It’s not a good sign, I already hate them.
It has been a wonderful day here. Warm with an enough strong wind and the sun wasn’t just a disk one could see through the clouds, it actually showed itself parts of the day. It was even too warm to wear a very worn down fleece jacket when we were out walking. I had planned to go to town to the super market but it was just a too good day to waste on a super market visit. Tomorrow I must go though no matter how great the day might be.
The cranes didn’t seem to be especially bothered by us coming but they made sure the distance between us was exactly the same all the time.
The predictions have varied a lot hour by hour but at the moment the big Swedish one says it will be much like today and unfortunately the big Norwegian one which usually is right says cloudy with possible some rain, even if it will be small amounts falling. I did sow annuals outside today so the little rain that eventually might fall will do good for them but I’d rather not have any rain at all, we have plenty of water as it is anyway.
There is one kind of seeds I always fail with when sowing them and that’s peonies. I have never been able to get a single plant but like a fool I keep on sowing them. It takes two years until one can see something above the soil, after the first winter outside it only grow roots and it is important to never let the soil dry out. So guess if I got surprised today when I found two small seedlings 🙂 Now it is important to leave them alone another year, just make sure they get what they need like water and fertilizer. They are so sensitive that if one tries to move them to another pot they might die. Later on in their life they can take anything though.
This is how the old tree stump with all those mossy tree funguses look now. The little spruce at the top now live elsewhere 🙂 All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
The flies have woken up too now, at the moment it’s the kind that really doesn’t care about me but during the entire time I was out weeding two flower beds they insisted on resting on my head. I hate when they do that and especially now when I have so short hair and feel them as soon as they land. So I have already started to hate them and that’s not a good sign, after all they have just started to fly 🙂 Tomorrow, if the weather permits, I’ll wear a cap when weeding some other flower beds. I have very few seeds to sow this year, I only have two more bags to sow and they need warmth to germinate but I do have some small bushes to plant this spring. Mostly Chinese Flowering Quince but also a few Katsura’s and something that I at the moment have no idea what it is 🙂 It might be some kind of cherry, perhaps 🙂
A happy dog 🙂
It is time to get something to eat and I’ll risk a sleepless night by having a pot of tea as well.
Have a great day!
If it doesn’t get worse than that.
Still too dark after work to take any new photos, so You’ll see a mix of everything today.
Yesterday morning I was quite sure I wouldn’t be able to go to work today, I couldn’t speak and my throat was hurting too but off to work I went. Today I was back to normal, I do hope this was the flu I got this year, I would be lucky if it didn’t get any worse than that 🙂 We’re all very tired at work though and we all have more or less stuffed noses. Could be worse I guess 🙂
Almost all snow we got yesterday melted away and the snow falling now won’t give us any thicker layer. It is what we call kulsnö, pebble snow. Looks much like hail but are soft and that kind of snow fall never lasts for long. The temperature is dropping though and I might try to take a walk on the bog this weekend if it gets cold enough.
Four from the Zeiss.
I wonder how much trees they have cut down by the creek, I’ve heard the machines work all week when I’ve come home after work. So I’ll suspect the worst but hope for as good as possible 🙂
Eight from the digital Nikon D70.
The fire is burning in the stove and I’m about to make me something to eat, I’m not really hungry so it might be popcorn today too 🙂
Have a great day!
The world was frosted.
I woke up to a rather chilly morning, the predictions were actually spot on when it comes to the temperature!!! -8C (17,6F) Guess if I’m surprised 🙂 🙂 The rain and high humidity that we’ve had lately helped to frost everything outside so the world was rather sparkling white and lots of it sparkled in different colors when the sun every now and again managed to shine through gaps in the cloud cover. Too bad those are so difficult to capture with the camera.
The fog that they had predicted however never came, well they are saying that we’ll get fog from 3pm but there are no signs what so ever that this prediction will come true. I’m still hoping though because if it actually shows up at 3 I’ll have around 36 minutes to et some photos until the sun sinks and it’ll get dark again. In summer it take a couple of hours until it is dark after the sun has set, in winter it takes minutes. It’s only one month and one day until it slowly, slowly starts to turn around towards longer days again.
I started the day with starting a fire in the stove and the cottage got nice and warm rather quickly but it takes a few days until the warmth stays for any longer period of time, the walls are cold and it takes some time before the heat eats its way through them so the warmth stays an entire day after having the fire in the morning. I always wake up a lot of flies when I start using the old stove and once again I heard how the spiders above my head in the bedroom got a fat fly as evening meal. It must be a horrible death for the fly but every time I hear them getting caught in those webs I say “Thank You Charlotte” 🙂
The security police here in Sweden raised the threat level of terrorism during the week claiming they had proof a young man was up to something and that they searched after him everywhere (they even posted a photo of him so we all could look for the “evil” one), turns out he was at home in his apartment all the time and had even made updates on facebook 🙂 🙂 This isn’t the first time our secret police makes a fool out of themselves. One time they stormed an apartment and knocked down a man in front of his children. It turns out they had stormed the wrong place and that the man was totally innocent! So far they haven’t apologised to the family and this is over a year ago.
The noon walk was much more sunny.
Every time they bring any of those “evil” men to court they lose so I have serious doubts about if they actually know anything but instead just want to be as cool as the big boys in other countries that actually have problems. The one suicide bomber we actually have had was missed totally and to be honest he wasn’t the brightest star in the sky. The only thing he blew up was himself and a car. It is also well known that our secret police don’t do much about the ones we do fear, the nazis. They can run around  threatening people and start riots without being disturbed at all.
It doesn’t look like we’ll get any fog, too bad I wanted to get a few good fog and frost  photos but that will have to wait for a while. Instead I’ll make a pot of tea, start a fire in the stove and enjoy the evening.
I end today with four photos from the analog Nikon.
Have a great day!
I just hate those flies!
This is a not doing much day, it is grey and somewhat foggy outside but rather warm even if it isn’t even remotely close to what they predicted earlier in the week. At least it isn’t raining even if we actually need quite a lot of rain now, most smaller creeks are now totally dry and even the bigger ones show signs of a draught here now. I don’t mind to be honest, I’m hoping this might kill lots of fly larvae who needs wet or moist ground to survive.
