Luxury, or What We Did on our Holiday

With Covid raging we made the wise decision to stay the fuck at home during our holiday, and with 2.5% of people returning form “risk areas” testing positive (mind you, these were mass tests, not tests of people who themselves suspect anything or show symptoms), this was a smart decision if we ever made one. Instead we invested the money in a steelframe pool with a dome tent to protect it.

What sounds like putting up an oversized kiddy pool was indeed about two weeks of hard work. Not the pool or the tent, but the preparations. First Mr had to clear the area in the overgrown area we rent from the city. Then we had to level the ground. The area has a very small slope. Really, you’d hardly notice. 20 cm on a 6m area. When you need to level it you notice, because you are shovelling several tons of dirt, not to mention the roots and that nice block of blue concrete that we had to remove. But after three weeks of backbreaking sweat soaking work, we needed about an hour and a half to put up the pool and my dad and I needed another 2 hours to put up the tent.

So here it is, and with a heat wave rolling over us, it was one of the best decisions ever. I can tell you, finding this house with its garden at a reasonable price was the best piece of luck we ever had.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

It’s got a diameter of 3.5m and can be filled to 1.3m depth. I suggest applying insect repellent before getting anywhere near because this is nature.

 

Jack’s Walk

 

©voyager, all rights reserved

Oh My! Jack and I are still exhausted from yesterday’s party. It was a fabulous day, filled with happy surprises, but today both of us are bleary-eyed and bushed. Jack says that fairie dust can muddle you up and make you sleepy, and that’s exactly how I feel – muddled and ready for another nap.

“Don’t worry, Mummy. The forgetting will go away soon.”

“Will the bumblebees in my head also go away?”

“Silly, mummy. Of course, they will. Are they bothering you?”

“Not really. I’m starting to like the way they tickle when they dance.” I reached over to Jack and wiggled my fingers into the thick pile of his ruff and started to scratch. Jack tilted his head back and closed his eyes.

“Jack, will I be able to remember your special day, or will it fade away with the fairie dust?”

He put his head down and laughed,

“Mummy! That’s a silly question. Of course, you’ll be able to remember. When the fairie dust fades, it will all make sense. I promise.” he wiggled closer to me and said, “Until then, I think we should just cuddle and close our eyes.”

“Alright, Jack, that sounds perfect. Hopefully, tomorrow I’ll be able to process all the vivid party vignettes in my head into a narrative. Maybe the bees can help.

 

Well, It Sucks, But…

My goal in mcgyvering a vacuum pump was to remain under 100,-€ – which I did – and get better results than I have achieved with my shop-vac setup – which I did too. Still, I do not know whether to be disappointed or satisfied.

I wanted to utilize things that I already have, which includes several water pumps that are used to water bonsai trees and vegetable beds in summer and pumping water out of the cellar in the winter and some spare piping from house renovations. So I had to buy only the things for making the vacuum pump itself – in combination with a water pump, the best option seemed to be something based on the venturi principle.

So I went and bought these parts:

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

The parts were connected to each other more or less in the order as they are laid out on the picture. The black plastic hose connector was fitted into the brass one to lower its inner diameter. The brass hose connector right next to the right side of the chrome T junction is the inlet nozzle – I have glued an old tip from a silicone sealant tube (not depicted) in it to get the position and size of the nozzle correct. Into the upper brass hose connector was glued the white plastic 6 mm hose connector for the air suction.

So water comes in the T-junction from the right, gets squeezed through a nozzle which sprays into a slightly bigger opening in the outlet left, behind which is again a big pipe. The spray drags with it the air surrounding the nozzle and that way achieves suction through the top of the T-junction.

