#we live on a farm surrounded by other farms so there’s lots of space to roam

[bog--unicorn]

life of a bog dog

I’m really starting to love December

[bovineblogger]

I think it’s really cute to see cows by the side of the road when driving, but it also makes me sad to think they might be eaten. How can you tell dairy cows from beef cows? Is there a difference? Is there any other reason to raise cows besides food?

i could spend some time teaching you guys about different beef and dairy breeds, but i think the underlying concern here is about beef farming if im correct! if im not, let me know and i can write up a post about beef and dairy breeds, because i do love talking about them too hehe.

its completely normal and human to be upset at the thought of an animal dying, death is an ugly thing to a lot of people you know? i think its in our nature not to want animals to suffer. but its important to realize that everywhere in the world animals are there to be eaten by other animals. the ecosystem, the cycle of life, whatever you wanna call it.

in the wild, bovines are mostly picked off by predators when they're young and unable to defend themselves! an animal can be killed and eaten at any point, and if they get sick or injured thats often fatal for them. in captivity, cattle and other bovines get to live to adulthood happy and healthy and surrounded by friends! they get free food n water, free medical care, and they get to sit in a big field with all their buddies. we care for them and love them for their entire lives, and at our hands they die quickly and painlessly. and then we eat them. its a symbiotic relationship.

to an outsider the industry can seem 2 to be all death bc thats the only part we know about. but its so much more than that! farmers dedicate their whole lives to their animals. they raise them, feed them, tend them when theyre sick, give them space to run around, make sure theyre not too hot or cold and that their water troughs are clean... for whole lifetimes! over and over and over, farming is about life. we feed them and they feed us. its beautiful. genuinely.

images (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

[lunajay33]

Not the Only One Part.2

•🌪️🍂🪵🏹•

Summary: Reader comes from an abusive family and is insecure about it showing up everywhere with bruises, but one night she comes across Daryl who is more like you than you know

Pairing: Young Daryl Dixon x f!reader

Content Warning: Abusive parents

Part.1

•Masterlist•

I woke up feeling sore all over, rolling over in the bed I notice Daryl still fast asleep, I try to get up slowly……quietly but as I sit up he groans groggily opening his eyes

“Where ya goin?” His voice still raspy with sleep

“Just gonna get more pain meds, I’m really sore, sorry I woke you”

“Ain’t gotta be sorry, bout time I get up anyways” he got out of bed and grabbed some more aspirin and a bottle of water that was on his dresser

“Thanks, I should probably head home now, don’t wanna over stay my welcome” I laugh pathetically

“Yer staying, like I said last night ya ain’t going back there, ya need a break, hell we both do” he said sitting down next to me on the bed

“Then what are we going to do?”

“Come on I’ll show ya” he took my hand and led me out of the house to the woods that were behind his house surrounding the lake

“Is this your way of telling me you’re going to kill me” I joke with him as he drags me through trees and bushes

“Ya caught me” he smiles as he looks back at me

We stopped at a clearing that over looked the lake with the morning sun shining down on the water, we both sat down just watching the serene moment, I gently laid my head on his shoulder eventually feeling him lay his against my head, in the span of a day he’s been there for me more than anyone ever has in my life, that feeling last night when he consoled me and made me feel like I wasn’t a burden or like all this isn’t my fault and he understood, it made my heart flutter and I want more of that, I want more moments like this with Daryl

“How is it we basically grew up a few houses apart when we could have helped each other this whole time”

“Don’t know sunshine, but ya ain’t alone now” he said as he picked at his fingers nervously

“I don’t wanna go back there, I can’t do it anymore and I don’t want you to hurt anymore either” he was silent for some time

“What do ya wanna do then?” My heart was beating fast with thrill but mixed with anxiety

“What if we just ran away, my aunt lives on a farm like an hour away and she lives alone, she always said she’s lonely and she has a lot of space, what if we just go there, start over together”

“I don’t know, ain’t we gonna be a lot to take in?”

