All seeds started Sunday, 26-Apr-26 19:48:40 CEST

Sunday, 03-May-26 21:19:44 CEST

Emptying the atelier

This was a week of King’s Day, stubborn sheep, creative experiments with AI, and art. I worked on clearing the atelier while rediscovering the joy of welding.

Monday 27 April

Today it was King's Day in the Netherlands, and it was a compulsory holiday. When we drank our coffee at our large door with a grand view of the garden, we noted that the lovage plant is growing exponentially well. Still with coffee in our hands, DW harvested three stems. We will dry these and produce our own herbal salt. It is so much more delicious than the herbal salt you can buy in the store.

You know I’m Swedish, so I have my own Swedish king, but I have to say the celebration of the Dutch king is a special matter. I made fun of the Dutch celebration of the king many times, but it’s such a good subject that I can do it again. You see, the true core of Dutch society appears on King’s Day. My standard joke about it is that the Dutch go out en masse to the streets to sell garbage as an act to celebrate their king. That is true, but it is deeper. The Dutch are very trading-oriented people. In the Netherlands, you really gain status by being able to trade stuff, and if you can trade useless garbage, you are good. So what can you not sell? If you can sell your neighbors for 10 cents, that’s what you should do! That joke is a reference to Anne Frank's fate.

We decided to have a bike tour in their neighborhood to check out the King's Day celebrations. DW suggested we ask DS to come with us, but there's a little problem: his bike was rattling. Anyway, DS and I had a father-son quality time repairing his bike. We removed two segments of his roller chain to achieve the appropriate chain tension. DS definitely appreciated this service on his bike. We provided the chain with grease and covers, and it was really great. This operation took considerable time, so many of the more enjoyable events had already passed by when we were ready with his bike. DW was slightly annoyed by this, but what should she say? It was her idea.

We biked into the area and met neighbors with kids selling garbage, and other people selling seedlings. Here began an interesting conversation about raising Spanish chili pepper seedlings. It turned out that our Spanish chili pepper seedlings are not doing well in the barn; it's too cold there. So this was the best takeaway of the whole event. We also bought a couple more chili pepper plants.

When we came home, I blogged about last week and uploaded the blog.

Tuesday 28 April

Good morning. It is 8°C this morning and half cloudy. We have kept our sheep in the Southeast field for a couple of days already. That rain roof is obviously their home base; it's behind the house, so it feels safe for the sheep. The challenge now is that we have all these calories growing, but they don’t dare to get near the road. They would rather stand under the rain roof, complaining loudly, rather than moving a little closer to the food near the road. You get what you teach them. Yesterday, we moved them to the southeast field and closed it off. So now they are standing near the house calling for us. It is a frustrating situation. We can only keep them there as long as it is not raining.

I am now on my way home, it’s 18°C and lovely!

During lunch, I took a photo of the view from the canteen and ran it through an Anders Zorn filter. Most things are so much more beautiful when viewed through the eyes of a master.

I can see how this technology could be useful for getting inspiration on how to paint, but at the same time, the stakes are much higher. Unless a painter can paint at the level of Matisse, people will not be impressed, because anyone can now make a copy of an image generated by artificial intelligence.

When I taught myself to draw portraits years ago, I used a technique of comparing the reference photo with my drawing, which helped me learn a lot from my mistakes. The technique made it possible to teach me what I did wrong and how to improve my drawing skills. It could not teach me to paint in the style of a master; that is something we have now. I have not tried that, though.

Here is an image of a bridge covered in graffiti from the local soccer team. I can see myself making such a painting. I have a special foundness of turning something ugly into something beautiful.

In last week's blog post, I improved the text by letting AI flag the boring sections. Then I rewrote those sections to improve the blog. That worked out well. I am not so that I let AI write the blog for me. How would it know what I am experiencing and feeling?

Last night I had a dream that I lost my job. There was no need for software developers anymore. So in my dream, I had to go and search for a new job. The unemployment agency told me it was best that I pursue a new career path and suggested I take a course to become an actor. This is the stuff you can only come up with in dreams. So I went to a course to become an actor, and there I met a former colleague whom I disliked very much. He was very fat and overly self-confident. So now he looked at me, greeted me with a laugh, and said, "So you think you will make a career as an actor?" And then he laughed out very loud. I felt humiliated. That was when I woke up from my dream.

Dreams can be disturbing and funny. In that respect, I watched a YouTube video featuring Professor Dr. David Eagleman, who explained that the visual cortex performs visual processing but can also serve other functions. David explained that, since we don’t use this part of the brain to process visual input during sleep, the brain has to defend the visual cortex by sending out random signals, which make up dreams. For some people, knowing why we have dreams helps. I don't need that help. I have vivid dreams, always have. That is how it is.

This afternoon, the sheep had reached about what they can comfortably use. From here, they need to go closer to the road. I sat with them, and occasionally Hannah came, but Bea and Selma did not.

