Finished construct the rigid fence around the garden Sunday, 10-Nov-24 21:11:04 CET

Sunday, 17-Nov-24 20:41:04 CET

Almost finished the fence of the southwest field

This week, I almost finished the fence for the southwest field. I started looking into animation software.

Monday 11 November

This morning, it was 9 C outside. It was sunny today, and that made me happy. The misty and overcast weather with smog last week was not lovely. This morning, I gave Merida 21 grams of chunks morning and evening. Previously, I gave her a heap on top. From now on, she will get a flat measure.

After Merida got breakfast, I gave our sheep hay. They also eat from the area I gave them on Saturday. They can eat there until the building of the shed starts.

Today, we worked from home. It was nice to look outside, especially in the morning. We even had a lunch walk around the area in the sun; it was brilliant. Around the time when kids walked home from school, there was a massive rainfall. The kids looked really unlucky in the rain.

In the evening, it was time for the Saint Marten celebrations. We had candy and Mandarin fruits ready to hand out to kids who came to the door with self-made lanterns and sang traditional songs. We got 18 kids singing. That was an all-time high, as far as I can remember. I had mounted lights on the sheep fence along the driveway. The kids liked that.

In the evening, I loaded the dishwasher, and while doing that, I listened to an extended episode of Ukraine-the-latest. In that program, they were especially impressed by Sweden's resilience debate and the ten-year civil defense strategy, including building new bomb shelters. It was mentioned several times. I am happy Sweden takes the threat from Russia seriously. I grew up with "Ryssen kommer" as a mantra that you should fear that the Russians could be attacking Sweden anytime. I think it originated in 1721 when Russia terrorized Sweden.

This episode of the podcast also talked about the fear of unintentionally giving Russia a win in Ukraine after the war crimes Russia has carried out. It would send the wrong signals to other presumptive imperialists around the world that any bad actor can grab any land they like, and no matter what war crimes you carry out, you will be allowed to grab land; not only that, you will be rewarded by the president of the USA if you fill his bank account.

Tuesday 12 November

Today, we both worked from the office. It's not the same office, but you know that by now. After lunch, I played my okay playlist but did not find it as lovely as the hallo list. It was sunny today, and it looked nice. I did not go out to enjoy the weather. It could have been a TV screen showing pictures of nice weather, except then you would not feel the warmth from the sun. That would be funny, a TV screen with an infrared heater that would turn on when looking at sunny pictures. When looking at windy images, a fan could start blowing. True multimedia!

In the early evening, the sun set beautifully over the city. I took this picture from the office. I am happy I took the photo. Last week, I did not have that many photos. That felt like I was missing something. I think I promised myself I would do that better this week. So far, I have succeeded in that.

On the way home, we did some grocery shopping. I needed more berries for smoothies. We still have some grapes from our garden, but it will not be long before we use all 4 and a half kilos of grapes.

Wednesday 13 November

Today, I worked from home in the morning. DW had a day off. She went to a wool event.

DW had ordered tree protectors. They arrived this morning. It is essentially plastic strips in a spiral. We will use these in our birch forest.

After lunch, I dug up more garden tiles near the sea container and moved them to the rain roof. The sheep have been mudding up the area, so I put more tiles where needed. Removing the tiles near the container, where heavy machinery will break them, is better. At the new place, the tiles prevent the sheep from getting too dirty of the clay. We will see about that in a few months.

After the tiles, I started working at the gate on the west side of the vegetable garden. I made the standard gate, as I have done a couple of times already.

It was pitch dark when I had finished mounting the gate in the fence's opening on the garden's west side. This is great; we could now theoretically let out the sheep in the area around the vegetable garden.

In the previous version of the fence, with the net, we had already planned to have a gate here. It never got made. It has been some time since we walked over the fence. That is not possible anymore because the new fence is higher. It was about time to make the gate.

This evening, I had a look at Synfig Studio. I used the program in 2014. I made an illusionistic drawing of the letter J. That was ten years ago! I must say Config Studio has not undergone much development since 2014. That was a disappointment. If something does not change, then it is dead. The program had not become more straightforward to use either, so I decided to go and search for something else.

Thursday 14 November

Today, we both worked from our respective offices. It was an overcast day. I had a productive day. I arrived at the office at 8:10 AM and left at 6 PM. That is a bit too long, actually. DW had issues getting back from Amsterdam. She even had to walk for twenty minutes to get to an alternative transport. I ensured she got a preheated seat when she came to the car.

It is difficult to make exciting images when leaving almost at dark and returning home in the dark.

The sheep got their evening portion of hay, and Merida got her pill and bucket of chunks.

In the evening, I started binge-watching tutorials on Open Toonz by TjFree. OpenToonz is not that simple either, but the project is alive. The program is capable of handling vector and raster graphics.

Friday 15 November

Today, DW worked from home, and I had a day off. Today, I worked on the sheep fencing. The idea is to make fencing have designated patches for the sheep. They need access to the rain roof, so we will have a corridor. There will be two patches on the south side of the house. The southeast patch and the southwest patch. There will be a northwest patch as well. Then, we will have the area around the rain roof. That is also the winter patch.

I made gates to close off the southeast patch from the southwest patch. I made the gates from one building fence section. I cut the fence so I could get two fence parts from it. To that, I screwed on hinges. They were cheap hinges, but that will be fine.

Here, I took a break from the gates. I went into town to see if I could find myself new wellingtons. I got a hole in my wellingtons. I could not find what I was looking for. I forgot to bring my socks, which I like to have in Wellington. I bought bolts for the gates, and that went well. Some people walk in tattered shoes. Lord, tell me, why is it so? I had one wet foot the whole day.

