Skywatch & Treewatch

 

03/03/2026, 07:08

03/03/2026, 07:19

The two photos above were taken from my kitchen window on Tuesday morning.

Since then, the rest of the week has offered clear blue sky and sunshine, but still some frosty nights. The snow and ice is almost all gone - only a little bit lingering here and there in shadowy places where it was piled up by the snow ploughs.

 In my Wednesday post, I showed a tree in the cemetery being taken down because of Dutch elm disease. The next day, I passed by the same spot again, and below is what remained of the tree trunk then. I don't know if taking down the rest just needs different tools, so will be done later, or if they intend to leave some part of it.

 

 

 

Seeing the bare tree trunk against the sky like that, I was reminded of an alternative solution that I saw last summer when visiting a park in the city of Linköping (click on the link for my full post from there). There they had saved  the trunks of some trees that died from the same disease, and turned those into wooden sculptures:

 

 

 Linking to Skywatch Friday

  

Do Not Be Hasty

 

I'm trying to recall what I've been "doing" over the past three days, but I'm coming up with nothing. The icy weather conditions that kept me in on Friday went away, and just turned to grey and wet and muddy. I've been out for daily short walks around the cemetery for a bit of minimum exercise, but no more.

 There was one afternoon (Sunday?) that seemed to inspire various invisible birds to a new kind of spring-like intensity in their singing - but that's as close as I've come to finding signs of spring so far. Trees and flowers are still biding their time...

Some of the big old moss-clad trees kind of remind me of the Ents in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings story. (The ones in my photos above are all lindens, if memory serves me right.)

“But I spoke hastily. We must not be hasty. --- I must cool myself and think; for it is easier to shout stop! than to do it.”  

 

(This one I nicked from somewhere on the world wide web...)

Whatever I did over the weekend, or today, none of it was done in great haste. On Friday I had groceries delivered, which did inspire some cooking on Saturday (pieces of chicken baked in the oven with various herbs + pieces of mango, to then be frozen again in portions). I also took the vacuum cleaner for a walk around the flat. Most of Sunday I ended up in front of the TV, catching up with five episodes of a British detective series (Ludwig) that for some reason had escaped me. (Sixth and last episode turned out not to be available here until next Saturday, though. So I have no alternative but to practice some patience with that!) 

Today I logged into my bank account to pay some bills, but ended up having to fill in a long questionnaire that they claimed necessary if I want to continue to use their services (=access my money) at all. Like: Where does my money come from, what do I intend to do with it, how much do I think I'm going to use my credit card, do I intend to send any money abroad, and will I be withdrawing any cash - and if so, what am I going to spend that on?? - Made me wonder who on earth they think I am... Some kind of oligarch?? And will an AI bank robot be checking up on my guesses vs actual transactions at the end of the year?? (As far as I can recall, my "business" with foreign countries over the past 15 years or so has been solely with Amazon/Audible, buying e-books and online audio books...)