We call this little flower for Forest star. I´ve tried to get it in to my garden but without success.

The sun is shining and the wind has for once stopped blowing. It´s not a heat reckord day as they thought yesterday, but that´s as good I think. I don´t like it when temperatures rises over 25c (77F) and it´s just below that now. Exept from birds there´s not a sound out in the village, not even the cows says anything. I can´t even hear car sounds from the big road, but that will come when city folks drive home from their summerhouses sometimes around six pm.

One thing that is great here is that no one uses any kind of poison here. So I never have to worry about things my dogs or cats starts to eat on our walks.

My dogs are sleeping in my bedroom at the coldest spot on the floor. They don´t stay to long at one place but rises and search for a new colder spot within ten minutes. I´ve tried to make them go down in my cold cellar but then they can´t hear or see whats happening in their little kingdom. My cats are probably sleeping under my rose bushes. They are quite big and from there they can see everything that happens in the garden without being spotted them selves.

I woke up this morning more tired than I was yesterday when going to bed. It felt like death had come for a short visit during the night :-) But after having been to the store buying strawberries and icecream (there were other things I bought too, it´s to far away just to buy strawberries and icecream :-) ) and then taking a short nap I feel great again. During my nap I got a phonecall and sms on my mobile phone. I didn´t recognize the number and couldn´t find it on any telephone information company so I don´t care to answer. I didn´t feel like playing miniature golf anyway :-)

This is a ditch, not a little pond but they dug to deep here. So even if there´s no water in the ditch, there´s always water here. A perfect place for insects to live in.

It´s time for a cup of tea I feel, or perhaps a whole pot. It´s to hot to sit on the kitchen stairs right now, but I can sit on the stairs by my entrance instead and watch my neighbours cows. If I´m really lucky I might get a chanse to see the nesting crane couple too. They had thier nest there last year so perhaps they have it there this year too.
Have a great day now!

The sun was shining, all birds were singing and everything was great whan I came to work today. I looked at the equipment they borrowed at work to se if I could make it work. It didn´t take one minute until I figured out how to do with it. I started painting and got a really good surface on the coating. That was until I sort of dropped the painting gun and broke it. Not good. I tried to get to the owner on his mobile phone, but only cae to the answering service on the phone. If I could have reached him we could have gotten a spare part within an hour, but he never phoned back. But now he at least knows what has happened.

Buttercups can come in different colours. This one is light yellow on the outside and white on the inside. This is called 'Citrina'.

It´s summer outside today, really warm and the everlasting wind makes it nice to be outside. It´s just enough to make the flies hide in the bushes and to make the heat tolerable. They say it will continue for a couple of days more and I´m really happy that it´s holiday tomorrow :-)

It´s Disney time on tv now and I have to say they don´t make cartoons like they used to. It´s Gof trop now and I can´t for my life understand what´s funny with it. No I want the old times back then. Like when Donald Duck has a war with Chip´n Dale at Christmas time :-) Or why not Tom and Jerry or Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote :-) :-) I laughe so I cry when watching Wile E coyote trying his stupid ideas like eating earthquake pills :-) Or the time he actully catches Road runner, but has shrinken in size :-) So when it comes to cartoons, please give me back those good old days :-)
Have a nice day now!

Finally they have opened up! My tree paeonys are of course big favourites of mine. But they don´t show their true colour until they have come up in age. The two I have of this sort was deep purple when young, now when older they are almost white and therefore, by some reason I don´t understand, more desirable by most people.

Summer is here again today and will stay until Tuesday if they are guessing right. There´s still a wind blowing, but now it´s so weak that the flies made lawn mowing awful. It´s not the bloodsucking monsters yet but those who only wants to get in to ones ears and nose to check what can be in there. But on the positive side the swallows has arrived to the village :-)

Cerastium tomentosum also called "Snow in summer plants" in english. If You have a dry, sunny and hot space where nothing else will grow, test this one. It covers hugh areas fast and flowers all summer.

