Surveyor set out the shed Sunday, 01-Dec-24 22:16:43 CET

The sheds foundation finished Sunday, 15-Dec-24 21:14:32 CET

Sunday, 08-Dec-24 20:55:54 CET

The poles were put in place

This was a week of early mornings, machines, and clay. A lot of sticky clay. We got the poles in the ground of the shed. The sewer, water, and casing tube were installed. I prepared to build the stable as well. Drove a digging machine.

Monday 2 December

I did not actively blog until Thursday. That was way too late for my liking, but I will catch up.

Today, I worked from home. DW went to the office. In the afternoon, I had not heard anything from the machine shop where we rented the road plates. I went to his shop because it was nearby but he was not seen. I texted him, and that worked better. We agreed that he would deliver the plates tomorrow morning at 7 AM.

Tuesday 3 December

This morning, I had to set the alarm one hour earlier. We had breakfast and coffee before the truck arrived at 7:00 AM, precisely as we had agreed. I rent these roadplates from my local machine shop. I think his workshop is about a kilometer to the east. So he asked me where I was going to build, and I showed him where it was, and he suggested two plates along the road and two inside, the first towards the shed's building area.

He put the plates on the ground halfway on the road. He returned to his workshop and fetched a shovel machine so that he could move around the plates. Even though his workshop was near, I put up a lamp so that other road users would not drive into the pile of plates and get into an accident.

The plates will be here for two months. The machine shop owner returned with the forklift truck and put the plates as he said. It was feeling good to have his ideas on how to put the plates. I am good at figuring out how these things should be done, but now a pro has also assessed the situation.

With this sorted, I went to the office to work as usual. During the day, the poles arrived, but we did not notice them. I arranged to be free tomorrow.

Wednesday 4 December

Here is a slideshow of the activities today. Initially, the pile driver was planned to come on Thursday, but they could arrive a day early. It is funny that a pile driver is the machine driving the pole. It is also the people working with the pile driver machine.

	The pile driver machine arrived on a truck.
	The pile driver machine was placed between a pile of road plates and a small forklift truck.
	They unloaded the machine on their own road plates and continued to our road plates.
	It was a pneumatic machine. Other bigger machines use explosive diesel for the action.
	We got 13 plus 4 poles.
	Some poles had to be driven below the soil level. I helped dig out a hole for the pile driver.
	The pile driver continued beating the poles. I brought cups of coffee to the men. They appreciated that.
	The pile driver fetched the poles with a chain. Each pole had a loop for the hook. They lifted the pole with the loop a little.
	Then, they put the chain around the pole, and when standing up, the chain could glide down along the pole and be removed. If it was still in the loop that would not work.
	When the shed's poles were done, the pile driver went to the location for the stable.
	The poles were brought to a stable location and barely fit between the buildings and the sea container.
	Here, the machine is loaded and driven to the following location.

I was cold when the pile drivers left our building site. Seeing that the tiny house was still standing without falling over was nice. It had been a disaster. I had placed our laser distance measure tool to shine on the tiny house, and occasionally, I checked that the tiny house was in the same position. It moved a little, but that could have been because I had wiggled the laser pointer from its place when turning it on.

Thursday 5 December

It is on Thursday 5 December. Outside is 5°C, and inside is 21°C at 7:10 AM. It is entirely dark outside. Yesterday evening, I started on the rendering of an OpenToonz movie. I don't know when I started the rendering, but I can admit it was late. So before we went to bed, it was halfway. At 5:00 AM, it was 93%; a few moments ago, it was 98%. The rendering had two problems:

1. It didn't generate an MP4. It generated TIF images.
2. There was an error in the hat.

I am in a traffic jam, and someone is doing their makeup in front of me. I wonder what this is worse. Blogging or doing makeup? I decided doing makeup is more intrusive to your quality as a driver than blogging by dictation.

Yesterday, after the pile driver had finished, I was drained. I had no energy to blog or do anything.

In the evening after work, I fixed the two issues with the animation and restarted the rendering of an OpenToonz animation. I had no idea how long it would take, but it would probably take a long time.

Friday 6 December

Today, we woke up early because DWI was attending an event far away. The storm was raging outside, so I offered to drive DW to the train station. The storm's name was Darragh.

Before we went, we put a sign on the door saying we would be back soon. So when we were away, the digger arrived. It was a lady driving the digger, and she had a helper, a young man. She concluded there was little space for the soil they would dig out. I showed her my e-mail to the company that hired them and told them they had to bring a shovel and a front loader with them, but this message was ignored. They only had the digger with them. The lady tried to manipulate her way out of the deal, but that didn't work out, so she had to do the job anyway.