“She calls all the time telling me to move with her, I always said no because well dad would go crazy but I need to go, and you’re so sweet she’d love to have you around, I can call and ask” he seemed to think it over before he nodded

We went back to his house and I dialed my aunts number waiting a few rings before she answered

“Hello?”

“Aunt Carrie it’s me y/n”

“Oh sweetie I didn’t recognize the number”

“Yeah I’m calling from a friends house ummmm I need to ask you something” I asked feeling my voice quiver, Daryl holding my hand in encouragement

“I’ve never told you because I was scared of what might happen but dads been hitting me, he has for a long time and this time was really bad, I can’t live her anymore and I have know where else to go, I know it’s a lot to ask but could me and my friend come live with you, we need to get out of here”

“Oh love you should have come to me sooner, you and your friend are welcome to come live here for as long as you’d like, I love you sweetheart”

“Love you too” we both hung up and I turned to Daryl smiling

“She said yes, we can live there for as long as we want” he pulled me into a hug mindful of my back

“Thank ya, ya can go pack and meet me back here and we can take my truck and go” with that we went our ways, I entered the house and no one was home, I took a suitcase and packed as much as I could as I was leaving the house I saw Daryl throwing some things in the box of his truck, I wheeled over and he helped load my stuff up

“Are ya sure bout this?” He asked brushing my hair back

“I want this Daryl, let’s go before someone comes home” we got in his truck and the engined roared as we pulled out, driving past the house that only brought awful memories, driving past the sign telling us we were now leaving town seemed to lift this weight off my chest and it seemed to have the same effect of Daryl

Throughout the hour drive Daryl played his music and we just enjoyed the comfort of knowing we got out, when we got to a dirt road I gave him directions, pulling up to the farm it was as beautiful as I remembered, huge green fields with roaming horses, a little pen for lambs and sheep that were hopping around, and there in the middle of all the land stood a big older house that just brought everything together, Daryl pulled up the drive way and parked, shutting off the truck

“Didn’t know it would be all this, thought it’d be somethin small, don’t know if I deserve this” my heart hurt at how he saw his worth, I thought he deserves all this and more

“Daryl this is our home now and what we’ve been through we deserve some peace, now come on let’s go inside”

It’s been a month since we moved to the farm and it’s been the most peace I’ve had in years, Daryl and I were sitting out in the field watching the sun set, listening to the frogs crook

“Are you happy here Daryl?”

“Ya know I am, best thing anyone could’ve given me”

“Do you think maybe we could be more than friends eventually” I asked extremely nervous that this might push him away

He looked down at me his face hard to read making matters worse

“Thought we already were” my eyes widen and my heart skips a beat, did I miss a something?

“What really? And when did this happen without me knowing?” I tease

“That night ya came to my room, had that nightmare and needed me, I knew then that ya were the one, thought ya felt the same” he said squeezing my hand

“So we’re dating, thee Daryl Dixon is my boyfriend” I laugh leaning my head back to his shoulder

“I’m all yers sunshine”

This was only a short sweet series I hope you all liked it🩶

Taglist: @l0kilaufeys0n7 @stoner420things69 @pinchofthetwd @thestonedwriter @daryldixmedown @deansapplepie @ghostboneswrites2 @superbowlisgay @daryls-wife @pinkratts @daryl-dixons-left-hand @mrrumplebottom @twistedprincess-92 @addi1978 @wongcena @darylspersonalwhore @starrqi @heidiland05 @livlaughlove03

