That Time of the Year

Once again it is the time of year when we head to the local strawberry farm and do our annual berry picking.

Some immediately get eaten.  But the majority are either frozen or made into jam.  I have noticed the price two years ago was $10 and last year it was $12.  This year it was $15, a 50% mark-up in three years.  I wish our life savings were achieving a similar result!

Work on the bedhead has continued.  I used the small router with a 60deg ‘V’ bit to cut a 4mm deep groove everywhere there was a pencil line. The grooves weren’t very clear and I fortunately decided to experiment on a piece of scrap plywood before filling them using a felt marker pen.  I suspected the ink would ‘bleed’ into the wood fibres on the edge of the grooves and I was right!

As an alternative, a 2B lead pencil has been used to mark the grooves.

The pencil has made the lines stand out better, but they haven’t achieved the finish I want.

The plywood was always going to be given a Jarrah timber stain and I’m going to do that next.  Then with the grooves sealed I’ll use a black felt tip pen to make them more pronounced.  I’m not sure how many coats of stain I’ll need to apply before starting on the varnish.

Now that the sketch is larger it appears the shell may be a Reeves!

Ken’s Expertise

Ken visited today laying the sandstone blocks that now form the kerbing for the path in front of the lounge room window. I did the labouring and generally got in the way.

Thank you Ken!

Prior to Ken’s arrival the postman delivered the exterior 240V power socket I’d ordered online.  It’s required for the new gas instant hot water heater.  Jan and I ran the cable down inside the wall cavity during the weekend and today I fitted the double socket.

I just need to convince Jan she needs to get back up on the roof and remove a tile in order for her to lower the other end of the cable down inside the cavity to the wall socket in the study where I will make the connection.

Before he left Ken helped carry several sheets of 2400x1200x19mm plywood into the ‘man cave’.  One was then propped vertically against the end wall.  The plan is for it to be our long overdue bedhead.

I had a cunning plan (sorry Baldrick).  Just prior to leaving the UK our youngest son gave me his computer projector for safe keeping.  My plan was to use it to project the narrowboat scene onto the plywood.  You may recall the sketch.

After some adjusting I managed to project the sketch onto the plywood in the correct position.

Yes, the sketch is upside down.  There was a scratch on the upper part of the plywood sheet and by reversing the sketch I plan to position the scratch where it will be hidden by the mattress.

The bedhead will be 1800x1200mm with 300-400mm of the height hidden by the mattress and pillows.  The next step was to carefully copy the lines of the sketch with a pencil.

With the projector turned off the pencil lines are hard to see.  I’ll need to trace over them with a black fine felt tip pen.  I’ll also need to buy an appropriately sized bit for the router.

 

The Garden

A lazy start to the day until we noticed local social media was reporting a COVID outbreak and the suburb would shortly be going into lockdown. By 11.30AM the local liquor store had sold all its stock and the two supermarkets were out of toilet paper. Our neighbours have two small children. We could hear the screaming, crying and tantrums. I've never heard adults carry on like that! After lunch I erected a sign on the front lawn "Toilet Paper $10 a Roll" :-)

Now to something more serious. Jan appears to be delighted with the progress of her gardens. A wet and cool start to spring as seen rapid growth. She is rather pleased her daffodils are starting to flower and the bluebells won't be far behind.

Daffodils

Bluebells

The Hibiscus along the back fence line have also flowered.

Next year they should be larger.

Jan is particularly pleased with her front cottage garden

Yesterday we bought two more fruit trees which have been planted in the front lawn.

Dwarf Avocado

A second Mulberry

I’m pleased Jan enjoys gardening otherwise I would have planted the entire area in concrete

Second Attempt

You might have made the same natural assumption as me when reading the details on the plate in the Isuzu engine bay.

The plate is in an awkward place to photograph which had to be done from the opposite side of the vehicle hence the focus.  However you can probably see the Color/Trim is shown as 529/117.  If you assumed the main colour of the vehicle was colour code 529 and the trim code was 117 you would be WRONG!  (as was I) Code 117 is silver and when I did the spray painting I got this result.

