What are you doing today?

[gwand]

I hate it when that happens. When I build my new fence, there will be no medieval longbow re-enactments in my yard.

Will you allow josting?

 

[GaryE]

Will you allow josting?

Well, yeah. Who wouldn't. But the knights will have to ride the neighbour's corgis. And I'll be able to claim ransoms with one of those helmet eyehole knife and hammer combos that probably paid off for my peasant ancestors.

 

[Fishmanic]

I hate it when that happens. When I build my new fence, there will be no medieval longbow re-enactments in my yard.

Well at least you didn’t impale your neighbor with the errant arrow

 

[MuddyWaters]

Today I’m going down to the fabric store to pick up the sewing machine I ordered . I cannot find a decent anorak mountain parka at a reasonable price anywhere so I am going to make one . There’s an outfit in Eugene Oregon called thegreenpepper.com that sells patterns and coated rip-stop nylon . How tough can it be ?

Wow!!! That is a level of DIY that is beyond my comprehension. Hat's off to you, Back in the fold.

 

[Back in the fold]

I'm boiling a strip of hickory so I can form it into a lamination for a weak spot on the bow I'm building. The I'll make some oat meal, probably in the same pan. The hickory makes it taste better.

Ooohh. . . I love oatmeal . Does the hickory really do the trick ?

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Wishing that I had enough trust in my apartment floor for a 75 gallon tank! Just saw the following on a Facebook aquarium group I'm on.

I'm wondering whether a large, sturdy piece of wood placed over the flooring so it spread the weight of a tank over a larger surface area and across multiple flooring joists - like a thin but study platform for the tank, could help?

I don't know anything about reinforcing floors though, but bound to be others who do and have worked out how to have a large tank in a high level flat. Got to be a way around it that can be done relatively inexpensively!

I am fully aware that there are new challenges in every field of endeavor and I do not expect to be exempted from various trials .

I love this attitude! Wanting to lean a new skill no matter what, at any age, and accepting that there will be hurdles. I really admire that. Want to emulate that.

Shops selling fabric of all types have disappeared. The ones which survive are mostly on-line. I have more local fish stores than shops selling fabric.

High street shopping is dying out for all kinds of businesses, sadly. Everything is big chain corporations now, and online.

Plus less and less people being able to sew. Never taught how, for both good reasons, and bad. No need or pressure to learn how, with fast fashion and super cheap clothing flooding the chain stores in the high streets, made by exploiting people in disadvantaged countries. No time either, with a two-income household needed just to get by now.

I did learn how to hand-sew, and I was a cross-stitcher too, but my glasses are now ten years old, and I need an eye exam and new glasses before I can return to that hobby. Did textiles for GCSE which is the only reason I learned how to use a sewing machine, but I struggled hard with it! Mum had sold off her old Singer sewing machine (it was absolutely beautiful, really wish she'd kept it now!) because it needed repairs, she knew she wouldn't use it, and was too young to care at the time and agreed I probably didn't want it either, man I wish I'd appreciated it for the history then!) but got me a modern sewing machine for my GCSE stuff.

Post GCSE's, I used the machine once, at college, to roughly sew together sheets we'd nicked from the dorm supply, and make into silly, really basic costumes for us. After that, it sat gathering dust for 15 years, and during a clear out I figured I'd not used it for so long, I should just flog it, and got £30 for it. I always struggled to use it well anyway, and for so frustrated when it got stuck!

A few years later I took up cross stitching again for the first time since I was a kid, loved it and got pretty good at it, if I say so myself I used to often pick up the cross stitching magazines too, for patterns, and just to read - and I found my local store doesn't stock them anymore, or many other hobby magazines, because they just don't sell. Another industry that's dying out.

A few years ago one magazine did a series of 12 British birds patterns, which I made and knew dad would love. I made them, added them to his Christmas gift pile, and promised him I'd make them into a patchwork quilt for him. They were the perfect size for that, parents had no wall space left either! So I was thinking a quilt would be perfect. But no sewing machine, and couldn't afford one, and thought it would be nice to learn how to handmake a quilt the old fashioned way anyway. Expand my needlework skills (I also want to learn embroidery, maybe tapestry?)

Didn't want to spend a fortune on fabrics for the other squares either, and no fabric store nearby either - I hunted through charity shops, for a long time and with varying success, for decent quality duvets, or curtains, or any other fabric that I thought might work if I cut it up into squares the same size as the cross stitches (with a safety margin of course!) and found a few, not enough. I also joined some quilting groups to try to pick up the basics, but it's far more complicated than I'd hoped, and I got a bit overwhelmed, so procrastinated on the project. Also was put off when I looked at the price of sewing machines now!

Dad died before I made any progress in making the quilt. I still have the completed cross stitch birds. Part of me would still like to make the quilt. Or turn it into a wall hanging. But not confident about learning the new skills needed to do it. Wish I had @Back in the fold s attitude!

 

[MuddyWaters]

Today was sunny. It's rained here quite a bit lately. So, my wife and I went and took a walk down by the Chatahoochee.
Then, ......I took a nap. How's that for excitement!!!???

"I like to party, and by party, I mean, take naps."

 

[Back in the fold]

@AdoraBelle Dearheart I’ve always been that way . If I want to do something I jump in the deep end of the pool and go for it . Sometimes the results aren’t so great and other times I surprise myself and things are easier than expected . Don’t ever sit on your hands and wonder . Besides all that I get off on disappointing the inevitable naysayers that try to harsh my buzz .

