{"id":43521,"date":"2025-06-01T11:12:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T11:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/?p=43521"},"modified":"2026-05-09T13:14:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T13:14:28","slug":"gardening-near-far-endless-to-do-lists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/gardening-near-far-endless-to-do-lists\/","title":{"rendered":"Gardening Near & Far \/ Endless To-Do Lists"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[Photos taken 01 – 11 June 2025, posted online 09 May 2026. Am I almost a full year behind myself? Yes, yes, I am. Most of my free time and mental energy has been eaten up by a voluntary treasurer position, but I can glimpse calmer seas ahead…<\/em>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

June reverted back to normal-ish weather, after the insane heatwave in May. We kept prepping the backyard at home for Anna’s upcoming graduation party, and Finnur was very motivated to get the summer house into good shape as he’d invited his parents and siblings there to belatedly celebrate his fiftieth birthday (just in time for his fifty-first birthday!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We managed to actually go on a date-night (we seem to need a booking far in advance, or we’ll just not go because it’s easier), and I kept gymming, in spite of my pinky finger leaking joint-gel again (yucky photo below). I managed to go frisbee golfing with Emma, and somehow convinced Anna that making dinner would be good practice before she moved out of the house!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunday 01 June 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Anna took pity on me, and attacked the enthusiastic growths under the bird-feeding tree, much of them being tiny sunflowers (that would never amount to anything) from all the sunflower seeds.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Anna’s sweet peas were coming along nicely.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Anna’s summer flowers have never before been such a resounding success!! We were still a bit ambivalent about planting them because the nocturnal outside temperatures have been known to plummet below freezing point until mid-June…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Yay, so much cleaner-looking!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Our (hopefully fully-contained) raspberry plant. Apparently it’s a crawling weed disguised as a yummy-berry bush.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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That day’s hard worker!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Inside, a hot pepper silently grew.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Finnur pulling a modeling pose outside our date-night restaurant later that day.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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We ordered a set menu, and the presentation of the first dish was unusual.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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I was there too!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Artsy food, but also very tasty!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The waiters have to go up and down this staircase all the time.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The kitchen is of the mostly-open variety.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Eyes wide open!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Monday 02 June 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Every now and again my favorite cafe runs out of hummus to put on the avocado-tomato toast. This time around I tried putting ham instead, and can’t really recommend it!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Tuesday 03 June 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n
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The view at 07:52 in the morning. That’s an 80 kg barbell. Easy-peasy. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The remains of a sandstorm. Occasionally the winds carry sand from the sands in the south of Iceland all the way to the capital.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

