The night was really cold and going out this morning felt like I had gone back a couple of weeks in time. But the sun was shining and there was no wind at all so it was quite pleasant to take the morning walk. But already on my way home the clouds started to slowly fly over the area and soon the sun was gone. It got much warmer on the other hand so I don´t complain :-) :-)

I managed to do quite a lot today. First I drove to work and said Hi to all my workfriends. After that I drove down to the vet to get more medicine for old Ernas back. Just in time actully, we used the last drops of the old bottle this morning.

After that I drove back to Falköping. I wanted to buy more fire logs, but it seemes there are no to but in the whole country. We are rather many that are a bit lazy and don´t want to buy real firewood and it has been rather cold this spring. They did however have small bags with  firewood so I bought a couple of those instead. Rather exåensive to be honest, but still much cheaper than the electricity I have to use otherwise.

The deep hole in the ditch is overfilled with water now.

When that was done I drove to a tire firm. I was going to just leave the tire there so they could repaire it when ever they wanted this week. But to my surprise they did it immediatly. It showed that I had an inner tube in the tire and it was broken. It didn´t take ten minutes for them to change inner tube and put the tire on my car.

I don´t think I have to worry about that the natural pond will dry out this spring :-) :-)

I felt my dogs deserved a long walk when I came home and since most snow has melted we could walk where ever we wanted :-) So now it´s time for a pot of tea and a little nap I think :-)

Have a great day now!

 

I don´t think there´s any risk for that when it comes to my own pond either :-) :-)

Finally! Snowdrops are looking up from the ground.

The weather forcast had promised (or threatened, that depends on the mood I guess :-) :-) ) some rain mixed with snow this morning. But nothing so far and now that period soon will be over. But they have said the same thing for this afternoon, so I hope thay are wrong about that too :-)

My cacti is still green. It´s always a big risk they´ll rot here during winter.

Some rhododendrons aren´t that lucky I´m afraid. The brown one was a bit of a chance here even warm winters though.

I heard and saw the first cranes this morning. The only reason I could see them was that they flew very low in front of dark green spruces far away. I could count up to seventeen light grey spots, but I heard more further east. They have web cameras by the lake not far frtom me and if You want to see the cranes by Yourself here´s the adress: Cranes by the Cranelake

One thing You have to think about is the time difference. We are six hours before the american eastcoast and twelve hours (I think) after New Zealand.

That brown spot in the snow is the edge of my pond :-)

Two of the sown rhododendron still looks very healthy. The snow was a perfect protection from the cold for them.

The snow has melted rather fast I have to say. Outside my window I can see big areas withour snow now :-) But to go so far and say that spring has arrived is a bit to much yet. The first Snow drops can be seen in my garden and my cacti seemes to have survived the winter too. I´m planning on moving them soon, because they grow to shady so they´ll never bloom I´m afraid. But the place they grow on now is the most dry one during winter and that is what makes them survive here. No matter what one does, ones but will always stay behind, old swedish saying :-)

Hector and Bertil (in the background). I think they have longed for these open spots too.

Old Erna and Orvar.

I think I`m comming down with a cold or something. My nose is slightly stuffed, I´m freezing even though it´s warm and I´m sleeping rather much. I slept eleven hours this night and that is very much when it comes to me. Six or seven is the maximum otherwise. Well I´m already at home so I have all the time I need to sleep:-)

Well it´s time for another cup of tea and then I think a nap is in order :-)

Have a great day now!

 

The day started out quite well, but then the clouds came. They say it´ll be sunny all day today, so I hope someone tells that to the clouds :-)

More and more migrating birds has come to rest here and by the lake. The forest is now filled with birdsongs and over the fields the meadow larks now starts to claim territory. There song is one of the safest spring signs we have here. They almost never comes to early to be surprised by nasty cold weather.