[intheholler]

hii

so, i have nothing to do with appalachia or even america cause i come from alllll the way over the sea in this tiny town in england…but reading up on this blog or experiences online // my friends who have moved over here from the states has made me think abt the huge similarities in the gentrification and religious aspects from across the globe (and it’s happening everywhere, but this is just from a UK perspective)

theres lots of rich farmland and wealthy rural areas in england. but the further into the country you get, there are towns/places in deep deep poverty because of the dead industries (that goes into heavy british politics) or facing a severe homelessness crisis because everyone is building holiday villas and country retreats. **

we used to live on an old farm before the land got renovated to make space for two other houses along the road. i would find bricks and planks// wooden posts, barbed wire fences etc around which looked ‘eyesore’ (to quote my neighbour) because of how modern the surrounding area was. literally just grey shiplap. everywhere. there were neighbours who had lived there for decades trying to help out with the land; then upon realising that the only field left for miles was now a jumbo golf course, had to move away or got kicked out by the council cause they couldn’t afford to live there and ‘just weren’t needed anymore’. moving away & meeting others myself has made me realise how many people (esp large families) moved down to the overpriced city because they literally had no other option.

** every city has its surrounding land & when they begin bulldozing a village to make another coffee place, they don’t care about you, the land, the cost crisis, your job or your roots

and that’s just my experience in england, that’s not even to mention the rest of the UK (eg. the scottish highlands, most of wales, northern ireland)

but also the heavy religious aspects, the indoctrination, the isolation, churches being built over and turned into pubs/bars and still so many communities believing that it’s just the consequences of the countries sinners..

(and that’s just Christianity cause we all know how Britain has diluted and stripped so much culture and other religions down to nothing.)

god i love these asks from intl folks who note such similarities to appalachian socioeconomic/religious/political circumstances. i think it really highlights how much rural folks really understand each other in a way urban people just can't, and it gives me a nice sense of global solidarity (as much as the shared pains fucking suck)

this was really interesting to read, thanks so much for sharing and i'm sorry this took so long for me to reply to; it's been a weird few months

take care <33

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

There's reason I don't prefer to interact with people I deem as trolls (most of the time)

Because they come at everything as if you are an idiot. And you'll see this. You know who you are. But for everyone else who needs this info, it's here for you.

Nuclear and Hydro are the cleanest forms of energy that we have access to right now. For 1, Hydro is a consistent form of power that uses turbines and the elevation of the water to consistently turn those turbines to create power. The plus side? Little to no waste. Unless of course the dam is destroyed in which case everything the Dam is made out of becomes pollution and debris in the surrounding waters.

Nuclear is a bit of an interesting case because the amount of power that it produces is quite a lot for a fraction of the used material. What's more, removal of nuclear waste is already a thing that has been sorted out. And while yes you have to treat it with care, we don't live in the 60's anymore. We have casks that we use. And the raw material that gets used up not only takes a lot of time to use up, but it's also not a large amount of waste and doesn't take up space during disposal. So while not recyclable in a normal way, there are bunkers that are used for the disposal of. And again, it takes a long time to use up the materials.

NOW Solar and Wind on the other hand are different. Neither produce large amounts of electricity, they don't always work, and to make each of them, it takes a number of years to offset the cost in both pollution and in raw materials. Most wind turbines take around 8-15 years to offset the pollution used to created them. Granted I'm not sure if this is WITH the pollution caused during the material mining process. Which could put it in the market of a Wind turbine having to work for nearly 18+ year to produce enough energy and use time to offset the pollution used to make JUST ONE. And that's not counting also the transportation costs of all the materials, specifically the propellers. What's worse, is that not only is it a lot of material to make them, most of that material can't be recycled at all. Moreover, they tend to kill a lot of animals and large swaths of land have to be cleared in order to make a wind farm. Meaning clearing out woods, farms, animals etc, etc. (*Additional note that must turbines have to be decommissioned after a few years due to wear*)

With solar panels it's very similar, except not only are the not recyclable, they have a the ability to spill toxins into the environment. Due to the internal composition of them, especially the cheaper ones, they can poison the soil and ground water with any leakage caused by damage. Notably they are significantly easier to break than most of the other renewables. And not only that the offset for them as well is quite a long time. Not as long as it is for wind turbines, but it's more stressful on the environment initially because of the need for rare earth metals. And the places we get it minded from are almost beyond healing at this point. Both the soil and the water. And that's not counting the health of the locals having to mine all of this stuff.

