Book Board Chat

I can't imagine meeting someone for the first time and telling them what they should do with their hard won bounty! Gad. I'm a fair weather gardener myself, which means here in Tassie I don't get bountiful crops of things I actually plant and tend, plus I work so don't have enough time. One of the things I intend to change when I retire.

Hey Patsy -- have a great day! Many more ahead we hope.

I'm not using eBay right now, but might have to start doing that. Apparently the next step is opening up parcel post but only if you have a special account to allow for payment of the tariff, which will of course mean shipping will be even more expensive.I already lose sales to the US because of postage so I don't suspect that will help.

Well yesterday I received the first book order I had to reject -- someone from Idaho ordered a book and I had to tell them there's no shipping available to the US from Australia for small parcels. No idea how long this is going to be a thing, but as Abe doesn't let you identify countries to which you can't ship I expect it's going to be an ongoing disappointment for everyone.

Thanks everyone. I should have clarified, I buy the Subterranean editions as investments; that book I paid $191 for is currently worth around $1000 and a reputable bookseller has a matching set of the trilogy, like mine, for sale for almost $Aus3400. I'm at the point where I'm considering selling some of my collectibles so I'm not sure if I need to keep buying books purely as investments. I could buy a lot of "reading" books for the cost of the collectable duology...

I have a dilemma. As I near retirement I'm cutting down the number of books I buy, but I'm still buying books related to the ones I own -- for example if I have part of a series, I will buy the rest of the series. My dilemma is this: I have all the Subterranean limited editions by a collectable author, and a new one is coming out. Back in 2017 when I bought the first one it cost me $Aus191 plus shipping; if I buy this new one, which is the first of a duology so I would have to buy both, it will cost me $Aus287 plus shipping. Thoughts on whether I quit now or keep going?

Felicitations Jane from the 3rd!

And today we have our first real frost, feels like -5.5C right now.

Welcome to winter in Tasmania -- my fruit trees are budding, my sweet box has both berries and flowers and my chickens are so confused by the weather they haven't laid for months.

Happy birthday to our Webmaster!

Not a lot happening down here -- well apart from the accidental cat, the water tank that started leaking when we put some water in it which means replacing two tanks and winter is almost here. It's been unseasonably warm all through autumn, so all the hens around here have stopped laying because it's all too confusing apparently.

Felicitations Jim!

Glad to hear you're getting better Diane -- enjoy your birthday 🙂

Thanks Jane, had a lovely day.

Thanks Jim. Because the board is now on Australian time today is in fact the 17th and thus my birthday 🙂

June It's not a glitch, obviously the site has been set to Australian time 😉

Happy birthday June, hope you have a great day. Glad to hear you're feeling better Diane.

AnnI don't really want to go down the $100 every month route I was on with the cats, I don't have the ~$10000 for the imaging and surgery but I also don't want to have to put him down. Talk about rock/hard place.

You okay Diane?

Soo, after my elderly cats died I decided to get two young dogs so as to spend less time at the vet. Not actually working the way I hoped. The puppy came with an eye condition that turned out to need surgery, the older dog had undiagnosed anxiety -- and now it turns out that he has a fairly serious musculoskeletal issue. I've done one set of x-rays ($800 thank you very much), and now they want to do more x-rays, an MRI and he may need surgery. Apparently conservative management (pain killers) only works on puppies. He's not even 3 yet...

Diane It was February 1st yesterday -- here 😉 We're at the beginning of a heat wave down here -- not really bad temps comparatively but very high for us, peaking tomorrow at 35 degrees. I haven't seen Girl Scout cookies for years sadly.

May you all have a great holiday season

Apparently you're not alone -- 2 weeks without posts. I'll be thinking of al of you and wishing you all the best.

June I think that was it, he posted here a few times from memory.

Sorry to hear Jane, I hope it was easy for her. Also sorry to hear about JoAnne and her family; I see her second son has retired to Florida. Sort of glad her elder son died before her, not for her but for him.

Have a great day and a great year Patsy

Cool, just checking.

DianeHey there, you okay? Bit worried after your last post vanished.

Wow Patsy -- 7 greats! That's a lot of descendants 🙂 I miss the BB as well but nothing would make me use FB I'm afraid.

Hey Jane, hope you have a good one!

Our house has basically doubled in price since we bought it -- 10 years ago. Mainly because there aren't that many places with acreage selling.

I've been working from home for about 15 years now, and wouldn't have it any other way. I can work whatever hours I like, as long as I'm available by phone while the clinics are open. It's great in summer because, due to daylight saving, they don't open until 1030 my time, which means I can get a lot done while no one's ringing me.

Nothing much happening own here either, although I am firming up my plans for retirement, which is nice. Have to take one of the dogs to the vet, again, today, and work out how to catch the rat in the chicken run without the chickens springing the trap.

What Jim said!

You can see the whole world in an Emergency Department...

