I started to hang up plates on the south wall Sunday, 07-Jul-24 22:11:53 CEST

Finished mounting the cement boards Sunday, 21-Jul-24 23:22:41 CEST

Monday, 15-Jul-24 22:03:16 CEST

South side done

Finished mounting plates on the south side of the house.

Monday 8 July

This morning, it was marvelous weather. I woke up early and had time to explore the progress in the garden.

	I made a trench along most of the south wall yesterday.
	Here is the raised bed from the west side.
	Here is the bed from the east side.
	This is the bed of the colorful chard. I also sowed red radish on 4 July but cannot see it sprouting yet.
	The black radish is sprouting. I sowed that on 29 June.
	This is DWs initiative of the garden.
	Courgette plants and flowering onions.
	In this morning's light, the sheep looked clean.
	Flowering potato plants.

 

Today I went to the new office to work for the first time. I had to finish connecting cables and monitors at my workplace, but most things were already in place. It was great to change the point of view. The view from the window is more green; I like that. I had a view over a school's roof at the previous office. This is much better: A grass field with more green trees. Lovely.

In the evening, we harvested the arugula for the first time! DW chopped a couple of tomatoes and made a simple arugula salad. We had the salad together with a chili sin carne. It was great.

In the evening, I found a toy car near the driveway. The neighbor's daughter lost it when they were on a visit more than a year ago. I did not blog about it back then.

Tuesday 9 July

This morning, I discovered that the red radish had sprouted. In the picture, you can see the radish leaves in between the watering hoses.

I found eight tiny courgettes. I hope things are growing fine from here.

The potato flowers look magnificent. Almost all potato plants have several flowers. Nice.

Today, I went to the office again. There were only three of us today, but it was okay. It was feeling just about okay. In the previous office, it had been strange. I went home earlier than usual because a storm was coming this evening.

First, I continued to work from home, but after work, I went out and secured our stuff. I also fastened the plates we got delivered for the foundation project.

It turned out that the storm was not as challenging as we anticipated. It had been okay to let the containers stand untied. We brought the sheep in under the rain roof and locked them up. After the storm, we let them out again.

The 75th Nato summit started in Washington today. It was the first time Sweden attended. Cool.

Wednesday 10 July

In the morning, I worked from home. DW went to a wool event. She brought with her yarn that she had been dying lately. When she came home, she had borrowed a mini loom.

After work, I set up another plate. It was feeling challenging. Perhaps I would need some rest. DW set up her loom with yarn she spun a long time ago. She had a great time with that loom.

The house transforms, but it is a slow transformation.

Thursday 11 July

Today, I worked from home again. It compensates for being at the office on Tuesday. After work, we went shopping. DW was tired.

Merida had diarrhea. She is drinking sufficiently and peeing, so she is fine in general. In December, Merida had diarrhea in combination with epileptic seizures, but I hope Merida can avoid that this time. She is using her litterbox beautifully. Even when Merida is out and about. Instead of doing the business outside, our cat goes into her litterbox and does it there. Then she goes out again.

Today ended the 75th Nato summit. In the final speech, Joe Biden had two bloopers. It is like when I call my wife with my mother's name. It has not happened often, but it has happened, creating such a bad atmosphere. I can bite my tongue off at such moments, but I am not standing in front of the entire world's media a couple of months before reelection to become husband. I feel sorry for Biden, but he has to recover. It is too late to stop now.

His opponent, the convicted felon, can have entire speeches where, in every other sentence, he is stuttering, slurring, inventing new fantasy words, and calling people by the wrong name for minutes on end. Does anyone remember the incident with the Nicky Haley gaffe? No one thinks it is alarming when the orange walrus flaps his hands and gobbles up the language. It is getting worse by the day, and not even that is an issue.

Friday 12 July

Today, I worked from the office. We are still not fully staffed in the office. The office's official opening will happen next week, and there are people on holiday, so it will take a couple of weeks before the office staffing is on level. Today, I learned that the heating in this building is done with floor heating. That is so good. I almost got tears in my eyes. At the previous office, the floors were connected to the outer walls with a straight cold bridge. The cold floor traveled up through the feet into the legs. There was a firm, chilling, dry wind from the ceiling from the ventilation system. The new office is a bliss in comparison. So far, I like it.

It rained today. It was a rather persistent continuous flow of rain. What can you expect when the atmosphere holds 7% more moisture for every degree of warming. That is a fact I found at Nasa.

After work, we picked up our dinner from the alternative grocery store. DS ate with us. Next week, they will have an avocado dish that we declined to sign up for. We stopped eating avocados because the mass production and transportation are bad for the environment. We could accept an occasional avocado from friends who do not know better, but it would be a perfect moment to discuss the subject. This week, we had a courgette spaghetti dish from the restaurant.

