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Covid19 Day 33 Thursday April 30

The normal start with Coffee with Judy – slowly developing into a mini community – cannot wait for the day we can all meet in person.

Then I went to make sure everything is still OK at my store, where this guy hangs.

I will eventually share the full story of how I made this on this BLOGPOST

I spent time braiding a stampede string out in the sun and then came back in to start a new project in the afternoon sun!

In the evening I attended our small group “at” church – a nice deep conversation.

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Covid19 Day 32 Wednesday April 29

After Coffee with Judy, I went to set up a second laptop at Gina’s office so that she and a friend can both attend Zoom classes about massage work – two different courses – two different rooms.

 

We bought some topsoil/compost mix for the vegetable garden and Wilhelm started exercising his wheelbarrow skills.

I was able to spent most of the day finishing this piece of leather tooling.
The original art was a drawing a student of mine did in class about 30 years ago.  I never complained if they were drawing while I spoke – I knew that they were taking in everything I said.  I would hate to teach now in the age of cell phones!

We went for a walk around the block and I took this photo of the sunset.  For many scenarios the phone cameras do a really good job, but not sunsets.  I used a panorama shot for this, hence the straight wires that are now bent out of shape….

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Covid19 Day 30 Monday April 27

I had Coffee with Judy again.

In between things  I have been working on migrating my leather instruction blog to a new host – that will be ongoing for a few days.

Then I gave the last push to get this Bible box done.  It worked and I am very relieved.

 

On FaceBook I described the above photo with “Using the last bit of late afternoon sunshine to enjoy the last few drops from the bottle of Laphroaig while finishing the last few loose ends on a long tedious project!“

This evening I joined Gina for a walk around the block.  Luckily my feet are not toooo tender after the winter.  It was beautiful!

I then I still had time to use this 40 year old beast to cut my own hair:

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Covid19 Day 29 Sunday April 26

Started the morning slow.

Watched our church’s streamed service.  But I am disappointed in how they do it now:  It is not a real Live stream – they just stream a video that was recorded earlier the week.  And yet the dude still starts with “Happy Sunday….!”    NO!  It was Thursday or whatever when you said that. 

In these days of little human contact, we can only have virtual church services.  But then it has to be real!  Authentic.  Actually live.

Rant over….

I worked further on the Bible box.  Almost done.   

And I made a new batch of dried Boerewors:  Dried ground beef with a few spices in / extruded with a jerky gun / dried under a fan / left a few more days under the fan to oxidize / enjoyed!!!!

I did work out partly why I do not deal with this Covid19 situation so well.  Despite my constant supply of Droē wors. And a loving family.  And a creative hobby.  And so many other things to be grateful for.

I used to work for the Red Crass as phlebotomist and bloodmobile bus driver.  Every day was at a different start time, a different vehicle, a different location, a different role, a different crew.  

I did not realize how much stress this placed on my particular personality until my first day not working for the ARC :  I woke up and proclaimed loudly “This whole weekend I do not have to go onto the computer and figure out when I work with whom doing what!!!!”

And so I think that is also the situation now.  Today I decided to prepare mentally for maybe going back to work in a week’s time.  But this is accompanied by “…but it might not happen…..”.

I just don’t think I deal well with so many unknowns.

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Covid19 Day 28 Saturday April 25

Beautiful sunny day – all the way up to 22°C!

I slept late.

Then I took spices and vinegar to a butcher for him to make us some boerewors.  It works out a bit expensive, but it’s a big operation to make your own.

I took Wilhelm to the archery range again.

This afternoon we ordered takeout from our very favorite local little restaurant – they are having a tough time keeping head above the water in these times.

I had a major battle to get my leatherwork instruction blog to be visible after applying security to it so that the web address starts with https://    Even have an active ticket in to my host.   

So I decided in stead to migrate the blog over to Blogger – there are automatic ways to do it, but I am going to take the blog posts over one by one.  The new one does not look too bad and will be visible at    
https://leatherlearn.johan-potgieter.com/

I spent some time stitching the Bible box out in the sun!  

 

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Covid19 Day 27 Friday April 24

Day started with Coffee with Judy again – well, in my case breakfast…..

I made Welsh Rarebit for the family, made a batch of droē wors (photo later) and gave a big push on the Bible box – just stitching is left now!

I was able to go sit outside and do some of the stitching while Wilhelm put the final touches to the walls of the raised garden:

The day was ended with Wilhelm braaing, and doing veggies on the gril too….!  (No pics)

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Covid19 Day 26 Thursday April 23

Coffee with Judy again.

I took Wilhelm to the archery range and got some needed groceries.

To escape the news and listen to something uplifting, I played a two hour long video on YouTube using a high end speaker – the Three Tenors in London in 1990.  [And I got a big push on the Bible Box!]

More old things came to light – one of them a book by Burne Hoharth.   There was a photo inside showing the wall hanging I made from his drawing.  It was done on blue-wildebeest leather, somewhere around 1990.  I still have it.

We rounded the evening off with our Small Group from church sharing and caring for each other.

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Covid19 Day 25 Wednesday April 22

Coffee with Judy started the day – discussing spiritual things with a small group who are quick becoming friends.

After that quickly to my store to make sure everything was still OK there.

Wilhelm took advantage of the very nice day to make good progress on the raised garden he is constructing.  I find myself slowly getting very excited about this project.

I attended an online class again that Jim Linnell was presenting – one of my first lessons from him was also on feather making and this was the result:   (the top two someone else did – I did the two bronze ones and the bottom one was the demo piece Jim did in the class.)

 

I was also able to push some progress on the Bible box I am making – here installing the zippers while the sun streams into the room!  The sewing machine is hand-crank: pilling the handle all the way forward and all the way back makes one single stitch.

Later in the afternoon I took advantage of the good weather to take a nice walk next to the Mississippi river.

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Covid19 Day 24 Tuesday April 21

Funky day.

Started again with “Coffee with Judy”.

Then called my mom and helped her with her computer.

I did leatherwork and almost completed the beginner blog post.  When someone on Facebook said the could not open it……

So then a big part of the afternoon was spent with a service desk chat with my service provider.  Not resolved – they escalated to a technical boffin.

This afternoon I took Wilhelm to a local archery range so that he could practice a bit.


 

 

And I modified the neckline of the T-shirt I had on.   What the hell is the problem with men’s T-shirt necklines that they have to be so chokingly high!!!!   Just plain stupid!!!!  BUT scissors do wonders: