More garden preparations Sunday, 12-Apr-26 20:20:01 CEST

Sunday, 19-Apr-26 19:08:40 CEST

Moved the grape vine stocks

Garden preparations finished. Moved the grape vine stocks.

Monday 13 April

Yesterday, after finishing last week's blog and uploading it, I only had to fill the dishwasher before bedtime. I let out Merida, and that was when I remembered I had left my boots outside. Well, you cannot leave your boots outside unless you want them filled with rainwater. I went outside to grab my boots when I heard something. Merida also heard it. It was an animal! The animal was not quick. I walked along the edge of the house. I returned and put on my shoes. Somehow, I did not want to use my boots; I have no idea why. When I came back out, the animal was gone. It could not be far away. It had got around the corner and hid below the door to the atelier. Here, both DW and I could establish that it was a hedgehog!

Having a hedgehog on our property is a big deal! We are honored! A hedgehog eats slugs. This means we have interesting things for a hedgehog to eat and experience. Usually, it means we have more than one place to hide.

This morning, the big news is that Viktor Orbán lost the election in Hungary. Is Ukraine now closer to securing the 90 million Euro loan?

DW had to be at the office really early. That is so she does not spend much time commuting. Later in the day, the options weren't that good. I had time to potter around before starting work.

I gave water to our seedlings. A couple of Japanese Indigos have sprouted, and cucumbers (Hokus) are also on the way. The dill, flaxseeds, and parsley got watered in their beds. I covered these places with plastic. To give water, I first need to remove the plastic. It is a little extra work, but this way I know the soil is moist for the seeds. After watering, put the plastic back in place.

I feel optimistic about the future. There are many issues, but we can fix this.

In the evening, I listened to the podcast The Diary Of A CEO interviewing Robert Pape. This was the second time he was interviewed on the podcast. The first interview was equally informative. He confirmed that Donald Trump created a Monster by himself, and he even told us that Israel is actively destroying Trump's ability to back out of the disaster. The professor laid out possible ways that Trump's failed attack on Iran can go from here. It is a really important interview with information on the current political situation.

This evening, I registered more of the lost emails, bringing the total to 100. I can still register about fifty, but I will leave it for a while. It feels wholesome to have the email system back.

Tuesday 14 April

It was frosty overnight, and now it's 5°C. I am biking today. It is as if I dare not say it, but I think it is true that there are no ticking sounds of the bike, right now! Over the weekend, I've been thinking that perhaps the WD-40 needs some time to get into the mechanisms. If it is true, it would be such a relief.

This morning, before going to work, I was thinking about the seedlings. It is said that they benefit from a light wind blowing on them. Supposedly, a fan is sufficient to strengthen the seedlings' stems. Well, I'm a rich guy, I can buy a fan, but I'm not that rich. It would be better if I already had a fan or if I could borrow one. If I could find one in a second-hand shop, that would be nice too.

The best solution, though, would be for me to arrange a fan here and now. Then it occurred to me that we have a vacant AC unit in the utility room. It's a heavy little bastard. That was the right way, much better. So we migrated the AC unit to the barn and placed it at the end of the tender station. So now there is a slight air flow over the seedlings.

Not much wind today. The boats along their long water canal are perfectly mirrored in the water. I stopped at the photo of this scenery.

The next little project for the seedlings is to arrange for light. If they receive sufficient light, they will also grow thicker and stronger. I've got two LED lamps because I used a lot when building. Preferably, I would need a timer as well to turn the lamps on and off. I'm not entirely sure I have one of those.

Such a lovely morning! Soon I will arrive at work.

It is afternoon, and I'm biking home. It's a bit chilly in the air. The wild cherry trees are in full blossom. That is lovely.

You feel freer when you're biking, even more so when you're driving a car. Perhaps I should talk for myself? I've been feeling all the optimism, and I don't know where it's coming from. I mean, it should take 16 years to figure out that a politician isn't good for you; that's a pretty long time. And then you have Trump, with his first term in the White House, which was not enough to realize this was not good for us. Then you're having Mr. Mark Rotten in the Netherlands, the PFAS politician. I mean, he made the Netherlands a really successful country, nothing to complain about. So yeah, I feel optimistic!

The garden season preparations are more or less done. I want to come back to some long-term goals. The barn came in the way of finishing the study. Before the barn, we called it the workshop, but now we have changed its name. It is called an atelier or a study. I will need to empty the room, then plaster all the walls and the ceiling. I can't estimate the timeline yet, especially since my free Fridays will end in May. So we will see how I spend my time. I'm dreaming of woodworking, electronics, welding, and that sort of thing. I'm not really dreaming of plastering.

