Prepared the sheep platform for winter Sunday, 26-Oct-25 22:07:36 CET

Sunday, 02-Nov-25 21:19:05 CET

Great progress in the barn

Significant progress in the barn, not so much progress on lyrics-editor.com. The couch was sold—no bids on the sea container.

Monday 27 October

This morning, when I woke up, I was convinced that I had to go to the office. Those days I have to be more efficient with time. After the shower, I was still convinced, and it was not until I started making breakfast that it occurred to me that it was Monday and that I was working from home.

DW also worked from home Today. It was intermittently raining heavily. From time to time, it even looked sunny, only to switch again. It rained a lot Today.

I had an active evening. I wanted to continue working on the Xdebug issue or figure out why I shut myself out of the old server when I turned on the firewall. Not much of that happened because, first, my dear neighbor came with the two final loads of scaffold material.

Tuesday 28 October

This morning, I noticed that one sheep was resting her head on another. It was an unusual resting pose. Sweet also.

Good morning. I could go to work by bike, but I decided to take the car because it was raining heavily in the morning. Yesterday evening, I did not continue on the PHP and Xdebug issue; instead, I worked on getting an SSH connection to the old server. No improvements there.

Now I'm sitting in a traffic jam, and I hear stuff ticking from the car. I was unsure if it was correct to take the car to the garage, but now I know it for sure. It's just a horrifying experience. In a few kilometers, I can be at work, or my car breaks down and I'm stranded beside the road.

A traffic jam of all things. And as I said, it is raining. Sometimes I think I'm just chasing broken things in life. Ticking sounds on my bike and ticking sounds in my car, all those damn ticking sounds. Not to mention software breaking down.

On the good side, I fixed the bike's sound, and I got myself a new server that actually works quite well. It worked well because I taught myself to deal with it. I had a friend come by to show me tricks, and I tried them out on my own. It is a learning process. Now the traffic jam has dissolved. I am still worried about the ticking sounds of the car. I have an appointment at the garage next Tuesday. If the car can survive until then, everything is fine. I've still got a few 100 meters to work. The excitement and anxiety are at an all-time high right now. I passed the last traffic lights, went into a roundabout, entered the business park, turned left at a crossing, and stopped in front of the gate to the car park at work. I made it!

It's 6:00 PM, and I'm driving home. The sky is a faint dark blue; in a couple of minutes, it will be pitch dark. It is not raining. I remember a couple of weeks ago when I said that this time it's going to be dark. That is where we are now.

I do hope I will come home without issues. It went well. Hurrah!

In the evening, I got the SSH tunnel working on the old server with the firewall enabled. I figured out what the issue was with Remote-SSH in VSCode. It requires much more available memory on the server. I don't have that, and I am not going to get it either. I need another solution. More research.

Wednesday 29 October

We received the infrared heater panels for the barn yesterday. The LED lights arrived on Monday, along with a small package with a thermostat. Today, the electrician will come and install the equipment. He will also finalize the barn's restroom, since he is a plumber. He is Mr Radi, the superman.

I made a smoothie for breakfast, but we didn't have any pears. I tried a couple of our own carrots. I am curious to see what DW thinks about it. I made it with apples, bananas, carrots, orange juice, and gooseberries. She was not totally delighted by the carrot taste. When I told her that it was our own carrots I had sown on 9 July, she liked it a little better —just a little.

This morning, I worked from home, and DW had the day off. Mr Radi arrived. He did things where he did not need my assistance in the morning. In the afternoon, I was logged out of my work and could help Mr Radi.

I was tired in the evening. At first, I sat scrolling aimlessly, but I managed to get out of the scroll-pit and do something useful. The first thing was to remove the Remote-SSH extension in VSCode. I replaced it with the SSH-FS extension.

Thursday 30 October

Today we both went to the office. It was a sunny morning, and I had the idea of taking a photo of something on the way to my office. At the station, I took a photo of a skyscraper against a blue sky.

That was nice. I also found a view along a road, with large trees on either side, illuminated by the morning sun. The leaves of the trees are starting to become brown and red, which is also beautiful.

There were many people at the office. My work went well, and I had good progress on my project.

Yesterday there was an election. The Dutch could elect a new parliament. Since I am a Swede, I cannot vote in their election. I can vote in the Swedish elections. It will take some time before all is clear on what the new political situation will be in the Netherlands.

Already on Monday evening, I had the feeling that something was wrong with my right ear. I heard extra sounds, as if a blood vessel was narrowing. That was not my initial conclusion; at first, I was surprised by this sound effect. It was as if a dishwasher was working in the ear. I wasn't especially worried, but it wasn't enjoyable. So why would I suddenly have a dishwasher in my ear? There can be serious reasons for this, and Swedish websites offer advice on various conditions and list many potentially dangerous issues that require complex, expensive expert advice. Dutch websites were more like, "that can be an ear infection, and if it is not getting worse, then it will be over by itself in a couple of days." I did not call an ambulance but decided to wait and see.

This afternoon, DW had a flu jab. I am not eligible for that service. I am too young and healthy.

After the flu jab, we went to a hardware store and bought lamps for the barn. We bought one for above the large door on the west side and one for above the door on the south side of the building. The lamps had motion detectors so that we could leave them on and they would turn on automatically when a warm-bodied person or animal entered the detection area.

In the evening, I worked on getting PHP development and Xdebug working, but I did not understand anything. I was clueless about it all. Deeply frustrating.

