Hedgehog housing Sunday, 25-Sep-22 21:33:22 CEST

Our ventilation got balanced Sunday, 09-Oct-22 19:26:54 CEST

Monday, 03-Oct-22 20:09:43 CEST

Ventilation caps were installed

Personally, I was a bit tired from the hedgehog event last weekend. DW recovered steadily from the lumbago situation of last week. It is a little like seeing a toddler that learns to walk; every step is a wonder. This week the ventilation specialist worked on the ventilation system, and I started plastering again.

Monday 26 September

It was a dull grey day, and the common starlings held a convention at the ridge of the neighbors' house.

On Monday evening, I cleared the large trailer. Essentially I moved the rest of the unused material to the small trailer. We will take the small trailer to the recycling center at some point. For now, it is just deferring the work for another moment.

Tuesday 27 September

Today I went to the office.

Wednesday 28 September

I worked from the office in the morning. After lunch, I had the rest of the day off. We decided to move the sheep. There were still two vacant nets on the east side of the house. I moved these nets to the east border of the property, outside the dyke. The challenge was that I could not make a continuous area, including the shed. I did not know what to do about that. I opted to move a shed to their new area but refrained from that plan. We let the sheep stay in the new area without a shed. In the evening, just before bedtime, I went out to the sheep and moved them back to the previous area where they had access to the shed. It was still standing intact, so that was easy.

In the evening I made salad. Here is the complete salad recipe; keep focused when reading this because you might need a good salad recipe one day.

I harvested arugula and loose-leaf salad. Cleaning the salad takes time, but since this is all my idea, I am okay with that. Then I add one ball of mozzarella chees shopped in pieces. I took a couple of tomatoes also cut them into parts. We had leftover fusilli macaroni that I chopped into smaller pieces and added to the salad. Then I grilled pine nuts and added this to the salad. Then I made croutons from two slices of white bread. I cut the bread into blocks that I placed in an oven pan, poured oil over, chopped garlic, and mixed this. I grilled this until the croutons were golden brown but did not add this just yet to the salad. I made dressing from one-third vinegar, and two-thirds oil poured into a regular glass. I added a teaspoon of mustard and, one teaspoon of mayonnaise, a little honey. I added freshly ground pepper and a small pinch of salt to this. I am fond of salt with herbs added to it, which I used. When mixing the dressing, it becomes smooth, and that is poured over the salad, and the salad is mixed thoroughly. Just before serving the salad, I pour the croutons over the salad but not mixing.

You could consider a nice glass of white wine, but since this was a regular Wednesday, I went for chilled carbonated water.

Thursday 29 September

This morning the sheep were standing at the point where I had let them over from the area yesterday evening, and it was like they were wondering how to get over by themselves. "Dad, get us over the fence."

On our east side, geese were grazing at our neighbors. It looked so peaceful with the little group of geese walking around and finding things to eat. I wish we had this group visiting us on our property, but that has not happened yet.

It was a cold night, so I picked the bell pepper! That concludes my bell pepper experiment. It started on 15 March this year. On 24 May, I transplanted the bell pepper to the west side of the sea container. This batch produced the pepper; the other batch never made any pepper.

DW went to the office on Thursday, which went okay with her lumbago. To make her journey slightly comfortable, I decided to bring her to the station. I then worked from the office, and in the afternoon, I drove DW back home. Her laptop bag was heavy and not that pleasant for the back, but she had survived.

After work, I rearranged the nets so our sheep could go freely to the sheds. The nets on the north side of the house were rearranged to be more snug around the shed and the rain roof. This way, I won the length so I could make a new area outside the dyke on the north side of the property. I still let the previous nets stand, and I will move them there tomorrow morning.

It was a beautiful evening!

Friday 30 September

Today we both worked from home. In the morning, I moved the sheep to the fenced area along the southeast border of our property so that they could graze there today.

DWs lumbago is slowly fading away, and her going to work yesterday did not make her situation worse, so that is good. Getting out of bed in the morning is challenging, and sitting on a couch is less pleasant.

In the afternoon, our ventilation specialist came to work on the ventilation system. He put white caps on all ventilation holes and created sockets for where the air quality sensors will be placed. He also created two extra inlets in the staircase. It was excellent we had not plastered the staircase because he could just unscrew a plate to get to the pipe going to the bathroom and extend it up in the staircase wall.

Next Friday he will be back; unfortunately, I can not be there because I will be at work. He will come together with another ventilation specialist, and they will balance the system.

It was a lovely afternoon; DW took a walk to ease up her lumbago. She moved the sheep back to the fenced area on the north side of the house. Over the weekend, we will move the nets again. Let the sheep stay in the area on the north side of the house while we move the nets of the vacant area. We will set them up in the border area between the northern neighbors.

In the evening, we ate pizza, and I harvested salad to eat with the pizza. While harvesting, I checked on the progress of the salad beds. The kohl rabi has started to form a tuber. The fennel is also supposed to create a tuber, but I can not see that yet. The cucumber is not doing good at all. Mangold looks fine.

After dinner, I sat with my laptop to experiment with making a song in the evening. I wanted to create a house song with a languid beat. It did not become anything I liked, but at least I had tried. It was six years ago since I made a song, which was too long ago. I even forgot how the DAW is working. The song got the filename 2022-09-30.

Saturday 1 October

It is already October 2022. We are now firmly into autumn. Today I was stoked to get started on plastering again. The last time I plastered was 31 August. It was about time to plaster again, so I mixed one bucket of mud. That is two kilos of Knauf MP75, 1700 grams water, and 400 grams TopFinish. I pour the dry ingredients into the water and then mix them with a mixing rod on a battery-powered drill. I know this is the layman's recipe, but this is what I have the energy for before I take a break, so that suits me fine. The professionals take one bag of MP75 and one whole bag of TopFinish in one go, but I am not that quick in applying the mud, so it is smaller buckets for me.

After plastering, I started to move the sheep fence. I collected the nets from the fence on the southeast side of the property. Then I put out these nets between the northern neighbors. I included a little of our east side as well. This time I made one big fence area, including the northern side of the fence. I have no idea how we will move on to the next section, but that is an issue for another day.

The runner beans in the garden had fallen over. One stand with three plants was lost; the plants had broken. The other stand was okay, so I constructed a scaffold for this stand, a one-pole scaffold. It can hold runner beans very well, also when it is windy.

I also harvested the rest of the pumpkins. There are still flowers, but I don't think there will be more pumpkins.

Sunday 2 October

Today, I started by plastering one bucket with course mud in the kitchen. I will need to buy more metal corner reinforcement bars for the outer corners, such as the window in the hall adjacent to the kitchen and the wall between the hall and the kitchen. With those bars in place, I will plaster the last bucket, of course, mud in this part of the project. Then I can start with plastering TopFinish. That is a more tedious task because that is the surface only to be covered by paint. But that is all for next week.

When the plaster bucket was finished, we went to DWs father to celebrate his 94th birthday. He stopped caring about birthdays 50 years ago, but we still cling to the tradition. We are so ungrateful in this aspect, I suppose. He liked it anyway, so there you go. It was one hour drive to the DWs father, and her lumbago was better but sitting in the car for an hour hurt. After the birthday party, we went back home, so that was another hour.

Here ends this week's blog. I am so glad I restarted the plaster project, and it is good that the lumbago is fading away, although it is a slow process. I really hope there will be no setback to the recovery of DW.