Sounds of laughter, shades of life

Today is cloudy and cooler, but still unseasonably warm.

I fed the birds. I've seen a flock of sparrows and a male house finch.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 2/19/26 -- I saw a fox squirrel at the hopper feeder.

EDIT 2/19/26 -- I refilled the hopper feeder.

I raked off the leaves from the goddess garden. There I found one lavender crocus in bloom along with many more sprouts.

Oddly the honeybees are not visiting the crocuses as usual. Instead they are nosing around the seeds in the hopper feeder. Go figure.

EDIT 2/19/26 -- I started raking leaves off the daffodil bed on the east side. So many shoots now!

EDIT 2/19/26 -- I finished raking leaves off the daffodil bed on the west side. Just as I wrapped up that activity, it started drizzling rain. *sigh* I was hoping to gather up leaves later and put them somewhere, possibly behind the log garden.

EDIT 2/19/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

My seed starting kit arrived! :D What makes this awesome is that it comes with its own light system. That means it's not restricted to window use; it can go anywhere -- within reach of an outlet if we use a USB wall wart, or wherever else with some sort of battery pack. It will be interesting to see how this experiment works out.

While I was heading to the mailbox to fetch that package, it started raining again. There are puddles in the street. But then the sun came out, so I looked around -- and glimpsed part of a rainbow to the northeast. Naturally I trotted up the road in pursuit of a better view. It was a bright, full rainbow with a partial double on the outside. :D 3q3q3q!!! Definitely one of the better ones I've seen. I got a lot wetter than was strictly necessary, but I so don't care.

EDIT 2/19/26 -- The rain let up.

I did more work around the patio.

I raked up the leaves left from the rain garden and dumped them behind the log garden.

EDIT 2/19/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I raked up the leaves left from the daffodil bed, filling the trolley twice, and dumped them behind the log garden. Then I raked the leaves away from the front of the log garden and dumped them behind. This revealed a lot of shoots, mostly grape hyacinths with some crocuses mixed in.

I heard honking overhead and saw a skein of geese flying north. :D

I am done for the night.

This year I'm doing Community Thursdays. Some of my activity will involve maintaining communities I run, and my favorites. Some will involve checking my list of subscriptions and posting in lower-traffic ones. Today I have interacted with the following communities...

* Posted "Esbat" to dreamwidth_pagans.

* Posted "Climate change" to environment .

* Posted "Books" to ethical_society_of_satan.

* Posted "Birdfeeding" to birdfeeding.

* Posted "Gardening" in thefreaksclub.

* Posted "Gardening" in veg_life.

* Posted "Music" in tfc_musicianships.

NASA fired three rockets into the northern lights and the results are stunning

NASA has pulled off a high-flying aurora investigation, launching three rockets into the glowing northern lights over Alaska. One mission targeted mysterious dark patches called black auroras, while the twin GNEISS rockets created a 3D scan of the aurora’s electrical currents. All rockets reached their planned altitudes and returned strong data. The result: an unprecedented look at how these dazzling light shows are wired from space to sky.


That's such a cool concept for an experiment!

Thanks to a lot of work from fuzzyred, the landing page for Not Quite Kansas is now visible!  \o/  It's dark fantasy with demons and angels.  You can read the introduction and the previously published poems.  This series is featured in our current Half-Price Sale if you want to see more.  fuzzyred is hosting a pool in case you want to magnify your impact with the quarter-price option.

Humanity has “lost the fight against climate change”.

This video looks at lost opportunities to fight climate change, and the shitty circumstances that humanity has created. As bad as things are now, this is the least-worst they will ever be again within a human timescale.

( Read more... )

Naalbinding

I maintain that this is the class that most people take multiple times. So many of my friends have tried it, thought they had it, then two days later it was gone. I was one of those, so I have collected the websites that got me past it. Am I an expert? Heck no. But my socks have all stayed intact so I'm running with it.
I know exactly one stitch. I'm fine with this.


Are you desperate for a way to say "fuck AI" nowadays? Learn a historic craft!