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today's bug thing is this beetle dress!

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I want to be this color palette

This distinctively warty lichen is Melanohalea exasperata (with several friends) on a lushly populated oak twig.

It can be tricky to find as it mostly grows high up in the tree canopy - so far I've only enountered it on branches that have recently fallen to the ground.

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Kentucky is named for the river cane "Cane Tuck" is another word for a canebreak.

There used to be a decent amount of this in Old Washington Kentucky, I haven't been there in almost a decade but I can't imagine its gone since its in a protected historic district.

y'all ever reach the end of google

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Look, if you can find me a body of evidence that the skeletons of women from the 19th century show significant alteration from corsetry I might change my mind - but we do actually know quite a lot about 19th century health outside of the medical research perspective and in an anthropological perspective.

Twh corset apologism is insane. Every medical professional with knowledge to day says wearing a back support all day every day is BAD for you!!!!!! "Less supportive" corsets were better for people and also it's funny how corsets are apparently the savior of big titty women to you but comfortable flexible corset that holds your tits in shouldn't be worm because if regressive? fuck off

I literally had to read this like three times to understand what you were saying and I'm still not fully sure I do

first of all, most doctors say that wearing back braces does not cause muscle atrophy. they're pretty quick to reassure people of that online, in a way that makes it kind of hilarious that they believe it of corsets that support the same muscles as aforesaid braces. here is a study on the matter, and a search for "do back braces cause muscle atrophy" will turn up a lot more info for you

secondly, I don't know what you're talking about re: "comfortable flexible corset that holds your tits in." are you referring to bras? if so, there's certainly nothing inherently wrong with them; the support from the shoulders can be less comfortable for some people than the support from over/underneath that a corset provides, but I've never said one is unilaterally better than the other for everyone

are you talking about 1920s corsets or corset/binder combos? because if so...yeah that's not "comfortable;" it's Spanx + a binder. It was designed to flatten, not merely support, and it was basically an elastic band squishing your torso. I'm sure that wasn't a universal torture device either- women got things done in it, clearly -but it's hardly the ideal support option

or you could be talking about something else entirely. it's really hard to say

anyway. corsets were not unilaterally awful. the medical "evidence" against them is over a century old across the board, often guesswork at best and misrepresentation of preserved specimens at worst, from doctors who had no access to modern diagnostic tools and also thought vigorous exercise could cause uterine prolapse. reliable primary sources suggest that most women did not wear them in a way that caused physical injury or significant discomfort, on a daily basis. of course not all women found even moderately-laced corsets comfortable, and it would be naïve to suggest that tightlacing never happened. but those are not the claims I'm making here

if that's "corset apologism," then I'm a horrible, brainwashed corset apologist, babey

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One last talent show to save the rec center

Ok everybody here's the deal.

My science education nonprofit, Skype a Scientist (you might know her, creator of the squid facts hotline and matcher of classrooms + scientists) has secured absolutely no grants to support general operations for 2025. But! We're selling advent calendars to fund our program! They absolutely rule. They can save our nonprofit asses. If we sell 5000, which I realize, is so many, we can fund our program for 2025. Then I can offer a bunch of programming for free. Running a nonprofit is a weird job.

Every day, counting down to frankly whatever you want (it's usually Christmas, but man, maybe you want to count down to Halloween, that's fine by me) scratch off the sparkly sparkly iridescence and reveal a fact about frogs! We have 24 top-notch frog facts here.

You should get one for every kid in your life, then get one for all the adults who still let themselves access joy in critters.

Get 'em here: https://squidfacts.bigcartel.com/

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I love the soft contrast in this quilt

In the quilting stage. Gonna be a wedding gift.

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I barely had free time to make any significant progress yesterday, but today's more fruitful. What I don't like about autumn is that days become shorter and shorter, and it's almost always either raining or snowing, so now I have to use two lamps and glasses to actually see what I'm doing 😿

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archaeologically speaking a stone arrowhead is categorized as a type of stone blade, so yes. BUT a crossbow quarrel may not, depending on the type, sometimes those were just sticks with reinforced tips.

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Makes me want to play with fussy cutting. I am not that person, but this makes me want to be.

⋆ ｡ ° ✩ Starquilt ✩ ° ｡ ⋆

38"x39.5" English paper piecing - all handsewn

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ily, menswear guy

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Could really use more media where wives viciously protect their husbands

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Note from your Friendly Pollworker

As a poll worker we are encouraged to vote early so we aren't worrying about it on the day of (and especially on presidential elections as they tend to be busy days). I went and voted on Friday after work. It took me just under an hour from the time I joined the line until I looked at my watch headed out the door and I always have some thoughts leading up to the election.

