Finished the new garden beds Sunday, 27-Apr-25 21:16:38 CEST

Sunday, 04-May-25 22:42:01 CEST

The 2025 garden season has started

This week, the watering hoses were laid out in the garden, marking the start of the growing season.

Monday 28 April

Good morning. The time is 7:40 AM, and I am going to the veterinarian. I will pick up stuff against flies for our sheep. The idea is that it will not take too long. I can do this before the regular workday starts.

I am driving farm roads along tulip fields. It is a regular road, but they are not that wide, and occasionally, you come across farm equipment. The fields are still in colorful grandeur!

This morning, I heard about upcoming supply chain troubles. It currently takes between 30 and 50 days before the shelves in the US start to get empty. You should see it like this: a trail of remaining supply is moving across the system. Behind that trail, the ships are not entering the harbor (so much), and the trucks are not driving. The available products arrive at the shops, but no new products enter the US. It takes between 30 and 50 days for empty shelves to arrive. It appears that the rest of the world will not have any issues. We will see about that. The supply chain is long and complex.

I now have the basic functionality of the lyrics editor working with the lookup of rhyme words. I don't believe it is what I want to have. It. I experimented with making a song and missed the possibility of looking up synonyms.

Before, I had already attempted to put a button on each word, but that did not look okay. Yesterday, I realized that I had to do it anyway. So, I dig deeper into how that works.

I can launch a synonym lookup when I have a button for each word. My preferred method would be to have keyboard commands to activate that functionality, but that's hard because of all the different platform usage of control keys. If the application was only used on the desktop, there would be no problems with the control key. It is a pity that touch devices have limited keyboards.

If I could make that word button work, I could look up synonyms with the button. I do all sorts of things from that word. I will migrate the end-of-line rhyme functionality to the last word of the line.

If I wish to do that, it could also support internal line rhymes via that button. So much more you can do. The only drawback is that the word control has extra stuff in it.

Everything is so beautiful today. Sky blue. The yellow rapeseed fields. Tulip fields in all sorts of colors. The greenness.

So I am home at 8:38 AM—time to work from home. DW is also working from home today.

Tuesday 29 April

Good morning. Had it not been for me to bring the car to the garage, I would have been biking today. It's such nice weather.

Yesterday, after work, we applied anti-fly medication to the sheep. DW also cut the hair from Selma's tail. Last year, we also applied this anti-fly stuff on 28 April. It is called Klik.

It was interesting to read last year's blog. We went to the company that built barns. We sat talking to the salesperson. We sat with him for a long time, explaining what we wanted to achieve. Essentially, most of it came true.

Today, the car company will replace the shock absorbers on the car's front wheels. Before, the garage was closer to the office, but we moved, so now I have to walk to the office a little longer. It does not matter, especially with the nice weather today.

I asked the mechanic about the pressure in the tires. He promised to check the pressure and to see if I had the correct pressure. He also told me an interesting story about tire pressure. The same newer car is now rated to have higher tire pressure. He said that that lowers the fuel consumption, but it also makes the car less comfortable.

I walked across the canal, over a bridge. It was lovely there. The bridge I usually use is closed. But that doesn't matter when you know it beforehand. I'm not that late; I am actually well on time.

The garage kept the car overnight. I could be brought home by a colleague.

Wednesday 30 April

This morning, I will be working from home. DW had a day off. It is summer temperatures. After work, we had lunch. After lunch, I worked a little bit on the lyrics editor. Approved the look of the Word action button. I fixed some bugs in the merge-down functionality. In some situations, it reversed lines. That wasn't very pleasant. That is now fixed.

Then I took a bus to the city center. It was the first time I did that with my new contact-free payment with the phone. It was long ago since I went by bus the last time.

I got the car from the garage, it was expensive, €1100. I think it's the first time we got such an expensive car repair.

Thursday 1 May

The time is 8:40 AM, and I will be biking to work. The rear tire on my bike is losing air too quickly. I got pumped. Amidst all this, one of my girlfriends showed up—a hen from the neighbors.

