Invasive but Cute

Nutria have been a nuisance in Europe for some decades now, having escaped and been released from fur farms. In areas where there are dikes they can pose a risk, but otherwise they’re pretty harmless neozotes. They’re also cute as fuck. My area has a pretty amount of natural and artificial ponds and the nutria, being pretty ok with humans in proximity, make good use of areas that their shyer relatives like beavers avoid. Our local pond has been populated by them since last year and yesterday we took a walk around it. Did I say “pretty ok with humans?”. Well, actively investigating us would be more accurate. As I took out my phone, this fellow came over to investigate whether that thing might be edible. The whiskers do tickle.

Pic of a nutria that poinbts its nose towards the camera. Nose and whiskers are in focus, the rest of the animal fades into the background

©Giliell, all rights reserved

The Spring Came Early…

And that means pain. Lots of it. However, first, enjoy two pretty pictures:

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

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

Somehow, crocuses (croci?), escaped from our flower bed and now sprout occasionally in the lawn. I don’t mind, in fact, I like it. But I must watch where I step during these early spring working days. And boy, I do have lots of work. I harvested my coppice a bit late this year because February was way too windy for that to do safely. Now I am in the middle of processing all that wood because I must manage to do it before I must replant my bonsai. The winter was too warm and the spring came way too early this year. I dread the summer.

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

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

This year I have decided to not put all the long thin willow and poplar twigs through the shredder but to bundle them and then cut the bundles into 50 cm segments. It is a lot more work (about 3x) now but I hope it will be less work in the winter. My heating stove does not work well with wood chips, when I put too much in it at once it gets choked up and smokes a lot and later it can overheat because the chips first burn too slowly and then too fast. With bundles, there’s less smoke, and overheating does not happen because they burn more evenly throughout. Thus I can put in the oven more at once and save two or three walks down the steps into the cellar each day in winter. Further, I hope that mice will be less inclined to make nests in the bundles than in the woodchips. I find at least one nest in there each year since I no longer keep cats and traps are useless – they tend to catch more shrews than mice.

But it is hard work – the first two days I was doing the bundling I overexerted myself and could not move or even think and sleep properly for two days after that. Now I have about 1 cubic meter of bundles to cut and still some hazel, maple, ash, and hornbeam twigs to either bind or put through the shredder if they are too crooked.

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

I also have approximately 1/2 of a cubic meter of ash, maple, and hazel rods that can be cut into 50 cm pieces without binding.

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

And about 1 cubic meter of poplar logs to do the same. I will spend several more days, possibly two weeks, doing this. Altogether I estimate this to be circa 20% of my yearly firewood needs. It is more than usual, because this year I harvested all of the coppice, regardless of age. I had to do that so I could try and plant new trees instead of those that water voles destroyed – if I did not cut everything, the new plantings would be completely overshadowed.

I am glad the spring is here but as always I do wish I was more physically fit. It takes me twice the time to do something an average man of my age could do. Well, that’s life, it only will get worse.

My persimmon tree started growing this week, I want to replant it tomorrow and update ya’ll about how it is growing.

Holidays with Hindrances 1 : Let’s get started in the Normandy

Well, now that I complained about the car troubles, let’s focus on the good parts, because it was an amazing holiday and I would hate to only remember the things that didn’t work.

There’s a couple of ways on how to get to Ireland, but for us the most practical one is to drive to Cherbourg in France and take the direct ferry to Ireland. You can sleep on the ship and arrive moderately rested to start your holiday. We needed to be at the ferry terminal around midday, so we started early the day before, planning to go as far as we wanted with enough time to spare for the next day. Now, whoever coined the saying that “all roads lead to Rome” has obviously never been to France. Driving through northern France either means to take a dip south and go to Paris, or take national roads which occasionally lead through small villages. We took the last option because really, I don’t want to go to Paris by car. We made good way and basically arrived in the target area late in the afternoon.

While the campsite was actually booked out, they did have a couple of places “dans la prairie”, basically a rain soaked meadow where we could spend the night. No problem here and they had mussels night, which is the best thing ever if you like mussels. They will just refill your bowl until you cannot possibly eat another mussel and then you’ll have some more.

A plate with mussels

©Giliell, all rights reserved

There’s probably few places that will constantly make you uncomfortable as a German as the Normandy*, because the history of D-Day is so present. Our campsite was directly located at “utah beach and we took a stroll down the foggy road.

