We have had quite the winter here in Uppsala, Sweden. Many days my exercise was replaced by shovelling snow. It never became too much to cause real problems and we made it through the stretch of cold by emptying the firewood sheds.
Now all snow has melted already, but we are in that frustrating period called vårvinter (spring-winter) where everything is gray and ugly, snow and wet take turns, until spring finally comes at the beginning of May.
The pleasures of homebrewing include cleaning up, a lot. This time because the yeast liked the wort a bit too much and decided to climb out of the airlock. 🙄
Ok, that title takes some unpacking: A Sonoff is a microcontroller that connects to Wifi and can switch some other electrical device on and off, pictured on the right. It is basically a remote switch that can be used for all kinds of purposes, from a manually triggered remote to some fancy home automation. To flash in this context means putting a new operating system (firmware) onto the microcontroller and Tasmota is the open-source firmware that everyone seems to love and recommend.
I have had two of these switches for quite a while, but never got around to converting them to Tasmota. Earlier today I finally did, following this guide for using a RaspberryPi. The Sonoff provides an old-school serial port and wants 3.3V power internally. The only thing I had available that can do both was my Pi Zero (left in picture), and I am happy to say that it worked without much fiddling around. The most tricky part was to physically hold the Sonoff button and cables in place while turning on the Pi, then waiting for it to start up to trigger the software transfer whithout losing the connection on the cables.
Not I have to decide what to do with the switches. Probably I will go back to installing Home Assistant for central control. I have tried several years ago but I expect it to have improved much since.
My tool shed and workshop is rather narrow, so when I borrowed my neighbour's table saw the other day, the first thing I did was to build a cart on wheels/castors for it, to be able to rasily move it out of the way. At the same time I made my workbench mobile the same way and ensured that the height of the two matched, so that the bench can serve as an outfeed-table for long pieces from the saw.
This Video served as the main inspiration for the cart, but I simplified it even more and skipped the drawers for a plain storage shelf underneath the saw. I can recommend Steve Ramsey's Youtube channel throughout; I have watched quite a few of his videos and found them both instructive and entertaining.
Ever since we moved into our cottage in the forest, there was a small wodden deck in front of the rock wall that limits the property. It is a sunny spot and the rock stores some warmth, so we naturally like to hang out in the garden furniture there. Unfortunately, the deck itself had rotted so much by now that one started to step through the boards.
I had put a temporary fix in place and thought I'd do the proper renovation early next year. But in a bout of restlessness I tore it all down the other week and started over from scratch. And I mean from scratch, starting by cutting some timber into beams and boards. This a manual process using the chainsaw and some improvised rigs to ensure straight cuts.
Having good foundations is imporant, even for such simple construnctions as a 4.5x3m deck. So I put some heavy granite stones into the corners, drilled holes and glued in some hardware with anchoring adhesive. In one corner the rock wall itself stuck out underneath, so could drill straight into the rock - this thing is going nowhere!
Then I put together the frame and oiled it with a traditional mix of tar and linseed oil. In the picture you can see that I had to put in four additional trusses (the yet unpainted ones) because I originally had far too large spacing.
Even though the surface is not very large, cutting all the boards out of tree trunks and straightening the edges with a circular saw took quite a while. Once I had screwed them on, I did not have the energy to think of any advanced stair construction, so it turned out as simple as possible. Still, I am quite happy with how the whole thing turned out:
I recycled the old railing which was in ok shape, just painted it and screwed it onto some feet, so it will be easily replaced, if needed.
One of the things I dedicated my time to during this summer of isolation was building a small wind shelter in the forest:
It is made from lumber that I cut myself out of trees that were blown down during the winter. From the same material I also built a garden shed and renovated the deck at home.
Working from home is nothing new for me, I have been doing it some weeks at a time for several years. But now that more and more collegues do the same and use teleconferencing tools and apps, I got a small upgrade for my setup: A goose-neck tablet holder, so that it can become a dedicated second screen exclusively for telecons, freeing precious space on the main screen.
Decent video and audio quality are important for collaborating remotely, I believe. And a camera that is positioned such that you look up to it, rather than looking down into, makes a less imposing and awkward image, thereby contributing to a more pleasant atmosphere.
