Easter hellebore

I haven't blogged much in ages, but thought why not upload a couple of pics now that I was trying to get a few photos of my new hellebore.

I love hellebores, but it's more about admiring them in photos and flower shops than actually buying any as they're a bit pricey and I'm a bit broke. But this friday I went shopping and spotted some hellebores. The gorgeous purple and double ones were too expensive for me, but then my sis spotted a shelf with smaller hellebores that were on offer. Half price off, I think. So of cause I had to get one.

This is the one I really wanted but thought was beyond my price range at 200 SEK (approx. 17 GBP/22 EUR/24 USD). It was one of the big ones, perhaps three or four times the height of the one I bought. And a gorgeous, gorgeous colour.


So far the one I did get is indoors, but I'll have to figure out a good place to plant it outdoors. Not sure where to put it. Don't think they'll end up near our other hellebores, which look like this. Don't want those colours together. Maybe there's place somewhere near some of the snowdrops – which, like the crocus, is really spreading out on the lawns nowadays – so they'll create some sort of spring flower corner. Maybe. We'll have to see.

Anyway, as you can see below I got an assistant when taking the photos. It's one of the kittens we accidentally got last summer. A little cutie, don't you think? I find it hard to get good pics of hellebores, but a little cat improves any photo.

For these photos – taken in poor light as heavy rain clouds started to cover the sky – I covered the plastic flower pot it came in with pieces of bark clad in moss that I took from some old logs lying behind the barn. Fastened them with a matching piece of embroidery floss.


One of the reasons for taking the photo was to test putting something on my relatively new Instragram account. Have thought about trying it out ever since getting a modern phone. Something easier than blogging, just putting a pic up every now and then, I thought, something to act as as an alternative to my blog for those who like it when I'm not in the mood to do proper blog posts. But so far it hasn't been able to really pull me in. A small phone that's slightly too old to be really useful for the purpose and my being a newbie with little time to learn has hampered me. (Also, I suck at taking photos with the phone. The camera in it is good, the photographer isn't.) I'm trying to keep it bilingual, with swedish as the "first language".

It's not very interesting right now, but if you're curious or want to see more pics for me, why not check it out?

Ännu en bild på min #julros (nu utan katt). Ser lite mer av den klädda krukan. Mossan och barken den sitter på tog jag från en bunke med gammalt bränne som vi har liggande. Bröt loss några lagom stora bitar och knöt fast med grönt brodergarn runt plastkrukan. Ett enkelt #pyssel för finare foto. Moss clad pot with #hellebore. #helleborus #garden #trädgård

Ett foto publicerat av maneki (@manekibeader) Mar 27, 2016 kl. 11:15 PDT

I'm so note comfortable with hashtags. Too many? Too few? Too generic? Too useless? Too unnecessary? I've got much to learn...

~*~

Oh, now that I'm doing a blog post I must of cause not forget to end this post by wishing you a

Happy Easter!

.
Glad påsk!

Hope you're lucky enough to relax and enjoy some sunshine, budding flowers, a gentle spring breeze, birdsong and everything else one wish this season to bring.

First snowdrops of the year

The other day the weather turned colder again after weeks of temperatures above zero, turning rain and heavy grey skies into white clouds, sunshine and blue sky. It's cold, but the sun is bright: the cats relly enjoyed sunbathing on the porch around noon. But, yes, still cold. There was frost here and there on the ground still in the afternoon, and not just in the northside shadows. And today was the day I got the urge to check the snowdrops. Was meaning to do it yesterday as I felt they'd probably budded, but never got around to it before dark. With the sun setting around 5 PM, there aren't yet many hours of sunlight when you oversleep... But today I remembered to have a look and I was right: the first snowdrops are beginning to bloom.

As I'm done it for several  years, of cause I had to keep up with the snowdrop blog tradition even if I'm still not back blogging really. The post from previous years can be found here.

Enjoy!

