Dicamba Drift

A farmer actually won a lawsuit over herbicide damage.  \o/

All herbicides will drift, but not all are equally damaging when they do.  Modern ones will damage or kill mature trees, let alone flowers and vegetables.  When I was little, a 10' strip around the edge was enough to protect everything else in the yard.  Now things right next to the house get killed sometimes.  

Food Forest

This one is in India, and it started on barren land.  This is the kind of thing I mean when I say that humans can make soil faster than nature.  It's just not that hard to patch over a bare spot.  You heap plant matter on it and wait for the stuff to rot.

I've seen at least a couple of examples in Terramagne where people made food forests, sometimes starting from clearcut or farmed-out land.  If you know what you're doing, you can make it go pretty fast.  If you don't know that much, just pile up as much organic matter as you can get and wait for wildlife to shit seeds into it.  You always get fruit that way.

Pesticides

 The Environmental Economic Protection Agency is approving highly dangerous pesticides.  These are on average much worse than earlier ones -- more deadly, and more persistent in the environment.  The whole biosphere is contaminated with chemicals by now, but let's not make it worse.

Organic Gardening

 Some tips to make it work better.

Monday Update 3-9-20

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Journalistic Neutrality
Birdfeeding
Inclusive Leadership
Community Building Tip: Underground
Birdfeeding
Self-Awareness Question: Second Chances
This VUCA World
Today's Smoothie
New Crowdfunding Project: Nature of Form
New Crowdfunding Project: I Was a Teenage Creature
Birdfeeding
Cuddle Party


Last week's Poetry Fishbowl generated some good prompts.  I am still writing.


Poetry in Microfunding:

There are two open epics at present.

"To Be Something Stronger and Better" belongs to Polychrome Heroics: Shiv. Tolli, Shiv, and Caroline hang out in the workshop after the sculpture show.

"Pride Against Prejudice" belongs to Polychrome Heroics and has 46 new verses. Find out what happened to Aconite.


The weather has been mostly mild here, blustery today.  Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a big flock of assorted blackbird species, a big flock of mourning doves, a flock of sparrows, several cardinals, several dark-eyed juncos, a downy woodpecker, and a squirrel.  my_partner_doug saw a black squirrel too, not our usual fawn-colored fox squirrels.

Brunch Recipes

 ... for Easter and Mother's Day.

Magpie Monday

dialecticdreamer is hosting Magpie Monday today with a theme of "honesty."  Leave prompts, get ficlets!

I’m hoping to earn $150 in tips, and if I do, I’ll post a new story with Heron visiting the Broken Angels. The story is 7500 words, which doubles the number of posted words for the value. More stories equal more fun!

If it's the one I'm thinking of, the perk story is really cute. :D

Poem: "In Some Home Neighborhood"

This poem came out of the March 3, 2020 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from ng_moonmoth. It also fills the "Pie" square in my 3-1-20 card for the Food Fest Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by ng_moonmoth, fuzzyred, and janetmiles. It belongs to the Broken Angels thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.

Warning: Do not read with mouth full. Hilarious supervillain fluff ensues.

( Read more... )

Notes for "In Some Home Neighborhood"

These are the notes for "In Some Home Neighborhood."

( Read more... )

CRISPR Trial

 ... in hopes of restoring vision by correcting faulty genes.  I am surprised and pleased this got through; it's almost impossible to get approval for human gene editing.

Intern Abuse

A routine problem with higher education is abusive intern practices, but this one takes the cake: charging people money to be interns.  If it's gone this far, maybe it really is time to ban the whole internship idea.

Seriously, colleges are starting to behave so abominably that it's getting embarrassing to have gone to one.