both are written by Terry Pratchett, one is called The Color of Magic and the other Free Wee Men. I do like his books so of course it is also time to re read Hogfather  but I’ll leave Small Gods since I tend to become very annoyed on the anti hero in that book 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

So I hope and wish You all have a good Yule day!

I wish You all a Good Yule!

· 18 Comments ·
A Green Finch, haven’t seen many of those so far.

 

We Swedes are sort of obcessed by Disney today and it has been so for generations. Swedish Television (SWT), our Pbs, has since 1960 sent an old Disney program called The Wonderful World of Disney. 2020 it became the most viewed tv program ever in this country when almost half the population looked at it on Christmas eve. Back at the beginning anything coming from west of the Soviet Union was view as imperialistic and should be banned from the world 🙂 🙂 🙂 So this was the only time we ever had the chance to see anything Disney on tv, we only had Swedish Television in those days and no commercials (that I still love 🙂 )

     

Despite what all experts have said it is still just as popular and that’s of course because we brainwash the kids to watch it as well, even though they later refuse to see it they always come back when they have children so they too becomes brainwashed to see it. Disney now has its own streaming service and doesn’t sell their programs to other companies any more, except for this one and the SWT 🙂 but from what I’ve read the negotiations are hard every year. The risk for Disney being punished by the Swedes if they don’t sell this particular program to SWT is very big though, You don’t kill very popular traditions like that unpunished 🙂 

     

The program is almost totally exactly the same, First we see when the elves make the presents up at the north pole, a film from the 1930’s I think and now days they’ve removed almost all racist parts 🙂 After that we see short parts from Cinderella (when the mice and birds sing and make her the dress. Snow white when she and the dwarfs are having a party singing and dancing. Chip and Dale when Mickey Mouse by accident brings them in when he has cut his christmas tree and Pluto fights with them. 

     

Lady and the tramp when they are at the restaurant and Robin Hood stealing money from prince John and my favorite the Jungle Book when Baloo meets Mowgli for the first time plus one or two snippets from the latest films. However the most loved one is about Ferdinand the Bull. I think it was in the 80’s they announced that he would be replaced by the Ugly Duckling and all hell broke lose 🙂 🙂 🙂 It went as far as Swedish Television getting threats and they took is so seriously that the showed that film after the Disney program was over.  We’ve never seen the Ugly Duckling after that 🙂 🙂 🙂 Also this program also decides when to eat and give out the present. We had the present before and ate after some could do the opposite but no one ever ate at 3 pm when Donald Duck was shown on tv 🙂 🙂 🙂

This is what christmas is all about for a me 🙂

I wish You all a Good Yule!