#and tbh I am really happy right now

[itspileofgoodthings]

told my family that this was my favorite time of year. they glared daggers at me.

[cacaocheri]

we both deserve to be happy

in case anyone is wondering, it gets easier. it gets so so much easier and i hope you find the love you're looking for

[turtleblogatlast]

Don’t think I ever quite said what my LGBTQ+ headcanons are for the boys, so these are my current thoughts! Always changing of course but this is what I feel most strongly right now.

[variksel]

matthew arnold has mastered the game of tumblr ship teasing and He Knows It

[abirddogmoment]

We're learning about grouse hunting together!

I was really undecided on whether I wanted to hunt with Rory for realsies because I don't have a shotgun and I don't really care to get a shotgun (I have a gun license from my time up north). I have a small air rifle and a tactical slingshot (both legal for hunting small game in my area) so I've been taking those for walks in hunting areas, along with all my permits and stuff, just to see what we see.

This grouse woods is in the same corner as my swamp, just a different part of the rec area. You can legally hunt small game during the open season with dogs with some restrictions (certain distance from the parking, some trails close for hunting on a rotational basis for maintenance, etc.) but it's not terribly popular so it's a really good area to learn. We are looking for ruffed grouse and rabbit, both of which are super common out here.

With pointing dogs like britts, you generally don't want to shoot any game unless they're pointing steady (*except when doing gun conditioning, but that's a specific training set up) - it makes sense because a shot bird is the ultimate reward and you want to make sure you're reinforcing the behaviour you want, which is usually a safe steady point. Rory isn't pointing steady yet so there's really not much for me to do on these walks besides reinforce good manners (recall, how far she ranges, etc.).

There's a really well known saying in pointing dogs, which is wild birds make bird dogs. Wild birds flush (fly away) much more reliably than farmed birds so the chances of a dog catching a wild bird is really minimal compared to farmed birds. It's super important to get young bird dogs on wild birds as much as possible so they learn all the important skills: how to navigate terrain, what habitat holds birds, what each bird species smells like, how far they can range, and most importantly, that they need a person to actually get a bird.

(Most of these skills can be taught with planted birds in training, but planted birds may be more habituated to people and dogs so they might not flush reliably. Once pointing dogs learn that they can catch birds themselves, it's much harder to foster a strong stop and point. You might see people using these tip ups, which protect the training bird from the dog. You'll often see training dogs on long lines (called check cords) or with a flank collar to reinforce not getting too close to the bird, but you have to phase those out quickly so the dog doesn't become dependent on them. You also have to be really careful with scent trails when setting up planted birds or you might end up with a dog that follows your scent instead of looking for birds organically. And of course, you have to train without birds sometimes so the dog doesn't get discouraged about not finding birds quickly because sometimes there just aren't birds out there. Lots to consider when setting up training!)

Anyway I've been trying to get Rory out on wild birds as much as possible (with the caveat that we don't run wild birds during nesting season) so we're wandering the grouse woods lately. My early recall training is really paying off because she's been super reliable in terms of good manners, it's wonderful to see!

We've been out four times (1-2 hours each) so far since the season opened. The first two times we're mostly just a pleasant walk in the woods, Rory didn't really know what we were doing so she was just vibing (THIS IS TOTALLY FINE, SHE'S NEW TO THIS). We had a couple chance grouse encounters and I could see the wheels turning, I encouraged her to sniff around where the grouse were sitting before they flew off and I watched her start to connect the dots.

(It's important to remember that dogs don't know what they're looking for until you show them. Most bird dogs are naturally birdy, but they don't know which birds are good and which birds are boring! You have to show them which birds you care about - this is easiest if you can run with an experienced hunting dog, but you can do it alone like I am by making a big deal about any interest in the "correct" birds.)

The last time we went out to the grouse woods, she did a couple of really nice whip-arounds when she caught scent she liked and followed scent off the trail I was walking! This is the behaviour I want to see so it was awesome to watch it start to click! She trailed a moose (don't want that, she found some moose pee to roll in so whatever), a pileated woodpecker (again, don't want that but it was cool to see), and two separate grouse. The first was on the wrong side of the fence so I couldn't do anything about it but she held a really nice point (the photo) and I gave her a ton of chicken and praise for it. The second was a quick point but it flushed really far away so there was no finding it again. Both birds weren't visible when she found them, they were true scent points and she was strategically looking for them so that was super cool!

