bonesandblood-sunandmoon

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

Snowy Night

by Mary Oliver

Last night, an owl in the blue dark tossed an indeterminate number of carefully shaped sounds into the world, in which, a quarter of a mile away, I happened to be standing. I couldn’t tell which one it was – the barred or the great-horned ship of the air – it was that distant. But, anyway, aren’t there moments that are better than knowing something, and sweeter? Snow was falling, so much like stars filling the dark trees that one could easily imagine its reason for being was nothing more than prettiness. I suppose if this were someone else’s story they would have insisted on knowing whatever is knowable – would have hurried over the fields to name it – the owl, I mean. But it’s mine, this poem of the night, and I just stood there, listening and holding out my hands to the soft glitter falling through the air. I love this world, but not for its answers. And I wish good luck to the owl, whatever its name – and I wish great welcome to the snow, whatever its severe and comfortless and beautiful meaning.

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

In case anyone finds it helpful because mobility aids are horrifically expensive and inaccessible…

And for those people who have access to mobility devices but might benefit from a second chair they can abuse without risking expensive damage…

Erik Kondo has made a website, Open Source Innovations, that details plans for DIY wheelchairs. These wheelchairs can be made from common materials like wood, plastic, and pvc. They are lightweight and can be custom fit to the user allowing from the same degree of movement you would get from a custom chair. And they are durable and easily repairable. (he has been stress testing his latest design by dropping it down stairs, dropping it out of a car, launching it across a driveway, and throwing it off a deck). Its 12lbs and I think he said its was in the $200 ish range for parts.

He also is working on cheap, open source, accessible designs for beach chairs, off road chairs, motorized attachments (think smart drive), and so on. Plus he skateboards in his wheelchair. Cool dude, helpful info, pass it on.

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

i hope the world doesn’t turn into mad max bc I can’t drive

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

hi!! tysm for the tubular cast on suggestion <33 I tested a fold over and the italian/long tail methods and they were 1000x more stretchy than my long tails.. <333

You're very welcome!

I'm going to spruik one of my favourite knitting books, you might find it as useful a resource as I do!

(Link to Goodreads, I encourage you to check your local library or independent bookshop for a physical copy!)

This book is honestly my go-to. Nearly 11 years of knitting, and I still reach for it to find options for cast-on and bind-off that will give the foundation and finish I want for my projects!

The physical book is spiral-bound so it lays nice and flat, and breaks down the different steps for multiple cast-on and bind-off techniques. It's not every possible cast-on or bind-off, but it's a lot of them!

This book taught me my preferred cast-on techniques for flat, circular and ribbed knitting and I still reach for it at least once per project.

The same publisher has a couple of other books in the series, Increase/Decrease and Cable Left/Cable Right, which are equally good!

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

ten years ago you were so scared of such different things, but you survived them anyway. the same goes for five years ago and two years ago. everything that has ever felt like a hurdle, you’ve passed through. so be afraid, identify your fears, and then allow yourself to remember that in just a little while, this will be another thing that you have overcome.

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

I grew up in and have lived in a subtropical climate for all of my 40+ years of life so far. Yeah, I've experienced fairly cold weather that can dip into freezing temperatures but it's usually so short lived that one only needs to wear a jacket maybe 3 days in the entirety of winter. And not consecutive days either.

So when my spouse and I decided to ultimately move to a much colder climate in the Ozark mountains, with a stop over in Tennessee for a little while, I knew I would need warm accessories that I've never used before. I didn't know what accessories I would actually need or use bc I had never experienced cold weather for prolonged periods of time. I was told when we moved to Tennessee that I would have until January before I really needed anything for truly cold weather (below 30°F). So I took my time to figure out what accessories I would purchase versus make myself. Once I had an idea of what I wanted to make, I scoured knitting patterns for what I wanted to make first. First up a pari of nice warm wool gloves.

I found a pattern for convertible thrummed mittens on ravelry. Having been a subtropical person, I've never needed to make gloves, thrummed or not. So it was a challenge on many levels as there were quite a few techniques I had to learn and the pattern was written with the expectation that one had made gloves before and was fairly proficient at it. ...... So, totally not me.

