Tuesday, June 30, 2009

I have no idea what this lily is called, but it´s beautiful!

Sorry about yesterday. I got migraine all day and wasn´t in the best mood :-) I get it so seldom nowdays that I never have any migraine pills at home. It was worse when I was younger, I always had them with me wherever I went. I think it was the weather that brought it on. We reached 32,6C (90F) and to stand beside a hot owen all day really takes its toll.



The Bluebells has finally started to bloom. This one is called 'Bearded bell' in swedish. The "beard" is inside the bluebell.






This day started out much the same as yesterday, sun was shining, birds singing and noone at work had managed to sleep more than a couple of hours. But then the clouds came and with them the rain. It wasn´t much rain, but the temperature dropped down to pleasant 23C (73F). That is my temperature I can say. I´m going to sleep at my sofa at the bottom floor this night. Perhaps not as comfortable as my bed, but I´ll get some sleep. I still woun´t complain about tyhe heat, I´ll just get a rather nasty mood if it continues much longer :-) :-)



This is what happens to a Sword lily if it stands to dry. The flowers get small and deformed. This one is going in to my pond when that is finished.





I have to buy a new computor soon. This one is almost eight years old and has problems with all information that flows in via the internet. I never play games so I don´t need that kind of programspace in a computor. I mostly use it for mail and blogging. I also would like a laptop, they are still called that? One never knows, things happens so fast in the world now :-)



A filled 'Cinnamon rose'. The stems are cinnamon colored, so it has nothing to do with its scent. Grows wild here in Sweden.


This rose has grown in my garden since before I moved here. It has no scent so it´s probably from the sixties when roses first lost that.


More and more flowers are opening on the japanese climbingrose. Soon it´ll be almost totally white.

The flowers always comes in tens or twelves on the japanese.




But that woun´t happen until this autumn. I need some other things first like a refridgerator and a washingmashine first :-)
Have a great day now!





Sunday, June 28, 2009

Fireweed ( Epilobium angustifolium) . This plant is said to have over onehundred and twenty names in swedish :-)


It´s too hot to write anything today :-) Until just recently there were no wind at all and even my cats sounded like the dogs :-) Not even my dogs wants to take a walk right now. But the wind has come back so maby they will in an hour or so.



This bush, Spiraea japonica (Japanese meadowsweet), doesn´t live in the wild here in Sweden originally. But it seemes to like our climate so now it can be found at many places.





I know the name on this bulb, but I just can´t get it out of my head :-) Grows in northern America and Native Americans used it as food.


Hector showed signs that there was something inside the factory that he didn´t like today, so maybe we weren´t alone as I thought we were. I tend not to go inside at all if I musn´t since last time there were someone there, but at my lunchbreak I have to go inside and sit in the airconditioned office we have at my departement. I don´t care if I see loads of people there then if it´s as hot as it is today :-) They can do what they want as long as I can sit in that cooler office :-)

The Musk mallow (Malva moschata) grows in the wild here, but we have it in our gardens too. They can be pink or white.


These two snails was on a rubarb leaf at work. The smaller one is a normal sized one. The other one is almost twice as big. I´ve never seen such a big one before.


Had to show You these two small once to, just a couple of millimeters long.





So now I leave You until tomorrow with some pictures taken earlier today.
Have a great day now!

The japanese climbing rose has just started to open their flowers now. Small but many!

Saturday, June 27, 2009

The inside of the foxglove is really beautiful if one takes a close look.



My dogs and cats just lies on the floor, not following every step I take as they usually does. It´s to hot today. It´s over 28C (82F) and the wind is still rather hard so it feels like walking in a hot owen right now. I bought a bubbel level but it´s to hot to do anything at all. But I´m not complaining, not at all. I love this weather because it´s so seldom we have it. We never knows how spring will be here, can be cold and rainy or as this year summer hot. Autumn is rainy and winter is dark and either warm and rainy or hellish cold :-)




We don´t have sunflowers in the wild in Sweden, but we have these instead. It´s called "Slåtterfibbla" in swedish (Spotted Cat''s-ear (Hypochoeris maculata), and when that flowers farmers knows it´s time to start making hay.




No burgulars at work today :-) But it was so warm that the paint dried to fast so it looked like dust had sprayed all over it :-) But that´s life sometimes :-)







Vacation time has started over here and I notice that on the traffic out on the roads. One way to spot a person from a big city is because they stop on highways to take pictures of cows :-) and one can see how happy they are to get that picture :-) They can also drive really slowly so they can see the scenery. They don´t want to miss anything :-) Unfortunally we who lives here doesn´t always appreciate that, we see it all the time and sort of forgets that it´s really beautiful here.




Then we have the caravans. They seemes to come in flocks of two hundred and all drivers looks really stressed. Many people have set up goals of what they have to do during vacation and when something goes wrong they get really stressed over that. I never set up goals during vacation, I mean vacation is for relaxing and having fun wether You are at home or travelling. I take the day as it comes instead. Why try to make life harder than one has to?



There´s not much water in the big creek now.


Normally the water level is one meter higher (3,3 feet).



We may not be able to have the Snapdragon as a perennial over here, but who needs it when we have this close relative in the nature? This is a Linaria vulgaris.


Well I still have nine working days till I get my four weeks of vacation, so until then I´ll make some pots of tea and enjoys the weather :-)
Have a great day now!



Just a picture taken late at night. Not the best of pictures but I like it.

Friday, June 26, 2009

My dogroses flowers so nice now.



Today I woke up to the news that Michael Jackson had died. A lot can be said about him and what he had done during his life, But for today let us just remember him for the great artist he was. Down here You can se my own personal favourite.







Rosa multiflora. Every single flower is rather small but there are loads of them. In warmer climats this is a weed worse than most. I know that it in some states in the US is forbidden since it spreads so fast and there for kills a lot of other wild plants, especially other wild roses.



