Continued on the permanent fence Sunday, 09-Apr-23 21:02:22 CEST

Garden season started Sunday, 23-Apr-23 21:19:22 CEST

Sunday, 16-Apr-23 19:11:16 CEST

Half of the permanent fence is set up

The main achievement this week was the work on the permanent fence. I also started on repairing the rotating tiller machine.

Monday 10 April

Today was a compulsory holiday, meaning all vital services that do keep open are useless because they are too busy. Why do we do this? Because of a fantasy figure that fell into a coma. Later he woke up again, which was good for him.

We had our tasks more or less figured out, so we did not have to be too much around and about. I went to the hardware store to get nets for the circles around the apple and pear trees. I also got some bags with sand, and the idea is that I can fill up the holes around the poles with sand.

The drill worked fine with the new spring in the clutch. I drilled eighteen holes for the circles. Most trees got two poles, but some got three because the branches create a larger circle.

Then it was just a question of unpacking the net and making circles. I quickly discovered that the new net had thinner metal wire and larger holes. The same product but less quality.

At that point, we had to go inside and think about solutions, and that was when I discovered that it would start to rain the rest of the day. We needed rain, which was good; perhaps the timing was less good.

We took in all the equipment and called it a day.

In the evening, I decided to make rods to avoid making the circle collapse. Suppose a sheep is leaning on the circle; that would not be good if it was flimsy. I will experiment with this another day.

I started trying to start the rotary tiller, but that failed. I think it is the spark plug that is broken. It could have received some strokes while being moved back and forth. I think it has been moved several times before I got it. The spark plug is on top of the motor and can easily be damaged in transport.

Tuesday 11 April

Today I worked from home while DW went to the office. After work, I drove to the car parts shop and tried to get a replacement for the spark plug, but that failed. Then I ordered it online. I could pick up DW, though; that was nice. The site claimed I would get the package tomorrow.

Wednesday 12 April

Today I worked from home in the morning, as it should be. In the afternoon, I had a half day off; that is how it should be. DW had a day off, and I was pleasantly surprised that she used it as she was supposed to. The last couple of weeks, we have been unusually busy at work. We already had a compulsory holiday on Monday this week, and now our regular Wednesday is excellent.

DW went to a gathering with friends where they spun wool, and after that, she went to the hairdresser.

I was stoked to get going on the permanent fencing project. I stopped working on the project on Monday, disappointed that the green net was too flimsy.

First, I tried the idea of stiffening the circle with sticks. It worked! It looked really dumb, though. Instead of carrying on doing what I found dumb, I started to make new holes to support the circles better.

That way, I created a pole forest not that pleasant for the eyes, but it is more robust against the violence by our sheep. In the end, I undid the sticks circle. Introduced another pole making it three poles for this tree.

I was not done! After the circles around our fruit trees, I built a fence along the driveway. After all, we want the sheep to stay home, so they need an enclosed area. We bought the first set of poles on 20 July. Around 27 August, the first stretch of the fence was mounted. On 11 September, we gave up on the fence along the driveway. The drill started to develop an issue with the clutch at that point. Last year, the plan was to use the building fence parts along the driveway, but the end-of-year trouble came. We realized we needed the winter section with sturdy fence parts so the sheep could not get entangled. So that is what we will use the remaining sturdy building fence sections for.

I put up the fence along the driveway this afternoon. As a result of this, it will not be necessary to have obstacles along the driveway to discourage people from driving into the grass.

It will be necessary to make a lot of gates in the permanent fence. But that is for another day.

Thursday 13 April

Today DW worked from home, and I went to the office.

The package arrived with the spark plug! It was one day late.

	Yes, the package!
	I was also supplied with paper.
	A little box in a box.
	What is inside?
	A sparkplug?

Did it work? No.

After supper, we went outside and removed two nets from the east side of the property to the north and west side of the house. The sheep liked to have access to fresh grass. We put out the temporary fence, so I can still work on the permanent fence the upcoming weekend.

It is much nicer to take photos of the sheep standing in the middle of fresh grass.

Friday 14 April

Today we both worked from the office. It was a great day for both of us. I could concentrate on my targets and achieved enough of them targets to start the weekend in a joyful mood. After work, we did our weekly shopping and decided to buy deep freeze pizza this Friday evening.