Felicitations Jim! This is working well for me as it's already the 14th here lol

Beth I think the biggest question is if the operation fails will you be worse off than you are now? If not, it seems there's little to lose by trying it seeing as the alternative is needing an aid to walk. And to be fair 35% is actually a low failure rate for a complicated surgery; might not seem like it but there are many many operations that have a failure rate way over 50%

Felicitations Diane! Hope you have a great year.

Hope he comes home soon Diane

Well it's the 7th here, so felicitations June!!

Hey Diane, I may have something for you if you're interested. Please email me at gmail with my userid if you're up for a bit of a challenge.
We're aiming for 36C tomorrow, which will be our hottest day all year; it's really dry here so keeping my fingers crossed there's no fires. Had a few changes on the property; we rescued a German Shepherd who has certainly shaken things up a bit! He's only almost 2 and very smart. Had a weird year with the chickens, no chicks at all, been a very long time since that happened. Also had my very first egg eater, which was a bit sad.

Patsy Indeed -- on my corkboard I still have a copy of the card (Back Stage Pass -- 2002 World Tour) produced by one of the Ohio members of the Book Board (regrettably I can't remember his name) when we all met up at, wait for it, an Outback Steakhouse, way back in 2002. They were all very amused by my comments on the menu, but I do remember coming back from the rest room and, in a somewhat exasperated fashion, pointing out that we don't have alligators in Australia.

Very sorry to hear that Beth -- here's hoping for prompt treatment and a fast recovery!

Patsy Oh no!!! what a nightmare, hope it's all resolved quickly and reasonably painlessly. Sorry to hear about the death but glad you had a great cruise

Ahh, yes, not that you mention it lol It is a nice picture.

I wondered why the post was blank -- I don't see a picture there

Thanks for that, learned a thing today 🙂

Ann Thanks but not done quite yet, almost 8 weeks at this point.
Diane I have to ask -- what's a dog trot house? Never heard that term before.

Patsy Almost at the end of a month long shingles attack, 'nuff said.

Gail Winter has made a surprise comeback this week, back to 2 degree nights and 14 degree days. The good news is we got a decent bit of rain with it; we really need our house tanks full as we're heading into a hot dry summer this year. Sadly I'm down to one cat these days, he's about to turn 17. We have however put a deposit down on a dog 🙂

Felicitations Patsy! Hope the cruise is going well.

Beth That's going to be very hard. Sad about the good stuff, here at least one major charity would come and pick up donations, especially if there's a lot. Don't know that I could give away my books though!

Hope you had a great birthday Jane!

I don't use social media so this is it for me, but I don't post too regularly as there's not a lot happening down here really. Winter has set in and as it's our wet season I've been staying in the warm mostly! Last lot of chicks for the year are almost ready to go though.

I worked out recently I haven't named a pet, apart from slightly changing a name, for something like 36 years... All of them came with names. The last animal I named was a kitten who was in a pet shop, huddled by herself in a bird box and covered in bird lice.

Here on a lovely Saturday morning, suddenly thinking about the morning chores on the BB

Good to hear Diane

Felicitations Jim

Sorry to hear that Beth, I would definitely miss having any cats too

Hey Kathleen!! Good to see you again 🙂 I was a bit worried about the hellhole comment as I don't remember your home being one of those -- but of course I wasn't in Harrisburg long enough to comment on the place itself lol Sounds like your children are both doing well, I hope you're all happy.

So I finally got to play with the mini chainsaw and it's pretty handy, especially for trimming back bushes. Because they're not thick branches it just needs to be oiled after use; I can imagine that having to continually oil it after 3 bigger cuts could get annoying but much better than trying to use secateurs for bigger jobs. I have one bush that needs regular trimming and it takes ages, this will be much easier. Definitely need safety glasses though.

Felicitations Diane! Hope you have a great day.
Ann Haven't had a play yet as I'm waiting for my partner to be free to give me a demo -- bit nervous of it TBH. Plus he came back from the shop the other day to say that you have to keep dropping oil on it, every third cut! Might be more annoying than useful but will let you know.

Thanks Jim, hope it was a good trip.
Diane Fingers crossed for your brother.

Thanks all, had a very nice day -- got a mini chainsaw! I can't use secateurs for anything more than twigs really these days and the next step up was the full size branch loppers, so this will be handy. Was too windy and cold yesterday to try it out but will give it a go this afternoon.

Felicitations to Gail and June!! The March birthday rush has started...
Glad to hear the house isn't badly damaged.

Gail Hope it's nothing serious!

We've been having yet another weird summer. For the second time this summer I have fruiting apples flowering, I'm only just starting to get tomatoes and my apricots are taking forever to actually ripen. To top it all off I lost two x month old chicks last week -- to cold. With a hen. In the warmest month of the year!

Our weather has been so weird that for the second time this summer fruiting apple trees have flowered.

I can also recommend "Trapped", a great Icelandic mini-series. The sequel was very good too.

That's great news about History of the World -- I don't have Hulu but no doubt it be available at some point! Love Blazing Saddles too 🙂

Can I assume you've seen seen Father Brown?

