Gravel under the boards Sunday, 28-Jul-24 21:06:11 CEST

Insulated the pipes of the tiny house Sunday, 11-Aug-24 22:11:27 CEST

Sunday, 04-Aug-24 21:27:58 CEST

Finished the boards project

This week, I finished the board project. Even the east wall has gravel, and the rest of the board has been removed.

Monday 29 July

It was lovely weather today. I worked from home, and DW had her sabbatical. I forgot about the berries we collected yesterday. I do hope tomorrow I will remember the berries.

The courgette West sunrise is growing as if it thought it was a Yule tree. It has massive leaves and beautiful flowers, but where are the courgettes?

After work, we sat in the shade under the cherry tree, drinking lemonade. Merida was playing around us. I took a photo of her; she is barely visible. Can you see Merida in the photo?

Tuesday 30 July

In the morning, I remembered to include the berries in our smoothie!

After work, when I went to the car to drive home, I wondered if I could dictate when driving in the car. That would be pretty amazing. Now, I'm driving out from the parking lot at work. It has been a good day with challenging activities. Right now it is 28 degrees Celsius.

I decided to use this moment to contemplate what projects I am working on at home and what is coming.

So far, I have been working on the board project. Last week, I put gravel on three sides of the house. I could work on isolating the pipes under the tiny house house. Then, I can also put boards around the tiny house's foundation.

Another project would be fencing the vegetable garden in front of the house. For that project, we would like to have building fences that we will get from neighbors, and we will cut them so they have appropriate height and then mount the fence parts to poles. In that case, we need more poles or longer poles.

I have also been thinking about clearing out garbage from the sea container.

We have the shed building that will start at some point, and we need to move a few shrubs. I am afraid that's very heavy digging that needs to happen to those shrubs, and I would need a digger. We will move some shrubs from behind the sea container near the driveway. We will move the shrubs to the corner of the driveway and the road. I am wondering what you should call that project? The moving shrubs project. We also want to have a scaffold at the house in Sweden. We need to figure out how to order it to receive it when we are there or go and get it. It requires some research on scaffold companies.

Of the different projects I mentioned now, I would say the scaffold project and the moving shrubs project are both time constraints in that the house will be delivered at a specific time. We don't know when the shed building will start, but we do know that our holiday in Sweden will be in September.

In a way, the new Swedish scaffold has a more precise time constraint than the shed building. We also need to remove the rain roof for the shed building because we want the building company to put poles in the future sheep house; that is also a project. The sheep house is also a project that we will do sometime. I think the sheep house has the lowest priority right now because other things are more time-constrained.

It was interesting to talk about what to do and not to do on the way home. I will see if I can get this into a blog form tonight.

In the evening we had a walk. It was 28°C but rather lovely to walk. I still felt my joints ache from Sunday's walk, but it was okay. We had friends preparing to go on holiday, and we were going to take care of their house while they were away and they were going to Sweden. We suggested that they borrow our cottage in Sweden.

Wednesday 31 July

While making smoothies this morning, I listen to Ukraine: the latest. It was the episode from Monday where they said that Ukraine had hit an air base near Murmansk above the Arctic Circle. It is mind-boggling how innovative the Ukranians are and how far they reach with just their own capacities. The West supports Ukraine for as long as it takes, just barely.

After breakfast, before work, we had a walk in the garden. I harvested a couple of courgettes and a pickle, and DW harvested some beans.

The bed behind the sea container is taking off. The pumpkins are heading north. Sending out shouts with two-inch big pumpkin balls along the stem. The courgette is growing bright yellow courgettes.

Just 26° and slightly overcast. We had lunch, and now it's time to work outside. I was thinking of putting gravel below the plates on the east side of the house. I want to clean up the remaining unused boards and apply gravel so the boards' project can be called finished. It's almost finished right now, and that doesn't feel good. So that's what I'm going to do now. I will review the board's project's last little bits and pieces. Or am I?

First, I switched to working trousers, but it was so warm outside I needed to put on shorts.

