Cheri Sutherland

I didn’t notice anyone chat about 22 string guitars.

Perhaps they are extraneous to this topic though. If so, my apologies.

Just in case someone has one, they seem to be happiest hung on a “ U” hook screwed into a board on a wall.

The tension of 12 tight strings on their neck has a powerful pull. Hanging by the top of their neck, so a luthier told me, helps to support the neck and keep it from eventually bowing to the pressure.

I agree completely with those chums who have commented that strong sunlight is not a friend to our instruments.

When I was a child we lived for a time in a small beachside community. Folks there ignored Daylight Savings Time nonsense.

I know that I am “preaching to the choir, but it is a barking mad nuisance which needs to be discontinued!

Some may recall Paul’s post on “Spoons” which Burra taught him how to use. Daylight Savings Time is a huge spoon deficit for twice a year: when it starts and when it ends. A disruptor of probably many folks’ internal clocks.

Take it for what it is worth from an old healer (my daughter jokingly refers to me as “the friendly neighbourhood witch doctor ”) that jolts to one’s internal settings are not productive!

However, I have noticed that many Permie chums have far better sense than those in charge of cities, states and the federal government and big business folks.

Which is where one tends to find barnyard common sense…with the grass roots, less sophisticated by choice population.

Attached are pictures of a wool picker that I designed and built back in 2015. Actually, I built three and had plans to sell them until my life threw a wobbler-LOL.

Perhaps a few Permies buddies might want to make s ma similar one for themselves.

I have an iPhone, and it saves videos as .mov - if any can play .mov’s and want to see the videos of the picker in action, I guess I’ll need your email address. Or if a kind Permies soul would convert them so they could be posted.

The wood is hemlock: next cheapest to pine but stronger.

The nails are not stainless-I used what I had on hand.

The yellow strips on the underside of the head or carriage piece are from a bit of plastic sign material purchased at a sign shop.

The idea of making my own wool picker was one of those “necessity is the mother of invention” things.

A shrewd fellow sold me several bags if wool? Putting the good wool on top of each bag, and the impossibly snarled wool below. (Grrrr!)

I am accustomed to living within a small budget, so the thing to do was to dedign and make my own darned picker. I was NOT going to bury that wool in the garden, although the plants probably would have liked that idea!

The prototype picker was made with free wood that a kind neighbor pulled put from under his house (where he stored all of his extra lumber.)

I then made two more out of store-bought lumber (hemlock for strength and budget friendly).

The thing is that regular nails rust so thus has to be kept in a dry location.

My “Super Picker” as I called it, is roughly around 2-1/2 to 3 feet long.

One can get the idea from the two videos, then work up the dimensions from there.

I’m still recouping from successful cancer treatments which had to nearly got rid of me to get rid of the cancer…talk about tossing the baby out with the bathwater almost -LOL.

I only mention this to explain why my 2 pickers (I gave one to a friend) are in storage.

However if anyone wants specifics, I think one of the pickers might possibly be unearthed.

Being quite thrifty (think: a wee bit tight), aI have been scavenging free fiber for decades.

A few observations and take it fir what it is worth: an efficient soap is not necessarily good for scouring animal fibre.

Original, plain Dawn is a winner in the “cheap” category.

If wool is older than it was said to be, the lanolin will become horrifically sticky. That is not good. Bury it around your plants and search fir other wool to use for spinning.

I used to teach folks the basics of drop spindles and the first class having each person make their own with a slender dowel and 3 old CD disks-LOL.

Sure,  like a Schacht spindle better, but a homemade one is a good start fir messing about with a drop spindle.

Another thought is to not expose wool or other mammal fibers to boiling hot water. I have found that temperature extremes are hard on the fibers. And unless you WANT to felt wool, avoid extreme changes in water temperature.

If the wool has a problem which suggests very hot water or strong soap, then it is s gonber and unresurrectable. As cheap as I am, I do not say that lightly. But years of stubborn, sad experience have taught me what can be and what should not be scoured, picked, spun and knitted or woven. Some giber us too damaged, making the process a misery and the end product a crying shame and an utter waste of time.

