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

Sunday, 15-Sep-24 19:44:38 CEST

Cottage improvements

This week, we stayed at our cottage in Sweden. On 8 September, David Knowles, who created Ukraine-the-latest podcast, died. It took a couple of days for me to find out. We picked apples, cleared garbage, painted windows, the front porch, and the front door, repaired mice-eaten cables, and enjoyed the nice weather. A typical visit to the cottage.

Monday 9 September

Today, the good weather was over. DW wanted to paint windows, but the opportunity did not open. The weather forecast from various weather services was not unanimous. We concluded that walking to the nearby supermarket would be good, so we would get some fresh air. We bought groceries for lunch and breakfast and then returned home. We managed to do this without getting wet; that was good. The grocery store is well equipped; it has many hardware store things. We bought tubes with grease to lubricate vehicles and tools.

Then we had lunch, and after lunch, BIL helped me replace the tube in the grease gun. I did not know how to do it the last time. This time, BIL could tell me how it is supposed to work. Growing up on a farm, he had much experience with grease guns. The idea is to pull a handle back and lock it so the spring is compressed. Then, it is possible to pull out the previous tube and replace it with a new tube.

We got two grease guns, and one was defunct. The other worked, but it is probably not in good order. I expect it to work for a while, but the sealing supposed to keep the fat under pressure is insufficient, so the fat leaks and fills the gap behind the seal where the spring is. It will be necessary to buy a new grease gun.

To test the grease gun, we used it on the trailer and the steering mechanism of the small tractor. The steering became so smooth and agile that it was impressive! BIL told me I have to do it once per year. How am I going to remember that? I made a calendar item that will be repeated yearly. It will tell me to grease the small tractor's steering and the trailer's brake mechanism. People with paper calendars, like BIL, cannot do that. But he claims that he remembers by himself, and indeed, I believe him, but we are both getting older.

This morning, I had contact with two companies that sell scaffolding. We are considering buying a scaffold for the cottage so that we can do maintenance around the house more conveniently.

DW picked some apples that she used in an apple pie. That was delicious.

Throughout the day, I worked on finishing the previous week's blog. I had not anticipated so little time to write on the blog when we arrived at the cottage. I had been blogging by dictating, but that required editing. In the end, I skipped writing about things that happened on Sunday. I had photos from our bike tour in the forest. We went to a lake and etc. There was much more to say, but I just summarized it in a few words and published the blog. I suppose it is reality versus ambition.

I dropped my blog laptop on the floor in the hotel room on Saturday morning. I put it on the bed, and it slid off and down the floor. I did not blog about that either. So far, the laptop is working. Another thing that happened was that I lost one earbud. Where is it? Throughout the week, I searched for it. I walked on the lawn, looking at the grass. I searched for it on tables, tractors, couches, etc.

Tuesday 10 September

Today, we were blessed with dry and beautiful weather. It was windy today. It seems the hot weather is over for this year.

DW painted a layer on the windows at the spots she has been working on since the last holiday.

We had a narrow time schedule today. The idea was to go to the shopping center in the bigger city and then continue to the second-hand shop, then take the Swedish trailer to the MOT test or vehicle inspection.

After making the plan, we went outside and picked apples. Then DF and DM came. DF had a memory stick with photos. Here is a photo of DS and me from 1975 from the memory stick. I was eight years old. Perhaps this is when we selected a dog to be part of the family. DS holds a dog, and I suppose the dog got the name Swing. It was a border collie. In my early teenage, the dog died. DF and I do not share the same taste in photo editing. He is pumping the colors considerably, and he likes editing the pixels. It can be that this photo is originally a black and white photo that he has been coloring. I had preferred the originals as bad as they were with minor touch-ups.

We collected two large boxes of apples. We have two sorts of apples on this farm, and I have no idea what the sorts are called officially. In front of the house, we have normal-sized green apples to the right. In the previous 17 years, we had never seen any usable apples in that tree, always tiny, sour, unusable apples. This year, two branches broke because of the weight of the apples. We believe these apples are "summer apples" that cannot be preserved that long into the autumn.

