Today is cloudy, mild, and wet. It rained on and off yesterday, then stormed last night. Everything is still soaked.

I fed the birds. I've seen a small mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

More crocuses are blooming -- lavender, purple, white, and pale yellow. :D The grass, which in recent years has retained bits of green through the winter, is suddenly much more green with growing tips visible.

EDIT 3/5/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

It's mizzling rain again.

EDIT 3/5/26 -- I did a bit of work around the yard.

Many more flowers are blooming! :D There are buds of purple-and-white crocus in the rain garden and orange in the goddess garden. The first miniature irises are blooming periwinkle and red-violet in the tulip bed.

EDIT 3/5/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen a female cardinal at the hopper feeder.

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 "Books" in fantasy.

* Posted "News" in fem_thoughts.

* Posted "March Meta Matters" in fictional_fans.

My poem "Find a Way Forward" has been published in first_nations_freaks. 

Extreme weather is exposing a dangerous flaw in modern buildings

Most of us don’t see buildings as life-support systems. But that’s exactly what they are. We sleep inside them, work inside them, shelter from storms inside them, and retreat to them when the air outside feels like an oven.

People spend 90% of their lives in buildings, and those walls, roofs, and windows act as a protective ‘third skin’ from the elements.


Shelter is a survival need. That doesn't just mean a place to stay. It is primarily about protection from threats such as sun, heat, cold, precipitation, predators, etc. If it doesn't perform those functions, it doesn't count as shelter. In America, shelter is classified as a paid privilege rather than a human right. That's a problem already, but in the future, it will lead to many preventable deaths.

( Read more... )

Today is cloudy, cool, and damp. Yesterday it rained on and off all day, then stormed in the evening. As everything is still soaked, I gather that the intermittent rain has continued, and indeed there are chances of rain for the next several days.

I fed the birds. I've seen a small flock of sparrows and several house finches. I heard a killdeer calling in the fields but didn't see it.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 3/4/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I put out a fresh cake of peanut suet.

It's raining again. I'm hearing faint rumbles of thunder in the distance. It's supposed to storm again tonight.

EDIT 3/4/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

It's still raining on and off, with more storms predicted for tonight.

I heard a mourning dove calling but didn't see it.

I am done for the night.

EDIT 3/4/36 -- I did some indoor planting with my new seed-starting kit. I potted up sprouting seeds of Ambrosia apple, Ginger Gold apple, Pink apple, and yellow pear. I put 2 sprouts in each cell, 3 cells per variety, so 6 of each variety and 24 total. I don't expect them all to live, but that's okay; I have plenty.

The dibble that came with the seed-sprouting kit works quite well to make holes in the small space available. The tiny shovel on the other end is just the right size for the little cells; tedious to fill, but effective. If I wanted to do them all at once, I'd probably lay out all six trays and just dump seed-starting mix over the top, then brush it into the cells. I am less pleased with the Back to the Roots seed-starting mix. It's way too chunky for tiny seeds. I can still use it to pot up things like wildflowers, and the squash seeds will probably be fine too, but I want to look for a different brand.

I was going to use this video over the official submission, which is unlisted, for Metallica marching band winners for Marching Music Day, but Metallica listed the official one.

March is Women's History Month.  Here are some ways to celebrate it.  Here on Dreamwidth check out communities like girlgay, hooked_on_heroines, shes_awesome, fem_thoughts, or historium.


 

This is today's freebie, inspired by a prompt from gs_silva. It also fills the "ribbon" square in my 3-1-26 card for the National Crafting Month Bingo fest. This poem belongs to the series Alien Romance by gs_silva.

( Read more... )

Today is cloudy, chilly, and wet.  It's been raining most of the morning, supposed to clear up midday, then thunderstorms today.  A beautiful day to stay indoors and write!

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

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 3/3/26 -- i did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 3/3/26 -- i did more work around the patio.

I am done for the night.

The Poetry Fishbowl is now CLOSED. Thank you for your time and attention. Please keep an eye on this page as I am still writing.

Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "World Cuisine." I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.