At one time on the southern Oregon coast, I plopped a dark coloured plastic tarp over a small pile of semi-aged horse manure-a gift from a friend.. And forgot all about it.

Perhaps 6 months later, I remembered the good manure and removed the tarp, which had been held down with rocks (the coast has a lot of wind).

To my utter astonishment, many glittering pairs of eyes stared back at me. Good-sized garter snakes and LOTS of them. I have never seen so many n one place. All twined around each other.

And in the composted manure were red wriggler worms that had initially arrived with the manure.

It had been months and months since the old manure had been dropped off. I cannot know how long the snakes had been in residence, but there was no shortage of worms, all hough it was obvious that the fat snakes had eaten many.

This caused me to wonder if the worms had been able to reproduce quickly enough to keep up with the many large (well, at least for a garter snake) snakes’ appetites. If so, quite a feat of reproduction on the part of the worm colony!

By the way, I carefully replaced the tarp and left the successful little ecosystem as it was.  

By (rainy) winter the snakes had left for a dryer accommodation.

What a wonderful condensation of the history of puddings. Thank you!

This is probably utter heresy, but after watching my mother fuss over her Christmas pudding every year, and then going through triumphs and flops with my own for decades, I finally arrived at a solution.

Using one of my grandmother’s baking moulds which have lids, the pudding in the well-greased
Mould, with the lid clamped securely on is placed in the Instant Pot.

I am feeling a bit silly realising that I cannot recall how long the pudding was steamed, but it came out fragrant and moist.

This technique allowed me to focus on preparing the rest of Christmas dinner without checking the pudding’s progress.

Happy Christmas to all!

The late Bill Rich, often referred to as “The MSM King,” figured out how to heal the very serious burn scarring which had gone from his ankle up to his knee on one leg.

The burn had occurred when his snubnose fan was in an accident in the van caught fire.

He couldn’t get out of the van until rescue arrived and by that time the skin on one leg had been very badly burned.

I knew Bill well and Hhe had been one of my cluclients, when I was working as a full-time natural health consultant. I learned a lot from him and he learned a bit from me.

Bill had been a Volkswagen mechanic but the scarring on his leg was so painful and unyielding that this tough little man would be in tears by the time he walked from the service bay to the parts area and back. He had to giveup his job.

I truly believe there are no coincidences. He was meant to discover what MSM could do. He was given a job sitting behind a desk in a tiny store front and he was the guy who took your money when people came to buy some health products.

DMSO was fairly new on the market back then, and MSM is what might be called an offshoot of that. MSM is a powder. It has other hellful uses bur I’ll should probably confine my gobby self to the scsr issue-lol.

I’ll keep the story as short as I can. Bill started mixing MSM powder with a high-quality food grade skin cream. He had nothing better to do in the long hours in between customers, so he would sit there and rub it on that burned leg every day to see if it could help.

It took time, but bit by bit the scar was replaced by healthy pink tissue. And by the time that had met him and was working with him, all that was left of that entire scarring was a very, very tiny light pink line. You had to look hard to see it.

MSM powder has to be mixed thoughtfully because it will take, much like DMSO, any impurities that it’s mixed with right into your bloodstream.

So you would want, I would say, a food ingredient, quality cream.

Bill had also sustained, I believe, a badly broken toe in the accident, but they were so horrified over his leg that no one bothered to check out his feet.

The toe where it joined his foot periodically bothered him for the rest of his life. When I would walk in to see him, he would have me go out to the showroom and pull off some MSM powder and a bottle of his high grade lotion. I would mix the two right in my hands and then slather it into the foot which was hurting. It always helped him.

He was walking, talking Proof that MSM can heal scar tissue.

That would be my best recommendation. I send
you my love and my best healing wishes.

Oops (blush).

The overly literal “dummy” I was referring to…is ME.

Struggling to complete my two cents’ worth on smallish cell phone screen, with cell phone’s alarm going off reminding me to take a time sensitive pill right then was what caused the lapse in an explanation.