So in the short and long term, Wind and Solar are both bad for environments and are both significantly more fragile than Hydro and Nuclear. Like with the advent of Micro Reactors.

Less space is taken up, but lots of energy is still produced. Meanwhile Wind farms and Solar farms need far more land area and have damaged agriculture and forests over. And even more fun, Wind Turbines have killed an number of sonar based animal life in the ocean as well if reports hold true. Granted many reports try to refute this because god forbid WIND be dangerous at all. We can't have that. (If you ask me personally the vibrations probably mess with quite bit of wildlife in the ocean.

But for the land area they take up, they produce trash amount of energy. Mind you, I'm not any solar. I am anti wind however. But with solar I believe that we need to tweak the tech so as to make sure we are not worrying about inability to recycle. What's more, I think we should only be using solar in cases of person or enterprise use. And bring back tax credits for a lot of places that got rid of them. Adding to that, EV's are actually a danger to the roads more so than regular vehicles. And the stress they add to the grids can't be kept up with using wind or solar. And with few Nuclear reactors, we have to up use of fossil fuels to meet demand. Also the other factors are worse. Like battery pollution, higher burn temps, and having to equip fire trucks to be able to handle that. Not to mention the damage the roads would also take in the process.

[made-by-marlow]

The Pomegranate Tree [sdv Elliott x male oc] Part One: Hazel

ao3 version

Masterlist | Next

Hazel, for a long time, had dreamt of the city.

It was a stupid, naïve dream. But it was something about the thousands of people and thousands of opportunities with each individual. Thousands of places to go. The coffee shops, the museums, the libraries. The wanderlust that could be satisfied in the same big city. 

With no money or time, real travel was never an option. The city held countless places to go, all within a half hour hike.

He held onto that dream now. The moment it came true, he realized the expectations for living in the big city were unrealistic. Countless places to go, yet trapped in a shitty apartment with little free time.

What little time was spent outside of work (Joja Corporations. A stupid office job. The farthest he could go without a college degree) was spent tending to a small garden on the porch. As spring was coming, it was the perfect opportunity to raise cheap little parsnips he found seeds for at Joja Mart stores.

Along with this, little digital farms. Hours and hours poured into a Nintendo Switch taking care of small digital parsnips, beans, and flowers. Talking to silly little NPC's. Now, this was the dream. To live in a small, walkable town. To tend to a farm as big as you want it to be. That was the life.

Real life was sitting in an office chair pretending to work.

Hundreds of workers surrounded Hazel, each doing the same. Or at least, pretending to. Writing emails, making excel sheets, attending pointless meetings. It was the kind of thing his grandpa warned him about.

Grandpa.

The letter.

A frantic motion towards the drawer made those in the surrounding cubicles stop and stare. It didn't matter. This was the time.

If you're reading this, you must be in dire need of a change.

This same thing happened to me, long ago. I'd lost sight of what mattered most in life... real connections with other people and nature.

So I dropped everything and moved to a place I truly belong.

It was about time for Hazel to do the same.

No two week notice. Hazel simply left.

★

What few trees the city had were planted in neat, evenly spaced, organized rows. The trees screamed with cicadas. The grass was painted green, smelling of weed killer. The grass and forest of Stardew Valley was different. Natural, tangled with weeds.

It seemed surreal to see trees so large and overpowering. Strong. Home to little woodpeckers feasting on the bark. Surviving despite the birds. The trees were spread randomly, proving the tree chose for this to be their home rather than man made foliage.

As naturally green grass met Hazel's feet, Hazel met Robin.

Robin looked exactly like Hazel imagined the bird Robin would look like as a human. She appeared to be in her mid to late 40's, small lines reflecting where she smiles the most. Ginger hair was pulled back into a fluffy ponytail, a rectangular wooden pencil sticking from it. The style appeared to be more for practically than looks. The theory was proven when Hazel noticed a tool belt.