I am not able to write-up complete how-to, but this is the final product up and running in a vat of water.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

The bubbles show it is working. When I connected the suction tube directly to a new vacuum manometer, I got a suction of whopping 0,6 bar, which did really impress me. Unfortunately, I do not get anywhere near that when I connect everything to the jar. After a few minutes, it stabilizes at this.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

0.22-0.25 bar is still a bit more than what the shop-vac could achieve (which was 0.2). So it is usable and it is a definitive improvement because unlike the shop-vac it can run non-stop with zero risks of overheating anything, and it also makes nearly no noise, so a win there too. But when it achieves this, it still bubbles, so it still draws air. And when I close both ball-valves on the lid (one ball-valve is for pressure release, one for the suction), I start losing pressure in the jar really quickly. That tells me that the jar is not properly sealed and this here is not the maximum this setup can achieve, but an equilibrium between the pump and the improper sealing.

I had to make a new lid from five layers of plywood for this, with two ball-valves and the manometer, so there was a lot of potential for failure. But I did use water/airtight plastic sealant for everything and I went over all connections once more, yet I still cannot identify the leak(s). If it was a pressurized container, I might find the leaks with help of soapy water looking for bubbles, but I do not know how to check vacuum tightness.

So this is where I am now and this is where I leave this be for a few days at least. It has occupied me for three days already, time to go back to making knives.

Project Degus: Houses

As I mentioned on TNET, we’re getting pets. More specifically, we’re getting degus. We did all our learning and deciding whether degus will make good pet for the little one, and then we went into the planning phase. Degus are day active and very active, so they need space, but holy fuck, those cages are expensive. Luckily, my grandma’s old kitchen was still up so we took that.

First of all: WORKSPACE!!!

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Look at it. A counter and cupboards and drawers. I still need to put up a shelf or two, power outlets that are not just extension cords and light. I also need to think about ventilation, because the window you can see is only about 20cm high. I basically grew up in that kitchen and I never noticed that all the drawers have different widths. Matching that kitchen is a high cupboard that we’ll turn into the degu home, but before that transformation can start, we’ll prepare some other things that they need, mostly huts.

Degus are rodents, which means they’ll gnaw everything, which is why the German word for rodents in “gnaw animals”, so stuff has to either withstand their teeth or be constantly replaced. For the huts I decided to do both: light plywood houses that will need replacement and terracotta pot houses that will last a while, so the little one and I went to the DIY store. While I was pushing 75 bucks worth of material she happily chattered how making your own things isn’t just so much more fun, but also so much cheaper… Now, she is right in general, but I had to explain that it doesn’t exactly come cheap.

OK, back to the houses… For the wood ones the standard house is an ugly box, and like most commercially available pet supplies way too small, so I designed them to be a more like hobbit houses and of course large enough, so I first cut out all my pieces on my brand new bandsaw. I didn’t know how much I needed a bandsaw before I had one. Sure, I thought, it would be nice to have one, and a small one is only around 100 bucks, so I treated myself when my contract got renewed. Holy shit, I’m in love. It’s so easy to saw things. Not just the plywood, which is to be expected, but also resin pieces that usually are such a pain in the ass. So I cut out all the pieces for two hoses and then the little one got to sand the edges.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Next I glued pieces of a square bar to the front and back, let it dry and then glued on the sides.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

This is actually the backside. You can see there’s a second exit in the back, which is something many commercial rodent houses are also missing. This is an absolute must because two degus might get into the same house and one may decide it doesn’t want to share. And while degus do fight, they mostly prefer just to leave. Having just one exit means that a degu may be trapped with another one. Having two means that the second one can just leave.

Next step we carefully glued strips to to the roof, which was a bit fiddly, but not too hard. Ta-daaa, degu/rodent house version 1:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Jack’s Walk

A hot dog full of sticky, little burrs. ©voyager, all rights reserved.

This morning Jack and I went for a walk in our wee woods. We hadn’t been for several weeks because the trail is about a kilometre long, and Jack can’t walk that far in the heat anymore. He’s been missing his friends, though, and today he wanted to go, saying that he could stop for rests and that the shade of the woods would keep him from overheating. I trust Jack’s instincts, so I packed 2 litres of water, some dark, sweet cherries and a sticky, ripe peach for me along with a tuna sandwich and some biscuits to share with Bubba, plus a book and a small, blue and white checked picnic cloth. I thought we’d make a morning of it.