DW also wants me to clean the flycatcher in the garden. It is a bucket with a liquid attracting flies. To do that, I need to dig a hole, then put the dead flies in that hole and fill it again. How difficult can digging a hole be? It has been dry for some time, so the clay is almost like concrete. First, I put one Wellington. It hurt my feet to dig with those. I had to switch to regular shoes. I placed the new hole near the previous hole. One possible reason for all the flies can be my elimination of slugs. When I think about it, perhaps digging holes is not the most sustainable way of doing this. Might need to find other methods to get rid of dead flies.

DW and I discussed it, and we concluded digging many holes would not be sustainable. I had already dug the hole this time, so I also used it, which was disgusting. I poured in the dead fly slush and covered the hole.

While working on the flies, it just occurred to me that there is another project I've not considered. My plans of finishing the board project today just evaporated. Neighbors asked me some time ago if they could borrow more of the scaffold. The neighbors will use the scaffold in August, so it is time to take it out of the sea container. As with all tasks, you always need to do preparations, so also with this project. I had clogged the entrance of the sea container, which was inconvenient, and that stuff had to be removed first.

The scaffold parts are heavy, especially the long poles lying deep into the sea container. I was forced to do strange lifting to get these pieces out, which was not good. Luckily, I did not get any back pain. I'm going back and forth to remove the poles from the sea container. I have the phone lying inside the sea container. Whenever my Bluetooth headset leaves the phone, Microsoft Word says, "Bye." That is cute.

At the end of the afternoon, I moved out all the scaffold parts. That means that I can check that item off the list; that is done. I hate leaving projects that are almost finished after me.

The veterinarian called us with the result of the blood tests of Merida. We will need to increase the medication to 3 quarters of a 12.5mg Phenoral pill two times per day. I was not pleased with this news. 3 quarters? Why not 5/7 or 4/9 or any other ridiculous fraction? Oh well, I will digress and start cutting pills into 3 quarters. Two times per day. In three weeks, we need to get back to get another blood test. Whoa, another hundred euros fly out of my phone. The fur of Merida is not orange; it is Golden.

In the afternoon, we biked to the pickup point where you can get vegetables. We have become members of Voko. It distributes vegetables among its members. We bought vegetables this time, but we might even sell vegetables through this organization. Then, we continued to the alternative grocery store and picked up bread.

In the evening, Merida caught a mouse. Unfortunately, she dropped it. It is good to know that she knows how to do it and she had great fun. I could see that on her.

Thursday 1 August

This morning, while I was making the smoothie, Merida was sitting in the garden in front of the doors to the living room. There was a dead mouse there, and she was so funny; she wore poking with her paws at the mouse as if she was saying it is so fun playing with you; why are you dead? Merida didn't show any interest in eating the mouse. She just wanted to play with it. I took the mouse and discarded it; she will need to find a new mouse to play with.

While working on the breakfast, I listened to a podcast about Trump's panel appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists. Donald Trump was interviewed on stage, and he was horrible. What we need to understand about Donald is that he sees himself at the top of a cult, and journalists are not very high-ranking in his cult. Not to mention that probably, in his view, black female journalists have a lower ranking, and it is nasty that Trump sees people like this; Donald J Rump is such an awful person. The extent to which this man is a self-obsessed, dangerous narcissist cannot be overstated. It is good that we see Donald for who he is. The media from Rupert Murdoch is doing its best to hide the core values of Donald and sugarcoat him into any likable blob, but here Don was, in his naked racism. Donald's presidency was exasperating for me.

It is unfair that Donald can spew so much dangerous garbage without being fact-checked or laughed at. This was a short moment when journalists gave him the necessary questions. He should not be able to talk like this; it is incorrect.

I think the helpers are prepping Donald before an event like this; he gets the simple keywords of the event. Saturday, Donald, the conman, went to a Bitcoin conference, and he used Bitcoin as a keyword without knowing what Bitcoin was about, which was embarrassing.

I had the same feeling at the National Association of Black Journalists. He was prepped with the keyword black. This makes his talking dumb and fake. You cannot just talk about jobs and insert Black into the sentence randomly. That is weird. Black jobs, what is that? Don't say things like that. The audience laughed at him.