- Not much of a fog to be honest but it looks like it’s getting thicker now.
We went down to the bog and the smaller creek today but I turned around quickly when I suddenly had at least four moose flies crawling around on my arms and hands at the same time. I think I had a few in my hair as well and that is truly a nasty feeling. They don’t die if one hits them either, they just shrug a bit and keeps on crawling around. Their bite is nasty and they spread the same diseases as ticks do. A moose fly looks very much like deer lice and I truly hate them. We really need a really cold night so they all die!
I couldn’t get rid of that feeling some were crawling around in my hair so as soon as I came home I shaved it all off 🙂 It was time to do so anyway but this helped me to actually do it 🙂 There were no in my hair though and it still feels like they are there 🙂 So now I need to find my baseball cap to wear as soon as we walk in to the forest again, there’s no need for one otherwise because it’s so warm still.
It is time to start thinking of a photo to use as christmas card. I have a few old ones that I can use but I still have time to photograph something else if I want to. Traditional christmas cards here usually have red birds, like the Bullfinch, the Yule gnome of course. Pigs are rather common too and sometimes if it shows the nature there’s usually Red toadstools in them too. So the ultimate card should show all of those I think but I doubt I’ll manage to get them all in to one photo 🙂 Especially the gnome will be tough to get 🙂
- Not much water in the creeks now. We had gotten this far when suddenly all the moose flies landed on me, they need wet ground for their larvae.
It is time to make a pot of tea and perhaps we’ll manage to take another walk before it gets dark again. Today the sun rose at 7:17 am and it will set at 4:20 pm and the days just continues to be shorter and shorter.
Have a great day!
- I still have lots of Minolta photos to show. I’ve noticed that if one comes close to what the camera can do when it comes to adjustments they tend to become more grainy and somewhat white grainy towards the bottom of the photo.
I’m not sure my lungs still are attached to my body :-)
I went to bed quite early last evening and the coughing started immediately, I watched the clock and I know I didn’t get any sleep the first three hours. I don’t think I had slept especially long when I suddenly woke up because I needed to pee after all that tea and water I had been drinking. It must have taken an hour before I fell asleep again and I didn’t sleep long before I woke up for the same reason 🙂 This time however I was so tired that I knew I would fall asleep coughing or not.Â
- The beekeepers poppies are still flowering!
- We had rain here when the sun shone on the mountain and they had rain when we had the sunshine 🙂
- Lots of red toadstools here now.
- And some brown too.
I never made it to the bedroom upstairs before I heard Teodor puking and he did it all over the kitchen table. From what I could see he had at least eaten one big rodent and I had to pick up the yuckyness before I went to bed 🙂 This time I decided to sleep in the sofa, sitting up, it usually helps with the coughing. My faithful dogs however decided to let me cough myself to death all by myself, both stayed upstairs in my bed for the rest of the night 🙂 🙂 🙂 It worked just fine but after sleeping an hour my body ached so much so I woke up. I had sort of sunken together in a strange way so it ached everywhere.
Well it was not even ten minutes left until I would have to go up anyway so I started making the dogs food and when they heard that they came down, not a second earlier 🙂 I had to clean Novas ear too and she didn’t forgive me before I went to work, she just looked at me and walked away with her tail between her legs, she didn’t even eat her food. She had forgiven me by the time I came home though 🙂
I had two packages to pick up on my way home from work, one was the camera I bought myself as a birthday present (I’ll show You a photo of it tomorrow, I forgot to photograph it today 🙂 ). It was naturally not the same company who had the delivery, so one was to be picked up in Falköping where I went the last time and the other in Gudhem, in the grocery store. It is amazing that  little town like Falköping can have so much traffic during the day and not near enough parking spaces. I was lucky to find a parking space close to the store where the package was but had problems getting out of the parking space when I wanted to continue. People who wanted to get out too just refused to let me out so that the ones wanting my space couldn’t get it 🙂
It took a while but finally I was on the big road again to the grocery store in Gudhem. I went in to get my package when the cashier said, they’ve just picked up all packages because they know we will close the store for good soon. Guess if I felt very tired when he told me that they now had my package in the store I just had left!!! So back I went and was lucky to find a parking space again. Went in to the store and got a bit surprised when they asked me from where the package came because the delivery company had relabeled the package so it now had a new number!!! They did find it eventually and I had the same problems getting out again and this took me one hour longer than it should have if they just had contacted me about the move of the package.
- The Slipper flowers are in full bloom, one of my favorites in my garden.
I’m so glad it finally is weekend 🙂 I’ve paid all my bills and I cried a bit inside because this is one of the two months every year when I get all bills at the same time 🙂 But it is done and now I’ll forget about it until next month again 🙂 It is time to make the dogs their food and I think I’ll have some too, I may cough all the time but I haven’t lost my appetite 🙂
- Four photos from a Minolta camera.
Have a great day!
The mushrooms like it.
- This maple looks like this every autumn 🙂
I’m not sure what to write about today, nothing much has happened. The cold is still there just waiting for a chance to break out and the energy is still on low. I must admit that the day has passed rather quickly though, I haven’t had much time to look at the clock on the wall at work.
- False chanterelle. Edible but nothing more.
- This is how the road looks like now.
- Red toadstool. The white spots usually falls off when it rains and the color isn’t water proof either 🙂
The weather could have been funnier, sometimes it rains and sometimes it doesn’t. No sunshine at all and fairly windy most of the time. Rather warm though so I have had the kitchen door open for a while now after work. We’ll get lots of more rain tonight and I guess the mushrooms are happy about it because they are now popping up everywhere.
I met my neighbor when we went out for our walk after work and he told me the wild hogs now have started to destroy the forest road, or the clean road as I cal it since grass covers most of it and the only thing the dogs get is wet when walking there on rainy days. He was right, so far they’ve only dug it up in small patches but they’ll soon rip it up totally. I’m not sure what the hunters will do about it but they have decided to do something about it because the hogs are now only a few yards away from the nearest house.
