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Written by Stephen Baines
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Monday, 04 December 2006 |
This week has had some bad news. Tazio, our 16 year+ moggie died last Thursday. The diagnosis was kindey failure. The fact he'd been on "mature cat" food for years gave him such a long life, but in the end time caught up with him. He's missed by us, and by the dog who seems to acutely miss being able to tell us when the cat is misbehaving....
The ongoing struggle to get the English car onto Swedish plates continues. My insurance company has given us a three-month "traffic insurance" for the car without a registration plate. Hurrah! The papers were filled in for the Swedish VV, but we only get temporary plates for three months. The first "registration inspection" date they can give us is at the end of March, 4 months away. So, we can drive the car for three months, then we can't drive it to the inspection a month later. Nice. The car is the one thing that is driving me stark raving bonkers.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 13 September 2007 )
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Written by Stephen Baines
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Thursday, 02 November 2006 |
Last weekend we had the happy and sad experience of going to collect our Genebank Blommehöns from a delightful couple not too far away from where we live. They sadly are having to give up their chickens due to the family deciding not to keep animals on their farm any more. Goldie was heartbroken to give up her chickens. More info about them is <a href="http://www.alledal.nu/content/view/33/30/">here</a>.
This week has seen a real reminder that winter is well and truly arriving.
The last few weeks have seen heavier skies and colder nights, and the temperatures have been falling at night, and the electricity has been climbing! The issues with the satellite dish over summer that had been annoying became very problematic, and thanks to some very helpful people on the internet we finally found that when our 2.4m dish had been installed the wrong type of LNB had been used, meaning it could only "see" about 80cm of the dish, hence everytime it rained the picture dissappeared. We have now fitted the correct type of LNB and a <a href="http://www.invacom.com/products/adf_120.htm">feedhorn</a> (something Nigel reckons looks more like a potato masher than a horn!) a little tweak, and we now have BBC and ITV again. The picture failed yesterday, but that was quickly solved when the snow was removed from the dish.
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Written by Stephen Baines
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Friday, 06 October 2006 |
It's been a good week so far. The weekend seemed to be a constant battle against the thunderstorms. We were lucky, our neighbours had their internet connection knocked out by the huge thunderstorms. The thunderstorms were really impressive and for the first time in ages we saw forked lightning. The chickens didn't seem that bothered by it, neither did our elderly cat. The brave hunter, Troy the Weimaraner, cowering and really quite worked up. Poor thing!
One thing that's really noticeable here is how little light polution there is. Despite the thunderstorms we've had a lot of really clear night skys recently. The whole sky is a mass of stars, and sights that aren't easily visible in the UK are visible here, such as actually being able to see The Milky Way, and even more amazing for the first time I ever I realised that some of the stars that make up <a href="http://www.glyphweb.com/esky/default.htm?http://www.glyphweb.com/esky/constellations/plough.html">The Plough</a> are actually <a href="http://www.dibonsmith.com/uma_con.htm">double stars or binaries</a>. For something you take for granted to not be the thing you thought it was for 30-odd years is really quite something. One of the stranger outcomes of this is that it's a lot harder to spot Orion due to all the extra stars in the sky...
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Written by Stephen Baines
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Monday, 02 October 2006 |
We’ve been working hard with bureaucracy over the last week or so.
Number one for me was dealing with cars – we have two major projects on this front, number one was to get my UK car registered in Sweden, number two was to get a Swedish car as a second car. The first one has had us mired in bureaucracy that I thought we’d escaped…
It should have been easy. The website said it was easy. As an EU car, all we needed to do, according to Vägverket, was bring it to Sweden, take it to Bilprovningen, pay 300 SEK, and hey presto! One Swedish registered car.
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Written by Stephen Baines
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Monday, 18 September 2006 |
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It's been a few weeks since I wrote last. The last time I wrote our chicks were just starting to hatch. Well, they are now just under 2 weeks old and growing into big strong girls and boys (we hope!) and developing real characters. The Blommehöns are settling in well, and we are now trying to hatch some of their eggs to further boost the numbers. I guess this egg hatching malarky is going to get quite addictive...  <img src="http://gallery.vollans.co.uk/d/11010-2/PICT3179.JPG" alt="2 week old chicks" />
Now that we've seen where stuff grows, the way the land lies and where the areas are wettest etc, we're changing what we're planning to put where. No big deal, really, but we think it's really important to go with the land rather than against it. We've also been asked about selling half-a-lamb or half-a-pig deals in advance in the spring time - not a bad idea, and one we are seriously considering.
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