Continued on the boards of the tiny house Sunday, 25-Aug-24 20:23:55 CEST

Harvesting potatoes Monday, 09-Sep-24 14:35:57 CEST

Sunday, 01-Sep-24 20:06:46 CEST

Worked on the board project as much as possible

I worked on the board project, helped with other projects, and attended a party.

Monday 26 August

I didn't feel like a new week meant new possibilities this morning. It was instead: ohh, it's already a new week. That is because we did social stuff on Sunday instead of our regular projects. However, I must say that it was great to get all the grapevine harvested. I did not publish the blog yesterday evening, so that still has to be done, but 4½ kilo grapes is impressive. The thing with the new week is that it has new possibilities even though you don't feel ready for it.

The sheep are sleeping right outside the kitchen window this morning, still napping.

This week, the maintenance on the road connection with the main road started. A temporary road will be built on the other side of the area.

We worked from home today. DW had meetings as usual, and I was working on my algorithm. I was nearly done on Friday, but it is still three in the afternoon, and I will still be nearly done. I know I am an excellent software engineer, but how good is that? Well, before the end of the day, I had nailed it! I got it working and released a new version of the software. That is good because I will have a day off tomorrow.

After dinner, we had a walk to see what the road workers had been up to. They had laid a temporary road next to the current road so that people of the adjacent area could get in and out of their properties. It will not be easy for them because the temporary road is narrow and it has bends.

We will get our temporary road at the end of the area. Perhaps the road workers start working on that tomorrow.

In the evening, I worked on last week's blog and got it published. It was 5k words. Not bad at all.

Tuesday 27 August

It is early morning, and it will be partly cloudy at 25°C. Today, I will help neighbors to pour hempcrete into their walls. I'm supposed to show up at 9:00 AM with gloves, old clothing, and a water bottle. I will go there soon, but it's time to give Merida her morning pill.

Construction has started on the road at the entrance of the area. I can see a digger crane at work from the living room.

This morning, I heard from the channel News from Ukraine that Ukraine developed a new long-range weapon called Palianytsia. I don't know the correct spelling, but I think it sounds correct. I am impressed by Ukraine's ingenuity; once again, they're showing us what they can achieve. If the West can't give Ukraine long-range weapons, they develop them themselves. Remember: The West will support Ukraine as long as it takes, just barely.

The idea was that I would arrive at the neighbors at 9:00 AM. I had worn working clothing, but what should I put on my feet? I did not want my new shoes spoiled, so I put on my previous shoes. The tune came back to me: Some people walk in tattered shoes.

So I arrived at 09:00 AM, and when I arrived, I got an introduction to what we were supposed to do today. The walls of the house are made of sections. Each section is divided by vertical beams; a section is often reinforced with a diagonal beam. The beams had been painted with a mixture of crete and water to increase the stickiness between the beams and hempcrete. On the outside and the inside, boards were mounted, forming a mold for the wall. The end result is that all beams are totally enclosed inside the walls. Small PVC pipes create the correct distance between the beams and the mold. The distance was 15 cm on the outside and inside 10 cm.

There was a large yellow mixing machine outside the house, and a person was operating the machine constantly. He poured crete, water, hemp, and a mystery mineral binding material into the mixer. The mix became moist but not wet and was not sticky either. The hemp looked like it was chopped into up to inch-long pieces. You could make a ball with the material, but if you dropped it on the floor, I think it would crack.

The idea was to fill the mold and the wall with the mixture. The mixing person made large black buckets of the hempcrete mixture. The buckets were transported to the filling crew. The fillers were provided with sticks about two by two beams cut to a proper length. Preferably, we had to consecutively fill the sections off the wall so that a steep hill would not emerge from one section to an unfilled section. It was essential to begin filling a section with a thin layer.

I made a film of everybody working.