"Hello, Farmer Hazel!" The ladder smiled at the greeting. It was the first time anyone had spoke like that to him in a long time. Genuine appreciation of one's company. Someone talking to him outside of work.

"We've heard a lot of good things about you. Mayor Lewis asked me to find you and show you the way to your new home." The land to be inherited. It seemed surreal to own anything other than a one bedroom apartment.

Trying to match pace keeping behind her, Hazel followed the older woman to a farm. Weeds grew everywhere, stone in the way of most of the farmland. There was a lot of work to be done to treat this land as a farm, but Hazel found beauty in it. Land nature decided to thrive without any human touch.

The place could really use some human touch.

"Here we are, Lavender Farm." It was ironic, really, that lavender was never grown here. The name was simply aesthetically pleasing. Hazel forgot to control the expression of his face. He came here to escape work. All of this clearing to be done was definitely work.

"What's the matter?" Hazel smiled when he remembered to. "Sure, it's overgrown. But there's good soil underneath that mess."

Hazel couldn't help but study the trees. Once again, randomly placed. The wood could be used, but a part of him wanted to leave some natural forest. Some sort of nature reserve.

Pulling him from his thoughts, the mayor exited the cabin that would soon be Hazel's home.

"Ah the new farmer!" A label Hazel wasn't used to. Lewis made his way to the boy's right, holding his hand out. "I'm Lewis, mayor of Pelican Town. Everyone has been asking about you."

That's an anxiety inducing thought. There's expectations. What did the people expect Hazel to be like? Charming, and hard working like his grandfather made him out to be? A grandparent's perception of their grandchild isn't always the most accurate. If anything, Hazel was more introverted than charming and hard working.

When Hazel had zoned back into the conversation, the two "proper" adults had finished their conversation with laughter. Something about the old cabin needing fixing.

"Anyway..." The mayor said coming down from the laughter. "You must be tired from the journey. You should get some rest." A bag was placed into Hazel's arms. A blanket, toothbrush. The bare minimum of essentials.

"Tomorrow, you should try to explore the town and introduce yourself. The townspeople would appreciate that."

With that, the mayor and town carpenter turned and made their way to their respective homes. Now, Hazel could do the same. He once again scanned the area.

On the front porch was a collection of tools. An ax for the wood, pickaxe for the stone, watering can for farming. Seeds. The same little seeds he used to grow on the porch towering ten feet above the ground. This, he could plant into the real dirt. Allow the roots to spread as far as they wanted, not just in a little garden box.

And with that, he got to work.

[thedisablednaturalist]

People should get reimbursed for commute time

If it takes someone over an hour to get to work, that should be part of their pay.

Many people have to commute long distances/through areas of slow traffic because they cannot afford to live closer to their workplace. This is also why work from home is a big thing.

If corporations want people to return to their offices, they need to make it appealing enough. I'm not going to fight through traffic for 2 hrs in my free time just to sit at a computer all day, when I could just stay home and don't waste that time.

Corporations would be forced to invest in local affordable housing, perhaps even affording housing credits. They would need to invest in local infrastructure (which in the US is falling to pieces) and improve public transport in their area (faster commute -> less cost to the company, less cars on road -> traffic moves faster, employees without cars would still be able to get to work). Also people would be less stressed and actually take the time to drive safely because they wouldn't feel the need to rush. It would make companies actually take an interest in how their workers get to work and investing in local communities.

I live sort of near DC. We have a HUGE amount of workers commuting into the city and its surrounding cities. Retail workers also have to commute to these cities and suburbs because they cannot afford to live in those areas. My boyfriend commutes an hour to his part time job at a kennel in a rich town. A lot of people live in the more affordable, lower income, far away areas in the nearby states because housing prices in my area are fucking insane. I knew someone who commuted 2+ hours to work and 2+ hours back. There are people who drive even more than that.

