Thank you, Rocklun, I appreciate your kind words. 😊


I've gotten to where my hands hurt more than they used to, as well. When I'm carving Tan-Z, I use my palm gouge so the palm pushes more than my fingers. I also warm up the carving medium with a blow dryer. It makes it a bit easier to push through.


I'm not sure if I understand correctly, but if it's to better see where you've cut, I always stamp my transfer with sunflower yellow before starting to better see what's been carved and what hasn't. I can't imagine trying to carve thin lines without it.

If you use FB, this man tells stories about NH.
Lots of inspiration for planting, maybe?
His voice alone was enough to lure me in.

https://www.facebook.com/GraniteWhispers/reels/

The Alice C. Sabatini Gallery in the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library will be hosting an exhibition called "You Are Here" about maps and travel this Fall. I immediately thought of letterboxing and would love to host a program about letterboxing as part of the exhibit. Can anyone connect me with someone from NE Kansas who would be interested in teaching others about letterboxing?

Damn - the story about a group actually rejecting a boxers carves as "not good enough". I mean, I get it in some situations. Like going for a certification as a Master Craftsman but in letterboxing? Something meant to be a fun pass time?

Saddest words and I hear people say them all the time.... "I could never do that", "I don't have the talent for that", "I'm not good enough to do that". So they never do it and miss out on all of the enjoyment to be had right at the level they're at. Just who are you performing for?

Just because you can't climb Mt. Everest (or to be frank, even want to) doesn't mean you should let anyone stop you from taking fantastic walks. Carve your carve and know it's the best you can do THAT DAY and be proud of it!

I’m moving to north Chicago closer to Evanston in a couple weeks and wanted to see if there’s any kind of active scene or any letterboxes folks think would be fun to do once I’m a little more settled. The neighborhood I’m moving to doesn’t seem to have any (most are in Evanston) but there’s a smattering of parks and cemeteries nearby that don't seem to have any boxes and I plan to stash at least a few if I can find good enough hiding spots haha. Otherwise excited to be headed back to the Midwest!

I love this. Yes. Yes. Yes.

But interesting.

The audio is weird. For some unknown reason (see comments) the original language chosen is Dutch, but he's an American journalist speaking English. Choose Dutch (three dots upper right corner) in order to hear the speaker in his normal voice, in English. If you don't do that it sounds like it's fake. But it's totally worth it to hear Claude's response.

Sometimes it sounds normal without doing the above. :::shrug::::

"Journalist Shane Harris asked Claude how it felt about its use in the Maven Smart System for intelligence analysis and target selection."

This is how Claude "feels". He is troubled.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ahV6nQ-TATk

not positive but i think he lives in bedford, n.h.
he has some really interesting stories to tell. and that beard is wild!
smile

I plan to seek and hopefully find when I return from vacation. What say you fellow Texas letterboxers?

Fantastic carve. This would make a great tracker theme.

Looking for a recommendation for the best lightweight walking stick chair combo please!

I had it last summer. It had a very strong flavor.

GTO, I have the one seat with a corner cut out from my attempt and a coffin shaped pen stain on one side. I'm happy to send it to you if you are still interested?

Google “walking stick with chair”. You’ll see a ton of them, on Amazon and a bunch of different sites.

I WATCH HIM ALL THE TIME. HE IS GREAT.

While having the cane or walking assistance in such a product is useful, sitting on the seat can be tricky. The tripod legs require you to be precise with settling evenly. I can’t image it would be useful on a trail.

I saw someone using one once. It seemed pretty easy. I suppose it would depend on the ground they have available. From what I see online, many are designed specifically for trails.

K. Hopefully, someone can give you real world experience with a trail designed one.

May I ask a question?
(I'll assume you said, "Yes".)

Looking at five of your boxes, 389998, 389999, 390000, 390001 and 390002, I see you've given slightly different coordinates to the same general area and scant clues for each box.

Also, you have them marked as Word of Mouth.
Does that mean you'll give further information for each box?

my problem with those chairs, the seat is too low for me.

the overall length is too short for a walking stick or even a cane.

I'm not that tall but it's too short for me

I had a stroke about 8 years ago. I lost the use of my right (dominant) side. I bought store bought stamps previous to that, but I have always wanted to try carving.....

Jaxx

That's beautiful ❣️
You always carve amazing stuff ❤️

Ideas:
Mastering the Quill
Flourish of Ink
Vine & Ink

Condo

Thank you Orchid and condo! Appreciate you both ☺️ !

Well, my initial thought was to have a tracker but my second thought was that no one would sign up. 🤪 But you have convinced me it might work. I will say this to anyone reading this, it ended up being easier than I thought.

I’ll list a tracker and see if I get any takers. I do like your suggestions condo, I think I’ll borrow one 😉

Thanks

100% this!

I can honestly say I love every stamp I find. One of my favorite impressions is of a frog. It’s obvious that the carver struggled. You would never confuse it with ‘high’ art. But the quaintness and the apparent love and effort that went into it made it very emotionally satisfying.

Sadly it was a hitchhiker without the proper attribution so I never knew who the artist was. But I say, thank you brave frog carver, where ever you are - you made our day!

Go for it! Get a good carving tool and start carving. Your non-dominant hand can learn to do this. And it’s good therapy! :-)

After LCAB posted about maps, I was looking at our maps. It appears as though we have found two boxes in Texas. I have not letterboxes in Texas. 😕 THIS is why if we recycle a stamp to another state, we could retire the first plant and make a new listing. Do you have funds in states where you have not boxed -- for even been?

Nope. If something like that happens, I track it down and give the box the custom location of where I actually found it.

This is more of an "old" problem than a current one. You used to have to manually add a custom location to make sure a box that you found was listed in the correct place if it was later moved to another state, but I updated the website a few years ago so that it's added automatically whenever someone changes the location of a box.

There was no way for me to "backdate" this update since AQ never recorded when or where locations were changed so any existing errors stayed. But after the update, the problem doesn't happen anymore.

So fix the two boxes you found in "Texas" by adding a custom location and putting in the actual location where the boxes were found. Then... don't worry about it. The problem shouldn't happen anymore. =)

No need to clutter up the the database with multiple listings of the same box!

-- Ryan

Obviously the best option to fix this is a road trip to fill in your map!

Just an FYI post. Seems a little different this year......
https://ctparks.com/skys-the-limit-hiking-challenge