Midwinter calling, day 31

Let there be light

I really dislike short days with few daylight hours when our travel is depending on it, so it's just an hour before noon when we finally anchor at Ackerek. If there hadn't been a damn wide river, and I lived on an island, it would have been way quicker to take a carriage back from Borgarsandr. Or walked. I want a quicker ship. And ferries. It will take time to unload the cargo, but the crew know what to do and Hrappr help, and after that he need their help to transport the open summer carriage and new cargo wagon to Lysesund, so it is ready for our departure to Laxlanda tomorrow.

The craftsmen are ready to replace the greenhouses temporary wooden panels and install the last windows. The greenhouse plants are coming along nicely and is starting to produce vegetables, although not much as the growing tempo is low. But it works! Overall our vegetable garden down by the barns works surprisingly well too. At least surprisingly for me and Jane. Urine mixed with ashes from the kitchen and steam boiler diluted to a 10% solution with water, seems to work quite well as a fertilizer, and we are doing scientific experiments with different types of fertilizers, and in the future will try different concentrations as well. Different sections on two different fields as well as parts of the vegetable garden, are given different fertilizers to see how much difference it makes compared to the control section without any fertilizer, and we also try to see how it affects different crops which have slightly different need. Classic fertilizer is known as NPK, which is nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), and what we test is the urine-ash mixture, just urine, just ash, finely crushed bone from the meat we eat aka bone meal, and dung from the manure pile. There are risks with spreading things on crop and animal fields, so we won't use human feces on root crops, and using bone meal doesn't feel that good, but as long as it's local and for plants and not in animal feed, it should be quite safe. Mad cow disease in the 1990s showed how dangerous it is with meat and bone meal that is imported and fed directly to animals as a nutritional supplement. I honestly just want to get all the animal and growing vegetables ting done as I just can't find it that interesting. Obviously important as hell, but interesting? No.

I give the maids a quick demonstration of how to use the simple air humidifiers, and they are simple as it is just a stiff sheet of paper soak to up water. We hang the humidifiers on the radiators, and I tell them to check the humidifiers daily and fill up with water, and they should keep track and make a note about how much water each use per day. The greenhouse has led to discussions about humidity, and many know the problems with dry air on cold winter days, but have just accepted it as a natural part of life. Most find it funny that I of course do not accept it, and I have bought enough humidifiers to have in most rooms, and on every radiator in the rooms I spend time in. In the end, they don't have to use the humidifiers, but now they can try the difference, and it's a bit rewarding to see Jane almost facepalm with how simple the humidifiers are. She thought I would use something producing steam or water vapour.

Kari lets us know that she got a visit from the local Völva Gauthild about doing the marriage ceremony who is looking forward to it. That ceremony requires a Völva, and Unn is 'only' a Fjölkunning.

I take a shower, and I am not alone in enjoying a shower. I'm also not alone in the shower as Caecilia thinks it's been far too long - again - and well; I admit it's nice to make her happy. I hope it doesn't bother Ima or Shakini who have moved in to Caecilia's old room, but it is a stone wall between, and they might as well get used to it.

It still feels a bit dirty and wrong considering Caecilia's age, but that is easy to ignore when she have her arms wrapped around my neck and I feel her nails on my back and the pressure from her legs wrapped around my hips, as I enjoy the sensation and the way her breasts rhythmically squeeze and move against me as she rides me pushed up against the wall. I have a squeeze her butt cheeks, while she maniacally pushes my head and mouth against hers with a hand on the back of my head.

I've given Caecilia, Ida and Hrappr the task of having the island inhabitants try which clogs fit them best, and that include the craftsmen and slaves. Caecilia will collect information about sizes, amount and which gender. Each pair is marked with burned-in size runes. We need feet information to estimate future quantity. After that they will just give away the clogs to try them out, and explain why they get the clogs and I need honest feedback that can be anonymous. They will prioritize the inhabitants, followed by the craftsmen and slaves and prioritize those who will stay during winter. If it turns out that there is missing sizes, make a note and it will be bought in the future, or made once the sawmill and carpentry is done. Good enough durable cheap shoes that can handle a bit of mud and wet will be very important, and will have a far bigger market than Jane's high heels.