It was a beautiful evening. Today it had been windy, and the plastic over the beetroot seeds was gone. The other sheets were still in their place. Especially the carrot sheet was fine. I was happy about that. The tomatoes had started sending up sprouts in the buckets in the barn. Today, it was much warmer in the barn as well. You could notice that it has been sunny for a while. The hope is that the sprouting will accelerate.

Wednesday 29 April

It looked hopeful this morning that the sheep would overcome their fear of the road.

I worked from home.

During lunch, I started smelling something burning. It did not stop burning. At least the smell of it all did not stop. I biked around the area to see if I could find the origin of it all. It was not my neighbor testing his wood stove. It was nice weather but a rather stiff wind. It is awfully dry. It looked like a plume coming from the horizon. Where?

Since I already had a mission to go to the hardware store, I thought I would combine it by checking whether I could find the origin of the fire. While driving, I listened to a local radio station, which reported a large fire in an adjacent province. The smoke plume came to us.

Merida is a wonderful cat. Most of the day. She has one part of the day when she's not sleeping and requires attention. That is in the evening, and it is the only moment of the day when I can sit down and work on the lyrics editor. For a long time, I have not admitted to myself that it is a problem. I recognize this is a problem, and I'm working to find a solution. I am buying four sheets of MDF and putting them around me so that I can concentrate on programming in the evening.

I started on a new long-term project: finishing the atelier of the main house. For this to happen, I need to empty the room. When it’s empty, I can set up metal corners for the doorposts and other items. I can apply scrim bands to seams. Then I can plaster all the seams. It will take some time. But first, I will empty the room.

In the evening we watched the evening news. The images from the wildfire were spectacular. I decided to transform the image into a painting of JMW Turner. Turner was famous for dramatic skies, I think even battle ships, so that seems appropriate. This way, I will discover new masters and make their work my own. I like it!

It was said in the news that this fire has now spread to an area of 400 ha. That is about 988 acres. That is huge.

After the evening news, I taped the four MDF boards to form a box around my office chair. Merida did not like it. She inspected the construction and made a couple of unsatisfied sounds. Then she lay on the floor beside me.

I used the evening in my new cat fortress to work on the lyrics editor service. I could concentrate on the programming; it was fun again. Now, of course, I need to understand where I left the project. I figured out that the account activation is happening, but the user isn't getting any visual feedback that everything is ready. Right now, nothing happens in the user interface.

Thursday 30 April

Good morning. It is a little chilly on my hands, around 8°C, with a clear blue sky and not much wind. During the night, I turned off the ventilation system so that we would not suck in smoke into the house.

It feels like I’m moving forward on many fronts. That is a great feeling.

Now I’m on my way home. Before biking home, I stopped by the hardware store to pick up a couple of more buckets for seedlings. I also picked up couplings for the watering system because it’s not behaving the way I want it to. The watering is too weak.

I had a stiff frontal wind. Pretty sure I’m going to be tired when I'm at home. Today was a productive day at the office. I released a new version of the software with an update of the reporting module, and I’m happy about that. We will see how users receive that. This morning, we concluded that we are significantly behind on sewing our chili pepper. Next year, we need to do that in February. Now I hope we can remember this because I have a slight feeling that we already knew.

It has been a long stretch of beautiful weather. It is dry in the ground. Next week, there is a chance of rain.

Friday 1 May

Today I had a day off, and DW worked from home. The first task this morning was to fetch building site fencing. It is neighbors who want to get rid of them, so I said I can have them. Now this stack of fences is a little on the "much" side, though, but I cannot say I take a few and the rest they keep. So I took the whole lot, and then we will see how I manage. These fences have narrower openings and thinner mesh than our old building fence. That makes it possible to use the fencing for barriers against the sheep.

When the fencing was done, I worked on the watering system. I took out the air compressor and pushed air into the hoses. That way, I blew out debris that had accumulated in the watering hose's openings. I really hope it works because I don't feel like buying a hundred meters of watering hose every three years. A mist of water droplets formed around the hose in the air when I pulled the trigger on the compressed air hose. It was a satisfying view. That way, I knew the pores were working.

The sheep has been eating well near the house. They are shunning the area near the road, as they find it too dangerous. New this year: we have been more patient with their protests. I fenced them so they can no longer stay near the house. Let's see how the sheep handles that. They refused to get near the road. Hannah is the bravest of them all. She went to eat. Bea is the most skeptical, and she is standing with her head in the corner of the fence, standing in tall grass. This was frustrating, but we left them as is, and they are eating, but it is not going well.

Now, with all the fencing material, I replaced the protective ring around a chestnut tree in the grazing area. There was also a berry bush just outside the fencing that the sheep were nibbling on. It now has additional protection. Last but not least, the new grapevines got a fence part so that when they start sending out shoots, I can tie the shoots to the fence. In the process, I broke a new shoot. There are two left, so it will go well. We stacked the fence parts in the area where the driveway will be worked on. I need to find a better place for these fences.

Things are sprouting at our tending station. The zucchinis are doing fine. In the evening, the watering program started, and it looked like the watering system had improved, with water dripping evenly along the watering hose. That is good.

