The Wordsmith's Forge

Today is sunny and cool.

I fed the birds.  I've seen several sparrows, several house finches, two robins, two starlings, a male cardinal, and a mourning dove.

I dug the hole to plant the 'Fall Gold' yellow raspberry.

EDIT 3/20/24 -- I planted the yellow raspberry.
 
EDIT 3/20/24 -- We moved the 2 bags of cypress mulch from the trunk of the car, one to the Colorado blue spruce tree and one to the picnic table.

I've heard crows and red-winged blackbirds in the yard.

EDIT 3/20/24 -- I spread compost around the yellow raspberry, then added the jug and the label.

EDIT 3/20/24 -- I put the groundcloth around the spruce tree.

EDIT 3/20/24 -- I spread a bag of cypress mulch around the spruce tree.

As it is now dark, 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 "anything goes." 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.

Stuck for ideas? You can find prompts by ...
* browsing planned poems for Aquariana and the Maldives, The Big One, Broken Angels, Calliope and Vagary, Officer Pink and Turq, Pips and Joshua, or Shiv. (Some of these I've already done, so they're not all up to date, but others I haven't done yet.)
* browsing my Serial Poetry page for favorite threads or characters.
* browsing my QUILTBAG list, Romantic Orientations in My Characters, Sexual Orientations in My Characters, Gender Identities in My Characters, or My Characters with Disabilities for favorites.
* naming a poetic form you'd like to see written.
* picking a prompt from my current bingo cards: National Crafting Month Bingo Card 3-1-24
* picking some from the Bingo Generator prompt lists.
* looking up fun tropes on Fanlore.
* choosing an unusual word.
* plugging a favorite topic into your search engine and choosing a picture that looks interesting.
* anything short. I could especially use short poems today as other prompts are likely to run long.
* standalone ideas, if you're a fan of that rather than series.

What Is a Poetry Fishbowl?

Writing is usually considered a solitary pursuit. One exception to this is a fascinating exercise called a "fishbowl." This has various forms, but all of them basically involve some kind of writing in public, usually with interaction between author and audience. A famous example is Harlan Ellison's series of "stories under glass" in which he sits in a bookstore window and writes a new story based on an idea that someone gives him. Writing classes sometimes include a version where students watch each other write, often with students calling out suggestions which are chalked up on the blackboard for those writing to use as inspiration.

In this online version of a Poetry Fishbowl, I begin by setting a theme; today's theme is "anything goes." I invite people to suggest characters, settings, and other things of any type. Then I use those prompts as inspiration for writing poems.

( Read more... )

Red-tailed hawk with a rare condition is surviving, in part, due to 'love,' biologist says

With around 2.5 million of them flying around North America, scientists know a lot about red-tailed hawks.

But Angel, a red-tailed hawk in Knoxville, Tennessee, is getting the attention of scientists — and perhaps tugging at their heartstrings.

"I was like oh my gosh, that's a leucistic red-tailed hawk, that's crazy,” Connor O'Brien, a project manager and biologist at Window to Wildlife, told WVLT of first seeing Angel.

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Birdfeeding
Soundscape Videos
Today's Adventures
Review: Recipes from the World of H. P. Lovecraft
Birdfeeding
Philosophical Questions: Language
Today's Adventures
Birdfeeding
Sinking Land
Follow Friday 3-15-24: Crochet
Happy Pi Day!
Bengal Kittens Exploring
Birdfeeding
Hobbies: Boxing
Birdfeeding
Hard Things

I took a set of pictures around the yard recently:
Photos: House Yard and South Lot
Photos: White Garden and Wagonwheel Garden
Photos: Savanna and Prairie Garden
Photos: Flowerbeds


The March crowdfunding Creative Jam ran this past weekend with a theme of "Leadership." I have a poem drafted but not thumbnailed yet. All the prompts actually stacked together well this time. :D