Now that the radios have proven to work very well, Iselin, Kari and Asta are helping me do the final touches for the mansions antenna and a permanent radio installation in the guards day room. It doesn't need much more than a table with a chair, and most of the time the space will be unused, but the carpenters will build a new small custom desk with a couple of shelves on top, with a front cover for the lowest space that can be lifted up and pushed in above the radio with its accessories. That way the radio will be hidden and protected when not in use, and there will be a hidden latch in the decoration to lock it open or closed. Shit happens etc. The shelves and a couple of drawers will house accessories, a couple of books, two slates, a radio logbook and ink and so on. Each radio contact and message must be recorded. The desk will replace the rooms small extra table and we will move their small wall lamp so that it is attached to the top of the desk on a moving arm. There might be a need for radio contact at night, and they can still use the desk for smaller games or so at night.

Since there isn't much to do after setting up the radio, we continue with a proper antenna installation on the ship. I don't really know which antenna is best for the ship, so I'll try a couple of different ones, and it will probably be Asta's job to try antennas, but for now the ship will have the loop antenna, which I know works at least to Borgarsandr and I think it will work decently for most use. That the boat floats on salt water might help. It's a simple practical installation because the sails move and rigging ropes are a bit in the way and this ship has Lateen sails and the spinnaker. I don't really know how to get a long dipole out of the way of the sails when they switch sides of the mast when tacking, because ship's performance is important. We have talked about changing the sailplan, but that is not decided yet.

In any case, the ships radio gets its own place inside Asta's cabin, and just like in the mansion, a switch is put on the wall before the antenna is connected to the radio, so if there is nearby thunder, or an electrical storm, it is best to switch over and disconnect the radio and ground the antenna to protect the radio's receiver. The antenna can also be normally disconnected and just connected when the radio is in use. The antenna switch also switches the radio's output into a resistive load, aka dummy load. It's one of those safety things that also includes a high-ohm resistor to protect against static charge, and the output tuning means that there is no direct connection between the antenna and sensitive mosfets. The crew will attach a zinc sacrificial anode to the ship by the rudder to ground to the seawater.

Asta really wants to learn the radio, and Gunhild was the first of the guards to say she wanted to learn radio handling and Norse code, but the others follow right after, so I have promise that everyone will learn and they will probably be better than me. Training and use makes increase skill, and they will also try using bullroarers for Norse code. Jane still gets a smile when she hears someone say Norse code. She really loves that name, and also wants to learn it because radio is super modern, and she is right: It is somewhat ironic that I actually introduced properly tuned radios before telegraphy.

I have already made plans for improving my Norse trainer by using a transistor to make an oscillator so that the trainer will have a more realistic tone, and the training units will look like a radio front with 'working' controls, a Norse key and use real headphones, so handling and feel are trained. I can add internal options to muffle the sound so it can be difficult to hear the signal, and perhaps introduce some noise or interference. Unfortunately, I don't think I can make the frequency adjustment correct, but much better than nothing.

The carpenters appear with the loom, and I realise I have forgotten to finish the reed and other parts for the loom. Oops. I have the loom parts carried up to the spare room on the second floor across the hall from Kari's bedroom and assembled there. Most are really curious as it is a strange wooden thing with lots of moving bits, and it's not easy to see it as a loom when all the threads are missing. I just ask them to wait until it is finished. The carpenters are tasked with making the wooden stands for the grindstones.

The reed I have started on consists of two thin split pieces of wood 1.2m long, lots of flat thin brass sheet that has been divided into fine strips and is getting smooth rounded edges so they don't wear on the thread that are supposed to go between during use. I stack these and use string that both loops around and separates the brass pieces from each other and binds the wood pieces together. With glue, it will be stable and good enough. I should absolutely figure out a better and cheaper way to do this for future looms.

Carefully I reduce the resistance and thereby increase the current flowing through one light bulb filament. This is a bit nerve wrecking and it doesn't matter I made three since they are a little different, with different filaments. Nothing happens, so max resistance and I step up in voltage before slowly decreasing the resistance again. I make another note and repeat as I step up again. All the time I keep track of the current and voltage, and read out the values. Iselin also note down the results I say because I might make some mistake, which is one of the reasons that Jane is recording video. I have a small led light in the back illuminating a white paper to act as a reference light source since I hope to use the video to get some output measurement and colour tone. I can measure the resistance through the filaments, but I don't really know when something will happen, and it might go very quickly when something happens. Since nothing happens I have to connect more batteries and up the voltage.