To the left, we got tiny red apples in front of the house. Also, this year, more apples than ever, but not of the size like the green apples.

Behind the barn, we got another apple tree. It has apples that can be stored for a more extended period. We call them winter apples, but it is uncertain what kind of apples they are. We also had a good harvest of these apples suitable for smoothies a few years ago.

	SIL and BIL are picking apples.
	The cottage is behind the barn. The apple crate is heavy.
	BIL and SILs caravan. DW and SIL are carrying the apples to the cottage.
	SIL and DW are almost at the cottage with the heavy load.

It is excellent fun picking apples.

Then we had lunch and went to the city with the trailer. First, we went to the grocery store. We had a special mission at the store. BIL and SIL have acquaintances in the Netherlands who own a chocolate factory delivering candy to the store in the city. The chocolate factory owner wondered what it looked like in the store. We made a little photo collage of the products, how they were displayed in the store, and how they looked. This was well received by the factory owner.

I think selling candy in Sweden is a good idea because a lot of candy is eaten there. We also bought regular things at the shop. No, we did not buy any of the candy.

The next stop on our plan was the second-hand shop. For us, a visit to Sweden always requires at least one visit to the second-hand shop.

BIL and I let DW and SIL stay at the second-hand shop while we drove to a tools hardware store where we bought a new grease gun and a jerry can. That was just a short stop. Next, we drove to the trailer vehicle test.

They checked that the breaks were working, rust, and working lamps. The trailer was approved. We got a plump in the protocol regarding the placement of the registration sign. They wanted that sign to be moved at the next vehicle test. It had to be placed at the rear of the trailer. I have no idea how to fix that.

Then we returned to the girls at the second-hand shop and picked them up. They had found many interesting items.

The idea was that we would go home, fill up the carriage, and then return to the recycling center, but that last part was skipped. We loaded the trailer, but it had to stay in the barn. DW and I will take it to the recycling center another day.

BIL and SIL started to prepare to go home tomorrow.

I had hoped we could get the result of the US debate between the felon and the prosecutor, but that debate will happen at 3 AM, and we are sleeping then.

Wednesday 11 September

This morning, when we woke up, it was raining. It was a never-ending rain. The electricity was gone. We checked the fuses in the house, and they were fine. On this farm, we got the main switch at the barn, but I did not feel like going to look if those fuses were broken. On the other side of the main road, we got a 5G tower in line of sight, with a lamp at the top, which was turned off but is usually always on. With that, I knew that the electricity in the whole area was gone.

BIL and SIL made the final preparations for leaving. They said goodbye and left.

The days of high temperatures are over, and we decided to start the wood stove in the kitchen. Doing so while there is no electricity felt good. Here, we are self-sufficient. Starting a fire when the chimney is cold is tricky, but I got it working without smoke filling the house. I warmed the chimney with two blocks of fire starter chunks. That worked well. I let them burn for a while in the ventilation opening of the chimney. Then I started the wood fire with another starter chunk, and no smoke thread entered the kitchen. DW congratulated me!

We sat listening to the sound of the fire and the kettle warming up while browsing on our phones to see if Kamala won the debate. She did an excellent job at the debate; it sounded like the best presidential debate ever. I don't know about that. After the debate, Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala, which was an excellent idea. Well, all good and well. 40% of the US population is still in the cult of doom of an insurrectionist and sex offender. All those people still need to be convinced that it is a bad idea to cast a vote on a presumptive dictator who talks like a third grader, and I see no landslide difference in those people. Therein lies the challenge right now.

Then, we went to the recycling center with the trailer. We emptied the trailer. It was challenging to get all the pieces to sit tight. I would have liked a more extensive net, but we could not buy that in the local shop.

Then we went to Vandalorum. It had an exhibition called Garden Futures. It is unique for a small town like this to have such a modern and vibrant modern art museum. It is hard to categorize the institution only as an art museum because its character changes every time it changes the exhibition. The place can be anything from modern art to old traditional art. It can be about architecture, the history of shoes, and the repair of textiles. It can be anything, really.

