Tuesday, August 17, 2010



It has been a cloudy but warm day today. The sky was dark grey when I drove home from work and the closer I got the darker the sky got. The first drops of rain started to fall when I drove in to the village. Now it´s pouring down outside.





Nothing ever works as it should at work when we come back after vacation. But this time most things broke down the week before when my boss was there to do some things. We´re only two persons at my departement nowdays so we had to borrow people from other places in the factory and that never is good since they don´t know how to work in the right way. But we also has a young man that has worked in the factory this summer and he is a life saver :-)


Rodnande fjällskivling or in english Shaggy parasoll. Some that eats this mushroom gets sick others don´t. I like it as a mushroom to mix with other mushrooms.




Even though he only will stay this week he is curious and willing to learn new things and he works really hard. He makes me look much lazier than I really am :-) :-) Since I usually am tied to my painting machine much of the time he could take much of the work my boss usually does (he is still on vacation You see). So if this young man hadn´t been here this week my job would have been much tougher.


Two kinds of Finger mushrooms. The yellow is unedible and the one below is edible (but it doesn´t taste that great to be honest.



There is an old crabapple tree groing just beside my dogyard and it must be over one hundred yars old. It´s so old that it doesn´t have the strength to flower every year but this year it did and very much too. So now every branch is full of small apples. So many that the weight of them got to much for the poor old tree. I did think one big branch were a bit to low yesterday morning when I went to work and I was right. It is as thick as my thigh and had broken and some of it had hit the fence to the dogyard.





So yesterday evening I brought an old saw and started cutting those parts from the fence. It´s not that big damage to the fence but it is no use fixing it until we´ve taken away all of it from the tree, because it´s still attached to the branch in question. So we´re planning on using a tractor, a saw (maybee my electric chainsaw) to get it down now on Saturday. My neighbors telephone lines is in the danger zone so we will all work together to bring down the branch as painless as possible :-) :-) I hope I can take some photos of us working (but I´m not sure the others will allow it though :-) :-)  )


The old tree doesn´t have many more years I´m afraid. There are big cracks in all bigger branches and funguses has attacked it for years now.

The damages could have been much worse after all.

I feel that it´s time for a cup of tea now and then some blog reading.
Have a great day now!

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's good that you had help at work. You have the funniest looking mushrooms over there. I'm taken with them because they all look wild and different from what we have here in Florida.

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Z&M!
I´m so glad he is with us this week too! It´s hard enough to start working after vacation as it is anyway.

It´s fun to know that somethin´g quite common here is a bit exotic elsewhere :-)
Have a great day now!
Christer.

Chris in the Emerald City said...

Oh, so sorry about the crabapple tree! Really cool mushrooms... And thank you for identifying my mystery plant! I have looked up how to care for it, and see that I have been over-watering.

Have a great day!
Chris.................

ana_didi said...

Hi Christer,
I'm glad you got help in their work. So everything will be lighter in those early days. I am impressed with the amount of mushrooms you have. I would love to see one of these "Finger" a day in my life.
How sad the old tree ... so full of fruit yet. There is no remedy for it?
Kisses for you and your five friends 4 feet
Didi

caryn said...

Hi Christer,
More mossy, fairy-looking photos today. I like them a lot.
Sorry about the crabapple. I don't think I have seen one quite so large as that. Most around here are 10 to 15 feet and not very large in the trunk. Of course they are not 100 years old either.
I remember when our old apple trees blew over in one of the hurricanes. It was very sad because we children climbed in them all the time.
Enjoy your tea and the rest of your day.

Sharlene T. said...

Rainy days and Mondays always get you down (as the song says)… Love the pictures because they set just the right mood and I, too, am glad that you were able to get some help at work… Enjoy your tea

Twitter: SolarChief

NinaH said...

Great to have working company of such guy!
Good it worked out (pretty) well with that branch etc.!;-)

Cindi Myers said...

WOW! I ADORE that photo of the mushroom that some get sick from and others don't!
It's Fantastic!
Do you have a Flickr account?
If not, you need one!
Then you could share your photos with even more people!

Susie på Stjärnarve... said...

Förutom att det är ett hårt jobb - framförallt att ta rätt på allt efteråt - så är det ju aldrig kul att ta ner gamla träd (ska jag säga, vi som avverkat 100 träd på tomten). Det tar ju bara några timmar, medan det kanske tagit 50-100 år för dom att växa upp.

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

It's a very rainy (and dark) Wednesday morning here on the Virginia eastern shore. The mood fits the one shown in your photos. I was cutting the lawn Monday and saw a couple of mushrooms with dark brown caps - alas no camera. There were none quite like the ones you posted - very unusual. Good luck with the tree project.

jaz@octoberfarm said...

hi christer....so sad to lose an old tree. using my pool and floating around has me studying my yard. early next spring i will bring in tree cutters and remove many branches. at least the branch did not create an escape route for the dogs!!! it is still hot and dry here. i am so sick of our weather! joyce

Caddie said...

Do you have Crabapple Jelly? Nothing like it. I always think "jewel" when I see it. Oh,...what I'd give for a bushel of crabapples!

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

I´ll answer You all at the same place like I did yesterday.

Hi Chris!
Yes it´s a bit sad that it slowly falls appart, but apple trees doesn´t get that old unfortunally.
Yes Hawortior doesn´t need much water at all, so it is easy to over-watering them.

Hi Didi!
I wonder if we have more visible mushrooms up here or if it´s just that they all turn up at the same time. Some of them looks really cool :-)
No the tree is dying from old age so there´s nothing to do I´m afraid.

Hi Caryn!
If I only would be able to maintain a moss garden I would have one! But it´s so much easier with grass to be honest :-)
There are quite many species of crab apples and the one we have gets up to 25 meters high (about the same in yards). The apples are really sour but can make the difference in an apple sauce :-)


Hi Sharlene!
So true! especially when I come home from work and finds three big muddy dogs in the dogyard :-) :-) They have dug through the protecting carpet under the gravel so they are just a mess on rainy days :-) :-)

Hi Nina!
He helped a lot and I am lucky that he stays all week long!
It could have been much worse with that branch to be honest.

Hi Cindi!
It is a beautiful mushroom and I like it a lot since I don´t get sick of it :-) :-)
I do have a Flickr account but I can´t find it nowdays since I had to reformat the hard drive :-) :-) But I do have an account on National Geographic where I put photos. Those photos aren´t shown here since I´m not allowed to if I put them in NG.


Tjänare Susie!
Det är alltid lite sorgligt när gamla trän måste kapas. Nu låter vi det sakta dö så det är bara grenen som gick av som skall kapas. Resten får stå kvar, det finns trots allt en del fågelbon och andra bon i det.


Hi Beatrice!
I have lots of different mushrooms in my lawn and I think most of them are deadly if I would try eating them :-) :-)
I think we need all luck we can get, so thank You! :-)

Hi Joyce!
Yes it is sad when they slowly fall appart, but that´s life I´m afraid.
I think it´s great that You bring in tree cutters. They know what to do and how to do it without damaging the tree.
Yes it could have been much worse problems if that branch had fallen just inches closer to the dogyard! I really hope You´ll get cooler weather noe, especially since You are an autumn person.

Hi Sissy!
I have actually tasted crabapple jelly and it was sooo good :-) But I have never been able to make it as tasty myself :-)You can pick as many bushels with crabapples as You like if You only get here :-) :-)


Have a great day You all!
Christer.

Kat said...

Christer,
No rain for us today but it was still damp and humid. I did get coffee on the deck which I missed yesterday because of the rain. The rest of the week should be nice.

I've been hanging around-too many tourists!

Wsprsweetly Of Cottages said...

But Christer dear, that old tree is plainly talking to you. It is telling you that "look, look what I can still do! Look at how many crab apples I am giving you and you thought I couldn't do it!" :)
It outdid it's self and one of the branches broke. Can you not just remove that one branch and keep the tree? Maybe trim off some of the tree to lighten the load. It is a wonderful old tree.
But what do I know! :) How I hate removing a tree. Our cyprus' tree's are living part of our concrete driveway, but that is just the price of having tree's.

My little lemon tree has lots of lemons but them don't seem to be growing....what could be wrong with them. How often do you feed them... :) I must read the directions...I am bad about that!

Be nice to that tree. You know more about them than I do...but...the poor thing.

Enjoy your nice hot tea...take care, Christer! Glad you had some good help at work too.
Love your photo's! SO beautiful..and CLEAR! :)
Mona

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Kat!
They said it would rain all day today and lots would fall, but so far only a few drops has come down :-)I hope the weather keeps nice for You :-)


Hi Mona!
Don´t worry, we won´t cut down all of it because we like it to much :-) But we have to take down the branch that got broken because it is still attached to the tree. We are a bit worried that it will bring down the whole tree if we don´t remove that part.

You should fertilize Your lemontree once a week as long as it isn´t winter. Look in the ingredients on the fertilizer so it contains iron, because citruses really need that.

Even You should however reduce the ammount of fertilizer the closer You come to what You call winter (really, You almost have our summertemperatures then) :-) :-):-)


Have a great day both of You!
Christer.

Wenche said...

Så härliga bilder

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hejsan Wenche!
Tack skall du ha :-)
Ha det gott!
Christer.