All of the voting for the 2024 Rose and Bay Awards has concluded. These are the complete winners for the 2024 award season:



I'm doing the marchmetamatterschallenge this year. See my gather post and my entry under the first check-in post. I've been archiving previous meta and working on a new piece.
* How to Posts from the Past Year
* Meta Posts from the Past Year
* Review Posts from the Past Year
* Follow Friday 3-1-24: Meta
* Meta: Fandom Changes

* Meta: "Why We Need Thing" Part 1: Overview
* Meta: "Why We Need Thing" Part 2: Disabilities and Differences
* Meta: "Why We Need Thing" Part 3: Relationships
* Meta: "Why We Need Thing" Part 4: Episodes
* Meta: "Why We Need Thing" Part 5: Memorable Fanworks


There are three open epics at present.

"Before You Can Love Me" belongs to Iron Horses. Spotted Deer and Warshirt discuss oppression.

"The Simple Act of Caring" belongs to the Big One. Pips takes care of Bennett and Jules after the earthquake.

"Dealing with Historical Events and Characters" belongs to Dr. Infanta. She and her family explore the Great East-West Faire.


The weather was mild earlier, but the last couple days have turned cold. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a flock of sparrows, a small flock of house finches, a pair of mourning doves, a pair of brown-headed cowbirds, a male and a female cardinal, a robin, a dark-eyed junco, and a fox squirrel. Sedum, garlic chives, tulips, bluebells, and hostas are sprouting. Crocuses, daffodils, dwarf irises, forsythia, and blue grape hyacinths are blooming. Bluebells have flower buds.

This post includes several soundscape videos.  The cabin with rainstorm is my favorite, but the purring cat is also good. 

Recipes from the World of H. P. Lovecraft: Inspired by Cosmic Horror
Hardcover – July 25, 2023
by Olivia Luna Eldritch

( Read more... )

The March crowdfunding Creative Jam is now open with a theme of "Leadership." Come give us prompts, or claim some for your own inspiration.


What I Have Written

"A Good Objective of Leadership"
Friday, October 30, 2015
Summary: Cook puts Shiv in charge of the cookie-making team for Halloween.
433 lines, Buy It Now = $218


From My Prompts

Today's supper plans got waylaid, so we decided to go out for sushi instead.

As long as we were going out, we might as well pick up stuff we needed.  So we went back to Rural King for a couple bags of mulch.  It finally occurred to me to suggest getting some gloves to keep in the car for moving said bags of (often muddy) garden goods.  I also hit the plant stand again and picked up two dark pink peonies, a white one, a bleeding heart, and a yellow raspberry.

We stopped at Dairy Queen for dessert.  This month's special Blizzard flavor is an excellent mint chocolate brownie thing.  :D

County Market was last, for groceries.  I found a couple of houseplants in types I don't have, one large-leaf aloe vera and one prayer plant.  We stocked up on a few hard-to-find items too.

All in all, it was a successful trip.  \o/

Sinking land increases risk for thousands of coastal residents by 2050

A new study provides a new comprehensive look at the potential for flooding in a combined 32 cities along the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts. It predicts as many as 500,000 people will be affected by flooding alongside 1 in 35 privately owned properties within the next three decades, and it highlights the racial and socioeconomic demographics of those potentially affected.


Well, that sounds wildly optimistic. We already have problems with sunny-day floods that are rapidly increasing, and most of the coastlines are developed. Of course, this study focused primarily on sinking land, rather than on other causes like rising sea levels, so the optimism may come from the narrow focus.

Bear in mind that 40% of America's population -- 127 million people -- lives in coastal counties. That means even if they don't get their feet wet, their local economy, jobs, schools, infrastructure, friends, relatives, etc. will be impacted. If the coast isn't up a high cliff from the waterline, it's vulnerable to flooding. Based on humanity's choices, ALL the low-lying coasts are going under, and it's not going to take nearly as long as people think because it doesn't have to be permanently underwater to be unusable.