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Katrin Hieroglyphs.
23. Februar 2024
Yes, that would sort of fit that aspect - but you can also go from bits of woods to sticks if you ar...
Bruce Hieroglyphs.
23. Februar 2024
I think the closest English equivalent would be 'Down the rabbit hole'. It has one entrance (No, not...
Harma Spring is Coming.
20. Februar 2024
I'm definitely jealous! Mine disapeared except for one pathetic little flower. But the first daffodi...
Gudrun Rallies All Over Germany.
23. Januar 2024
Vielen Dank für den Beitrag. Ja, wir müssen darüber reden, gegen das Vergessen. Zum Glück haben mein...
Anne Decker Aargh.
17. Januar 2024
This is less likely to have an effect on your personal samples as you likely wrap the same way for a...
MäRZ
07
0

Water for the Bees.

It's springtime(ish) again, which means the bees are out and about - and this is the season where they are in need of water. (In summer, too, but it's important in spring as well - they need water to be able to digest the pollen.)

Unfortunately, bees cannot swim, so the bee bar should be safe for them. I've found drowned bees in the saucers under pots where there was water standing after the rain. That's sad to see. 

Over the years, I've tried different things, and the current iteration looks like this:

It's a piece of coarse fabric wrapped around a mix of wood shavings and wool. That's set into a pot filled with water, and to prevent accidental drownings next to the fabric roll, I've stuffed in some more wool to keep the surface covered. It took the girls from the neighbourhood a few days to get it, but now they seem to appreciate their new bar! 

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AUG.
15
0

Garden Stuff.

This is, to our very great delight, the first year where something attractive to insects has been in flower at all times - no gaps at all! There were times in the previous years where there was not much going on, flower-wise, so we tried to close that gap. Successfully.

Some of the plants are wild, some are cultured, but all of them are pretty robust, because my gardening style can best be described as "demented squirrel" - plant or sow the seeds, and then completely forget about it. If things go well, I'm then pleasantly surprised about the thing coming up (and usually remember that yes, there was something...) and if things don't go well, that plant obviously has no place in our garden. 

Currently in the prime position of things doing their thing? Wild parsnip. 

The Most Patient Husband of Them All and I both agree that these are, well, not the prettiest of plants. Actually, I find them relatively ugly... which normally would mean that I pull most of them out, and free some space for other things to take over.

But. Oh, there's a big but: The flowers, and the developing seed stands, are teeming with insect life. TEEMING. As in there is a cloud of flying critters around them all day long.

These plants are the preferred meeting-and-mating spot for minstrel bugs.  Plus there's a huge range of different flies, mostly hover flies, hanging out there. One or two hornets are commonly seen around as well, on the hunt for some juicy prey (though I've not seen a successful attack yet).

Which means... we are in total agreement that these ugly green-yellow guys are welcome to stay, and grow, and do their thing. After all, there's space enough for other things as well, and every flower that helps insect life in our day and time is more than welcome, and oh so necessary.

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MäRZ
10
0

Travelling!

I'm off travelling to Lübeck, this time with a little more free time to spend in that lovely little city. With me, of course, the big red suitcase (as usual when travelling for workshop purposes) and the indispensable travel companions.

Those are, in the back: a stainless steel water bottle and my battered trusty coffee travel mug. They serve, obviously, to hydrate me during any gallivantings through the countryside.

The jungle flowery thing in front is my travel cutlery in its little bag (and yes, that is a re-purposed folding umbrella cover that I found on the street - a souvenir from one of my England travels before Brexit happened). It holds a small and large spoon (both from wood) and a fork and knife (titanium, because it's cool and lightweight, and that set of cutlery is also my cutlery when we go biking or hiking.) The bag also contains a mini-salt shaker. 

Then there's a silicone pouch - packs small, is completely watertight and thus can carry soup if necessary. Usually it carries the leftovers from restaurant meals that I get, because these days I rarely finish a full portion. A lot of places offer a "small" option these days, but I prefer getting the regular-sized one and having two meals for the price of one. With the pouch, I can be sure that my food is packed up safely, nothing will spill out, I'll enjoy the rest of it the next day and it's not making extra waste because I do not need to ask for a to-go box or other packing material in the restaurant.

And finally, hiding out in the back... that is a travel-sized immersion heater (hence the pouch, which is the original probably vinyl one). I got that on a flea market, they've gotten out of style here. Water kettles have taken over here in Germany as the standard for boiling water many, many years ago already, but I remember that an immersion heater was what we used at home when I was a child. 

This one is actually a larger travel-sized one, and I have an even smaller one for when space is tight, sized to hang on the rim of a regular-sized mug. The heater, accompanied by a few bags of herbal tea, is my guarantee that if I need a cuppa in the evening to wind down, I can. Here in Germany, some rooms in hotels or other accommodations will have the complimentary tea-making facilities, but many don't. Some days I don't need the wind-down tea, but sometimes I do, and then it's just nice to know that I can, whatever happens. (Going into the restaurant or guest room or bar would be a possibility to get a cup of tea, but when I need the tea to wind down, I want to have a closed door between me and other people and no human interaction whatsoever. Which would not be the case in a restaurant, obviously.)