Light! The filament glows dimly but that is deliberate electric light. I decrease the resistance a little more, and the wire quickly heats up and starts to glow brighter, way to quickly so I release the dead man switch that disconnects the power. Oof! That was probably close to burning out, and sweat is dripping. I really need better equipment for this. I step back down and the filament works way better as I slowly increase the power again. A lot to note down. I should absolutely connect a pure resistive load in series with the filament.

After many attempts and combinations, I have gained more respect for those who developed things like this. It will be an absolute bitch to make an acceptable lamp, especially if I don't accept it will draw copious amounts of current to barely provide reading light, and which does not flash and break. It's a bit of the ketchup effect, and after the first high power yellow flash from the filament, it becomes better at lower voltage, so I think the flash heating changes and improves the carbon filament, and maybe the filament becomes graphite or something like that. The flashed filament works at a lower power and behave more stable, but the lower power and heat makes the light quite bad. Relatively speaking. I need to develop some better load than a resistor, maybe other bulbs or something similar, because some type of automatic regulation would be best. I will definitely have to wait with making electric light bulbs until I have improved equipment, and higher voltage and more current available in the electrical system. Arc lamps might be a better and far more useful solution for lighting a large room, but that is a completely different future project.

However, this is a lot of usable information and a very good first try, and there are still a few filament sections that are intact and functional after shining for 15 minutes at usable brightness. I think all the people in the mansion are hovering just outside the door and take turns peeking in through the open door as they prepare for tonights celebration, and they are clearly very impressed. Yes, there is already electric light in the mansion, but these are made here.

Voodoo magic, man. Fucking Voodoo Magic!

Ima and Shakini are absolutely shocked by what they learned today, but even Jane is impressed that I have made 100% Alfheimr electric light bulbs.

We celebrate that radio communication works well and the success with probably the first Alfheimr electric light, and we have a feast with fairly luxurious food where the staff also participate. Everyone in the staff is so terribly impressed and proud that there are already some LED lights in the wing, but all electric light is something they will continue to keep secret, and we will use the oil lamps when we have guests. That will change sometime in the future but I can't say when.

There is a lot left to do when it comes to radio communication, not least to build more radios, because both the B-mansion and maybe my S-mansion in Skiringsalr will get a radio, and preferably another future ship. I need to build and test antennas both for fixed installation, ship use and mobile use, as well as do proper range and frequency tests. So plenty of future work to tick of the list and learn from.

Jane play Infernal's 'Electric Light', and I have to translate the chorus so the others understand, and Jane point out the line about 'I want my heels sky high'. It's not long before the speaker is brought and most of us are dancing around, and we play more Infernal like 'Self Control' and 'I won't be crying'. Iselin loves to dance and bounce around to a good beat, but she is hardly about about liking a good drum beat, and it feel so much better than the boring dance that Caecilia has taught us for our future Reiekrône visit a few months from now. Iselin's favourite is just bouncing and spinning around, with more or less intimate moments involved, so it is not that surprising she really like the Swedish dance called Bugg, which is a type of swing dance. Jane is a far better dancer than me and knows a lot of different styles, and she is absolutely influencing. It's fun to see how Ciara and Caecilia try to let loose, while Kari is obviously uncomfortable with it in front of the others and especially the staff.

I sit in my couch and wait for Kari to join me for bed so I can fulfill Kari's wishes she told me about over the radio, when I get a surprise as Kari comes walking in revealing that she too has had a pair of high heels made for her in black leather with red soles. She looks surprisingly comfortable walking in them, which is explained when she say she has been practising walking with them inside her room. Kari asks if she too looks good in them, and I can honestly say she looks absolutely stunning and sexy in her luxurious red and black Fashion Teddy, and the shoes of course match. Though I point out it's because Kari is the one wearing it all. I should have expected Kari to have high heels made, since that is her payment for being Jane's 'manager'. I rise from the couch and Kari have a naughty smile as she walks over and gives me a deep kiss.

Kari is happy and please as we turn the lights off to sleep, and so am I. I took her heels of as part of our game, but it won't be the last time Kari wears high heels because she liked how she felt while wearing them, and being as tall as me. Kari really liked to look me straight in the eye as we kissed, and I sure don't mind.