Along the side of the mall and old beams, we used our sticks to compress the hempcrete material. The cavities in between should be left fluffy, making the wall more insulated. After compressing a layer's outer border areas, we could pour more material into it. The first layer was thin. After that, each layer was about ten centimeters or about four inches thick. We could also use our index finger to measure each layer. Also, it was necessary to compress the material next to the beams and the mold, leaving larger cavities fluffy for the installation value insulation value. It was essential to compress around beams so that the wall would stick to the construction. With the thicker layers, the procedure was to compress the borders first, spread the fluff, and then do it three times.

At the end of the day, we put plastic on the hempcrete walls. This was so that the drying would be slowed. I could not find the water bottle. Had it disappeared in one of the walls?

Wednesday 28 August

This morning, I heard that Jack Smith made a new ruling on the presidential immunity case. A completely new indictment was published this morning, and all the presidential immunity stuff was removed, but what remains is four felony charges. I hear Donnie the conman might get his sentencing in the 2016 election interference and 34 fraud accounts on 18 September. We will see if that happens.

Merida came to sleep beside me this morning. She stayed for a long time. I think that that's sweet. I had a hot side while the rest of me was cold.

In the news from Kyiv, I hear Ukraine has now captured 1294 square kilometers of Russia.

Today, DW will cook food. She harvested beetroot and chard from our garden.

I started working and saw how Merida was hunting for mice. The sheep were grazing in the field, so the rain roof platform was unoccupied. Merida saunters in the grass. There are also birds in the pond, so it could be that Merida is also interested in them. The birds could hide in the seaweed growing there. After some time, Merida came to my desk and gave my leg a head bump, which was so sweet of her. Then, a few meters away from the desk, she lay down and started cleaning herself.

After lunch, I went to the neighbors to help them again fill their walls with hempcrete. It was the same procedure as yesterday, except we had to learn how to start working a wall surface from yesterday: The surface of yesterday's walls had to be loosened up. We poured a mixture of crete and water on top of the wall. Then, it was the same procedure as yesterday.

There are people from the building company, Yoma Building, and volunteers like me and the two house owners. I made a film today as well when everybody was active.

Today, they played my tunes, and that was fantastic. They really liked "build that house." Anyway, I made the song, among others, for this house's owners, myself, and other self-builders in the area, so it was nice that it was a success with the building company.

After working at the neighbor's house, I went home, and this time, I forgot the water bottle again. The owner had found it, though. It had not vanished into a wall as a filler. I showered off the crete dust and went to the food cooperative to pick up our package. There were many people in there to pick up their orders. We ordered onions, bananas, cheese, eggs, apples, and yogurt this time.

The owners of the hempcrete house and some others came over and had dinner at our house in the evening.

DW made a chard quiche, a beetroot salad, a chard stem bowl, and a courgette and ricotta quiche. For dessert, she stirred ice cream and berry sauce of berries in the garden of the house owners whom I have been helping. It was delicious. It looked fabulous, but somehow, I was too tired or distracted to come up with the idea of taking a photo of all this wonderful. Perhaps I have a few more steps before blogging is my true nature?

Thursday 29 August

Today, DW and I went to the office. We had two days of helping neighbors compact their hempcrete walls. I was so tired that I didn't feel like even blogging. It was good to work in the office and recover. Merida stayed in our house while we went to the office.

After dinner, I decided to walk with Merida; it would also be good for her to be outside. The sky was light blue and cyan-colored, with thin skies illuminated by the sun disappearing behind the horizon.

Today, they started the reconstruction of the entrance road to the area. We have to take a temporary road at the rear of the area to get to our house. The temporary road is made with metal plates and gravel. Suddenly living at the end of the road instead of at the entrance makes a lot less traffic passing our house, it is more quiet. There are fewer vehicles at the end of the road compared to the beginning of the road. I think the reconstruction will take a few weeks, and then it will reopen. It is unclear to me what will happen to the temporary road. I suppose the gravel will stay while the metal plates will be removed. In that case, we now have a loop, which is not bad; it is much easier for trucks to enter the area. They don't need to turn; they can continue the loop.

