Finished plastering the staircase hall Sunday, 17-Mar-24 20:26:24 CET

Worked on the building plan of the shed Sunday, 31-Mar-24 21:52:42 CEST

Sunday, 24-Mar-24 21:09:06 CET

Started preparing for plastering the workshop

DW started painting the staircase this week, and I started working on the workshop project. In my spare time, I play around with Suno.ai.

Monday 18 March

Today, I worked from home, and DW went to the office. It was marvelous weather. Obviously, I had to work, so I could not enjoy the weather by going outside. At lunch, I ate my lunch in the door opening with the big doors open; Merida was next to me. I put her harness on to ensure she would not run off. She had absolutely no need to go around outside. As long as Merida was calm and happy, I was satisfied.

I had a productive day for my work. After work, the weather was still lovely. I gave our sheep their evening snacks. They get a small bucket of food supplements. That is like a snacks to them, and they absolutely love it. We call it "chunks". I also gave them fresh water and hay.

Hannah's wound from the fly strike on her back is fully healed. She got an increased production of grease around the areas where she had wounds, which formed hard chunks in her fur. Other chunks. I try to loosen up these chunks, and she loves that treatment. She raises her head and makes smacking sounds with her lips. When I am around, she reminds me to give her a check-up. She does that by bumping into me. Sometimes, it's a bit forceful.

Selma and Bea have a little issue with dirt clinging to their tails. It has been challenging to keep the ladies out of the mud. Selma better accepts maintenance. Bea has no patience for maintenance. Bea is also the sheep with no issues with fly strikes and blue tongue virus infections.

Toward sunset, I worked on the grapevine. I moved the grapevine from our old house on 29 March 2021. That is now three years ago. Last year, I draped the grapevine with a net. That net did not help me make a great harvest. It is partly because of that I was not proactive during the harvest. Keeping the net around the grapevine through the season would not be practical, so it had to be removed. I also pruned the branches and decided what to keep.

Our other grapevine brushes did not require pruning.

DW came home when I was almost done with the grapevine.

Tuesday 19 March

Today, we both went to our offices. DW held a course in what she studied while I painted the cottage ceiling two weeks ago. It was her book on the coffee table.

There was progress at the puzzle table at the office. I had no time to lay any piece today. I had to finish things to start the next development sprint.

Wednesday 20 March

Today, I worked from home. DW prepared to paint the staircase hall. She primed the ceiling and the upper part of the walls. She did not finish that, though.

After work, I made a new song! This time, I even got the artwork for the song created using the suno.ai application. It is in the genre of angry hard rock, whatever that might be. The title of the song is "The Walrus," and here is the lyrics of the song:

[Verse]

The walrus is going down.
He lied thirty thousand times.
Lying has a price. He will pay a fine.
He is punished for his crimes.

[Verse]

A disgrace to the US nation.
A danger to a free and democratic world.
A cult leader and a Russian infiltration.
He makes me want to hurl.

[Chorus]

Close his cell door with a thunk.
Lock him up. He is a punk.
No more grifting of this skunk.

[Verse]

Leave his cult before it is too late.
Open your eyes and register to vote.
Vote against this madness. Save the date.
Don't sink your own boat.

Suno.ai used my lyrics liberally, but it is almost how I made it. Here is the end result!!!

As you can hear, it is an angry hard rock.

It was speedy to make this song. I started on it yesterday evening. After work, I finished it. Well, I turned it in this form, and that satisfied me, so I called it done.

We had lunch, and after lunch, I worked on plastering the staircase walls. But Jens, last week you said you were finished? That is true, but I lied a little bit. After I said it was finished, I discovered a place I was unhappy with, so I decided to fix it this Wednesday.

With the plastering of the staircase wall finished, what should I do next? I want to start plastering the workshop, but it has so much stuff. Where am I going to keep all the things? I hope to free up the north part of the room. To do that, I thought having a few shelves would be good. We decided to have a look at the second-hand shop. So we went there.

Shelves are not the type of thing the second-hand shops in this area are good at. They had two, but the quality was not good, and the price was high. We decided to buy new shelves and the hardware store. The price was lower, and the quality was higher.

We bought metal shelves. They are made of thin material, which is not much, but it is perfect for this situation. I placed distance padding on the back of the shelves because I didn't want the metal to rub against the wall. I have a third shelf to set up, but we don't have a good place for that. It will be set up, but the place will be a compromise, and I need to figure out where it will be.

Thursday 21 March

This morning, we discovered that our Mirabelle had flowers! We planted this tree on 11 February 2023, last year.

Today, DW worked from home. I went to the office. There were many colleagues at the office, so that was great fun. The puzzle had progressed a little since Tuesday. I hope it will progress at a good pace (neither too quick nor slow) that we can follow here on the blog.

On the way home from work, I came across a neighbor at the side of the road. I stopped and asked if I could help her. She was already sufficiently helped, so I could not add karma points to that account this time.

In the evening, I started my subscription to suno.ai because it was so much fun.

Friday 22 March

Today, DW worked from home, and I went to the office. What was supposed to be a regular commute to work brought an unexpected surprise for me.

	Roadblock!

It took 15 minutes. It was not that bad, actually.

