First layer done in staircase hall Sunday, 21-Apr-24 20:59:07 CEST

Visit to a building company Sunday, 05-May-24 21:48:22 CEST

Sunday, 28-Apr-24 22:03:23 CEST

Finished the stair case hall

This week, we finished the staircase painting project!

Monday 22 April

I worked from home, and DW went to the office. Things went well today. My project at work went well.

After regular work, I wrote a new song: Good for you. I finalized the lyrics:

[Verse]
My holidays are far away.
I fly many times per year.
I am a traveler of the skyway.
It is fun; I have no fear.

[Chorus]
Good for you.
Good for you!
The planet is dying.
Do what you do.
It is on you.
And only you.

[Verse]
I am fashion.
The latest style is my passion.
Last month's dress is now antique.
I buy new garments every week.

[Chorus]
Good for you.
Good for you!
The planet is dying.
Do what you do.
It is on you.
And only you.

[Verse]
I love meat. The more, the better.
Garnishes, I push to the side.
I take my hunger for dead animals as a pride.

[Chorus]
Good for you.
Good for you!
The planet is dying.
Do what you do.
It is on you.
And only you.

[Bridge]
Putin's militia brings people from Africa.
My party thrives on immigration per capita.
Kremlin put money in my pocket.
We are popular, and my career is a rocket.

[Chorus]
Good for you.
Good for you!
The planet is dying.
Do what you do.
It is on you.
And only you.

[Instrumental outro]

The song is formed so that the verses describe an issue regarding climate or democracy. It is the protagonist singing something that they are doing. The antagonist then sings the Chorus, saying it is "Good for you," indicating that it is self-centered behavior. I could have used two different singers, but I decided on one and the same. It is easier to carry out. The "Get up and dance" tune had a story arc, while there is no arc in this latest song. It takes a couple of listens to figure out the structure; perhaps that is the story arc; it happens to the listener.

I am delighted with the bridge, describing a complex phenomenon in just a few sentences. This part is inspired by the podcast I wrote about on 5 March. So, I am not just writing a song about how Putin is changing the political climate in Europe. I have it backed by sources as well. The other verses also rely on information from science, but please don't ask me for the exact reference. Finding the impact on climate from the fashion industry, meat production, and airplanes should not be difficult.

Tuesday 23 April

I worked from the office, and DW worked from home.

In the evening, I created artwork for the new song. I remastered it and uploaded it to DistroKid. We will see how long time it takes to put it live. I will not publish the MP3 of the song here, but I will provide links to the song on streaming platforms.

Wednesday 24 April

For the first part of the day, I worked from home. After lunch, DW and I arranged a new area for the sheep to graze in. This time, we had them on the border between our eastern neighbors.

Then we went to pick up the packages. The pneumatic wrench had arrived at a pick-up point nearby. DW's next bucket of paint arrived at another pick-up point at the grocery store. When we got there, it started to rain heavily. At first, we waited in the car, and then we went out and got the package. It is a locker where you can enter a code. A door opens, and there is the package. The rain intensified even more. We sat and waited even more before we went to the grocery store.

Thursday 25 April

Before going to work, I noticed the song "Good for you" is live! It already had one like. That was nice.

• Spotify
• iTunes
• Youtube Music

Today it was the big day. I went to the office. A project was finalized today, and I worked on it for a year. It worked out well. It was a little exciting, though, but things went fine. It got late before I got home. DW worked from home, so I could go home later than usual.

Friday 26 April

It was a beautiful morning. A perfect Merida weather. Windstill and sunny. While making breakfast, I opened the door to the garden. Merida went out in the garden and then back in again. She even went in the litterbox inside and then out again. Well-behaved cat indeed.

DW worked from home, and I went to the office. I worked so hard this week that I had little time to check on the puzzle table. There is a little progress there.

In the evening, the weather was still lovely.

 

Saturday 27 April

This morning, we discovered that Hannah had gotten stuck in a temporary fence. Her struggle to get out of the net severely damaged two trees. The net had scratched off the crust of the trees. Perhaps she had been stuck in the fence for a couple of hours. Luckily, we did not have any electricity on the fence, so she had not been electrocuted, but I am sure it had not been a pleasant experience anyhow.

Today was King's Day in the Netherlands. I have the same relation to kings as the weather; they exist. This particular King's Day is a regular day off, so I can not complain about a forced, compulsory holiday. People celebrated their king as they usually do in the Netherlands: They go out trying to trade their garbage.

Both DW and I had our own special missions planned for today. DW was to paint the staircase hall, and I wanted to use the new pneumatic impact wrench.

On the car, it worked really well. I switched to summer tires, and it has never been so easy to do that. Four years ago, I switched the tires on the dirt road. At that point, there was no house, no driveway. Just barrier tape around the plot.