I have been walking around for a while with Merida. She wants to walk along the road, which is perfectly safe without traffic. I tried to get her work along the border, but she didn't want that, so we returned. I went to the sheep, and Hannah demanded that I groom her spot on her back; it was so itchy for her. I scratched her back while blogging; it was almost dark then. I fumbled with my phone, and it fell on the ground. When I picked up the phone, all the text I had been blogging was gone. That wasn't very pleasant. How can it be deleted while fumbling and dropping a phone on the ground? I don't understand that.

When I came inside, I tried to blog again. MS Word was stuck in self-destruct mode, where it deleted everything. I had to restart the phone, and things returned to normal.

I recalled that earlier this evening when I was standing looking at the sky, the sun was setting behind the tree line; everything was so beautiful and memorable, and I used fantastic words precisely for that moment. It made me sad that I had lost those words.

Friday 30 August

Last night, Merida came to sleep next to me from 3:00 AM until the morning. The weather forecast says it will be 22°C and overcast.

I have a sore spot in my throat. The fear of it getting worse is more challenging than the pain of the spot itself. I'm making a smoothie for breakfast. I used bananas, apples, pears, gooseberries, and grapes. I'm adding a little bit of orange juice to this. And then I mixed the smoothie. Every time I use the grapes, I am filled with joy that I could harvest 4 ½ kilograms of the grapes.

It's 8:39 AM, and I am heading to work by bike. Today, I biked in the wrong direction to the new temporary road. I am late, but that does not matter. It matters, but I will compensate for this, so I am fine.

I listened to "Ukraine the Latest " when I made the smoothie this morning." The presenter, Domenic Nicholls, talked eloquently about the progression of Ukraine's incursion into Russia. He said that Ukraine is building trenches and fortifications in Kursk. He hoped they were doing this correctly and in a timely manner. "If that sounds patronizing, I am sorry, I don't care. Because that has not been the experience of Ukrainian forces elsewhere on the frontlines. If that sounds brutal, it is born out of love and frustration."

I like that way of talking. It is so much more genuine when someone speaks from their heart. Those kinds of words can be so good that they get wings that can fly far beyond borders above the daily small talk.

Talking of people speaking, I must say that I hate to hear the voice of Donald J. Trump. For the last 10 years, this man has done everything he can to be heard everywhere. There was a time around 2016, a long time ago, when Donny Pony had a genuine voice. That brought him far. He doesn't sound like that anymore. These days, he sounds like a broken record. Not only does he not sound genuine anymore, but he is also a danger to society in the US and worldwide.

Donnie wannabees worldwide want to talk and walk like him and do what he did. You can imagine what such a world would look like.

As you can imagine, I'm trying to keep up with the news about Donnie-the-bully. Sometimes, it feels like I fall into the Donny haters pit. In that pit, there is sometimes a foul play. For example, they can say that Donnie had a rally in town in the US. At that rally, Donny the Walrus had a complete meltdown, and then that speech was rebroadcasted. As I said, I hate to hear Donny speak, even if it illustrates a complete meltdown. Now, if someone had a complete meltdown, the only thing left over would be a puddle of water, which is the end of the story, but that's not the case. The morning after, Donnie the foul fish is reborn at a new Rally, but this time, he's said to be completely unhinged. I don't know how it's happening, but someone hinges him up again so that the day after, he appears again. This continues, and I always have to skip the illustrations because I hate to hear Donny with the flapping hands speak.

Look, 40% of the US population is supporting this lunatic. It is not enough for Kamala to collect $540 million for campaigning. She needs to convince those 40% that Donny the flapping-hands walrus is absolutely dangerous to the world as we know it.

It is 5:45 PM. It is sunny and warm but not awfully hot. I am on my way home. I am biking. I brought with me four zucchini today. It is challenging to say courgette, so I might say zucchini instead. I am not making this up; the dictate function in Microsoft Word cannot interpret courgette, but it is pretty good at zucchini, and it is the same thing, so why not stick to zucchini? Can you imagine a frustrated older man with white hair passing you on a bike and screaming courgette to his mobile phone?

