Plastering the ceiling of the barn Sunday, 11-Jan-26 21:43:18 CET

Sunday, 18-Jan-26 22:13:25 CET

Plastered the ceiling of the barn

This week, I plastered the ceiling of the barn, and we held a party in the barn.

Monday 12 January

Today, both DW and I worked from home. It started to thaw today. Is this the winter we've had this time? I don't know.

At work, it was a day of reconsolidation, as we had to review whether any issues had surfaced in the already rolled-out products and decide how to address them. I will meet with Franco about this tomorrow.

It is a misty grey Monday. The temperature is 5°C. Regular roads are passable, but the bike paths and the road at our house are in deplorable condition. During my lunch break, I picked up a new bag of 25 kilograms of MP-75.

In the evening, I plastered several buckets of coarse mud. I did one bucket before dinner and two after. I also did the dishes, and I even logged in at work and restarted a server, can you imagine?

Tuesday 13 January

Good morning! I’m driving to work. It is misty, and 7.5°C.

Only a small fraction of the ceiling remains to be plastered. I hope I can finish that tonight. Slowly but surely, I need to start preparing for the party this coming Saturday. Most of the stuff is now packed in boxes, and it can stay there. I want to take out the lawn mower tractor. The most challenging part is the floor covered in plaster debris. I will need to scrape the floor. I have no idea how long that will take.

Need to mount a monitor so I can use my laptop with the visual effects programme. I worked on that two years ago. It is still excellent! I want to create a slideshow of images from local house developments to display on the monitor during the party.

I’m afraid this week begins with very few pictures. The weather is grey and rather uninspiring for taking photos.

I had my meeting with Franco, and it is relatively straightforward what he wants. It is not clear to me how I will get there. We have to think this through a couple of times before we can proceed with producing this system.

On the way home, I went to the farm shop to buy some groceries. It is raining. We had warm weather and rain. I’m pretty sure that all roads are safe from now on. I have just said that when I passed two bikers on the regular road. I think the bike path is still not safe.

In the evening, I plastered another bucket. This time around, the utility corner of the hall. It is in this corner that the switch box and the water heater are placed. It was a challenge to plaster the ceiling behind the ventilation pipe for the restroom.

Wednesday 14 January

Hi there. This morning, I worked from home while DW went to a wool event. After work, I stepped into the car and drove to DW's fibre event. There, I pick her up and continue to the PIL's previous house. The weather is magnificent. It is sunny, with not much wind.

On this road, they are measuring your average speed over a longer stretch. Hence, I set the car to a fixed speed.

The wool event is held in a studio built in a farmer's barn. I had no idea where DW was, and the place was huge, but she had seen me arrive and came walking around the corner.

We arrived at PIL's old house, and soon after, our appointment arrived. He found what he came for; that was nice. BIL was also present. He now lives (temporarily) in the house while it is dismantled. I expect the house will now be emptied more quickly. We picked up one coffin that I can use for stuff in the barn.

We passed by at PIL's new apartment. They were in a good mood. MIL had played a game of shuffle puck this afternoon. FIL had solved word puzzles. He enjoyed the sunny day. In the walker basket, today's newspaper assured us that the Dutch army is ready to defend Greenland from the United States. It could be they tried to say something else, but this is what I picked up. That is good to know. I find it amusing that the paper claims the Dutch air force can defend Greenland with F-35 fighter jets. I can assure anyone willing to listen that only the French Dassault Rafale, the Swedish JAS 39 Gripen, and the Eurofighter Typhoons will be able to fly near Greenland when the United States launches an attack on its former allies. All other US equipment will be turned off remotely by the Americans.

I listened to the podcast "Battle lines" by The Telegraph in London. All former generals and former NATO professionals are saying that attacking an ally is not allowed, and yada yada. I do understand that this is the case when a resident of the White House abides by the law. Oh, I forgot the letter "p" again. That must be intended.

The PILs had a nice view of the sunset. We said goodbye to the PILs and drove home.

After dinner, I went to the barn and plastered another bucket of coarse mud. I finished plastering the ceiling! This means I can start cleaning up the hall tomorrow and prepare it for the barn party on Saturday evening.

Thursday 15 January

Today we both went to the office. We ran the usual drill, getting up on time, eating breakfast, and going through the morning routine efficiently. For me, this worked out fine, DW was a little grumpy, though. There was something about her doing her part while colleagues failed to do theirs.

There were plenty of people in the office today. The temperature in the office is slowly but surely rising. I do wonder if the temperature will be more stable at a more normal level. The office manager will be working on the issue. I worked on my tasks. I had another meeting with Franco, where we discussed the current project. I can proceed with the design based on this input.

In the afternoon, DW came well on time. It is not nice to be one of the first to arrive at the office and one of the last to leave. It was even daylight when I left the office; that was a long time ago.

It was an entirely overcast and gray day. The rain was not really falling; it appeared to be horizontal, as it were. When walking and biking in horizontal rain, you gather a lot of it. We went by car, so we had no problems.

In the evening, I did not do very much. I relaxed—no plastering, and no programming. I blogged. I have been plastering every evening until now. It is feeling slightly hard on the body, so to speak.

I could not resist myself and went to the barn, where I started clearing debris from the floor by scraping it.