Words lost their meaning for Donald. This 78-year-old criminal is nasty, hostile, and horrible. You cannot pardon convicted people if they are innocent. Convicted people are not innocent; they are convicted. It is a flabbergasting simple fact, so people started laughing right up Donald's face again. He was making such a lousy impression that his helpers had to rush him off stage in the middle of the presentation. Perhaps Donald can no longer make public appearances without making a fool of himself?

In all this, I wonder how he will finish his campaign if he gets a jail sentence in September?

In the evening, I reconfigured the WIFI network. Merida has a GPS tracking device. It has a feature that puts the tracker in an "Energy preserving mode" when within range of the home WIFI network. The thing is that we have one giant WIFI network. DS has the same network in the tiny house as the main building. The GPS tracker feels at home when Merida is near the tiny house. I changed the network tonight so that DS has his own network and Merida will not disappear when around the tiny house. It appears as if it is working.

To try the new configuration, I was roaming a larger area. That was when I discovered a neighbor had cut the grass where our sheep were grazing. We will need to move them earlier to a new area as soon as possible because, with this action, the sheep do not have enough calories. It was inconvenient that the food was removed without us knowing it.

Today came the news that the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and some others will be released in a US–Russian prisoner swap!

Friday 2 August

This summer, we have been blessed with many lovely mornings. We had no rain for a while now. No, I stopped to register the rain. I recall that it has been more than a week since the last rain.

	Pepper flowering.

I am driving out in my driveway on the way to work. Merida was a bit annoying last night. She made noises outside the bedroom. I decided to go to the bathroom, and on the way there, Merida thought it was amusing to play with my feet. She tried it again on the way back to the bedroom, but I picked her up and took her with me. Merida does not like to be carried around.

I need to get home early today because I have a lot of things to do. It will be necessary to give the cheap a new grazing area. I am still surprised by my neighbor's action. He invited our sheep to graze on his property, so we set up the fence there. It is like inviting someone for dinner and removing the plate before they finish eating. Perhaps he does not know we let the sheep graze one area for about a week and that the work moving the fence needs to be valid. We cannot let the sheep go somewhere for a few hours; that is not how it works. It is too much effort to move a fence for that.

From the sheep's perspective, it is relatively simple; they cannot go hungry, so we need to fix this quickly, but I need to go to work today. I have no idea how many days ago our neighbor cut away that grass. It can be that they have been going hungry for a couple of days. Their area has grass to eat, but the sheep are lazy. When food is scarce, they try to get out of the fence. We have had that before. It is nearly impossible to keep them in the fencing area if they are hungry, and there is nothing more irritating than sheep that have escaped; they are pretty strong in situations like that. Now that I have arrived at work, I will try not to think about the sheep today.

It is essential to understand that monoculture is beautiful. Monoculture shows that man dominates the environment, making it impossible for insects and other lesser creatures to exist. Preferably, you create monoculture with a fossil fuel brush cutter, which not only removes the annoying silence in the neighborhood but also butterflies, bees, wasps, and annoying birds eating all these insects, pooping on the car. Animals can go somewhere else. Monoculture makes it meaningful to own a property in this area. We say dead to the critters; long live the manly man with powerful, noisy machines!

And what is more essential than monoculture? That is to have a firm and large carbon footprint. If you can fly far away and many times per year leaving a dying vegetable garden and a perfect monoculture behind you, then that is what you have to do. You show you are a respectable member of society when you permanently damage the environment and remove all hope for future generations to live a decent life.

I wrote the song "Good for You" about this subject. It is available on all streaming platforms.

Now, I am on my way home. Sunny and 25°C. So now it's the weekend! I had a pretty good working day. I like going into the weekend with a satisfied feeling. I continued driving and could not come up with anything interesting to say. I could not figure out what to talk about, which was such a strange feeling. Perhaps being satisfied is not a mood where you are writing a lot of texts. But I like sitting in the car silently, with the last sentence ringing in my head: "I am satisfied."

I moved the fences while DW made dinner. The dinner was ready before I was finished with the fenced area. I solved that by temporarily closing off. That way, I could go eat. In our house, we had a lot of flies. This was a moment when my mood tumbled down. I caught many flies, and then we could eat. After dinner, I finished catching the rest of the flies. Then, I could go out and continue working on the fence. Lovely, the sheep could eat again.