Most of the time, they have a general, international exhibition in the first barn. Then, they have a local angle on the theme in the next barn in some form or something entirely different.

The exhibition Garden Futures was produced by the Vitra Design Museum in Germany. The first barn held the leading exhibition. The idea of the exhibition was to give different angles of the garden, the past, present, and future. The barn perhaps did not display all the material available for the original exhibition. I was curious about a unique aspect of the subject I am especially interested in and only noticed a slight sniff of that in the exhibition. I will come back in a moment to the aspect.

When I walked around the exhibition, I thought that this exhibition embodied an acquaintance we have in this area. Magdalena. Interestingly, her brother had sponsored the exhibition.

I switched between the Swedish and English texts, and I must say the English texts used a high language level with difficult words. The Swedish texts had a level I could cope better with. I think the Swedish translator did an excellent job on these texts.

The second barn was about the garden around Vandalorum. It is designed by the Dutch garden phenomenon Piet Oudolfs. Piet designed a garden at the Vitra campus in 2021 and a garden at Vandalorum in 2023. I have walked around in the Piet Oudolfs garden at Vandalorum, and it gives me a feeling of, Ouch, I want that too! Perhaps one should go and have a look at the garden at the Vitra Campus at Weil am Rhein in Germany? If so, I have to put it on my bucket list. I wonder what gardens he designed in the Netherlands. This is for later research.

We had two hours to spend on the two barns of the exhibition. DW wanted to buy the book from the Vitra Design Museum. I encouraged her to do that because I walked away with books from museums back in the day. She even teased me about that. I would never do that to her.

Well, with the book, it was possible to sit down and do an in-depth investigation about my particular interest, if you would like to call it that. That was impossible at the museum, and I could not find it in the barn. Perhaps two hours was too short?

I found a chapter about the lawn in the book. It gave the history of the lawn. It told about how the lawn gripped West and North America. A writer, Rachel Carson, has written about the issues with lawns in the book Silent Spring. Perhaps I can try to find that book.

On 2 August, I wrote about monoculture. Dead to the critters. Long live the manly man with powerful, noisy machines. To be continued.

This evening, I did the dishes. I always do the dishes; usually, while doing the dishes, I listen to Ukraine-the-latest podcast from The Telegraph in London. We arrived in Sweden with friends visiting, so listening to the podcast was inconvenient.

I had to catch up with a couple of episodes. Just as I was filling up the disk tub. I started with the episode of today. It mentioned condolences for David. I was stunned; what was this about? I scrolled back to the episode of Monday. There, it was explained that David Knowles had passed away at 32 years old over the weekend. I went to DW to seek consolation, and we listened to the episode on 9 September together. I sobbed while I told DW that I had been planning to write an email to David to encourage him to improve his microphone setup because sometimes it spikes, which is not that pleasant. Well, there is no need to write such an email. It was not feeling fine that such a valuable journalist had died so young. When I returned to the kitchen, I noticed the disk tub overflowing for quite some time. The windows were misty from the hot water, but luckily, I did not cause massive water damage. Strangely, I had never met the man, but he did a good job, and it felt like I had lost a friend. The song that comes to mind is Some Die Young by the Swedish artist Laleh.

I do hope David Knowles gets a proper autopsy. There is a dangerous world out there, and he was challenging a state that has used all sorts of dirty tricks to eliminate opponents. Does anyone remember the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko with polonium in his tea on 1 November 2006? There is a vast list of substances that cause sudden cardiac arrest.

Today, 23 years ago, airplanes flew into WTC in New York. Terrible event.

Thursday 12 September

Today, I went to DF and DM with a bag of apples. They showed me their latest developments. Windows had been exchanged, and bathroom furniture exchanged. A new, smaller loom. We did not talk about feelings so much. I had a quarrel with them for over a year that DM started. It is still a brittle relationship, but we are slowly normalizing it. It has not been fun at all.

