I Love Finding Stuff Like This!

   Shew! Is everybody surviving the heat? It's so hot in our house. Ken and I have been grateful for our 'Fun Days' just to have a chance to relax in some air conditioning! Our cats don't seem to be bothered by the heat, and the turtle is probably glad winter is over, and reveling in the warmth. 

  We got our second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine earlier this month. I still want to say that I fully support getting the vaccine so we can kill this virus off. I do have to also say that we had somewhat the same reaction this time as the first time. We both ended the day with fevers, and the next day we felt bad, (but not as bad as the first time.), and slept on and off all day. (Well, I did. Ken had to go to work in the evening.) My fever wasn't quite as high this time, (The highest it got was about 102.8 this time.), but I think I actually had a bit of an hallucination. I was dreaming that Fuzz, (who has moved out again), was here, and that there was a giant screen TV at the foot of my bed. Fuzz was standing behind it, and we were talking about the show that was playing. I woke up, but thought it was still happening. I couldn't get my eyes open though, and kept calling out, "Fuzz! Fuzz?!" It took me a while to realize that I don't have a giant screen TV at the foot of my bed, and that Fuzz wasn't here. I did finally get myself straightened out, and it was at that point that I decided I needed to do something about my fever! I got a wet wash cloth for my face and drank a lot of water!

  On one of our Fun Days recently I found this amazing thing.

It's a miniature wheat thresher!

Threshing machines are used to separate the wheat from the chaff. In other words, it separates the seeds from the stalks and dry, inedible stuff that covers the seeds.

Put the wheat in the funnely bit at the top...I think.

It's slightly smaller than 1/6 scale, comparing it to Tammy World, the doll 11 year old.

Both of them are a bit deep in the grass.

But I'm not going to be too picky. I love things like this. Who would have thought I'd come across a mini threshing machine?

"You put the wheat in here?" Yes. Now step back.

I'm not sure what that little flippy handle does. It doesn't turn all the way, just wiggles back and forth. Fuzz says it opens and closes the hole in the funnely thing.

"Like this?" Will you please?!

There's a handle on both sides there.

The other handle actually turns, making the wheel turn. 

"This handle?" Yes!

If I had some miniature wheat I could really...thresh it? (Yes. That is what it's called.)

"And this paddle thing inside turns?" Yes! Keep your hands out of there!

"Why?"

I think the hole is just so you can see the paddle thing. I don't think real ones have the hole.

The  wheat slides out on this slanted part.

I don't see how putting the wheat in the funnely thing gets it to the tumbly drum thing.

  At first I was  wondering, why did someone make this, and if you went to all that work, why would you donate it to Goodwill? Was it made for a school project? If so, that was one talented school kid. It seems very professionally made, but it's obviously handmade.  Then I figured out that it's made of bamboo, not wood. I found a similar one on line, also made from bamboo. It had some kind of Asian writing on it. (Mine has no writing.) Considering it's Asian origin, is it not a wheat thresher, but a rice thresher? Do they use things like this for rice too? If anybody knows anything about such things, let me know. 

The Perfect Tiny Tree,and the Imperfect Doctor

  My friend Lori and I went to Kentucky on Saturday to pick up her new horse trailer. When we got there we discovered that she had the wrong kind of hitch and would have to have it removed, and buy a new one and have it installed. So we went home trailerless. However,when we stopped for lunch I found this branch on the ground at the restaurant. It makes a perfect tiny tree!

It would make a great tree next to a little haunted house.

It's probably almost 2 feet tall, I think. (I didn't think to measure it until just now.)

The girl siting in it is 4" tall.

I thought of having my 'Huckleberry Fuzzy' pose in it.

This is the polymer clay boy I made, which has been named after my son Fuzzy. You can see his 'Day' HERE.

But I just rearranged my desk drawers a few days ago,and the old thing about putting something in a safe place,or a better place, and then not being able to find it still holds! I couldn't find the clear box I had put Huckleberry Fuzzy and some other dolls I made in The really stupid thing is, it WAS in the drawer I thought it was in! It was just hiding under the miniature Rockem Sockem Robots that I need to repair,and I didn't see it...until later when I was rearranging some other stuff and put something in the drawer! Typical!
 

So I had to use a stand in. The girl sitting in the tree is an unfinished  doll I've had sitting around here for a while.

She's only had one boot painted so far.

Her head, arms, and boots are made of paper clay. She has a wire armature. I think when I get her finished she'll have braids and be wearing a green plaid dress.
  I had another appointment with my useless doctor yesterday. A thyroid level of what is called THS should be no higher than 5. That's the highest it should be. My gynecologist said he liked his patients to be somewhere around the middle,2.5.Yesterday's doc showed me my records, which showed that my thyroid was over 8 when he started me on the medicine a couple of years ago. It has been various numbers, down as low as 4.something at one time, but was recently back up over 5. I told him I'm still feeling choked and having trouble swallowing sometimes,and have had a couple of fluttery heart instances since he upped my medicine by one half a pill once a week.(My cardiologist's assistant seemed to think that was hardly worth the trouble.) I insisted that something is definitely going on in my neck. He said my thyroid couldn't be enlarged or he'd see a goiter.I'm not sure that's strictly true. When I insisted again that something is going on in there, and that it was suggested at the cardiologists that I have my thyroid ultrasounded,he finally relented and agreed to send me. He also had to be pressed to do something about my medication, since he only raised it half a pill one day a week and I'm still having trouble. As it is he only raised it another half a pill one day a week. I also had to remind him after he logged in the new prescription, that if he was raising my dosage I would need more pills a month! He had to go back and correct it! Why don't I just take care of myself at this rate!
  He also made another fat crack this time too:"Are you trying to lose weight?" "Yes..." "What are you doing to try to lose weight--eating more?! Ha!"

I am so sick of that guy.