One Lonely Sunflower

One lonely sunflower growing in the sun , wants to play
and have some fun . Then - whoosh - went the wind and
scattered all the seeds... And now there's lots of sunflowers,
playing in the breeze.

Anonymous

My real first sunflowers

It has rained for almost two complete months in Stavanger. Therefore, my sunflowers are taking longer to blossom. Anyway, they do look beautiful and I am very proud of having taken care of them since they were just tiny seeds!

Time for some news

Some time has passed since my last posting. That means much to do and little time to BLOG updating. Meanwhile, however, the sunflowers have grown taller and the strawberry plants have given us some strawberries, even if not as much as we would have expected. The work to keep tSkogsveien 30 nice, tidy and cozy continues, both outside and inside. This time with Jorunn's magic hands in control. Whereever she touches, you bet something nice pops up! Check below the new look inside the cottage (still "under construction" though. More novelties to come soon!).


Chris and Julia picking up strawberries


Not much of a crop, is it? :) But more is coming!


Julia with a "Solbær" frm the tree behing her




New curtains and new table and chairs

Beautiful and useful

Look at the beautiful image above! Click on it to see it enlarged and check the details...This is the kind of table I am desperately trying to organise in my garden. Love it!

The wisdom of Gardening...

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair...- Kahlil Gibran

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The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty ofnature. As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know thatthen there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever thecircumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles. - Anne Frank

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The problem with property is that it takes so much of your time.- Willem de Kooning

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When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country.- William Hazlitt

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Gardening requires lots of water - most of it in the form of perspiration.- Lou Erickson

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The more help a man has in his garden,the less it belongs to him.- William M. Davies

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A weed is but an unloved flower.- Ella Wilcox, 1855 - 1919

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A weed is a plant that is not only in the wrong place, but intends to stay.- Sara Stein

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What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Fortune of the Republic, 1878.

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“It’s amazing how much time one can spend in a garden doing nothing at all. I sometimes think, in fact, that the nicest part of gardening is walking around in a daze, idly deadheadingthe odd dahlia, wondering where on earth to squeeze in yet another impulse buy, debating whether to move the recalcitrant artemisia one more time, or day dreaming about where to put the pergola.”- Jane Garmey, A Writer in the Garden

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“A fact bobbed up from my memory, that the ancient Egyptians prescribed walking through a garden as a cure for the mad.I t was a mind-altering drug we took daily.”- Paul Fleischman, Seedfolks

Birds, snails and flowers - What a combination!

Today's work was mainly to prepare the area in front of the cottage to receive a firm ground. This means we have bought tiles which will be placed in front of the house, thus allowing us a nicer place to have a table and chairs for meals and coffee etc. I am looking foward to that.

For this operation we had to remove a tree which was beginning to grow in front of the cottage and replant it somewhere else. Chris had a hard time trying to reach the roots of the tree but after a lot of sweat, he managed.

I planted some daisies and took away some weeds. I have to say that although gardening in general is a very pleasant job, I told Chris today that I am looking forward to the day we can actually enjoy Skogsveien for relaxation only or at least longer relaxation periods. For the time being the work seems endless!

I also realised today that not only the snails can damage the plants. Actually, I think I have been blaming the snails for more then they deserve. I say this based on the fact that I replanted two of my dwarf sunflowers on a vase (from earth to a pot), since their leaves were being eaten up constantly. I thought this was being done by snails, poor them. However, when I got to the garden today I saw that the healthy leaves that had been left were again being eaten up. It was obvious there were no snails in the pot! It could only have been the birds! So, what now? Birds are birds and it's lovely to have them around. I even buy food for them to keep them near. This imposes a big dilemma :)

Summer and Cottage life

I came across a very interesting Blog the other day, created by a Norwegian lady with an incredibly good taste. Her Blog talks a lot about interior and exterior decoration, something I have become very interested lately. Rustic decoration has always had a great appeal on me and now that I have Skogsveien to look after, I feel more and more attracted to it. The picture below shows some of these things I am talking about. Aren't they beautiful?