 

[Back in the fold]

Today was sunny. It's rained here quite a bit lately. So, my wife and I went and took a walk down by the Chatahoochee.
Then, ......I took a nap. How's that for excitement!!!???

"I like to party, and by party, I mean, take naps."

You’re brave ! Isn’t that the river that Ned Beatty ran into a little trouble on ?

 

[MuddyWaters]

You’re brave ! Isn’t that the river that Ned Beatty ran into a little trouble on ?

No, it was filmed on the Chatooga river. I didn't see any banjos, so was ok.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

@AdoraBelle Dearheart I’ve always been that way . If I want to do something I jump in the deep end of the pool and go for it . Sometimes the results aren’t so great and other times I surprise myself and things are easier than expected . Don’t ever sit on your hands and wonder . Besides all that I get off on disappointing the inevitable naysayers that try to harsh my buzz .

I used to be like that. As a kid and in my younger years, I wanted to learn anything, and everything. Learned lots of things, tried lots of outdoor activities like rock climbing and abseiling, surf skiing, ziplines, military like obstacle courses, caving - I hated caving. The first time I did it, I hated it, it was the worst outdoor activity I ever tried, and I couldn't see why anyone enjoyed doing it. But still did it another two times because the opportunites came up, and I figured "go for it", because maybe I'd like it more the 2nd time. Or the third. Some things (like foodstuffs) you need to try more than once before deciding they're not for you! After the 3rd time I was like "okay, never again, it's not for me!"

Learned how to use poi and loved it, went on to learn how to do fire poi

I liked to face my fears and overcome them. Scared of spiders, so took every chance I could to hold a tarantula - even was the first in a big group to volunteer to hold a Goliath bird-eating spider. Largest spider in the world, took both hands to hold it, as the keeper sat next to me and it walked onto my hands. Then reared up, front legs in the air, looking absolutely terrifying. Heard the group gasp, all I can see is huge, gleaming black fangs on this huge, hairy black spider, and I WANT to throw it away from me. But we've just had a big lecture about not dropping it because of all those hairs. They throw hairs as a defence too, those hairs embed in skin, eyes etc, so I know I can't throw or drop it, keeper is talking to me, and group are loud, but it's white noise at that point as I resign myself to a bite, and trying to remember how venomous they are, is the hospital close...

Then it pooped on me. And settled back down. And everyone lost it laughing.

I've never been so happy, in a lifetime of keeping and studying various animals and working with animals, to be pooped on.

Learned about them to reduce my fear, and it does help! Reduces the fear.

Just not feeling so confident about my abilities lately. Would like to get it back.

 

[Back in the fold]

I used to be like that. As a kid and in my younger years, I wanted to learn anything, and everything. Learned lots of things, tried lots of outdoor activities like rock climbing and abseiling, surf skiing, ziplines, military like obstacle courses, caving - I hated caving. The first time I did it, I hated it, it was the worst outdoor activity I ever tried, and I couldn't see why anyone enjoyed doing it. But still did it another two times because the opportunites came up, and I figured "go for it", because maybe I'd like it more the 2nd time. Or the third. Some things (like foodstuffs) you need to try more than once before deciding they're not for you! After the 3rd time I was like "okay, never again, it's not for me!"

Learned how to use poi and loved it, went on to learn how to do fire poi

I liked to face my fears and overcome them. Scared of spiders, so took every chance I could to hold a tarantula - even was the first in a big group to volunteer to hold a Goliath bird-eating spider. Largest spider in the world, took both hands to hold it, as the keeper sat next to me and it walked onto my hands. Then reared up, front legs in the air, looking absolutely terrifying. Heard the group gasp, all I can see is huge, gleaming black fangs on this huge, hairy black spider, and I WANT to throw it away from me. But we've just had a big lecture about not dropping it because of all those hairs. They throw hairs as a defence too, those hairs embed in skin, eyes etc, so I know I can't throw or drop it, keeper is talking to me, and group are loud, but it's white noise at that point as I resign myself to a bite, and trying to remember how venomous they are, is the hospital close...

Then it pooped on me. And settled back down. And everyone lost it laughing.

I've never been so happy, in a lifetime of keeping and studying various animals and working with animals, to be pooped on.

Learned about them to reduce my fear, and it does help! Reduces the fear.

Just not feeling so confident about my abilities lately. Would like to get it back.

You need to go for a good rock climb . That will jump start you . I lived the rock climbing life starting when I was 16 up until I was about 48 or so and then just never went out again . I miss it sometimes and I still have my gear and I take it out and look at it and I put on my harness and shoulder my gear sling and play with my old rope and the rock calls . I will answer that call again . I have to . NOTHING breathes life into you more than looking down below your feet and seeing 500 feet of crisp alpine air and nothing else until the ground .

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Got to clear out mum's wardrobe and some other bits so the furniture can be collected on the 28th. Haven't started yet, but detrmined to get it done today.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Well, out of all the ideas, my band decided on the goofiest one, "Flight of the Green Elk," to be our name. So now I'm trying to design a Celtic Elk logo for us...

 

[Fishmanic]

What am I doing?
I just started the entry thread for Tank of the Month. For March, we are featuring tanks sized at 16 gallon and smaller. If you have that size tank, we hope you enter it in the contest.
CLICK HERE to view the entry thread.