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I made a bunch of dried citrus garland and ornaments this year, and if you’re looking for low-budget high-impact gift ideas for the holiday season, I cannot recommend this enough. I have had nearly all of my aunts reach out to ask me for these already.

All you do is take oranges (and grapefruit, in my case, but you could use any citrus fruit, lemon and limes included. You could also do slices of apple or other fruits, but they don’t dry as pretty) and cut them into slim, even slices. Blot the slices as dry as you can get them with paper towel, then lay them flat on drying racks, if you have them, or cookie sheets if you don’t. The cookie sheets will take longer, but will probably produce flatter slices at the end. If you want to, you can take cloves and push them into the slices before you dry them; the oranges should contract around them and hold them in place.

Put these into the oven at 200-220 degrees F (93 C), and bake for at least 4 hours. Check them hourly; it may take up to 7 hours, depending on the thickness of your slices and oven air circulation. Take them out when they no longer feel wet or sticky to the touch. 

A 5 lb bag of navel oranges was enough to garland most of this tree. All you need for that is a thick needle and some string (DMC embroidery floss works well, and is less than a dollar a skein at walmart and other chain stores). You just tie off the first orange, and then use the needle to go in and out each slice near the edges. If you’re making ornaments, check your local dollar store for bits of ribbon, jingle bells, beads or whatever else seems good to you. A hot glue gun is helpful but not necessary; all the ornaments here are just tied together. 

I have plenty of herbs drying in my cupboard, so I also used some sprigs of rosemary and lavender, plus cinnamon sticks, cloves, and allspice. Rosemary is easy to find as live plants in the grocery section, and you can trim some off without killing the plant (and then you have i n f i n i t e  r o s e m a r y). Get creative!

These smell fantastic, and should last multiple seasons if they’re dried allll the way and stored in airtight containers. (I chucked some of the odd bits into my mulling spices, which is lovely.) They’re a very old method of decorating and look beautiful even when they’re not perfect. If you’ve made these before, I’d love to see what you made!

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Made the mistake of bringing up that needing glasses is a disability on tiktok and people got real mad.

“You can fix it with glasses” yeah, cuz they’re a disability aid? But like, I still have to pay 160 bucks to use my own fucking eyes?

Like, by definition, if your eyes do not work without aid, you have a disability to see.

Having a disability doesn’t automatically put you in what people consider the “disabled” category, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is in fact, a disability.

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linocut relief print by molly white

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New Solarpunk illustration, yay! The full thing was made for a thing, but also each half was also drawn for the Solarpunk (writing) Prompts podcast.

This one features a maker/hackerspace. It's a thing that has existed for a while but that few people seem to know about? I myself learned about the idea from a friend relatively recently. While I've never been to one myself, plenty of references were provided and I hope I've captured the feeling well enough.

Saw the "Free shrugs" t-shirt in a 3D render over here, I believe, and fell in love with it at first sight lol. Also a locker that was plastered with stickers warning that's it's explosive, radioactive, a bio- and fire hazard and may electrocute you was too funny not to adopt. I wonder what they kept in there.

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the author's barely disguised longing for a kinder world

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Expect Israel's bot army to be extra active in the coming days and weeks, and not just on Tiktok

By making pro Palestine posts, you're making a difference

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When I was around 13 or 15, a toilet paper brand had one of those "cut this little picture from the packaging and once you have this amount, mail them to us and you'll get this cute little toy". The toy in question was a stuffed lamb keychain and I NEEDED IT, so I somehow talked my parents to only buy that one brand until I got my lamb.

And that's why I still, almost 20 years later, can't go anywhere without a little stuffed lamb in my bag and why I still feel wrong buying any other toilet paper.

And somehow it came as a surprise to me that I'm not as neurotypical as a thought...

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Garden Wall in Portland

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crossing the rockies in november

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For the first time, researchers have found evidence that underwater ecosystems have pollinators that perform the same task as bees on land.

Just like their terrestrial cousins, grasses under the sea shed pollen to sexually reproduce. Until now, biologists assumed the marine plants relied on water alone to spread their genes far and wide. But the discovery of pollen-carrying ‘bees of the sea’ has changed all of that.

Over several years from 2009 to 2012, researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico filmed the spring nocturnal wanderings of crustaceans among beds of turtle seagrass, Thalassia testudinum.

Looking through the videos, they spotted more invertebrates visiting male pollen-bearing flowers than those that lacked pollen – just like bees hovering around pollen-producing plants on land.

“We saw all of these animals coming in, and then we saw some of them carrying pollen,” lead researcher Brigitta van Tussenbroek told New Scientist.

The concept was so new, they invented a new term to describe it: zoobenthophilous pollination. Before that, researchers had never predicted that animals were involved in pollinating marine plants.

Continue Reading.

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My illness exile rations are dwindling and my options are:

Going out to replenish them myself. Not a good option, since I'm still, you know sick and probably contagious.

My very accommodating friends, who understand why I need some stuff from different stores because autism and comfort brands (also boycotts), but who all live bit too far away for me to not feel bad about it.

My brother who lives pretty close but DOES NOT understand why I may request specific brands.

Ordering a delivery. Expensive and not all that likely to have everything I need, but depending on where I order it might be delivered by a cute little robot.

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All I do is make rats now apparently 🐀💙

Pattern

[Image description: a knitted rat with a blue striped body and pale pink inner ears, feet and tail. First image is a view of the front, second image is a view of the side. End ID]

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Here's my (probably only, sadly) post for Solarpunk Aesthetic Week! Originally made for Andrewism's 2023 Solarpunk Art Collab!

This digital painting depicts the Southern Great Lakes Ecoregion, within the Interior Plateau & Southern Great Lakes Forests Bioregion, within the Temperate Broadleaf and Mixed Forest Biome.

I chose a suburban setting for this piece because I've not yet seen a Solarpunk artwork that features this. I'm aware of the problems with the suburbs, but it seems to me more sustainable to try to adapt them than to demolish them and start over. So instead of lawns I've depicted beds of native Indiana plants, including but not limited to:

Amsonia Tabernaemontana (Eastern Bluestar)

Spartina Pectinata (Prairie Cordgrass)

Echinacea Purpurea (Purple  Coneflower.

The roofs of the houses are either white to help reflect heat, or green roofs. Some of the houses are equipped with solar panels on the south sides, and one is shown with a greenhouse on that side as well.

While perhaps not explicitly ecologically focused, I have shown there to be more art in this setting than is usually found in american suburbia. The sidewalk has a mural painted with hydrochromic paint, which only appears while it is raining. The houses are painted bright colors (white or greige is  considered  'Normal' ) and are occasionally decorated with murals.

This particular area is among the cloudiest in the so-called U.S.A. To reflect that, the weather is overcast and it is currently raining.

Hope y'all enjoy this, and Happy Solarpunk Aesthetic Week!