And where do these employees have to live? Food deserts. Crumbling infastructure. No parks, no walkability, no public transport, bare bones everything. Only the cities which only the few can afford have basic infrastructure. And even the people living there have to commute to OTHER even richer areas. There's a ton of places where housing developments have just been shoved and are surrounded by nothing but farms. There's nothing local to do, so everyone goes to the closest town and city. It's also why you see a lot of older towns have abandoned main streets. Why have your business cater to the 100 people who live there when you can be in a city with thousands?

There has been some recent interest in paid commute times. 1 2 especially with corporations trying to get workers to go back to the office. Personally, I love working in my office because having a separate space outside my home helps me keep work and home separate and allows me to focus easier since I'm not in "home mode". I don't have room for an office in my parents house so working from home kinda sucks rn even though it would help a lot since I'm disabled. But it is nice being physically near my coworkers, even if it gets annoying sometimes. Also many jobs involve fieldwork (like mine!) which can't be done remotely anyway!

There would be incentive for corporations to keep their employees close AND provide more remote work options for those living farther away. As well as matching pay to fit rent/housing prices in the area (or vice versa).

Also there needs to be something done about corporations having their entire workforce sourced from another country entirely, working for pennies. But that's an even more complicated situation that I don't have experience in.

[ardeawritten]

So every summer I have a Stress Relief Story that writes itself 99% inside my head during down moments from work. (The fact that Crowbar was one of these says a lot about the time over which it was written)

This summer's, since I'm very pleased with my work but also incredibly busy, decided to manifest all at once the moment I had breathing space and now I have 25k words in 5 days about a Horse Girl deciding she can ~bond~ with the nasty stinky wild dragon no one else can touch. It's actually been a lot of fun to just slam out a rough draft again, been a while since the story lived outside my head as well as inside of it.

My Horse Girl Vessa is a mid-twenties horse trainer in a Stock Fantasy World where she has an entry-level job training knights' horses for use in fighting dangerous creatures, including dragons. When beast-trainers haul in a half-dead young dragon and torture it to make it accept a mind-wiping magical seal, she intervenes the only way she knows how - with consistent kindness, a calm voice and an incredibly risky magic of her own. "Everyone says" there's never been a 'tame' dragon before, and every dragon-riding knight in the Five Kingdoms knows their spell-enslaved dragons will kill them eventually, but as she grows closer to the dragon she learns there's much more to the dragons and the magic they share than what "everyone says." She's taking her first steps in a long and hidden tradition of true partnership between humans and the magical beasts that surround their world, a tradition her own sovereign queen is dedicated to destroying. There is no bloody revolution or overthrowing of the sovereign who holds the Five Kingdoms in her hand, but there is endurance and in the long journey together, there is great peace.

Vessa is a complete non-action farm kid who pretty much stays a plucky horse girl the entire time. No swords, no rebellions, the queen doesn't die, no one has any sex, and there's no singular antagonist, just them navigating each other, their friends, their magic and the other stuff happening in the setting. We'll see how far we get before the ball stops rolling.

[spod3]

if the bees forgo my garden, will i need to manually impregnate each flower? my watermelon is much too young to even think about flowering, but the man on youtube told me that q-tips might be a necessity to actually ensure my labor bear any fruit. does one hire bees? i've seen like three bees in as many years, regarding the surrounding area.

my watermelon is absolutely fucked. or not, lol. anyways, the poor thing went absolutely bonkers in it's germination box. i went to check on my cucumber seeds [also batshit crazy; they're growing like it's going out of fashion] and nearly had a heart attack when i noticed green tendrils had begun breaking through the gladwrap i put over it's container. tomorrow. i'll find a nice patch in the garden tomorrow. the man on youtube broke the news quite harshly: my watermelon will need a buttload of space. i do not have said space. we have an annoying dog who tramples every living thing in sight! the courtyard is truly the safest place to harbor some veggies. otherwise i'll need to break out the shovel and start uh shoveling away the grass on the front lawn to make space for my melon-patch.

in other news, my mango is enjoying her new jar. it's much larger and my uncle had some rehydrated sphagnum moss that i don't loathe* to use. it's not a lot, but it fed my mango, so i'm content and will put off sending woollies nasty emails for another month. though, if i can't find their moss in a store in the big city, i will have to start drafting my scathing remarks.