This is how the red toadstool looks like after a shower.
TOmorrow I’ll go to the store in Gudhem to get my new tele-photo lens but I’m still waiting for the camera. The camera has a pretty long way to go until it comes to me so I guess I won’t get it until next week sometime. It is time to get something to eat and then I’ll watch the news on tv.
- The four last Rolleicord photos from this roll of film.
Have a great day!
It isn’t fun when it is dry and it is even worse when it is wet.
We’re having a strong wind again today (and it will last for a few days they say) that works like a giant hairdryer together with the sun so I had to water all my vegetables today and a few other potted plants as well. The wind didn’t do an especially good job with the grass though because it was soaking wet even if we haven’t had any rain in days. It’s boring to mow the lawn as it is and it is even much worse when it is wet.
It looks like the few remaining flies we have here now lives in my garden, I got bitten bad a few times while mowing and there were some forest flies that wanted to check out how it looks inside my ears, so I had to put in earplugs to keep them out 🙂 I don’t have those problems anywhere else right now, not even by the bog.
Nothing much else has happened here today. The hunting season for deer buck starts tomorrow morning so I had a talk with the hunters. They’ll be out already at 4:30 am and will as they have said put out signs on every road. They have also been informed not to shoot my stalker 🙂 so they will stay away from the areas he usually walk around in. No doe will be shot at all this year if I understood things right, these hunters are all for wildlife preservation and will do what is necessary to keep the wildlife healthy and strong.
It is time for a pot of tea even if it really is too late for that but I feel so tired that I doubt any tea will keep me up this night, I’ve just woken up from a nap and it feels like I should have stayed in bed 🙂
Have a great day!
I end today with four photos from the Hasselblad camera.
It wasn’t as bad as it sounded.
My Hollyhocks.
It did feel like I worked an extra day when I had to keep working to two pm instead of going home at noon as I always do on Fridays 🙂 It wasn’t so much that I had to work but because it is a hot and awfully humid day. That is Scandinavian hot so it has been around 28C (82,4 F). The heat is easy to take but not the humidity, it feels like walking in a steam bath. But I will not complain, we’ve had such a chilly summer so any day with warm weather is welcome 🙂
Rosa rugosa.
My Lime tree has been flowering all summer.
We went out to the bog when I came home and a weak wind did its best to keep us a bit cooler but the most surprising thing was that as soon as we came out to the bog the flies vanished. There were some annoying us on the way but out there they were gone 🙂 If I now only can get the flies in my cottage to go outside to die too I would be happy 🙂 Not a single bird sings now, instead the grasshoppers and katydids have taken over. It is amazing how these small insects can sound so much 🙂 I like it a lot though and I’ll fall asleep to the sound tonight since the katydids sit in the big lilacs just outside my bedroom window.
Yesterday morning when I almost had reached my work place I could hear a strange sound from the back of my car. I couldn’t figure out what it was so I didn’t care about it too much. On my way home however it sounded much more and even if the sound didn’t fit I thought it might be a wheel bearing that slowly was giving up. It sounded really bad from time to time but that was nothing to how it sounded when I started driving on the gravel road here in the village. Wheel bearings usually takes its time before it gives up so the sound can be heard for a long time so I was surprised that it was giving up that fast.
Life is wonderful when chewing a stick after bathing in the bog 🙂
So I started to wonder if I prehaps had driven over something that had been caught and was dragged along with the car. It turns out that it is a plastic belt that holds the petrol tank in place. Well to be honest, it is one of the things that holds it in place. I tried to move it both yesterday and this morning but it was impossible, thankfully 🙂 So I called the garage and they’ll take my car next Thursday. They’ll also fix some other small things before I need to go to the annual vehicle inspection in September (and check if there’s anything else that needs to be fixed). It’s only one person there because they too have vacation this time of year 🙂
My closest boss didn’t work this week and the factory owner was on vacation too so I just put a big note up on the factory owners desk telling him that I must stay at home Thursday and Friday next week since they aren’t sure that my car will be ready to leave the garage already on Thursday afternoon, it isn’t easy to estimate how long time all the other jobs will take when it’s only one person working.
In my garden now: I sowed over 30 seeds of this low growing sunflower, one plant is the result 🙂
Illiamna remota.
Berkheya purpurea.
The last flower on the wild rose the birds refuse to eat the hips during winter. It has flowered for over a month now.
It’s time to drink something cool and perhaps have a chocolate covered Dinosaur cookie or two 🙂
Have a great day!
I think their season is at its end now.
Taken from my window upstairs this morning.
It has been a rather warm and nice day again, I’m not surprised after all I am working all day now 🙂 But the good thing is that the weekend will be rather nice too and that means I need to mow the lawn even if I really don’t want to. The only reason I do it is because there will be less tics in the garden if I do. We have plenty around as it is anyway 🙂
There are less flies around now 🙂 We still have plenty enough anyway but just knowing that their season is coming to its end makes us all happy here. We need a long dry period in spring so most fly larvae dies to get a reasonable fly free summer, still You would probably think it would be nasty to be here anyway 🙂
I met the hunters when we were out walking this afternoon and they told me that there will be even more signs by the roads when they start hunting again and it seems they mostly have been thinking of me! They know that I’m always out there somewhere so now there will be no risk what so ever that I’ll walk in to any area they will be hunting in. I told them that the risk was very little anyway since I’m up and out walking long before they even get close to the forest 🙂 🙂 🙂
I ate my first big carrot yesterday 🙂 I’ve sown orange, red and white ones and this was an orange one and very tasty. I also harvested the first broccoli yesterday, just a few (what Do You call it? bouquets?) but that will make them want to produce more. I’ve already harvested some of the red onions last week but there will be more this weekend. I’ve also had many of my tomatoes on my sandwiches and I can’t remember when I could pick tomatoes this early before.
It is time to make one or two of those sandwiches now and I think there are a few tomatoes I can have today too 🙂
Have a great day!
One day of summer.
