It is a new day tomorrow.
Today all photos comes from two old cameras. The first ones comes from an Agfa Ambi silette. A rangefinder camera often called the poor mans Leica. Leica cameras are amongst the few cameras that actually are pretty expensive no matter how old they are. Not so with Agfa cameras but this one is really good. I only have one lens and it is a 135mm telephoto lens.
It hailed heavily yesterday evening and since temperatures were low all night lots of it covered my car when I woke up this morning. Thankfully the sun showed for a minute or two so it was easy to get rid of before going to work. I think I had driven for five minutes when the snow started to fall. Even I had to admit to myself that it looked pretty but I was a bit worried since I now have summer tires on my car.
The pretty feeling soon vanished because the longer I drove the more it snowed 🙂 At one point it was so hard to see the road that I thought it would be best to stop and slowly drive home again. The road was however so warm that the snow melted as soon as it hit so I continued to work. Just as I arrived the snow stopped falling and I could see some sunshine again. It lasted until I was about to go to the neighbor factory to work, just before I was leaving the snow started to fall again. So even if it is just 200 meters (much the same in yards) to the other place I took the car 🙂
Nothing worked as it should today 🙂 It took quite some time until I even could start working. Something must have been wrong with the paint because it was looking like cement and nothing I did made it better 🙂 I had painted for a while when it suddenly felt like something was tapping me on my head, strange since I was the only one there. So I turned around and saw that the hose from the paint pump had broken and it sprayed me all over my back 🙂 I wear an overall that won’t let any paint through so that didn’t bother me that much.
The worst thing was that everything was covered in paint and my gloves got slippery and it took almost half an hour to fix the hose. I hadn’t worked for long when something else hit me in the back of my head, this time it was the hose for the compressed air that broke 🙂 It just took twenty minutes to fix that hose so I could start working again. I don’t have any clock in there so every now and again I must check the clock in my mobile phone. Guess what? The zipper broke on my overall!!!
The rest of the photos comes from an old camera called Balda Jubilette (pre WW2). It is a viewfinder camera so one has to estimate the distance to the thing one wants to photograph. I am surprised over how good this camera was. It does seem that I have a light leak in it somewhere that I must find.
I can’t even be in the paintbox if that is broken and it would take too long to go back to my ordinary workplace to get a new overall so I had to go outside, now without any snow falling but with a strong wind instead. I did manage to fix it, at least so I could continue to work. I’ll bring another one next time I’ll go there, on Thursday they say. It took me twice as long to paint what I should today and I’m so glad that the day is over. From now on it only can be better.
It is time to eat something and after that I’ll sit in front of the tv being grumpy all evening 🙂
Have a great day!
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
I woke up to a world covered in snow and I didn’t like it. The night had started rather cold and it had dropped down to -7C (19,4F) before the clouds came and covered the sky. It was less cold when I woke up but the sight of all that snow made me cold inside instead.
The cats like to sleep in the grass collector when I’m not at home 🙂
I could see that the sun was trying to break through though so out we went and I did have hope that the sun would show while we were out walking. How wrong I was, even though the clouds did get thinner no sun showed. Instead the snow started to fall again but since there was almost no wind it actually didn’t feel that bad anyway. I can even say that I would have liked it if this had been around Christmas 🙂
None of the weather sites had predicted anything else than rain so snow was not even something I have remotely considered to see. It all melts down pretty fast though so even if we just had a shower of pebble snow (looks like hail but is soft and very light) it can’t be seen on the ground any longer. I’m not sure I’m glad I changed to summer tires even if the law says we must but this is April and weather can change in a minute.
I did mow the lawn yesterday and even though I knew the grass had been growing quite a lot I still got surprised over how much grass the collector collected. I had to empty it several times, perhaps a good thing since it most likely insulated the compost against the really cold night. I normally just let the mowed grass stay on the lawn, it gives back the nutrition to the poor sandy soil I have.
It is time for a pot of tea and after that another walk I think, I do hope it won’t snow any more now.
The poor Heron was just as surprised by the snow as we were.
Have a great day!
They are very similar, almost the same :-)
The weather has been more or less the same today as it was yesterday by slighty more chilly and the humidity makes it even less nice outside. The spring warm weather as they almost screamed out should come and stay for at least a week never did, now they say it will come tomorrow and maybe stay two days 🙂 They really just should stay quiet and never say anything more until they actually learn how to do their job. After all, they have been bragging about their new very advanced computer, one of the most advanced there is 🙂 🙂 🙂
The roads had already started to thaw when we were going homewards againI had planned on going to the lake i the bog again today but I skipped that and walked to the small lake in the forest instead. I could hear cranes, geese and trumpet swans, not many yet but many enough to actually saying spring is just around the corner, for at least two days 🙂 The roads had already started to thaw on our way homewards again so we were all rather muddy when we reached the cottage. We walked in the cow pastures later in the day just to avoid as much of the mud as possible.
I’ve done my chores, the laundry, vacuuming and scrubbing the floors and now I’m thinking of shaving off my hair again. It is so long now that the powder paint tends to stuck on the scalp and when it does it starts to itch and then the dandruff starts. It doesn’t matter how well I wash my hair, it still stays there and since we now will get two days of spring this may be the best day to do it.