Not much ice left now :-)

It´s amazing how fast the snow melts now. A couple of days ago and we had around two to three feet of snow, now we can talk about an inch or two :-) The roads are also almost free from ice now. It still hangs on in shadowy places, but the ice layer is very thin and fragile now. I know we still can get surprised by snow and cold weather for yet another month. In the good old days winter could continue way in to April.

It´s a bit  worse in the forest though. Now comes the time when I start to complain over how durty my dogs get when walking on those muddy roads :-) :-)

I borrowed my neighbours little compressor so I could fill the empty tire with air this morning. It´s not a strong one, so I had to get a chair to sit on while the little machine did its job. It went rather well for quite some time, but then it looked as if the tire didn´t get any more air. I understood why when I suddenly pushed the air valve a bit into the tire. That´s not supposed to happen :-) and all the air in the tire went out in seconds :-) :-) Now atleast I know it´s not a nail in the tire :-) :-) :-)

Still no sun, but now I can see more and more grass sticking up through the snow. If this continues we should have no snow when reaching April :-)

Tomorrow friends will come and change tire for me, so I can take this one in for repaires. So until then I´ll drink some tea and watch Ski Biathlon on tv. I might do some more things but what that can be I have no idea until then :-)

Have a great day now, I will!

The road does perhaps not look so much better today, but I could walk along the edges without problems. It took some minutes until my dogs realised that too. But they seeme to love sliding around on that ice :-)

I´ve been a bit worried about Bertil for a couple of days now. He hasn´t been home at all and I´ve been wondering if something had happened to him. It has happened before but he has always come home again. Last time he was scared by a fox, I think anyway, and had hidden in my neighbours old stable.

It was really exiting to walk down this little slope :-)

As You can see the gravel raods were in much better condition to walk on.

We found him at the same place this time too :-) He had most probably been waiting for us there yesterday morning, but since we never got away on any walk he stayed there for some reason. So he started to complain loudly when we finally passed there this morning instead :-) :-) I can´t understand why he doesn´t just walk styraight home if we doesn´t come, I mean it´s just around 100 meters from home (about the same in yards) :-)

This is much how the weather will be today, but I´m not complaining as long as it makes the snow melt.

I thought that the best roads would be in the forest, since we haven´t walked much there and pressed down the snow to hard on the ground. I was really wrong :-) :-) I can say that it was really exiting to walk there now since the roads were really icy :-) :-) It was so easy to walk when we came out on the gravel raods again :-) :-)

Now my dogs are sleeping on the floor in my living room.

Now I´m waiting for my ordered food to be dlivered to my door. Hopefully this will be the last time I need to order home food like this. It´s great that one can do like this and to be honest, I do save a lot of money even if it is a bit more expensive to do like this. I get what I need and nothing else. When I buy my food by myself so many other things goes down that basket :-) :-)

And Bertil in front of the aquarium, his favourite place :-) I hope I one day can take a photo of him trying ti fish :-) He does that every day when he thinks I can´t see it, but I haven´t got a chance to photograph it yet.

So now I´ll make another pot of coffee, I have no tea at the moment, and just wait. Not only food will come to me today, there will also be a hughe chocolat bar in the bags :-) Milk chocolat with crushed hazel nuts MMMMMMMM, because I´m worth it :-)

Have a great day now!

This is a good part of the road. I can walk on the edge of the road where the ground can be seen otherwise it´s just shiny ice. But I do have troubles getting over the road to that side of it :-) :-)

I´m a bit of a prisoner in my own home at the moment. Warm weather and a very light rain this last night has made the roads shiny of slippery ice. I might be able to walk on flat ground, but as soon as there´s comming a slight slope I will get in troubles :-) :-)

Today it´s cloudy and foggy. You can see where I have spread the ashes on the snow that it has melted a bit faster there. But I´m not sure it was worth it since white snow is so much nicer to look at :-)

Yesterday was much nicer when it comes to the weather. The sun shined and we reached over 7,4C (45F)

The chimney sweeper where here yesterday and I asked if possibly they sold that kind of cement I need to repaire the stove inside. But no one seemes to know where to get it. Iknow one place down in Gothenburg but there must be a place closer to home. I mean it´s here we use those old fire heated stoves, not in Gothenburg :-) :-)

Othewise I have nothing special to say today. The first Crane has come to the frozen lake and I know some geese has too. Despite the warm winds and the light rain we still have more snow here than we´ve had all together for the last ten years :-)

The melting water makes small rivers on the road.