Last two weeks, I made homemade pizza, and it was all very nice. Still, I learned that baking the pizza with traditional heating elements and not using the fan makes the pizza taste better when it is homemade, and it also works for deep freeze pizza. I liked it better without the fan.

Saturday 15 April

Today DW went to a wool guild gathering. She held a course in basic wool spinning practices together with a friend. Two separate groups got introduced to spinning. DW has been inactive in the wool guild since we started building the house.

I worked on the permanent fence on the north side of the house. This was a continuation of the fence that I worked on 29 March. I build the fence outside the dyke to the end of the bush plantation. There we will have a gate of some form. Around the plantation, back inside the dyke, meeting the outer fence at the twisting willow. We will also have a gate at the twisting willow.

I drilled fourteen holes and inserted the poles. Rolled out the net. It turned out that the roll did not reach the gate at the twisting willow. There missed about four meters. I connected the remaining roll of the vegetable garden fence to this fence, which worked out well.

It was blowing an icy wind from the north, which was unpleasant.

Here are the fence projects so far:

	This is the fence on the north side of the house that I finished today.
	Here is the west side of the vegetable garden and the fruit tree circles. Look how nice DW made the garden!   We still need to finish this fence, but since we don't have any gates yet and would like to access the garden, I left the net unattached on the last part.
	Here is the east side of the vegetable garden with the building fence that the raspberry will climb on.
	Here is the fence around the driveway.

So far, we have decided to make 9 gates in the fence, and It will take some time to get those gates into place.

Next up will be fencing on the northeast part of the property. We decided the birch tree forest would have its own circle because the sheep can graze below the trees when they are big enough. Then we can remove that circle. We need to enclose the pond and sewer filter for the rest. Also, here we will need gates because the maintenance person is not that fit.

Since we planned to buy a tiny house and decided to put it near the birch tree forest, we will need to clear this area. That means we need to move the hay store to a new place. I have no idea how we will do these things.

Anyhow, we need to figure out how much more fencing we need to finish the project. That is for tomorrow.

After a really late lunch, I removed the car's winter tires. The icy wind appeared to be a lot icier and windier. The last time I put on the winter tires, I got a leaking tire that was not nice. This time I checked the tire pressure with a bicycle pump. It was low pressure. We got an air compressor; I think I will get myself a car tire air inflator pistol.

When I finished replacing the tires, DW came home.

In the evening, I continued on the bouncing images project. This started as a question to ChatGPT if it could create a page with bouncing images, and indeed it could do that. Now I have been improving the code to fit my needs. I made the movement of the images more smooth so that they get to the top when they bounce to a wall. Getting to the top was not smooth. I tried different things, but it did not work well, so I let that be unsmooth for now.

In the end, I started integrating the new feature into the blog. That will take some time to finish.

Sunday 16 April

Today we did smaller yet essential tasks. DW placed snippets of red and white barrier tape around trees and bushes. That is so that it will be easier to spot them. The plan is to stay on top of the thistles this season, but if that fails, the tape will give us a second chance.

We estimated how much fence we still need to set up. It is 200 meters of fence. There are still 30 poles left, but we need at least 64 poles in total, so we will need to get 40 new poles. I think getting these with a trailer is better than sending them. That is for another moment.

Since the trees and bushes now have good marks, I dared cut weeds with the brush cutter around the trees and the bushes. This is the strategy for this season, not take out individual thistles but cut them with the brushcutter. It is much quicker, and we can cover the entire property in one hour. At least the parts not maintained by the sheep.

I sawed a plate from the big plate we got on 6 March. This new place is exactly the correct size on the plate I need to decorate the hour cottage in Sweden.

DW planted beans, so she is starting the planting season. I am lagging behind. Last year it was the other way around.

I also had a look at the vertical tiller machine. I found a youtube video with easy diagnostics: https://youtu.be/fP6h97DtQLQ

I used the business card of the lady with red hair from the tiny houses to dial in the distance of the coil. There were two tabs, and I didn't understand that, so I disconnected both. It can also be that the lady had a luxury version of the business card, so that would not work with my coil. I did not get any spark. There was plenty of rust that I brushed away.

This evening I was experimenting with ChapGPT again. This time I wanted to create a three-dimensional dodecahedron where each side showed an image. I wanted the shape to tumble around; it should be made by HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and no external libraries. ChatGPT could not make this.

Here ends this week's blog. I must say that the permanent fence is the main achievement of this week.