First snowdrop buds

I'm still not back blogging for various reasons (most lately because I got ill for a week), but I can't give up on my blog traditions, such as noting when the snowdrops pop up in the garden every winter/spring. If you want to compare with previous years, you can find all snowdrop posts here.

I spent much of january bemoaning the lack of a white winter, mostly because otherwise the winters here are wet, chilly, foggy and very dark. Miserable to put it plainly. But then we got a little snow and these last couple of weeks it's even stayed instead of melting away as fast as it's come.

The other day, after recovering from a week in bed, I started thinking about the snowdrops that surely must have started to pierce through the soil under snow at that point. And so last night, it started to really thaw again. One of the first things I did this windy morning was therefore to check out the snowdrops and sure enough, they've started to bud!

The last light of the year, and a wish for the year to come

I haven't blogged much this year, but of cause I have to return with the traditional new year's eve post. I'll be the sixth year now that I do this photo post, the posts from the previous years can be found here.

Unfortunately, unlike during the first years of this tradition, the weather hasn't been on our side. We got frost on boxing day and then some light snow after that, but then it started thawing again and today it's just been grey, wet and foggy. Hopefully the pics won't be too dark and dull. Was aiming for for the serene and melancholic, though you might have to be a fellow november child to really enjoy these silent, fog veiled winter landscapes. (Even I prefer the fog and rain to end with november, though, so the winter months can be white. Frost white or snow white, either is fine, it just has to be white. You need something that lights up the short, dark days.)

One a positive note, though, the warm winter means you can get som fairytale/troll forest pics even after autumn. And it makes those pretty little snowberries more visible.

Last year, I ended the new year's post with a long wish, coloured by what happened in my life. Though aiming for a positive wish, in a way the darkness in the heart that wished it shone through. It reflected perhaps more the lack of direction in my life and the negativity in my mind than anything else. It was a wish for others in my situation and not perhaps for everyone. This year, I'll just cut out the most positive bit for you, in a slightly new version:

So my new year's wish for you is thus: May 2015 be a year filled with dreams that come true, happiness, adventures, courage and many new opportunities. May you wander along your path in life, your north star to follow, be it one you're already on or a new one that is just found. May you create and thrive and grow. 

Happy New Year!

Just a short note

I thought I had to just write something short to explain why not much new is popping up on this blog this autumn. Have mentioned it in a comment here or on another blog, but might as well tell you all.

First I didn't blog because I was under the weather with all that's happened these last 12 months -- and now I don't blog because I'm spending the mornings working on one of those unemployment activities one sometimes end up in. It's not easy getting up early in the mornings when you're a night owl -- and then I have a relatively long walk to the bus so I end up being a tad tired when I get home. And, also, there's less time for me to be on the computer blogging now that I don't get home until 14 o'clock every day. E-mails, catching up on blogs etc I follow and writing for my other blog takes precedence, unfortunately.

So, to conclude, I haven't abandoned this blog for ever, nor am I not writing here because I'm still feeling down or am stuck in dark and dreary mood. It's mostly a matter of time now. Hopefully I'll soon get used to my new schedule and find room for blogging too. (But then again, I keep saying stuff like that all the time and then things get in the way and I end up not blogging much anyway...)

Because I haven't shared anything silly our cats have done in ages, here's a pic for you to play "where's the cats?" with. That's Julle next by the door, but what do you think of Ubbi's new best spot for an afternoon nap? (Pic's from september: it's been a bit too cold and rainy lately so he prefers the bed now. And, yes, it's easy for him to get to his napping place, but it's been difficult for him to get back in the same way -- not that that stopped him from jumping up there again the next day.)

Happy Midsummer's eve!

Hope you're having a lovely midsummer's eve and weekend!

Finally, some cat piccies!

I could've shown you some pics from the garden as I've taken a few, but it feels like ages since I did a cat post so here's some pics of Ubbi that I took this afternoon. Blurry once as he was in playful mood, running up and down the branches of the small ash tree.