I finally dared to take my tomatoe plants outside yesterday. The risk of frost should now be over but even if we now have hot sunshiny days with up to 28C (82F) we still have nights with temperatures as low as 5C (41F). A mighty high pressure will keep those cold and rainy lowpressures from Amerika away from us at least until next weekend :-) I was going to build a wall greenhouse but the winds are so strong every day that it would be difficult to secure so it wouldn´t fly away. If I´m to build one it has to be a more heavy and permanent than the one I had in mind.





Clematis 'The President'.



Clematis integrifolia.




I think this is clematis 'Nelly Moser'.








I haven´t come any thurther on my pond. I have to buy a bubbel level (or spirit level, I´m not sure if they both are correct) so that the edges on the pond are at the same hight. Wouldn´t look nice if one could see the rubber on some places around the pond. I have also looked at pumps and filters to the pond. I´ve decided that I´ll by that from the same firm I bought the rubber carpet. The pumps are easy to chose from, there are three different that would be perfect, but the filters are more difficult to decide between. There is a couple that is very advanced and there fore expensive. But with any of those there will be less problems with algie in the water. But on the other hand, I´m not going to have a lot of big fishes in the pond, just a couple of small ones that will eat all mosquito larvi. So I think I´ll chose the cheaper ones instead, but I´ll have to talk to that firm before buying anything.







Now it´s time to go away to buy that bubbel level. It´s to hot already to do anything in the garden, so the rest of the day I´ll just take it easy and drink a lot of pots with tea :-)
Have a great day now, I will:-)



This is how far I come with the pond.


Monday, June 22, 2009

It´s easy to get up in the morning when the sky is clear blue and the sun shines :-)



I´m a bit behind with things here at home, so I´ll take some time of from my blog and returns on Friday again. Now we have summer here again and it´s wonderful to stay outside as long as possible at night. But tomorrov “Midsummer murders” starts on tv again, so then I don´t care what weather it is :-)



I wonder if Teodor thinks this is a hughe toilette :-)

Today I dug some more in the pond. I´ll smoth the edges and dig the deep hole wider and then I think I´m finished digging. I did something wrong when digging and I think my back will be sour tomorrow morning :-)


Now there´s water in the ditches again. I could hear the mosquitos cheering :-)




But now I´ll read some blogs and then make a pot of tea and sit on my kitchen stairs for a while.
Have a great day now and see You on Friday!

I wish I knew more about birds and their eggs so I could have written that it was a Cuckoo bird egg or something :-)






Sunday, June 21, 2009

As I promised I took some pictures of how it looks where I grew up. Much are the same but much has changed. It´s more friendly for children nowdays though. Speedbumps all over the place. But first some pictures of how it looked here this morning.









We met a very wet Teodor on our walk home. I think it was him and my neighbours cat I heard figting last night.

The snails loves this foggy weather.







These houses are very special to Gothenburg and a city called Alingsås. The law didn´t allow houses built in tree to be higher than two floors (because of the fire danger) so a smart man figured out that if the bottom floor were made out of stone, they could build two floors on top of that :-) This house was built by Scottish immigrants (very rich people) for poor people. They thought the livingstandard were too bad in the houses that existed. Most of the appartements were two rooms, kitchen and a water closet. But in the eldest part they only had one room but a hughe kitchen instead. Every floor shared a water closet. Most of the houses around didn´t have water or toilett indoors at all. Before they were allowed to move in to the appartement they had to be deloused.






Before there were only sand here, nowdays they have a lawn and benches and everything.


I grew up in the appartement on the bottom floor right ahead. That was a two room appartement. Most people living here at that time were either poor or drunks or both :-) But I always felt totally safe. Even the worst alcoholics kept an eye on us :-)



Here there were a vegetable shop. Only vegetables plus milk and eggs. This was an area where we had gas stoves and to use the gas we had to buy plastic coins (I know there´s a word for it but can´t find it). Most peole didn´t have those in the end of the month or money to buy any, so there were a lot of running to neighbours that might have some to spare. It was the same thing with food sometimes :-)


The place every child longed to go! The candy store is no more but all of us that grew up here has a special place for it and the owner in our hearts :-)


On both sides of the hoses there were roads going down the hill. It felt like we could fly when going down with our bikes. This side were a bit more dangerous though because of all cars driving there. More than one kid got hit by a car there. On the corner of the hose to the right were one of all grocery stores there were in the neighbourhood.

On my side there were fewer cars and less danger, so of course we never went down that road
:-)


There were a pet shop on the corner of this house. It was just beside my school and I went there almost every day :-) Strange that they never got tired of all us kids going in there but seldom did buy anything.


My shool. The oldest parts is now almost 170 years old. From grade one to three my classroom were at the top. I sat by the most left window. From grade four to six my classroom were on the second floor to the left.

It was impossible to get a picture of the school I wet on from grade seven to nine. All trees hid it :-) This was the first time I realised that some people had more money than others. Some of the classes came from one of the riches areas in Gothenburg. We always thought these kids were a bit strange :-)

My Highschool wasn´t so much easier to take a picture on. It was just on the other side from the street of my old school. I´m standing just a couple of meters from the building I grew up in.




A lot of my free time were spent down at the harbour. Nowdays it look so nice with new boats and everything. The bridge in behind is Älvsborgsbron.


The luxury appartements on the other side didn´t exist then and there were a lot of big ships comming and going all the time.


The only ships one can find in the harbour nowdays is the ferries to Germany and denmark.


Down here me and my friends used to fish. If lucky we got cods or if even more lucky a mackerel or flatfish. If unlucky some fish that lived in freshwater and them we could get in any lake nearby. But I loved every minute of it!