Yesterday evening we had the big finale in the Swedish part of the Eurovision song contest and the winner is a 17-year-old boy with the song If I were sorry. It was well liked by both us Swedes and the international juries Swedish television always have (so we Swedes don’t chose the wrong song 🙂 ). I do like the song but it is a bit too much like another song written and sung by an American called Matt Simon and his song is called Catch and release. I’ll post both songs at the bottom so You can decide for Your selves if it is a copy that won here. My personal view is that it is but it was allowed to compete so I guess EBU (the European Broadcasting Union) thought different. It was my favorite song so I don’t care 🙂
The fun thing is that lots of countries think we make this contest soo good that they want to see it live too, so yesterday three other countries watched it live, they sais Iceland, Estonia and a third country I didn’t hear which it was looked at it live (they could of course not televote like us Swedes though.
The badgers are very active, You can see how muddy it is in the snow by the hole to the right.
It is time to give all the animals something to eat and after that I’ll have something myself.
Have a great day!
and there it was.
Thankfully the road was still frozen when we started walking, it wasn’t when we came home.
I do wonder why the ones working at the Swedish weather forecast service SMHI get paid at all 🙂 No sunshine, no warm weather and no fog what so ever. If the Norwegians can get it right why can’t the Swedes? All week they’ve promised sunny and spring temperatures and to be honest, we’re not close to that. It is however rather nice outside since there’s no wind at all and it is warm enough to make the roads muddy again after a reasonable cold night. It could be worse though, March can be a nasty cold month with lots of snow so I guess this is better after all 🙂
It sure isn’t beautiful down stream the creek any more but I hope it will be again.
Today I had decided that I would reach the lake in the bog and my biggest problem before we left was if I should bring the Hasselblad camera, loaded with B&W film. I decided I would left it at home because it does weigh almost 2 kg (over 4 pounds) and the bag has a tendency to squeek. At first it was like SQUEEEEEK, SQUEEEEEK, SQUEEEEEK all the time. I tried everything to stop it doing that and tape was the best thing I could find. Now the bag says sqrrek, sqrrek, sqrrek instead but at least more quiet but I can tell You that the sound does drive anyone insane after twenty minutes 🙂 🙂 >Naturally I should have brought it even if I would have gone mad long before we reached our goal.
So we walked down to the creek and the first thing I heard was a couple of cranes shouting in a field nearby, that is a wonderful sound at least as long they just are a few. When they reach over 20 000 it’s an awful sound 🙂 I saw a fox hunting out on a field and it too heard the cranes. It can of course not take a crane unless the bird is more or less dead but as the opportunist it is it started walking towards the sound. The snow and ice on the ground cracked with a sound of an explosion every time I took a step so I knew that the fox most likely would be the only animal we would see on our walk. We did however see a few cranes, trumpet swans and geese fly above us though.
I followed the beekeepers instructions on how to get to the lake and when the creek reached its end it split in two, one towards north and one towards south. We followed the one towards north and did after a while find something looking like a path, the snow-covered it pretty good but it was visible every now and again. It felt like we had been walking for hours (which in fact we actually had 🙂 ) and I was almost to the point of turning back since I thought I’d misunderstood the instructions when I finally saw it, the lake.
Here the creek splits in two, we followed the one towards north.
I think this might have been one of the places where one controlled how much water would leave the area.
The pines out here don’t look healthy 🙂 They are probably much older than I am.
The last few meters we mostly walked on ice I think. It is a swampy area where we finally reached the lake but thanks to the cold nights the ice still carried my weight. It is absolutely quiet out there, I think there is one property just beside the lake but that’s it and if I now the authorities right they have most likely forced the owners to sell because that is what they have done with all other landowners close or in the nature reserve. The authorities say they want to protect the area but since they now have forbidden any restoration of the ditches letting the water out of the area the water level will rise as soon as those ditches stop working. When that happens all the places they want to protect will drown so it is a somewhat strange way to protect anything 🙂 Well, in time I’ll get a lake property with zillions of biting flies all summer long, am I not a lucky guy 🙂
Finally! We’ve reached it!
The end of the creek. It felt like I had found the source of the Nile 🙂 All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
The last part was filled with grass and Bog myrtle.
I think we were out for almost 3,5 hours and we all took a nap when we came home. To be honest, I’m not sure anyone of us wants to go out again today but I’ll make a try later. It is time to make a pot of tea and then some more sleeping in front of the tv 🙂 So was it worth walking out to the lake? Yes it was 🙂
We can only see a small part of the lake and I’ve looked at maps but aren’t quite sure where this is, I really need to buy that map which shows even the tiniest of paths and creeks. I will come back here again. There is an easier way, I can drive much closer and get there by a walking on a bigger path the last hundred yards but that’s no sport 🙂
Have a great day!
Then we walked back home again.
They’re back!
Can You see them 🙂 Cranes! I did of course not bring the tele-photo lens but I’ve cropped the photo a lot and if You click on the photo it will get bigger.
We now have around 250 cranes here by the lake and the first caravan has arrived too 🙂 This year they say they’ll only count the cranes every second day until they reach over 10 000, that’s when they start counting them every day. I think the record is somewhere around 25 000 during one day. There are also more or less the same amount of humans there too at the same time but fewer caravans 🙂 Naturally hunters now scream that they need to shoot some since there are so many, well not hunters around here though because that would be like cursing in church 🙂
I took a few photos on my way home. This is the church in Kvänum.
This building stands on the mountain. I think it has been some kind of factory but I really have no idea.
The Abbey ruin in Gudhem.