However, my ADHD brain thrives on challenges like this so I jumped in with both feet (or hands if you will) and thought I had months before I would need these gloves. Boy howdy, was I so wrong. I started knitting them in October and by the end of that month Tennessee was plunged into freezing temperatures. It hasn't let up since. So I did what every knitter does as winter approaches: knit faster.

I finally finished the second glove a few days ago, as we were experiencing more overnight temperatures in the high teens (15-19°F).

Y'all.

I'm in love with these gloves. They have every feature I wanted: thrums for warmth, flip top so I can actually use my fingers when needed and go back to warm mittens when I don't, and individual fingers instead of fingerless. The only thing is I have rather large hands so they look freaking comical with the fluffiness from the thrums. I know that will settle down once the thrums start to felt and conform to my hand shape, until then I just find them hilariously floofy.

But I now have my first bit of cold weather kit, I can go outside and my fingers don't hurt from the cold. I recommend the pattern, especially if one has more understanding of making gloves than I did before I started.

The yarn is BFL (blue faced Leicester) wool and silk (85/15) in DK weight that I dyed myself. The thrums are a merino and mohair wool with silk pencil roving I bought years ago from paradise fibers. The pattern is convertible thrummed mittens by Emaly Leak free on ravelry.

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

The thing about Tumblr Medical Advice is this: no matter what the advice is, there is someone who needs the opposite. This applies to things like “quit smoking” (some terminally ill older adults are told to keep smoking because the stress of trying to quit would have more negative health impacts and lower quality of life beyond what can be tolerated) “don’t drink a lot of soda” (soda can be a quick source of blood sugar to people experiencing hypoglycemia, and carbonated sugary beverages can help people with certain forms of dysphagia (like me hi) get in enough calories), “exercise more” (myalgic encephalomyelitis patients should avoid exercise beyond their individually determined threshold because it can increase muscle inflammation) “drink more plain water” (again, dysphagia). Literally any advice you can think of is contraindicated for someone. It’s not that “people on tumblr keep making up excuses to wallow in their own misery” it’s that tumblr is a site where people who are the exceptions tend to gather and your health advice has much wider reach than it would be for like. Just talking to your friends or giving a presentation to a middle school health class

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

Care for a drink?

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

I think as a non-religious substitute to "may they rest in peace", we could start using "may people remember what they did." It fits just as perfectly whether someone lived a good or a bad life, and you don't even need to personally know this person all that well for it to be the appropriate thing to say. If someone was good, kind, and chose to do the right thing whenever the situation called for it, it's a way to wish that the marks of their deeds, and the goodness they left behind, will remain in this world.

And if someone was an absolute dogshit all their life, it means "I wish you infinite-piss-on-your-grave attack."

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

I’m pretty new to dressing more masc - thanks to a recent estate sale, I now have some trousers that are suspenders-compatible. Where’s a good place to find decent suspenders online? I’ve got some clip-on suspenders but I’d like to try the real thing. Thanks!

Darcy has a good range of suspenders.

Suspenders also are fun to make. Here is a tutorial I have used to make my own for various costumes. I like making my own because I can use whatever materials (I have a leather pair and want to weave bands for the next) and can cut thr straps to a length where I don't need elastic.

Have fun! I also recommend buying buttons to convert any trousers to use suspenders. :)

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

Seasonal Affective Disorder is just emotional scurvy, all my core wounds are reopening and they won't be fixed until the big lemon in the sky comes back

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

But seriously, if you keep pushing yourself past your mental or physical limits, it will catch up with you. You cannot live forever on three hours of sleep and caffeine and willpower. You cannot keep overpowering your very natural need to relax and recharge. If you don't treat both with care and respect, at some point your brain and your body will reach a point of breakdown and burnout - and any mental or physical conditions you may have tried to ignore and power through will kick your ass. So take that goddamn nap or that break now. Don't wait for yourself to shatter and fall apart before you tend to the cracks in your body and mind. Just because you may have the choice to ignore your limits right now doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Take care of yourself now or you WILL regret it.

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

Casual ableism is a canary in a coal mine. Ableism is easy because there's a logic to it that anyone can reason out. This person can't do as much, so they are less valuable, so they are less important to our group. That logic is easy to follow. It is the first step to questioning why resources are spent on people who give little back.

For the sick and the children, people will often reply with that they will become useful again. But while they are children and sick, they are still not valued. People will also often say that the elderly used to be useful, and that they should be honored for having been useful.

