Wake Me Up Later

It’s not just that the leaves will break down on their own (and enrich the soil while they’re at it!). During the winter, all sorts of insects use leaf litter for shelter, and they’re the first food available to larvae in early spring. Leaves also insulate the plants under them during the winter, which is important if you’re in an area prone to frost heaving.

One of the best thing you can do for native pollinators in your area is Leave the Leaves!

My mom stopped raking her leaves when she found out about this but her neighbor used his leaf blower to clear out her yard the first year she decided to try. So she started posting a Leave the Leaves sign in the yard each year with an explanation about why it’s good and two winters later only one house still rakes their lawn each year.

We’ve seen a dramatic increase in the biodiversity in the neighborhood since. We have birds that we haven’t seen since we moved into the city from living rurally and those birds are starting to nest in the trees and gardens in spring. The swallows and bats are back at night. The single woodpecker we would only occasionally see visits daily and even has a friend that has joined it. We have more squirrels and rabbits and shockingly fewer moles and voles. We heard an owl outside last fall.

Leave the leaves indeed.

i used to read about how like marie antoinette's court would dress as milkmaids and have almost-baked bread placed in fake ovens for them to finish and pre-washed hen's eggs daintily tucked in their immaculate fake coops with fluffy prize hens briefly placed in them for the aristocrats to playact the life of the peasantry and think, wow, that's crazy, what must have been going on in their minds to make this game seem appealing, what did they think they were doing, how did the little fake world of the court make them so totally blind to how the real people whose lives they were playing at hated them with the smouldering embers that would be stoked into a flame of revolution

anyway crazy how we have tradwives all over instagram now huh

lil kick

"Israel is not just a State, it's a project. It's a settler colonial project. And I do think that we are witnessing the beginning of the end of this project. Because it rests on three pillars.

One is material, of course [...] when you use and index that looks at sustainability of state according to their material capability, Israel is doing well. [...] It does well mainly because of the United States. So this is a condition that can change.

The second pillar is the social coherence of the settler society. We know this coherence is nonexistent anymore. There is a bit of an optical illusion because of the Hamas operation of the 7th of October that created a sense of unity. But it's not going to cover up the fragmentation of the society that we have seen until the 7th of October. It seems that social coherence that is based on hatred of the Arabs and the Palestinians and doesn't have anything else in common, is not very sustainable.

And more importantly than anything else, of course, there is the legitimacy pillar. And Israel enjoys the legitimacy of western governments or governments in the global north. And therefore, there is a sense that it can still be sustainable because of the support of the elites. But it has lost the support of the civil societies.

And this is why probably it's the only state in the world that lobbies for its existence. Not for its policies, not for its better economic performance, but for its very moral justification. And it's losing that battle.

As an historian I can tell you that when projects like settler colonialism are reaching their last phase, unfortunately, this can be quite a long period. It doesn't happen in one day or two days. And the problem is, of course, that they become more brutal and ruthless in that last phase."

Ilan Pappè, excerpt of an interview with Al Jazeera

spotted in the bronx <3

[ID: a photo of graffiti on a green pillar on the side of a street. the graffiti reads, in all caps black letters, "free Palestine," "from the river to the sea," and "free Gaza" with a heart drawn next to the word "Gaza"]

I have asking u alot but most of people in gaza right now needs help to evacute. If you can't donate help by sharing thank you

in spirit i am a 7th grade boy

It is *ehem* hard isn't it

Not just thousands of Palestinian children, but tens of thousands of Palestinian youths, men, women, and the elderly. 5% of Gaza's population has been either severely disabled/injured, has gone missing, or has been genocided. From destroying orchards and farms, to the destruction of Gaza Infrastructure to the point where it has collapsed in many spaces -especially their medical complexes, to the complete lack of access to fresh and clean water. Israhell is also still starving Palestinians -is still committing war crimes, and now this? The zionists are continuing their illegal settler-colonial project full steam ahead apparently, and it's beyond horrific.

academic bias is so funny because you’ll be reading about the same historical event and one person is like “Despite the troubles that befell his homeland and near constant criticism of the court King Blorbo remained strong in the face of adversity” and the other one is like “after letting his people carry the brunt of his cringefail decisions Blorbo the Shitface refused to listen to any reason and continued to be a warmongering piece of shit. Also he was ugly.”

tags by @hexjulia

#third paper: King Blorbo's actions were not actually as influential as has often been assumed by both cringefail authors A and B and-

I've been down a rabbithole on 9th century Anglo-Scandinavian history for the past six months, and all of this is so unbelievably accurate. 😂

And then for bonus points, ask yourself:

Why is this author so invested in making King Blorbo look good?

(The answer is usually that they're a nationalist, engaged in the project of constructing a glorious national history.)

Or, why does this author have inexplicable beef with King Blorbo?

(Could be that they're from a culture King Blorbo colonized and terorrized, and they're rightfully fed up of hearing about how cool he was; could be that King Blorbo is the one about to get colonized, and this author is priming you to feel that he had it coming.)

But, you might be saying, King Blorbo died 1100 years ago! Why does it matter whether he was good or bad? Who cares if some historian is doing some shady scholarship to retroactively polish (or tank) his reputation?

Welll, because if they get their version of history entrenched in the cultural consciousness, that is going to shape how we understand the world around us, and how we deal with the current issues that are a direct legacy of that history. That's how you get Victorian scholars cherry-picking Anglo Saxon history to build a myth of British exceptionalism, to justify British imperialism, and American right-wing personalities canonizing Lincoln and the Founding Fathers for the same damn reasons.

History isn't dead, and whenever an author clearly wants you to feel a certain way about King Blorbo, good or bad, you should be asking why it matters to them, and what the implications are if you do.

gray heron playing in the snow (18.04.2024)

@todaysbird

he’s having SUCH a good time!!! i don’t think I’ve ever seen a video of a heron engaging in play behavior like this!!

Using dissociate instead of zoning out. Describing a hobby as a hyperfixation. Saying nonverbal when you want a bit of quiet. Saying intrusive thoughts because that must mean an urge like to buy coffee or hair dye. Do you know feeling off sometimes is a sign of autism? Lying is gaslighting. Everyone I dislike is a narcissist.

Who are you?

I've just updated the stock counts on my For Sale page.

There are handwarmers of the following pride flags:

Some are in plain wool (£16 GBP), and some are in luxury ✨sparkly✨ merino (£22).

There are some zines for sale on that page too, and I can send overseas. :) DM me if you're interested or have questions, or you can email me: cassian dot lodge at gmail dot com