#my yard currently has 40 fireflies.

[swagging-back-to]

oh also i saw a monarch butterfly the other day in the store parkinglot and i almost cried <3 th

[gobsmackapplejack]

my f*cking WIPs

(Actually, it should be WsIP, but you know what I mean.)

Behold, the WIPs in my google docs:

Fandom: The Walking Dead Darlenn ofc

Scholarship - I don't want to talk about it.  If by 'it' you mean 'when I'm going to finish this.'  But if you want to talk about the story, then yes, hmu!

Daryl Dixon, Airline Pilot - continuing in my 'TWD character, awesome career' AU "series" lol.  This is the fic that got eaten by my computer when it was 75% done.  I have been slowly rewriting it but gotta say, it's agonizing. It's about 60% done now.

Currently Unnamed Christmas AU - okay, at one point I had called it The Temp Job - I started this mofo LAST CHRISTMAS GDI!  2015!! Daryl gets a Christmas temp job at the office where Glenn works. 50% done.  *Crosses fingers for 2017*

The Marketplace - Zombie Apocalypse AU (I forget what you call them when the setting is still the same but the storyline is different? Canon adjacent?)  Daryl sees Glenn in the Marketplace, his bright, sharp eyes assessing the surrounding scene before moving quickly with a purpose.  He follows him into a dark tent. Daryl knows what type of transactions probably go on there. Prostitution or the like.  Didn't think the kid would be into that sort of stuff, but then the end of civilization pretty much made people say ‘fuck it’ to their inhibitions and morals. Maybe 50% done?  I only have a vague idea of the climax and resolution so this is stalled.

Currently Unnamed Firefly AU - Daryl and Merle are mercs and sign on to the Chieftan, a Transport/Salvage/Jobs-for-hire crew led by Rick Grimes.  30% done.  Plot bunny has left me so I'm trying to scrape together some sort of story for this.

Currently Unnamed Hogwarts AU - When Daryl gets into Hogwarts the revelation of the wizarding world is a huge shock to him.  Eventually he figures out how to get along, learns magic, makes friends, and is doing okay. Great, even.  Then Glenn transfers to Hogwarts. 60% done, maybe.  This is more just a quickfic so not very much plot.

Fandom: Harry Potter

Nisi Membra - Drarry. My first written fanfic in the HP verse (though I've had other ideas.)  Two words: Wizard Porn.  This is so fucking close to done.

Pensieve Dreams - Dramione. Draco is having a recurring dream about Herm- Grainger.  He puts the dream-memory into his pensieve to study it from a different perspective.  I only just started writing but I have the general idea all in my head.

Fandom: Teen Wolf

Sterek

sb242 - 95% done.  Inspired by the state bill in Texas that would require schools to disclose personal information about students if the parents request it, including sexual orientation or gender identity records.  Stiles gets outed to the Sheriff by the school.

Currently Unnamed Dollhouse AU - 40% done.  Stiles and Derek are like Sierra and Victor in Joss Whedon's Dollhouse.  Their love can't be erased.

Nuts - 25% done. Derek is a minor league ball player.  The Sheriff offers to be his host family when Parrish, his original host, gets injured in the line of duty.  The best part of Stiles's day is seeing Derek walking out of their shared bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist, water beading on his naked chest.

Derek Hale, Master Gardener - 10% done. Derek has a landscaping business. Lydia's parents hire him to re-landscape their yard.  Stiles spends his summer at the Martin's pool oogling the hot gardener.

Alydira

Roommates - 30% I started this for femslash February 2016 yo.  Kira and Allison are roommates.  Allison and Lydia are together.  Kira does't know what the scarf on the doorknob means. *fingers crossed for femslash February 2017*

Fandom: Check, Please!

Sexual Discourse Part II - 50% done.  Shitty is worried he's fetishizing Lardo

AAARRRRHRHHHHHGHGGGGGGH.  Holy shit that’s a lot.  Why can’t I finish anything?  I feel like there’s a life lesson in here somewhere.

[athertonjc]

Saved by The Marx Brothers and Oak Trees by Allen Bush

I am not shy about telling friends who voted for Donald Trump that I think the president is a clown. Many of them agree Trump is a clown, too, but they argue that he’s a better clown than the clown I voted for. We try to be civil with one another.

What a mess.

I worry about what I can do to be a better gardener and citizen.   I can take better care of my garden, but I can’t battle the president on all fronts, nor even most of them.

There is no reason to think the president has any interest in gardening. And he has tweeted, “This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop.”

We are at odds.

I’ve been planting small oak (Quercus lyrata) trees and watching Marx Brothers movies with my ten-year-old granddaughter. These diversions take a little edge off the insurgent political chaos. I love planting trees, and we need a few laughs.

I started the oak trees from acorns. These little one-year-old trees are easier to plant and a lot less expensive than larger container, or balled and burlapped, trees. A heartbreaking percentage will get grazed to the nubbin or rutted by deer. Or they will succumb the first few years to drought or perhaps to my own carelessness.

I’m hoping I can eventually establish two hundred trees—reforestation on a tiny scale. What did you expect? I’ll be sixty-six this year. I’m waiting on my first Social Security check.

I have decided to focus on our farm and garden—and environmental issues. I’ve been an active gardener for over 40 years. I think I’ve been a good earth steward, yet I haven’t been involved in environmental politics. Unlike with the social security, I’m not waiting around for this one anymore.

Rose and I installed a solar system on our farm in Salvisa last year. My business friends—Republicans and Democrats— argue that the cost doesn’t make economic sense. It makes do-gooder sense to me. You don’t have to float a barge down the Ohio River to get coal to the power plant. We’re not entirely off the grid. I understand the current need for fossil fuels; still, it feels good to have a power station in my back yard.

Maybe one day you can have your own peer-to-peer solar grid in your neighborhood. Brooklyn’s effort has  “…implications that could be far reaching,” according to the New York Times.

I can’t fight the Koch Brothers on my own, either. They have little regard for the environment, so I’ve rejoined the Sierra Club after a 20-year break. I paid my dues soon after I read the Koch Brothers were trying to mine uranium within a few miles of the Grand Canyon.

Nor will Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Administration’s (E.P.A.) Administrator, do much to protect the environment. He said recently that carbon dioxide’s contribution to global warming needed to be studied more. (Did you ever hear the one about how cigarettes don’t cause cancer?)

Pruitt should listen to his predecessor, William Ruckleshaus, the E.P.A.’s first administrator, from 1970 to 1973. Ruckleshaus to this day understands the value of the E.P.A. The public does, too. In a recent op-ed in the New York Times, Ruckleshaus, wrote: “To me, the E.P.A. represents one of the clearest examples of our political system listening and responding to the American people. The public will tolerate changes that allow the agency to meet its mandated goals more efficiently and effectively. They will not tolerate changes that threaten their health or the precious environment.”

Hedge your bets if you think air and water will become cleaner in the next four years.

We could do so much environmental good.

But as fast as I plant oak trees, we’re dialing back environmental protection and ramping up the military.

The Marx Brothers understood the war economy. Groucho and Chico traded one-liners in their 1993 Duck Soup classic.

Rufus T. Firefly:

Now that you’re Secretary of War, what kind of an army do you think we ought to have?

Chicolini:

Well, I tell you what I think, I think we should have a standing army.

Rufus T. Firefly:

Why should we have a standing army?

Chicolini:

Because then we save money on chairs.

Plant an oak tree this spring.

Saved by The Marx Brothers and Oak Trees originally appeared on Garden Rant on March 15, 2017.

from Garden Rant http://gardenrant.com/2017/03/saved-by-the-marx-brothers-and-oak-trees.html