After this, DW and I went into the city. She had found a workbench on the second-hand that I had missed entirely. We went there, and it was still in the shop. We bought it.

Then we went to the paint shop and bought green paint. DW will use that to paint the front door of the cottage.

It was a busy day. After the paint, we went to the machine shop. There, we bought Aspen fuel. I decided that from here on, we would use Aspen for our machines. We bought one jerry can with 2T fuel for brush cutters and chainsaws. We bought 4T for the lawn mover tractor. They also had nets for trailers.

Were we finished? No! We bought a garden hose and UTP cable connectors at a shop. This is to replace the mice-eaten cable in the cottage. I will put that cable in a garden hose to make it more challenging for the mice.

Then we went home. DW started working on the front door, and I started working on the cable. She sanded and primed the door.

 

I replaced the mice-eaten UTP cable. I used my blog post from 16 March 2022 about the UTP cable coloring to work out how to produce the cable. Somehow, I cannot get the color scheme in my head. The cable worked from the first attempt! That was brilliant. Now, the WIFI is back to normal in the house. While working on the cable, I noticed some other cables had bite marks. The Coax cable to the antenna was slightly damaged. I gave it a little shield. It is still working, so that is fine. I had UTP cables at an outlet in the office, and it could be so that it is damaged, but I will not test that this time.

Friday 13 September

We had a slow morning. I was blogging in the bed with a cup of tea. Today, DW was hesitant about starting to paint the front door. She contemplated putting on another layer of primer. I suggested she would do the green layer straight away.

She started painting. I was collecting tools from yesterday when I was busy with the UTP cable. Then, I started on the following task: to cover an ugly hole in the ceiling in the hall next to the kitchen in the cottage. We know the mice are entering via this opening. So the idea is to put plaster in the hole. The hole is there because water pipes dragged through the hole. Water pipes, electrical wires. We know we have mice on the wall and ceiling, especially in the attic. We know that if we close the holes, the mice problem inside the house will be much smaller.

I mounted a mesh of galvanized wire in the opening. This is so that the plaster will stay. If a mouse wants to get through here, the mouse needs an enormous appetite for steel, zink, and plaster. I don't think that is likely.

Cranes are preparing to migrate. I found a link to an attractive website about the crane birds. They fly around the house in groups and talk to each other. I recorded the sound at the house today.

I watched them fly over the cottage while recording the sound.

Then, they will migrate south through Germany and into France. Some of the crane birds fly to Spain.

Some Eagles are avoiding migrating through Ukraine because of the war. I hope the crane birds in Finland can also find another safer route through Europe, although that is perhaps not the case.

Today, DW found the earbud in the heap of clothes to be washed. I had not searched there.

DW managed to apply two layers of paint today. We did not want to sleep with the door open, so it was lovely the paint dried so much that we could put the door back on the hinges.

It was lovely to have the door back for the evening. I think DW will paint the third layer tomorrow morning. We will put the door on the trestles again. It is better to paint the door horizontally.

It was a beautiful day that ended with a beautiful sunset at the cottage.

While doing the dishes this evening, I listened to Ukraine at the latest. I am missing the voice of David Knowles. There were talks about the US and UK considering lifting the restrictions on long-distance weapons in Ukraine. Perhaps the doctrine "We will stand by Kyiv as long as it takes, but just barely" will also be adjusted. The last part needs to be deleted. Perhaps I am a bit naïve, but I will not be satisfied until the Russian war criminals are behind bars.

Saturday 14 September

We did not hurry this morning. There was time for the regular things: Blogging while drinking tea in bed. Making smoothie. I listened to podcasts while preparing the breakfast.

When we ate breakfast, we talked about our plans. This morning's original plan was for DW to paint another layer on the front door. Then, we would clean the house, pack the car and depart.

Yesterday afternoon. I looked at the grease pump I bought with BIL, and I couldn't understand it. The pamphlet about the pump was not included in the box. Was the box incomplete or so ingenious I can't understand it? Could this grease pump be made for another type of grease cartridge?