We’ve had a perfect springwinter day here. The night was nasty cold, it fell down to almost -10C (14F) but the temperature rose up to almost 7C (44,6F) and the sun shone almost the entire time. If I would have been at home today I would have packed a picnic bag (I have only two baskets and one is occupied by the cats and the other one has other things in it 🙂 ). Then I would have walked out on the bog and found a sunny spot to just sit and enjoy the day. We did go out on the bog after work but the ice had started to melt even in the shadowy places so to sit down and enjoy the day would feel a bit stressful since I wouldn’t know if it would hold me on the way back home 🙂
The church in Gudhem (means God’s home).
We might get much the same weather tomorrow if the Swedish weather site’s predictions are right. They say it will start foggy and I won’t mind that and after that it will be semi sunny. The Norwegian however says cloudy all day and not as warm as the Swedish site. I do hope the Swedish one is right for once 🙂 even if I know the Norwegian usually is more accurate but I’ve heard that even a blind hen can find corn so who knows 🙂
The church in Bjurum, just beside the lake.
Dagsnäs Castle.
I’ve started a fire in the stove, it isn’t that cold in here but I’m tired and feel a bit frozen anyway. We were all tired at work and a new wave of colds have hit us. So far I don’t feel I’ve caught anything so I hope it stays that way. No big difference in Nova’s ear but it’s just the second day she gets her medicine so It will take a day or two until I can see a difference I think. Sune is just as healthy and happy as always 🙂
Geese and the roof on the first caravan for the season 🙂
Turns out it is Canadian geese.
We have four cars on my little gravel road and normally it’s fine but now the forest machines have destroyed it totally and everything is muddy. They will fix the road but they can’t do it until it is dry.
I’ve just tossed Teodor out the door. Three times he has gone to the door to get out and every time I’ve opened the door he has turned back again. The fourth time I got tired of it and tossed him outside 🙂 There’s a limit to how patient I am and four times was at least one time too many 🙂
Breakfast table on the bog 🙂
It is time to make something to eat and today I’ll make a sandwich or two on hard thin bread probably with lots of cheese and spotted sausage, really tasty 🙂
Have a great day!
We’re learning sign language again.
I harvested a lime again, it is sklightly bigger than a not too big walnut 🙂
I understood something was wrong with Nova yesterday since she tried to avoid me at the same time she came running to greet me when I came home after work. Naturally I thought it was her right ear that was infected again but this time it had wandered over to her left ear instead. The poor girl hates to get the medicine down her ear but she does come when she knows it is time. I do hope that this is the last time she gets it in this ear because she can barely hear anything in the right ear after all these ear infections.
They are, to my big surprise, bright orange inside! They taste just like a lime should though.
The roads are so muddy and bad here now because of the forest machines, so we didn’t take any walk today. We did yesterday though so all photos comes from then.
People would think I hate that dog since I always scream at her but I actually most often scream that she’s a good girl and that I love her 🙂 Sometimes I need to throw something reasonable close to her to get her attention 🙂 She usually look up from what ever track she follows if a pine cone comes rolling beside her 🙂 So once again I’ve started to learn a dog some kind of sign language, it works really good if she just understand I want to tell her something 🙂
Stones from the Stone Circle Hill.
I’m baking scones at the same time as I’m writing this. I have no bread at home and I really didn’t want to go to the grocery store after work. I need to clean the oven because lots of smoke came out of it when I opened the hatch. At first I thought it was the scones but they looked just fine, they need a few more minutes in there though. I’ve eaten all the marmalade but I might have some rowanberry jam left, goes really well with cheese 🙂 I do hope my fire alarm doesn’t star because of the oven 🙂
The birch in the well. All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
It is time to see if those scones are ready yet and if I can find that jam.
Have a great day!
They could use more spices.
No new photos today, all are at least a few days old.
I have to admit that the roads are much better than I ever thought they could be after such a long and heavy snow fall, ok they were nasty slippery this morning since the night had been a bit cold but they were clean from snow. They were even better now when I drove home even if it had snowed again during the day. The pavements in the village where I work where not that good though, so I took the car when I was going to the neighbor factory to paint today. I drove almost meters (much the same in yards) 🙂
The day passed relatively fast but nothing much happened to be honest, things just worked as they should and I did try not to check the clock too often. I talked with the guy who delivers food from the restaurant to us in the factory. I asked if they couldn’t use more spices because even if the food is well made it doesn’t taste a thing. He told me that they weren’t allowed to use especially much spices since everyone should be able to eat it. Well, I said, You do have more spices on the food you serve in the restaurant (it always tastes good there) so why can’t You use that much on the food You deliver too?
He actually got surprised, he didn’t know that the food tasted so much different. I told him that if they wanted to deliver any food they really needed to change how it tastes because fewer and fewer people order their food from them now, they rather buy that nasty ready-made food from the freezers in the stores, You know the kind where one wonders if it is rubber instead of real food 🙂 I doubt this will change anything but one can always hope 🙂
All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
It is time to make something to eat and after that I think I’ll watch some tv (well most likely I’ll fall asleep in front of it 🙂 ).
Have a great day!
The last three from the Hasselblad camera with the 12 photo cassette.
I long for when they finally stay out all night!
All photos are from yesterday but one can’t see the difference in the weather today. Snow, snow, snow.