This evening, Merida received a visit from Terror Fritz. This is a cat from a neighbor farther away. This cat has attitude; he is not afraid of anything.

Then came the next visitor for Merida. Now it was Hunter, the cat from the neighbors to the east. I can see that Hunter really would like to become friends with Merida. He is often blinking at her. I don't think it is helping that much this far.

Wednesday 15 April

It is Wednesday afternoon, and I'm on my way to the hardware shop. I need couplers for the watering system. I want to buy a 3.2 millimeter file for the small chainsaw. I need a couple of sturdy bamboo sticks. The bamboo sticks would be 4 the zucchinis. I'm going to let the zucchinis climb along bamboo sticks this season. I'm also buying a timer. With the timer, I can light up the seedlings with my lamps. And can extend the time seedlings are exposed to light, apparently to 12 or 16 hours per day.

All right. So I had to choose between a timer that looked really cheap with some buttons, and I was thinking you couldn't program it with that few buttons in a convenient way. Then there was this new kind of leafy socket, and that was similar in price. One part of me said here we have a smart thing again, yuck. Part said to me, "At least you get a useful user interface." So I bought the Wi-Fi socket. I do wonder if I'll be disappointed? Then it was time for the file. I found a tool that can file the chain of the chainsaw in one movement, at the right angle. I got myself a couple of water hose couplings and a 15 millimeter wrench. I got myself 12 bamboo sticks. It is as if bamboo sticks come in a specific length-width ratio. Long sticks are thicker, and short sticks are thinner. There are no short and thick sticks. It's the same with nails. So when we nailed the house planks, we found we could only use long, thin nails with pneumatic nail guns, so we bought those in the end.

I got the lamps fully installed with the new little Wi-Fi socket connected via an app on my phone. When all was working, I found we already had a mechanical socket. If you don't know what you have, then you don't have it.

I put the water system together. There are now water drip pipes on all beds that dispense driplets of water when the crane is open.

We have a computer that can turn on the watering system once per day. I also put together the lighting system for the seedlings.

I mulched the berry bushes. It is not that difficult. I take a wheelbarrow and fill it with compost. Then I move the wheelbarrow to the bush, tip out the compost, and spread it around the base. I was happy I did it. Turns out DW wanted to weed around the bushes before I did. I was not aware. Sorry.

Thursday 16 April

There was so much traffic in the area today. I don't have any problems with that because I'm on the bike. There was also an ambulance passing me, and I recorded that.

And here I collided with a duck! You can't make up the kind of adventures I'm having biking to work. Mid-air collision. Luckily, it hit my side, no damage.

The farmer is already watering his fields. Looked like he was growing potatoes. I was already thinking the ground was a little dry. Well, I finished laying out the watering pipes yesterday, so I need to connect the computer to turn the water on and off, but it needs a new battery. Whoops, almost biked into a crow!

Good evening! It is sunny. I was working on a long-overdue subproject this week. It was frustrating because I had to revisit configurations I no longer use. I got it working and made the necessary changes, though I still felt a bit self-doubting. Not until I had finished that project did I restart on the things I "actually" should work on; that was the moment I felt, yeah, I'm good at this, and at the end of the day. I could have continued for another hour. I'm biking home, and I'm glad I went into the weekend with this feeling rather than feeling insufficient.

When I passed the farmer's field, a guy was next to the tractor. It was the farmer himself! I couldn't hold myself back; I had to ask him if it was potatoes he had planted here. That was not the case. It was carrots. Then asked what sort it was, and it was called Commander.

Then I told him it was cool, and he laughed really hard and climbed into his tractor. It was a big tractor; it was huge. A tractor worthy of someone growing commander carrots.

I also have carrots to sew. I wonder what my sort is called? Last year I sowed carrots mid-season, and it wasn't a bad experience at all. I do remember it was difficult to separate the carrots from one another.

Friday 17 April

Today I had a day off. DW worked from home. It was sunny in the morning, and in the afternoon it started to cloud over. I started the day by mulching the three remaining beds. With this, the preparations for the garden are done. We still have to sow and plant things, but that is another phase for me.

While mulching the beds, a delivery van arrived and dropped off a package containing two envelopes of tomato seeds. I went ahead and sowed these in little buckets. There were 12 Solanum lycopersicum seeds, even though the package said it should be 6. It is 20 grams per tomato, and the tomatoes are round.

Then DW had ordered Midi San Marzano plum tomatoes. It is 30 to 40 grams per tomato and has an elongated shape; hence, it is called a Roma or plum tomato. That was 9 seeds. Also, here the package said 6 seeds. It does not matter that we got too many, we will make use of as much as possible!