I'll be soliciting ideas for cooks, fusion chefs, immigrant cooks, eaters, farmers, foragers, food scientists, inventors, recipe writers, famous figures in food history, cooks of disadvantaged groups who should have become famous, superheroes, supervillains, failure analysts, ethicists, activists, rebels, other people active in the food world, cooking, gardening, harvesting, foraging, preserving, writing recipes, discovering things, decolonizing diets, building or using kitchen equipment, conducting experiments, observation changing experiments, troubleshooting, improvising, adapting, cooperating, bartering, taking over in an emergency, discovering yourself, studying others, testing boundaries, coming of age, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, kitchens, restaurants, food trucks or carts, campfires, barbecue sites, laboratories, makerspaces, nonhuman accommodations and adaptations, picnics, grocery stores, farmer's markets, roadside fruit stands, U-pick farms, gardens, food forests, other places where people make food, world cuisine, ethnic cuisines, cookbooks, online recipe archives, permaculture, heritage diets, climatarian diet, traditional foodways, culinary archaeology, food sovereignty, drought-resistant crops, trial and error, ethnic spice sets, weird food, fusion food, secret ingredients, supplements that turn out to be metagenic, new ideas in cuisine, alternate agriculture, lab conditions are not field conditions, ethics of food, innovation, problems that can't be solved by hitting, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.

Currently eligible bingo card(s) for donors wishing to sponsor a square:

National Crafting Month Bingo Card 3-1-26

Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

An Army of One has to figure out how to feed a diverse, far-flung group of people who sometimes have special dietary needs.

The Bear Tunnels introduces modern principles to people in the past, including some aspects of food science.

A Conflagration of Dragons has the Six Races (plus the dragons) who all have different diets. This often poses challenges for the refugees.

Daughters of the Apocalypse has people trying to find and prepare enough food to survive, when city libraries are out of reach.

Fiorenza the Wisewoman uses herbs and healing foods to care for her village.

Frankenstein's Family features two scientists running a valley in historic Romania. Igor enjoys cooking and has gotten at least one of the werewolves curious about cooking the human way.

Hart's Farm is a community with food used as one of the popular bonding methods.

Peculiar Obligations combines Quakers and pirates in the Caribbean, among other groups and places, leading to a wide variety of foods.

Polychrome Heroics has ordinary humans, supernaries, blue-plate specials, superheroes, supervillains, primal and animal soups all of whom need to eat. Primal soups and high-burn soups often have special dietary needs. Comfort food and healing food are also very popular here. The Rutledge thread includes Kardal and his food truck Syrian Foods, along with references to Vermont, French, and hippie cuisines. Pain's Gray, Shiv, and the Finns are all fond of cooking too.

The Wandering features old people who drift back in time, the first of whom lands in Goa, India.

Or you can ask for something new.

Linkbacks reveal a verse of any open linkback poem.

( Read more... )

I decided Holi, Purim, and lunar eclipse didn't need this song. Maybe next year.

Today I set up a new label for the Sharpie Oil Paint Pen Extra Fine that I bought recently. I also took some other pictures around the yard.

( Walk with me ... )

My order has arrived from John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds. :D

( Read more... )

My willow cuttings have arrived! :D I will need to unpack them and set them up. My plan is to put some in water, which makes willow water, which can be used to root other things. I shall take cuttings from some dogwoods and other things here to see if this works. I also intend to put some willow cuttings in soil to see how that works. Since willows are pretty much the easiest thing to propagate from cuttings, and I have 3 of each color, I figure at least one of each should survive.

Willow is a keystone plant, supporting many other species. Early blooms feed bees. Birds like to nest in willows. Many species of insects, especially butterfly and moth larvae, feed on them. They also make great craft materials and, as mentioned above, spew out rooting hormones.

( Read more... )

Today is cloudy, cold, and damp. Last night it snowed a bit, then sleeted, and seems to have rained later. Now most of the ice has melted off.

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

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 3/2/26 -- I transplanted snowdrops from the parking lot to the white garden.

EDIT 3/2/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I set up a label with the new Sharpie Oil Paint Pen (Extra Fine) and took pictures.

I saw a squirrel in the trees.

EDIT 3/2/26 -- My red curly willow cuttings arrived, as did my order from John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds. I have set up two of the willow cuttings in water, one in potting soil. I also took a cutting from the fishpond mulberry tree and one from a red dogwood, which I added to the water cups to see if the willows will help those root too.

EDIT 3/2/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 3/2/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen a male cardinal chasing a female, and a fox squirrel at the hopper feeder.

I am done for the night.

Crazy Eddie's Motie News earned 101,841 page views and 6 comments on 28 posts during the 28 days of February 2026.

( Most read, commented on, liked, shared, clicked on, and saved posts at Crazy Eddie's Motie News last month behind the cut. )( Most read, commented on, liked, shared, clicked on, and saved posts at Crazy Eddie's Motie News last month behind the cut. )