The snowfall started much earlier yesterday than they had predicted so I guess it’s not more than right that they got the ending of it wrong as well, it should have stopped this afternoon but it just keeps on falling and falling and falling. If the temperature hadn’t risen just above 0C (32F) during the day I think we would have gotten a snow cover at least 30cm (15 inches) thick. Oddly enough it wasn’t the snow cover that annoyed me most this morning.
I woke once again up to the nasty smell of cat poop filling up my home, at 4:10 am. I tried to ignore it but it is just impossible. I don’t know which cat it is but one of them refuse to cover their business when they are finished and that cat won’t live for long if I find out who it is 🙂 🙂 It doesn’t take long to fix but the smell stays for hours and I was wide awake when I had flushed it down so there was no idea going back to bed. Guess if I’m tired now 🙂
I had huge problems getting the dogs in to the dog house when I was going to work, not because the dogs behaved bad but because the lock had frozen so I couldn’t open the door 🙂 After that I had to remove all snow from the car and there was lots of snow. So when I finally could start driving I was very late. I backed from my parking space out on te gravel road and guess if I was surprised to see that I almost had crashed straight in to my neighbor, the beekeepers car 🙂 Thankfully he reacted fast 🙂 I had to text him when I came to work and I promised that I would check next time I’m going to work so I won’t do the same thing again 🙂
All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
The rest of the day has been rather uneventful thankfully 🙂 A bit slow too but rather that than any more almost accidents and frozen locks. The roads home were much better than I thought they could be when it has snowed as much as it has. I must admit that the world look beautiful now but I do hope for an early spring, not so much because of the warmer weather as for the fact that the cats never are indoors at night when spring arrives, I really don’t like waking up to that smell 🙂
No matter how fun she has, she always look serious 🙂
Have a great day!
Ok, these four aren’t from yesterday. They are taken with the Edixa Reflex.
And so it falls again.
I knew the snow was on its way but according to yesterdays predictions it wouldn’t show up until late afternoon, so is anyone surprised it snowed like crazy here already when I got up at 6:20 am 🙂 The flakes are the semi big ones that keeps on falling forever and really builds up to highs heights. Now the predictions says we’ll have snow falling until tomorrow evening and this time I’m afraid they might be right 🙂
I’ve sen a lonely Raven fly around a few days now and that’s unusual here. Normally they are at least three or four and sometimes as many as twenty at the same time.
There’s a wind too that makes it rather nasty out there unless one can find wind free places. The bog close to the trees are such a place so that’s where we walked this morning. I must admit that I was rather surprised that the ice carried me since it has been rather warm during the days. I might go there next walk too just because it is so quiet there and it feels like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. On our way to the bog we saw a fox, a bit too far away but still near enough to be seen clearly. It knew very well that we looked at it but it just didn’t care. I understood that we never would be able to catch it even if we tried 🙂
I’ve cropped these photos of the fox a lot so You would be able to see it properly.
The worlds biggest cross-country ski race (Vasaloppet) is on tv at the moment. If one isn’t interested in cross-country skiing it’s the most boring tv program there is, even more than those very quiet documentaries we Swedes seems to lave to make. You know the ones where almost nothing is said and the person they are filming eat breakfast or drink coffee while the radio is turned on in the background sending a local radio station with music no one really listens to any more 🙂 The radio and the slurping of coffee or porridge are the only sounds in the entire documentary, usually they film something outside the windows, like birds eating in the snow os a car passing by on the snowy road. Those programs are not fun and Vasaloppet is even more boring.
The joy of having a stick with a plastic ribbon attached to it 🙂
He has a ribbon on his stick!
Give me a ribbon stick too!
Well, who wants a ribbon anyway 🙂
They started this race in memory of how the noble man Gustaf Vasa escaped the Danish soldiers, using skis and on the way towards Norway asked the people to help him fight the danes. Well, the have the race in the opposite direction so the finish line is where he was supposed to have started from and it turns out that he actually had now idea what skis are 🙂 They found a letter written by him where he asked what those wooden things were 🙂 He was a despot as king and gladly killed the men who finally helped him to the power. His sons were all more or less insane and did their best to kill each other too, Eric the 14th was poisoned with arsenic put in his pea soup when he was arrested while one of his brothers took the power.
It is time to get out on a walk again I think and perhaps I must shovel away some snow from the entrance stairs when we come back home again. I’ve filled the bird feeders but I’m pretty sure I’ll have to do it again, lots of birds out there and very little else to eat since the snow covers everything.
Have a great day!
It felt colder than it was.
They could hear my neighbor so they stood there looking towards their house 🙂
We almost saw the sun today,it never broke through the clouds but I could clearly see that shining disc trying. Unless it was a UFO of course 🙂 They tend to shine very bright in films, I guess it is the friction that heats them up when they fly down from space 🙂 It did feel much colder than it looked on our walks today and the weak wind there was did what it could to make it feel colder and it was pretty successful.
The old gatepost.
We walked to the little lake this morning like we have done these last Saturday mornings but as we came closer to home I felt that we hadn’t been out long enough so we continued out on the gravel road by the fields. I was hoping to see some deer but there was none. I did however see several tracks from them and also from at first two foxes walking side by side and then from a third fox walking a yard beside the two. It must have been a cub from last year, they wouldn’t have accepted any other fox that far in to their territory.
The nights are still so cold that the little lake still is frozen.
