Tilled a part of the southwest field Sunday, 13-Sep-26 20:50:00 CEST

Sunday, 20-Sep-26 22:33:55 CEST

Potato harvest

Potato harvest.

Monday 14 September

A new week with new possibilities.

I heard on the news that Russia's top command gets all its news from Ukrainian sources. Their own command hierarchy cannot provide reliable information. Progress near Lyman has been kept secret for four months. At the same time, Putin has been standing at press conferences claiming things about the area that were made up. It is an extraordinary story! Today I also heard that the core of the Russian oil refineries is powered by UOP, Honeywell, and ABB equipment. When it breaks, Russia can't replace it.

We worked from home today. I let the vacuum cleaner run around. In our old house, we had wood floorboards, and we liked them. In this house we got ceramic tiles and PVC. Floorboards can't handle dirt like tiles and PVC. If we got gravel on the floorboards, they would quickly not look pretty. Here it doesn't matter, and it is surprising how the absence of that need to clean can make us skip it. That said, it feels better to do it once a week. So I am trying to make it a habit to let the robot clean every Monday.

The weather was lovely in the evening.

Tuesday 15 September

It is Tuesday morning. I noticed that the simple text editor puts the cursor at the top of the document when the screen changes orientation. That's a bug I could report to the software developer. That's the reason why, when I'm walking around with the phone in my hand, talking into the microphone, I suddenly start entering text at the beginning of the document- one of the reasons for the voice-typing shitshow. The bug is already reported.

Today I'm somewhat glad to go to work because the neighbors are having a pole driver. They drive the poles into the ground until they reach a firm layer of sand by banging a 7-meter-long pole again and again. A building needs many poles. That's a lot of distraction.

It's been many weeks without biking because of the rain. I love biking, even when the bike is ticking. Yesterday afternoon we had a hiccup at work. During the downtime, I checked whether I could make Voice Access produce the exclamation mark and the question mark. In the end, I installed a macro program so that when I type the words for the character, it replaces them with the character. I spent a long time on this, and it shows me that all that talk about AI taking over the world isn't just going to happen right now. I found a simple macro program. It had to be simple because using a highly advanced macro tool to repair Google Access is like repairing glue with duct tape.

I watched a YouTube video yesterday about Princeton research on whether AI can conduct open-ended AI research on its own. It could not. A year ago, researchers tried to make AI discover Newton's laws, and that failed too. Does this mean we can sit back and relax? I don't think so. On the other hand, look at my struggle to insert an exclamation mark into the text with voice typing. It is laughably complex.

It is lovely weather. I took a photo of the forest, with beams of light illuminating the light mist.

Today during the lunch break I went to the PA second-hand shop. They barely had a website; I think they were surprised to get their first customer. I rang the doorbell, but no one came to open it. So then I called them, and they answered a little strangely. The owner answered and said the companion would open the door, so I went back to the doorbell and rang it again. No success. I think I am a little too enthusiastic. They need to finish that website and get used to opening the doors to customers. I will try out the business again.

Wednesday 16 September

We woke up early today as well because DW had to go to the office again. Our cat Merida came to sleep next to me tonight. I had here bumped up next to me. She is a warm cat.

I had a lovely morning figuring out a bug I caused myself, sipping my morning coffee with few distractions. It was lovely. I had forgotten I'd let out Merida in the garden. When I finally let her in, she gave me a roaring sound at the door, as if to tell me she doesn't appreciate being forgotten. When she was out in the garden, the weather was beautiful. Later, it rained heavily.

After lunch, when the weather was alright, I picked tomatoes. The tomatoes are mostly DW's project. I noticed they needed picking, but she didn't have any free time on Wednesday, so I did it for her. She appreciated that. We shouldn't have our domains in the garden, but it also works as a work distribution method. In a way, it is very simple: if I like potatoes, then it is my domain. DW likes tomatoes; that's her domain.

The weather is funny; it is 21°C, and now and then it is raining. It is perfect for germinating all those grass seeds we saw recently.

I filled the small trailer with the leftovers from the ramp we had in front of the barn's large door. It has been lying there as a pile of rubbish, and I don't like that. Piles of rubbish in the yard make me feel miserable, and I don't want to feel miserable.

I went to the recycling center and emptied this small trailer, and it feels great. What's perhaps less great is that I may have strained my back a little lifting all those pellets.

I picked up DW at the bus station in the evening. Then we went to the local snack bar and picked up vegetarian hamburgers.

Thursday 17 September

Sometimes the biggest culprit in my life is myself. This morning I've been searching for my HollyLand microphones, and I can't find them. So now I'm on my way to work, and I'm frustrated. I'm also late, and I'm frustrated about that too. In this situation, I need to drive within the speed limit because the last thing I want is another frustration: a speeding ticket. If I arrive late, I make up for it by leaving late; it is that simple.

Plenty of cars are at the office today. I wonder if that means there are a lot of smokers. Last week, there wasn't much wind, and anyone smoking around the office building got their smoke sucked into the building.

On the way home, it rained a lot, but I don't mind, actually. I have a little pain in my left knee that I got from running down the stairs trying to be able to talk to smokers. It takes a long time for the smoke to travel through the pipes to the fourth floor. When I detected the smoke and ran down to the basement, the smokers were gone. So frustrating!

