Your pendulum weight is out of adjustment. There should be a nut at the bottom of the pendulum bob weight. The weight rests on this nut. To speed up the pendulum, raise the weight by turning the nut; To slow the pendulum, lower the weight. If you are loosing 2 minutes per month, it may require one to two turns of the nut to correct. The adjustment is a trial and error procedure. Keep adjusting until it is right. Shorten the pendulum a bit and then observe the change for one day. A difference can be seen in shorter time intervals when the clock is considerably our of adjustment. I use a digital watch, one that I know its accuracy, and can make rough adjustments in periods as short as an hour. Longer time periods are needed as the adjustment gets nearer to the correct point. Careful: Be careful when adjusting the pendulum. Many of these old clocks have flexural pivots: The pendulum may be suspended by a thin flexible strip of metal (at the top end). This thin piece can be damaged if undue force is applied to it. When adjusting the weight nut, use care not to pull on the pendulum. The weight may hang on the pendulum rod from a hook at the end of the rod. You can lift the weight off the pendulum for adjusting if you wish. One other point: Temperature sensitivity. If your pendulum is not "temperature compensated", there will be a small change with temperatrure. Typically, it will gain about 1 to 2 minutes a month in winter and loose a minute a month during midsummer depending on the average temperature of the clock. How do you tell if you have a temperature compensated pendulum. A plain pendulum made of a single rod is likely not compensated. Compensation is done by using dissimilar metals with different thermal expansions, often brass and steel. Brass expands more than steel. The pendulum consists of a steel rod that desends to near the bottom end and then brass rods asend upward with another steel rod that descends to the bob weight. A properly constructed pendulum can be very accurate keeping time to a few seconds a month. Transporting or moving a clock. The pendulum weight should always be removed when a clock is to transported or moved. This is done to protect the fragile flex pivot and the verge, a wire form that fits over the pendulum and operates the escapement mechanism. The verge is adjusted by bending and can be bent out of adjustment if the pendulum is allowed to move beyond a limit point. Therefore, it is advisable to immobilze the pendulum for any move that requires tipping the clock case.

Depends on how hot/mild you like them. I favor chocolate habanero and fatalli peppers in flavor. But I also like a good ghost pepper hot sauce home made. Some like Hungarian hot wax peppers most big box and nurseries carry them more mild type of pepper.

I'm sorry, but garden soil can turn into a very undesirable growing medium when used in a container. And sitting a plant on a sunny window ledge can never be compared to an outdoor, full sun environment. The sun, filtered by glass, beams in from one direction only. Your plant sits with its back facing a dim room and with a ceiling overhead. Also, never put pebbles in the bottom of the pot under the soil. Mary meant for you to raise the whole pot up with something so that nothing impedes the evacuation of excess water. It could even be three coins placed so that the rim of the pot rests on the coins rather than flat on the plate.

Mint is super easy to grow but it is a constant battle with all manner of critter (slub, bug, bird - you name it). For anything in the insect range (I'm in Sydney and have a constant battle with green caterpillars) I spray with Pyrethrum. I grow a few chillies and haven't had any issues - but when the mint gets sprayed with Pyrethrum I do all the herbs in the garden. Are you sure that it's insects attacking your mint and chilli? We've had possums decimate parsley and chilli but leave our other herbs and veg alone - and each possum has it's one preferred herb/veg taste. The thing that I have seen with some of our chilli bushes was having crows visit and eating them - I couldn't believe that they'd go for Thai Birds Eye chillies - but they did. Good luck.