The second, just as important potential use of the water heater? Sometimes I have the cold feet problem. The literal one - my feet, before or when going into bed, are so cold that they will not warm up on their own. That means I'll have trouble falling asleep, will not sleep well, and will wake up in the morning with feet that are just as cold as when I got into bed, and it's not fun and no good thing. 

Entering the scene to rescue the night: the water heater (because tap water might be hot enough, but then it might not) and the steel water bottle. Tada - instant hot water bottle for bed. In theory, I could wrap the hot bottle in a towel to avoid burns on the feet, but I just keep my distance and pay attention. 

Added benefit: If there was sliced ginger in the water bottle before for a bit of flavour, you have nice tangy cold ginger tea in the morning. (I do not recommend leaving lemon slices in, as the rinds will make it bitter.)

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AUG.
30
0

Duck Resurrection!

Years ago, we got a "Dampfente" - which is a small hand-held steam cleaner that has, more or less, the shape of a duck. It's not large, and it has been used occasionally through the years, mostly related somehow with textile work.

For instance, I used it to set the twist in spun yarns when I was pressed on time; steam once, let cool and dry off (which will not take as long as letting a thoroughly wetted skein dry out) and then repeat the process. Voilà, almost instantly dead yarns. 

An added benefit of that process was that I realised how much movement and wiggling happens when the twist is set. There was a lot of wiggling of the threads, even though they were all stretched on a skein winder.

From the past tense used in this past text, you can probably guess that at one point, the little duck broke down. It would still heat up, the pump would still try to do its work (audibly, but not horribly so), but no steam was coming out.

Yesterday I finally took out a screwdriver and some ambition and took the whole thing apart. I got joined in my duck dissection by The Most Patient Husband of Them All in the evening, and using four hands (which is very much to recommend, since the hot parts have to be kept away from the possibly-melting parts, and the water from things that should keep dry, and you have to test all the stuff somehow) we found the culprit: The filter was clogged.

The operating table - things are fixed already, and at that stage, we're waiting for the heating block to cool off enough to reassemble the whole thing.

I had expected some limescale issue to be the cause, but no, there was nothing. Instead it looked like enough fine fibres and dust particles had accumulated in the fine filter mesh to stop water from coming through. Filter cleaned, set back in, then a longish session trying to fit everything back inside into its proper place and screw the thing shut again. 

The fibres in the filter probably came from not cleaning the little can that was provided to fill the duck with water well enough before using it - so fibres and dust from the bottom of the little water can got into the tank, and from there into the filter, and there you go. Clogging, after a while. Which means in the future the water can will get cleaned before use (with normal water) and just to prevent any chalk issues, distilled water will be used.

I'm very pleased now - both that it functions again (it will come in handy at the Textile Forum, I'm sure) and that it was possible to repair it!

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AUG.
24
0

Oil Spill Threatening.

Off the coast of Yemen, there's an old oil supertanker that has been used as a storage facility and loading bay for crude oil. It's still hanging out there, slowly decaying. Or quickly decaying, these days, since maintenance has been called off because of the war.

Which means that the tanker, with four times the amount of oil that was spilled during the Exxon Valdez disaster, is a catastrophy scheduled to happen any old day now. 

There's a plan by the UNO to pump off the oil from the tanker, bringing it to a safer storage place, but they lack the funds to start work on the rescue mission. They lack a few millions, actually - and they're getting desperate enough to have started a crowdfunding, back in June. Up to today, though, there's not enough money been raised for this.

If you can spare some money, you can donate for this cause, either directly at the UNO website or via SumOfUs (German site here, there's no way I could find to link you to the English version.) You can also help by spreading word about this issue, and the UNO crowdfunding.

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AUG.
08
0

I am back!

I'm back from a lovely, long summer break - it was definitely very summery and quite, quite hot. In fact, it was hotter than I'd have needed... 

We spent some time with friends, and went on holidays to Finland to see the midnight sun. If you're used to nights being dark, even at the height of summer, it feels surreal to be in a place where it just doesn't get dark at all. We made good use of the night light - and had naps in the afternoon to make up for that, too.

Finland is a really beautiful country, with a lot of forest and an incredible amount of lakes. Our plan was to do some lake exploration via canoe, so we had a rental canoe for a few days, a map of a part of the lake district... and, unfortunately, a lot of (head)wind. So much wind that we had to change our plans regarding the tour and shorten it a bit. After all, we were on holidays and not on a torture-yourself-mission...

It was nice to paddle, though we had underestimated two things: the size of the lakes and the amount of summer cottages on their shores (and on the islands in the lakes). Having paddled the German Mecklenburger Seenplatte, I was subconsciously expecting something similar only larger - and yes, the Finnish lake district is much larger, but the lakes themselves also are much, much larger. That means a lot of open water to paddle through. Now that, in decent weather and by itself, is technically not a problem - but it felt like we were not getting ahead at all, because the perspective on those large lakes, when you are paddling towards something in the far-ish distance, just does not change much. We usually paddle at about 4 km per hour if on flat water with no significant wind influence, which is not so fast that you can see things change quickly... hence it felt, sometimes, like standing at one point and paddling forever. It got better, at least for me, towards the end of our tour, since you sort of learn that it just feels like you're in one spot but you are actually moving, but the general effect was still there.

