Staircase was measured Tuesday, 07-Jun-22 22:17:12 CEST

Finished moving out Monday, 20-Jun-22 21:44:56 CEST

Saturday, 11-Jun-22 22:26:45 CEST

Sheep got cut

Our sheep got cut for the first time this week. We made good progress emptying the old house.

Monday 6 June

This was a compulsory day off work to commemorate that there have been 50 days since that guy woke up from a coma. We skipped that; instead, we celebrated that 50 days had passed since we went to the second-hand shop with the squeaky doors on 14 April. Not really, no celebration at all; we packed and moved things as we usually do these days.

But first, I had a tour around the garden, and I noticed that the first pumpkin flower had started blooming! I planted these pumpkins on 9 April. All five seeds became seedlings; they all got in the ground and got up to seven flower buds each. They grow very compact; they look fantastic!

We used the small trailer today. It got packed with a comfortable gray chair that had been DDs. It went to the new living room. The shoe cupboard and a shelf from the bathroom got in the trailer with many boxes. This time also boxes from the old storage with workshop stuff. These went to the new workshop.

 

We still got stuff in the living room and in the shed.

Tuesday 7 June

The pumpkin flowers are so lovely; it is a feast for the eyes. It is also a feast for the slugs, but they have difficulty keeping up with the pumpkin plant. That is how I want it to be.

The salad bed was doing fine as well. My gardening ego started to swell up more than necessary. Not that I knew at that time what was about to happen. The situation on Tuesday was that I was on top of things; I had beaten the slugs, and I was the king of the salad bed. Later I have been trying to reiterate what happened, but it is clear that I had the salad bed in pretty good condition on Tuesday.

Here is a close-up of the previous photo. I zoomed in on the carrots. There is a row to be seen. It is greener in a row.

Today I worked from the office. I was afraid I would feel stressed on Friday because I could not finish so much this week due to the compulsory holiday. We will see.

This evening we sat in a meeting with the road association. A committee had produced a survey for the members where we all can tell what kind of road we would like to have. This meeting was for answering questions about the survey. It was good information; I liked it.

Wednesday 8 June

I worked from the office in the morning. After lunch, it was time to move stuff again. I was tired. Somehow it starts to become tiring to move things every spare moment. Here are the sheep eating on the north side of the house. The scaffold is still there. I have to talk to the chimney person again to see if he can come and fix his stuff. When that is done, I will take down the scaffold. It will not be before we finish moving, that is for sure.

We hooked up the small trailer because it was rainy today. On the way out, I noticed a flowering poppy. I had to take a photo of it. I overlooked that the photo was blurry on exactly the poppy flower, but it still looked nice, so I kept the photo. Besides, I have not had a second chance to take the photo because there was no flower the day after.

I noticed that almost all the carrot tops got eaten by slugs. I could not see any traces of the slugs, but the tops were gone. The salad bed has a 3-volt slug fence. Perhaps I need to increase this to 9 volts as well?

We packed things in the old house. I suppose the things left are of the tedious kind. I cannot say it felt incredibly efficient the work we did this afternoon. The old mattress got disposed of. We brought things to the second-hand shop.

On the way home, we drove by a garden center where I bought four more packages of copper tape. Then I produced four more forts. I put out one immediately for the flower I bought at the garden center last Saturday on 4 June.

As a last task of the day, I brought in my thistle harvest. These are thistles I removed along the road. Perhaps I will need 15 more wheelbarrows like this before I am done with this area. This is a place where we planted trees and shrubs. We cannot have the sheep grazing here, and we cannot use the brushcutter, so we will need to look after the thistles manually.

Thursday 9 June

Today we worked from home.

In the evening, two sheep experts, Amy and Anita, came to help us cut the sheep.