That went fine as well. The digger put a pile next to the driveway. Then she moved that pile to the other side of the driveway. Also fine.

	The digger machine was still not unloaded.
	The first load of sand was delivered.
	The digging work started. The frame next to the sea container is still standing.
	They began in the corner.
	Clever parking. Neighbor cars locked in.
	Moving soil to the other side of the driveway.
	More moving of soil.
	Getting sand as well.
	The next load of sand was delivered.
	The final result.
	Done. Now, some rudiment cleaning.
	Ready to be loaded.
	Here we go.
	Loaded.
	Beautiful!

 

I provided for coffee, but these two workers did not have so much as the pile drivers.

When the digging was finished, DS asked me about the wood chips we would get because the path to his house was getting muddy. He had no idea I would turn everything (and seriously, everything) around his house into a large clay pudding the coming Saturday. Perhaps I did not realize that either. It was funny, nonetheless, provided what happened the next day.

When the digger was busy, the rendering of the animation was finished! It took about 20 hours to render the animation. I am bamboozled because it takes 20 hours to render 294 animation frames. It can be that the snow effect is an especially CPU-intense effect, but it is changing my ideas about making animations casually.

I also worked on another creative endeavor while the platform for the shed's foundation was made. I created a cartoon. You have to pause on the slideshow and jump to the first image.

	Image 1. I know exactly what is Going on in Sweden. Okay?
	Image 2. You don't even know what is going on in your own backyard. How can you know what is going on in Sweden?
	Image 3. I get my info from US-based far-right think tanks.
	Image 4. Is that reliable information? Facts and science are for losers. News is entertainment! It just needs to sound plausible.
	Image 5. How come it always smells like shit when you are talking?

I tried using a Wacom tablet to draw these. It was okay and a little fun. I drew it in OpenToonz and used the onion skin functionality well. This was a genuinely casual little cartoon.

There are plenty of improvements possible that I will explore in future projects. Using OpenToonz and the Wacom tablet will be great fun.

You would think we were heading into a quiet weekend after this day. It was 3 PM when I texted the local machine shop to ask if I could rent a digging machine from him. Moments later, the deal was closed. I will rent a digging machine starting tomorrow morning at 7:30 AM.

Saturday 7 December

I had set the alarm clock to 6:30 AM. Outside, it was 7°C and raining. Inside, it was 21°C and dry. It will rain a lot today, which is unfortunate because of digging in the clay.

I made breakfast, but it was not finished when the digger machine arrived. The machine shop owner explained how to switch tools. One had to press a button on the floor and a button on the left handle simultaneously to trigger a tool switch action. A cylinder pushed a wedge to open, and the bucket would loose. Then, one could put the bucket away and hook up another bucket. With the new bucket, the two buttons had to be pressed again. The wedge retracted and came back to lock the new bucket.

This was the theory. It was not always this simple. The shop owner had some issues to get this to work. He explained what to do when the wedge was stuck. One should press the bucket to the front blade and also bang the bucket to the ground. He explained that when using the bucket for a long time, the wedge gets more and more stuck.

Luckily, it worked like the theory when I tried changing the bucket. I got three buckets with the digger machine. The last time I rented a digger, I remember it was a 5-ton machine (5 thousand kilograms). This time, it is a smaller machine, just 1800 kilograms.

I did not take many photos today. The plan was to rearrange the road plates first. I wanted one plate to cover the corner between the road and the driveway. It was used several times by trucks. This was a swift task. I hooked up the plate with a band and dragged it to the correct place.

The next task was to uncover a present from the builder of our main house. We got a plaque of concrete at the southeast corner of the house. At first, we did not notice. Then, the following season, we realized that a spot had weak growth. Even worse, the grass died. This summer, we discovered a puddle of concrete that was like a meter by a meter at this point. The concrete puddle was located at the edge of the heap of soil that the lady made yesterday. I had to move that to the side a little bit. There was more concrete than I had anticipated.

These two first tasks were suitable for relearning the moves with the digger. With the 5-ton machine, I had also removed the concrete. This little machine could not do anything with the concrete. Not at this moment, anyway. Perhaps if I get time over, I will try again. The rest of the day was spent on the building projects. As the day progressed, I got better at operating the digger. I took the buckets with me to the new work location.

The first sub-project was to clear the area between the poles of the stable. I need it to be free to build a foundation around the poles. I put regular soil on a heap outside the new stable building. I decided to start here because I had access to the location. As I progressed, I would leave more and more of the trenches open and could not cruise around freely with the digger.