We got the gate from the vegetable garden on the west side. It would be convenient to have gates open up the fields, so I made that. So, from the northwest patch on the south side, there is a gate in front of the opening to the southwest field. It is hinged on the vegetable garden corner.

It does not look much when poles are in a field with a gate. The rest of the fence needs to be made as well. It was already starting to get dusk when I started on that. I reused the fence that we previously had around our vegetable garden. This time, I mounted it upside down. That way, Merida can get through the fence. The fence around the garden is mounted a bit higher so she can get in and out below the fence.

I got the net mounted and stretched into place. It has spanners on either side. There are some minor details to fix, but that is for tomorrow.

I wanted to take pictures along the way to show my progress, but I forgot about it. I made one picture when it was time to clear up and take in all the tools. At that time, it was already dark.

In the evening, we ate pizza together with DS. He was in a good mood. He lost his job. He was busy arranging unemployment benefits. Then, he will look for a new job. When DS left, I continued binge-watching Open Toonz tutorials.

Saturday 16 November

We had a slow morning. When smoothy, two cups of coffee were consumed, a decision had to be made: Should I continue to work with one wet foot, or should I go and find new wellingtons? We decided to go to another city to a large outdoor sports shop. We went there, and they had no wellingtons. I was disappointed about that.

What do you do when you are in a new city? You got to a thrift store, obviously. It was small and strange, but the restroom was good. We did not stay long.

The next option was our regular shop for garden and animal things. They also got wellingtons. I let DW off at another thrift store, and then I went to look for wellingtos. I had at one point three boots and one Wellington to choose from. All of them had protected toe caps. The Wellington had the best support of my feet. The other boots were a little flat. After much deliberation with myself, I chose the Wellington.

DW found some glass pots with rubber-sealed lids. These pots are good for making pickles.

My new Wellington was Dunlop Rig Pro, Pur-Fort. We came home 3½ hours later. It took longer than I had expected. I bought the boots for over 100 euros.

We went out in the garden. I finished the stretch of fencing I made yesterday, and DW mounted the tree protectors around our birch trees. We concluded that we would need to buy more protectors. It will work, but the protectors are not sufficient at this point. The idea is that the sheep can graze around the birch trees. Until now, we have kept them away from this area.

The new boots were fantastic. They were excellent to walk in, warm, and comfortable. I finished this section of the fence. Tomorrow, I can start on the next section. That is from the gate to the tiny dyke. We also call it the little dyke. There at the dyke we will have temporary nets along the dyke because we want to be able to have access with a brush cutter. The temporary net will be semi-permanent here.

This evening, I started binge-watching another playlist of Open Toonz tutorials from Darren T. Darren starts his videos with "Hallo, ladies and Jens." It is so sweet of him to address me personally. This evening, I managed to see his first eight videos. Even I am impressed by my own determination.

Sunday 17 November

This morning, I made tea. Then It was time for the next step. Installation went smoothly. I created a new project and scene and started playing with the program. I realized I have to revisit the tutorials covering the basics. Instead of doing that, I finished my tea and decided to start the day's outdoor activities.

Today, we had intermittent rain. We had our breakfast with a smoothie. Today, I made it from huckleberries, Duaenne du Comis, also sold as Royal Riviera, and bananas. Swedes call huckleberry blueberries because they are blue on the outside and inside of the berry. The berries called blueberries in the US are called American Blueberries in Sweden. They are not blue on the inside. The huckleberry is intrinsically challenging to cultivate. It is possible, but the last time I checked it, it sounds like you will transplant a large chunk of the forest into your garden and hope for the best. The American Blueberry, as far as I can tell, is only cultivated. It is somewhat blue, slightly fake, but also a good berry. It usually has a more significant diameter than a huckleberry but is also delicious.

As I said, we had intermittent rain today. We started working in the garden after our first cup of coffee. DW trimmed willows. We will pollard the willows at some point, perhaps not today. She trimmed branches and filled our branch stack. It is now high enough to avoid getting sheep into the vegetable garden. I worked on the fence. This time I worked on the stretch from the gate to the dyke. At the dyke I mounted a pole together with a diagonal pole. I squeezed the fence between two pieces of plywood. Then, I could use a ratchet strap to tighten the fence. A considerable amount of force is applied to hold the fence in proper shape.

I had strapped the two poles of the gate to the southwest field with the help of a steel wire. It did not hold up the force. The poles got pulled apart, and the gate could not close properly. I decided to replace the steel wire with a metal pipe, which was a leftover from a building fence. I dug a trench in the clay for the pipe so one could walk in and out of the gate without noticing the pipe. The pipe will keep the poles together. Somehow, I did not get the distance right anyway, so I must return to this project.

One hour later, we had our second cup of coffee while the rain fell. The clay got sticky. Very sticky. Then we went out to work in the garden again.

I noticed that the southwest field's hook pole needs proper diagonal support. That is for another day.

Then I drilled the holes for the fence along the dyke. The idea is to create a corridor so the sheep can get to the rain roof. I drilled holes and inserted poles, but I need to get back to some of the holes, drill a bit deeper, etc. I also finished the first pole of this stretch with a diagonal support. The rest of this is for next week.

The sunset was not spectacular, but I was happy with the result of today.

The shed builder had requested images from the building area. I made a little sequence for them. It was late in the day, so the quality of the images was not the best.

This is the situation right now where the shed will be built.

In the evening, I experimented with Open Toonz. I thought it would be nice to create some landscape. I made a drawing based on several layers, and I will be able to animate each layer. I got stuck several times.

Here ends this week's blog. I was really busy with the sheep fence this weekend. I made good progress, and I felt excellent. I got new Wellington boots, they are warm and pleasant. Good tools make the work so much more enjoyable.

I wrote 2643 words this week. Welcome back next week.