WARNING<\/strong>: THE NEXT PHOTO shows joint gel that’s escaped my pinky finger.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Dang, my finger exploded again. Yup, joint fluid was escaping the joint into a bubble outside the joint (a ganglion cyst), and the skin was so thin that occasionally it would burst. Thankfully it didn’t get infected.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Wednesday 04 June 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n
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The horizontal parts of the new shed and deck were looking a little sad (pale and patchy) after the winter. The paint store recommended putting on another colored coat. There’s never a dull moment with timber around.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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I looked outside and randomly saw a whole group of pink-clad people posing for a group photo outside!?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Thursday 05 June 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Birthday boy had dug up an old photo I’d taken on his confirmation day, and proudly displayed it for all to see. As I birthday present I decided not to give anybody the link to the website…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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A quick photo of my wind-swept in-laws after driving them to a gathering of old friends, apparently at the edge of the world.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Anna was on dinner-duty, the plan was to get in lots of practice before moving out.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The kitchen crew. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Finnur had ventured up to the summer house to sand\/stain\/oil some more timber. The sunset was a gorgeous one!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Friday 06 June 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Finnur contemplating what insanity he’d gotten himself into, as he kept sanding down the sun-darkened south-facade of the summer house.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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I still occasionally played the Blue Prince video game, but the easy stuff was mostly over, things were getting quite esoteric, and hard to keep track of.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Poor-student dinner try-out, as beans are a cheap source of protein!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The football goal close to the summer house had gotten re-netted.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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All of a sudden we had So. Many. Eggs!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Saturday 07 June 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n
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I drove mom to the airport, for her trip to Sweden to visit some of the grandkiddos.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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My home-lunch for the past year or so.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The blue skies called for some gardening!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Yay for flowers in the ground! These are quite hardy, but they generally only last one summer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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I drove up to the summer house, as it was a three day weekend, and promptly crushed Emma in Ticket to Ride.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Checking out the outside situation, after mowing this bit when I arrived.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Sunday 08 June 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n
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It was a good day for staining! This was at 12:45.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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My first task was to get this plug off of the loose wooden board, and fasten it properly to the wall behind it. We didn’t have a cement-drill when we originally replaced the old plug.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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All done in 45 minutes! The flowers waited for their turn around the corner…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Hmmm… that’s a sneaky amount of lawn still left over to mow.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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I got Emma to whack the weeds on the brick-patio.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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After about two hours of work…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Flowers planted and watered!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Inspired by many Facebook videos I tried whacking all the grass that’s been accumulating in front of the water-cabinet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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It went pretty well but…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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… that was the end of the spool of whack-thread.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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I made a half-hearted attempt at weeding, but didn’t last long.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Still going some six hours after starting…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Time for the rest of the lawn…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Success!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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We almost never do this, but both of us adults were exhausted, so we drove to Borgarnes for dinner.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Glad to get actual food!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The back of the restaurant is set up against this rock wall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Yes, please.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Emma made a fire!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The Set Game<\/a> is hard when you haven’t practiced much!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Whit Monday – Public Holiday – 09 June 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n
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The seemingly endless to-do list at the summer house…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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I got myself a helper with removing the grass mowed the day before.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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“Farmer Hrefna” trying to expose as little skin as possible to flies.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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There was a lot of grass!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The stainmaster kept going!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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We left Finnur behind with his endless sanding\/staining-task and drove to Borgarnes on our way home.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The view from the cafe patio was lovely as usual.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Yes, please!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The new cafe dog, still learning the rules of the house. He’s a bit of a barker.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Emma having a chat.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Before leaving town, we decided to check out the 5-hole frisbee golf course<\/a> that was reported to be by the swimming pool.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Action shot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Lovely view! You can see the “hole”\/”basket” up there on the left.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The course then goes into the small park<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Oh, the good old days…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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A tunnel of sorts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Another action shot!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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We finished it!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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At home, this side-area kept taunting me.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Lets ignore it all and watch some Doctor Who!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Tuesday 10 June 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n
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I met up with some old coworkers at a cafe\/diner close to where one of them lives, that I’d never visited before.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Sadly, their oven was broken, so they only had cold sandwiches on offer. But, the food still tasted good!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Wednesday 11 June 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n
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The weather forecast was getting more promising, so Anna’s flowers went out to acclimatize.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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A wall of fancy tapes, as I visited a stationary store that was closing down.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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My haul. Writing stuff down when my brain gets overwhelmed with to-do lists, seems to work mild wonders.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Photos taken 01 – 11 June 2025, posted online 09 May 2026. Am I almost a full year behind myself? Yes, yes, I am. Most of my free time and mental energy has been eaten up by a voluntary treasurer position, but I can glimpse calmer seas ahead…<\/em>]<\/p>\n

June reverted back to normal-ish weather, after the insane heatwave in May. We kept prepping the backyard at home for Anna’s upcoming graduation party, and Finnur was very motivated to get the summer house into good shape as he’d invited his parents and siblings there to belatedly celebrate his fiftieth birthday (just in time for his fifty-first birthday!).<\/p>\n

We managed to actually go on a date-night (we seem to need a booking far in advance, or we’ll just not go because it’s easier), and I kept gymming, in spite of my pinky finger leaking joint-gel again (yucky photo below). I managed to go frisbee golfing with Emma, and somehow convinced Anna that making dinner would be good practice before she moved out of the house!<\/p>\n

Sunday 01 June 2025<\/h2>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>
Anna took pity on me, and attacked the enthusiastic growths under the bird-feeding tree, much of them being tiny sunflowers (that would never amount to anything) from all the sunflower seeds.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hrefnas-family","category-us","post-container col-md-12"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43521"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43604,"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43521\/revisions\/43604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrefna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}