Please go vote if you are able. PLEASE.

Voting is harm reduction, its a bus going in the general direction you want things to go, its a chess move in a complex game. Vote for the candidate who you feel will do the least harm and prevent the most harm.

Vote down the ticket. While you may not be directly impacted by the president (which in 2025 feels like a pretty unenlightened view) I promise you that your local council or school board will affect your life.

Go to your local county clerk's website and check your registration status, download a sample ballot, and check your polling location. Be prepared and informed. You can bring notes into the booth with you regarding your choices.

Don't talk about who you are voting for in line. This is illegal. In many states you cannot wear clothing promoting a candidate either.

Be kind to your poll workers. They are having a very very long day (usually 14-15 hours by the time its all said and done) and will be dealing with SO MANY PEOPLE. This is not their day job and they are paid a nominal amount (its $250 for me) for their time, most people have to use leave from their jobs to volunteer. Don't make your poll worker regret having one less day of vacation.

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I'm sure many people have already shared this here, but I think it's important that people here on Tumblr need to see this.

"I disagree with Kamala's position on the war in Gaza. How can I vote for her?" by US Senator Bernie Sanders

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And vote down the ballot. Even if your life is never affected by who is President (unlikely, but possible) your life WILL be directly impacted by your local council member, your school board, that constitutional amendment or funding proposal.

A friendly reminder to USians: if you are planning to vote on Election Day, your mantra is "Nothing I see today convinces me not to go vote."

Exit polls suggest DT cannot be caught? YOU STILL GO VOTE.

Exit polls suggest KH has it in the bag? YOU STILL GO VOTE.

Pundits are saying the country is swinging overwhelmingly red? YOU STILL GO VOTE.

Pundits are saying the country is swinging overwhelmingly blue? YOU STILL GO VOTE.

Polls can be misleading (intentionally or not). The methodology can be biased (or simply poor). Early results may not reflect what the full count will show. There may be a red mirage. NOTHING YOU SEE CONVINCES YOU NOT TO VOTE.

The biggest Democratic win in swing states means nothing if democrats don't turn out everywhere to keep the reliably blue states blue.

VOTE. Wear appropriate weather gear if you think you may have to stand in a line outside (coat, hat, gloves, umbrella, sunhat, whatever, you know where you live). Bring water and a snack and something to do (book, game on your phone, podcast and headphones, whatever, you know what you like). GO VOTE.

NOTHING YOU SEE ON ELECTION DAY CONVINCES YOU NOT TO VOTE.

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It takes a whole group of spinners to keep up with a weaver so picture this: a group of women and children, young and old, sitting together with spindles and wheels - telling tales and spinning yarns. Creating mythology, and history, and connections. Creating language. Spinning yarns.

One of my favorite things about learning about traditional textiles is the little ghosts they left in the language. Of course the ghosts are there, now that I know to look for them. Once upon a time, half the population spent a majority of their day making textiles. Spinning, at the very least, has been a part of humanity since the Neanderthals. That kind of knowledge doesn't just disappear.

A heckle was a device with sharp metal spikes, and people drag flax through the spikes to separate out the fibers from the chaff. When you say someone heckled a performer, you think you are being literal but you're speaking in an ancient metaphor.

When my grandpa says "spinning yarns" to mean telling stories, he knows that one's not quite literal, but its vividness is lost to him. There is no image in his mind of rhythm, muscle memory, and the subtle twist that aligns clouds of fibers into a single, strong cord.

When a fanfic writer describes someone carding their fingers through someone's hair, that's the most discordant in my mind. Carding is rough, and quick, and sometimes messy (my wool is full of debris, even after lots of washing). The teeth of my cards are densely packed and scratchy. But maybe that's my error, not the writer's. Before cards were invented, wool was combed with wide-toothed combs, and sometimes, in point of fact, with fingers. The verb "to card" (from Middle English) may actually be older than the tools I use, archaic as they are. And I say may, because I can't find a definitive history. People forget, even when the language remembers.

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Wally Dion, born 1976, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Fabric Star Quilts.

Wally (Walter) Dion is a Canadian artist of Saulteaux ancestry living and working in Upstate New York. Working in a number of media including painting, drawing and sculpture.