The second underestimated thing really were the cottages. I knew that in Finland, having a summer cottage is totally a thing and about every family has at least one - but I never made the next step in thinking about this: All these cottages have to be somewhere. That's just logical, right? Well, one premium spot to put a summer cottage is, obviously, in a nice, quiet, secluded(ish) place on the shore of a lake... which meant that there were some stretches on our trip where you could not land your canoe unless you wanted to do so on somebody's more-or-less front lawn.

So basically, you were in nature, with very few other humans to be seen, but with traces of human habitation and civilisation everywhere (in form of the cottages, mostly). There was very little in terms of infrastructure though - no cafés or shops like you'd find at every stone throw in Mecklenburg. We had brought our own food, and water logistics stuff (a filter and a UV water sterilisation pen, because you don't want to catch a nasty stomach bug especially while on holidays), and that was quite necessary. We also had our trusty little tent and put that up on our own tiny private islands for several nights, which was a lot of fun and felt really special for us. (In Finland, you can put your tent up about everywhere, though common decency demands not to do that on someone else's front lawn. In Germany, there's a general prohibition against so-called "wild camping"; you can ask the owners of land if you may put up your tent there, or use designated spaces which you can find in limited numbers in some areas, but you're not allowed to just pitch it anywhere else. In many areas, that means you need to find the next commercial campsite... which will be populated with other people and cost you money, but - on the upside - will provide you with sanitary installations and typically a little shop, café, and the possibility to get fresh baked goods in the morning. However, all that means that just going "ah, here's a nice spot, let's use that" is not something we're used to.)

Our method of travel - trains and ferries - also worked very well. Going all the way up north that way did take a good bit of time altogether, but most of our travelling was done at night, with overnight ferries and night trains, and that was very, very pleasant. We had planned the journeys basically so that we would travel in the night and then spend the day in the town before moving on through the night again. It means declaring the journey a part of the holidays, and that was what we did, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I can highly recommend this! Finnish night trains are also quite nice and comfy, and you can even have a 2 person cabin with your own toilet and shower. So you spend a nice day wandering a city, doing a bit of sight-seeing, then go to the train station in the evening, board your train and have a relaxing hot shower while racing through the Finnish landscape before crawling into bed - and then you wake up the next morning somewhere else. Ah, it's just wonderful.

(If you're planning travel like this, and you use a train to get to your night travelling thingie, make sure you leave enough of a time gap before your night train or ferry leaves, just in case your previous transport is delayed for some reason. It will make the overall travel time a bit longer, but reduces stress immensely - and you can always go for a little stroll to stretch your legs if you are on time, and have a coffee or something to eat a few metres away from the train station.)

And now it's time to get back to good old work! There's a few projects to finish, and other things coming up, such as the embroidery demonstration in Brandenburg. First, though: Sending off all the orders that arrived during the summer break. 


(This post, weirdly, did not have its correct date when I posted it, but one in June. Don't ask me how that happened.)

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MäRZ
30
0

Links (again).

I've made the mistake of doing a bit too much doom-scrolling in the past few days, including this morning. There's still war in the Ukraine, there's still really high Covid numbers in Germany, and there's still a lot of bullshitty stuff happening regarding energy and preservation of nature and sustainability here as well. It makes me feel sad, and helpless, and more sad, and that is not a very good thing. 

The little cat, however, is determined to brighten up my day by snuggling up to me on the desk, purring loudly, and I have the Vienna trip and presentation to look forward to. There's hot tea sent by a friend (well, not in its hot brewed state, obviously, but the tea bags), and finally a little light rain outside. While sunshine is nice too, the rain is much needed and appreciated, even if it means there will be fewer bees and bumblebees around today. 

I hope you have your own doom-scrolling under control, and enough nice things to brighten up your day. Maybe some links can also help? Here you go.

  • A German company is developing something like a cross between a pedelec bike and a tiny car - it seats up to two people, no driving license needed, and it has solar panels on the roof to help with battery capacity. Here's an article on Heise, and here's the manufacturer's website (both in German only).
  • The virtual convention "Flights of Foundry" is taking place on April 8-10. You can join in from anywhere in the world, for free.
  • It's a well-known fact that some plants thrive next to each other, and one of the prime examples are the Three Sisters. I tried a sort-of-doing-this last year, planting beans next to sunflowers (though with rather limited success - neither beans nor sunflowers usually thrive here, due to the rather poor soil in the garden bed I put them in). Here's an article about current projects on this on The Conversation.
  • In case I have not linked that before - the world's oldest pants were found a while ago, and have been analysed, and there's a nice article (with pictures) about them here.


And now I will return to getting something resembling work done...

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