We’re having a summer day today!! Well this is Swedish normal summer temperatures so it stopped at 22C (71,6F). It is just perfect outside and we better enjoy this day because the predictions says loser temperatures already tomorrow with some rain too. They have changed this prediction so much that It is impossible to believe it 🙂 The rain part I do believe though 🙂
I couldn’t see especially many buttercups yesterday, today every field is filled with them 🙂
We call this one Forest Star.
I did think the birds sang a lot even before but today it is a sound explosion 🙂 I guess they know less good weather is on its way again so they better start singing as much as they can before it is too late again 🙂 The colder weather might not be so bad to be honest, even if we all now demand the warm weather to come here too 🙂 If it stays chilly a while more lots of the mosquito eggs won’t hatch and we all love fewer mosquitoes 🙂
I’ve mowed the lawn and washed tow t-shirts because all I had left was two working t-shirts and even though they are clean they really don’t look nice 🙂 I hope they’ll dry before the evening comes. As I mowed the lawn Sune started barking, as if he saw another dog. It was my neighbor the farmer who came walking down the cow pasture with something small and white following him, it was a baby lamb only a few weeks old.
It’s still impossible to walk out on the bog, too much water in the ground so I sink down as soon as I try 🙂
It followed his exact steps 🙂 His mother didn’t want him so they hand fed him now (or her I’m not quite sure). This happens every year but I still think it look so cute when that little lamb  follows him 🙂 It will soon be big enough to join the others in the big pasture. Lots of butterflies are flying around in the garden today and I have seen the first dragonflies too.
It is time to make something to eat and later tonight I’ll walk down to the badger’s set and see if I can take any photos, if I’m not too tired that is. This has been an awful week because of the over time.
Have a great day!
It has already started.
We were lucky and had some sunshine on our walk today.
Tomorrow is the  day we’ll have our road association meeting and the screaming and arguing has already started, oh how I look forward to it 🙂 They never scream at me though, they aren’t sure of how I am since I’ve “only” lived here for 15 years and I don’t think they can find my phone number either, it is for some reason hard to find 🙂 It’s funny really, it is the people who lives at the beginning of the road and only use a few hundred yards of it that screams the most 🙂
The mushrooms started early this year.
Rainy once again here but it seems the worst missed us. I wrote the other day about that huge thunderstorm that reached from northern Denmark to northern France, it turns out that it was so bad that they actually had a real tornado in Denmark! I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a big one in Europe before, we have smaller ones though that we call tromber. Lots of damages where it had passed but no one died. That is one result of the climate change and it will most likely become worse.
It is very windy here too but not even close to how bad they had predicted, for once it’s nice that they don’t know what they are doing when they make those predictions 🙂 They had also predicted summer temperatures here but I can’t even pretend that they came close to that 🙂 It’s not like I’m freezing but I would cry all summer if our summer temperatures weren’t warmer that 14C (57F) 🙂 🙂 🙂
It’s time to make something to eat and after that I’ll see if I can find anything worth watching on tv. Tomorrow I’ll start one hour earlier (and stop working at noon) so I’ll go up half an hour earlier. I’m pretty sure I won’t need the alarm to start because every morning this last week a bird has been screaming from my neighbors birches at just the exact time every day, 4:40 am. I wouldn’t have mind if it had sounded beautiful, this is just one low whistle (too kind to cal it that but I’m not sure what else to call it) and one high-pitched and it just goes on and on and on and ….
Pentecost lilies.
We just call these Narcissus.
There are color variations in my checkered lilies.
Have a great day!
I have the white ones too.
Sloe.
Paeonia vetchii
Lilacs.
Sloe flowers.
We know it’s still out there.
I took a two hor nap earlier today and now I sort of can’t wake up properly even if we have been outside walking in the temporary sunshine. We never made it in to the big forest or the bog today because for once the hunters had patience and stayed until now, almost 3 pm. I think this was the last time for this year and that’s why they stayed longer than normal. It annoyed me quite a lot to be honest but now I’ll have the forest to myself for at least two or three weeks.
This year the villagers have decorated with lights, two places have lights in one bush each this year. Can’t remember ever seeing this much yule decoration ever here 🙂
I finally found a have a heart trap that didn’t cost me half my pay check to put in my pantry, I still have mice going in there every now and again. I keep everything in containers but still it is gross finding mouse poop in there. I put some peanut butter in it and hope that our mice love it 🙂 So far no luck though so I might need to change bait soon to something else, jam perhaps?
The WOW trees.
Not only did they stay in the forest for a very long time today, they also came here early.
I don’t think I’ve ever told You about the Lindorm (Lindworm in English). A Scandinavian Lindorm is a close relative to a dragon but it has no wings, only two front legs and can´t spit fire. Instead it has nasty big fangs and it can spit the same kind of poison ants use and the Lindorm aims very well. In Norway a Lindorm also can be a sea snake. It is a huge snake-like being with a mane shaped like a crown on the head. It usually lives beneath old oaks and it’s easy to find such a nest because that oak stays green all year round. If You find such a nest You’ll also find the Lindorm’s huge treasure it has collected through the years.
Not the best of photos but I didn’t have time enough to adjust the camera.
It also happens that it sets its nest beneath old churches where it eats all the corpses in the crypt. The only way to kill a Lindorm is to trick it to follow You through three big fires, it will get caught in the third one where it will be burned alive but beware, it has happened that the Lindorm just before dying has captured the hunter and dragged him into the fire to die with him. A Lindorm has a smart way of moving around a bit faster than if it should crawl on the ground, it just bite itself in the tail making a circle or wheel and rolls away.
In my neighbor’s garden.
Thankfully there’s a small forest close to the village where they never hunt. I did miss the forest walk today.
The Lindorm is a mighty being with lots of magical powers, so if one is lucky enough to kill one, one must eat its flesh because then one will get magical powers too. For instance, if You make soup of it You’ll get the power of see into the future, the power of healing and perhaps the power of talking to animals. But if one isn’t daring enough to run through three big fires it’s quite enough to just get the skin it sheds every now and again because that is enough to get some magical powers. The beliefs in the Lindorm’s existence stayed way in to the late 19th century here in some parts of Sweden but after a man would give a huge reward to anyone capturing one and no one managed to do so the beliefs in it quickly died out but we all know that they are just too difficult to catch and we all know they still are out there, don’t we 🙂
It is time for a pot of coffee, I feel I need to wake up before it is time to go to bed.