Oh and of course Cracker, with Robbie Coltrane, if you like your protagonists fallible.

Diane I don' t know if it's on either of those but I can highly recommend a mini-series called "River", starring Stellan Skarsgard. Wire in the Blood is a great series, as is McCallum. I don't know about the newer episodes but Silent Witness started off strong and has been going for a long time now.

Patsy Haven't sold on eBay for a very long time. I have a shop on AbeBooks but that's pretty much it. It's turning hot here, 29 C ranging up to 35C (!!!) on Saturday. That's very warm for here.
Diane I don't watch TV but if you tell me what kind of shows and movies you like I can certainly recommend something 🙂

Sorry to hear that June -- I had to do the same with my youngest, who was ironically both the one I had the longest and the one who was supposed to be last cat standing as he was tow years younger than the other two, in November. He was 15.

Sorry to hear that Jane, positive thoughts going her way.
A beautiful day here today, waiting for chicks!

May 2023 be a better year for all!!

JoAnne I agree with Jim, this seems the least likely place for your email to be taken from -- I do hope you don't leave, or come back if you, as places like this are very important for those of us who don't get out much. Sadly the police tend not to get involved as the laws in most places haven't kept up with what people do now.

Diane That's really good news on the BSL -- pity about the family drama...

That was definitely a lucky find Beth!

Hey Patsy, glad to hear you're safe and sound. Still in Australia, living in Tasmania now -- beautiful countryside and lovely place to be.

Felicitations Patsy! Stay safe

Diane Well his father lived to 99, his mother was 96 and his maternal grandmother was 101 when she died, and as far as we know he has no major health problems. He's got a pretty good chance of another 15 years or so I reckon 🙂

Being vaccinated reduces your chance of serious illness or death, but how much depends a lot on your immune system and if you have any pre-existing conditions. The worst part of being able to be infected multiple times is that the more times you get it the higher your chance of an adverse outcome. This is definitely not a get and forget bug!
I think the lack of news coverage of the ongoing pandemic is because people want to believe it's behind us and want things to get "back to normal". That's not going to happen sadly, we have a new normal we need to get used to, but it's a common problem that people like to think that if they ignore something it will go away -- combine that with "bad things happen to other people" and you can see why this hasn't been controlled.

Bugger Diane -- made it this far and then have the bad luck to catch it. Take care of yourself.

Happy birthday Jane 🙂

June I'm hoping my next cat will be a people cat. The closest I have to one of those is my Coon, but he's nearly 17 now and likes to be close to me but I wouldn't call him a people cat all the same.

Fingers crossed June; I introduced a girl to my two boys about 6 years ago and one of them still hassles her.

As my last move was from the very top of the country to the very bottom sadly it was an all in one move!

I used professionals when I moved down to Tasmania -- after moving ~45 boxes of books upstairs when I moved into the house I'd bought in Darwin neither my friends nor I were prepared to move them back down those stairs!
My two best removalist stories were: the gentleman who picked up and loaded onto a truck, above shoulder height, tea chests full of books that had taken two men to move it to where he picked it up from, and the guy who packed an open tin of cat food into a box that wasn't going to be opened again for over a week. In summer...

Felicitations Jim

Very sorry to hear JoAnne, but as you say he had been unwell for some time. So glad you have your other son with you now.
June Yes, Laurie was wellingtct and she was the Icelandic Pony lady -- I met her when I was in Michigan, along with AuntBlea and her husband and some others

Felicitations Diane!

Thanks JoAnne -- I suspect I'm one of the youngsters here but made it to 60 🙂
29 celcius here yesterday and aiming for 18 today. Welcome to autumn!

Happy belated birthday June!

JoAnne I've seen many people recover upon hearing they'll get an nasogastric tube; I've seen "unconscious" people spit out airways and wake up -- the human mind can be an interesting place to observe from the outside. I don't understand though why people would judge you...

JoAnne Hope things go well for your son, it's not a good time for more bad health news in your life ((((hugs))))

Felicitations JoAnne -- missed this yesterday, sorry!

Jude Yup, someone I met last year told me they weren't going to get vaccinated until there was an outbreak -- and now there is one and people have to wait up to 5 hours just to get tested. I tried to get my booster at my usual GP and couldn't get an appointment for three weeks, but fortunately the other GP in town had a dedicated immunisation clinic set up and I got it exactly 5 months since my second shot. The day before our borders opened and cases arrived here.

Jim The vaccinations don't stop people getting the virus, they stop most people getting very sick and dying when they do get the virus. The new variant is around twice as infectious as the delta variant -- the number of cases is doubling in around 2 days instead of the four it took delta. We don't yet have the data to tell if omicron is worse in other ways than transmissibility, but it appears to be able to bypass some of the existing bodily defenses against other variants. From the CDC website: "The current 7-day moving average of new deaths (1,180) has increased 8.2% compared with the previous 7-day moving average (1,090). As of December 15, 2021, a total of 800,939 COVID-19 deaths have been reported in the United States."
Over a thousand deaths a week. It's nothing like the 'flu