Saturday 2 May

Today we started the day by pottering around in the garden. The much-anticipated rain was pushed forward to the early evening.

DW and DS sowed the Utrecht Blue ornamental wheat seeds in a large bucket. This wheat will become 5 feet tall and have blue seeds. DS received the seeds at the farm shop where he volunteers. DS is unemployed but not unbusy. DW and DS are sowing the wheat seeds in this bucket at the correct sowing depth. There are a surprising number of questions to answer before one can sow these seeds, but it was great fun. This was a quality time moment between mother and son.

	Unclumping the soil from the bag. Unclumping is great fun!
	Spreading the seeds.
	Contemplating soil moisture before applying the final layer.

 

We have made the area for the sheep narrower and narrower to force them to eat from the southeast field. They are so afraid of the road. Hannah was the least afraid. Bea was the most afraid of the road. Selma roamed in between but adhered very much to Bea's decisions. Since we planned to go to the PIL's and it would rain, we decided to let our sheep go to the rain roof. At this moment, Bea had made a path along the temporary fence. She was not happy. Now she could lie down in the shadow of the rain roof. The calm was restored. In a way, it feels like the sheep won and I lost. This round.

We drove to the PILs', and on the way, we picked up DD, who wanted to meet the PILs. MIL was happy and talkative as usual, and FIL did not say much, also as usual. Now, with my newly gained tick of making images processed by AI, I decided to make an image to show the PIL's. It became an image of the two as if painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. MIL wondered why Renoir, but that was just random in my opinion. She came back to that a couple of times: Why Renoir? So far into the process, I had already started Gemini to create the image, so there was no return. I think the result is really good. This had been a good painting by Renoir! Now it is just AI; anyone can do it.

We had coffee and a cookie and talked about all the important little things, such as the weather and plant health. MIL had questions for DD about how her life is going. MIL had ants trying to sneak into their apartment. DW and I removed a couple of them. Outside the apartment, there is a crocosmia with three stems. It will be magnifique extraordinair when it starts flowering! I do hope I can get back and take a photo of that. Last time I took a photo of this plant, it was standing in MIL's garden at their old house on 17 July 2022.

MIL's late brother's wife was a ceramist, and MIL had a sculpture of her. It was a really kind lady, so this is a precious reminder of her. It is like some strange bird animal that belongs in a jungle. No worries, that can be illustrated!

Here is an aquarell of the bird in the jungle! AI even captured the tail with the holes. At this point, the 93-year-old MIL thought I had some sorcerer's tool in my pocket. I did not explain the generative pretrained transformer technology to her. She cannot even operate a Senseo coffee machine because it has too many buttons, so discussing artificial neurons, transformation layers, and tokens is pointless. That is for another time. It was a nice party trick, though. She had not seen that before.

We drove home along a different route from the one we came. This was a more rural way home. On the way, we stopped at a farmer's automatic shop. It had meat and poultry products, as well as ice cream, nuts of various sorts, etc. I like this concept. I would like to have a cupboard like this. That had been great. Is it difficult to build one yourself?

At home, I found a butterfly in the garden! The rain did not come early evening either. It came around midnight!

Sunday 3 May

It rained during the night. It was great.

In the morning, we tended to Selma's rear. She is not good with her tail muscles. Bea and Hanna are leaning a bit on their back feet, pulling up their tails, and doing their needs. Selma leans forward just a tiny bit, not enough, and then she is not lifting the tail, and then she soaks that pore thing. This morning, we gave Selma a much-needed trim of her rear. She did not like it at all. DW cut the lumps of wool combined with poop from around her tail. I had to hold her so that she would not escape the treatment. It took a long time. It felt like an eternity for DW to cut away the bad part of the wool.

In between tasks, I have been working on emptying the atelier. This morning I moved the welding machine to the barn. I got the welding machine on 19 May 2020. It is a large green box with two wheels. It is heavy. You can only do stickwelding with the machine. I remember I had the urge to use the machine just to try out welding. That was before we had a barn.

Then we went to a local market at the farm shop. The market was held in the stable where the cows are also staying.

In this stable, there is also a wood artist active. We visited his atelier, which was inspiring.

 

He did not have many machines, but he had a planer. That's a really useful tool. I am curious about how woodworkers efficiently arrange their workshops. He also had sheep, and it turned out to be his sheep that I had filmed on 14 August 2024. We bought a certificate from him so that we can join the large Dutch city forest.

It rained several times over the day. This is so great! It can continue to rain for a couple of days this week, which would be great.

When we came home, I went to the barn to play. I welded a basket from the remains of the metal fencing. This may sound so mundane, but I have pushed away doing anything just for fun. Now I did it, and it was great!

Monday, we learned that chili plants are sprouting better in higher temperatures. We moved the pots to our living room, and today we noticed that all the pots but one have sprouted! It is so great to learn something, act on it, and book a success rather than a failure. All this was the same week.

Here ends this week's blog. I wrote 3549 words this week. I worked on the long-term project of emptying the atelier.