Preparations for the growing season Tuesday, 20-May-25 20:36:16 CEST

Monday, 26-May-25 20:13:04 CEST

Started applying boards

The electrician came and finished the lines that had to be done before the boards could be put on the walls. We started on the boards.

Monday 19 May

Today, we ordered the lawn mower tractor. It is an EGO electric tractor. It will fit in the sea container after I clear some stuff, but I will do that later.

We worked from home Today.

Last Friday, I started looking for Ermine moth larvae in the apple trees. I continued collecting the infected leaves. I discarded the found material in our waste container for garden things.

I tried to publish last week's blog in the evening but had upgraded Python, so my Word-to-HTML conversion program was not working. I gave up on this. We went to bed instead.

Tuesday 20 May

We went to the office Today. DW returned to the train station late, but I did not go home without her. I stayed by her side and waited for her. I picked her up and went home when she came to the station.

We had dinner at home, then went to the garden to see the progress. I transplanted two Hokus cucumbers. Then I sowed one bed with beetroot. I put sticks every ten centimeters and sowed in between the sticks. Now I know where they are supposed to sprout. I noticed that the final potato is doing fine.

After this garden activity, I went inside, reinstalled all the missing modules, and got the export to work. I uploaded the blog. It says I did it on Sunday evening, but that is a lie. I did it on Tuesday evening. Just one person will notice. That is an enthusiastic reader of this blog; unless she stopped reading, I don't know. Occasionally, I hear from her what she appreciates about the blog. She is not so vocal about what she does not appreciate; that is diplomatic. Perhaps I will hear from her in four months.

With the blog uploaded, it was finally time to work on the phoneme conversion program.

Wednesday 21 May

DW had a day off Today, and I worked from home in the morning. DW went to a farm together with DS. He was applying for a job at the farm shop. It is a voluntary position, but it has interesting opportunities for software development and helping in the shop. He got the position. He will work there once per week.

I made good progress on my current project at work. That was great fun. I could show my manager the progress, and he was happy. That is nice.

Then, it was time for lunch. After lunch, I filled the ditches of the barn's rainwater pipes. I tried to use the tiller machine with a shuffle blade, but it was huffing and puffing and not feeling well. I discovered that two large bolts on the top of the motor were not fastened sufficiently. It leaked gas from the motor. After fastening the bolts, it sounds better.

I also tried to mount a down gear kit, but I am missing a V-belt, so that plan did not work out.

To my dismay, I discovered that the Ermine larvae found a way out of the garden waste container. They crawled on the outside of all our containers. I removed the air compressor and blasted air on the containers to blow away the little critters onto the driveway. Then, I emptied the top layer of apple leaves and discarded them in a closed container. I do not think this was my last deal with these larvae. On Friday, I will probably need to take another action to get this situation under control.

I made a cute illustration of the Ermine larvae. It hides the actual reality, but it is cute.

The veterinarian came Today to give our sheep a blue-tongue vaccine injection. It was not the regular veterinarian but two stand-in people who were also young. The regular veterinarian was on maternity leave.

In the evening, I got my phoneme conversion program to work again. I got to line 82 of the CMU phoneme files.

Thursday 22 May

We both went to the respective offices Today. I brought DW to the train station. It was a long day at the office. DW had an event at her work, so I waited for her.

The potato plants are developing nicely.

Friday 23 May

Today, DW worked from home, and I had a day off. In the morning, I took it easy. While the electrician worked in the barn, I programmed the phoneme conversion program.

I reached the word aberle. It is a funny word because it has two pronunciations: AE1 B ER0 AH0 L and AE1 B ER0 L. The first is challenging since it essentially switches the order of the last two letters. That is how I solved it; I switched the two and propagated the stress factor to the L. It is a workaround, but it works. I have 135 thousand words; this is just word 190, so what am I talking about?

The word abolitionism at line 277 ends with AH M, where AH has stress. I make that into a letter m with stress. What should we call it? A Dutch stress? You know, all things strange in British English are called Dutch. So you have a Dutch angle, which is a funny angle. Here, we have a funny stress, which, logically, we call Dutch stress. I find it logical. The thing is that I will count the stressed entries to find the number of syllables, so I need to propagate the stress to something, even if it is a Dutch stress.

Word 450 is abuladze and has the phoneme list AE2 B Y UW0 L AE1 D Z IY0. That poses a new challenge because there are two phonemes between B and L. Which one will have the stress? It is UW since it already has the stress 0. If Y has stress, then I am toast; it is gone. I could opt for merging the stress; that would be neat. If either of the two has the highest stress, the highest stress wins. Challenging.

Friday 23 May

I was tired Today. DW worked from home, and I programmed the phoneme conversion program. In the evening, I reached line 826 of 135166. You read that correctly, one hundred and thirty-five thousand words, and I am at 826. If this is not going faster, this will take some time.

The electrician came to work in the barn Today. He finished the activities before the OSB and gypsum plates could be mounted on the walls. That means the ball is back on my side of the court.

In the late afternoon, I could decouple myself from the phonemes and do a task in the garden. I decided to lay out cardboard and put woodchips on top. I did it around the berry brushes. DW was happy about this effort.

Saturday 24 May

The first little task was to give the sheep a new area to graze on. The sheep are now in the area between the neighbors on the northwest side of our property. I put semi-permanent fencing at the end. This means I will do less work setting up fencing in this area. I am thrilled about that.

Today, we went to the former house of the PILs. We put things in order and cleared out the garbage. We also brought a couple of items back home. This took the whole day. We also visited the PILs at their new apartment; they are happy about the new place. They frequently get serviced. They are getting food, and the wash is done. All sorts of things. They are also going on excursions, crafting, and watching movies. They are looked after, so have a great time. The hearing is not that good anymore, but the brain capacity is sufficiently functional for talking, laughing, and doing things if they want. We helped them move things from home so they feel at home in the new apartment. MIL is pleased with the social interaction and activities. FIL is not that amused but has never been much of a social person. His wife is happy, so he is happy; that is the conclusion.

In the evening, I got my phoneme conversion program to line 1114. Letter A has 7 thousand words. Oh well.

Sunday 25 May

In the morning, I considered the curious case of double c letters. Sometimes, the first c is a K sound followed by an S sound. In other cases, the double c is one K sound. How will I decide which is which? I returned to earlier phoneme lines to try to solve this challenge.

Today, it rained for the first time in ages. I think it rained before we went on holiday to Sweden. It is scorched. We have green grass, but all our neighbors have brown lawns.

It not only rained Today, but it was windy as well as chilly. We worked in the barn. DW insulated walls in the barn, and I put up OSB boards. It went easier than I had anticipated.

I transplanted the rest of the cucumbers in an off moment, so all those plants are now on the ground.

I found a documentary about PFAS in the Netherlands. Interesting and alarming. It gets closer and closer. Roermond, it is far from here, but is it far enough?

This week, I wrote 1592 words. We started putting up OSB boards in the barn.