Forum Activity for @robin-thompson

I'm glad Elvis had good final months, @mary-z-cox !  Enjoy Charley!  Pets are family.  <3

Thanks for asking. Elvis passed last June at 15 (he had a tumor on his aorta & finally his back broke) but he had an excellent last year with several beach camping trips & a fall mountain excursion in which he was able to escape and join old man McCalls bear hunting dog pack for a night of intense hound excitement. (they were poaching on our land) But he was like a puppy until the last month or two.  We have been 9 months without a basset & just got Charley last week.  He is one of the most intelligent puppies I have ever seen & Bob & I feel like new parents again.

Keep picking,

Mary Z. Cox

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That's real cute, Mary!
Do you still have either of your previous two bassets?

That dinner looks great too.  :)

What Rojo said and elegant.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Wow they are fantastic. Confident woodworking

That has happened up here in Ontario, too, Ken. The city was actually tending towatrds a ban on single-use plastic bags until the pandemic started, then they switched to recomending them, and now we have switched back. Trudeau the Lesser had said he wants a nationwide ban on single use plastics sometime soon.

Hi ... I finally got my first shot of the M vaccine on Tuesday. Sandie got her shot of Pfizer on Sunday afternoon. In each case the line was not long. (In between us the age-based eligibility for a shot went down from 75, me, to 70 and over, her.)

This dulcimer is all walnut. There is absolutely no luthier information.  I got it in Berkeley, CA via craigslist.

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Your stories of having to constantly go back to the car reminds me of the husband who never left on a trip in the car with his wife without having to go back to the house so she could make sure the iron was off.  He solved that by always taking the iron and putting it in the car before they went anywhere.  Saved making a lot of trips back to the house!

I'm popping in to agree to the time zone comments.  I've attended a few workshops at 7:30 am (I'm on the west coast), but when I was registering for  Quarantune 3.0 I basically decided that for the most part I wasn't going to consider the first and second sessions, the earliest of which started at 5:30 am for me.  I did do one super early one that presented Scottish melodies, which my husband approved of (I warned him beforehand)

There were some folk from the U.K. attending in the wee small hours, and I applaud them!

They look very sweet Venni!
I've had a rabbit or two during my lifetime of pet keeping, too. 

Yeah Ken I remember that but only for the first several months of the pandemic, when very little was known about how the virus was typically spread. At first it was thought to be spread mostly by touching, hence the bag ban.

I think we may see the end to automatic hand shake greetings. When you think about it, it's the best way to spread germs and get colds and flu anyway. I'm all for changing it permanently to fist or elbow bumps, or just waving or nodding hello when being introduced.   :) 

For a long time our grocery stores would not allow us to bring our own bags in to the store. I think that restriction has ease now, although the last two times I went to the grocery store, it was only to pick up prescriptions.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

I got into the habit of getting my mask on in my car before going into a store early on. What took me much longer to get used to was when I started using reusable shopping tote bags for the supermarket.  lolol!
I kept leaving those totes in the car ...until i got so fed up with having to walk back to my car, it finally became automatic to tuck them under my arm upon leaving my car. Old habits are hard to break!  Feels really good nowadays to not have all those awful plastic grocery bags to recycle. If everyone did that it would save a lot of sea creatures. I get plenty enough plastic bags from saving bread bags and using those every time i need a plastic bag.  :)

i just found this thread. I too have John Maxwell  made in the Upper Cumberland Craft Center.  Wooden pegs and it is marked # 2332.

Pat

At least you weren't Karen's and not masking Dusty and both realized at the same time and went back.  What has struck me in this is how entitled and brazen some people are thinking that they don't have to mask up or that they are above the law when it is mandated.  As I have said countless times on my personal FB page, if you can't throw on a mask for a quick shopping trip, then don't go.  We have to wear one at my job for nearly 8 hours a day save during break when having lunch.  Enough of my rant and roll on masks and not wanting to cause a stir - just sharing my own take on it.

