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deeply relieved. I think they (the red cross) does water and fruit juice.

The organization through which I donate blood gives some really nice swag and rewards sometimes (and some bonus stuff for platelets in particular), and I think it’s very funny to refer to it as “my blood [item]”. This includes a blood hoodie, blood socks, and blood ice cream and beer (the last two were redeemed through vouchers, and the beer couldn’t be redeemed same-day). On top of the fact that these are all quite nice items, this joke leads me to use them more often.

Oh wow! The Welsh Blood Service used to give out blood keyrings with your blood type on, but they've stopped doing that sort of thing because they needed to save money. Sad. Although they do give you a special blood pin when you hit significant numbers of donations, and you get differently coloured donor cards as your numbers rack up, like a sticker chart. Mine is silver:

At 50 I get gold! Currently on 42, and I'm allowed to give every four months, so... three years' time and I get a shiny new card. And probably a new fancy blood pin, I got one at 25 donations.

Also, they give you orange Club biscuits once you're done, and these days you can choose from three different flavours of overly-strong squash to replace your lost blood, and that's mostly why I go

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I'm sorry, they give you "overly strong squash"??? Like, squash the vegetable?

Is there a different kind of squash. That seems like a weird thing to serve to blood donors; at the red cross you just get packaged cookies.

The organization through which I donate blood gives some really nice swag and rewards sometimes (and some bonus stuff for platelets in particular), and I think it’s very funny to refer to it as “my blood [item]”. This includes a blood hoodie, blood socks, and blood ice cream and beer (the last two were redeemed through vouchers, and the beer couldn’t be redeemed same-day). On top of the fact that these are all quite nice items, this joke leads me to use them more often.

Oh wow! The Welsh Blood Service used to give out blood keyrings with your blood type on, but they've stopped doing that sort of thing because they needed to save money. Sad. Although they do give you a special blood pin when you hit significant numbers of donations, and you get differently coloured donor cards as your numbers rack up, like a sticker chart. Mine is silver:

At 50 I get gold! Currently on 42, and I'm allowed to give every four months, so... three years' time and I get a shiny new card. And probably a new fancy blood pin, I got one at 25 donations.

Also, they give you orange Club biscuits once you're done, and these days you can choose from three different flavours of overly-strong squash to replace your lost blood, and that's mostly why I go

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Reading sports headlines while pretending sports doesn't exist suggests a fascinating world of magic and whimsy.

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I think there should be a resurgence in porcelain knicknacks and figurines.

The popularity of vinyl blind box sets and 3D printed super hero busts across demographic groups that would otherwise mock Precious Moments and china cabinets full of blown glass hummingbirds and cut crystal puppies shows that people just love having little guys with no purpose but to stand around and be looked at, there's just a range of rather strong opinions about style and subject matter.

The next generation is almost certainly going to find what you love bafflingly odd at best, a hideous dust catcher at worst, so why settle for yet more cheap plastic junk to clog landfills and shed microplastics when you can have "heirloom pieces" that smash dramatically when called upon, erode beautifully when subjected to the sea, and are a continuation of our 30,000+ year tradition of little clay people that bring us delight?

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A baby pangolin is born quite helpless, other than the ability to suckle and cling. Until the baby is big enough to travel on its on, a mother pangolin will tote it around on her tail.

Images: Firdia Lisnawati

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Paper nautilus (Argonauta sp.) By: Neville Coleman From: Éditions Rencontre Cards 1978

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you have not experienced true fear until a poster falls down in the middle of the night

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I got THE best thing in the mail yesterday--my first actual paperback copy of The Everyday Naturalist! My editor at Ten Speed Press sent it overnight as soon as she got the first samples. It will still be a couple months at least before the main print run makes it to the warehouse, but we're looking good for the official June 17 release!

Look closely, and you can get an idea of the content and my writing style. There's so much more beyond this, too; the total page count is 270 pages, plus the online bibliography (we ran out of room because I managed to turn a 50,000 word project into a 70,000 word manuscript). I kept telling you all what an absolutely beautiful book this was going to be, and now I get to show you a tiny taste of that. Check out the gorgeous cover and interior artwork by Ricardo Macia Lalinde--he far exceeded my expectations! The art department at TSP did a fabulous design job overall, too, and let me give feedback every step of the way.

I keep interrupting my work today to page through the book; I can't wait to start getting it into everyone else's hands! You can preorder a signed copy directly from me here on my website.

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110 carat Colombian Emerald pendant bead, 17th century.

Courtesy Alain Truong

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Oh, I didn’t know that.

I was listening to Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” on youtube, and browsing the comments several people mentioned …

Okay. The song is about the real sinking of the freighter the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior in 1975. And there’s a line in the song:

“In the Maritime Sailor’s Cathedral,

The Church Bell chimed till it rang twenty nine times,

For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald”

Which references something that the actual Maritime Church in Detroit did in honour of the ship’s crew. And I just found out in those youtube comments for his song that when Gordon Lightfoot died in May last year (2023), the Maritime Church rang those bells again, this time 30 times. Once for every man on the Edmund Fitzgerald, and once more for Gordon Lightfoot.

That’s … That is a memorial I would be proud to have earned. And proud to give. I do like that. A lot.

Apparently, the Split Rock Lighthouse on Lake Superior also lit its beacon in honour of him.

Sorry. I’m having … extremely maritime sort of feelings over here. Songs and memorials, bells and beacons, and the ways we carry memory forward. That’s … that’s a good memorial. I like that.

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Blood Pheasant (Ithaginis cruentus), male, family Phasianidae, order Galliformes, Bhutan

photograph by Biju Pb‎

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My mum made and gifted me this incredible hand-knitted poncho with FISH ON IT!!!!!! The little waves and the bubbles I can’t handle it… She spent easily 100+ hours on it and before this had only made a few scarves, absolutely incredible and I’m excited to wear it everywhere I go now 💚🐠💛

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advertisement should be illegal. this is based in the 3rd pillar of my belief system: leave me the fuck alone

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Black silk evening dress, 1898-1900, French.

By House of Worth.

Met Museum.