It could be so that we have to return the grease pump, and in that case, it would be better to do it today instead of the next time we arrive at the cottage. I could go to the shop myself while DW painted the door, or we could try to get there before the shop closes on the way to the Netherlands.

DW suggested she would paint the third layer on the door the next time we visited the cottage.

With that, we decided to try to clean the house and pack the car before 2 PM when the shop Swedol closes in Värnamo on a Saturday.

Now, the slow morning was over. It was 10 AM, and we had work to do. I removed the trestles we had standing to paint the door. I cleaned brushes. Cleaned the bathroom. DW filled the washing machine. Then, I went to the local grocery store with garbage. They have a recycling station there.

At 1:05 PM, we were done. It was an incredible achievement, cleaning and finishing in such a short time. We drove to the city with the shop where we bought the grease pump. I realized we had forgotten the garbage under the sink nine minutes into the journey. It would turn into an awful mess with the mice if we let it stay there. We returned to the cottage to pick it up. Now, we restarted the journey at 1:25 PM. We arrived at the shop at 1:45 PM.

I had them explain how to use the grease pump in the shop. It turned out to be so that the cartridge I could buy in the local grocery and hardware store was made for older grease pumps. In new grease pumps, the cartridge got a screw thread in the lid that fits the pump exactly. It is clearly done so that new cartridges fit old grease pumps, but old cartridges don't fit new grease pumps. No wonder I was standing there completely clueless. We bought a new cartridge. We will bring the whole thing to the Netherlands, and next time, we will bring the thing with us again. I started driving to the Netherlands again, but this time from "Swedol" in Värnamo at 2:15 PM.

At Godisflyget, we switched drivers. I was tired. DW started driving, and I was sleeping.

We arrived at the gates of Oresundsbron at 16:25 PM. It was 17 degrees Celsius and sunny and windy. I made a photo focusing on the dirt on the windshield.

At 5 PM, we started to look for a place to rest and switch drivers. It is fantastic to switch drivers from time to time. You can drive 130 km/h in Denmark. If you have a trailer and can drive at a maximum of 80 km/h, you are almost a roadblock in traffic.

It was a good holiday, but I was busy with my feelings this holiday. I noticed I was less concentrated. It was not until Thursday or Friday that I started to land emotionally. This morning, we got things rolling, and that feels great. Now, we are in the car, and there is time for contemplation.

When I drove the car on the first leg, I was pondering about how to build a robot. I am thinking of some system with wheels. It is a robot on wheels, much like a lawnmower, but I made it. I want the robot's shell to be made of aluminum. I can sit and think about that for several hours. This time, I thought about how the wheels would be configured. We are almost at the Tuelsø rest place. Then, it is my time to drive.

We arrived at Flensburg at 7:30 PM. We had booked a room for less than 100€, which was evident. It was a straightforward, bare room. If we sleep well, then all is fine.

After checking in, we went to the city center to a restaurant DW had found online. It did not exist. We went to a Pizzeria instead. There, we ordered two pizzas. It was not possible to pay with the phone. Luckily, I had cash inside the phone cover, so I used that.

We came back to the hotel at 9 PM. This time, we parked in front of a pedicure salon.

Sunday 15 September

We stayed at an Ibis budget hotel at the Scandinavian park at Handewitt in Flensburg. I slept better than in the luxurious hotel on the way to Sweden. Ibis had the same thickness bedsheet, made for minus 40 degrees Celsius. I slept better because I removed the duvet and only slept with the duvet cover. In last week's blog, I did not know the name of the thick thing under which you are sleeping. It is called a duvet or quilt. In Europe, you usually have a duvet cover; it is a large bag that the duvet fits into exactly. As far as my research has found, you also have a flat sheet, but that is usually wrapped around the duvet. I have never seen anyone use a flat sheet.

A gap was on the floor at the door, letting in the light; I put my sweater there to block the light. The television had an LED, but I let that be. When will I remember to put duck tape in my toilet bag? Several times, I have written about the LEDs versus sleeping but have not put duck tape in the toilet bag. Perhaps I need to really remember this one time.