Today I had problems with the AC. I figured it's my hands that's worse. My upper body, there's no issue. I can turn on the sweater. For my neck, I can wear a shawl. The problem is my hands. They are naked, causing issues with my rheumatism. Initially, when I arrived at the office, there was no problem; my hands were warm. Then I sit behind my desk. The AC has three outlets in the room, and I have one outlet for myself, pretty much. It blows a constant flow of cold air, and my hands are cold after a while. At work, I am not moving bags of gravel or shoveling soil. I am debugging source code, and I barely move my hands. With rheumatism, I am actually having a chronic fever in my hands at all times.

The killers, Are we Human? Are we human, Or are we dancer? My sign is vital. My hands are cold And I'm on my knees. Looking for the answer Are we human Or are we dancer?

When I sit there with a cold flow of air over my hands, the hands get cold, and after a while, they hurt. I figured it would not matter if the AC was turned off occasionally. The AC's air has to come out somewhere; it will always flow over my hands first before it flows elsewhere.

The others in the room also have problems, I suppose. They are producing too much heat or have insulation in a way I am unsure I can help. If they know that they are too insulated, could they not be so kind as to put on less clothing, but that is perhaps not in the realm of customs and possibilities?

Today, I thought I must look after myself because no one else would do it. I have targets I need to meet. I cannot sit there and cannot achieve my targets. At the end of the day, my boss wants to see achievements; he can not be bothered by a bit of pain in my hands.

Before lunch, I went to a hardware store in the city and bought cotton gloves for €1.43. Back at the office, I cut off the fingertips on the newly bought gloves. It probably looks daft, but I don't care; I was able to concentrate, and I was able to reach my targets, and sometimes that is all that matters.

Now suddenly, I was able to sit there without freaking out and complaining about the AC turned on while the windows were open. It was horribly cold, especially for my rheumatism, and it did not matter; I didn't care. My hands were not cold. That sign is vital.

I feel much better, though that's what matters to me. I think DW got some gloves I could borrow, but I don't know. Either that or I can buy something.

This afternoon, DW picked more tomatoes. It is now eight weeks since Merida had her previous seizure.

Saturday 31 August

It was not until 4:10 PM that I started working on the boards. I had not expected that. This morning, we went into the city to buy shoes for both DS and DW. I had not expected it to take so long time.

DS is picky about things. We went to the oldest part of the city, to a shoe shop run by an older man who had a lot of patience. DS bought two pairs of shoes. DW bought one pair of shoes. After the shoe shop, we went to a terras and had tea. DS was still in a good mood, so we went to a second-hand shop. He actually liked the place.

When we came home, I was tired. I had a nap to fill up my energy batteries. It was not until 4:10 PM that I could start working on the board project. It was not that hot but rather windy. When I stopped last time, I had a template ready for my board and a piece marked to be cut. I could cut that board today and mount it, which went swiftly and effortlessly.

Then we had supper. After supper, I continued on the boards. It will be a little complicated to continue from here. I could continue on the south side, but that side needs to meet up with the east side. But I don't want to work on the east side right now. I want to finish the west side of the tiny house first; that way, the west side will be done entirely. The compulsory need to finish projects before starting new ones speaks to me.

If I went chronologically, I would do the wheelhouse now, but I think it would be nice if the angle of the board in the wheelhouse meets the rest of the boards. I am by no means a perfectionist. That would mean that I start with the other side of the wheelhouse, and then I can put a beam across the ground to get the same angle. That means I will put up a board at the house's entrance. I started that project. I cut a board for this and started making brackets. At about this time, it was time to stop the outdoor activities for the day.

I have time tomorrow before I go to a party, but we would also like to move the sheep to a new area. We will see how much I can do.

Working on the boards in the afternoon and evening, I was not feeling okay. With a touch of melancholy, I reflect on the summer ending as I bring DS and DW to the city. Was this a sufficient usage of my time? While they were shopping for shoes, I searched for suitable thin gloves but could not find any. We could have done it so they went there independently while I worked on the boards. One should not complain about spilled milk, yadda yadda.

Sunday 1 September

Outside, it is 17°C this morning. Almost a little chill.