A road marker telling you that this is Curry Road, named after private Curry who gor killed during the landing

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Our holiday started during that wet spell in August, so it looked more like autumn than summer, but it was beautiful, and #1 completely freaked out because the landscape looked like the house in the marshes from her favourite movie ever, When Marnie was There, by Studio Ghibli.

View over foggy masrshes, mostly water with tufts of grass

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Foggy marshes, mostly green land with the sea in the background

©Giliell, all rights reserved

A small house with blue shutters at the side of the sea

©Giliell, all rights reserved

An old small rowing boat, half rotten, in the high grass

©Giliell, all rights reserved

 

*Disclaimer: This is probably false. I guess that those people who really should feel uncomfortable don’t feel bad at all, while I, descendant of the survivors of Nazi terrorism for whom D-Day was as much a day of liberation as it was for the people of France, feel uncomfortable and carry the weight of history.

 

School’s Out for Summer!

Hello folks!

School’s officially out since last Friday and I can tell you. I’m very fine mush. First of all, the last two weeks are some of the hardest, contrary to popular belief. For one thing, my school wisely decided to turn those last two weeks into project weeks under the “Education for Sustainable Development” goals of the UN, which are so broad that you can basically do whatever you want (though each year has one topic they need to touch).

I absolutely love those weeks. Instead of watching one movie after the other because the grade are written and the books have been collected, we do fun things that are really, really good for our underprivileged kids: visiting the library, the zoo, planting, painting,… It also means long days, not just for the projects, but also for the conferences at the end of the year, but lots of activities outdoors, with a pretty heatwave (that thankfully broke this week). As a result a bone deep physical exhaustion came on top of a bone deep psychological one.

You may remember that after my teacher training, I basically stumbled into special ed. I discovered that I like it and that I’m good at it and that I could imagine staying there. Unfortunately, the ministry of education claims that there’s no shortage of special ed teachers, I was just filling a temporary vacancy. For 5 years in the same school… I kept trying, the union kept trying, but the last phone call with the nice woman from the ministry made it clear that while I could probably always get a temporary contract, I’d not get a permanent one. But she’d send out a new temporary one. That was weeks ago, I kept waiting. Now, since I didn’t go to university for nothing, I kept applying for the regular teacher jobs, though me and my fellow “totally only temporary long term regular ed turned special ed” colleagues suspected that the two departments were keeping us in a loop.

On Monday I got a mail from the department overseeing regular teacher placements that they have (another temporary…) position for me. It would have been at a comprehensive school quite near, which doesn’t only have a bit less underprivileged clientele, but which also would knock off 2/3rds of my commute. But…, you know there’s always a but, they also have a joined high school branch* with the school my kids go to, the high school branch my kid enters next year, a high school branch I’m qualified to teach. Also, I like my school and I know that the principal there is fighting tooth and nail to keep me. Give her another year and the ministry will give me a permanent contract just to get rid of her. That’s an asset you don’t give up easily, so i texted her that unless she was able to work a miracle, I would have to take the offer. Well, she did work a miracle, I could switch with a teacher who was due to start at “my” school. So goodbye KWS (our school Instagram Account), hello, KWS! Another 6 months safe, and at least now I have a prospect of getting a permanent place. Also, I’ll be turning 45 next year, that’s the upper age limit for tenure, so I’ll become cheaper to hire, staying an eternal employee (no problem there). Oh, do I need to mention that my position as special ed teacher there is now vacant?

And with all those good news, I’ll fuck off to Ireland on Monday. Let’s see if I manage to post some sightseeing pics.

 

*Germany doesn’t have middle and high school. We have primary school (1-4 (6 in some states)) and secondary school (5-13), though some teachers are only qualified to teach until year 9 or 10.

Teacher’s Corner: I Encountered a Karen in the Wild

Let’s gather around for a little story. Take a seat and have a cushion ready to bang your head against.

On Wednesday, one of my students approached me. He found a bank card on his way and wanted to hand it over (cultural info: in Germany everybody has a bank card, there are even special accounts for teens). I thanked and praised him. After determining that the card didn’t belong to any of our students, I called the bank and informed them. They were grateful for the information and said they would tell the owner.

