Sunday, 15-Oct-23 16:57:37 CEST

We thought the bluetongue crisis was over

Week 41, Monday 9 October until Sunday 15 October

This year, it is already week 41, using the ISO standard for week numbers. This week, my blog effort collapsed entirely. I did not upload last week's blog; worse yet, I did not start blogging until Saturday.

So what have I done, so much I had no time left for blogging? I have programmed on the microphone project every spare moment. That is a short explanation. Of course, I was pretty sick last week and not back to myself. I started working from home on Monday. Went to the office on Tuesday. Although I was healthy enough to work for my employer, it took until Wednesday before I felt okay.

Tuesday I worked from the office. I brought with me the last courgette for this season. It weighted 3137 grams. A lot of colleagues have made courgette soup for the first time ever. Some have several buckets of soup in their freezer waiting to be used. It has been great fun to bring these gifts to work to see what people are doing with it.

On Wednesday, I worked from home in the morning. In the afternoon, I harvested all I could from the garden along the driveway. A substantial part of the harvest has been consumed by mice. The beetroot was all eaten, and no vine grapes were left for me. The mice mostly avoid courgette, and we had a lot of courgette. There is a lot of work for Merida. Next year, I hope I can have more left.

At the beginning of this season, I worked on the soil to make it fluffy and workable with a tiller machine. I need to add more sand to the soil next year. I had hoped pumpkins would grow very well, but that did not happen. The artistic, "messy" way of planting was not fun to work with as the season progressed. Next year, I want to have straight rows. It was good with the garden tiles, but since I could not keep up with the weeding after the holidays, the tiles got overgrown and hard to find. We will get manure from the sheep, and putting a couple of wheelbarrows in the garden will be convenient.

Our sheep, Hannah, was already much better from the bluetongue virus infection at the beginning of the week. Selma had her worst days on Sunday or Monday. We stopped injecting Selma with painkillers on Tuesday. On Wednesday afternoon, when I finished harvesting, I created a new fencing area for the sheep. I entirely included the tiny house of DS. That way, they could graze on stray areas that otherwise would be outside. Later in the week, it looked like they had issues with their feet. They are resting more than Bea. As long as they are up from time to time grazing and then regurgitating, all is fine, and they may rest as much as they like. Their digestive system has four chambers, and it is rather complex. I understand that the digestive system needs to keep going; it is not suitable for sheep to stop eating.

On Thursday, we both went to the office. DW had much to do and a late meeting. She came off the train relatively late, but I stayed at my office to wait for her so we could go home together.

Friday, I went to the office, and DW worked from home. I brought my laptop so that I could show the microphone program. There were different reactions: the younger colleagues understood what this was about. Shows with visual effects are not something new. They thought this was cool. Older colleagues had no idea and started talking about epilepsy. So I asked them if they had epilepsy, and that was not the case, but they heard that people can have it. It is as if I show someone a road, and they start talking about traffic accidents because they heard it is possible to have a traffic accident on a road.

Now that I have seen how people react, I think I will try to find out how to calculate the beats per minute and make visual effects based on that. Slightly less intense visual effects.

On Saturday morning, DW and I discussed what needed to be done outside. I want to finish the fencing project; closing off this year's outdoor season with a finished permanent fence would be good. DW would like to start planning for a barn. We will see how we juggle these things; I want to feel I finished the fencing project.

The afternoon was designated for a visit of MIL and FIL. We got stuck in a traffic jam the last time we went there. That went much better this time. MIL had a task for me; she wanted me to make a passe-partout for a drawing she had made. She wanted to give that drawing to her other daughter's son.

Before I could cut any passe-partout, I had to find all that gear. It was the most challenging part. The paper was easy enough; it was leaning towards a wall. The bag with knives and knife holders was more challenging. It took well over an hour to search for it. I was glad when we found it. This is all the aftermath of moving to the new house. These kind of things are still not properly ordered. We got more work to do on getting things ordered.

When we came home, I started looking for making a BPM algorithm. I found that it was a challenging task and searched for algorithms. I found various algorithm variations, but most of all, I got the gist of how it can be done. It is complex.

Sunday, DW went to a museum with friends. I had other things to do: program the BPM algorithm. At first, I tried to make my own, but when that did not work, I decided to see how others do it. There was a person who had made a library, a lightweight library. I looked at how it was done and tried to use similar techniques but doing it myself. It failed miserably. Then I loaded the library itself and got it running, kind of. It worked better than my attempt, but it was not good enough.

I went to bed very late and was slightly annoyed that I could not make a BPM algorithm work.

Here ends this week's blog. It is as if I am wondering if I should continue blogging. I do think I have to continue, though.