Now it´s time to phone the grocery store in Gudhem to make my order. This will be tha last time I have to do that. I´m counting on that I can drive myself from next Monday. That is if I can move my car from where it stands now on that shiny ice :-) :-)

Have a great day now!

Since they have done no places where the melting water can flow out from the road, small lakes are being made. A bit difficult to pass with crutches :-)

It might have been tha last really cold night this winter that we just have passed. Tomorrow lowpressures will start flying over our snow white fields and forests. But it might just be a short break with some warm winds before the next session with cold arctic winds starts again :-)

Here is the newly plowed road. Must have been difficult to plow since the snow now is so compressed that it reminds more of ice than snow.

I can´t open my garage doors. The meltwater from the snow on the garage roof has frozen in front of the doors so now it´s impossible to open them up :-) My car stands on that shiny ice too, so at the moment it´s impossible to get it up on the road again :-) I could put an old rug behind the front weels, that would give the grip needed, but than I have to do it every time I ned to use the car (and to be honest, I´m not that good in my leg to be able to do that at all right now :-) ). I do hope the comming lowpressures will melt away enough snow and ice so the water can continue down to the field benieth my garage.

Once upon a time there was a croft here, the last one before the bog. It must have been over 100 years ago and the only thing showing it has been a cottage here are the Lilacs in the bacground. They don´t grow wild here.

The forestowner has plowed up another road I can walk on now :-) It works as long as the nights are as cold as they are now, even if he plowed real well, there are places on that road that still has over 15cm (6 inches) of snow. Perhaps snow is the wrong word now, it´s so compressed that it really is more like fragile ice. When the sun reaches it I will sink down like Titanic did after hitting that iceberg :-) :-)

I have no idea what this big box contains. I didn´t even know that it stood there until the snow started to melt away :-)

Otherwise this day will be as calm and quiet as all other days here in the village. The sun is shining and I will most probably make a cup of tea or coffee and sit down outside on my kitchen stairs just enjoying life. Or perhaps get irritated over something. I´ve noticed that it´s far to easy to get irritated when one doesn´t have that much to do during the days :-) :-)

Have a great day now!

It´s been a real cold night once again, but the sun is up and tries to shine through the thin clouds way up in the air. I could once again hear the pigeons and a few other birds had also started with their spring songs. Otherwise it was completly quiet on our walk.

On one side of the road the animals has had an open spot where they can drink water if they need to. This morning it had a thick layer of ice.

I managed to go all the way down to the creek this morning. Normally a walk down there and back would take around twenty minutes, but with crutches and Icy spots the walk took around an hour :-) But I did it and that´s the important thing :-)

There´s still no opening in the creek on the other side though, just tracks.

The big finale of the swedish heats of the Eurovision song contest is over now. The show was on Saturday, and the standard was lower than usual (and that says a lot :-) :-) :-) ) But there were two songs i really liked. The one I liked the most came second and the one I had as number two won, so I´m not totally dissapointed. It´s a nice little song and it can actully go all the way I think. Down below is the video from the competition so You can decide for Your self if it´s good or not. She´s just eighteen years old.

For some resaon I can´t imbed the video here in my blog, so just click on the name below and You´ll come to Youtube instead.

This is my life.

Now it´s time for a cup of tea (or two :-) ) I´m really tired after the walk so it might be a little nap too :-)

Have a great day now!