Jay Angler

Good Job of making a sphere look spheroid, Raven!

I've been working on pencil drawings of cylinder shapes. One was a tin with its lid offset. I managed adequately round, but my drawing lid isn't going to fit on it's drawing base, even though in real life they are a team. I am *very* much at the "don't sweat the small stuff" point. I am looking for the joy and fun of drawing - I'm trying hard, and exercising my brain/body connections, and consider it my artist's point of view that is important, not perfection. I have a camera if I want perfection!

My buddy just got kicked out of his house. His wife was hinting at Valentine’s Day plans and asked him if he knew her favorite flower. “Gold Medal All Purpose” apparently wasn’t the answer.

What do cartographers give to their loved ones on Valentine’s Day?

Compass roses.

source

My friend's flannel PJ's got chewed by a rat. I cut out all the good bits and made cozy covers for my hot rice packs.

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Jeans aren't normally my go-to, mostly because Hubby kept outgrowing his pants and the temptation to alter and takeover ownership was too great.

That said, I have started a "pre-mending" approach. I know where I'm most likely to have wear issues, and if I use a matching patch ahead of time, I can make it look like quite intentional reinforcing.

Once my son brought me a pair of pants and said the crotch was getting thin, could I patch it for farm use. I took the time to sew the proper shape, stitched it on neatly, and he wore them for another year as work pants. He said I'd done too nice a job for farm pants!

John C Daley wrote:oxbow pond - in Australia we call these 'billabongs'.
Natural Billabongs (Water Features)
Formation: They form when a river's bend gets cut off, creating a U-shaped, stagnant pool that fills after rain.
Significance: Vital water sources in dry seasons, teeming with diverse Australian wildlife like birds, fish, turtles, and crocodiles.
Cultural Importance: Deeply significant to Aboriginal culture, serving as spiritual sites and ancestral story repositories.

They also fill up gradually with dead plant material etc, eventually becoming rich soil capable of growing valuable crops. They are close enough to the water level of the river to provide "flood plain" that is capable of sucking up the flood water on flood years, decreasing the risk of more catastrophic damage down stream.

Billabongs aren't quite as good has having Beavers and beaver dams, but very close. The Australian Aboriginals knew a good thing when they saw it!

Sometimes it seems to me that some people are scared to try new things. The neat thing about SkIP is that it is organized from easy to hard, so you could spend several months doing easy things from the sand BB's of many areas, building confidence as you go.

I also know people for whom the thought of an "exam" raises their anxiety level. Earning BB's is not the same as an exam. You can try the skill 10 or 100 times to develop the confidence to submit your pictures for evaluation.  Any time limit is imposed by you, not by the program. The program will wait patiently until you submit for a badge.

If you choose to learn things that may directly save you money, you can make money by learning. It might not be a lot of money, but most education costs money, and the SkIP program can save you money.

Mac Johnson wrote:

I used several fermented foods to help with developing the microbiota necessary to digest this new food, also.  Vikings, Irish, and Eastern Europeans all fermented foods and drink heavily.

I agree that fixing ones gut biome is important, as also mentioned by Douglas Campbell.

The thing that doesn't seem to have been mentioned is that "wheat" today, and likely also "oats" are *not* the wheat and oats our ancestors would have grown or eaten. I suspect even the "potatoes" have been "improved" based on what benefits mega farms and large food processors, rather than benefitting human consumers.

This is more true in some places than others. My friend who has had to go wheat free was travelling in Northern Italy and found she could eat their bread just fine. Both how the wheat is grown, and how it is ground and baked may influence how digestible it is.