When I was done giving the sheep to eat, I recalled another hungry soul roaming around my feet, calling for attention.

Then came a friend on a visit. We talked about plans for building sheds. It was nice to talk with him.

Saturday 3 August

It was a beautiful morning, and we had strawberries and raspberries for breakfast. We discovered that the west-sunrise courgette is starting to fall over. I suggested supporting it with bamboo sticks, but DW was adamant that nature should have its course in this case.

After breakfast, DW went around with the brush cutter, cutting weed we were less interested in.

I refreshed the flycatchers, and while doing that, I broke the shovel. At that exact moment, neighbors came past our property on the bike. They noticed that my shovel had broken. Later, we discussed the shovel, and they suggested I put it in a fire to get the wood out so the handle could be replaced. Nice idea!

I finished removing a vacant fence that I had left yesterday. The electricity to the fence got connected. Now, if we need to, we can also turn on the electricity on the fence.

I moved the remaining boards to a new place so that the area on the east side of the house would be accessible with the wheelbarrow. That is necessary because I want to fill the gravel below the boards.

It was warm weather today but overcast. We even got that shower that we needed so much. It was just one millimeter of rain, like a water drip on a hot plate.

Then, it was time to finish the board project. I started filling the wheelbarrow with gravel, but it was now too late, and it was time for lunch.

After lunch, we walked to the regular grocery store. It is closer to our house. The alternative grocery store is further away, and taking a bike costs us less energy. On the way to the grocery store, there was a place where Red Bistort grew. It was a beautiful plant. I thought, why can I not have such a beautiful plant in my flowering garden?

After the walk, I was somehow tired; so much of the afternoon vanished without much being done on the boards' projects.

DW needed a potato for a soup she was making. I went harvesting one Twister potato plant. I think this is an excellent outcome from sowing one potato.

This evening, our friends arrived at our cottage in Sweden. They enjoyed the two thousand square meters of lawn, the sight from the hill, and the nearest neighbor far away. They will enjoy staying at the cottage.

In the evening, we could enjoy the music of German people staying at a neighbor's house. I think the house was rented out as Airbnb. They had a good music taste, though. I recognize songs that I am playing in my DJ sets. Hosting a party with a DJ set in this area would be cool, but the opportunity has not emerged yet. If the music goes on for long into the night, it will become rather irritating, and that is for sure.

Sunday 4 August

As far as I can tell, the German party ended around midnight. I slept well. Merida came to lie in my armpit and purr loudly. That is always so cozy.

This morning, I finished the board project. The boards along the east wall were all filled with gravel at the bottom.

I could start a new project, but I repaired DS's bike instead. His back tire was leaking. It is a 15-minute thing to do. You could think I am selfless about repairing his bike, but that is untrue. I was thinking about when he borrowed DW's bike at 06:00 AM and that this was annoying. I had hoped he could repair his bike sometime in four months, but that did not happen. So now I did it for him. I also put new batteries in the backlight, so he is ready to go biking.

	Bike in repair.
	Bike repaired.
	A happy DS.

We went to the PILs today. They are out of their Corona sickness. They are doing great. We drove north. On the way home, we took a touristic route along the coast of the Ijselmeer.

	At this light-house, DS texted that a dog had come into the fenced area of our sheep.

I was rather tired when we came home. The sheep were fine. I am curious about who let their dog loose among our sheep. DS did not know them. Could it be James?

This was a lovely week, though. It was the last week of DW's sabbatical. Tomorrow she will go to her office. I am thrilled that the board's project is really finished. I wrote a lot in this week's blog. If you read all of it, you are a hero! I will be back next week with a new blog. Until then, be happy, and stay safe!

I wrote 3719 words this week. That is amazing.

So I uploaded the blog. Then I realized that all images where in portrait mode. It turned out to be so that when I started blogging using the dictate functionality on my phone, I also used a word template for Android. In that template the images are compressed and removed from the EXIF data. I use that to rotate the images. I had to repair the blog. Here is is, version number two. Now it is 3806 words.