Today I harvested 18.7 kg of zucchini. That is more than last week.

Friday 18 September

We got amaranth in the garden, and I wanted to know more about these plants. I posted a photo of the amaranth plant on r/vegetablegardening and asked what I could do with it. This is an experiment on many levels, me trying out Reddit and learning new things at the same time. It got 63 upvotes. Now I feel inspired to harvest the amaranth.

Today, the election started in Russia. It has no personal significance for me, but it matters for what will happen in the world in the coming months. It is said that from here on we can expect an intensified mobilization in Russia. We will see.

Sweden held an election last Sunday, and I am especially pleased that no Russia-friendly parties increased their vote share. The votes are counted, but it is not clear how the government will be formed.

For me, it was a typical Friday when I worked from home, and DW had the day off. In the morning, I felt I was in the flow. I even forgot lunch. Merida sleeps on the platform above the laptop when I work from home because it is warm with a soft mat; I am near her, and I think she likes that. When I leave for lunch, she follows me.

We had a visit from two buzzards. It is lovely to see them, but I think it means we have a good year for mice. I took these photos with the Nikon DSLR. Great fun.

 

Saturday 19 September

We had a slow morning. While giving Merida her breakfast, I felt that from here on I have no desire to pursue the watch face project. The watch face project made me (re)start with Reddit, and it feels like I'll stick with that for now. I am collecting badges and karma. I feel like the raw style of the watch face will not be easy to promote. That will make it harder to get testers. I wanted the project to be fun, but I learned a lot. I could, of course, add a countdown on my watch face to the Apophis asteroid flyby on Friday, 13 April 2029, make the face gorgeous, and try again. We will see.

The stems of the alouette potatoes had become brown, and that is the sign it is time to harvest the potatoes. Just before I got started, I discovered that two stems of our butternut squash had found their way inside the wall panel. I was not amused. I could not get them out either, so I got grumpy.

I planted 6 alouette potatoes on 22 April. I was disappointed I could not harvest more, but I am still proud of what my potatoes produced. I tried to wash the potatoes with the high-pressure washer, but the water stream stripped some of them. Luckily, I could soften the flow, but then the clay wouldn't let loose that easily.

The photo of the pink potatoes in the green grass is really popping. On the color wheel, the potatoes are opposite the green grass. Contrasting colors are a classic way to make the image pop. I posted the image to r/vegetablegardening, and it received 176 upvotes and 4600 views. You can see I'm getting better at using Reddit. I could provide a link to the blog; that is always fun.

With the potatoes harvested, I filled up the small trailer with the rest of the ramp material. DW and I went to the recycling center together. We arrived at 4:30 PM, and the staff wanted to get home on time; they were a little annoyed that we arrived late with a trailer. They were pleased we emptied the trailer quickly.

When we came home, DW made oven-grilled potato wedges.

Sunday 20 September

Today we had a slow morning. It feels like I haven't been able to sleep past 6:30 AM for a long time, but today we woke up around 8 AM. It was wonderful. The slow morning carried on to breakfast. I made a smoothie with red currant and sea buckthorn, took photos of it, and even posted about it on Reddit in r/Smoothies, which got me a meager 4 upvotes.

After breakfast, we went about our activities. I brought in the now dry alouette potatoes. I placed them in the bottom trough of the fridge. We can make use of these in the coming months, I am sure.

DW made beetroot hummus, and I tried to harvest amaranth. I started at the top of the amaranth with the beautifully colored strands, but they didn't release the seeds that easily. In the lower layers, I found brown amaranth, and these were ready to release their seeds. You could hear it when touching the strands; the seeds fell off spontaneously. So there is a classical dilemma: keep the seeds on the crop as long as possible; when it is almost too late, or actually too late, then it is time to harvest.

I carefully lifted all the amaranth to a temporary amaranth workspace I created in the atelier. I put the amaranth to dry on the ladder with a cloth on the floor. If seeds fall off spontaneously, I can collect them in the cloth.

The amaranth seeds looked like pearls in a close-up photo. It is lovely how the seeds look like glass beads. They are really tiny in reality, like one-third of a millimeter.

It should be possible to pop these seeds. I am told they taste like puffed rice. We will see. Perhaps I can use some for our homemade muesli.

My next task was to move the sheep to the northwest field inside the dyke. They almost stomped the ground with excitement. It is not a big field, but it has plenty of grass so that the sheep can stay here for a week.

I usually try to mow the previous field right away. In this case, I moved the corridor and the southwest field. I kept the area around the apple trees uncut. I noticed that the grass has sprouted in the area I sowed last Sunday!

The southeast field outside the area the sheep grazed last time has been something I have been worried about. I suggested having the sheep graze on it, but DW was not in favor of that. If the seed roots aren't well-established, the sheep will rip out the roots along with the grass. We would not like that! I am okay with that, but the grass is getting taller and taller, and at some point we cannot do anything with it. We cannot cut it or feed it to our sheep. General despair if it gets too long. I cut it with the lawnmower. DW wasn't happy about this; she wanted us to wait. We sometimes have these disagreements, but it is my job to cut the grass, and if it gets so long that it is not possible to handle, then that is it. On the good side, all the grass will now get even access to light, which is good.

Here ends this week's blog. I wrote 2395 words, and I harvested the Alouette potatoes and the amaranth.