Sunday, 10-Sep-23 21:35:57 CEST

Worked on the microphone project

This week, it was hot. I programmed on my microphone project. Work outside had to be paused.

Monday 4 September

Today, we both worked from our offices. It was warm and sunny. My thoughts were with Hannah several times today. I was back at the project I started on in May this year. I also had a new addition. I brought a new speaker to the office I bought at the second-hand shop last Saturday. I will have that at my desk. It sounded magnificent.

We considered whether to go for an evening walk but opted out. I carried out the ointment of Hannah by myself while DW made dinner. The crust fell off a couple of days ago, and a new crust formed mainly from unhealthy moisture sipping out from the wound. Now, the new thinner crust fell off. There is some skin developing below the crust. It is fragile. I applied ointment on the new surface. New skin also forms from the edge, creeping inwards into the wound.

Tuesday 5 September

We worked from the office today. I switched Thursday with Tuesday because DW had a day at the office, and it is more convenient if we go to our offices on the same day. It was warmer today. From 3 PM, it was 29 degrees Celsius.

When we came home, we got a package in the mailbox. The pin arrived from Ardusimple, with a ball at the tip this time! With that, the equipment was complete!

Shortly after, I got a question from our friend if he could get back the survey equipment. That was possible! He came soon after and got his things, and it was complete!

We had a look at Hannah’s wound this evening. It was looking like it progressed nicely. When she had got her ointment, I decided to wash the skin. For that, I used the drinking water of the sheep. Hannah looked like she enjoyed it a lot. I did not wash her big wound, but the skin around it became much cleaner. She stretched her head, made sweet sounds with her mouth, and stood absolutely still when I washed her. The new skin was still covered by old ointment. It had become stiff and orange. Now, her skin has become white again. It was hot when we did this; the water also had a cooling effect, and she enjoyed that, too.

This evening, I took out Merida for a walk in the garden. Merida looked closer at the sheep, which was not appreciated; she hissed to the sheep.

Wednesday 6 September

Today, I worked from home in the morning. I had a really successful morning. I released a new version of my project at work, and it worked well.

After lunch, I had a half day off. I had planned to continue the decluttering project and bring more stuff to the recycling center. Nothing of this happened. It was too hot. We went to the veterinarian so that Merida could receive her booster jab. The veterinarian did not want me to take a photo of when she got the injection; it was not good photography, according to the veterinarian. I complied. The next time we go to the clinic, it will be to get Merida sterilized.

After we visited the veterinarian, I decided to work on my microphone project. I had two sample projects. The microphone registered well in one project but did not have the Fourier calculations. Another project had Fourier calculations, but the microphone did not register properly. I tried to migrate the Fourier calculations into the first, but that did not work. Then, I tried to migrate the proper microphone handling into the Fourier calculation project, which was more successful. At least, for a while, it worked. It is unclear what the result is of the Fourier transformation. There is somehow a calculation of the amplitude of various frequencies, but it is still unclear to me. At some point, it stopped working, and then I decided it was enough for today.

Thursday 7 September

Today, we worked from home. In the afternoon, it became scorching. When work was finished, I connected the DJ controller and did a DJ set on my own that lasted two hours. I started at 78 BPM and ended at 137 BPM. I tried to mix songs by starting one song in the tail of the previous one. It worked out really well. It was great fun, and the new second-hand subwoofer served well. I would love to play with this PA for a wider audience. This time, it was only DW that had to enjoy my show. She was actually delighted that I played a couple of songs that she liked really much. There is a gap in my song collection between 90 and 118 BPM. I need to fill up that with more songs.

Our house is well isolated. If we had fewer windows, less heat would enter the house. We want to mount curtains, but it does not feel like a high priority right now in everything we need to do. That is strange, though, because it is a little unpleasant when it is more than thirty degrees Celsius outside and becomes scorching. We have cooling in our floor system, which is good, but it is not cooling the house as an air-conditioner can cool. It is possible to insert a precooling system into the air ventilation system. With this galloping climate change catastrophe, I believe that is what we will do one day. But before that, the curtains need to get higher priority.

I suspect that with a mild cold and sunshine, we can only heat the house with the incoming sunlight. The heating/cooling system produces historical data with intriguing graphs. I am trying to understand how it works by looking at the graphs. It is plausible that we only heat the house a short time of the year. I am eager to see if my hypothesis is correct when the weather becomes colder.

We practice letting out Merida, and it goes better and better.

Friday 8 September

Today, I worked from the office, and DW worked from home. Today, it was even hotter. The forecast predicted 32 degrees Celsius at some point, but I think it did not reach that around us. I brought with me two courgettes, and they were well received. I chopped the courgette into six pieces, and six colleagues got a piece each.

DW went to a social event this evening. I did the ointment of Hannah alone and gave Merida more to eat. Then, I decided to practice with the DJ controller. It feels so great to work with the controller. I have programmed loops at the end of all tracks. I noticed some of these loops are gone; that is a little annoying. Should I review the entire song collection and reprogram the loops again? It will be great next time I can play for an audience. But for that, I would like to have the effects program, at least in some crude form.