But the disabled? It is difficult to argue that all us disabled people can absolutely contribute more than we require. Not all of us will be productive members of society. We cannot make an argument from capability that includes us all.

This makes it very, very easy to stir up resentment against us. We're not pulling our weight, we're dragging others down, why should I have to work for the benefit of this person who can't even do anything for me? Why can't they just die already and stop being a burden on good, hardworking folk?

Once that deadly seed is planted, it's incredibly easy to paint other marginalized groups with the brush of lesser ability. Women are weak. Immigrants are stupid. Trans people are inherently unhealthy. They just can't contribute to society, don't you see? They're taking everything that you have made and they make nothing of their own. Don't you see why they need to be gotten rid of?

This, of course, is a lie, through and through. Women, immigrants, and trans people, as groups, are no lesser in capacity than men, citizens, or cis people. But the reason that these lies are capable of taking root is acceptance of the premise that people who are of lesser capacity are leeches on the world.

Fascism thrives when this premise is accepted because it provides a ready made justification to destroy every single group that they want to destroy. They're rotten, incapable leeches who need to be destroyed so that good, pure, hardworking people are no longer dragged down by them. That framework can be applied over, and over, and over.

Left wing communities are not immune to this premise. Watch for sentiments about people "not doing anything". Landlords, corporate execs, and so on are not bad because they don't have jobs that generate a tangible result, they are bad because they extract and hoard wealth. That's not a semantic issue. I have seen "they don't do anything" travel from anticapitalism to accusing disabled people of being oppressive in the same way as landlords.

So, what does all of the above mean?

Watch how the needs of the disabled are considered in your community. Are our needs burdens, or are they simply things that need to be considered? Watch for sentiments that we are better off dead, that we are burdens, that we aren't worth what it takes to keep us in community.

Even if you think they're right about us, they won't stop at us.

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

loving the cold and snow while having seasonal affective disorder is sort of like having a best friend that stabs you in the back every year but without fail you forget that the stabbing ever happened and get right back together

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

I just saw a video of someone saying something along the lines of “being without ADHD medication is like being without a wheelchair! If people were waiting this long for wheelchairs and having to crawl around their homes then something would be done immediately, so why can’t I get ADHD meds??”

And just, can people stop assuming that wheelchair users get handed everything on a plate. Because we absolutely are not.

People wait months and years for wheelchairs – yes, even non ambulatory people. That’s months and years of suffering, of crawling or being confined to bed or stuck in unsuitable wheelchairs.

Yes, medication shortages are serious and need addressing… but making comparisons to wheelchair users when not knowing a single thing about the processes of accessing a chair in various countries is not the way to go about it.

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

"A Scottish field once home to mono-crop barley has become a pollinator’s paradise after intervention from a local trust saw bumblebee numbers increase 100-fold.

Entitled Rewilding Denmarkfield, and run by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, the project has also seen a sharp increase in the number of species passing through the rolling meadows after they were reclaimed by dozens of wildflower species.

The area north of Perth is about 90 acres in size, and surveys of bumblebees before the project began rarely recorded more than 50. But by 2023, just two years of letting “nature take the lead” that number has topped 4,000, with the number of different bee species doubling.

“This superb variety of plants attracts thousands of pollinators. Many of these plants, such as spear thistle and smooth hawk’s beard, are sometimes branded as ‘weeds’. But they are all native species that are benefiting native wildlife in different ways,” Ecologist Ellie Corsie, who has been managing the project since it began in 2021, said.

“Due to intensive arable farming, with decades of plowing, herbicide, and pesticide use, biodiversity was incredibly low when we started. Wildlife had largely been sanitized from the fields. Rewilding the site has had a remarkable benefit.”

Similar increases have been recorded in the populations of butterflies, with a tripling in the number of these insects seen on average during a ramble through the field.

The numbers of both insects are now so high that Rewilding Denmarkfield offers bee and butterfly safaris to visitors.

Local residents told the Scotsman that on spring and summer days, the field is awash with color, and hums with the sounds of bees and birds. Even as multiple housing developments expand around the Denmarkfield area, the field is a haven for wildlife."

-via Good News Network, December 2, 2024

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

thought this would be good to share.