Almost finished plastering the first phase of the ceiling of the staircase hall Sunday, 11-Feb-24 21:47:32 CET

Good progress Monday, 26-Feb-24 18:23:37 CET

Sunday, 18-Feb-24 19:26:56 CET

Next phase of the plastering project in the staircase hall

This week, I built the scaffold in the staircase hall.

Monday 12 February

Today, I worked from home. DW went to her office. I continued working on the challenge I was given on Thursday last week. Just around the end of the business, I finished the solution. That was so nice!

Here is Merida behind my laptop screen. She is wondering what I am doing.

In the evening, I sorted out sound files to create a better order in the library of tunes I could play. I already told you about the catastrophe of the crashed SD card last week. I had an SD card with all the tunes from childhood and onwards that I liked playing on the violin. My own violin repertoire, as it were. I discovered one year ago that I had lost the SD card. I can explore various data recovery options, but the ones I tried so far have failed. That project is now on hold.

Tuesday 13 February

Today, I went to my office, and DW worked from home. It was beautiful weather. I brought with me the puzzle. I have some puzzle-making colleagues, and they will appreciate laying out the puzzle. They lay pieces in off moments.

A colleague had brought Semlor! They were delicious. I think I have not had so many of these pastries at a time when you are supposed to enjoy them. In other years, I could have one later in the spring, depending on if we were on holiday in Sweden.

Wednesday 14 February

Today, DW did not have her usual day off. Instead, she went to a conference held in a car museum. I worked from home in the morning and decided to fix a stench issue in the afternoon.

Mostly, I try to tell about things happening to build on the story from the beginning. It is challenging to talk about negative things just as casually. Let's call it self-censorship. One negative story I have not been writing about is how we had a stench on the ground floor for the last two weeks. The epicenter of the stench was between the large door in the living room and the window in front of the kitchen.

What could it be? I remotely recalled I felt this smell before, but where? What can it be? I got it figured out; it is a dead mouse. I think last week on Wednesday, I found a mouse below the rubber seal of the house's foundation. I removed it, but the stench continued to increase. Last weekend, I was busy with other things, so there was no time to go after this issue. I still cannot figure out where or when I felt this smell. One possible moment is when the house was delivered in 2020. We still had no windows, and a bird had placed a dead mouse on a beam in the staircase hall.

Today was the first moment available to do anything serious about the smell. Well, after lunch, that is. Before lunch, I worked from home for my employer. It was lovely weather in the morning. Then, after lunch, it started to rain, but I was determined to solve the problem.

I had a bottle of foam ready for the event. This would be easy, but the bottle's cap broke when I wanted to use it properly. The bottle became useless. No worries, I went to the hardware store and picked up a new bottle. I bought a bottle that fits on a pro nozzle handle this time. I also bought this handle and cleaner. I also got three more bags of TopFinish.

When I returned from the hardware store, I started cleaning where I found the dead mouse. First, I brushed it, but that was pointless because the dirt was sticky. I used the air compressor to spray the area with high-pressure air, which worked! Then, I removed the Tempex plate below the window and discovered that the construction was not that sturdy at this place. I figured out how to handle the air leakage and then put the plate back. I sprayed a lot of foam around the Tempex plate. I had some left to spray from the inside as well. Then I let this cure. Already now, I noticed that the stench had gone away.

I returned to the hardware store and bought another pro bottle of foam and a tube of anthracite silicone kit. I cut away excess foam at home and then covered it with the anthracite kit. Now, the smell of the dead mouse was replaced with silicone. That was just slightly better, almost okay.

When I finished the dead mouse project, I went out to give the sheep their hay. While working on the sheep, a neighbor asked if I wanted to get a broken chopper machine. Yes, I wanted that! I hope to repair it; it is a project on its own.

DW just missed the last bus. I went to the train station to pick her up. We went to the Frietboerderij on the way home. I could tell her about all I had done that day, and she told me about her adventure going to a car museum in the Hague for a conference about information security. I suppose.

Thursday 15 February

Today, both DW and I went to our respective offices. I had forgotten my screen glasses at home, so it was unpleasant. I experimented with having a little blob of tissue to push my regular glasses up so that I would not need to sit with my head tilted backward the entire day. It was not an ideal solution.

In the afternoon, a colleague and I had a walk. We went to see the forest in the neighborhood of the office. It is nice to have a park so close to the office.

There are a lot of reconstructions around this area, so we had to detour a couple of times. This park is appropriately beautiful. Amazing that it is allowed to be like this. Usually, I find that beautiful public places are vandalized, but not here; it is fantastic. During this walk, we did not encounter any deranged persons obsessed with gloves, like we had the last time, 1 February. Much better.

In the evening, I made a place to fit the size of the laptop. Then, if Merida wanted, she could lie on it without pressing any keys.

Friday 16 February

Today, we both went to our offices. I had my screen glasses with me! It was supposed to be DW's day off, but she went to the office anyway because she had to do things. There were not many people in my office, which surprised me. Anyway, the people that were present did what we had to do.

DW was ready at 3PM, so I decided to drive her home and continue to work from home. I have been working on new things at work and felt frustrated that it did not work as I intended. On the way home, we picked up more medicine for Merida. I asked if we could get another dose of the seizure break medicine, but they did not have that in stock. DW thought it would not be needed because we gave her medicine, but I was not that sure that we would not see any seizures.