Snapshot from the garden

Oh, I haven't forgotten my dear little blog, it's just that I'm busy at the moment. As are many who are in one way or another involved in agriculture this time of year. So this is just a short note to say I'm still here and I hope to get time to blog soon (I have a few things I want to show). Until then, here's a photo from the garden taken a few days ago. It's pretty wild and unruly this year for obvious reasons and a few unexpected ones, but that's how I like gardens anyway so I'm really enjoying it. Even when the grass on the lawn is taller than a  cat's tail (you should see them jump through it when they're in a hurry, too hurried to walk through the jungle).

Gifts from the soil -- job benefits and slow jewellery

As I've mentioned on a couple of occasions before, one of the job benefits my sis and I enjoy when working in the potato fields is collecting stones and especially flints. The other day, when removing some of the fiberweb (the white sheets the early potato fields are covered in during spring) I made my best find yet. A flintstone arrow head! It really made my day, I was just so thrilled about it!

Since beginning to collect/hoard flintstones as a kid I've dreamed of finding something like the one and a half axes grandpa found in his fields, but so far I've just found stone and nuggets that, as a layman, I could just guess might've been partially formed by a human hand. This is the first piece I've found that I'm 100 % sure has been formed by man. It was pretty exciting to find, especially since I found it while being busy working and I was so close to not picking it up. Luckily, the unusual rectangular shape and light colour made it stand out and tempt my eyes. I was just pure luck that the edge of the fiberweb stopped just there and that the plowing and digging had unearthed the piece just in time for me to find it.

Now you might say "well, have you reported the find?" I'm very well aware -- and very proud -- of the laws protecting our cultural history, but generally flint items are so common länsstyrelsen in Skåne isn't that interested in single finds like this (I asked them once because of the beautiful stone age axe my grandpa gave me so I'm not just going by hearsay on this). Though I would be interested in contacting someone to learn about the age, use etc of my find. I've seen similar arrow heads that's been dated to the end of the ice age, ca 11-12 000 years old. That's as far back as you can go with artefacts in these areas that used to be covered by the ice sheet.

It isn't a big piece either. I didn't have a ruler nearby so I took a photo of it next to an AA battery for a size comparison:

In other news, I just sowed some jewellery making supplies. Another gift from the soil that I expect later in summer.

No, I'm not being barmy: what I'm talking about is sowing flowers to dry for making cute jewellery. Like this:

(Screen shot of an Etsy treasury I made. Many pieces are sold,
but you can still find what's left of the treasury here.)

I know you can buy dried flowers, but not always the ones you want and buying from a florist or what few commercial cultivators of everlasting flowers there are in the 21st century can be a tad expensive. So I thought I might as well try to sow a few seeds. I'm not useless at gardening, but I'm no expert either. It was dad that was the expert, lovingly caring for an expanding garden -- and teaching us kids the art and craft of it. I haven't cared that much for gardens in years, mainly because I haven't had one of my own where I could do what I wanted.

But this year, I was so inspired by the poetic mori-style jewellery I couldn't keep myself from buying some seeds. Fingers crossed I've got green fingers (or green thumb as some of you say) and there'll be at least a couple of flowers to harvest.

You've heard about slow food and even slow cities, well, I guess this is slow jewellery! I'll take me months to make a simple pendant if counting from yesterday when I sowed the seeds.

If any flowers do seem to be popping up, I'll keep you updated.

And if you wonder about the fiberweb, it's not to keep the soil and seeds warm or anything -- it's mainly an attempt to keep the cats from thinking the newly weeded and raked soil is a big new litter box... Think it'll keep them out? Well, perhaps as long as they don't realise how warm it can be under a sheet like this, or indeed on it. Then they might want to sleep on it instead, something the plants won't like either. Gardening with cats isn't always easy.