We met the beekeeper on our way home, he had gotten the cold where they get fever but was on the way back. I wish I had gotten that one because when it is over it is really over and not like the one most of us gotten which comes back every now and again all winter. I asked about the lake in the bog and now I understand that I must walk at least two hundred more yards until I can turn towards the bog so I can see the lake, I might walk that way if it is nice enough weather tomorrow morning. Before we continued home I got a jar with honey 🙂 It is a great thing to have a beekeeper as a neighbor 🙂
All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
I was thinking of walking to the bog on our second walk but then suddenly all the hunters turned up and went out into the forest. I have absolutely no idea what they thought they would get in the middle of the day, especially since they didn’t bring any dog. To be honest, that was just a stupid idea I think. Anyhow, that forced me to walk elsewhere and since I didn’t want to walk on muddy roads we instead walked out on the fields, where the castle cattle walk all summer, the ground hadn’t thawed there at all and we could have walked for miles if we so had wished, at least I didn’t wish that 🙂
It is time to make the last cup of either tea or coffee, if I drink any after five I’ll stay awake all night. I do miss my late night pots of tea.
The last one from the Hasselblad with the photo cassette for this time.
Have a great day!
I don’t mind driving slow but…
The snow and rather sharp light made it difficult to get any good photos, so it will be a mix with new and old photos today.
We were never hit with that snow storm the last time so I guess it was inevitable that we would be hit this time. It snowed all night and almost till noon and finally I think we got around 4-6 inches of the white garbage. I start working an hour earlier on Fridays so the plow lorries hadn’t plowed the road outside the village and if they had plowed the high way it couldn’t be seen. It worked rather well to drive on the road outside the village to the high way since there was almost no other car around.
They have started to clean up in the forest. These three photos show the pile after clearing up at just one place, it is huge!
When I reached the high way I saw a car coming and thought I just as well could let it pass before I drove out on the road, it is nicer to drive free from other cars when the roads are as bad as they were this morning. That was a stupid idea 🙂 I don’t mind driving slow, especially when the road conditions demands it but the driver in front of me had some problems keeping the speed he wanted. It is very hard to keep the distance if the other driver changes speed all the time. It didn’t help that he (I write he but have no idea if it was a man or woman driving) had problems with the lights from the oncoming cars.
So as soon as he finally seemed to be able to keep the speed he suddenly almost stopped because of the lights or what ever reason he could find, then he suddenly drove rather fast just to almost stop again for what ever reason he had. It was impossible to pass him so I just had to try to adapt my driving to his. I felt so happy when it was time to turn of the high way again and thought that finally I would get rid of him. Turns out he was one of those that know nothing about turn signals, he turned too!
Three from the Minolta X300
Hasselblad 16 photo cassette.
We kept on like this for a few miles and more cars were driving behind me and the road got worse by the mile and then he suddenly understood that we’ve given up trying to keep the distance so not only my car lights filled up his car but also the ones after me, he can’t have seen anything to be honest. I think I could have walked behind his car and still have problems not getting to close, so he finally stopped by a small road and let us all pass. I just barely made it to work in time even though I had started much earlier than usual. By the time I had stopped working all roads were just fine again but we still have lots of snow left. It might with a bit of luck melt away until Monday when we’ll get more again. This is typical April weather, just one month too early.
Four from the Edixa Reflex.
The fire is burning in the stove, not because it is cold but the dampness is eating its way inside my cottage. It is time to make something to eat and then most likely fall asleep in front of the tv, again 🙂
Have a great day!
Now days they are so wimpish.
I don’t think I’ve shown this and the four coming photos taken with the Hasselblad camera with the 16 photo cassette.
We didn’t even get close to how much snow they had predicted, instead of 12 inches we got around one and it never got especially cold either so the roads to work was anything but fun to drive on. I was pretty irritated that snow had fallen when we finally had gotten really good roads to drive on the garbage starts falling from the sky.
Almost all of it melted away during the day so the roads were quite good when I drove home again 🙂 We’ll get more tomorrow however so I guess this was a short-lived happiness. No sun is predicted this weekend so I’m hoping for fog since the nights are said to be a bit chilly but days towards the less cold. I would like to say warm but I think that would be to lie a lot 🙂
These are from the Hasselblad too but with the 12 photo cassette.
Nothing much has happened since Tuesday so I have very little to write about today. I rarely look back and remember things but I did suddenly remember an old fairytale written by the Danish author H.C Andersen, The Little Match Girl. They don’t write fairy tales like that any more, todays fairy tales are rather wimpish to be honest 🙂 I remember reading his stories and the ones that the Grim brothers wrote down with lots of evil and violent deaths 🙂
It isn’t the same photographing the dogs when they play without a zoom lens 🙂 These are taken with the Edixa Reflex. These are actually not grainy, it snowed like mad when I took these 🙂
If one would read one of those stories to kids today one would most likely be reported for child abuse 🙂 I must see if I can find some books with those old stories, many of them have faded away from my memories. I do understand that companies like Disney must change how the stories end, I doubt many children would like to see how the little mermaid dies and becomes sea-foam just because she couldn’t bring herself to kill the man she loved.
These four are also taken with the Edixa Reflex.
It is time for something to eat and then some sleep in front of the tv 🙂
Have a great day!
It carried me but only barely.
I’ve always wondered why they have put ventilation on the lid to an old well? The well was the spare one since it always have water even during draughts but it is rusty and oily and taste rather bad.
We’ve had a rather sunny day so far even if the predictions this morning said cloudy all day 🙂 Well there are clouds up there but big gaps in between them so it has been rather nice taking walks today. Not much sunshine when we were out early in the morning though but warm and almost wind free so I liked it anyway.
All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
We walked out on the bog but I wasn’t sure the ice would carry me since it has been so much warmer at nights than that they thought it would be. It did carry me but I could hear how it started to crack beneath my feet. Well the water isn’t deep but deep enough to give me wet feet if the ice would have broken 🙂 So we didn’t go especially far since I could feel how the wind got warmer and suddenly it also started to snow a bit.
I turned on the tv when we came home and they showed cross-country skiing and nothing makes You sleep better than a boring cross-country ski competition. I think seven of the eight first skiers were Norwegian, at least as long as I coped to stay awake and no Swede even close to the leaders. Yesterday evening they showed the third heat of the Swedish parts of the Eurovision Song Contest. It wasn’t as bad as last week thank god but it would have been nice if they actually could find a singer who could hold a tone! I’m pretty sure that they do what they can to make sure we won’t even be close to win this year again, this competition is a rather expensive thing to hold.
The sun started to show a bit when we were out on the bog.
It is time to make something to eat, I’m thinking grilled sausages. I have my electric grill, it is too warm to start the fire stove right now. I’ll make a few for me and one for the dogs 🙂 I’m not sure how many sausages I have but if I have plenty the dogs will get one each 🙂 At the moment Nova is snoring quite loud close to the kitchen e´radiator and Sune less loud just by my feet. They refuse to go elsewhere when they have seen me taking out the grill from the kitchen cabinet 🙂
Have a great day!
You can see some snowflakes if You look at the old stable.
Springwinter day.
It looked rather nice for a while at least.
I think I would lie if I said we’re having another storm but the wind does blow rather hard today. It is well above 0C (32F) but the wind sort of destroy the feeling of warmer weather and the snow or/ and rain doesn’t help at all. Every now and again the clouds are so thin that the sun shines through but it really doesn’t help.
Normally one would say that up here we have four clearly divided seasons, spring, summer, autumn and winter but we Swedes have names for in the between periods too. Now for instance we have something we call springwinter. It’s not really winter any longer but spring isn’t near to start either. Nights are usually cold and days warm. It is sunny springwinter days that is perfect for those first picnics of the year. We just find a sunny spot where the wind doesn’t reach. One really feel energized after doing that 🙂
A dead Juniper bush is a great place for lichens to grow.
Springwinter (in Swedish that’s one word so I write it that way in English too) is probably my favorite season, the birds sing, the sun stays up much longer and the first bulbs show and flower in the ground. Another season I like a lot is presummer, it isn’t spring any longer but really not summer either. Still rather cool nights (well it is never really warm here during nights, around 10-15C (50-59F) as warmest during summer nights) but days can almost be summer warm. There’s still no annoying flies disturbing but lots of “nice” insects flying around, the ones who doesn’t bit 🙂
Still a long time to presummer so I’ll have to enjoy this springwinter day as much as I can even if the weather really sucks 🙂 I think I’ll take a nap and then we’ll go out on a walk again in the falling snow.
Have a great day!
A rather nice day.
No sun today, this photo is a week old.
It has been a rather nice day so far, I worked in the neighbor factory for a few hours and when I came back to my normal work place very little was left to do so I left almost an hour early. It is odd how very nice that can feel even if I should have stopped working at noon anyway, that hour can feel like an entire day 🙂
I drove to the super market on my way home, the only reason I did so was because I wanted to buy more fire logs. I must say I was a bit surprised when they didn’t have any. Instead they had real fire wood in sacks, not big but very heavy. They don’t last as long as fire logs would but it sure smells nicer when the real wood burns and I think real wood burning gives away more heat than the logs. Compressed sawdust is perhaps a bit too dense so they burn more slowly.
It was quite warm when I came home and by warm I mean above 0C (32F) and the wind wasn’t too strong so it was quite nice to be honest. We walked down to the creek to see if they had cleaned up something and the horse guy had but not much. I’m still happy that I managed to walk there without falling or breaking a leg 🙂 It looks like they this time only cuts down birches and I could hear him working somewhere in the forest but not see him.
Both cats and dogs have eaten and now it’s my turn. I think I’ll do something easy like warm sandwiches, perhaps some ham and spotted sausages and lots of cheese. They show reruns of the old series Murder She Wrote so I’ll watch that while eating.
Have a great day!
It si far away but I can see it :-)
I can’t say I feel much better but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel today. It seems however that the cold now concentrates its strength towards my throat, I’ll fight back with honey and ginger mixed in luke warm tea because if one heat up honey too much it becomes just plain sugar to be honest, all the good bacteria in the honey dies if the temperatures rise too much.
I would have loved to have pineapple slices again today but I didn’t stop at the grocery store toi get any more so today I’ll have either preserved pears or peaches, not in their own juice though. Can’t remember if I’ve ever seen pears or peaches preserved in their own juice, it’s usually either syrup or water. The ones in water never taste especially nice I’m afraid so I tend to avoid those.
It will start to get slightly warmer now but that also means we’ll have the risk of getting snow. The predictions say snow for Thursday and since it is something I really don’t want more off I guess they’ll be right this time 🙂 Only 13 days left of February so at least I know a spring will come and I do hope it will be an early one so we don’t have to wait until the end of April this year.
It is time for that tea even if it will keep me awake all night, I doubt it though since I’m so tired that I could fall asleep right here in the kitchen in front of the laptop 🙂
Have a great day!
Just too much work in my condition :-)
Still old photos during the work week. Still a bit too dark to get any photos on our evening walk but it’s getting close now to have enough light.
I was absolutely sure I had a high fever when I woke up this morning at 4am. I didn’t wake up because of that though but the totally awful smell from the bathroom which filled the entire cottage. Both cats needed to go, one used the litter boc and the other the shower floor. In a way I was happy about the shower floor, he could have used a much worse place 🙂 Anyway, I knew I must be dying from a high fever.
Turns out I was just fine 🙂 Sort of annoying when I really didn’t feel like it. So off to work I went and even though the day passed very fast it still was a bit tough when feeling like death was waiting around the corner. Still I don’t feel I can stay at home if I don’t have a fever, that would feel like I was cheating sort of.
I would still have to get out today since I was out of toilet paper, I can live without food for a while but I can’t live without toilet paper 🙂 I also wanted some sliced pineapple, the kind which is preserved in its own juice. I could of course buy a fresh one but then I would have to peel it and it’s always hard to figure out when it is just enough ripe and if it is too ripe it’s just disgusting. When I would peel it the juice would stick to everything and after all I am close to death having this cold, even if I don’t have a fever, so that’s just too much work 🙂
It was rather cold last night so I was pretty sure I would have to scrape ice from the car windows but 10cm (4 inches) of snow all over the car had stopped ice from building up so I came very early to work today 🙂 Tonight will be down to -16C (3,2F) but now I don’t have any snow on the car so I guess the ice will be there tomorrow instead. If You don’t get a blog tomorrow please send someone to check if I’m frozen solid beside my car after trying to get rid of the ice while being this sick 🙂
The fire is burning in the stove and now I’m of to eat sliced pineapple in its own juice.
Have a great day!
Couldn’t be a much better morning.
View from my entrance.
It was cold during the night, almost -15C (5F) and the world had been colored almost totally white. What was even better was that we had a quite thick fog too and no wind at all, so our morning walk was rather pleasant and we were all painted with some frost in our hair. The sun did shine through the clouds after a while and has kept on shining more or less the entire day. It’ll be like this for a few days now, too bad I’ll be working all day.
This year my lime tree gave me three small limes and two days ago I harvested the first one, We all know that limes are pale yellow-greenish when we cut them open so guess if I got surprised when this first one was brightly orange 🙂 I’ve never heard of a lime having orange fruit pulp and it looked rather amazing to the green outside. It tasted as it should though but the taste was stronger than I had thought it would be since it doesn’t get especially much sunlight here during the winter. I’ll photograph the next one if it is as orange as this one.
We walked down to the creek later on and I didn’t know that the horse guy would be working today. I didn’t have any digital camera with me so when he and the horses suddenly walked out in front of me there just wasn’t time enough to adjust the camera to take a photo. We walked up-stream and I did think that I should save the last photo just in case we would be lucky again but how big would the chances be that I would be able to adjust the camera before he had went on elsewhere?
So I took that last photo on the roll and guess if I got annoyed when we met him again, standing still while cutting down a big tree stump, against the light so the last fog could be seen in the distance! It is one of those photos I’ll never take I’m afraid 🙂 It is like when one is out fishing and almost get that big fish and no one believes the story since there is no evidence 🙂
It is time to take a last walk before it gets dark I think. Tomorrow the sun will stay up until one minute after I’ve stopped working 🙂 It won’t be long now until I’ll have enough daylight to get some photographs when the dogs and I are out walking after work, I think a week or one and a half.
Have a great day!
The oddest dream.
I think I must have had fever during the night because I woke up very sweaty and I had had the most odd dreams. I do remember the last one and I was going down a tine brook in a gigantic wooden ship. I’m not quite sure how that ship could go anywhere because from what I remember it was bigger than the brook. Anyway, I sat there on the ship fishing when I noticed people standing beside the brook laughed at me because I had the wrong kind of fishing rod 🙂
The always happy Sune.
I realised they were right so I turned around the big ship (all by myself, no one else where on the ship with me) and started to go upstream to get the right kind of fishing rod. When I did the ship started to sink but for some reason that didn’t bother me at all, I even could breathe under water and the world down there was much bigger, it was like an ocean. Suddenly I realise that I’m about to go straight into the painting box I have at work and the panic hit me when I realised that I most likely would break the painting guns.
The always seriously looking Nova 🙂 We did get a little snow too today.
Bertil has been under the weather for a while and have preferred to stay indoors almost all winter. Today he finally followed us on our walk 🙂
Can You see where they have cut down trees? It is where snow can be seen behind the trees.
I’m not sure how this huge ship would not break the entire box, which wasn’t bigger in the dream than in reality 🙂 but it seemed to fit rather well in the opening of the box Suddenly the view got clearer and I realised it was the robot who was painting and he bowed and just stepped to the side and then I woke up 🙂 All day I’ve been wondering how it works with powder paint and water but it did look just right in the dream 🙂 🙂 I do know where the robot comes from (no we don’t have any robots at work even if it would be a good thing). I watched a science program where they had robots who played soccer, the robot had to learn bu itself what the ball was and what it should so with it. Even I would have been fantastic compared to those robots 🙂 🙂
Yes they did cut down trees on the other side of the creek too and it was almost impossible to walk there at all. I didn’t realise that untilit was too late. On this side however the horse guy did the job. I was going to photograph the horses but then the guy decided to pee behind them and I thought that would be a bit too good photo 🙂
I’ve bought an accessory to my Hasselblad camera and I’ll tell You about it tomorrow, for now I’m so tired that I think I’ll fall asleep in front of the tv as soon as I sit down 🙂
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!
Lots of photos to go through.
From the Hasselblad camera.
Lots of photos to go through today. Some good, some bad (that’s how it goes when one is trying the limits of old cameras 🙂 ) and lots of the frozen bog. I’ll take the evening to go through them and will be back tomorrow.
This one too.
This and the next one is from the Zeiss. All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
The storm is here I think, it sounds like it but like usual I can’t feel it since my neighbors cottage and garage takes all wind. It snowed a lot and then the rain came so the roads were anything but fun to drive home on but almost everyone drove really slow for once.
This is the best double exposure I’ve ever taken I think.
From the Minolta X300.
Have a great day!
I actually didn’t mind that much.
I opened the door for the dogs yesterday evening and to my big surprise I saw that the world had turned white again. Not much snow, perhaps 2-3 cm (around an inch) and I thought that since it would be sunny and rather warm today it would melt away fast. So for once I almost liked it 🙂 and didn’t think much of it any more.
Trees are good for many things 🙂
We did get sunshine and it was rather warm too but that snow just didn’t want to melt away so we still have rather much of it left. It will stay above freezing though and they say it will both snow and rain tomorrow so my hopes are that it’ll go away by tomorrow instead.
I had planned to go to the little lake today because I thought that since it was a few weeks since the hunters were here the last time they most likely would come today, after all it would be rather warm and sunny. So just before we were going out lots of cars passed by my cottage. There were no hunters where I had planned to walk today so it didn’t bother me at all for once. It was such a wonderful morning so we were out walking for one and a half hour.
It wasn’t until I came home that I realised that there were lots of cars parked outside my neighbors cottage, I think their little daughter has her birthday today. So to be honest, there might not have been a single hunter here today 🙂 So we went out into the forest later on instead. Lots of fox tracks all over the village today, I think this is when the males starts courting their ladies so any time now we’ll be hearing that odd barking howling sound they make. It does sound very odd and perhaps scary if one doesn’t know what it is.
I’ve done my chores, two rounds of laundry and that is extremely much for being me. I had a few beach towels and they are so big that it’s easier to do them by themselves. They’ve been hanging outside in the wind to dry and I just love that smell they have after drying in the wind.
All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
I think I still can have a cup of tea before it’s too late and I’ll be awake all night so I better stop here 🙂
Have a great day!
Ears flapping in the wind 🙂
It took a few hours.
I don’t think I’ve shown this one before, taken with the Zeiss. All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
It has been so warm that most of the snow now is gone 🙂 There is however some ice left, especially where I have my gate towards the road. I noticed that this morning when I was going to work.
The ditch that is supposed to take all the melted water has seen better days, it got a bit destroyed when they put down the sewer system last year. So I could see some ice by the gate and also a lot of water.
These four are taken with the Edixa Prismaflex.
I managed to get down to the gate without slipping to my big surprise but I stood on the wrong side of the gate, the hasp to open it up was on the other side. So I took one step out into the ice and water. I felt how my foot lowly started to slide away all by itself and when I tried to stand more on my other foot it too started to wander away by its own accord.
Everything happened in slow motion, I desperately tried to get a good grip on the gate but nothing helped as I slowly, slowly slid down into the water back first 🙂 It was so ridiculous that I just lay there on my back in the water laughing out loud as the water, rather cold I can tell You, worked its way in towards my body 🙂 🙂 🙂 I had to roll around to be able to get up while the water was running down my legs.
I was thinking about going inside again and change clothes but decided that I just as well could drive to work because who knows if this had happened again the next time I reached the gate? It took a few hours but I did finally dry up 🙂
It is time for something to eat and some warm cocoa I think.
Have a great day!
I must admit, they were right :-)
Yes there is fog but I had hoped for thicker than this.
They had promised fog all day today and fog we had but as we say over here,it was nothing to write home about. It is not until now when the sun is about to go down that it really thickened up properly. I guess that it will be as thickest when I’m on my way to work tomorrow, when I really don’t want any fog 🙂 I must however admit that the predictions were absolutely right and that isn’t something I say often 🙂
It has been a rather nice day temperature wise, 4C (39,2F) and the snow is melting away rather fast. There’s still plenty around but the dripping from our roofs have been steady and I have seen gravel on the road where they have plowed it. Even the stairs to my door will be snow free by tomorrow if it doesn’t get too cold during the night. Still, I have started a fire in the stove just in case the humidity outside would try to get indoors too.
I’ve done the laundry like I always do on Sundays, I still have a few working t-shirts to do since the powder paint tends to get stuck on anything that is washed at the same time. I really should do the dishes too but I don’t feel that I have the energy for it 🙂 I’m pretty sure it won’t run away so it can wait until tomorrow instead. I’ll also make dinner for work today, I’ll have meatballs, breakfast sausages and I think pasta with a tomato sauce. I really would like fried potatoes but then I need to boil the potatoes and then fry them and as I said I don’t have the energy for it 🙂
Less fog when we went out in the afternoon.
Well I better start with the dinner and after that I’ll make myself something else to eat now. All the animals have already gotten their food so they will all sit by my side while I make my food just in case I would drop something or give them bits of it 🙂
Have a great day!
It returned before we came home though.
The cottage by the Crane Lake, life goes on. 
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