Saturday, January 30, 2010

The moon is comming out of the clouds and that means it´s going to be a cold night in winter. I just didn´t realise how cold to be honest :-)

-25,4C or -13F here this morning. I can´t say I like it, on the contrary! I do hope we´ll get some milder weather real soon! I don´t want to come home after the surgary only to slip on the ice the first thing I do when getting out of the car :-) :-)



The moon gave that much light that I could take a photo. Not very common I can say, the snow helps a lot.

Bertil the cat didn´t come home yesterday. It was quite cold already then and I went out several times, but no Bertil. All clouds flew away and the full moon was showing itself, so I got a bit worried.


A very, very cold cat came running towards us :-)

He didn´t come this morning either. So I got convinced that he either had frozen to death or been taken by the big fox we have here or the bobcat. They found tracks from a bobcat just beside my neighbours house, they also found the rests from a deer.


The sun is slowly rising above Mount Mösseberg this morning.

But I decided to take a walk with my dogs, despite the cold weather. Already after five minutes I lost all feeling in my legs :-) When we had passed my neighbours stable a small grey cat came running towards us :-) It was a very froizen little Bertil :-)



I think all of us here in the village has a fireplace of some kind.
Normally he doesn´t like when I lift him up on our walks, but now he almost looked thankful :-) He shivered so much the poor thing. But after a couple of minutes he started to purr instead. I decided to walk home with him again and just when we came close to the stable again we heard a scream from what I think was a hare. The fox had gotten his dinner.





This weekend is bird counting weekend. All that wants is going to count the birds and name the species that eats by their bird feeders. Since it is so bl...y cold here more unusual birds has come to my feeders. Unusual for this place that is. So far I´ve seen 21 Great Tits (those have I called Tallow ox before), 15 Blue tits, 40 Greenfinches, 5 Bramblings, 1 bullfinch, 5 Tree sparrows, 1 Black bird and 1 House sparrow.



Now it´s time to count more birds, I´m pretty sure I heard a wood pecker some minutes ago.

Have a great day now!

14 comments:

Monaxe said...

Jag blev riktigt orolig där ett tag, innan du berättade att katten var återfunnen!
Kylan är bitande hård här också och isläget börjar bli tufft för öborna. Vi klarar ju oss, men jag tror inte invånarna i min damm klarar sig så länge till. Det är ett kämpande varje dag med att hålla en liten vak öppen. Vet inte hur tjock isen är, men utrymmet har nog minskat drastiskt för fiskarna :-(

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Tjänare Monaxe!
Jag var övertygad om att jag skulle hitta rester av honom någonstans på vägen. Vi har en Lo hona som varit riktigt aktiv här ett tag, dessutom en mycket stor räv som visst gärna går på vägen utanför mitt hus mitt på dagen :-) Så antagligen gömde han sig i ett litet skrymsle vid stallet inatt. Men gissa om han frös, har aldrig kännt en katt skaka så!


Här går tjälen en meter ned i marken, så hos mig är dammen bottenfrusen nu. Tur att jag skaffade slöjstjärtar som måste tas in över vintern :-) :-) Annars hade de definitivt varit djupfrysta nu :-) :-)

Såg på västnytt hur mycket is det är i skärgården. Men jag minns från -85 att man kunde köra bil över till Donsö då, så det är en bit kvar trots allt :-) :-)
Ha det gott!
Christer.

jaz@octoberfarm said...

hi christer....omg...i was so nervous for bertil while i was reading the post. i am so glad he is home safe and warm. it is freezing here as well. i always leave the door slightly open so teddy can just push it to go outside. the problem is, she doesn't know how to close it behind her. she is in and out all day long so i am up and down the stairs all day pulling the door to. i got a new deep fryer so i am making doughnut this morning. i am making regular frosted ones and jelly doughnuts too. my kids will be very happy when they wake up this morning! joyce

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Joyce!
I was quite worried all morning, but now he´s sleeping on my kitchen table in the last of the daylight :-)

In summer the dorr is always open all day. Not the best of things rainy days :-) :-) But now it´s so cold that they don´t want to go out :-)

Jelly doughnuts is sooooo tasty :-)
Have a great day now!
Christer.

Anonymous said...

I'm so happy to read Bertil is OK. I would have been up all night worrying about Zoey. We never let her out. She would not know how to fend for herself and I'm sure a stray dog would do her in, if not cars on the highway. We are very protective of her for those reasons. Good that she came home. I always thought the cold weather would drive them to heated objects which is why up north we found ferrel cats under our cars. They would stay near the engine as it took a long time overnight for it to cool. Long enough for the cats to stay warm. Photos are more like the arctic and the first shot of the moon is really dramatic.

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Z&M!
I thought the fox already had taken him, cars and roads are nothing we have to be worried about here. Every one knows of all the animals living here so they drive carefully.

Probably the fox has cirkeled around where ever he was all night. But when we came the fox found a hare instead.

I actully don´t live that far from the arctic cirkle, perhaps around 435 miles.
Have a great day now!
Christer.

Anonymous said...

alrite Christer you are keeping a good count on them birds and (the cat came back ) thats a song over here. I am healing and reading and will be bloggin again soon.Always enjoy shareing your walks and adventures.

woody

Kat said...

Christer,
I had to skip down further to read more about Bertil as you had me worried. I was so happy he found you. Neither of my cats go outside; here coyotes hunt cats and some summer nights I can hear the cat screams. I hate it. My two sleep next to the heater vent on an afghan. Life is good for them.

It was so cold here too all day. Gracie had a quick in and out.

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Woody!
I´m glad to see You here!
I´ve never heard that song, think I´ll have to search the internet for it.

Great that You´re healing! Looking forward to Your blogs!
Have a great day now!
Christer.

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Kat!
Normally I don´t think foxes tries to take adult cats here, they know the cats aim for their eyes. But this fox we have around nowdays is really big and Bertil is really small. So I did think we had lost Bertil. But we do have a bobcat here too and she does eat cats without hesitating.

We all know that when dogs rather stay indoors it´s really cold outside :-) :-) We have -9F here at the moment.
Have a great day now!
Christer.

Wsprsweetly Of Cottages said...

Hi Christer,
I was relieved to read that Bertil was safe and sound if a bit cold. I guess they put those fur coats to good use. Cayotes are the main killers of small animals here in Southern California. They will come right into a very crowded neighborhood, jump fences and kill cat and dogs. I think we have moved in and built around them and eventually they run out of food for their young and themselves. It's sad..for both sides.

Your photo's are just beautiful! You capture some lovely scenes.
Keep warm. Enjoy your tea. How did your pancakes turn out?
I must go back and see..
Mona

Wsprsweetly Of Cottages said...

p.s. I don't think I spelled Coyotes correctly. :)

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Mona!
I think You spelled coyote like You say it, because I didn´t see it at first :-)

We don´t have them here but I guess that they ar in size like a big dog. Like You say, You have moved in to their natural habitat, but if I´m not wrong, coyotes do walk in to towns because there are a lot of food there. Here in Europe wolves does the same. I remember seeing a tv program that they and bears walks around in the biggest cities and walks out before most people wake up :-)

Bertil has just gone out for a couple of minutes since yesterday :-) I think he got enough of cold weather for this winter :-)
Have a great day now!
Christer.

NinaH said...

Till och med vi har kallt! Hu!
Tur att Bertil kom hem till slut!!;-)