Some time later I got a message from our secretary to please get in touch with this number, which I did. I’m friendly, right? And if that had been you, you would have been delighted that your card had been found, bought some chocolates for the kids and told a story about a good kid. But alas, I called the number and I met Karen.

Karen is the card owner’s mum. The young man himself works until 5 so he can’t do this himself. She started the conversation with insinuations. How did that card get found? How did it get to us, what were we doing with it anyway?

I told her that I don’t know and we started to talk about how she could get it back. I told her where we are, when the staff room is occupied for sure (our office is not where I usually work) and what to do in case it is not.

At this point she started bickering: Couldn’t I send the card to the bank? Now, I’ll fully admit that at this point I wasn’t inclined to go out of my way to help her anymore and told her that I could not book the posting in the school system.

Well, how about taking it to the police? I disabused her of the idea that I was going to drive around town on my own time and dime. Would you believe that she started going after my student again? Why didn’t he go to the police?

This was where I went from annoyed to slightly angry and told her that the kid had done everything right, that he deserved praise for being honest and caring and repeated when she could pick up the fucking card.

Thursday passed without any sign of her.

Today I got a message from our secretary to please call that and that guy from the police. Now, while rare, it’s not unusual. Our students don’t come from the best part of town, some have violent inclinations and so do their families, so we occasionally need to make witnesses statements.

But no, the guy told me that he’d been contacted by Karen, complaining that I had refused to give her the card without written permission from her son. Yes, that’s how I looked. I told him that I had no clue what the woman was talking about, that I had never asked for written permission and that she could come and pick it up right now.

The police guy said he wasn’t sure what her issue was either, but that she wouldn’t be able to get the written permission that quickly, since her son was at work. I repeated that I had never said anything about written permission, to which he replied “but I did”.

And this is how the Karen who wanted to sicc the police on a poor teacher and bully her into delivering the lost card got more trouble than she needed.

I’ve Been Cursed, Surely

Last year my projector stopped working. That was unpleasant, but I can live without it, I haven’t really watched a movie for a while. Then the trouble with the processor. Yesterday my gaming headphones stopped working too, for reasons unknown – I haven’t been using them that much.

And to top it all off, I still cannot get the sound to work on my PC. First, the onboard sound card just refused to work and since that problem has been noted by multiple people on the Internet, I have decided to stop trying to solve it and buy a new sound card.

At first, the system did not recognize the new card at all. Then for reasons unknown to me, it recognized it and I could install it, but it does not work properly. I only have stereo sound. When I set 5.1 sound, only the front left and right speakers work, all the other ones remain silent. I am still reluctant to try a blank windows installation because I am not convinced it would help with this.

I am frustrated and tired and depressed.

Rough Start of a New Year

I was backing up my data on Sunday when my PC suddenly shut down. Then again. And again.

I identified the problem – the CPU was overheating because I was creating ZIP files which taxed it more than my usual work. No biggie, I told to myself, I will vacuum the dust from the case and apply new heat conducting paste between the CPU and cooler, that should solve it.

Well, it did not go as expected. When trying to remove the cooler from the CPU, it pulled the CPU from the motherboard. The conducting paste was so old and dried-up that the two components were essentially glued together. And when trying to separate them, I have broken off one pin from the CPU, destroying it. That has never happened to me, but everything is for the first time sometime, I guess.

That was a very expensive mistake to make. The CPU was 11 years old which means buying a new replacement was not an option. I might get my hands on a second-hand one if I searched enough, but there would be no guarantee of functionality. Thus I had to buy a new motherboard and RAM as well. I ordered the new components yesterday morning and I spent the afternoon using my notebook to extract sensitive data from my system HDD just in case I need to completely reinstall my system.

Today the components arrived, I have re-build the PC and after some false starts and learning some new stuff (last time I have build a PC was three years ago), I was able to successfully boot into my original system. I have lost no data and HW-vise the only remaining problem is to get the audio work. I wanted to make bobbin lace and instead of that this.

Well, it could be worse.

Semi Regular Apology Post

First, have some Ramen

 

A bowl of ramen with egg and shrimp

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I’m sorry for dropping dead on you once again. Work is very stressful atm and on top of it my health is not up to the task either, mainly my stupid spinal prolapses. The one thing that gives me serious troubles is sitting down. The recent round of fuck this hurts was triggered by having to sit for  2 hours on hard wooden chairs and it took me 4 weeks to get back on my feet. Literally. But that’s also what I need for both my job and for writing a blog, but of course one of those is optional so I have to safe my strength for work. Sorry.

