2022-11 First Snö

The ground started to freeze and the first snowfall came. It was like fine hail, tiny frozen balls instead of flakes, but later more snow came.

Roadworks for Fiber Optic Conduit

About a month or two ago, a construction crew had turned up at the house at 22:30. A collapsed cable conduit in the driveway needed to be dug up. They worked until about 03:30. It was pretty impossible to sleep due to the heavy machinery right next to the window. But we knew it was important infrastructure work. They were probably not expecting to have to fix a section in someone’s driveway either – the house is rare in being this close and attached to the main road that runs North to South through Sweden. In the morning they had left the dug surface roughly replaced but unfinished. There was no further information.

This month an excavator, heavy container vehicle and support crews pulled up in and around the driveway at 22:30. They were finishing off the surface from the repair. The foreman knocked on the door to let me know what was going on. An hour later they were gone. The team had cleared a flat surface about 10cm deep in preparation for a final surface.

They came back a couple of days later and I helped an initial crew member to clear the snow off the surface of the prepared area. Tarmac can melt through the snow but the crew explained the tarmac would adhere better to the layer beneath with less snow/water present. Once clear I went indoors. The main team arrived and a construction crew poured a tarmac-finished surface.

Logging

The logging operation on the hill was still underway. I had a new camera that would be able to photograph and video the cutting and loading. However, this was tricky in the evenings after work. I was only just learning how to use the new camera and the contrast between poor light conditions and bright logging safety lights was a problem for my skill level. The below photo is at long range and in heavy snow and wind.

The night shots are hard due to the bright lights in the dark. I had to wait until the vehicles faced away to get the automatic camera settings to work. If I had more knowledge of the camera I could have used manual settings, but this was a learning experience.

Gravel Race

I’d finished the gravel around the perimeter of the greenhouse but the inside was just black ground control fabric. There was a giant pile of gravel in the driveway that needed to move into the greenhouse. The gravel also needed to move before the snow came and buried the gravel and made the wheelbarrow unwieldy. So each night after work I would transport some wheelbarrows of gravel to the greenhouse. I would stop before I got any back pain or twinges and generally took it easier if there was pain.

If I had been more prepared, and experienced, I would have dug out the foundation for the greenhouse and had gravel dropped into it by a digger. before placing the structure. As it was I just got on with it. I wheelbarrowed the gravel to the doorway and then raked and spread it inside.

I declared the gravel finished, and then two days later the more serious snow started. So it was good timing. It was quite exciting going inside the greenhouse after heavy snowfalls. It was interesting to experience what the temperature felt like compared to outside.

Air Source Heat Pump Finished

The electrician finished the main installation and an engineer came to pressurise the unit. I configured the system to come on when the garage temperature went down to 6C and to turn off when it reached 12C. One difficulty was that my wifi name (SSID) contained an extended alphabet character (äåö etc). I discovered the software for the heat pump would not connect to the wifi as a result. It was a bit frustrating as one software bug made a simple operation more painful. I had to make a new SSID and migrate my other devices using it.

I was relieved to have this in place before winter. It would let me protect the garage contents without excessive electric costs.

Camera

I went hunting for a second-hand longer-range lens for the camera. I tested it out in the daytime to make sure I would be ready to photograph the logging operations come nightfall. Sadly the logging operations had ended and I didn’t get to see them again.

There’s now a clearing on the hill and from our home, we can see the road curving up the hillside. It adds some visual interest and next month I would have time to go up and see the village from a new viewpoint.