My next mission was to remove the wheels on the tiny house. I want to store the wheels in the container so they will not degrade from rain and sun. You never know; I might want to move the house one day, and it needs wheels. Now, that was a more demanding challenge. The impact wrench was not powerful enough for those bolts.

I figured out I had two forces. One was to keep the wheel from rotating, and the other was to get the bolt off. If I could stop the rotation, I could concentrate on the bolt.

I clamped a piece of wood onto the wheel, which worked well. Then I put a manual wrench in a PVC pipe, and now I had the leverage necessary to move the bolt.

The first wheel was done. Then, on the next wheel, the pipe broke. It would have been much better with a steel pipe, but I don't have those lying, and the ones I do have are not in the proper dimensions.

So, I continued with the next PVC pipe. It held up; I got all the wheels off the house.

At this point, DW had finished painting the staircase hall. That was a grand moment because all the first floor's walls had been painted. Now, we can remove the protective paper. That will be nice.

Next, I started repairing the wood-chipping machine I got from a neighbor. I decided to document how I disassembled the machine so that I could put it back together again.

	This was before I took the machine apart. This is a BOSH AXT 25 D
	I turned the machine upside down. Started removing the screws holding the stand with the wheels.
	Then I removed six screws holding the plastic "under the motor." Now the thing is upside down, so now the motor is below.
	I removed the front of the machine. It was mounted with two screws.
	I had to remove a set screw from the side of the machine so that the casing could be removed.
	The electric switch was fragile. I removed it and pushed it to the side so that the switch mechanism would not get hurt if I wanted to put the machine upright.
	Above the motor, when standing upright, there is a black plastic funnel for branches. It is hooked to the motor with large hooks. I could "peel off" the hooks to loosen the hood. It was then possible to unscrew the cap plate of the motor.
	Here is the cap plate of the chopping mechanism.
	Now, it is possible to inspect the chopping chamber. The knife is broken. It was hanging loose at this point. I will need to order a new knife.   The reason for the broken knife was that the holder of the knife had come off. To get it off, I had to remove the funnel. I wiggled and tried different movements, which came off in one piece.
	With the funnel off, I wanted to let the motor lie down, so I removed two more screws.
	This is the ONE SINGLE screw holding the knife. I am surprised by this design. All the force will be put on this screw, or am I wrong? We will see if I can get it back in a proper fashion.

 

Now I need to order a new knife. Then, put the thing back together again.

Sunday 28 April

This morning, my back and feet were sore. It had been a busy day yesterday. It was not so that I felt so bad that I decided to do nothing; on the contrary.

I decided to clear out the manure from below the rain roof. I carried 5 wheelbarrows to the vegetable garden. 3 wheelbarrows to the compost heap. Now, the area below the rain roof was much cleaner. I have been worried about the "trousers" our sheep have got from dirt. It has been such a wet winter with a lot of mud. When we are approaching warmer weather, we will get more flies. It will be beneficial to have much of the dirt cleaned away. So that is what I did.

DW's idea is to build the scaffold to support beans across the garden's border. That is why she placed a scaffold pipe on the right edge of the garden.

After lunch, I tore away the protective paper outside the bedroom and the staircase hall. There were a couple of stripes of sticky residue from the tape. I cleaned up some of them, but more work is needed on those leftovers.

I also mounted the reeling. That was so much more challenging than I had anticipated. Three of the holders were mounted in solid wood. The fourth was mounted on the hollow gypsum wall. The screw nut let loose and fell to the bottom of the wall. I pulled it up with a magnet. Then I got it out of the hole. From that point, I could mount the screw nut on a new holder and put it back into the hole. I could mount the bolt onto the screw nut, and I thought that now the most challenging part of the task was finished, but that was not the case. It was a really tight fit. The bolt had to have the exact angle so the holder would get the exact angle. I had to unscrew it several times, and it let off black paint on the wall each time. It was a bit smudgy when I finally got the holder on the right spot.

With that, most of the staircase hall project was finished. We started on the project on 9 December last year. That is 141 days or 20 weeks and one day. Cool!

In the early evening, we administered the Klik medication against fly strikes to the sheep. I bought this on 10 April. The medication is active for 16 weeks, but our vet says we should be prepared for it to be active for a shorter period.

Suppose the medication has been active for 12 weeks, and we are now at the end of week 17. That means that at the end of week 29, we should order more of the substance. That is on 21 July. We will come back to this subject this summer.

We let the sheep into the chute. There, we separated the wool and put a dot on their skin. We repeated this several times on each sheep. Each sheep got 30 milliliters in total of the klik stuff. Let us hope we will not have any fly-strike situations this year.

See you next week!