Now, I’m not fishing for sympathy, just letting you know that no, I haven’t lost interest in all of you. Just temporarily (hopefully) the ability to sit at my desk and read and write.

I See Your Strawberries, I Raise You My Cherries

At least here fruit seems to have a good year. We went to my parents to pick cherries. Within an hour, we had approximately 10kg in our buckets, and you didn’t notice when you looked at the tree. Sadly, the rest will be for the birds. Probably good news for the birds.

A bowl full of red cherries with stems

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Removing the pits was much more work, and I only did so with parts of them. I froze 1 kg for #1’s birthday cake (who the fuck allowed her to turn 15 next week?), weighed 1 kg for jam (with brown sugar, orange peel and a hint of lavender), and another kg for “Kerschepannekuche” (cherry pancakes)

a plate with cherry pancakes

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Cherry pancakes are a traditional treat here in summer, usually served with potato soup, same as apple pancakes in autumn. My gran used to make amazing ones (though she smartly left the pitting to the eaters). The problem with gran’s recipe is that it got never written down. It was one of the things she just knew how to make (her infamous cheesecake recipe started with “You take flour”). I think that by now I’m a decent enough cook to have recreated it. And yes, I wrote it down.

For 4-8 people, depending on whether you’re serving soup alongside or whether some of them are black holes disguised as teenagers:

250 g butter

100 g sugar

-> beat creamy

6 eggs

-> add 1 at a time

vanilla to taste

700g flour

2 tsp baking powder

a pinch of salt

approximately 300ml milk

-> add to batter, starting with flour. Your batter should be somewhat runny, but not thin as for thin pancakes. More like American pancakes.

1 kg cherries

-> add to batter, place 1 big tbsp of batter into a hot skillet and fry in a little oil or butter.

Just a quick Degupdate: More of the same

You know, back when Estelle was still alive and we had just the two of them, they had some very different characters: Candy being daring, curious, bold, Estelle being timid and careful, always hiding behind the running wheel. When we chose the new degus, we did so purely on looks on pictures: I want the brown one and one of the light ones. What we ended up with are Candy and Estelle reloaded. Sky is just like Candy, but even bolder since she’s got Candy as a teacher, with Lulu being so shy that for the first days we were concerned if she was eating at all ! (She is). But the two of them are growing and living tehir best degu life. Enjoy their cuteness.

Juvenile white degu poking her head out from a terracotta pot

©Giliell, all rights reserved Sky, being very cute

Juvenile white degu munching a treat

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Juvenile white degu sitting in a nest of hay

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Adult brown degu trying to open a jar with nuts.

©Giliell, all rights reserved Candy, Candy, Candy

Adult brown degu, side view

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Adult brown degu pulling a piece of wood with her teeth

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Adult brown degu in a running wheel (blurry), juvenile brown degu sitting next to it

©Giliell, all rights reserved Candy and Lulu

Adult brown degu on a green carpet

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Juvenile brown degu

©Giliell, all rights reserved Lulu. She’s so damn pretty, even though she lost the tip of her tail

 

A Day at the Zoo 3: Because the Night

Night zoos are one of my favourite things because they have the coolest animals. They’re also bad for taking pics. Even my most light sensitive lense isn’t much good, mostly because it’s too dark for the auto focus but also too dark for me to use the manual setting. But there are some acceptable pics.

Dark image of a tree porcupine

©Giliell, all rights reserved

The tree porcupine was kind enough to step into the little light and my focus. This is where digital cameras with their near limitless image storage play to their strength: I probably deleted 100 blurry images to walk away with about 6 decent ones.

Very dark and blurry picture of an echidna

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Nope, that’s not a worse pic of the same animal, that’s actually an echidna. No, I don’t care that the father next to us told his kid it was a porcupine. Zoos offer many learning opportunities, but obviously no learning obligations.

And now, are you ready for one of my absolute favourites? The aardvark!

Image of an aardvark, full body

©Giliell, all rights reserved

We were very lucky: on our second visit to the night zoo, the aardvarks (3 wonderful animals) had their enclosure cleaned and the caretaker had turned up the light there. They didn’t mind (they could have gone to their dark burrow) and posed for some nice pics.