Wally explains:

"The first fabric star quilt was made as part of a 2022 residency at Wanuskewin Park. It was my way of reflecting upon prairie tall grass and the reintroduction of bison into the Great Plaines. I wanted to make several transparent quilts and superimpose them; one in front another... a quilt for the microbiome, another for the bison, their manure & hooves, another for the summer fires that scorch the ground and a final quilt for the sweetgrass braid.

I was considering how all of these things worked together for thousands of years to create what is known as the 'prairie tall grass ecosystem'. A vast and fertile expanse of land stretching from the foothills of Alberta to the banks of the Mississippi. I wanted to highlight the invisibility of systems when everything is working well, as it should be.

I started with the green quilt because it is the colour of the sweet grass braid that is exchanged in ceremony and relationship building. I considered the nature and tradition of quilting; impoverished craftspeople using tiny scraps of fabric. I considered the act of offering fabric and adherence to tradition. I thought of a thousand tiny prayers and how that might look; invisible acts of respect and adherence to protocols spanning decades. My thoughts travelled across the land, imagining the trees and rocks collecting these prayers like a bush of cloth, or an etched boulders."

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Only amendment is that there are lots and lots and lots of examples of prehistoric pottery from Lexington and it's surroundings.

Okay but like whenever europe and USA are compared in terms of ruins and artifacts it makes me think "oh but what about Native American artifacts and ruins" and it reminded me of another post I meant to make ages ago but forgot

A while back I went thru the library looking at all the books I could find on the history of Kentucky.

My textbooks and most "reliable" sources when I was a kid said that Kentucky was never actually home to Native Americans, it was just a "hunting ground." This is total bullshit, the living Shawnee whose ancestors lived here know it was bullshit, but how did we get there

A lot of the more recent books I found (from like the 1990's) repeated the "it was only just hunting grounds" thing

But heres the weird thing

When you go back further

The narrative is completely different

so here's the first page of a book published 1872, it's "History of Lexington Kentucky: Its Early Annals and Recent Progress" by George W. Ranck

Let the shock of this first paragraph settle in. Like, damn, this is a whole different picture being painted

now, this Rafinesque fellow he refers to, has been widely referred to as the originator of many claims about Kentucky, and an exaggerator and liar, outright dismissed and scorned by many historians.

Rafinesque is considered to be the source of many claims found in this chapter, and the pompous, flowery language used to state them makes them seem a bit unbelievable. But the claims themselves are not highly unrealistic. These are several of the claims found on pages 2-12 of the book

An artificially built stone well was found by settlers

Earliest settlers plowed up pottery fragments

Settlers dug into an old abandoned lead mine

"Stone sepulchers" were found containing human bones

A large earthen mound 6 feet high was found with pottery and burned wood

A stone mound was found containing human bones

An extensive cave used as a cemetery was found under Lexington, containing embalmed bodies

Flint arrowheads were found

Polished and worked fragments of iron ore were found

Sandstone and limestone tools perforated with holes were found

Rough ingots of copper were found

Stone walls were built defended by entrenchments

It is very important to note that this chapter is insistent that the inhabitants that built these ruins and left these artifacts were NOT Native Americans. Why? Because Native Americans didn't build stuff so advanced! Very circular reasoning.

It was a very common myth that there was some kind of "pre-native-american" race of people that existed in Kentucky. Sometimes this was a way of justifying colonization by saying that well, the Native Americans were just taking over land that wasn't theirs too, so it's okay for us to do it.

It seems to me that when it became clear that Native Americans were the first and only pre-European inhabitants, the stuff about an ancient city under Lexington and all that became dismissed as lies. But are they lies?

I tried to find out, and we know for certain that central Kentucky had many, many burial mounds (some of which I had seen the site of without knowing what I was seeing) and quite a few stone ruins. The builders of the stone ruins are referred to as the "Fort Ancient" people because the earliest settlers incorrectly assumed the stone structures they saw were forts for some defensive or military purpose.

The tools and artifacts being referenced are all known to exist, except I think there aren't any confirmed extant examples of pottery.

The most widely criticized claim in the chapter is the underground cave used as a tomb, but I don't see why—central Kentucky is a limestone karst region and EVERYWHERE has a cave under it. The embalming or mummifying of bodies could have been a flourish or rumor, but the essence of the claim is totally reasonable. Then again, it might not have been, since the area had access to sources of salt. The supposed "lead mine" probably wasn't that specifically, but it's known that Native Americans went inside, explored and used caves.

It was really interesting to me how so many later sources dismissed these claims despite most of them being plausible or just true, and how many of those sources repeated the idea of Native Americans using the land for hunting but not "inhabiting" it. It is two different ways of denying Native Americans were here.