The Market

Right as the crash was starting, we placed a few bets against the stock market. They ended up growing to more than 4x our initial investment. Since then, as the market has climbed back up, we lost most of that gain. I figured that there might be a way to earn some money by playing around with the volatility, so we put in another chunk, but ended up learning the hard way by losing most of that in a few days when the market climbed dramatically.

Reeling from the defeat, we pulled everything out, apart from a tiny bit to play around with. Overall, we doubled our money, so not too bad, but it could have been a lot more. We shall see if my refined strategy goes anywhere. It has been an exciting experience, but a relief that the first phase has ended.

The girls are really missing school and their friends again. They get to go back for one day this coming week, and after that their schedule is back to normal, apart from swimming lessons. Not sure when those will open up.

The zoo is open again, with a reservation, and we were able to go on Friday! Fun to be back. This coming week the secondary schools are also starting to open up, but with just a few students at a time. Naomi is a bit nervous about going back, but I can continue teaching from home due to my missing kidney. It will be strange to be in an empty house again!

Lunchtime in the garden. Weather has been beautiful, so we ate more times outside than inside this week.

Rain...?

It comes into the forecast...but then fails to materialize. Thunderstorms downgrade to sprinkles, or just evaporate altogether. It is as dry now as it normally is in July. Some farmers aren't even allowed to water their crops. Coming off of a few years of drought, this is worrying. The Dutch are redesigning their water systems to retain instead of drain the excess. The rainwater collection system I made sure hasn't been doing much for us this season!

Most things here are getting up and running again. This is our last week of teaching from home. It will be strange to go back to school, and I am curious how they plan to open things up, because we are still supposed to maintain a 1.5m distance. Impossible in a school with 1800 students.

The girls started going back two days a week, they made it for three days, now they have a two week holiday. Stupid schedule. Their full time routine starts on June 8th. Hard to imagine that we still have to be in school until the middle of July. Seems like it should be almost summer vacation!

I have been plugging away at this dome slice...a little bit every day. It is coming along nicely. Lots of steps and plenty of trickiness, but the design seems to be working so far.

Freezing

We had a frost a couple nights this week and it didn't get very warm during the day, so I had to cover the tomatoes. In spite of the cold, they are still doing well! That cold spell is over though. We got a new parasol for outside, and we will need it this coming week. Temps will be pushing 80 by Thursday. I also got some leaky hoses fixed and the garden cleaned up a bit.

Mostly I have been busy working on the dome trellis. It is a fun project! Abigail is interested in it as well. Lots of calculations, precision, and small parts. The table saw broke down, and that slowed things up a bit, but the parts I needed came quickly in the mail. Less that 24 hours.

The girls enjoyed their first week back at school immensely, and had some fun playing with friends as well. Naomi is busy with painting a few things around the house. Nice to add a bit of color. Now it is time to give the fireplace a break, turn on the waterfalls, and spend some time outside!

Mother's Day bouquet and dinner. The girls did a great job of doing almost everything themselves!

Lots of calculations.

My unique dome design. 

Found the problem and was able to fix it!

Bending the wood.

Our first tomato!!

They got a bit distracted from their job. Glad the predictions of running out of TP weren't true!

The Dome Trellis

This week I finished up the fence, and finally started making one of my long-awaited projects. The Dome Trellis. A prototype for my dome design. Lots of calculations to begin with. Thankfully there are online calculators that help with the design process, but I still needed to figure out how to convert those figures to my rather unique design. I put together the curved part of jig to glue up the struts, but I still need to figure out how to align the ends so that they connect properly. I hope I don't run into too many problems!

This was our last week at home, and we enjoyed it. The girls start school tomorrow (two days per week) and can't wait to go. They got to play with their friends again these last couple days and that was tons of fun.

Since today is Mother's Day and our 8th anniversary, the girls will be cooking us dinner tonight. They like to help in the kitchen, but this is the first time they will do it 'themselves'. I will tell them what to do and help them with the really tricky things (like draining pasta) but they will do the rest. Curious how that will go!

Last week we found the hidden village! A place in the forest nearby where Jews hid out during WW2. 

Finally a chance to play with friends!

I finished our side of the fence that the neighbor built. 

The Wall

Naomi was busy this week making a cork wall for the girl's artwork. It will be a great spot for them to hang up all of their hard work! I have been busy with the fence. The weather has been a bit rainy for the last few days, so maybe I will start again tomorrow.

The upside is that the rain pipe is working well to collect water for the ponds - about 500 liters in the last couple days. The gardens are also much happier now. It was turning into a desert around here. Hopefully it won't be another six weeks before it rains again!

This week was also King's Day. Strange as nobody was allowed to gather, which is the point of King's Day. Naomi also had her birthday. She was bummed that she couldn't celebrate with her friends, but we still had a really nice day together!

The girls are still doing well. They are excited about going back to school in a week. Only two days a week to start out with, and we will just see how things go. It sure will be interesting to see how things open up again and what effect it will have on the virus. My money is on the warm weather working its magic.

King's Day on the Couch.

Guinness Brownies.

Grilled salmon pasta primavera. 

Naomi's Birthday! No Camaro this year.

Before and after with the cork wall.