I took a nap earlier today. I woke up already at 6:30 and really tired and irritated. I wonder what I had been dreaming of? My dogs realised that I was awake so they made sure that I got up too :-) But when I tried to take a nap suddenly I could feel the smell of fried potatoes. It´s impossible to sleep then, so I just lay there listening to the birds and smelling the potatoes :-) That was when I heard the typical sort of screaming sound of the swallows. I hope they´ll nest over my window this year too. They make a mess but that doesn´t matter.

The bumble bees are working hard now and don´t care if I come close with the camera.

Even if I really like the flowers on my tree paeonys usually my favourite flowers are quite small. Like on this geranium, Geranium phaeum or "Mourning widow" in english.

I could heare all kinds of birds and insekts flying just outside my bedroom window and my cats playing around undernieth it. But then I suddenly felt the smell of hamburgers getting fried and then it was impossible to stay in bed :-)

Violettes in different colours are popping up all over my garden. Some call them weed but I let them stay where they grow.

The 'Portal' is now closed in the top and behind it a world of magik begins.

They called from work today too. They have gotten something to paint that shall have the same finish on the surface as a car. We don´t have that kind of equipment to do a job like that, so they had borrowed it from someone. The problem is that they don´t know how to adjust the equipment so it works. It´s impossible to help by phone and the painter had no time to stay so I could go there and have a try with it. So that´ll be my job tomorrow. I did paint at Volvo once but that´s over twelve years ago :-) But the main problem is to make the equipment to work at all. So cross Your fingers or hold Your thumbs as we do in Sweden so I can get this thing work tomorrow.
Have a great day now!

The weather didn´t show it self from its best side today. The wind is a strong gale and there comes heavy showers now and again.

Woody has made another video with my pictures in it and put music to them. You can see the video in his blog ‘Good old beans’. It´s great and he has put in a lot of work to make it so. The music is with one of my favourite singers too! Take a look at it!

Bertil absolutly wanted to follow us on the morning walk despit the bad weather.

Last night I woke up in panik. It sounded as something was eating inside my ear. It was terrible and I tried to get what ever it was out of my ear. Strangly enough nothing was there. That didn´t make me much kalmer I can tell You. But after some minutes the sound died out and I was so tired that I fell asleep again. I told my boss in the morning and he started to laughe and asked if I possible had washed my hair the night before. He had heard the same thing several nights and it almost drove him crazy. It´s tiny shampoo bubbles that has come in to the ear and when they dry out and birsts they make that strange sound in the ear :-) :-) :-)

Anemone sylvestris, Snowdrop Windflower. If it likes its enviroment it spreads like crazy, but who cares :-)

The winds has been terrible all night and all day today. They say it´s gale, but I think it´s more of a storm actully. It´s cold too, so I have had a fire in my stowe all afternoon. We took a walk in the forest this morning, but now the wind is even stronger so I think we´ll have to skip more walks today. It´s not totally safe out there I feel. It also feels as if we could drown in some of the showers that comes now and again.

Anemone narcissifolia. Haven´t found any english name for it. This one stood to dark I think because it didn´t flower until a tree was taken down.

Pink shootingstar, Dodecatheon dentatum. I gave away all of mine because it´s to dry in my garden. But one seed germinated and now I have it again :-) I have to give it a lot of water all summer, outherwise it will dry out and die.

So I said good bye to Hobbes yesterday and hello to Piglet. Piglet is a -99 Mazda 323 and I feel that I bought a really good car! It also has a great stereo and it doesn´t drink a lot of petrol. Now when the price is way over six US dollars/ US gallons that is an important thing. Now when summer comes the petrol price will get even higher, I wouldn´t be surprised if it will go over seven US dollars/US gallon now when summer and vacation comes.

Yesterday I said goodbye to Hubbes.

And hello to Piglet :-)

Have a great day now and check out that video now!