The bed was a two-person bed, big enough for both of us. It had a slight slant inwards to the middle. Had I been alone, I had slept in the middle of the bed, but now I slept on a slope. It was an uphill struggle.

There were three mirrors. They were configured so that when standing in the shower opening, you could enjoy the view of yourself in 360 degrees. I must say I was not enjoying the view of myself so much that I kept standing there for a long time. I was enjoying the corner configuration of the mirrors, though it made the image of myself follow me. That was intriguing.

The shower was located in the main room. That was unusual. You usually access the shower from a separate room, but not here.

Another interesting point was that we were given packages with soap. Usually, the soap is mounted on a holder on the wall, but not here at this hotel. That gave the stay a luxury topping on the remarkably sober cake. The soap was shaped like a little puck. You got two pucks, so setting up a shuffle puck tournament would be possible if you are playful. We were not playful, so we just cleaned ourselves with the puck.

The toilet was no more than a cupboard size room. It did what it had to do, so that was fine.

The room was accessed with a six-digit code. No card. It was unnecessary to check out; we could leave the hotel whenever needed. That felt hassle-free. This was at 8 AM.

We did not eat any breakfast at the hotel. It was a hostel-like restaurant, not so appealing. We had to fill up gas in the car anyway, so we bought blueberry muffins, chocolate croissants, and coffee at the gas pump shop. This was way too many calories for us, but it kept us fed for a long time.

I took an extensive part in driving today. I drove from Handewitt to Esso Nagele in the Netherlands.

Yesterday, I had a little scratch on my right index fingernail. It was sharp. When we were right about leaving the Elbe tunnel in Hamburg, I asked DW to cut that sharp detail from the nail while I was driving with my left hand. This started a discussion I had never anticipated.

When DW was done with that single nail, she said she could always start to do manicures if she wished for another career. That is not true; she is brilliant at what she is doing. She will keep doing that.

I wondered what the linguistic relationship is between manicure and pedicure. These are excellent questions to discuss when driving long trips. I recalled we had been parking outside a pedicure salon. Well, man is for hand, and ped is for feet. So when you have a manual, that is your handbook. You have several uses for the word ped, especially in French, related to foot.

For example, velocipede. Velocity and foot. Is it saying that using a bike is quicker than walking with feet? That is a bicycle in English. There are several origins of the word bike originating from the French. That is really interesting, and you can easily follow the logical link from French to English, and the same goes for Swedish. In Swedish, it is called Cykel, and it is from Bicycle.

So, what is it in Dutch? The origin of the Dutch word for bikes is unclear: "Fiets." There are more than eight exciting hypotheses about the origin. In the earlier stage, the Dutch bastardized French expressions for bikes. Vlossepeerd elegibly from velocipede. DW liked that a lot. We were a long way from Hamburg when we started laughing about Vlossepeerd as a word for bikes, a floss horse. Here is an unrelated video about how to floss a horse.

We came home at 2:45 PM.

Our animals and potplants were alive and healthy. That was well done by DS. He is making a mess for the rest, but I suppose we are used to that.

When we had just come home, the invitation to the folk music course at Austerlitz for the end of February next year arrived. I ensured I got a place on the list nine minutes after the invitation arrived. No less than 15 minutes later, I had also paid for the course. Next time, the teacher will be Henrik Wikström från Hackås in Jämtland, Sweden. It is another prized teacher of Swedish folk music who will be added to the long row of celebrities who have come to the Netherlands to teach how to play Swedish folk music in Austerlitz. Next year, it is the 25th anniversary.

I am looking forward to this because I grew up in Strömsund "Flata," in Vågdalen, no less than 142 kilometers apart. Those two villages are virtually direct neighbors from a North Swedish perspective. I will speak Jamtlandska at the end of that weekend, I am sure.

Here is the end of this week's blog post. This week, I wrote 5466 words, which is not bad. Thanks for reading all this. Welcome back next week!