Friday 16 January

The first task for today was to empty the bokashi compost. It is a bucket where we collect the leftover vegetables. I make sure the vegetables are cut into chunks before disposing of them. Every so often, one also adds a special bokashi powder to the bucket. We got two buckets. When one is full, we bring the previous to the outdoor compost. When doing that, I am also extracting fertilizer moisture from the bokashi bucket to the indoor plants.

We are eating a lot of vegetables, so it is convenient to put the leftovers in the bucket. Otherwise, I have to bring the compost to the outdoor compost pile, which is not always easy. The moisture from the bucket is fermented. It does not smell nice, but it is good stuff, so one has to comply. I do understand that logical reasoning can be complex to listen to when presented with a procedure that produces something that smells like puke.

As I said, I am using it for the indoor plants. I fill the watering can with water, then add the fertilizer on top. Not the other way around, because then you'd get fertiliser foam, which is not convenient. Then I water the plants as usual. Now the entire house smells like puke. Usually, I give the plants another watering with clean water, and then the odor is gone from the house.

Phew!

I bury the bokashi in the outdoor compost. First, I am digging a hole, and in this hole I empty the bucket. Then I put older compost on top of the hole as a lid. This is so that the compost is covered. The bokashi procedure has precomposted the vegetables, making them less attractive to rodents. The outdoor compost is in perfect condition right now. It has worms, looks healthy, and is practically odorless.

Today I continued clearing the plaster from the floor. I had a day off, and DW worked from home. It was sunny and pleasant weather. I got the entire floor cleaned. I mounted our old TV with the plan to run a slideshow of all our building activities. After dinner, I set up the DJ equipment and lights. I want to try a new connection method to my speakers, but I will try that tomorrow.

Saturday 17 January

I had a surprising number of things to finish before the party could start. I dismantled the lawn mower ramp. I used OSB plates on the ramp to smooth the entrance to the barn. We needed more lighting at the tables so people could see the snacks properly.

I still had boards leaning against a wall, but the rest of the room was perfect for a party. We started warming up the room. It is not quick, but I hoped it would be nice before the evening.

When the barn was ready for the guests, we went to the grocery store to buy snacks. DW's idea was puff pastry with pesto. Some guests had gluten intolerance, so we were buying gluten-free products, but the regular store was out of this item. We went to the farm shop. It had gluten-free puff pastry. It had been a sunny, beautiful day, but I was busy preparing for the party, so I could not enjoy the weather. At the farm shop, we had reached the golden hour of the day. We also bought two cabbages at the farm. It was Tycho who sold these. His cabbage field produced too big cabbage, so he could not sell them to grocery stores. Now he is selling them for 1 euro each.

At this point, we got the message that BIL's mother had died. It was strange to get the message just as we were about to have a party. We parked this for tomorrow.

When we came home from the grocery store, we started preparing the snacks. I chopped carrots and a cucumber. I put cherry tomatoes in a bowl. Cut a cheese into blocks. Put mustard in little buckets—potato crisps in bowls. DW prepared the puff pastry, so it was ready for baking during the party.

I was a bit nervous that everything would work out. I don't have so much experience in arranging parties.

When the party started, I got the music playing. I got the DJ controller and my phone connected to the speakers simultaneously so I could seamlessly switch between using my controller and streaming music. It proved really convenient, since I was able to take requests and mix using the controller without any significant pauses in the music.

All aspects worked out fine! I made a slideshow with images of our building progress, neighborhood activities, and people liked it. It sparked talks among people. I had decided to make the first hour more social with the music less loud. This social part is so important, I beleive to produce a good atmosphere in the neighborhood.

One person told me he had been reading my blog. There was a story about me making a box for transporting wet painting panels. That must be ten years ago. He liked the story a lot, and he said he even had to laugh about the things I wrote in that blog. It is funny to realize that the blog stories are being read all over the world.

Somehow, I didn't take any photos of the party myself.

When the social hour ended, I switched the image slideshow to my visual effects program. It behaved well. I noticed a few bugs. But in general, it worked as it should. I also used the smoke machine, and I liked that a lot. People got more "free" and danced a lot, actually. It worked as intended.

At about 11 PM, the party was over. It was feeling good. I emptied the smoke machine while a few people were still left. All night, I had only drunk pure water so I could concentrate on the music. Mixing music is not going well with alcohol; it is so intensely complex that one has to be absolutely sober while mixing music. I had a great time!

Yeah, it was great fun!

Sunday 18 January

It was a slow morning this morning. DW was happy about the party. We collected the dishes, cleared up, and moved a table back to the house.

I moved the OSB boards back to the lawn mower ramp, and drove the lawn mower tractor back into the barn. The tiller machine also got back. Then I created a shrine for our pumpkin collection. It is a suitable temperature for the pumpkins in the barn. We keep it around 10 degrees Celsius.

DW ordered paint for the barn. She will now paint the ceiling. She also ordered flowers for BIL's mother's funeral. We will go there next Wednesday. It was a lovely lady. DW had much contact with her when she was young. I only knew her from family gatherings. I made a portrait of her with my camera that she loved very much.

Here ends this week's blog. I plastered the ceiling of the barn. We held a fantastic party in the barn. I wrote 2385 words this week. Welcome back next week!