It´s time to say good bye to Hobbes, my Volvo. Tomorrow I´ll drive it to the junk yard and after that a friend will pick me up and drive me to my new car Piglet. Yes I have always had names on my cars :-) it´s an old tradition in my family. My mothers cars was always called Kleopatra and a number. All my cars have had different names though. My first car, a Citroen DS21 was called Bettan. A typical name for ones first car, but after that they became more personal. Usually I don´t name them until I´ve been driving them for a while. I must get the feeling of the car. One Volvo I had was called Eyeore. It had just that personality :-) Since I know the current owner of my next car I´ve seen it quite often and has always seen it as Piglet.

My sailboat had the name Winnie the Pooh. It was a bit slow but very friendly. It never did anything extra ordinary and could always be trusted to slowly go where I wanted. I never used the engine on that boat. My friend who tought me to sail hated engines and said that if I started to trust the engine to bring me where I wanted I would be completely lost if it broke down. I actully think he was right there. When friends didn´t dare leaving port when the engine broke (they always brake when most needed :-) ), I simply set sails and sailed away. The only time I tried to use it I hit a jetty just because I didn´t understood if I should steer the boat with the rudder or the engine :-) But to be honest, I was never a good sailor, so I didn´t miss my boat when I sold it and moved to the country side.

I was used to be in the country side even before I moved there. I had rented cottages for years before the move, but still it was a different thing to actully live here. When comming up over a weekend one has a tendensy to think bad roads are a bit charming. That it´s no problems when the closest store is miles away and that it´s impossible to travel by bus, because it goes on a sceduel that doesn´t fit anyone :-) But one adjusts to the cirkumstanses and these things becomes minor irritations. I remember that I in the beginning sort of forgot that I´d moved up here until I was half way to Gothenburg :-) Realising that made me so happy that it actully hurt. In the beginning was it difficult falling asleep because it was so silent here. On weekends I was used to the silence, but on weekdays I sort of missed the sounds from the traffic and the trams. Nowdays I can´t sleep in the city at all.
Have a great day now!

We went down to the creek this afternoon. The waterlevel is slightly higher after a couple of heavy rains tha last few nights. But the water moves so slow that it´s really clear now. The ocra color on the bottom comes from iron in the ground, so it´s basicly rust.

I always biked everywhere when I lived in Gothenburg. To and from work , to and from my dogyard and to and from where I was running every day. I biked almost 25 european miles ( 155 miles) every week and of course I got a bit careless after a while. Every once in a while I hit something or fell from my bike but never more serious than that I could continue after a couple of minutes.

After the dandylions butter-cups are taking over everywhere.

I remember what happened just before I decided it was best not to bike any more. I used to bike through the harbour in Gothenburg on my way to work. Early mornings and late nights I could hear the Nightingale and the raod was usually quite empty. On one place I could chose to follow the road directly to the bicycle path or I could chose a shorter way beside the sludge piles from Gothenburgs treatment plant. If I took that way it was a must to bike with my mouth closed or I would outherwise have a lot of flies for involuntaru dinner :-)


Haberlea rhodopensis is a close relative to the Saintpaulia. It can live here if it´s not to wet during winter.



Usually I took the way by the sludge piles, but there was a road gate that could be closed. 99 times of 100 it was open, so I just biked on as I usually did. One afternoon I was a bit late and biked faster than I used to do. I crossed the road to get to the sludge pile road and just a couple of meters before the gate I looked up and saw that the gate was closed. I breaked as hard as I could but realised that I wouldn´t stop in time. On the left side there were a lot of trees on the right side there was a field with Common club-rush. Well I didn´t want to hit a tree so I choosed the Club-rush. What I didn´t see whas that the gate continued a couple of meters (4-5 feet) out in to the club-rush. So when I think I will get a slow stop in the grass, the stop is sudden and hard. The handlebar was so high that my fingers stuck in the gate while I myself went over and continued way out in the muddy area behind the gate :-)

Cealndine poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum).

