Leisure without study is death; it is a tomb for the living man. ~ Seneca

Heinlein has a similar quote about lifelong learning being the secret to a happy life. Certainly something to it. Or at least I feel worse when I'm not learning about something.

Lately it's been trying to chase down information about 17th and 18th century airguns and modern PCP airguns and the internal workings. I kinda want a modern globe reservoir that looks like it's from the 18th century. What about you? What have you been learning about?

The Lewis and Clark PCP always fascinated me. Thats as good a subject as any. It would be cool to have one.

Right now I am (and I know this will be shocking) studying mushrooms. 

I have an old oil immersion microscope that I received from my Grandfather before he passed that I would like to use to study the spores of different species. Not sure if it will work for mycology as im not sure how to measure things with it. But either way it should be fun.

More generally this year I've been learning to edit audio. I'm... passable at it now, but always learning something new with every episode. Along with that is podcast co-presenting.

I've learnt a lot about slinging, despite so little practice this year, and feel I'm actually a lot better slinger than I used to be. I just need to convert that into competition points...

Later today I'm going to be learning something new and meeting new people. I'm going along to a reenactment group for pole weapon training. To be honest, I'm using it as an "in" to introduce more people to slinging and work towards a Finnish slinging team for the next competition. They are more Viking reenactors so I've also contacted a Roman reenactment group to see if I can get them interested.

That's something I am learning really: the power of actually making the effort. For a lot of this year I've just been inside on my computer not interacting with people. I can't blame just Covid for it either. I've learnt a lot about myself in this time "alone" but I now need to get out the house and interact. The Ibiza competition really showed I'm capable of it and, despite my protestations that I'm an introvert, actually really enjoy talking with people and sharing ideas. It really lit a fire in me to actually contact people and find/make new slingers in Helsinki. I can't keep complaining about slinging alone if I don't do anything to fix that. So I'm fixing it.

    I'm learning more about vegetable gardening than I knew before.  Squash Bugs were a new experience for me and not a good one. 
    With my old garden at my last residence I didn't have to pay attention to which plants needed direct sunlight. Here it's an issue. 
   Next year I'll plant crops that are OK in filtered sunlight in the back plot; plants like radishes, turnips, beets, and stringbeans.  I'll plant the crops that need direct sunlight like tomatoes and peppers in raised beds in the front yard where there is full sun almost all day.  I have to skip planting cucumbers and squash for a year so the Squash Bugs die off. 
Edit:  I've never done raised beds before.  This will be another learning experience for me.