I listened to the BBC podcast about disinformation, which was absolutely fascinating. In the program, they tell the story of how a lie emerges on the website and travels up to JD Vance. This morning is not magical in any way. A neighbor is practicing on his electric guitar with an open window.

Before breakfast, we harvested zucchinis from the Ola Gabriela and the western sunrise. We harvested raspberries, strawberries, and wild strawberries for breakfast.

After breakfast, we moved the sheep to a new area. This time they can grace along the border on the north and West side outside the dyke. They have a lot of clover to eat.

Then, it was time to refresh the flycatchers. Last time, I tried to do what they suggested on the packaging: throw away the content in the regular garbage bin. The last time I did that, I used two plastic bags, one paper bag, one paper box, a lot of effort, and duct tape. That did not feel so sustainable.

At this time, it was already 23°C outside. We were starting to get sweaty. This is nothing because in two hours it will be 28°C.

I decided to dig a hole for the fly slurry. For this, I had to bury my feelings about digging. So I dug a hole slightly deeper than the previous time, and I dug the hole at the same spot as I used before. I prepared buckets of water for flushing the flycatcher cans and put much less effort into doing it this way. This was great in comparison to how I did it last time. It took only 20 minutes.

DW finished her pokeweed experiment, which was not that spectacular at all. I wrote about that in last week's blog. The wool came out brown and yellowish. Today, she picked flowers from the common reed to use for dying. This is supposed to provide green colors, and she likes green colors, that's cool. She said it is a proper green.

While DW picked common reed flowers, I found a lovely butterfly on our butterfly shrub. I wanted a picture of that. I pressed the camera trigger button, but nothing happened. Well, the SD card on the camera was forgotten on my laptop. Is this the third time I missed an opportunity this week because of failing technology? That is a negative hat-trick.

 

After lunch, I attended a party for people practicing Swedish folk music in southeast Amsterdam at a school they rented for the event. It is the annual "Spelmanstämma" in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

While driving there, I wondered if using the navigation application in the background while dictating was possible. I am unfamiliar with the roads, so it is nice to use navigation.

It is 27°C, so we have 1° left to go before we reach the top, according to the weather forecast this morning.

So I'm driving right now to the Swedish folk music party. Dictation works fine. Still a little bit curious about how the navigation application works in the background of Microsoft Word while dictating a blog. After a while, Waze got silent. I tried to split the screen with both apps active simultaneously, but dictation could not be activated in that mode.

I'm on my way home. It was a warm day. It was great to meet all my friends and play Swedish folk music. We played tunes that I could play, and there were a couple of new tunes I had never heard before. But it was great, and I really loved it.

The story about the crashed SD card came up again. The SD card on my phone is where I stored my personal tunes that I could play. Now the card has crashed, and figuring out all the tunes I could play isn't easy. I first talked about it on this blog on Sunday, 11 February this year. I think the crash happened in 2022. I talked to my friend Jos at the party, and he proposed that I send him a list of tunes he got in the ABC file format. I can use those files to recall the tunes. He probably got many of the tunes I had in my library.

I bought an almanac, a Swedish Almanac. I thought it was just Swedish, but it is from a region in Sweden. Buying would have been less appealing if I had known that beforehand.

Right now, it's 28.5°C. That is hot. That made me start thinking of curtains again. With that, think about curtain rods again. Why does my urge to buy curtain rods appear late on Sunday afternoons? No such thing on Thursday evening: should we buy curtain rods? No. Sunday afternoon, "Should it not be nice to buy curtain rods?" Well, IKEA is closed at 6:00 PM on Sundays. The rest of the week it is open into the evening.

When I came home from the party, DW had started on the common reed dye.

In the evening, I sat blogging on the couch while Merida came to lie on her cushion beside me. She purred loudly.

This week, I worked on the board project, although I also helped neighbors with their hempcrete walls, buying more shoes, and going to a party. Summer is ending, and it gives me a touch of melancholy.

Thanks for reading 4721 words, and welcome back to the blog next week!