Thimbles and saddle clamps
This week: Thimbles and Saddle Clamps; Summer heat; Plumbing the heights;
In the last two weeks, the average daily temperature has increased by ten degrees. Today it has been a fraction under 33°C and these temperatures are from 08:30 to 18:30!
With this in mind, there is little surprise that I am now irrigating plants night and morning.
The change in the weather has been sudden, with the average daily temperature rising by 10°C in two weeks. I know that nothing is “normal” any more, but this is really exceptional.
I do think I have my priorities wrong though and should follow the example set by the felines…
There was another sustained attack on my website this week, however the various software defences I have prevented any damage.
It was clearly an orchestrated attack. There were close to 1,500 attempts to break in and they were coming from the USA, Germany, Malaysia and Japan.
I have no idea why. There is no e-commerce on the website, it collects no credit card, email or user data and I cannot fathom a reason for it.
At dusk on Tuesday, I was doing some work in my study when I heard a Scops Owl calling on the roof above.
They arrived back from their winter migration on 20th March. By now I would expect them to have been nesting. I hear them all the time, sometimes two or three around my home.
I quickly grabbed by digital recorder and the parabolic microphone and went out on the terrace. As soon as I came outside the little bird heard me and flew off into a nearby tree, then continued calling.
It made me wonder if it was Floof, or perhaps another of last year’s fledglings. But of course I will never know.
It would have been nice to have monitored Floof on his great autumn adventure last autumn …
Thimbles and Saddle Clamps
It has been back to the Arbour again this week, doing more repair work and some restoration.
When I built the arbour, I was concerned about a long free standing structure diagonally across the winter wind direction, being susceptible to wind damage.
I put two cable stays on each side, anchored into the wall which supports the rain water cisterns.
In doing the repair work to the wooden poles, I saw that three of the cables were slack, so went to tighten them.
I designed the stays to be adjustable using turnbuckles. These are attached to the wire stays using thimbles, so there is no wear on the cable. Then the cable is crimped using saddle clamps.
Over time the wire cables have stretched and the turnbuckes have been shortened to the maximum.
When I tried to slacken the saddle clamps, they have corroded and no amount of muscle power would move the nuts. I used WD40 on the clamps and left them in the hot sun so the releasing agent could work.
Coming back, I was able to undo the nuts and release the clamps, however one was so corroded, I had to replace it.
In my workshop, I have a lot of the fittings I use regularly in stock, so have a supply of saddle clamps “just in case”.
While I had the cable removed, I serviced and greased the turnbuckles and the saddle clamps, then reassembled everything and tightened the cable.
I tend to use ENOX/Stainless Steel fixings where ever I can and think because I do need to be able to undo them, I probably need to order some ENOX saddle clamps. Just so I can easily undo them in the future, as and when I need to.
Where a tree “leans” on the Arbour, I installed an additional stay.
When I went to get an additional turnbuckle from the store, I discovered I had used the last of the large size. To finish the job, I just clamped the cable at the wall and next time I go to Stari Grad I will call in at Volat and see if they have any.
Being a “ships chandler” as well as builders merchant, I hope they might…
Summer heat
It is 39.2°C in my polytunnel, (even with the doors open) and 29.2°C outside, so I have retreated into the study to do some online research.
However the choice is overwhelming my ability to make a decision!
The problem is an email I received on Monday from someone called Mr Gates, telling me that support and updates for Windows 10 will stop on 14th October this year.
The problem is not that the operating system will cease to work – it won’t – but that there will be no more security fixes or virus updates.
In this day and age, where there are always people trying to break into computer systems, you really, REALLY need to keep everything up-to-date.
The motherboard in my “desktop system”, which confusingly is a tower sitting under the desk, is too old to run Windows 11. There is a rumour that Windows 12 may be launched at the end of 2025 and it will definitely not run that operating system.
Windows 12 will have a lot more AI involved in driving the system. It means that the AI integration will need significant hardware support both from the main processor chip and the graphics controller. It will need oodles of memory but probably less storage as users will be encouraged to use cloud based storage.
I will not be doing that. I trust my network attached storage box much more than some fluffy cloud somewhere!
It is not yet known exactly what the requirements for Windows 12 will be. I will look for a higher specification than is needed for Windows 11, with probably a Neural Processing Unit (for AI).
My preference is for a Gigabyte system, because I have had one for years and like their products.
I found a website where I can put in what I think I want and then it tells you which are the compatable motherboards. The motherboard is the starting place for building a system.
The answer came back with more than 20 different boards.
I started to look at each of them individually but then gave up.
With the switchoff coming in four months time, I have more hot summer days during which I can get my head around all the options and perhaps, just perhaps make an informed decision.
The alternative is to do like you do when buying a car, look for a nice shape and colour….
Plumbing the heights
Most of my drupe fruits are ready for harvesting at the moment. They all seem to come ready at once.
First job was to pick the Morello cherry’s, before the blackbirds got to them. These are smaller than sweet cherry’s and a little tart. After gathering several punnets, they went in the fridge, for processing later.
This year I have had the largest crop every of Morello cherries. However there are almost no sweet cherry fruit set on my trees. I have no idea why because they were all in blossom together. However they are in different orchards.
It has been a good year for my yellow Mirabelle plums. The old tree is covered from top to bottom. It is so old and so tall that the step reach only the bottom third of the tree.
I quickly gathered a couple of bags of fruit, which I will share with neighbours.
Third up were the read Myrobalan plums, also sometimes known as Cherry Plum, Prunus cerasifera.
My raspberries are also about ready for picking. After trying several varieties, only Black Raspberries, Rubus occidentalis, survive the heat and drought of summer.
With a good supply of fruit, I’ve spent some time in the kitchen, making plum preserves and bottling some plums for winter pies.
As there will be a week to ten days before everything has ripened, I still have time to pick more, but leaving the fruit at the top of the trees for the bats, birds and insects. NCG