I went to Home Depot the other day, and as I was walking towards the entrance, I saw another gentleman walking up as well.  We both saw each other and said "Oh, crap" (or something similar) at the same time.  Neither of us were wearing our masks, and seeing the other guy reminded us of that. So we both turned around and got our masks out of the car.

The CDC is saying that vaccinated people can gather unmasked in small groups with other vaccinated people. But since my wife and daughter have not been vaccinated yet, I'm not risking anything.

I've been double jabbed, and still only unmask outdoors and not around crowds outdoors at a park or farmer's market.

My second shot was Feb 1st but I still haven't been inside anyone's home or large crowds. As we stick our toe in to test the water maybe we will all get a little braver. I don't have a secure feeling about being in larger crowds. I will still be taking precautions like before. I don't think there's enough data yet on how well we will do at shedding the virus. I've read so many different articles and the one thing I can say is it's all clear as mud. I don't think I've had brain fog like Jan, but if I had a dollar for every time I've had to walk back to my car because I forgot my mask I could buy another dulcimer. Good luck to all and stay safe. Hope Vinni is getting better.

@james-phillips Like you, I'm no fan of injections either yet barely felt mine-- yay!  Other than tending to a medical emergency in a relative's apartment nearly a year ago, I have been in no one else's home in over a year.  Even after my second injection has kicked-in (a couple weeks after the injection itself), I will still take appropriate precautions.  So glad you got through the brick walls and got your first vaccine!    

We finally, after running through a bunch of brick walls to get an appointment (odd as with working for Dart, we fell into Phase1B of IL's rollout of the vaccine) had the first appointment on Thursday.  I am a screamer for the most part with getting shots, and warned the nurse, and she understood.  She cleaned the area, and we made small talk about her working for Carle, which was the hospital doing it, and she then said "All done".  Did not feel a thing.  I felt a bit tired and irritable yesterday, so nothing to be afraid of.  With regards to how it is affecting me, even though before all this it was becoming a real hassle to get to her house every Sunday, we had not gone to my Mom's in a year for our Sunday lunch and Scrabble game after.  I do miss it as well as just visiting.  I was never a huge traveler so it didn't phase me as it did others.  The most into Champaign I actually have gotten was when I went to the Carle facility doing the Covid vaccine, otherwise I for the most part stay in Urbana save for going to the music store for guitar and ukulele restringings and supplies.

That's just plain bizarre , Jan. I hope you (and your husband) stay well despite that strange brain lapse you had. 

Apparently my brain's starting to turn to mush.  I had some in-person business to take care of with someone and went to their house and sat in the living room with 4 other family members and not one of us were masked, nor did anyone think about wearing a mask (I had one in my purse) the hour or so that I was there.  The 4 year old went from person to person and we all loved some on their cat.  I think I had been home an hour or so before I realized what I had done.  I hadn't visited in anyone's home for most of the past year and wouldn't have gone on a social visit.  I almost never leave the house except to use drive-thrus at the bank, library, etc.  My husband does all the grocery shopping and other shopping.  Anyway, I was glad I had already gotten my first shot 3 weeks ago...I will get the second one Saturday.  

Wendell, there's a listing on Facebook market place that shows a pamphlet by Keith. Not at all sure it's 'the one', but I've not seen anything else. 

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Great news Ken.

Venni: I wish you a good and speedy recovery

@ken-longfield I hope you are doing well after your second vaccine and side effects are minimal for you!   

Well, the second shot is in the arm. Two weeks from today I should be good to go although I will keep wearing a mask out in public. In two weeks our daughter, son-in-law, and two grandsons will be here to visit. Can't wait for them to visit. We have a lot of planning to do for our trip out to Yellowstone N.P. in late June and early July.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

May the wind be at your back...oops, that might be impossible both ways.  Good luck!  We're getting excited, we will be eligible for our age group here in WA as of 3/31.  Soon!

Ken, be safe on your drive!  Hope all goes well with your vaccine! 

Ken, be brave and fight your way through the gusts like the true warrior you are.

I agree pretty much with Ken Hulme; especially the need to change the slots in the nut and bridge. Depending upon how sturdily built your dulcimer is will determine how well the nylon strings work. Have fun experimenting.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Venni, that's sad.  May God help you heal from this devastating illness very soon.  

In about 20 minutes I am off to receive my second vaccine shot. Can't wait, but I will have to fight strong winds and gusts on the way.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

Venni, I am saddened by the news of your contracting Covid19. Best wishes for a speedy and complete recovery.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

I have about six different house plants that I call the Elders ...I've had them for about 14 years. They are problematic to repot, either because they are large and fragile, and/or because they are cactus covered with sharp spines.

Three of the Elders I managed to repot about five years ago, and they'll be fine for a while yet before needing another repotting. But the other three had not been repotted in all those 14 years, and I really needed to stop putting it off.

Last week I bought the pots and various soil mixing ingredients I'd need to do the three plants and yesterday I spent much of the day repotting those last three big plants, with some muscle help from my husband.

The easier two Elder plants are matching "Red Chestnut" bromeliads in the living room window. They are each about 3 feet wide and 2.5 feet tall not counting their pots. They have no spines (thank goodness) but are easily damaged when moved around, and hard to hold and manipulate with all their fronds splaying out in all directions.
I managed to repot both of them thanks to the fact that they are not very heavy and also because I pruned a LOT of lower older fronds off before beginning the repot.
I found their roots were actually real small and the old soil was pretty useless. Being epiphytes, they don't actually need 'soil' per se anyway, and I set them up in some nice bark-y orchid mix in their beautiful new pots. I had them out on the lawn for this procedure, and sprayed them down with a gentle hose which removed old dust and probably hydrated them during the trauma. They do look sparser now what with my having pruned many lower leaves, but I think they'll do well once they settle into their new digs.  :)  They get watered by pouring water into their main cup 'leaf vase', not by watering the soil. But it's important the orchid mix is kept damp during the next few weeks while the plants are adjusting to the repotting stress, so their little roots don't dry up and die.

The last Elder repot job was the absolute nightmare project that I've put off for 14 years. This was the candelabra cactus (really a succulent) in our bedroom on a table by the window...that was now four feet tall and three feet wide with stiff branches all over the place and horribly painful nasty big thorns everywhere. We have some very heavy leather fireplace gloves like gauntlets, and the spines go right through those too if you don't also use a big towel. !  The other big problem was the sheer weight of the thing- in the pot the entire plant seemed to weigh about 50 pounds- I could barely heft it three inches off the table, much less carry it around.

I had a choice for this one- I could make it easier on us by drastically pruning the whole plant by a third or a half, but because the branches are all thick this would look like a real butcher job and it would kind of be a shame to ruin its spectacular look. OR, I could get my husband's help and try it without pruning. If the big branches started breaking when we manipulated it, I might have to just prune everything down anyway. 
More in the next post on how we managed to repot the huge cactus...

Venni, truly, I hope you recover and feel better soon!  

I hope you recover soon and feel better Venni. That sounds awful.

I got my 2nd shot 10 days ago, so in 4 more days I should be well protected.. such a good feeling. I can't wait to visit my vaccinated friends in person!

I did experience a very unpleasant day of side effects after the 2nd shot- felt quite sick and confined to bed for a day and a half. But it was a small price to pay, and I feel great now. 

I encourage all who use the forum to help support it.

It's really simple. If you enjoy the forum and it benefits you, you really ought to support it. A lot of things in life are note free, and the forum is not really meant to be a handout. After all we pay for other things we enjoy--groceries, pro baseball, movies, concerts, bowling, dulcimers, dulcimer festivals etc.

So sorry Venni to hear of your disease. COVID is wicked. Take care of yourself and get well soon.