So yesterday, after picking up the car, I continued working in the garden. I started laying out the watering hoses. We are going on holiday on Friday, and it will not rain, so I'd better get those things in the garden.

The slug infestation has not started just yet. It will come soon enough. So right now, I hope the corn and potatoes will not come out of the ground before we return from the holiday. I will sprinkle a portion of biological Escargo around those beds.

I hope the previous year's efforts to catch slugs will pay off this year. It is a continuous effort. But indeed, the moment things come out of the ground, that's the critical moment.

I'm biking the farmland route I took the last time. This time, I'm biking in the opposite direction.

Here, I stopped and took a photo of the field. Could it be cabbage?

 

So, I tried to use my lyrics editor yesterday evening to finish the song. When Donald Trump announced his trade war with China, they responded with a film rebuking the tariffs. Apparently, they used the song Imagine by John Lennon in that film. I haven't seen the film and have no links to it, but I heard about it in some news media.

Oh, I think I just swallowed the insect. It is not risk-free to bike!

This song from John Lennon has an interesting structure. I got intrigued by the song and decided to make a pastiche. I think it's called pastiche. Anyway, I wanted to make a variation of imagine based on imagine. Totally my own. Well, he got 7 lines in the verses. There are plenty of lines that do not rhyme with each other, but here and there, there is a rhyme. I was able to deduct the structure from the song.

The chorus has four lines, and the verses have seven lines. It's so interesting; John Lennon is doing things I had not encountered before. For example, he used the same word in the chorus as a rhyme. I had not done that. So, I came up with my chorus: You may say I am a loser, but not the only one. There is hope in some form. Perhaps an accident with Air Force One? I was delighted with this quirk of the song. So I tucked the song lyrics into Suno AI, listened to it, and made minor adjustments. And I was pleased with the chorus.

Then I hesitated about that line and wondered if I should have it in the song. I tried other words, but it did not move my emotions.

It is such nice weather today. It's summer. Yesterday evening, I was so focused on the song that I didn't have time to do the dishes. That had happened this morning. I also made the breakfast smoothie.

It was chaotic before I could start biking. I had to collect all the little pieces to make a bike tour. When not biking, I move things from the bike bags to the backpack and vice versa. At some point, I don't know where I got things. Life is complex.

Still no cows at the cow field.

I arrived at work at 9:15 AM.

It is 6:20 PM, and I'm on my way home. Sorry. It is funny that the microphone is picking up the sound of people passing by. Two guys were walking on the bike lane, and one said Sorry. It is funny that the dictation function picks up that.

It is warm. I'm biking with a T-shirt. Today, I was working on deep technology.

I've been thinking. I want to make an algorithm that calculates the value of the percussion energy in words. I suggest using fricatives, plosives, and nasals. First, let's see what we can do with this. If I could calculate the rhythm in the words, I could visualize this in some form; it could be advantageous.

Ideally, this system would calculate the rhythm based on syllables. I want to calculate the rhythmic value of each syllable. That would be the correct way, but it will not be handy.

I have been looking for an API that gives me the words' stressed and unstressed syllables. I can't find an algorithmic way of getting what I need. It has to be done with a lookup in dictionaries.

I found one service providing it, but it was a paid service. And I don't understand the thinking because if I pay for that service, I must publicly send the key to my subscription. People could look up my code to access the paid service. I don't get it.

We moved the sheep to a new area this evening. The previous area was on the west side of the border; this time, we moved the fencing to the north and east sides of the border.

In the evening, after moving the sheep, I started searching for databases with the information I needed for my new idea.

Friday 2 May

This morning, I continued on the irrigation system of the garden. It is easy to lay out hoses on empty beds. We also had populated beds, and they were more challenging. I arranged the watering hoses in the paths between the beds, ensuring I did not break any vegetables with the hose.

After finishing the overall layout, I started to nudge the hose between the vegetables and herbs, like threading a needle.

