M Ljin

r ransom wrote:What i really like is something like the mandolin, but they are crazy expencive.

If I can learn the ukulele, is it close enough to the mandolin or lute?  They have strings, so it can't be that different.

Or am I dreaming?

I believe you can tune a ukulele to mandolin tuning. But the mandolin has four courses of doubled strings—so two of each ring out the same note at the same time. And I don’t know if most ukuleles can accommodate steel strings (which would make it more mandolin-like). Mandolin is also played with a pick which is unusual for nylon-stringed instruments. If you wanted to learn it as a step towards mandolin that might make sense.

As for lute, that is the entire family of instruments—all of the instruments above except the mountain dulcimer are lutes. It usually refers to ones with a rounded back but there are countless different kinds.

Absolutely do it! I believe in everybody learning something about music if they like it. And the ukulele is an instrument with a lot of potential.

I believe you can re-string and/or re-tune a ukukele to be similar to the portugese instrument. I am not sure the exact tuning though.

I have a baglamas, which was given to me as a gift. It had an oversized bridge and so I made and adjusted a new one and it sounds good now. It is easy to play too, a tiny lute with only three courses of strings. I am not sure how much it cost, but it was being sold as a touristy thing at a gift stand in Greece and the frets were worn so it might have been sold used. Some of them that I see for sale online are quite expensive comparatively.

If you are up for a woodworking project, this could be interesting. Banjo music can sound quite medieval, especially considering the short drone string:



On the same channel are guides to making an earlier gourd banjo, which as the name suggests is made with the skin stretched over the gourd, similar to the West African Akonting from which the banjo originated.

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL07R2cMG4rBy-OOI0jcOTb9FADdCBl7eg

A project that I’ve been contemplating is to make a banjo that instead of a skin, has a regular lute body but the same drone string and tuning…

I do hope this wasn’t overwhelming as music is my passion.

With all this talk of flying cars, why not bring up hot air balloons too?

Certainly I can share!

I soaked chickpeas until I could bite through (~36hr?) and then threw them into a food processor with olive oil and some water (all quantities eyeballed). I also added some salt. When they were turned into a batter-like consistency I added some toasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds (others should be good too—for a little variety) and an egg, and ground that again until the egg was all incorporated. This made it into a thick batter consistency. I then transferred to a buttered cast iron skillet and baked at 400 degrees.

I also set aside some of the dough and made some chickpea cakes on the stove with butter which were likewise delicious.

I think the best permie car is the one someone else is taking in the same direction you want to go.

I have never ridden one, but I have always thought that for a single person or couple, a motorcycle seems like a good option for efficiency. There is so much less bulk to it than to a car. I also believe that one should have adequate winter clothing as a rule (which for many might make certain forms of transport more daunting). I assume you could reasonably attach a trailer to it for hauling sawdust, wood, manure, etc. around.

I don’t really believe there are any convincingly “better” cars environmentally speaking. It seems to me like trying to have your cake and eat it too. I do think we can radically cut down on our transportation needs by living sanely, using our brains and being prepared, especially in winter time.

That is a good project!

I just made a loaf of chickpea egg bread yesterday (I have been avoiding grains) and it turned out good and similar in texture to what you are describing.

My tendency is to make a batter, butter or oil a skillet, and then pour the batter into the skillet and let it rise before baking. I think the bread made by this method tends to be of a better quality (not rock hard crust, better shaped, doesn’t turn into a pancake). The chickpea bread was unleavened so it was naturally dense. I believe less water generally leads to a denser bread.

Imagine harvesting food from a tree that your great grandfather planted, that your grandfather then climbed to harvest nuts from, that your father climbed and rested beneath, whose seeds your mother made a flour from to nourish you, that your son will feed your grandchildren from, that your grandchildren, when the tree dies will use the wood for shelter, the inner bark for medicines, the resin for fire-starter, the needles as incense in a ceremony for the tree and for the lives which the tree made possible. Such is the life of a people who live close to trees, intentional in their legacy.

-Ben Falk, permaculturist and author

https://medium.com/@benfalk/toward-a-tree-crop-culture-e599186b30e9

Maybe they weren’t Bradford pears, but whatever those street pears were, they were more than sort of edible.

They are like medlars or rose hips: they need bletting before they become edible.

I give this book 10 out of 10 acorns.

This book is transformative and I hope you read it. I thought after reading it for the first time, that no matter who you are, if you read it, the world will be a slightly better place for it. I think that everyone can find something in it that they need to hear. I thought of it like my version of the Bible, and only recently met another who thought of it the same way. Indeed Kimmerer does share a few very important stories from her culture and others, in the mythicological as well as distant and not-so-distant past, but still much of it is from her own experience and connecting directly with other people, with the plants and animals of her home as she mucks out a pond to restore a swimming hole, and so on.

There is a part of us that is still wild and vital and beyond the reach of the forces that would make us believe it is not real or not important. It is our own wild nature and it is the most important thing there is. For me, this book reawakened and reaffirmed the reality of this inner nature, reminded me that it is the true reality, not the stories that culture and our own minds cook up. It isn’t only within us but without too—this nature is continuous, running through all beings. Though its face be haggard, beaten, rough and torn, there is still a vitality lying beneath the surface, awaiting the conditions of the unfurling and springing forth of life. The plants still speak their names, those who know, to those who listen, all Nanabozhos, first humans. In mythological time, creation is perpetual, without beginning or end; the story takes place in this time, not the linear time of modernity—each of us can resurrect within us the humility of a  Nanabozho and learn again, from within this wild reality, the myriad true ways of being human again, without injury or incompleteness, to sit comfortably and beautifully within our original nature, as nature, holy in and of ourselves, remembering the green road, walking the lovely path, eating well of sweet fruits, giving well, sowing well of good seed, loving, giving thanks, receiving thanks in a myriad different forms and voices, in the milkweed calmly gathering of good stalks, in the oak-woods happily receiving, gathering, of good food, alive.

The last paragraph was my own philosophizing…

I also find mugwort a wonderful and essential wound-staunching herb—it always works very quickly, like yarrow, and helps with the healing. Oftentimes I don’t have enough yarrow in the house in the winter time but plenty of mugwort.