Seven Years to Make a Piper

C minus 2 days and counting. I just can't make myself practice.

'Course, I have a lot of other stuff to do. Family, RS meetings, Scouts (to which nobody but me showed up), lessons, work, family. Sleep. Not necessarily in that order, but it's close enough.

I can't make myself get nervous, either, so that is good.

And a lot of stuff isn't getting done. And Daughter #2 is going to speak to me about how this family is eating. I hope she is not expecting me to provide gourmet 4-course dinners, 'cause I just don't have time. She's not here, anyway.

Marjie was getting bored to tears just sitting around recuperating and watching DVD's, so I dug out my great-grandmother's hand-pieced quilt and took it over to her and 'splained how to quilt it. She is doing swimmingly on the quilt! I forgot to give her the little present I had for her. Have to bring it over today after work.

Daughter #3 needs new underwear and a bicycle helmet of her own.

I did get a sea sponge and wet it and inserted it into the moisture control system of my pipes. Also dried out the kitty litter (and burned a hole in a ceramic plate doing it!) Also hemped all my drone joints until I can hardly move them. Only just.

Drones come in 2 or 3 pieces, and to get them to fit together tightly, so that no air leaks out--air that you are blowing frantically into them--the custom is to wrap a piece of hemp string around the smaller of the 2 connecting pieces to make the 2 pieces fit together very tightly. Also traditionally, in order to make the hemp stay where you put it, you coat it, or buy it pre-coated, in beeswax.

Pipe maintenance is happening! Playing is easier, especially striking in and cut offs. If only I'd known, I'd have done this long ago. The things you learn.

After I added hemp to the drones, I had to adjust the drone reeds, as some of them refused to play under the additional pressure. I'm trying to play easier. Trying, but not necessarily succeeding.