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 […]
2022-10 Rush Before Winter
This month was the final rush before the ground would become hard with frost and darkness, wind and cold temperatures would make outdoor construction much more difficult. Final Raised Beds We finished the second perimeter of raised beds around the garage. The idea is to have a path between, with grass around the path. We […]
2022-09 Greenhouse Covering
This month I was working full-time, but winter was fast approaching. I knew I had unfinished projects I had vowed to get done. I try to remember that it is important to concentrate on the things you said you would get done. If I am not careful it seems easy to have too many projects […]
2022-08 Rotavating and Making Raised Beds
In the first year, the fields were full of flocks of birds including geese, swans and other types. It was exciting when some of the birds came back this month. They stay in the field as a big group and look at you suspiciously if you walk past. It was a pretty quiet month otherwise. […]
2022-07 Swedish Summertime
I was working full time with evenings requiring looking after the garden, so a bit less got progressed compared to other months of this year. Greenhouse Digging Work At the end of this month, an excavator came and dug out the foundation for the greenhouse. This saved me so much work. In hindsight I should […]
2022-06 Expanding Growing Area
We had visitors this month but we also worked to get as much done as possible before next winter. We were trying things out with planting to gain experience about what worked and didn’t locally. Planting Underway I like plants to be productive and produce something. But my girlfriend wanted some prettier plants to welcome […]
2022-05 Visitor Preparation!
It was the start of the growing season and my parents were coming over the next month to visit for the first time. So we were in full-swing getting the garden underway and finishing projects before parents visited. Preparing Plants We were preparing lots of plants to go out into the raised beds. At this […]
2022-04 Roof Ladder Replacement
With the snow disappearing, we could start work outdoors on the property. This month I was also getting refunded from a complicated dual-country tax situation that I had had to overpay, so I could now afford to invest in addressing any safety issues and any preventative maintenance needed. New Roof Access Ladder The first year […]
2022-03 Sunshine
The sun was really coming out this month. This was our first spring with solar so it was awesome to see the steady climb in output after a dark winter. The graph below shows the solar production for this month. Nature Reserve Visit There was still plenty of snow left and it was sunny and […]
2022-02-20 Winter Solar
This winter, I’ve been clearing the snow off the solar panels. I wanted to see it clearing the snow had any significant effect on the snow build-up and energy output. Garage System We had panels put in during autumn last year. The system is a 5.8Kw array, grid-connected without local storage. The panels are on […]
2022-02-15 Radon Mitigation Planning
I purchased a Radon meter for the basement. I was planning on using the basement more and figured that similar to a CO meter and a smoke alarm, a Radon meter was sensible to have, if a bit expensive. As soon as I installed it, it gave a reading of 900Bq/m3 in the basement. The […]
2022-02-07 Workshop Project Prep
The main problems this month have been planning for building the first wood-workshop bench. The unexpected surprise was discovering a radon issue in the basement. Outdoors was pretty good. This week has been generally sunny with lots of snow and temperatures from -2 Celsius to -18. The Workshop Plan The background is that the 1940s […]
2022-01 Northern Lights
Because there had been a bit of a dual-taxation nightmare the previous month, this month I was saving money and looking around to use whatever we already had. Snowshoes I went out on the snowshoes up the local hill. I worked out a loop that was only a few miles but was a good amount […]
2021-12 Tax Return Initial Judgement
This month was stressful due to it being the crunch time for sorting out dual taxation, but we did get to enjoy the snow. This post will have random photographs from the month throughout because there is no such thing as interesting photographs of tax returns. Kick Sleigh (Spark) This month I budgeted for a […]