Cupboard preparations Sunday, 23-Jul-23 21:54:07 CEST

Surveying Sunday, 06-Aug-23 21:07:27 CEST

Sunday, 30-Jul-23 22:42:39 CEST

Cupboard backpanels finished

This week DW finished painting the back panels for the cupboard. We went on holiday to our farm in Sweden.

Monday 24 July

Today we both went to the office. It was challenging to leave Merida alone. It went well on Friday; I suppose all would be okay also today. DS came home early, so he could check out how things were going with Merida, and she was fine.

At the office, I was sucked back into the project I had worked on since May.

In the evening, I practiced with the DJ controller.

Tuesday 25 July

Today we worked from home.

On Saturday, 15 July, I got a video from Vinh Giang about storytelling in my feed. Today I got a new video on that subject. It was Casey Neistat on a similar subject: How to vlog like Casey Neistat by Casey Neistat. Funnily enough, the vital part of the vlog was that a story should have: Setup, conflict, and resolution. The rest of the video was not good; it was too American. Casey is cursing but silencing it. That is so annoying. There were a little too many superlatives concerning soldiers. You see, soldiers are no saints. To sell me the story of soldiers helping the world is like selling bullshit labeled as chocolate. This is also why I am not giving a link to Casey's episode here.

When it comes to storytelling, I am all in, though. I could try to practice making simple story arcs in my weekly blog. I have no idea how this is going to work. I have to practice on the fly.

The setup could be that we are working and at the same time preparing for going on holiday at the end of the week. What is the conflict in this? Hmm, I have to think about that.

In the evening, we had a walk around the neighborhood. After the walk, we checked on the garden. The salad beds are acceptable regarding weed. In the vegetable garden along the driveway, the weed has the initiative.

Wednesday 26 July

Today DW painted the back panels of her cupboard. The Duller & Co paint is behaving really well and is beautiful. Today she painted the final three panels.

In the morning, we had one thunder that scared Merida a lot. The sheep took it more calmly. There was also one short heavy rainfall today. After lunch, it opened up and became sunny again.

I worked from home for the first part of the day. I was back at the big project I worked on for a long time. Things were going my way, and I got good results. When it appeared to work, I was overdue on my off time. Satisfied but a bit tired, we had lunch. After lunch, DW worked on the panels, and I worked on moving the sheep to a new area.

The sheep moved to the area in front of the house, on the south side, next to the driveway. The sheep walked here from 27 May. The grass here has been growing slowly due to the drought. Now a couple of weeks, we have got some rain. That has been good for the growth. We hope the sheep can graze here for a week, then they can graze the following subsection the following week.

Today we also got visitors that came to have a look at our sheep. They also met Merida.

Talking of Merida, she figured out a new trick today. She can now climb up on the cat platform. I also filmed this, but somehow the film was broken. It works on my phone but not on Windows. She has just climbed up on the platform and looks like, "What are all those hurrahs for?"

There is a difference in Merida's personality. When cuddling her too much, she now shows that. Here is where we are getting used to each other. For the rest, she likes to be around us.

In the evening, I placed the grapevine in the net I bought a few weeks ago. Last year the entire harvest of grapes vanished mysteriously. I can not let that happen this year. It would be excellent to have a revanche of the grapevine harvest of last year. There are many more grapes, so the stakes are higher. Long-term readers of the blog recall that I moved the grapevine from the old house on 29 March 2021. In June of that same year, it almost died. On 13 July 2021, it started recovering. On 3 September 2022, I discovered that the grapes of the grapevine were gone! This year there are at least five times more grapes than the previous year. Also, this year this plant got neighbors. On 21 April, I planted two additional grapevine plants. I can already say that one of them will not survive. This concludes the news bulletin from the grapevine. You heard it here first.

While walking on the roof of the sea container, I experimented with making a panorama along the edge.

It is warped and strange, but it has a charm anyway!

Thursday 27 July

Today it was raining a lot. When it was done raining, it drizzled. That gave way, after a while, to more rain. Then it started over again. Yesterday I forgot to empty the rain gauge.

We both worked from home today. All my closer colleagues were away, so I was not expected to sit in the office alone. I worked on the dreadful project again. At the end of the day, I got it working again, just like yesterday. So I will test it again tomorrow to see if I can break it.

Merida helped me with the project in her way. She sat in the basket next to me, on my desk. Occasionally, she gave me compliments on my progress and suggestions on how to make lambda expressions. She is marveloues at C#. There is one thing that intrigues her the most, and that is recursion. All is fine if she gets her own space with just the right amount of cuddle.

After work, she discovered the sheep on the south side of the house. That was not all; the sheep discovered Merida!

