Thursday, June 17, 2010



I would like that summer is official here now. It´s fairly warm and the sun is shining. But the most important sign was that I yesterday evening and just minutes ago got my first bites from horse flies :-) :-) :-) Since the bog is full of water and most of the fly larvaes has survived this will be a terrible summer to remember till senility takes the memories away :-) :-) :-) Suddenly mosquito´s seemes cuddly and nice :-) :-) :-) But thankfully most of those summer killers stays near the forest and bog, so I can still be outside in my garden without getting to many bites from them. They are also late starters in the morning, so my  dogs and I can still take our morning walks out there without to much troubles.








The magpies in the area has better memory than I have. I had my kitchen door open yesterday evening and suddenly I heard some strange noice in my kitchen. A magpie had flown in and started to eat the cat food :-) :-) I had forgotten that they learned their young ones that last summer :-) :-) This year I´ll sit hidden somewhere and take a photo if I can, but they bare really smart birds so they will most probably make some test runs first just to see if anything happens :-)









Something similar happens every day at work too, but these birds doesn´t steel any food. It´s swallows that flies in to the factory looking for flies I guess, even if we don´t have especially many flies there. They really are fantastic flyers and can avoid any suddenly appering obsticle without problems. But we have to check every day that all of them has flown out before we close the place down for the day or weekend. They won´t have any problems staying over night, but their younglings needs their food.


When this plant gets seeds we used to pretend it was coffee when we played as children :-)






Have any one of You all ever grown Naranjilla (Solanum quitoense)? I got some seeds two years ago but never sowed them, not until this spring. The fruit is said to be delicious but gets spoiled fast. I now have eight plants in my kitchen window and is wondering if they need tropical heat or if I just can put them outside for the rest of the summer. I´m giving away most of them to others so it would be great if I actually new howe to keep them :-) :-) :-) If I get fruits I´ll save lots of seeds and any one of You can get some if You want.




When the common Lilac starts to fade the Hungarian starts to flower. I like this one better because it doesn´t spread as much and the scent is weaker.



Now it´s time for a cup of tea and then out in to the cyberspace.
Have a great day now!




I´ve gotten some questions about what camera I uses and different lenses I might have. But this is the one I have. It´s a good camera for its price range. We do argue a lot, but more seldom the longer we work together :-) :-) :-)

18 comments:

jaz@octoberfarm said...

hi christer....things are looking very good in your garden! i love your lupine! mine was doing very nicely but then the leaves turned brown and i have no flowers. not sure what happened to it. i don't know how you handle those flies. they would drive me crazy. can't you get fly traps for your house? joyce

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Joyce!
I´m so happy for the few lupines I have here. I tried to sow more but thay just won´t grow and I don´t know why? We have it all over the country and we all love them, they are summer for most of us. I´m glad that the nobility once thought it was a difficult flower and imported it from america :-) :-)

I´m going to buy more fly traps tomorrow. I have one hanging outside and it attracts more and more flies now. But it is something like a spit in the ocean :-) :-) :-) The bog and all cattle here is a perfect habitat for all those flies. In a montn or so I´m used to them all :-)
Have a great day now!
Christer.

Perovskia said...

The flies would definitely drive me crazy. The day I went to my friends farm when we took the back walk in the bush, in just over 5 minutes, I got bitten 8 times by mosquitoes :(

Your work people make sure the birds are out before they shut down for the night? I'm not sure our people would be so generous. That's awful nice of you :)

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Perovskia!
I will most probably start using a mosquitoe hat from now on, I just hate when they try to take a walk in my ears and nose :-) :-) I think we have much more insects the further north one comes. The summer is short and they all come at the same time more or less.


Yes, we love our swallows even if they do make a mess :-) :-) :-) Their droppings are all over the place :-) :-)
Have a great day now!
Christer.

Anonymous said...

Want more bugs, come to Florida, we got em down here in rather large quantities. The humidity to day is so high, so murky, I turned on the garage fan for the first time this summer. It will likely be on all afternoon. Great photos today Christer. Who's farmhouse is in the first picture?