*my avocado is residing in some builders warehouse sphagnum moss and i can see how the poor thing absolutely hates it.

these bees are in warlords and i really like them. i'll only need to start worrying about my watermelon and male and female plant-parts in roughly a years time, hopefully, and by then i might just take the whole thing out for a day trip to the farm and hope for some bees to be intrigued. i've read that spiders and other insects might act as pollinators at times? we have loads of those! i'm sure the process won't be hindered. i'm fretting.

anyhoo, toodles <3

[spyral-out-keep-going]

Saw a post about how even if kids weren’t online/social media then there’s nothing for them to do elsewhere because the outside spaces are not child- & especially not teen-friendly. And boy howdy did that unlock some memories for me. Please join me for a little walk down memory lane!

(I typed a LOT out - way more than I expected - so will be splitting some things up over multiple times and posts. This is going to be called “maybe my experiences were not universal?” series)

I am 42 years old. I grew up without cable tv or a computer in the house until I was maybe 15 I think? And before then I had to go to my friend’s house and use her dad’s AOL free trial discs to get into the chat rooms. (We were catfishing before we knew what that was. I don’t think we ever told the truth when asked for our a/s/l. ;) But I digress…) I lived “in the country” which meant outside a town that now has about 5500 people and back then it wasn’t even that high. My house (formerly a working family farm) was surrounded by fields, a diary farm across one of those fields, and the closest neighbor down the road was about 2 football fields away or 1/10 mile.

Please consider all of that and know I was a bona fide member of the “there’s nothing to doooo” club.

But

We found things to do

The library in town was the most frequent place we visited because it was 1) free and 2) had vhs movies and shows we didn’t get on our 6 channel tv. (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS…I’m missing something. I think there was also a religious (Christian) channel?? but you get the point.) Libraries rock and they offer even more programs and crafts these days to get people in the door. Please support your local library.

Most of our free time we were home or down at the neighbors. I had 2 little sisters and within a mile down the road there were 2 other families each with 2 girls in our age range. We lucked out there. We would walk or ride our bikes to visit each other. We played actual games and made up games. This is not comprehensive but is a very accurate list of what we got up to.

My family had a corn crib not in use for its actual purpose, so we got it as a play house and constructed many worlds to play in. Storylines spanning summers. War, historical drama, survival/kid horror, cops & robbers, romances with imaginary husbands & eventually kids, and I’m sure more I’m forgetting.

Our make believe games were not limited to the corn crib - we also recreated whole movies (Sound of Music was a recurring one) and sometimes just scenes in the neighbor girls’ basements.

Dance parties - sometimes with judges but mostly just to dance. We had to use the radio mostly (before we had our own tapes & eventually CDs) because our parents didn’t really trust us with their records. Probably for good reason.

[pandorasboxoftreasures]

Why I Get It

Been having a lot of discussions with people recently regarding the Avatar universe and I came to the realisation that they get so much universal dislike BECAUSE THOSE PEOPLE HAVE NEVER TRULY EXPERIENCED THE KINDS OF TRAUMA AND GRIEF THE MOVIES DEPICT AND HAVE NO PERSONAL REFERENCE TO THOSE KINDS OF EMOTIONS SO THEY GO RIGHT OVER THEIR HEADS.

As someone who is not one of those people, I didn’t need anything explained to me. I saw it plain as day.

In my country, people praise the landscape. It’s a major selling point for both tourists and businesses. Rolling green rocky hills stretching off across the horizon. They call it the country’s natural beauty.