	Oh, that is interesting. Who are they? You can see Selma seeing Merida. What happens next?
	Selma looks closer at Merida. Merida backs off the window a bit, and her tail is getting fluffy.
	Merida dares to get closer to Selma.
	It is not that bad, and there is a window in between. Merida's tail is getting back to normal.
	This is the next day. The same thing happened.

 

Friday 28 July

Today DW worked from home, and I went to the office. That was because I had to bring three plants. I really do not want to kill these three plants when we go on holiday for the next two weeks.

DS is not good at keeping plants alive. Before lunch, I went back home and continued working from home. I could not finish my big project. That has to happen after my holidays.

Saturday 29 July

We woke up at 6AM. Actually, I woke up ten minutes before the alarm clock. I had slept well. It happens that I have a hard time sleeping before a longer journey. We stood up and packed the car. Then it was time to say goodbye to Merida. That was feeling wrong. It was a strange feeling to leave her alone. I actually had a headache. DS and DD will take care of her, so she will be fine, but still, it was not feeling all right.

DW drove north. I had my new keyboard that I bought second-hand a couple of weeks ago. Now while typing, I realize I did not bring the charger for the keyboard. Oh well. But it works, and that is great. It is overcast. There is another thing I did not bring with me: The DJ controller. I will not practice anything with the DJ controller this holiday.

We arrived at Rastplats Rheiderland in Germany at 9 AM. This is the place we changed drivers in the past sixteen years. The quality of the toilets has degraded considerably in the last couple of years. I do think we might want to find something better for this. Usually, we have a little breakfast in the car, but this time we did not bring any, but we had water, so after a sip of water, I took over the steering wheel.

At Sittensen outside Hamburg, we stopped to fill the gas and eat breakfast. That was half past 10. The restroom was in perfect condition.

Half past one, we arrived at the ferry at Puttgarden Harbor. We had not been stuck in too many traffic jams, but we had a few. It was like the entire German bezzerwizzer association was out driving, and they all drove slowly in the left lane, although it was the free speed at that section of the Autobahn. The message is that driving slowly on the autobahn is possible. I did not know that. By the way, bezzerwizzer is Better Knowing in German.

Since we had not prepared any food, the bellies started feeling empty while waiting to get on the ferry. It had been possible to buy a priority ticket, but we did not do that, so we had to blame ourselves for this situation. But as I say, getting hold of calories is never the problem these days. Getting rid of calories is a more challenging problem. The best part of waiting was my new second-hand keyboard, which worked well. I could mount the telephone on the steering wheel and write on the blog post. I got Microsoft Word for Android, and that works pretty well.

They are building a tunnel between Puttgarden and Rödby, and I wonder what will happen to this harbor when the tunnel is finished. Will it be one big empty area, or will it continue anyway? The logical thing would be that the harbor is transformed somehow. I suppose they can make it into a harbor for luxury yachts, and the big field with asphalt can be transformed into a housing project. We will see, or perhaps not, because we will not come here anymore.

We got onto a movable deck on the ferry. With more passengers, they can lower an extra level on the boat and create a new platform. The cars on this platform had to be lower, so cars with roof boxes had to go to another platform.

Quarter past three, we rolled off the ferry. We had a chance to eat, shop, and go to the bathroom.

DW knitted a little, and I practiced urban sketching. It was impressive that we could do so much in so short a time.

DW took over the driving. She drives through Denmark, and I will rest. That way, when we arrive in Sweden, I will be fit for another leg of the journey. I discovered that the glove compartment on the passenger side of the dashboard got a pen holder inside the hatch. Putting the phone in the pen holder was possible, and then I could blog while DW drove. This was excellent.

I did not blog for long because I took a nap and slept throughout Denmark. After the Öresundsbron Bridge at Skånegården Rastplats, we stretched our legs. This was at 5 PM. Then it was my turn again to drive up through Sweden.

We arrived at CityGross in Värnamo at quarter past 7 PM in the evening. There we bought groceries for the next couple of days. From Värnamo, it is about half an hour's ride to our Farm.

It rained when we arrived. That made it a bit challenging to unpack the car.

Sunday 30 July

Today it was marvelous weather. I was eager to try out the GPS positioning equipment we had borrowed. I got it working. It was not that easy, though. I decided to tell more about how I did it in next week's blog.

While exploring the forest with the GPS system, we got updates from The Netherlands; DS sent us updates from our house about how DS and Merida got together. It was not that easy at first. She was skeptical of the presence of DS in our house. She hid under the couch and other cavities. DS spent time in our house, and eventually, she got used to him. It went better and better. He played with her, and it sounds like she and DS are having a great time together.

We also visited DF and DM and looked at their new solar panel installation. It looked fantastic!

Here ends this week's blog. It was a long blog with many photos of Merida.