I have been bad at blogging this week. Last week, I was working on it from the very beginning, and it was fun and inspiring. This week, I wrote too little and too late. I sat this Friday evening doomscrolling. Every moment, I felt I should do something better but did not do it. At some point, I did the dishes and went out in the garden, eliminating slugs. Merida came with me. The slugs come out when it rains. I even had one in the raised bed. I think I found it on time; it had not been around for long.

The Hokus pickle plant had 11 flowers! We received the seeds on 3 April. On 4 May, I sowed the seeds. On 15 May, I transplanted the plants. The day after all, but one Hokus pickle plant died from a slug attack. Then, I gave the remaining four slug fortresses. The Hokus pickle plant survived, and now it has flowers! The other surviving pickle plants look less grand than the Hokus pickle.

Saturday 13 July

Today it was rainy. It did not rain continuously, but we received a gentle shower occasionally. I worked on setting up a plate at the foundation. I stood at the door opening several times and waited for the rain to stop. I tried to avoid taking out many tools if it started to rain more heavily. That meant I was walking back and forth to get things and bring them back. That was a more tedious way of working.

The work process was not smooth today, but it progressed steadily. I got a bit annoyed by the little mishaps. Dirt that fell into the gloves, pain in the knees while kneeling at the foundation. That kind of thing. Getting stuck with the shovel, not one time but several times in a row.

As the day progressed, there was more time between the showers. I got the plate up; the trade lifts are still fantastic.

In the evening, we had friends over for dinner! That was nice. DW made a delicious tomato and runner bean dish.

When the guests had left, I went on a slug elimination tour. I so much hope we can harvest things this season. It would be horrifying if animals ate anything of our vegetables at this point.

Sunday14 July

We went to bed relatively late, I think minutes before the big news broke. I went to the toilet in the morning around 5:30 AM, but I did not check my telephone. Until then, I had slept very well. It would be a lovely morning, as it appeared, but I tried to sleep again. Still in a half-sleep awake state, I heard a slight snapping sound. What could it be?

Perhaps an electric iron where the bimetallic strip snapped from off to on position because the strip has brass on one side and iron on the other, and it bends when it gets hot. I could not believe it. I was awake but still sleepy, so I did not carefully consider my options for investigating this theory. I know that sounds like I am trying to shuffle off my responsibility for my actions, and perhaps you are right.

Anyway, I approached the possible place for the sound, in the hobby room of DW because she had been using the iron a couple of days earlier. I was baffled and decided it was an incorrect conclusion that the iron was on at this time. So I did what any sensible person would do, I touched the iron plate. Well, now I was awake. I concluded that any sensible person would not touch any iron plate in the middle of the night after hearing a bimetallic snap sound.

I went back to bed with a sore right index finger. I tried to sleep, but that was absolutely impossible. So I went downstairs and started reading the news feed.

This was when I heard that a young, devoted Republican had been trying to provide the convicted felon, the orange walrus with flapping hands, a long-distance ear piercing. Why would anyone provide an unsolicited ear piercing? The own people? He obviously aimed for the right ear; why would he do that? We cannot ask him because he was killed, and people in the audience were killed and wounded, which is awful and tragic. Political violence, unless this was something else, is to be condemned. There are so many questions. Why would a patriotic member of the Republican party and a massive fan of the cult leader behave like this? Why was the Secret Service not on top of that same roof themselves? Not to aim at the podium but to make sure others didn't. Could it be so that the republican campaign is notoriously lousy at paying for security during rallies? Do you remember the jokes about the hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband during campaign rallies in October 2022? People laughed at Don's jokes about the attack during campaign rallies. I suppose those jokes will not be reintroduced anytime soon. But we will remember them. Not because they were funny but because when you make fun of someone else being attacked, you have to understand that people will take any chance they can to use the same against you when you are attacked.

Let, 's try. Don should use his new ear piercing for an NRA decoration. He could hang a little AR-15 earring in the hole. The hole should be big enough for a nifty earring.

Now, it was still really early. I was out and about, starting to work on the plates at eight in the morning.

I mounted wood so that I could fasten plates to the wood. Below the door is a thick layer of polystyrene, so I cut it away and mounted wood.

It was lovely weather today. I could work the whole day without the weather interruption, and as I said, I started early. Around lunch, the tiredness came back, and I took a nap. I am good at taking naps. After the nap, I was revitalized.

At 7 in the evening, I had put up the last plate of the south wall. Did I stop there? No, I put back the platform under the large door. I had to dig out gravel from our gravel heap and bring it to the large door. I brought 4 wheelbarrows of gravel. That was excruciatingly heavy. I got the platform back, although it was much higher than initially. I had no energy to care.

Then we had a late meal. For the rest of the evening, I sat scrolling again. When the time was right, we worked on the slug situation.

There you have it. I finished mounting plates on the south side of the house.