Saturday 9 September

Today, we would receive friends on a visit in the evening. It was getting hot again, so doing any elaborate work outside was not feasible. DW cleared the right area outside our garden doors to make it more appealing. We cleaned and decluttered inside as well. We had to buy groceries, which was nice because it was a pleasant temperature in the shop. Our house’s temperature has reached so high that the cooling cannot keep up. It is much more pleasant with the cooling, but during the heat of the day, it cannot cope. It is such a well-isolated house that it had been awful without cooling, that it sure. The window on the south side has no curtains, so much energy comes through the windows. The following day, the cooling of the floors and the ventilation bypass system brought the house to pleasant levels. Then it starts over again.

We talked about the curtains today. DW had ideas about how we would go about the curtains. Of course, there was no time today to work on that, but we had a look at various alternatives. I think it will work.

DW made paprika filled with pesto and potatoes. I harvested potatoes from the garden at the driveway. She also made halloumi rolled in courgette slices, covered with tomato sauce, and baked in the oven. To this, a homegrown parsley and lentil salad. She made Swedish sticky chocolate cake with our homegrown raspberries as a dessert. The oven had to work, bringing up the temperature, but that is not something you can avoid. We had decided to eat in the garden.

We have one stretch of temporary fencing with smaller openings; it is actually made for chickens. This was in use on the south side of the house between the garden fence and the fence along the road. I thought it would be interesting to see if we could use it for Merida. It had been nice to open the garden doors this evening. I put up another stretch of temporary fencing so the chicken fence became idle. When doing that,

I discovered this fence had lost several mounting feet. Each section of the fence has a pipe, and at the bottom of the pipe, there is a foot mounted. The foot has two pointy rods that you press into the ground. Without the foot, the fence cannot stand. I suppose DS ignored this when he removed the fence during our holiday. I have no idea how I will find these feet. I can take off my shoes and go around barefoot, and then when you hear me screaming, I detect one of the missing fence feet. I could also lie down and roll over the ground. I could also use a metal detector, but I don’t have that. It would have been much easier if the feet were still on the fence. For this time, I used the extra poles.

Then, I moved the chicken fence, forming an enclosure outside the garden doors. Now, people and Merida could roam freely from the living room to the garden.

The guests arrived, and all plans worked as intended. Merida explored the garden around us while we were eating the delicious food. The doors were open, and it could chill down a little. At some point, Merida ignited a scream from a mouse. This time, she did not catch it, but it was close.

It was delicious! It was nice that much of the food came from our own garden. After the desert, we went inside. I showed the PA system that I bought for a total of 79 euros. I even demonstrated the DJ controller. We decided it was time to arrange a larger party.

It was so lovely with the visitors, the food was delicious. Merida behaved well. Here at the new house, we have much more social contact with other people. It is great. We not only got a new house, but we also got a new life.

Sunday 10 September

This morning, we were slow. The temperature had already become unpleasant when we were ready to conduct the ointment session with Hannah. She comes galloping to us when we call her, no matter how warm it is. This is because we give her a small treat of food supplement each time. The two minor wounds on top of her back are now healed. Perhaps some moisture is coming from them, but the skin is almost closed. The larger wound is healing well; the skin grows from the edge inwards, getting smaller by the day.

I have been anxious that this hot weather would provoke a new fly strike, but the difference this time is that it is not raining either. The area under the rain roof, which also works as a sunroof, got swept so that no poop nuggets are lying there.

When this was done, I took out a metal rake to find the lost fence pole feet. I was lucky to stand on one of the feet with my wellingtons. Luckily, it did not hurt. Then, I raked the area with the rake upside down. Eventually, I found the second fence pole feet. I am convinced a metal rod like that could cause substantial damage to our sheep, but DW doesn’t think so. I am eager to complete the fence; that is much more convenient.

While raking for the fence pole feet, I contemplated what brought me here to do this. I would call it a sort of numbness on DS’s part. He drags out a pole and does not discover that the feet do not follow. That could happen if you were not paying attention, which is a treat of DS, I must admit. On the other hand, DS can be hyper-assertive in some situations, so much so that it is a little annoying sometimes.

The raking strategy worked! I found both the fence pole feet.

In the afternoon, we went to FIL and MIL. There was significant traffic congestion going north. I drove along the closed A10 motorway in the middle of Amsterdam. Eventually, we arrived at MIL and FIL, and they were enjoying the sun in their back garden. I was set to work on clearing their roof gutters from junk. DW was set to clear weeds from between garden tiles. We were delighted! Drips of sweat rolled down from DW’s face while my shirt got soaking wet.

When we drove home, we used a much more clever way, passing all road congestion. This took out from the dense part of the Netherlands, over a dike built in the middle of the water, through a vast national park where wild animals roam freely. To enter and leave the park, you drive over cattle grids. It is a public road, though, so you are not paying any fees as if it were a safari park. You can stop and leave the car; there are no dangerous animals, but you better stay away from them.

At home, we had the leftovers from the feast yesterday, and today, we invited our neighbor, DS. We asked him how cooking goes, and he concluded he is too lazy to make proper meals. We suggested that he would attend a cooking course. He took the advice, perhaps not too seriously.

This concludes this week’s blog.