"Yeah, just a relaxing weekend on the land. No big projects this time, just chilling and sauna and food."
And a little bit of raising up the porch because some door won't close nicely. And pulling out some of the old crappy rock foundation. And turns out the rocks are actually quite big, so we need to use the tractor. And now that we're this far it's just a little bit of further digging to get in some leca blocks instead.
Sauna was nice afterwards tho!
Experiments patching up damaged saplings using beeswax and (since grafting tape is expensive) twine.
Worst damaged was to an indeterminate variety of Prunus that has been used for grafting practice. Not sure what, maybe wind combined with a fungal infection?
Also bent some raspberries when planting them out, and tied them up for good measure!
Considered using wood tar at first, but beeswax seemed a lot easier. We'll see how it goes.
More Vienna: Finally got to see the Hundertwasserhaus. Beautiful colors, shapes, curved lines, little details, plants growing on the roof and out of walls etc. Great demo of the effect of trees on microclimate too!
Less excited about the amount of souvenir shops and tourists tho. :( If the original intention was for the building to be a prototype and example to others, it now sadly seems like an art object.
#architecture #naturalbuilding #art #ecology #hundertwasser #vienna #wien
Found more lineshafts at the Technisches Museum in Vienna!
Also a stack of books by some old favourites. No explanatory sign, feels like a wink and a nod from some museum curator to those of us who were into the Peak Oil movement ca 2007.
Doing some travelling. Finally got a chance to visit the historic machine shop by Skansen in Stockholm.
Always up for some lineshafts!
Apparently this is still in use in some capacity (maybe repairs?). Noticed some modern toolholders on the lathes and what looked like anachronistic metrology equipment, strategically turned to hide the displays.
I've kept an extra 21" 4:3 LCD monitor stashed away for arcade projects, so I tinkered together a mount and bezel out of plywood. Perfect fit, and easily rotated for H/V.
CRT would be preferable, but they seem to be getting hard to find. Have an old TV that would fit, but it's got some banding issues and mounting a heavy tube in there might be too much for now. Maybe later.
Controls next. The upside of its non-original condition is that I can freely swap them out for Japanese-style ones.
I've had "arcade cabinet" on my list for a few decades now. And since it came up serendipitously and I needed a distraction from actually dumb ideas like "project car", I ended up getting this guy a while back.
It's a model known as RAY1100 or AR1100. Compact and very sturdy, but unfortunately victim of that early-00s trend of tearing up old machines to make MAME cabs. Guts all gone, except the controls. Paint job is decent, but needs touching up.
Was getting ready to get rid of this old heavy cast iron mangle. Probably hard to find a taker, so would have to throw out. Sad because it's in nice condition, the wooden rollers etc.
But reading WP on mangles: "far quicker and more energy-efficient [...] than a clothes dryer."
"Mangling presses the fiber ends back onto the fiber, so that the clothes remain clean longer".
Ok, tech worth exploring (eventually)! So just detached the table + crank and stashed it away.
Finally put up some smoke detectors in the shop. Had a few old ones with broken mounting plates, and after buying and dismissing magnetic mounts that would've blocked the battery, I ended up DIYing new mounts.
Cutting the bottom off some telescoping boxes made holders of just the right size, save a few added layers of tape.
Turns out one alarm goes off randomly though, so took both down for now. Will try cleaning them as a fix, else the shame/defeat of buying new ones...
Child found this worn out bumblebee inside, and we gave it some fruit and honey. It seemed to love the honey and licked it up with that little tongue, then flew away after regaining strength!
There seemed to be some tick running around on the wings. There didn't seem a good way to remove it, unfortunately.
#bumblebee #bumblebees #bombus #insects #pollinators #bees #nature #photo