She's still in heat and super sensitive right now so I wouldn't shoot over her anyway, but I'm getting pretty accurate with my slingshot so I'm hoping we can connect on something this fall - both for her pointing steady and me aiming properly. She gets more steady and more sure of herself every time we go out so it's only a matter of time!

[applestorms]

much love to the (multiple) mutuals i’ve seen agony posting on this fine new year’s day my heart is with you all in spirit 🎉🎉 the pain is incredible but this too will change

[slasherscream]

really wish people would read blog rules more, it makes running blogs like this very low reward and you feel like a machine if people aren't commenting and aren't even abiding by one of the, honestly, very few and politely phrased rules i even have

[sieglinde-freud]

i realize its because everyone else on the summer banner is a mythic unit/normal vaike isnt in the game yet but if inigos a tempest trial unit he should get to appear in the story and he just shows up at the beach full armor fuckass boots ON like “why is everyone wearing swimwear. i thought we were fighting.” and at the end hes like “huh. well it looks like everyones having fun, maybe i could join in…” BAM segue into summer banner part 2 lead unit summer inigo fire emblem coming at you with a steel pail. hire me intsys

[stew4]

Although the lighteyes/darkeyes conflict was completely bungled (I think we all agree on that), I do appreciate the moments in Words of Radiance where it was good. Or handled in a way that was far better. Even if a lot of the book was still showing signs of the decline.

specifically: I’ve noticed a lot of authors tend to ignore certain moments that are used for jokes or metaphors in regards to their implication. I would not have been surprised if the boots scene was forever forgotten in the plot outside of ‘silly Kaladin grumbling about being robbed’ . That would have been very much expected. But I’m glad that it is at least acknowledged as a shitty thing for Shallan to do. She gets called out on it and is definitively the bad guy in that circumstance.

still though, he should’ve also acknowledged all her worse moments of supporting the lighteyes/darkeyes hierarchy. And literally everything done with the plotline in later books does more than cancel it out. But I think it’s good to remember days when it was in fact not a trainwreck and seemed to have some self-awareness.

[earl-grey-crow]

"I'm...I'm alive. I'm okay" I heard your voice crack jacob

[itspileofgoodthings]

I know I’m always talking about teaching David Copperfield but I wanna talk about teaching David Copperfield. I can’t really explain it but it’s like opening a casket full of honey and wine and sweet things to students who are very used to trash.

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

I really want Christmas season to feel like Christmas season again this year. it hasn't for a couple years, I've kinda breezed right through it, but I want to try and focus on it this year.

[adozentothedawn]

And so it is done! Praise be our bird lady Hylea, even though she was a dick to me while making it.

I tried getting multiple different lighting situations, but unfortunately none are great. If we're getting some sunlight tomorrow maybe I'll post another one in natural light.

Now, eagle (hah) eyed viewers might notice that there are two different shades of pink in this banner. This is definitely on purpose and not cause I ran out of the first one and bought a wrong one to stock up and then only noticed when it was too late.

You might also notice that wings don't look like weaving. That is cause they aren't. While the egg and the top part honestly went amazingly well on the round loom, the wings unfortunately bend into the wrong direction for the most part so it looked garbage when I tried to weave it the way I do usually. I then tried to weave it on top of the background, using the weft as another warp, but didn't look great either. Then I got the idea to maybe use the fact that I branched out in textile arts recently and just try something completely different. I ended up using a backstitch basically, but through the string itself to make it stick in one line. Honestly I'm kinda proud of that thing, cause it did come out pretty good. (Except that the one top line somehow got too long which meant I had to staunch the right wing so it wouldn't look too off kilter but at that point it would have been ludicrous to try and fix it so I did my best to work around it.)

Tbh I was too lazy to look up proper rim techniques but hey it works, so whatever.

The next project will take a while for sure, because I have about 5 million Christmas ducks to crochet, so we'll see when I get back to it.

[skitskatdacat63]

“Constantia et fortitudine” - Emperor Sebastian I “der Sieghafte”

[yeyayeya]

Lol after my last post about Ike FEH is gonna give me Zelgius

Well played

[fingertipsmp3]

Friendship ended with google sheets, now filofax is my best friend