Originally I was going to live with the colour, but then it grated on me and I decided to do more research..  Eventually I found a website which stated

Bumper paint Obsidian Grey - code 554

Back to the local AutoOne outlet where they mixed me another expensive spray can of paint.

Today I masked and rubbed back the area before repainting.

Not an exact match… But it looks better than before.  Actually I quite like contrast in the finish!

I may have erred again

The gas instant water heater has once again been going “boom” on ignition.  It’s hydro-powered, which means when a hot tap is turned on in the house the flow of water through the heater driver a small water turbine which generates a spark to light the gas.  Obviously that hasn’t been happening correctly.  We called in a plumber who serviced the unit ($220 thank you very much) but it hasn’t solved the problem.  Now he doesn’t respond to our calls. 

We have decided to replace the unit with a different type of gas instant water heater.  This version will require 240V to ignite the gas.  That means I need to install a 240V electrical outlet near the heater.  You can see I have already drilled the hole in the brickwork and inserted the drawer cable.

Jan has also asked if it would be possible to install and extending awning on the end of the pergola which would provide shade over the pool on hot days.

My initial thoughts are it would require a box steel member between the posts and some type of vertical steel member to limit the twisting forces created by the extended awning.  Something like this

Now to the part where I’ve probably erred in my judgement.  I’ve been considering what to do with the surplus limestone blocks.

Eventually I decided they would be used to construct a length of lawn kerbing between the front lawn and the path in front of the house.  The tops of the blocks will be a ground level providing a mowing strip and (I hope) with them 250mm into the ground the grass roots won’t reach the path.

I’ve ripped out the old plastic edging and repositioned the lawn water reticulation sprinklers before digging the trench.

Now comes the part where I have created unnecessary work for myself.  I went to the local garden supplier and borrowed one of their courtesy trailer whilst asking for some ‘brickies sand’.  Whilst my back was turned one tractor bucket load of sand was dump into the trailer.  I thought “That’s a bit much!”  Then I went to get a bag of cement and whilst I was away a second bucket load was added to the trailer.  Now I have a mountain of sand on the front lawn.

Jan asked what I was going to do with all the surplus sand.  So I told her I’d probably have to dig a hole and bury it!

Too Many Errors

Nothings seems to last these days.  The computer I had configured as a personal video recorder (PVR) running on a version of Linux using MythTV died.  Well the USB ports on the motherboard died which turned it into a brick.  It was only 16 years old and for six of them had been in storage.  Very disappointing!

It was only once the pc had failed that I realised I hadn’t made a backup copy of the software.  Actually I should have made a cloned copy rather than a backup.  That’s when I realised I didn’t have a cloned copy of the media server and the cloning of the Raspberry Pi occurred back in early 2019.

Previously I’ve cloned disks using the Linux dd command.  It does an excellent job but has one disadvantage.  It clones the entire disk… including the unused disk space.  Our Raspberry Pi has a 128GB drive but less than 8GB is actually occupied by the operating system.  The remaining 120GB can be temporarily occupied by downloaded media files.  If I use the Linux dd command then my cloned copy is 128GB in size rather than 8GB.  The latter would easily fit on a cheap spare usb thumbstick.  I have a similar issue with the media server operating system disk. The third pc uses Windows.  Three operating systems and I want a free single solution.  I think I’ve found it.

I’ve made a boot usb thumbstick using YUMI <link here>

Yumi will boot the computer from the usb stick and then allow you to load an ISO image file on the thumbstick.  I’ve already downloaded two ISO files to the thumbstick.  Clonezilla and the latest version of Ubuntu.  I could also place the ISO for Windows if there was sufficient room on the stick.

Yumi does not install onto the pc hard drive.  It runs in memory.  Clonezilla allows you to clone only the used portions for a drive.  This means the cloned copy of my 128GB Raspberry Pi is only 8GB.  The Ubuntu image file means I can start Ubuntu on any of the three pc’s without installing to the drives.  It runs from the usb thumbstick.

All this means I’ve been able to make cloned copies of the three computers that are relatively small.

OK…. the boring computer stuff has ended.

