2025-10 – Heavy Rain

This month I took a work trip by plane, we helped paint a local community cabin in the woods, and we continued making the property ready for winter. It also got really dark and wet.

Finishing the Steps

For safety in the more extreme months we put the final touches on the new steps down to the bridge, that replace the grass slope. This month we added handrails and a guard rail so there will be something to hold onto in the snow and ice.

Outdoor lighting

I ordered and mounted some outdoor motion lights around the garage but I’ll need to hire the electrician to wire them in properly. I also hung up decorative lights down the adventure path around the garage.

The idea is to make the property a bit more uplifting in the dark winters. A little bit of lighting can make the outside more fun.

Wildlife

The mouse capture count for 2025 went up to number 12, we think they are getting into the house framework under a wooden deck and extension that is outside the front door.

I had a owl fly past me in the late evening one night, it’s about the third time that I’ve seen one here. It’s really small but with a distinctive round head.

Community Stugga

The local stugga in the woods needed repainting so I joined another local person to wirebrush the walls and then repaint them. The historic Swedish red paint is more like a red clay than a traditional paint, so it comes off like dust.

I wanted to do more work on this but the weekend after I had to go away and the next weekend if rained for the entire weekend. Painting on wet wood isn’t as effective as the wood wont take in the paint.

Visit with Work

I went away with work briefly. Although I enjoy working remotely, it was good to meet coworkers in person after working remotely for an extended period.

The journey back was a little stressful.

The passport control procedure is a bit inconsistent. I have a EU residency card and last time I travelled I queued in the “All passports” line the Swedish passport control officer told me I didn’t have to line up in the “All passports” queue as I had the electronic EU residency card. He said next time I should use the “EU citizens” queue.

So this time I went in the EU queue, got to the front, and got refused and sent to the back of the other queue “because you are not a EU citizen” in front of just about the entire flight which was a bit embarrassing.

I spent 30+ minutes lining up with the non-EU people instead as everyone was photographed and fingerprinted. I got to the front and a different passport control officer just scanned the residency card and buzzed the security gate to let me through which took about 30 seconds. I must have had my confused face on, and maybe they realised what their coworker had done, because the officer looked a bit sheepish.

I checked online and it seems other EU permanent residents have had the same variable experience, with some being told to use the EU line without issue and others getting refused or shouted at for the same thing.

On the way back I had to take a 6 hour train instead of the internal flights, due to there being no flights on Saturdays. I encountered someone sat in my seat and they seemed utterly confused as to why I cared about sitting in the right seat. The system here isn’t like the UK, every ticket automatically has a seat number on it (on this type of train). I don’t really understand why they didn’t sit in their seats on their ticket. But we both decided the other was weird and crazy and spent 6 hours sat near each other.

I think I will pay the extra for a overnight hotel and next-day flight next time.

Meshtastic

I did take a small meshtastic long range radio messaging device with me on my travels. It works best with elevation and with other similar devices nearby. I got my first signal in the 3rd story room of the hotel in a city, which proved the hardware worked. It my hometown there’s been no communications seen so this was confidence building. I’d like to see if I can do more with it this winter.

Winter Garden Preparation

My wife collected and sorted all the lumber lying around from various projects, ready to store away in the greenhouse for over winter. If we dont do this it will be an obstacle buried under the snow.

We moved the wood storage units into a location near the house that wont get buried from snow sliding off the house roof. I need to order firewood to fill them.

Laying a Path

Last year I dug a path to the greenhouse but hadn’t finished it, leading to a big ditch we had to avoid in the snow. This year I was keen to finish the project as the ditch was a hazard. We ordered more gravel and I build a wood framework to become the path edges and contain the gravel. I reused wood. If I had more time and infinite money, I would have ordered more thick wood to support a decked path but there’s no time before winter.

It took a while to move all the gravel into place. It became too dark about halfway through the month to continue working on this after work. So it took a bit longer.

There’s still some work to be done in filling the sides and we need another woodchip delivery, but it’s no longer a big deep mantrap.

Garage Windows

I measured the garage windows and ordered polycarbonate sheets to cover them. The idea being to reduce the winter wind that comes howling through them. This in turn might hopefully reduce the winter heating bill to keep the garage above zero when it’s -15 to -30 outside. Ideally I’d replace the windows with modern units but this was a fast and much cheaper measure for this year.

Heavy Rain

At the end of the month it became constant rain. The stream water level got quite high but hasn’t yet threatened the bridge.

The driveway also started to flood a little. Normally the ground is too hard to dig in the driveway but with all the rainwater the ground is softened. So I took the opportunity to go out in the rain with a spade and cut a drainage channel in the softened ground. The channel was not very deep and is currently a bit wonky but it drained the driveway.

Winter Health

I’ll do a separate post on this in more detail but part of preparing for winter this far north (we’re roughly the length of the UK further north than the UK) is making an active effort to make sure you’re doing the right things to keep you healthy in winter.

As an example, this October one of the things I did was to make a deliberate effort to get enough sleep. The following chat shows my sleep score from a sleep tracking watch:

It’s not perfect – there was a weekend of travelling for work, some mice caught in the middle of the night and needed handling, and some nights I couldn’t get to sleep for no apparent reason. But it’s a lot better than 2024 which was probably my worst winter, the below shows I had really bad insomnia which makes everything else stressful:

So I’ll do a separate post on this to do the topic justice but at this time of year it’s a big deal.

Bills

After the major heating system work last month, the plumber came back to check the heating system, bleed the radiators, replace one bleed valve, and adjust the pressure in the system. We also tweaked the response curve on the heating system so that when the outdoor temperature is hanging around 0c, it bumps the temperature inside up a little more than normal. This is due to how people feel the cold as the humidity changes.

I also got the bill for the roof safety work, which a local company completed last month.

I also need to arrange and pay for a firewood delivery, which is a backup heating method in case of a power cut in the winter. Wood pellets much more convenient but almost all pellet stoves need electric for the feed system.

After this there should be less bills over winter as there are generally less projects.

Next Month

We’re overdue for proper frost and the first snow so we’re expecting that in November.