At work, not so much happened at the puzzle table. People have been busy, and I suppose that is better.

This week, I worked on a new sprint on the project, and it would have been nice to finish it before the weekend. It did not happen, though. A good finish before the weekend feels excellent, but it is what it is.

In the evening, I did weekly groceries. We had pizza. I worked on a new song, but I was tired.

Saturday 23 March

It was a beautiful morning. It was predicted it would rain a lot today, and it did, but it came in bursts. I was stoked about progressing on my new song today but got stuck.

I found that my plaster job on Wednesday was not that good. The first thing I did was to do this over again again. With that, I had done my last plaster task on the staircase. DW primed this place, and with that, it was done. I am not going to plaster over a primed wall.

The workshop is my next plastering project. It will be tedious to clear it so much that I can start working on it. I found the smoke detector in the workshop, which was supposed to be mounted on the hall's ceiling on the ground floor. I took it down when I plastered the hall. The issue was that the mounting plate was loose. Our electrician had used one single wood screw through the nut of the box. The nut was loose but embedded in the box, so I could not just unscrew it; it just rolled around inside the box. I could hold a metal saw to the bolt and turn it with the screwdriver to grind it off. With that, I could remove the plate and access the box inside. Now I had a broken wood screw sticking out of a hole, and somewhere inside was a nut. Now I wiggled the screw, and out it came together with the nut. It is improving; now I have one too-large hole with nothing inside. How should I fix this? I went for a small, expandable plug. I could, as a result of this, use a legitimate wood screw for that hole. There was a second intact mounting point, so I had to find a suitable bolt. That took some time to find.

It will take a long time if it goes like this to clean up the rest of the workshop.

In the evening, I tried to continue with the song from this morning. It would not get unstuck. It started raining, so I thought I would write a new song. I finished it in an hour and let DW hear it. She said it was a little like: "Here I am, and I see that it rains, tra la la." So, I thought I would give the song a sad workover.

Sunday 24 March

It was not raining this morning, but I had finished my song about rain. Here it is:

[Verse 1]
It is raining again and again.
When will this winter end?
I see dark clouds over the horizon.
Life is hard, and I might lose my friend.

[Chorus 1]
The rain is falling from the sky.
Will I see the sun before I die?
The endless sound of falling drops.
Will all be lost before this stops?

[Verse 2]
In the winter, it is more often wet.
Worried by the climate, try to forget.
The jetstream is chattered.
And so is my heart. Ooh ooh

[Chorus 2]
The rain is falling from the sky.
Will I see the sun before I die?
The endless sound of falling drops.
Will all be lost before this stops?

[Bridge]
The roads are underwater.
I fear for a slaughter.
Cars floating around.
Where is the ground?
What should we do?

[Verse 3]
I am listening. There is silence.
Just the wind and the sun.
What happens now?
What is the guidance?
Is it now that the drought has begun? Aaah.
Now that the drought has begun.
Is it now that the drought has begun?

It is a country song.

I think I understand the song structure construction a little better. It is interesting to see how some words better support the rhythm. There is more to learn. Ultimately, it would be nice to make the song fade out better, but I am too lazy to do that right now.

DWs reaction to the song was not entirely enthusiastic. I can understand that she already thinks I am a full-fledged songwriter, but that is not the case. I am just trying things and learning on the fly. I will not pay too much attention to her opinions (on this matter); I make my songs for fun and will keep it that way.

After breakfast, DW did an exam for CCSK, and then I started repairing one of my jeans. It had to be done by hand because I cannot get into that place with the sewing machine. This is the inside of the pocket that had been ripped off. I stitched it onto the jeans; we will see how that works. Then, I continued clearing a small part of the workshop. I concentrated my efforts on my boxes of stuff. I used old ice cream boxes for nuts and bolts and that sort of thing.

I had been moving boxes, clearing things up when I heard a happy chime from upstairs. It was DW that had successfully finished her CCSK exam. She got 81% correct answers, and you had to have 80% to pass the exam. She was so pleased!

We had lunch, and after lunch, we went to a wool event. There were no free spaces in the parking lot, so I blogged in the car while DW went inside to enjoy her wool event. The thing is that I had to stay in the car in case someone wanted to get around the car. I did not expect the event to take so long, so I was okay with waiting. While sitting there, I started wondering what my next song would be about.

Now, when I start songwriting, I am more into the words, the rhythm of words, and how to get things said rather than the chord progressions and sound. It is a joyful learning experience!

I sat there in the car, and it rained a lot. It occurred to me I had written a song about rain. That was funny.

DW came back rather quickly. I did not have to sit in the car blogging for too long and did not mind. After that, we went to a hardware store to pick up two bags of potting soil, and then we went to the… Can you guess it? We went to the second-hand shop! I bought two plates that I can have under pots. We found a lamp with a regular Edison 27-millimeter bulb fitting to be placed near our couches to replace a halogen lamp. I also found a light organ. It had a fixed sensor for bass, mid and high. We also found two books.

It was raining so hard that I had to park the car next to the entrance of the second-hand shop. At home, it continued to rain. It was actually awful.

Here ends this week's blog. DW started painting the staircase this week, and I started working on the workshop project. I had massive fun writing songs.

See you next week!