My new little Yule Spruce, a Norfolk Island Pine.
Have a great day!
Four days left.
Today I could write about our racist party, well they aren’t racists but…. as they always say but I won’t. Well I can write this, they say that our native people, who lived here long before any one else aren’t Swedish. If any are wouldn’t it be them? They say a lot of other crap too and it is nice that they finally show their true color, nazi brown. I could also tell You that they want to register everyone that has at least one parent born in another country, even though if that person is a Swedish citizen. That’s nice isn’t it? I wonder how long it will take until they want people to wear different colored stars on their clothes? One isn’t a true Swede until after the third generation is born here, well unless one belongs to the native people or is jewish. As I said at work, at least I’ll be deported to the Mediterranean since my grandfather was from the former Yugoslavia 🙂 🙂 🙂 (there’s too little Russian blood in me I hope because Russia isn’t somewhere I would like to be deported to 🙂 )
The day has passed fairly quick and I can only hope the rest of the week will too. I know those three weeks at home will 🙂 It’s like going to bed on Friday just to wake up three weeks later so I can go to work. I really need to win the lottery now 🙂 🙂 🙂 The cold seems to be better but my voice is going down hill, I’m so hoarse now that even I have trouble hearing what I’m saying 🙂 I hope some hot cocoa will help me with that, it’s worth a try anyway 🙂
It looks as if the repair of the fence worked fine, there was no little slightly fat spaniel running around outside the dog yard when I came home. I’m not worried that he would run away, he would be so worried if he couldn’t see the others so the furthest he would go would be to the gate of my property. It’s those not knowing or caring that there might be animals running around here I worry about, they could hit him with tha car. I have to say that the last timber lorry that was here had a fantastic driver. It was completely black outside and I had just come home from work and like always the dogs ran anywhere but to the open gate. He was just three meters (much the same in yards) away from one of my dogs when he saw him. If he hadn’t managed to stop the car he would have torn down my garage because he’d rather hit that than the dog 🙂
It is time for that cocoa (we say cacao in Swedish 🙂 ) and I need something to eat too. The ogs have already had theur dinner but that won’t stop them from begging for mine 🙂 By te way, did You know that the Swedish name for a kite is drake, that means dragon 🙂
Have a great day!
What I accidently bought myself :-)
Itb is hard to believe that this photo is taken around pm, it’s so dark now.
It has been a gray and dull day with some drizzling and some heavier rain too but thankfully not over my village because the old boys weren’t especially muddy. It rained a lot more up on the mountain when I went to the grocery store/ postoffice in Gudhem. The new owner of the store was so sick, an awful cold that also hits more and more people at work, so she really should have been at home in a warm bed drinking lots of hot cocoa and eating yummy cookies 🙂Â
It is the same film that I use in my Hasselblad.
She must have had a high fever because she was a bit slow in thinking 🙂 and her eyes didn’t follow especially well when she was looking towards me. Well that’s life when one has ones own business, it’s impossible to be sick and to stay at home if one can’t find or afford someone else to come in and work instead. I opened up the package as soon as I came home, something the dogs didn’t like especially much since they were expecting us to take a walk 🙂
I wasn’t supposed to buy this camera at all but I was looking around on the Swedish eBay, called Tradera and no one had placed a bid on this camera and it was just a few hours left until the auction was going to be over. Normally the bidding starts as soon as the first bid comes in so I never thought I would get it 🙂 I paid the astonishing amount of 29 swedish kronor (that would be around $ 4 US) for it. It is fully functional and the speed on the shutter is correct too. The fun thing is that a precisely exact camera was sold for a lot more the same day 🙂 The shipping however costed almost twice for whar I paid for the camera 🙂
I will of course try it at least once with film in it but after that I think it will just stand as an ornament here at home. It took some time until I realised how to put in a film in it, one simply removes the camera from the case and puts it in from the front 🙂 The camera needs a good cleaning though, it is impossible to see through the seeker at all 🙂 The lens is also a bit dusty but that seems easy enough to reach from the inside. It is made sometime around 1930ish and has been standing in a camera shop camera museum in northern Norway. I guess the seller might have inherited all these cameras because he is putting out lots and lots of them right now, perhaps not the best idea if one wants to make money on selling them. He sort of floods the market.
It is time to give the dogs, cats and myself something to eat and after that I better start writing those cards so I can send them away on Monday.
Have a great day!
Could have been better.
The photos today will be a mix from this weekend and the weekend before.
Nova woke me up at 3 am this morning, someone had thrown up by the entrance door and most likely needed to do it again. All dogs ran out and I cleaned the floor while waiting for them to come in again. I couldn’t fall asleep properly after that so I am a bit tired today. I also went down into the cool cellar and watered the plants I have there, it isn’t especially cold there yet so they still need some water. I could hear the wind roar but it was absolutely calm in my garden.
When I came home and opened the door an awful smell hit me in my face. I had to shower the big boys so what ever it was that smelled had to wait until I had done that. Even when I shower them in the garden I have warm water, I just connect the garden hose to the kitchen water tap so I really can’t see why they prefer to shower outdoors. But I managed to get them in to the bathroom even though Orvar did protest some by sitting down 🙂
I took then outside again so they could shake off most of the water, well some anyway and went inside again to find from where that awful smell came. Then I suddenly heard a cat somewhere, it turns out Teodor had followed me into the cellar this morning and I had locked him in 🙂 There are some really big pots with lots of soil in them so I can’t for my life understand why he pooped on the floor?! Cat poop smells really awful 🙂 I won’t know where he peed until one of the plants die I guess because that he does in the pots. He has killed some plants in my home by doing that. It doesn’t smell when he does it but I caught him in action one day so now I know why those plants suddenly died 🙂 Good forbid that he actually would use the cat litter box 🙂
I put the envelope with the two rolls of film in the mailbox today and I’m really looking forward to see how these photos turns out. I think I might have at least two really good photos but I won’t know until they send me an e-mail with a link to a site where I can see them long before they arrive here in my mailbox. I’ll bring the dogs with me because I’ll work over time but I’ll write something here in the blog anyway.