I got all the beds covered with hoses. We have hoses with pores letting out water. This system has been a game changer for our gardening. At first, we were watering our garden by hand. That was not sustainable. It appears you are using more water when doing it by hand. When we use a watering system, we use less water. It also saves us a lot of time from standing there with the hose, and we can go on holiday.

I programmed the timer computer to let out water for 15 minutes at 9:30 AM and then in the evening for 15 minutes.

The garden table also has a little snippet of the watering pipe. Here, we got the prepotted seeds on the table. We could already see two Ola Gabriela come up through the soil.

Under the table, we put our pot with mint and two pots with flowering plants. I think this will work very well. The table is made of metal, and it has holes in it.

Then we packed the car. Half past 12, we started the journey to Sweden.

We arrived at Tarp in north Germany at 7 PM in the evening. We got a room at the Hotel Ellada.

I wrote a review for the hotel:

Hotel Ellada is a great experience. It has free parking next to the hotel, which is convenient.

We had been driving for a long time, and this charming hotel is near the autobahn.

The buffet was served when we arrived, and the Guests enjoyed their meals, which indicated that this is a popular restaurant in this beautiful little city.

There were many different Greek-style dishes to choose from. Delicious! Sitting at the table without waiting for the chef to start cooking your meal is lovely. There were plenty of vegetarian dishes to choose from.

The room was good; it did not have one of those new easy-to-hack locks but a reliable old-fashioned key.

We had a walk in the city and a park along the river. There was art in the form of woodcuts to see here and there. I liked this place a lot!

I placed the review on Google Maps.

 

At the hotel, I researched databases with syllable words. I found a database of a person working on a Mac producing a text file with the syllables. The issue was that the file was not in UTF-8, so some characters were garbled. When I finally managed to get it converted from MacRoman to UTF-8, it was time to go to sleep.

Saturday 3 May

When we checked out this morning, it went too fast. DW's jacket was left behind. We went to a local bakery and bought croissants, a fruit bun, and coffee in the cups we brought with us. The whole town was such a lovely experience!

Short moments later, we were driving on the autobahn on highway seven to Heaven. In other words, on A7 towards Denmark.

We drove to Sweden, and DW and I discussed what we would do with the missing jacket. I came up with the brilliant idea that we would go to a second-hand shop. We would arrive too late for the shop to remain open in Värnamo. But we were not too late for second-hand shops in Malmö. We tried Myrorna in Emporia. I had not thought it would have a second-hand shop in Sweden's fifth-largest shopping mall. This mall is 68 thousand square meters large. The mall has several levels, and on the roof is a park. Using the space efficiently, you can fit many things in 68 thousand square meters. If efficiency is not your thing, you probably need larger shopping malls. I was delighted that a second-hand shop appeared in this place.

We were not entirely happy with what we found, so we went to the next second-hand shop in Malmö. This time, it was free parking. This was Erikshjälpen. This second-hand shop was larger. Here, DW found a replacement jacket. It is not DWs footsteps. She is not walking that way, and her feet are not covered in white paint. If it was, I had better make a video because that had been funny.

Then we continued to the cottage. We stopped in Värnamo at a large grocery store. Here, we met neighbors of the cottage. It was nice!

We arrived at the cottage at 5 PM.

Sunday 4 May

This morning, roe deer grazed along the road. We were a bit slow. That is not unusual after a road trip to Sweden.

We had decided to clear out some garbage from the barn and move it to the recycling center tomorrow. We packed the trailer with stuff.

Then we greeted the neighbors, and they invited us to look at the new castle they were building. It is nothing short of an estate. It is beautiful.

After that, we went to DF and DM for dinner. That was nice and delicious.

Here ends this week's blog. This was a week of gardening and going to Sweden—also, a week of repairing the car and caring for the sheep. Everything was equally important, but putting out the watering hoses is a significant step in the upcoming garden season, so I make that the top achievement of this week. This week, I wrote 2721 words, which is not bad. Welcome back next week!