	Anita starts cutting Selma. She is doing the right side.
	Then Amy is doing the left side of Selma.
	And a bit of wrestling. Selma gave a good match.
	The cutter got a hiccup. It needs to be serviced. Then we go again. Anita had control over Selma.
	DS with Hannah and Bea.
	DW and Amy were looking at Anita cutting Selma.
	Now it is Amy's turn. Anita holds Selma down.
	I give Bea and Hannah treats to make them comfortable being around me.
	A lot of wool comes off Selma.
	Next up is Bea. I had the honor to put her on her bum. Really easy since she thought I would give her a treat.
	The classical cutting position on the bum is not working. These sheep are wrestling too much.
	No escape possible here.
	Hi "treat person", is the camera eatable?
	Bea is a struggler, but we are getting there.
	Selma and Bea are done. Now it is time for Hannah.
	I put Hannah on the bum as well.
	Anita and Amy wrestle with Hannah.
	Hanna licks the foot of Amy.
	Hannah starts to look like she likes it.
	Hey, I remember you. You gave me milk in a bottle when I was a kid.
	A fine moment.
	Amy was done cutting Hannah.

I could practice my skill of putting a sheep on the bum two times, so now my sheep-on-rump count is seven!

Selma	3 times
Bea	2 times
Hannah	2 times

 

While at it, the hooves got manicured as well. These sheep had their yearly checkups. They are good to go! DW got three bags of wool to work on.

Friday 10 June

Today I was stressed at work to finish things. I had already forgotten that Monday was a compulsory holiday and the real reason for my stress. I continued working for two hours after regular office time and could produce a finished product. That felt better going into the weekend with a clean slate.

We bought some deep freeze pizza for dinner, and I harvested arugula salad from the salad bed. It is the first harvest ever of my salad bed. I like it!

Saturday 11 June

This morning I discovered that what I believe is a Spirea Japonica "Froebelii" is flowering. We got it in our old garden and moved it here. First in water, and when it had roots, we potted it and forgot about it. Now I think I will take it to the flower garden and ensure it is having a good time.

The pumpkin is flowering in abundance. When will it start to make pumpkins?

Today DW took a day off. DS and I went to the old house to move things. We brought the large trailer with a scaffold.

Our old neighbors had cut the Lonicera Caprifolium growing on the fence between our gardens. There was a sizeable loose chunk in our garden. We loaded it onto the trailer and brought it to the recycling center.

DS and I set up the scaffold in the former bedroom on the second floor, and I climbed up and took down the lamps. It is about four meters up to the ridge. Then we took down the scaffold again.

The next task for today was bringing the dining table to the new house. It is a big table, so we moved it into the living room through the large garden doors. Apparently, I had the camera in fish eye mode, but since DS is not interested in being in photos, there is no second chance to take a better photo. We rolled the table on a carriage.

The third transport brought the sofa and the scaffold to the new house. At the back of the car, we had chairs as well.

I was tired, but it was a beautiful evening, so I went out and harvested thistles. Here is Malva Sylvestris in full bloom. This plant is from last year; the two plants I sowed from seeds on 5 February stand behind this giant. They are much smaller.

I continued working on the thistles until the garden fork gave up. Have I made it tired? No worries, I can bend it back in shape, but perhaps this fork is up for retirement.

 

Sunday 12 June

The Delosperma is doing fine. This is a plant I bought at the garden center on 4 June. I researched it since then, and I am pretty sure it will not survive the winter; we will see. I find the plant's name a bit particular; I had hoped I could find information about that but nothing.

Then we bought A. Dianthus. It will do fine.

The Chinese Limoenklaver, sorry I lost the English name, is such a small plant. It can withstand the slugs pretty well, so that is nice. Many of the plants cannot handle clay soil. They want sandy soil, which is not exactly what we got here.

We also bought a Coreopsis Grandiflora "Early sunrise," which will be around 30 centimeters high and it can handle sunny places.

Today we went to the old house with the small trailer to get the dryer machine, paintings, an office chair, and things from the shed at the old house. We come to the moment when all big things are moved. Now comes the things we forgot. The shed still has some things, but that is for next week.

This concludes this week's activities. The week's primary task was to get the sheep cut for the first time. We made tremendous progress in emptying the old house, but it is not finished, so that cannot count as a primary task. Who knows, perhaps it is for next week.