Yesterday Jan searched online and found the colour codes for the Isuzu.  Rather than paint the rear bumper silver I decided to take the paint code to the auto shop where they mixed the paint and added it to an aerosol can.  This can of “personalised” paint was twice the price of a retail can.  I masked up the back of the Isuzu and carefully repainted the repaired portion.

WRONG COLOUR

Well it’s going to stay that way now!!!

On the news this morning there was an article about a social media influencer who had gathered quite following by proclaiming you could avoid COVID by being very fit and eating lots of rice. They also claimed vaccination wouldn’t protect you.  I think we would all acknowledge all of the COVID vaccines are not 100% effective.  However they reduce the chance of infection and if you do get infected, then they reduce the severity.  Someone should explain to this social media influencer the only guaranteed way to avoid COVID is to wear as a face mask, someone else's 14 days old jockstrap, along with a purple top hat and canary yellow gumboots.   

Wish the rain and wind would stop…. I’m a fair weather fisherman

 

It’s My Fault!

I’ve created some unnecessary work for myself,which is rather annoying! 

It all happened as a result of my borrowing my brother’s trailer.  It has a safety chain, however there isn’t a locking mechanism for the coupler catch.  When towing the trailer the coupler bounced off the vehicle tow ball and then smashed several times in the rear plastic bumper cracking, denting and chipping it.  At least the safety chain stopped the trailer from heading off down the road to do more damage.

The bumper plastic was bashed into rough alignment before I sanded the area to remove the chip marks.  The damaged area then received three applications of body filler with sanding between each application.  It now looks like the following

This morning I visited three paint spray can outlets looking for a colour match.  No luck!  Because I can’t match the paint I’m considering hiding the damage by make the area a feature.  Options considered were Red, Black or Grey.  I’ve decided on grey.

 

Starting this was likely an error

The weather during the past week hasn’t been pleasant with high winds and a heavy rainfall.  The next five days are forecast to be the same, which is why I shouldn’t have started this project.

It all happened one fine morning a week ago when I decided to find the end of a buried stormwater pipe.  Most of Perth is built on sand and there is no centralised stormwater system.  Properties have soak pits for all the rainwater that falls on their land.  There are larger open soak pits scattered around the suburbs to absorb runoff from roads, etc.

The existing pipe from the drain in front of the garage is too small and is easily blocked by one or two leafs and I have decided to replace it.  The first step in this process has been to find the buried end of another stormwater pipe connected to a larger soak pit under the front lawn.  I had established it was in the general area of the red arrow in the photo below.

Ignore the gardener who is cruelly murdering weeds!  You can see I’ve started digging.  You can also see the drain at the front of the garage roller door.

I found the end of the pipe but then got carried away lifting concrete pavers and digging a trench from the end of the buried pipe to the corner of the garage.  The brain might have been willing, but the flesh was weak.  Several rest stops were required.

It was during this process I realised I wouldn’t be able to locate the new drain in the same position as the old.  The concrete footing from the house prevented that.  I’d need to position the drain further away from the garage.  It would also need to be longer.  About where the red line is in the photo below.

It was at this point that my brain decided it was 30 years younger and I enthusiastically continued removing pavers and digging.  Numerous rest stops later the trench was completed.  Light was fading as I finished for the day.

Five days of wind and rain followed.  My trench was now half the depth and twice as wide.  In between showers I cleared the trench…….  Only for the wind and rain to backfill it.

Racing against the weather I finally had a 300mm deep trench and I started frantically hand mixing concrete in the wheelbarrow in order to lay a 150mm concrete beam below the new plastic drain.  Eighteen bags of concrete later the beam and drain were installed.  I’d run out of concrete, wet from the showers and buggered.

The next morning I waited for a break in the weather to see what the wind and showers had done overnight.  It didn’t look too bad.  I need more concrete but the body is telling me a couple of days rest would be nice.  That happens to coincide with a forecast change in the weather!   The 4WD has been out in the weather too long and I therefore made some ramps using the grill off the old drain along with removed pavers and sand.

Once the weather improves I’ll head to the hardware and buy more concrete.  One thing is for certain…. I won’t be laying the new concrete driveway!