Have a great day!
I wouldn’t mind some sunshine.
It is so dark now when it is cloudy that I need to use ISO 4000 to be able to take any photos.
Another grey and dismal day here but at least the rain is still not falling, that won’t start untill tomorrow they say. The wind blows hard too and I hope that will help my laundry that I’ve hung out to dry even though the humidity is high. This is a day made for reading or watching a movie, I’m not sure which I’ll do, I’ll decide what after the walk the dogs and I’ll take after writing this.
The Forbidden Forest.
We walked down to the creek this morning and followed the creek upstream. Bertil followed us and when he started alarming we turned back homewards. We had been standing still at one place for a few minutes when he started so I guess wild hogs were coming our way and I doubt we would have the same luck again if we came very close to the hogs like we did last time 🙂
It was quite nice out there as long as we stayed away from the wind, lots of birds are chirping and big flocks of them fly around from tree to tree looking foir mostly seeds but also bugs that hide in the bark. I filled the bird feeders when I came home, I still have plenty of seeds left from last winter and it looks like they still are good since the birds gulp them down.
So far it’s mostly Bluetits, House sparrows and Great tits by the feeders, the rest will most likely not turn up until it’s tough finding food in the forest and fields. The Bull finches will most likely not show up until there’s lots of snow covering the trees so they can’t reach the buds they like to eat.
I tried to get in to my old computer during the week. I can’t remember the pass word 🙂 The lead I’ve given myself is movie. I know that it isn’t the name of the movie but something in the story. I know that as soon as I can remember what movie it is I’ll know the pass word but I can’t for my life remember what movie it is 🙂 🙂 🙂 I was so close one morning, I was sort of sliding in and out of a dream when suddenly I started to remember what movie it is and got so exited that I woke up with a jolt and forgot it immediately 🙂 🙂 🙂
It is time to take that walk before it gets even darker than it is now, the sun never reaches especially high here now so it gets dark very fast when the sun is gone. Today the sun went up (behind the clouds) 7:56 am and will go down 3:45 pm and it just keeps on for another month until it finally turns again.
Have a great day!
It’s a bit chilly today.
The morning sky.
I had to drive to the super market this morning. I was planning on doing it like always after work yesterday but having four tires in the trunk gives very little space for anything else, like six big packages with fire logs 🙂 I could of course have placed those packages in the back seat of the car but they weigh 10kg (22 pound) each and I doubt there would have been any bigger problems getting them in to the car but out 🙂 I can just see how my back would be twisted while trying to lift and pull out those packages 🙂 🙂
I also had to get new Lotto numbers so I can win the big lottery tonight, the old numbers were just no good because I almost never won anything 🙂 In this lottery we chose seven numbers between 1 and 35 and it doesn’t sounf´d that hard to get seven right then does it 🙂 on each lotto form there’s also a pre printed number that we also can choose to play on or not. That one is much tougher to get any right at all 🙂 but if one get seven right on the lotto and either the two first numbers or two last number on that other game one win the Dream Winning. That means at least 50 000 000 Swedish kronor (around $7142857 US). That happens so seldom that normally they win much, much more. To be honest it is impossible to win that but still, every now and again it happens. Not to me though 🙂
Mushrooms can look so odd. This one looks like it is furry 🙂
It is grey damp and chilly outdoors and with the weak wind we also have it’s kind of nasty out there. Still, my dogs and I were out walking for a bit more than two and a half hours today. We went in to the forest on the wrong side of the creek and walked down stream. We passed that little bridge made from wood and walked the creek upstream almost all the way up to the bog. It wouldn’t have taken so long if I had walked by myself but Hector can’t walk that fast. He loves to walk still though so we just take our time. There’s no hurry, I don’t start working until Monday morning 🙂
It’s hard to see that there is a road beneath all that grass.
Here it look so much better but this time the grass hides all the water and mud instead.
For once they have put up a list on how we all want our Christmas vacations this year. It should have been put up much earlier to be honest but this is still much earlier than it usually is put up 🙂 Normally the owner remembers it the week before Christmas but his daughter has been pestering him until he finally placed it on the wall 🙂 If nothing unforseen happens I’ll stay home for 18 days including the normal weekends 🙂 Even though Christmas eve and new years eve aren’t holidays here we still don’t work those days and still get paid. Christmas day, boxing day, new years day and twelfth day are holidays and free from work but still paid so I only need to take six days off really. I’ll use the rest of my vacation days and one day with compensation hours. Next year won’t be that good though since Christmas starts on a Thursday 🙂
Just look at the amazing color these mushrooms have! I can’t but love them 🙂
It’s time for a pot of tea and something to eat. I think I’ll make some rice porridge today, the cold weather sort of demands that. I have two new movies to watch, the sci fi Elysium and the last? Die Hard movie A Good Day To Die Hard.Â
Have a great day!
I’m prepared for the arrival of King Bore.
It is rapidly getting darker outside, it’s a bit foggy and down to the bones chilly. I’m so glad that it will turn towards warmer already tomorrow. But todays and yesterdays weather was a warning bell so today I have my winter tires on. I hope they will be mostly unnecessary this winter but it’s always best to be prepared for King Bore’s (a name we’ve given winter) arrival.Â
Orvar and Hector were like usual muddy when I came home, I just can’t understand how they prefer to lie down on the ground rainy and cold days when they gladly can go inside the dog house on rainy days in the summer and that they hate to get wet 🙂 It’s a good thing I stop working early on Fridays. It is impossible to get any of them into the shower but I am allowed to shower them in the garden?! That is a much easier task if I actually can see what I’m doing 🙂
I turned around when I was showering Hector and to my surprise I saw something rather big orangey/ pinkish beside my raised bed where I had grown tomatoes and the two pumpkin plants. At first I though it was a plastic bag but to my very big surprise it is a pumpkin 🙂 🙂 🙂 I can’t understand how I’ve been able to miss it at all because it is rather big 🙂 I think it weighs around 10kg (22 pounds) ! I’m not sure what to do with it now since Halloween is over but it does look good on the entrance stairs 🙂
It’s time for a pot of tea and something to eat and the dogs are also prepared to get some food, well they always are but they sure know when they always get their food and complains loudly if I would be a bit late 🙂
Have a great day!