I came of course a bit late to work that day and all my work mates had a lot of fun that night asking me over and over to tell what I had done :-) My fingers was swollen and it was a bit hard to work, so I did a lot of paperwork that night. I did feel a bit stiff the day after but decided to bike to work anyway. Once again I was a bit late and biked really fast. I don´t know why, but once again I looked up just before the gate and saw that it was closed again :-) The only thing I was thinking of when flying over the gate was how I should explaine how I could do the same thing just one day after I did it the last time :-) :-) Do I have to tell You that my work mates were extremely happy when they heard what I´d done :-) :-)

It´s just a matter of days now until the Tree paeony flowers. It looks as if this one is pink.

I decided to stop biking to work a week later. My bike started to behave strange when biking home. It sort of braked by it self. I stopped a couple of times but couldn´t find anything wrong with the breaks. On my way down a small hill there was a bump and I used to jump as long as possible everytime I passed it. In the middle of the jump one of my wheels falls of. Nothing got broken and I always used a helmet when biking and I think that without it I wouldn´t be writing this :-)
Have a great day now!

Commersials and adds. We have them all around us and we think we really don´t get affected by them, but of course we do. But not always in the way the advetisors wants us to.

Ladybugs comes in all colours it seemes.

I forinstance have never eaten a Snickers bar. I think it was in the late seventies that they showed a comercial where a young girl stod on a market place selling all sorts of delicious vegetables and fruits. Then she suddenly says: “When I´m hungry I´m eating a Snickers bar”. I don´t for a minute think that she would be that stupid when she had all these other delicious things around her to eat! I hate when they assume that I´m stupid enough to belive that sort of thing!

My double azalea will bloom soon.

So every time I see a comersial that assumes that I´m an idiot that buys anything I refuse to by what ever they are trying to sell. There are a lot of things I don´t by anymore :-) :-)
Nowdays it´s popular to make the comersials like a soap. First time I saw that was perhaps fifteen years ago. It was a comersial for Néscafe gould. A handsome man comes to his neighbour, a beautiful woman of course, to borrow some coffee and the story continues for a while and I think they got married in the last commersial.

The three comming pictures shows three different euphorbias. Nice plants but they have a tendensy to spread a little bit to much.

Nowdays there are a lot of such mini soaps in the comersial world. It´s fun in the beginning, but when it continues for almost two years and no end can be seen it makes me wanna puke! Why end a winning theme they seemes to think. But this continuing story that one of our biggest store companies have had for absolutly to long has made me starting to avoid that chain of stores.
Have a great evening now!

This and the next picture shows two different sorts of the same species, Physocarpus opulifolius.

I´ve shown You many sunrises now, but they are beautiful.

I got a bit surprised when I came to work today, everything was as it should be :-) The things they said that I should paint were actully there :-) I´m painting hughe ventilation pipes to Volvo and they are screwed on pallets. Some of the pipes are really heavy and some of the pallets are in bad shape and it´s not good if they combien those two. They had done that this time. I´m driving slowly with my forclift when suddenly the big pipe falls of the pallet. It took me an hour to get it back and screwed on again. It sounded like a big church bell when it fell to the ground and Hector hasn´t forgiven me yet :-)

The clematis 'Tove' climbs up a dead plum tree. Next year it will cover it totally.

It´s summer outside today. The ever lasting wind is warm too and it´s to strong for the flies so they hide in the bushes, that´s at least one good thing with the wind :-) Yesterday I decided that it was time to get all plants out from my cold basement where they are during winter. They looked a bit gloomy even if I have extra powerful light down there, so I got my cutting scissors. Not much left of them now, but they´ll be great in a week or two if the nights woun´t be to cold.

Lewisia cotyledon. This one can take our cold waether over here, but it can´t take cold weather and rain. So if not protected it will root during winter. The first flower opened today :-)

My good frien Woody made a slideshow with my pictures and added great music to them this winter. If You want to see it just click on Good old Beans and there it is. I think he did a great job!
Have a great day now!

P.S. If You want I can show You an x-ray picture of how my right hip looks after the operation. D.S.

Iris pumila. This iris only gets about ten centimeters high ( four inches). This variety is called 'Helge'. The first iris to start blooming in my garden.