Week 36 Walkin' the dog

Week 36

Walking the dog(s)

Walking a dog for kilometres every day will lead you nose first into all sorts of shrubs and trees and weeds and flowers. For so long, it didn’t occur to me, that my dog wasn’t barking at the air or rolling in nothing; he heard and smelled things I couldn’t. He participated in a world that I didn’t have access to, without putting a name to what he dug up, sniffed out, and peed on.

(I read that somewhere and it made me think of Ozzie, Zoey and Boeke - Boeke is by far the worst at sniffing and peeing on every tree).

Weather/Climate (Tilting at Windmills? or Today's Crisis)

September 1 (last Sunday), 2024 is the warmest on record, with the temperature reaching 31.5° in Maastricht by 4 pm. The previous top temperature dates from 1926 and was also set in Maastricht, weather bureau Weeronline said.

The temperature also reached a record 28.5° at the De Bilt weather station near Utrecht where official meteorological records are set. That is 0.1° warmer than the previous top temperature, which was also set in 1926, Weeronline said.

The last time it was “summer” in terms of temperature – or at least 25° – on September 1 was in 1991.

“Tropical” temperatures of over 30° are not forecast to return this month, but it will stay warm for the time of year, reaching 25° inland on Monday and up to 29° in the far east. But the warmth will be driven away by thunderstorms as the day progresses, Weeronline said.

Sunday is the sixth official weather record set so far this year. January 23, February 15, March 3, March 14 and April 6 were all the warmest on record, but there were no new records set for chilly weather.

Last year there were seven warm and one cold record and the picture was similar in 2022 and 2021. In 2020, there were no cold records but no fewer than 14 for record high temperatures.

Heating (heat pumps in particular)

Even though we have been able to enjoy the unusual warmth of the past week, the need for heating will soon be with us. I'm just about fed up with our builder - we're still waiting on our heat pump to be connected to the in-floor heating. The leaves are already changing colour - the chestnut trees seem to go first.

In some places here and in some countries they have "communal heating". This story showed up about a new system in Utrecht

The installation of a huge heat pump has taken about twenty thousand Utrecht households off gas in one fell swoop. But at the festive opening, concerns are also being raised about the future of district heating in the Domstad (a nickname for Utrecht - after the Dom Tower) and the rest of the Netherlands.

Energy company Eneco, the manager of the Utrecht heating network, opened the giant heat pump on Friday on the site of the sewage treatment plant. The pump uses residual heat from the purified wastewater of households and companies.

That water, originating from many thousands of kitchens and shower drains, even in the middle of winter still enters the sewage treatment plant at a temperature of 12 degrees. The heat pump uses a large dose of electricity to extract that heat from the waste water.

The story goes on to say the energy company are doubting if they will continue to invest because there is talk of making the energy/heating situation into a "Public Utility" . ie their prime concern is to make money, so why should they invest...just another example of what's wrong with privatisation in some areas. (at least they came out and said as much).

It would indeed be a revelation if some of the more critical things became Public Utilities again.

The Nitrogen Crisis...

...is no more, apparently. Farmers had been asked to do quite a lot... (more than their fair share, they said) and major building sites had come to a standstill - all because of how much nitrogen (and other stuff) they were producing. A major problem that just had to be fixed...the farmers revolted and managed to get a lot of people on side - so much so that it changed the political scene at the last election - so now the current Cabinet have dropped the

requirements...I rather imagine that the problems have not magically disappeared. The government also have to make a case to the European Union for exemption - because a lot of the "clean-up" measures were in relation to "Natura 2000" areas declared to be in dire need of attention.

Asbestos

We spent quite a lot of money and went through a lot of pain and anguish to get rid of ours - but the dire and urgent need for that has now also gone by the wayside. We don't hear anything about it now...(too many other things to worry about?)

Electric Cars

There also seems to be a rethink about the dire and urgent need here as well, particularly in Germany.

The German government has abruptly ended its electric car subsidy programme in the wake of last week’s agreement on savings to overcome the budget crisis. The economy and climate ministry (BMWK) said in a press release on Saturday (16 December) that applications for the subsidy of up to 4,500 euros for the purchase of a battery-electric car are no longer possible. Payments already approved will be honoured, and existing applications “will be processed in the order in which they are received and - provided the eligibility requirements are met – approved.” The ministry said that a total of 2.1 million electric vehicles had been subsidised under the scheme, with payouts adding up to around 10 billion euros since its inception in 2016. “The funding programme has been very successful and has decisively advanced electric mobility in Germany,” the ministry said, adding the subsidy was due to expire next year anyway.

The budget crisis was sparked in November when the country’s constitutional court ruled that the plan to transfer 60 billion euros to a special fund earmarked for climate and transformation projects was unlawful. In response, the government decided last week to cut spending on climate and transformation projects by billions of euros. Economy and climate minister Robert Habeck had said that the cuts included an earlier end to electric vehicle support, but didn’t specify any details – meaning the sudden end to the electric car subsidy surprised many.

Around the farm...

Tjeerd and I spent Monday and Tuesday preparing and fitting two external doors in

apartment # 2

I think I last put 2nd hand doors in here about 24 years ago with Grant..

Hard to imagine, but the spare doors we have were going to be thrown out after a major renovation at the Housing Corporation where one of our clients lives. We salvaged them from a rubbish skip - and these two were good enough to go straight in without painting. We had to cut about 25cm from the bottom and reposition the hinges. They will also need double-glass at some time in the future - that was the reason the doors were being discarded - the houses were all being renovated to provide energy saving insulation. It must have been cheaper to do all new doors rather than simply(?) replace the glass.

Repositioning the hinges meant that we had to do some basic chisel work - and of course, all the chisels were blunt after being not used and/or misused (or simply neglected) over the years.