And with the mail came a tiny, almost empty little box.
We did get snow but not even so much that it stayed on the ground and it has been rather much warmer than predicted so I’m quite happy 🙂 It was rather chilly yesterday evening though but I couldn’t feel the smell of snow as I always do before it starts and it isn’t that surprising since it didn’t star to snow here until early this morning. After that the snowfall has come and gone without leaving a single trace that it even was here.
I’ve heard that it was much worse in eastern Sweden though with lots of accidents, no one has died so far from what I understand. That however is just a matter of time, we all seems to be surprised about this white garbage falling from the sky 🙂 I’ll get my winter tires on tomorrow after work, the law says we must have it if there is winter conditions on the road from December first. It usually is so it is time to put them on now.
I am a bit annoyed at the moment, You know I ordered Word for my computer and thought I would get a cd with Word so I didn’t have to do anything more than to download it into the computer. Oh no! It’s just a tiny almost empty box and in that box there’s card with a code printed on it. To get Word I now have to get an account on Microsoft and download it from there!!! I don’t want an account on Microsoft, that only means a lot of e-mails telling me about all the products they want me to buy that I neither want nor need.
Ok, it says I should download Word in to all the computers I have in my home so it is unfortunate that I only have two 🙂 at least with a working internet in them 🙂 It would still have been so much better with a cd but now I’ve bought it so I better bite in the sour apple as we say here in Sweden.
It is time for a big cup of cocoa and I have bought three ciabatta that I’ll eat now too. Today I think I’ll have beetroot salad, meatballs, ham and cheese on them, perhaps not ham and meatballs on the same sandwich though 🙂
Have a great day!
We are the most extreme people in the world :-)
Square photos means Hasselblad photos 🙂
Did You know that Sweden is the most extreme country in the world? It is or should I say the Swedes are. Something called the World Value Service shows that. The World Values Survey (WVS) is a global research project that explores people’s values and beliefs, how they change over time and what social and political impact they have. It is carried out by a worldwide network of social scientists who, since 1981, have conducted representative national surveys in almost 100 countries. The WVS measures, monitors and analyzes: support for democracy, tolerance of foreigners and ethnic minorities, support for gender equality, the role of religion and changing levels of religiosity, the impact of globalization, attitudes toward the environment,work, family, politics, national identity,culture, diversity, insecurity, and subjective well-being.
Take a look at the picture above, if You look at the top right corner there’s a little dot showing the values of Swedes. It shows we aren’t especially traditional when it comes to religion but very much secular, only the Japanese people are more secular than us. On,y 5% goes to church/ mosque/ synagogue regularly in this country. Family in the traditional way isn’t especially important to us either, You know the wife-husband- children family where the mother stays at home is very rare here. No one raises an eye-brow if the family is a single mother or father or both male or both female family with children here and almost always both parents work, if they have a job that is.
We have a very strong support for the freedom values and don’t believe in a strong leader. We also reject gathering power of experts or the Armed Forces, and are convinced that democratic government is the best possible system even with its flaws and shortcomings. The fun thing is that this seems to rub of on our immigrants so they tend to get the same values as us after a while. But to be honest, many of them already have values like ours and that’s why they felt the need to leave their country. So if You want extreme just come to us 🙂 🙂 🙂
I’m not sure what I focused on here 🙂
Another thing that I think might be a bit different but I don’t think they knew this when they did the survey is that the former government fell because they had lowered the taxes too much so that we didn’t have that great social security net that we once had any longer. So before the election almost all parties told us that they would raise our taxes and even the conservatives said they wanted to do that 🙂 They wanted it too little and to late though 🙂 How many countries in the world is like that 🙂
Here’s a link to the World Value Service if You want to read what it is all about and how they did it: WVS. It’s quite interesting if one manages to read it through, it’s very much text 🙂 It’s time for a pot of tea and some nice sandwiches, Today I’ll have blue cheese, normal cheese, liver pate, spotted sausages, ham and some paprika on them 🙂
Have a great day and Happy Halloween!
I found  this video just after posting this 🙂Â
I wonder.
I wonder if tonight won’t be the first night with frost. I can feel it in the air, a kind of raw, nasty feeling that screams COLD COLD COLD! Just after I wrote that I checked the predictions and they too say frost tonight, not desperate cold though, just enough to kill all the dahlias I have out there. I will most likely have to scrape the car windows tomorrow morning too I’m afraid. The good thing however is that lots of moose flies will die and hopefully some mosquitoes too but they are a tough crowd that needs more than a light frost to give up.
Lots of small birds were flying in the sun, shining like silver and I was trying to get them in a photo. Nomatter how I tried none of them showed in the photo. Only this one shows a tiny bird in the middle of the photo.
The rain was so heavy last night that the sound made it hard to fall asleep 🙂 I guess it might have been thunder in that sound too because it sure looked and sounded like thunder showers. It kept on raining until way in to today and only just before I drove homewards the sun showed itself. It never got ant warmer than 10C (50F) so the first thing I did after coming home after our walk was to start a fire in the stove. Even the fire seemed to think it was a bit too cold to use any energy to actually do something 🙂 But now finally it burns nicely in there and I hope the heat soon will have spread to the entire cottage.
The first part of my own birthday gift has arrived and it was heavy, I wonder how much the mailman fought with that parcel to get it down in to my mailbox and still have room for the rest of the mail 🙂 Some letters were squeezed at the bottom but it turned out to be junk mail so I didn’t care. Now I’m just waiting for that second part to arrive so I can tell You what it is 🙂 From what I understand is the second part even heavier and it will not fit in my mailbox, that’s for sure 🙂 I have serious thoughts of buying myself  my christmas present already now too but if I do I can’t buy a single thing I want for the rest of the year :-). It’s much the same as the first thing I bought as my present but “more modern” and even heavier 🙂 But it might be something else similar to the second part instead.