I gave the sheep their afternoon hay when we came home and continued working from home. Now, I figured out how to do what I had to do. It is excellent to leave the work in a state of success before a weekend. Merida was lying on the plate I made yesterday in front of me. She was sleeping. She is so beautiful.

I worked a little longer than needed. I was so pleased that I figured out how to do what I must do. It was the perfect way to start the weekend.

That was the moment when Merida had her 6th seizure. It lasted for about 3 minutes, and it was heavy again. The recovery from the seizure was easier without Diazipan. We became sad that the medicine was not working. DW will call the veterinarian on Monday and discuss how to proceed.

Late in the evening, the news arrived that Judge Arthur Engoron delivered the ruling on persistent fraud to the former resident of the White House, Donald Trump, and the people around him. Donald, or Jane Doe 174, as he is called on the late Jeffrey Epstein's list of clients. Jane Doe 174 will need to pay almost 360 million dollars in fines! Actually, it is more money because there is also interest and additional fees to be paid. That is obviously on top of the 83.3 million dollars he must pay E. Jean Carrol in the recent defamation case.

President Joe Biden and Mr Trump are almost the same age as Jane Doe 174. They are only three years apart. Jane Doe 174 recently started to speak sluggishly and mix up people's names and dates. I can understand the immense pressure on Jane Doe 174, but the man has the energy of a maniac. Everything Trump touches turns into bankruptcy.

Mr Trump appears like a snorting walrus or a rhino flapping with his hands; he makes funny sounds during his speeches, such as "Bing bing bang bang." He cannot make complete sentences, but when he manages to speak, it is unhinged, bizarre, hateful jibberish.

We can only hope that Jane Doe 174, the convicted rapist, will glide into the silence of the past as quick as possible. However, Trump has ninety charges in his name waiting for him. There can be a lot of drama before he is put behind bars. Obviously, the plan of Jane Doe 174 is to be reelected and then give himself a pardon.

On the other hand, President Joe Biden has 50 years of experience in US and international politics. He is not busy with his own good. He seems to be making the US economy sprawl and doing great things for ordinary people, building alliances with other nations worldwide. That is the stuff we need to hear from the US.

The legal team of the former resident of the white house argued that it is okay to kill political opponents. Trump's friend Tucker Carlsson went to Putin and said it was okay to kill political opponents. Not even a week later, Navalny was dead. The stealing and fraud methods of Trump are enabling other Trump wannabees around the world to get power.

Saturday 17 February

Today, it did not rain. It was windstill and warm. Fabulous weather to be in February, albeit unnatural and alarming from a climate change perspective. I plastered one bucket of TopFinish, and DW worked on cleaning up the platform of the sheep below the rain roof. Later, she got the help of DS as well.

We had talked about letting the sheep graze a more extensive area if the weather was better. This has not happened, though, because it has been raining so much this so-called winter. Today was a good day to let the sheep graze a larger area around the house.

I also let Merida walk outside. She liked it very much. Here, Merida hid under the rooster at the workshop entrance. She was also interested in the sheep, but when she came too close, Bea stomped with her feet to give Merida a warning. That worked.

When I finished the bucket, I had done the last part of the first phase of the plastering of the hall. I started the next phase: Building the scaffold for plastering the walls and ceiling above the stairs.

First, I had to figure out how to configure the scaffold. I decided on standing poles on the stairs and four on the first floor.

I created a corner of the scaffold on the first floor. That part had the function of stabilizing the construction. From there out, I could attach the poles on the stairs.

The pole in the corner is nine stair front panels up from the ground floor. I had planned the next pole to be four stair front panels up, but it had to be three. Under the step of the pole in the corner, I put a wooden pole from the ground and up. This way, I am sure the step can hold the scaffold. I will do the same for the step three front panel pole.

When all was standing, I could make everything level and rearrange bars so it was easy to walk under the construction. Tomorrow, I will continue with the scaffold.

Sunday 18 February

Yesterday was warm, overcast, wind-still, and there was no precipitation. Today we had plenty of rain. As the day progressed, the wind picked up. In the morning, I continued to work on the scaffold. I got the construction to a point where it is ready for planks. The planks are out in the rain, though, and I am unsure how to get them in without bringing an entire zoo.

Each side of the construction has a diagonal, so the construction is perfectly stable. When the scaffold was finished, we went to the PILs. They live near the coast, and it was windy and rainy. You could feel the wind trying to take a grip on the car when driving on the motorway.

The PILs were fine. We had a cup of tea, coffee, and cookies. We did not do so much other than talking. That is important as well.

We came home after dark, and before bed, we had a cup of tea. Behind the couch came an enormous spider. DW is not a fan of these, so it is my task to catch them. It was quick, too! It hid behind a cupboard. I used the torch to try to see it, and I could see the shadow, which was ginormous. After chasing around after it, I could catch it under a glass. It was almost two inches (5 cm) between the legs. I wonder if it hitchhiked with the scaffold. It appeared in the living room, though, meaning it had walked a long way before we noticed it. Now, it got escorted out in the rain.

Here ends this week's blog. I am pleased that the scaffold is standing. It marks a new phase of the house-building project.