I would never want to refer to my fellow Permies as overly literal dummies (cringe). But as for me, I definitely struggle with that, and sometimes utterly misinterpret something that was said or described.

Small example of potential for embarrassment: over 50 years ago now, in a college science class lecture being conducted in an auditorium.

The professor started out by introducing himself, and in his introduction (back in the ‘60’s), he mentioned that he had a hog.

Intensely interested, I raised my hand, wanting to ask him what kind of a hog.

Fortunately, others also had questions, and he dd not call on me. I slumped down in my seat, embarrassed and feeling like a total dummy, and so grateful that I had not been called upon and become the laughing stock of the entire auditorium when it transpired that the professor’s “hog” was his way if trying to appear hip and cool to his students by referring to his Harley-Davidson that way.

Actually, I was aware of the term, my recently become former spouse and I having ridden often with one of the chapters of the Hell’s Angels. Former spouse’s family was on a first name basis with Sonny Barger (no one ever referred to him as Ralph that I ever heard).

And me, a straight, clean young woman (too young) who had nothing in common with these folks except the ability to remain firmly on the back of a motorcycle-lol.

Like Bilbo Baggins, it seems that I too am someone to which things happen. However a rich past has not improved the disability of taking communications too literally and heading off n entirely the wrong direction far too often-sigh. Probably no hope for improvement in the future either as I find myself at 75 years young and counting.

Hence, my hope for such clearly drawn, straight forward step-by-step instructions on willow feeders that even I cannot misunderstand.

(p.s. All I can do is try to treat others and oneself gently, and reverse direction with as much grace as possible whenever a course correction is needed-lol.)

I too would appreciate s kickstarter for a comprehensive willow feeder how-to. Particularly for one in the house.

Hopefully including lots of step-by-step plan images (for dummies who struggle with being too literal when it comes to words). A series of pictures to enhance a text description is invaluable.

Another item on my wishlist would be to nclude a big list of different additives that can be combined with the poop. So everyone could hopefully find at least one thing on the list that they have access to in their part of the world.

And how to endure that there is no smell in the room of the house with the willow feeder in it. Obviously, one won’t have any areas in the siding for a breeze to blow through -lol.

Thanks, Nicole!!!

Yes, you were spot on. I followed your advice and discovered that I had already purchased this great little book in July!

Well, two extra purchases can be my way of cheering Raven on.

It’s a bit odd to discover what “chemo brain” means by living it. Months and months after the gruelling battle and after being declared “in remission” (which I choose to believe is a permanent remission), I am still not back to my former problem solving brain power. I will probably continue to become bumfuzzled and flummoxed for a bit longer.

We are the dedicated ants. Either with shoulders to those rubber tree plants, trying to move them (as the Bing Crosby lyrics go) , or accumulating tge vital information for the day when we can put our shoulder to the rubber tree plants to learn and world!

Thank you to the dedicated and hard working Permies staff and the contributors! Many, including me learn new things every day!

Okay, I made a boo-boo - lol. I hope you can fix this for me. And I apologise for the boo-boo!

I wasn't sure with the "gift" verbage on Raven's book offer whether I would receive the .pdf as well as the giftee. I have the curse of being too literal and was bumfuzzled by the only button to buy indicating this would be a gift for someone.

Well, any road, I ordered a copy and then checked my email to see whether I also had received a copy. No.

Okay, being terribly excited about receiving this information, I ordered another copy, putting my name as the giftee. So I was the giftee AND the gift-er on this one.

A little later, acknowledgements arrived regarding both copies ordered. And two emails, each with the link to get the .pdf.

But I have bamboozled the system, it seems. No matter which of the links in the two separate emails (for the two separate orders) I click, the system will not deliver because it senses a "duplicate."

I feel like a moose on a disco floor. A bit clumsy and just a little bit silly.

Hoping to be rescued and very embarrassed,
Cheri

p.s. I'm cheering Raven on, hoping that she will decide to write an expanded version using food as household cleaners. I would DEFINITELY purchase a copy if she does, and next time I promise to try very hard not to bamboozle the system again!