One Green World Order

This is another favorite nursery that didn't send out a paper catalog this spring.  Birds and other wildlife adore caneberries.  If I plant enough, then we all get some. :D


One Green World

Marionberry Blackberry
$12.95 in 3.5" pot

Marionberry Blackberry is the standard by which we judge Blackberries, this very popular variety is named for Oregon’s Marion County where it was developed by legendary plant breeder George F. Waldo from both wild and domesticated stock. Marionberry has the beautiful color and large size of Boysenberry, plus the delectable taste of wild Blackberry. Marionberry ripens in July and makes THE BEST jam and pies.


Cascade Gold Raspberry
$12.95 in 3.5" pot

Cascade Gold makes an excellent addition to Fall Gold for deliciously sweet golden raspberries all season long! It’s the golden road to unlimited raspberry devotion! These are floricane, also known as June-bearing raspberries.

John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds Order

This is one of the later-arriving catalogs.

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Burpee Order

Another late-arriving catalog, but this one had a couple of great finds.


Burpee

Raspberry, Caroline
Caroline delivers two bumper crops of sweet, firm red raspberries; first in late June and then from August till frost. 5 bare roots.

Hollyhock, Country Romance Mix
A blend of rose, white, maroon, yellow and pink, large 3-5" single flowers are produced abundantly on stalks 5-7 ft. high from July to September. 4 plants.

2025 Rose & Bay Award Winners

These are the winners for the 2025 season of the Rose &  Bay Awards:

Art: "Anubis & Bastet ☆ Pharaoh's Guardians ☆ Plush" by Kayla AKA
Fiction: "Feathering the Nest" by dialecticdreamer.
Poetry: TIE between "The Neurodiversiverse: Alien Encounters - A Sci-Fi Anthology" by Thinking Ink Press and "The Haiku Foundation" by The Haiku Foundation
Webcomic: "Bronwyn: Short Story Collection" by Isaac George
Other Project: "The Mending Circle" by Martin Nerurkar
Patron: mama_kestrel for "Magpie Monday" by dialecticdreamer

Poetry Fishbowl Open!

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 "Yes, actually, it IS that bad." 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 troubleshooters, activists, rebels, Women Who Run with the Saberteeth, explorers, traitors, exes, people who escape domestic violence, refugees, runaway youth, escaped slaves or other captives, housemates, siblings, parents, teachers, clergy, police, soldiers, leaders, superheroes, supervillains, teammates, alien or fantasy species, failure analysts, ethicists, stray or feral animals, other people who get into dire situations, protesting, rebelling, rioting, planning, panicking, throwing in the towel, escaping, running like you stole something, adventuring, hitchhiking, quitting school, divorcing, disowning, betraying, teaching, leaving your comfort zone, discovering things, conducting experiments, observation changing experiments, troubleshooting, improvising, adapting, cleaning up messes, cooperating, bartering, taking over in an emergency, saving the day, discovering yourself, studying others, testing boundaries, coming of age, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, preparing for the worst, expecting the unexpected, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, returning home, war zones, wastelands, trails, sailing ships, campervans or RVs, distant lands, the forest primeval, prehistory, liminal zones, schools, homeless shelters, prisons, hotels, churches, sharehouses, campfires, laboratories, supervillain lairs, makerspaces, nonhuman accommodations and adaptations, stores, farmer's markets, starships, alien planets, magical lands, foreign dimensions, other places where disasters happen, cataclysms, climate change, the end of the world, S-risks and X-risks, unhappy relationships, protest rallies, slavery or captivity, locks or chains, travel mishaps, sudden surprises, the buck stops here, trial and error, weird food, secret ingredients, supplements that turn out to be metagenic, intercultural entanglements, asking for help and getting it, enemies to friends/lovers, interdimensional travel, lab conditions are not field conditions, superpower manifestation, the end of where your framework actually applies, ethics, 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:

Tolkien Fest Bingo Card 3-1-25

Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

An Army of One has some serious challenges between the Galactic Arms.

The Bear Tunnels introduces modern principles to people in the past, in hopes of preventing genocide.

A Conflagration of Dragons features the Six Races struggling to survive as the dragons take over more and more territory.

Crystal Wood is about how the mass death of trees can wreck civilization.

The Daughters of the Apocalypse has people trying to find enough resources to survive, when former cities are unsafe.

The Moon Door explores a women's chronic pain group and lycanthropy.

Not Quite Kansas deals with demons, magic, and other mayhem.

One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis follows Shaeth as he works on becoming the God of Drunks after quitting as the God of Evil. Addiction always has the potential for disaster.

Path of the Paladins includes some really awful situations due to divine politics and mortal foolishness.

Peculiar Obligations deals with Quakers, pirates, and organized crime.

Polychrome Heroics has ordinary humans, supernaries, blue-plate specials, superheroes, supervillains, primal and animal soups all trying to get along and figure out how to make a functional society. Among the more relevant threads are Berettaflies, the Big One, Dr. Infanta, Iron Horses, Officer Pink, Shiv, and Trichromatic Attachments.

Schrodinger's Heroes has a lot of situations that can destroy things, up to and including whole dimensions.

The Wandering is a series about fantasy time travel where people loop back within their own lifespan.

Or you can ask for something new.

Linkbacks reveal a verse of any open linkback poem.

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Grand Prairie Friends

Grand Prairie Friends is our local nature organization, currently managing about 1200 acres of land around central Illinois. The biggest is the Warbler Ridge Conservation Area at 1059 acres. Some is actual prairie with native grasses and wildflowers. Some is a mix of upland forest and riverbottom; we have multiple riparian zone patches. If you're in the neighborhood, drop by for a hike, forest bathing, or some creative inspiration!

Here's an update on federal funding in the current situation -- it's okay for now, and backup plans are in place should it disappear. There are links where you can donate or otherwise support the cause if you are concerned about its economic safety and/or just want to support healthy habitat.

How are your local nature organizations doing now?

Birdfeeding

Today is cloudy, windy, and mild. It was 63°F last I looked.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a large mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, several starlings, several mourning doves, two male cardinals, and a squirrel running through the trees above the house yard.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 3/4/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

As today is the Poetry Fishbowl, I am done for the night.

Happiness

What’s the true secret to happiness? Scientists may be about to find out

Researchers are hoping to uncover the elusive secret to happiness in the biggest study of its kind to date.

While some people get their highs from a brisk run, others swear by sharing a cuppa with a friend or spending time in nature for a wellbeing boost.

Now those behind the Global Happiness Megastudy hope to recruit tens of thousands of people across the globe in a unique trial to pinpoint the techniques and interventions that are most likely to lift the spirits.

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Poem: "Sisters of the Once Snow"

This is today's freebie. It was inspired by a prompt from new prompter crunchysteve. It also fills "The Last Ship" square in my 3-1-25 card for the Tolkien Bingo Fest. This poem belongs to the series Daughters of the Apocalypse.

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Poem: "Staring into the Dragon's Maw"

This is today's second freebie, thanks to new prompters crunchysteve and zesty_pinto. \o/ It was inspired by prompts from nsfwords and rix_scaedu. It also fills the "dragons" square in my 3-1-25 card for the Tolkien Bingo Fest. This poem belongs to A Conflagration of Dragons series.

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