The innermost pole of the stable was my starting point. Had I not had my previous experience with working with a digger, I would not have been thinking about how to plan the activities in such a way I would keep access to the things I had to do while leaving heaps of soil behind me. DW was skeptical that I had time to do all this and suggested I dig trenches for cables first, but look, that is the thing; with trenches running around the property, it is not easy to drive around with a digger.

The soil between the poles of the stables was moved to a heap in the middle of the new stable. The plumber, electrician, ventilation specialist, floor tile expert, and humble building superman, Mr Radi, arrived. I explained my vision, and he agreed to this plan. He agreed to come and help me tomorrow with the pipes. I would dig the trenches, and he would buy some pipes. We were aiming to have the pipes ready before Monday. Mr Radi suggested doing the rainwater drainage at a later stage. Mr Radi had white shoes on. He walked like a noble on our property. Tomorrow, he would put on suitable footwear.

Then, I switched to the trench-digging bucket on the digger machine. I borrowed a little hand bucket of sand and made a line with the sand where I wanted the trench. Then, I dug a trench from the stable to the east side of the main house. The trench will meet up with a trench straight to the new shed.

It is extraordinary how many features we can achieve with two trenches like that. We can connect both the stable and the shed with water and electricity. The shed can get a UTP cable as well. So how about sewer? The stable will get no sewer pipes. I dug a separate trench for the shed's sewer.

DW helped me check where the pipes were lying. We found the water pipe going to the tiny house. Here, we can put a four-way cross-fitting for the water pipe to serve the stable, tiny house and the shed. Electricity will be provided from the house. In that case, it is not allowed or handy with a crossway fitting. We will make individual cables from the house to the stable and the shed. DW was standing in the rain, and she got really cold.

I continued digging until 6 PM in the evening. By then, it was completely dark. I found the button turning on the lights on the machine. We had dinner, and I blogged in the evening. I lit a fire in the wood stove to make us extra warm. Merida liked the fire and snuggled up on the sofa as close as possible.

Sunday 8 December

Last night, when I went to bed, I felt movements. I was just "seasick" from working in the digger machine. It was not pleasant. Eventually, I fell asleep.

This morning, I took two photos to illustrate the situation. The first photo shows the trench from the east side of the house. It runs straight to the shed, where the digging machine was parked. Then, there is a trench to the north parallel to the tiny house.

On the north side of the building, we can see the location of the stable.

I was keen on putting the cables and things in the trenches and putting soil back in them before returning the digging machine.

I measured the lengths of the trenches and texted these to Mr. Radi so he could decide what to buy. Unfortunately, I failed to give him the dimensions of the sewer pipe. We had guessed it to be 110 millimeters, but it was 125 millimeters.

It looked like the red casing tube I still had was sufficient for this situation. It was long enough to provide electricity to the shed as well as electricity for the stable.

I damaged the sewer pipe yesterday when I dug out the hole to get access to it. No worries, Mr Radi could fix that as well. The pipe was not completely broken, so the sewer drainage did not leak out massively. It stayed in the pipe. He had to go on another trip to the shop to get the right stuff for that dimension. Before he went there, we put the water pipe and the casing tube.

While he was away, I filled the trenches with the digging machine. When he came back, he repaired the sewer pipe and created a connection from the shed.

It was even sunny at this point. The groundwater filled up the hole at a rapid pace. I emptied the hole with the bucket of the digger. It did not hold up that well, but Mr Radi could do his job. That was the only necessary thing.

Then, he was finished with the tasks. I had to fill up the hole. It was essential to provide support below the pipe. I filled the hole gradually and manually compacted the soil below the pipe. I used the manual compacting tool we bought from a second-hand shop. In the process, I bruised something in my neck. Well, the job was well done; that is what counts.

When that was done, I drove the digger to the road. There, I cleaned the cabin a little. I texted the machine shop owner that he could pick up the machine. He arrived, checked everything worked, and drove off with the digger.

Then, I started the last task for the day. To bury the sewer pipe in the sand of the bedding of the shed. It was getting dark, and we could only find one lamp. Where is the second lamp? Strange. It worked fine. DW came and helped me. I was anxious that I messed up the sand a little, so I asked neighbors if I could borrow their laser equipment, and that was possible. Unfortunately, the laser battery was a little low, so it would not work. I could borrow it, which is nice. I will put new batteries in it. My neighbors assured me the builders would recheck the sand again. It had rained a lot, so they had to recheck it anyway.

I left a massive mess on the property. I will see how we deal with that next week. The builders are coming tomorrow. I hope I will not get a lot of trouble for messing up their sand. We will see.

Here ends this week's blog. After I end blogging tonight, I must clean up the workshop because I left a lot of clay there. I wrote 3189 words.