Friday 31 October

Early in the morning, the sun illuminated the clouds. The clouds were scattered in different layers, and the sun rose from beneath them. For the rest, this was a totally overcast day.

Before Mr Radi arrived, I opened up the north-west field for the sheep. You can see the previous location of the scaffold planks. There are a couple of planks still lying around that I will need to remove.

Mr. Radi, the superman, arrived, and we started installing electrical things in the barn.

Mr. Radi and I mounted the IR heaters in the ceiling, but we did not get the wiring figured out. The panels are hanging but not active.

While Mr Radi worked on the panels and the restroom ventilator, I built the scaffold so we could mount the lamp under the canopy.

It was a great feeling to have the lightbulb hanging and working. We want to mount a shade in some form, but for now, it is just a lightbulb.

We got the lamps we bought yesterday mounted. They will have to be configured to keep the lamp on for longer, but for now, it is fantastic that they are up on the wall and connected.

We also had all the outlets mounted in the attic, so I can now finish that and start moving things up and clearing out the mess I created when emptying the sea container.

There was also time to get a power socket at the window below the canopy. That way, we have access to electricity in that area. We will have a benchtop with a sink installed as well, but that is for another day.

In the evening, I worked on the PHP and Xdebug issue. I figured out I had underestimated the complexity of the technology. Essentially, the program runs on a server and sends commands to the development PC at home. Now that I understand the challenge, I decided that next time I will try to create a VPN tunnel so the server and the development PC appear on the same network.

Saturday 1 November

It rained heavily in the morning. Throughout the day, we got several showers. Today, the sofa in the guest room is to be picked up. That is the north-east room on the first floor. Initially, it was DS's room, but he moved out to the tiny house. The tiny house came with this sofa, but he did not like it, so it moved to the guest room. DD also did not like it in the guest room. We put it up for sale on an online marketplace, and it was sold to Mr Bolek from Medemblik. I had instead given the couch away to the nearest second-hand shop, but DW wanted to try this. It has been an annoying two weeks with messages from people who want to buy the couch. The inquiries about the sea container died out.

We had not agreed on a time for Mr Bolek to come, but we also wanted to go to the farmers' market. I texted that they were welcome from 11 AM, and I got no answer. I think Mr Bolek was still sleeping. Then we went to the farmers' market.

It rained heavily while we were shopping in the large barn at the farmers' market. We bought cheese, bread, fruit, and nuts. We use the nuts for the homemade muesli.

After the farmers' market, I went out to the garden and cleared the bed where we had cucumbers this year. Next year, we will have potatoes in that bed. We made a drawing of the garden and also a plan. I will put this drawing into the computer somehow.

The sun appeared in the afternoon. About the time that Mr Bolek arrived for the couch. He spoke Polish, and so did his brother and his brother's wife. Bolek smelled strongly of perfume and was loud. Merida crawled under the couch in the living room. It was too much for her.

When the couch was gone, the room felt spacious. We will put in a new bed in the room that folds into a cupboard.

I cleared out stuff in the workshop. We had a cupboard from PILs in the workshop, which was moved to the hallway on the ground floor. We put MIL's ceramic things on top. It is her painting of the cupboard. It is not a top-quality cupboard, but it looks nice.

When I was about to sit down and relax while DW made dinner, something in me said it was time to set up the lamp outside above the living room doors. We had a cable running from a switch in the living room to a point outside, and this cable has been hanging there vacant for years. The fixture has been lying in a box for years as well. I had to ask DW if it was okay to turn off the electricity, and she agreed. I got the lamp hanging and installed it. That was great. When turning the electricity back on, one of the breakers was stubborn. I had to use more force on it than all the rest. When I decided to use more force, all the electricity came back on again.

I had no energy for working on PHP and Xdebug. That is for another day.

Sunday 2 November

Today we decided to work in the garden. I wanted to prepare the bed for the garlic, and DW set out to remove the weeds from the spot where the scaffold planks had lain for a couple of years.

This season, we had four new beds in the kitchen garden. These were my experiments. We made my new garden outside the existing garden on the east side of the cherry tree. Here I made four narrow beds where I grew potatoes, zucchini, and cucumbers on the south end of my new patch. Next year, we will combine our efforts.

We will make three beds instead of four because they become a little too narrow. Also, we want one bed with a scaffold, and here we will grow beans and cucumbers. So there will be three beds instead of four beds. I had not used any woodchips in the paths, so it was easy to move them.

Yesterday, I had already dug up the first bed next to the raspberry and cherry tree. Today I wanted to dig up the rest of the beds and move the paths a little.

This went very well! DW came and helped me. She put out cardboard in the new path and started filling it with woodchips. This will make the path less prone to weed overgrowth. It is easier to walk in the path when there are wood chips instead of clay. I had no problems with clay, but DW doesn't like it.

I had laid out the scaffold so that I could see how wide the beds would be. I removed many weeds. The rain held off so we could continue working. DW planted the garlic! I was delighted that we had finished another milestone for this week. It will be much nicer to overlook the garden without the weeds. I am sure there will be more weed, but I will go and pick it from time to time. It will be much nicer to reach the next sowing season with beds that look nice.

I looked into VPN servers, and to do that, I need two servers. I don't have that. Right now, I have two servers, but I am not planning to keep both. Back to square one. I have to look into Xdebug more. But not this week, because this blog ends here. We got the garlic planted! That was a great success. Many lamps were installed this week, which is nice as we head into darker times. The couch is gone, so we can now replace it with a guest bed.

I wrote 2578 words this week. That is not bad at all. Welcome back next week!