It wasn’t oppressively hot when we set out, but it was humid, and Jack and I both felt heavy and lumbering.  Our steps soon got lighter, though, as we were beset upon by dozens of fairies flitting around us and chatting excitedly. They were most excited to see Jack and kept telling him how much he had been missed. Many of the younger fairies giggled and asked Jack if they could ride on his back, and he happily obliged them all. Bits of colourful glitter sparkled in the dappled sunlight as the fairies darted about, and the colours mixed and swirled like a kaleidoscope. There was so much fairie dust in the air that it made me sneeze twice, and caused a wave of laughter that chinkled like chimes and echoed through the trees. We stopped briefly for water before we finally arrived at the first bench, where we sat and shared our sandwich.

It seems that Jack is a bit of a celebrity since his adventures finding Oma Troutchen, and everyone wanted to say hello. I could see Jack’s spirits rising as the fairies came and went, each arrival and departure changing the colours in the air and the wafting scent of mingling flowers. They were all very polite, and each introduced themselves, but there were so many of them that I soon lost track of just who was who. It was just a chaos of fairies, and my senses were somewhat overcome. There was one fairy, though, that stayed with us all the way around. Her name was Apple, and she smelled delicious, and she kept asking questions about Jack. Where was he born, and on what day? Was he a country dog or a city dog? What were his favourite things? When she learned that Jack’s full name is Wasserhund’s King Jackson Brown, she got quite excited and wanted to know more about his royal roots. Jack is shy about his family history, but Apple was persistent, and Jack finally opened up about his birth family’s estate and their status as Canadian Field Champions. I smiled as Jack made sure she understood that his real, forever parents are the humble but loving Mr. and me. When Apple found out that Jack was born on February 29, she was all aflutter, calling the day Moontide Makeup Day and saying that it’s no wonder Jack is so brave.

We sat for about 20 minutes, chatting and laughing as we watched the antics of a group of squirrels busy with squirrel shenanigans until Jack said he was ready to carry on. He struggled to stand, and the fairies quickly sprinkled some of their magic dust to help him up, and we were soon on our way again. Apple flew up and sat on my shoulder, and I sneezed again, making her wobble, but she soon settled down, and I felt my steps lighten as if gravity was loosening its hold. As we walked, the chaos of fairies continued until it seemed the whole forest was alive with moving colour and the music of fairy voices. I told Apple how beautiful it all was, and she laughed, telling me that the forest is always alive like this, but humans haven’t the senses to see or hear or smell it all. Apple said that because I had helped find Oma Troutchen, they had agreed to use some fairy magic to allow me to see their world. I thanked her for the fabulous gift, and she leaned over to stroke my cheek in reply. It was beguiling, and I was so enchanted by it all that time faded away. Before I knew it, we were at the end of the trail, and I could see that Jack was weary. It seems even fairy magic isn’t enough to erase Jack’s years, but he was happy. His eyes were bright, his tail was high, and his spirit shone as brightly as the glittered watercolour trails of magic swirling through the trees.

As we made our way to the car, Apple whispered in my ear that the fairies were planning a party to thank Jack and invited us to return at the same hour in three days’ time. She promised the day would be bright, but fresher and asked me to not to tell Jack; they wanted to surprise him. I readily agreed, mentally planning to make sure Bubba and I were both rested. I asked what I could bring, and Apple quickly told me that some cherries and strawberries would be appreciated. I promised I would bring lots and then reached into my pack and placed my sack of uneaten cherries on the ground. Bunches of fairies soon swooped down, scooping up the dark red fruit in their arms and carrying them off with a chorus of goodbyes and good wishes. Apple stayed with us until I had Bubba settled in the car and then flew off to join the others, leaving behind a fragrant trail of aquamarine dust.

Oh My! A fairy party! We’ve been invited to a fairy party, and it’s in Jack’s honour. I’m so excited that it’s going to be hard to keep the secret from Bubba, but I will… somehow. Now, what does one wear to such an event?