Sharlene T. said...

Yah, that's what I want to know, whose farmhouse in the first picture...it would make a wonderful painting...I couldn't handle the flies, bletch...somebody needs to invent a fly tazer!...thanks for sharing...

Caryn said...

Hi Christer,
Wonderful photos.
I'm in agreement with you on the horse flies. When I had a horse the place I kept him had huge horseflies but there weren't very many of them. The worst ones and the most numerous were the greenhead flies. They pack a nasty bite for their size.
We also had swallows in our barn. I loved to watch the fledglings play catch with a bit of down. One would fly up with it in its beak and drop it and another one would catch it. Good practice for bagging bugs on the wing.

NinaH said...

Tack för vänlig kommentar på min blogg! Antar att du vet/minns själv hur det var & hur glad man blir för så´na kommentarer från din egen "nyliga" "värktid"!;-)
Tihi... Nya insektsfunderingar... !
Cyber-shot är en bra kamera. Cyber-shot- för så där fyra kameror sedan!;-) Som du vet har jag ju - rätt ofrivilligt- tvingats köpa nya kameror!...Hm...;-).... Enda fördelen: Jag har lärt mig en massa på vägen och har utifrån det varje gång kunnat "gradera upp mig" på kamerasidan!;-)....

Terria said...

As akways your photos are lovely. Sorry about the bugs and pests, but at least you have sunshine!

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

You do have a lot of bugs, Christer, but then we do here on the VA eastern shore too. Thankfully most of them stay outside. We had several birds in our house a few years ago and they died because they could not get out after coming in through an open furnace flue. We were not living here full-time but still in NJ. The opening has since been screened off. It was very messy :-(

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Z&M!
I´m quite happy with those we already have :-) :-) :-)

That farmhouse belongs to a property the castle owners also owns. But it is for sale now. The main house is a brick house not to pretty though.
Have a great day now!
Christer.

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Sharlene!
That property is for sale, but the main house is a not to pretty brick house. I´ll try to take a photo of it when driving by today.

I sort of gets used to all flies in the end, but it is rather terrible now in the beginning :-) It wouldn´t be this bad though if we´ve had a dry spring.

Have a great day now!
Christer.

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Caryn!
I thibk it´s quite even in ammount between the different biting monsters we have here :-) :-)

It´s so fun watching those birds playing and catching their dinner! It is amazing how they can fly already as young!
Have a great day now!
Christer.

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Tjänare Nina!
Det är inget roligt när skiten aldrig går över! Hoppas verkligen denna kuren du tar nu fungerar!!

Jo det är en bra liten kamera, med tanke på att den inte är speciellt dyr. Skulle vilja ha en systemkamera, men först måste jag ha en ny kyl/frys, tvättmaskin, fixa bilen ...... :-) :-)
Krya på dig nu!
Christer.

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Terria Flemming!
Thanks :-)
The bugs and pests are something one has to live with if one wants to live here, nasty bites but I´ll survive :-)

No sunshine this morning though and it might not show itself at all today. THat´s life I´m afaraid :-)
Have a great day now!
Christer.

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Beatrice!
The bog is a perfect nursery for all these flies and other nasty blood suckers we have here. Very, very annoying now in the beginning, but after a while one gets used to them, sort of :-)

We all look so we don´t have any swallows left indoors when going. We don´t want them to die and they do make a trerrible mess if locked inside during night :-) :-)
Have a great day now!
Christer.

forg_penguinn@verizon.net said...

AH yes, the biting bugs of summer. Your right that the mosquitos are wimps, and Green Heads (marsh files) are slow enough to swat before they bite. BUT the Black Fly (deer fly, horse fly swamp fly) land with their jaws alreday biting. And then there is the "Joy of Chiggars".

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Penguinn!
What would summer be without them, oh so sad :-) :-) :-)

But after reading about chiggers I´m really happy to say we don´t have much problems with them :-) I know garden people sometimes get bitten by our variety, but not often thank god!
Have a great day now!
Christer.