Image of an aardvark, front view

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Aardvark in action!

Side view of an aardvark

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Look at that snout!

There is a story that goes with the aardvarks: The zoo in our state capital also has a night zoo with aardvarks, but while this here has the glass all up the enclosure, our zoo only has it about a metre high, just enough so the aardvarks cannot escape. Some years ago when we visited the zoo, Mr looked at the aardvarks, not realising that there was nothing between him and the animals at the level of his nose. Well, the aardvark obviously thought it was only fair game that if Mr got to look at it, it got to look at Mr, went on its hind legs, put the front legs on top of the glass and put its snout almost into Mr’s face. The look on my beloved one’s face was something I still treasure to this day.

Some pretty bling in ugly times: More beadwork

Yeah, I know, my apologies are getting old, but right now I find myself unable to engage in internet discussions much. While you all know me as “argumentative”, I find the current situation too dire to quibble about it on the net. Instead I’m trying to do my best offline, take care of the Ukrainian kids arriving at school, etc. And I craft. Because crafting is my #1 stress relief. Also, beading is something I can do on the couch while watching TV, unlike working with resin or sewing, so here’s the latest bling. It also helps with cutting down on snacks.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

These are made with peyote stitch and look much more complicated than they actually are. I’m currently working on a matching necklace.

The next two pieces look like I robbed some ancient treasury, despite being nothing more than wax and glass beads. All I need now is for an occasion to wear them.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Again, youtube is a well of inspiration and comprehensive tutorials. One thing that is absolutely not the fault of the people doing the tutorials is the fact that you rarely have the exact same beads as they have. With stuff like the earrings and the necklace, that’s not a problem. They turn out a bit bigger or smaller than the original, but all in all they’re just fine. Things like the bracelet and the pendant are tricky, though. With those, the proportion needs to match and I often end up undoing and redoing them several times, swapping out beads, until I get them right.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I already have a rainbow necklace in resin, and i noticed something when wearing it at school: It’s important. Sometimes it acts as a discussion starter. We have a huge problem with homophobia at school. Many very religious kids (I recently shocked one kid by simply not believing in any deity) and also just plain secular toxic masculinity homophobia. they see my rainbow, they ask me if I “support LGBT people”. Since these are conversations that happen “off record”, kids are more willing to openly discuss matters. The other part is that of course having loudly homophobic pupils doesn’t make LGBT kids disappear, they just stay in the closet. I get a few shy “I like your rainbow jewellery” comments from kids and I thank them and they know I’m safe. Maybe they don’t dare to wear a rainbow openly, so I do it for them.

About the technicalities: The ends are glued into the caps, as simple as that, and the clasp is magnetic, so I can put it on and take it off myself, though it also means that I need to pay attention so I don’t lose it. The added semi precious beads act as a counterweight. the clasp is often the lightest part of a bracelet and will end up on top. This way it stays down.

 

 

An Ugly Tool That Does the Job

Yesterday was a tool-making day. I have been making punch and die set for making bolsters and end caps for a new knife design. It is similar to the one I have made previously. Here you can see them with the first batch of punched prefabricates.

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

This time I have disposed of the shafts and I have made two other additions.

One addition is that I have made two punches for each die. The first is for thicker materials and for pre-punching thinner materials. The second one is then for better punching the final form on a thinner material (1 mm). I want to use this thin material as much as possible for several reasons – it is much cheaper than massive 5 mm sheets, it is easier to fit the hole to the tang, it is lighter, and a lot faster to work overall.

The second addition is an overlay from bakelite to hold the roughly cut sheet in place for the pre-form punch. And this is where the titular ugly tool comes into play. Cutting and filing that old bakelite was a huge PIA, it clogs up teeth like glue. But I did find a way to cut the holes quickly and easily, once I drilled out the corners.

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

What you see here is probably the ugliest half-assed tool ever made to meet the demand on the spot. I have used an old broken bandsaw blade, wrapped one end of the piece with twine and duct tape to make a handle, and voila! I had a pull-saw that could be quickly inserted into the drilled holes and that cut the material without getting clogged up because it has reasonably big teef. It did not work perfectly, but it was still much quicker than fiddling around with a coping saw. I may make a better handle that allows me to quickly use broken saw blades, or perhaps even new ones, in this manner.