It is time for a pot of tea and something to eat. It’s already beginning to get dark outside and I can feel winter breathing down my neck.
Have a great day!
I bought the second part today.
Bertil was evil towards the dogs last week, very odd since he really loves them, so I tossed him out and said he couldn’t come in again until he could behave. Not unusual here but it’s always me he has been nasty to, never the dogs. Now both my neighbor and I think it might have been their cat, Salmiak I tossed out 🙂 🙂 🙂
My feet are itching like crazy and the mosquitoes must have had a party on them last evening 🙂 I need  a few more bites and then I’ll be immune towards that itching again but I’m afraid the itching will drive me insane before that happens 🙂 I have the kitchen door open so I’ll probably get more of them inside the cottage but te day is so nice that I just can’t shut the door and it might give me those few bites more that I need 🙂
Novas ear looked a bit worse this morning so I cleaned it up and after that she was so grumpy that she refused to eat her food, even if it had lost of her favorite food in it. The ear looked so much better now when I came home and she ate the food she didn’t eat this morning without any hesitation 🙂 I’ve promised her not to touch the ear any more today so I hope she wants the food they soon are going to get. The pill is usually no problem, she doesn’t like it of course but she will accept it 🙂
I bought that second part to my birthday gift to myself after work today. There was only one and I had to ask the seller something before I bought it. I asked yesterday, got an answer early this morning and then bought it as soon as I got home so I have tos ay that it went faster than I thought it would! Both parts should arrive next week, perhaps at the same time too and hopefully to the same post office too 🙂 One never knows here in the countryside 🙂
Troll butter. it’s a slime fungus to be honest but it is actually the official name for it and goes back to our folklore.
They say it will be colder from next Monday so I went to the super market on my way home today and bought several packages of fire logs. They’ll most likely last for a long time since I’ll only start the fire after work. But It’s always nice to have some of those packages at home. This year I also have fire wood since the old plum tree and apple tree I cut down two years ago have dried by now. I still need to chop it all up in smaller pieces before I put it in the stove. It would probably last almost a week in deep winter if I only used that so I’ll use it when I want that nice smell from the fire 🙂
It’s time to feed all the animals and me too and I will of course make a potr of tea.
Have a great day!
I bought myself something.
The photos today is a mix from yesterday and today. The weather was much the same to be honest so not even I would notice they were taken in different days 🙂
I didn’t have high hopes for this day to be honest. I was tired already before I went to work and I knew we were going to paint things I don’t like to paint but I must admit, even if I don’t like it, that the day just ran away and time passed so fast that it felt like I only had been there a few hours when I drove homewards again. I did forget to bring any dinner and I did also forget to order any. But I didn’t try to eat any almost ripe apples again 🙂 I drove to the grocery store and bought myself dinner instead 🙂
Nova is much better in her ear but she still doesn’t show much of an appetite. I think, to be honest, that she is just fishing for sympathy and looks like she rather would starve to death than eat the food she normally eats without hesitation 🙂 So I bought her favorite food while I was in the store. It’s so expensive that our petrol prices seems low when comparing 🙂 🙂 🙂 I can of course not only give her that food so they all get enough of it so it gives its flavour to the normal food I mix it with. They all ate like hungry wolves 🙂
I bought myself a birthday present just before I started writing here, I won’t tell You what it is until it arrives but it’s actually only half of what I need 🙂 I might get the other half already tonight if I’m lucky 🙂 I know this sounds cryptic but You’ll understand what I mean the day I’ll tell You what it is 🙂 I can tell You this much, it is rather expensive ( well that all depends on what economy one has, Bill gates would probably spend this on a lunch 🙂 🙂 🙂 ) but then again, how often do one have ones 50th birthday 🙂Â
The mosquitoes have a second spring now, I haven’t seen or felt this many the entire year. It was so long since the bit me that the immunity of the itching thing is gone so now my feet itch like crazy 🙂 We also have more moose flies than in a long time so now we don’t even go safe from them by the fields. I’ve brought several of them with me to work and I kill some every evening here in my cottage. I do prefer the mosquitos even if it is itching like he.. right now 🙂
These must be the last raspberries for this year, they were delicious by the way 🙂
It’s time for some cocoa I think and a couple of cheese sandwiches.
Have a great day!
I got more today.
Today became my Monday so I’m late 🙂 I couldn’t do much of what I had planned since Nova is more important than anything so I had to do them today instead. Novas ear is still yucky but she got her appetite back and finally ate everything I gave her so that’s a good sign.
I got lots of delicious apple pie and even more custard yesterday evening 🙂 I also got a jar with absolutely fresh honey from their new bee hive 🙂 I really want to open up the jar right now to taste it but I still have some old honey left and I think I should finish that one first 🙂 They say it’s rather sharp (but very delicious) in the taste and we all wonder what kind of flower gives sharp honey? Yarrow? because we have that everywhere here.
Is it a Bog Lady (forest nymph) or just a rotten tree stump? One never knows by the bog 🙂
On the stage tonight: A new lingonberry bush 🙂
We were two fifty years old men that got birthday presents from the factory owner today, my work friend had his birthday during our vacation so they thought it would be a good idea ti give him his present at the same time I got mine. We got a bouquet with Alstromerias, gerberas and hydrangeas and also a gift certificate to the concert hall in Vara. Worth 500 Swedish kronor (around 77 US dollars). I’ve never been to that concert hall but I’ve heard it’s really nice and lots of our biggest stars go there when they are on tour. The Gothenburg Opera is there regularly and also the ballet. Well, ballet is something I’ve never understood but I do like opera.
The temperature fell down to 1C (34F) but it must have been during one minute or so because it rose to much higher degrees directly after that. I think it was the very thick fog that saved us from frost. It was so thick that it was hard to see the road on my way to work 🙂 I also filled up my car on the way to work and I always want to cry a little while doing that 🙂 Today it costed 14,68 swedish kronor per liter, that is around 8,58 US dollars per US gallons.
I ran out of photos from today so these three are from July.
The cottage by the Crane Lake, life goes on. 
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