The crossvine (Bignonia capreolata) on our front fence is happy to greet the Spring. This Texas native does well in sun or shade, is evergreen during mild winters, and blooms repeatedly throughout Spring, Summer, and Fall.
This sounds like a plug for the crossvine, but it is not a paid promotion. This is honestly one of my favorite plants in our yard. It is a superstar.
My Barbershop chorus has an electric pitch pipe that is quite versatile, and quite large. It doesn’t fit in a pocket very well and although it comes with a stand, it doesn’t have a way to carry it hands free. We did have a lanyard loop stuck on the back with double sided tape for a long time, but then the tape gave out and the pitch pipe fell to the floor. So I came up with a mechanical connection.
The back of this kind of pitch pipe removes with a single screw. Use the smallest drill bit possible to drill the hole through the thick section of the plastic. Head pins are available in the jewelry section of most hobby stores, as are split rings. I used a clip-on strap from a small purse.
I wear the pitch pipe over one shoulder, which puts the device in easy reach of one hand and keeps it off to the side. One of the benefits of this method is that the pitch pipe hangs straight down and easily rotates, which makes dialing in the pitch and pushing the button easier.
My eldest noticed an anomaly on her snake’s lip and took him into the vet for a look. It turns out it was just a loose scale, not mouth rot or any other number of horrid things, but the vet did suggest keeping his container at 50% humidity and making him a shed box full of damp sphagnum moss.
When I put the shed box in his container, I put a black piece of material around it to make it more inviting. He still didn’t like it and found his way back to his other hole with the wet wash cloth.
At least he now has choices, and I’ll keep replacing the washcloth with freshly damp ones, and misting the container. His eyes are currently cloudy, a sign that he is getting ready to shed. Eventually his eyes will go clear, then he’ll shed within a few days.
The 1895 era American Conservatory bowl back mandolin I purchased a couple months ago finally has new strings.
I was nervous about restringing her, but she was quite supportive for the whole procedure. Mandolin strings have a loop at one end of that hooks onto raised metal tabs. I changed out pairs of strings, one set at a time, so that I didn’t move the bridge. I used cheesecloth to wipe away the dust, but did not do a deep clean or try anything aggressive.
I am also experimenting with alternative tuning. I tuned to DGBE, as the top four strings of a guitar are tuned. These notes are lower than typical mandolin GDAE tuning and make the strings softer to press. Plus, it might make learning chords transferable to guitar. So far the mandolin is accepting the new tuning, and when all the strings are tuned, she still resonates with my voice. New strings take a long time to settle in and require frequent tuning. I will also keep a close eye on her construction to make sure the new tuning doesn’t cause stress damage.
In February of 2017 I did an egg apron experiment for a friend with chickens. I made three kinds of egg apron from simple white cotton fabric that I had in my stash.
The experiment was interesting. The round bottom apron was hard to get the eggs out, the pleated pockets were nice, but if you leaned over too fast the eggs rolled out, and the harvest apron didn’t keep the eggs separated.
Now, with three of my own chickens and one or two eggs, I just use my pants pockets. Even when we had more chickens the aprons were more of a pain than helpful. Egg baskets are a more practical solution.
Critters and Craft 