#from my kindle

[brittanybwrites]

Gonna read two books this time, yeeeh boi.

[lazylittledragon]

ok someone please correct me if i'm wrong but am i weird for thinking those 'audiobooks don't count as reading' posts are ableist as fuck????

[felassan]

What kind of spirit do you think Felassan waz?

Swag

[hedgehog-moss]

In my neverending quest to keep Pampérigouste from achieving her dreams, I have launched a formal investigation into her last escape, which I had no explanations for at the time.

I figured it out! At the far far end of her pasture, near the road, a few fence posts have become more or less horizontal (the ground is quite wet / muddy there so they've never been very stable, especially with Pirlouit using them to scratch his forehead)—so instead of a high jump + long jump combo to get to the road, Pampe just had to clear the long jump over the ditch. Which is still impressive.

I also suspect that she chose to escape from this place near the road on a snowy morning as a deliberate strategy, knowing the snow plough would erase any traces of her jump, thus preventing me from discovering where the weak spot in the fence was. Well done.

You need 2 people to fix these fence posts so in the meantime I decided to kill two birds with one stone: cut all the broom and thorny bushes in this corner of the pasture and use them to form a discouraging barrier. I set to work earlier this week, and here's the same place as above, mid-process:

When I texted my mum to tell her about my new thorn-based anti-Pampe plan of action, she said "Like the Maasai who make fences with thorny acacia branches to keep out lions!" and it made me feel even more confident. I mean, I have neither acacia nor Maasai fencing techniques but my thorny shrubs are pretty aggressive, they pricked my fingers even through my thick work gloves—which felt satisfying in an anticipatory way. Excellent! prick Pampe's nose exactly like this. How could a llama not be deterred by a fence material that deters apex predators?

Vexingly enough, she seemed quite supportive of my efforts. At one point she breathed some warm air against my shoulder in a gentle, patronising way.

We were engaged in psychological warfare all afternoon—every time I stepped away from my vegetal fence, feeling like it was now good enough, Pampe would immediately come to inspect it, cheerful and impatient, which sapped my confidence so I would go and add a few more shrubs. (Note that I sort of plaited the first / biggest shrubs with the pre-existing fence so they don't go flying on the road, and so Pampe can't just push them aside.)

On the right: Poldine, looking for little fresh leaves to eat amidst the chaos. On the left: Pampérigouste, thinking.

(At this point the barrier was only 20% thorns, and 80% broom—the fact that she waded through it without a care and didn't prick her belly made me go and add more thorny shrubs, and pack them more densely)

It's kind of fun watching Pampe think, honestly. Can I jump over this? Do I have enough visibility? Can I eat my way to freedom (again)? But these shrubs are disgusting. Am I above exploiting my daughter's lack of culinary discernment to achieve my goals? Maybe I should go back to my calculations re: probability of wild boar destruction. I may have pincushions for hands after handling prickly bushes for two hours but I'm helping stimulate my llama's intellect and creativity and that's so important.

I tried to alternate broom and thorny branches so that the non-thorny broom became tangled up with thorns and brambles to form an impenetrable and incomprehensible wall. I will call it this method the salmagundi-fence.

Poldine is in awe of my vegetal installation.

Can I just say, compared to Pampérigouste who constantly has a devilish glint in her eye, Pampelune's face exudes wholesome politeness and moral goodness. It's still hard to believe they're mother and daughter.

I went home once my fence started looking like Maleficent's forest of thorns and Pampe had long stopped trying to wade through it, but I still felt antsy and ended up coming back one hour later to have my apéritif with the llamas so I could keep an eye on Pampe until nightfall.

... where is Pampe?

Oh. Here. No worries!

Still staring at the road. Still thinking.

...

With all that said, please admire my beautifully delirious Forest of Thorns-fence and let me know what you think.

[keepthetension]

it's been days since wandee goodday episode 05 but i keep thinking about how this guy?

ended up finding someone who cares in the same way

[sunburstsandmoonshadows]

"in the end, all I hope for is to be a bit of warmth for you when there’s not a lot warmth left to go around" - boreas, the oh hellos

below, a version with other lyrics:

[naughtystiel]

dont u just love reading fics in bed and as time progresses u slowly start rotating in it like a hotdog at a gas station

[lilacerull0]

she's the door, she can't be the room

L'Amica Geniale - Elena Ferrante | Holly Warburton | Stephanie Says - The Velvet Underground | Winter Lady - Leonard Cohen | x | Suzanne Siegel

[akindplace]

Mary Oliver - To begin with, the sweet grass

“We do one thing or another; we stay the

same, or we

change.