While at it, I also put other seeds in buckets. 7 buckets with fennel, and 9 buckets of Swiss chard.

I installed the computer for the watering system. It is a REHAU system, really simple. I programmed it to water once per day in the evening. The system has a cryptic user interface. Would a more modern system have a phone app? I played around with the user interface, and gradually, it made sense. It has the code CT for the current time. So when that is set, the next stop is ST for "set the time" for when the action will start. The action is the repetition period in days, hours, or seconds on the left, followed by the action's length on the right. I set it to repeat every day. That is thus a 1 day on the left side. Then I set the action to 25 minutes on the right side. How easy can it be?

Then I moved the sheep to a new field. They are now grazing in the southeast field. The corridor to the southeast field is filled with dandelions. DW doesn't like dandelions, but look how beautiful they are!

So now the preparations for the garden season are finished. Could I go inside and scroll a feed or something? No, not exactly. There are things to do. We finished the barn, but that is the inside. We want to be able to drive the lawnmower into the barn without a pallet ramp or scrap-wood ramp. The thing is, we have two vine grapes growing in this area, and I don't want to discard these. So what should we do? We should move them! The oldest wine grape I moved two times earlier. I moved it from the back of the old house to the front garden. That was at the old house as well. Then I moved it from the old house to this location at the new house. That was Monday, 29 March 2021. The first move was before I blogged.

In the evening, I inspected the watering system. It was not working. I had already forgotten about the fencing I had put up for the sheep, so I walked into the fence in the dark. I got the watering system working, and then when I walked back out, I stumbled over the fencing. I have a pole sticking out of the ground here. It is the only remnant of the previous fencing here before we built the barn. I fell over that pole, scratching my leg. My right shoulder took the impact when I fell on the ground. I got back into the house with a sore shoulder and a long scratch on my leg. This was not good at all.

Saturday 18 April

When I woke up this morning, I was feeling sorry for myself. We had a slow morning. The scratch on my leg was three inches long, and the leg was swollen. My shoulder hurts when I lift my right arm.

After breakfast, we walked around the property to find a new location for the vine grape stock. We concluded that we had a possible spot on the south side of the tiny house. With that, I could continue to dig out the grape vine roots. Unfortunately, there was not much time left for the grapevine because we had a visit to make.

DS, DW, and I went to PILs to celebrate MIL's 97th birthday! The birthday is tomorrow, but we were scheduled to celebrate it on Saturday. Then tomorrow SIL and her husband will celebrate MIL. We bought a purple flower for MIL. I have no idea what the flower's name is.

If all of us arrive at the same time, it will be a little overwhelming. Not for MIL, she is fine. It is FIL who doesn't like large crowds. He is also 97 years old. They moved to their apartment last year. MIL is having a great time attending creative activities, excursions, and other events. She got help to create a little garden outside the apartment. FIL is less mobile and prefers to be at home. That said, they have been on some excursions together.

We returned from the PILs in the evening. There was not much time to dig out the roots of the grapevine. This evening, the watering system started as it should.

When we drove to and from PIL's, we could enjoy the view of the tulip fields. It is always tulip time around MIL's birthday. Long stretches of brightly colored fields. It can be any color. Red, Purple, Pink. I did not see any yellow fields.

Sunday 19 April

Today, we gave our sheep the clik medication to prevent fly strikes. Bea was especially stubborn. When done, she stood with her head in the shute as if she had resigned. After a couple of sheep chunks, she was back to her normal self.

DW was active in the garden. She sowed runner beans. White runner beans on the north side of the path and purple runner beans on the south side of the path. Each bean got its own slug fortress. That is a piece of PVC pipe with copper tape on the side. The slugs hate the tape and avoid climbing into the fortress. The copper tape is really expensive, so DW polished these fortresses to make them ready for this season.

She also planted the bay leaf "Bay Junior". The leaves are good for cooking. This mini tree got into the permanent bed E. Also, the lemon thyme was planted in this bed. We already had Rosemary, Wild Marjoram, Common Sage, and Chive in this bed. There are a couple of garlic plants as well, but they don't really belong here.

It was nice weather. I worked on moving the grape vines. Both the old and the new grape vine. It was hard work. I was not happy about having to stand to dig again. In the late afternoon, both grape vines had been moved. We decided on a place in front of the helophyte filter.

I was delighted that I finished moving the grape vines. It has been a burden on my mind. Now they need to survive at the new spot, which is also a concern. I will give the plants water regularly at the new spot.

Here ends this week's blog. We had a productive week. I wrote 3203 words. The preparations for the garden are finished, and now we have started sowing and transplanting. I moved the vine grape plants to a new location. This makes it possible to move on to preparing the driveway changes.