Congratulations, if

you have changed”

[ode-to-fury]

Rote lines I still think about nearly a year after finishing Ass Fate

If fate demands that you be dead well then I'll probably be dead too

I called you a clodpole

But a man's whole life you sniff at and say, what, this naught of a human, this fisherman this carpenter, this thief, this cook, why, what can they do in the great wide world?

You break your heart against this stony world, and you do not ask the cost

Give me a face you could love (coupled with they were supposed to be brown oh my goddddd)

As if he didn't know he was loved the best

You're not dead, son. You're not dead.

My dream was dead in my arms

[hussyknee]

You only have a book buying problem if you have disposable income. If you're poor you have a book downloading problem. Book piracy is the great equaliser because even broke people get the chance to organize and re-organize a thousand books they'll never read.

[brittanybwrites]

This has been on my TBR for a while now-and today’s the day to read it.

[peppermintquartz]

Given my own family denying my bisexuality and some of my oldest friends breaking off the friendships over me coming out, I would also be deeply hurt by someone dragging me back into a closet without my permission. To be rejected or forcibly hidden by someone I care about is incredibly painful.

Which is what Evan basically did when he said that they would be picking up hot chicks after the meal. And yet Tommy didn't correct him, he was just a little snarky about it.

You wanna stay in there, fine. Don't pull me back in when I've fought so hard to come out. I wouldn't be in the mood to continue a date either.

What if he sees someone else he knows? Would he drag Tommy back into the closet again, every time? Better to cut it short while they were still friendly than to let Buck think this was an acceptable way to treat Tommy.

Buck wasn't ready. Tommy saw that, and he was protecting his own peace, which is entirely fair, and I don't see why anyone should give Tommy shit for it.

[givemethedamnflowers]

What's funny is that i made my sister read aftg at 14 bc i forgot she was only 14 (there are reasons) and here we are 6 years later debating what kind of french music Jean would listen to over a pint (or 3)

[hedgehog-moss]

I lost one of my chickens :( she was caught and carried away by a fox... I’ve been growing complacent about my chickens’ safety I think because we’ve only had one other attack before, a goshawk that swooped in abruptly (unsuccessfully), but no fox sightings nearby so I’ve been assuming Pandolf was a great deterrent. Which he is, just not foolproof. I’ve talked to some people in town about this and they were pretty philosophical about foxes stealing chickens, like “it’s the tribute we pay to woodland animals, it’s just a few hens here and there.” I don’t begrudge the fox for being a fox, if anything I have a renewed respect for foxes because everyone I talked to proceeded to give me their best / worst fox stories, and most of them involved foxes outsmarting humans (learning people’s habits / timetables, opening latches, faking a limp...) Still I feel terrible for my hen, she was only three. RIP Cordy :( You’ll be remembered fondly... (except by the cats.) I feel bad for the other hen too, who just lost her pal!

When I said that last thing, one of my neighbours jumped on the opportunity to try and convince me again to accept a rooster from him. He had a rooster baby boom last summer and I’ve been telling him for months that I don’t need a rooster, I don’t want to raise chickens I just want eggs, and his new argument was that a rooster would protect my hen (or if it comes to that, would heroically sacrifice himself rather than let the hen be eaten—I’m sceptical...) I asked around for a young hen but there aren’t any to be had in this season, so my remaining one is going to be alone until the spring, and my neighbour said she’d get stressed and male company is better than no company. (I wish I could ask my hen what she wants! Maybe she’s penning A Coop Of One’s Own as we speak.) I said the rooster was more likely to stress her out and harass her and he said nah they’re free ranging all day, it’ll be fine, and he’s young so your adult hen will boss him around. I was like, but then will he be any good at protecting her? etc. etc. and after a while I caved in.

When I told her about this on the phone my mum sighed “you’re terrible at saying no”—excuse me, I said no so many times and the guy just kept ploughing on until he could foist a rooster upon me. I’m good at saying no, other people are terrible at hearing it! I reassured her that I had only agreed to take the rooster for a short probationary period, and if he bothers my hen too much I’ll drive him back to his native farm. My mum was like “Drive him back? look I’m sorry I raised you as a city kid but there’s no need to waste gas on driving a rooster around, I’ll have no qualms about wringing his neck for dinner if he’s more trouble than he’s worth.” The rooster’s fate is not sealed though, if he is anywhere from vaguely useful to not actively problematic I’ll keep him, so we’ll see...!

[littleliterarylesbian]

always thinking about how one of the best jegulus fics I've ever read has been deleted and now no one will get to read the joy of it for the first time ever again