But it’s not. Those hills are what remains of a dead and dying selection of ecosystems including a rare type of rainforest. The trees and shrubs were burned away so people could hunt birds or graze sheep and cattle. Grasses and mosses took over where they could get footholds and people sing traditional songs about this environment like that’s normal. Our true naturally beautiful country died and we pack it up and sell it off to the highest bidders so they can flatten more of what survived to build more concrete eyesores so people can have a better view of it.

The local people live in squalor very close to these areas in comparison. Damp homes literally rotting apart. They get nothing from the building of all of the tourist traps. And yet they’re taught to take pride in it. Look at that natural beauty, doesn’t it make you proud that this is your country? They’re moved on out of the way to make space for false cultural sites, hotels and nature walking trails with no nature. They are allowed to walk and camp wherever they want technically by law but they have rules to abide by and they have no true control over what happens on that land and there’s less and less “wild” areas for people to walk with entire areas developed and blocked off to only those willing to pay for it.

One of the biggest most disgusting things in recent years has been the placements of an obscene amount of wind farms on these dead forests that would be better off with re-wilding. Metal predatory bird blenders coating the landscape and not allowing anything to grow that should have.

But re-wilding isn’t profitable. The hunters bring tourism money. The wool and lamb and mutton are prize exports. The wind farms are virtue signalling that the country is trying to go greener while ironically enabling the opposite.

The most darkly funny part about this being that people got so used to the dead deforested hills that they complain about the wind farms only from a visual standpoint. They’re blocking the view of something that shouldn’t even be like that to begin with.

Every time I go back I see more and more of the true natural beauty vanishing because it doesn’t sell as well as the fake one. Most forests you see traveling upwards are managed for logging and not actually wild. They’re surrounded by the desolate wastes. Sticking out as dark green against the faded mossy expanse.

In much the same way the culture has been going through the same motion. A fake idea of what it is sells better than the real thing. 

When people hear me speak, ask me where I’m from and I tell them, they give me stories about how beautiful the place is and the cultures and customs of my homeland that they will correct me for stating that they’re made up or exaggerated for tourists like they know better than I do as a native of that place for decades. Sometimes people that have never been will tell me I’m wrong and they’re right about where I’m from or refuse to believe the truth of what I lived.

Many days I go out just living my life and it ends up turning into other people telling me that my dead country is so amazing and they want to go there someday but never do and I just want to tell them not to if they’re just going to ogle at those hills and put on some rented traditional dress and pretend to talk in a local language and support those that keep the place dead. 

But I just want to get things done. So I bite my lower lip as hard as I can and hum like I’m listening with intrigue. Like I’ve not been hearing it for most of my life.

I’m just one man going up against the centuries of commodification and exploitation of the lands I took my first breath in that are ingrained deep like old scars within each generation of what I guess are “my people” but they would sooner turn on each other than fight the common enemy goading them into it. 

Because not fighting all the time means they have free time to think about something else. Like why they’re fighting. Possibly even why their “enemy” is fighting them.

By blood, some in the country I was born would class me as not “truly” one of the same people as them. I’m part “coloniser” to them. Tainted and not trustworthy. My opinions and values are warped by the enemy. My mother was repeatedly given what John Howard Griffin accurately described to the response of chills going through my spine when I read it, a “hate stare”. As a very young child before I learned that people were nicer to me when I spoke more like my father and uncles and used their language, I would sometimes feel that look at me, too. 

If people discovered that my mother wasn’t raised local, their demeanour would change in a flash. I was suddenly getting looks whenever I entered a room knowing they were saying things they didn’t want me to hear. I would be cut out and left alone. It was still preferable to having bricks through our windows like other families “harbouring settlers” did. There are still a lot of people that deny that it’s even a thing. But it happened then and happens now.

The best I can hope for to make a difference against all of this and raise up the awareness is for me to find my own success and be able to make a public platform of my own where I can openly talk about these things.

But until then, I just lead people to Avatar and give them a brief synopsis of what they might not understand on the first watch from my own experiences.

And I post warnings like these. Reminders that countries and cultures like mine exist across the globe and that despite Urban North American Anglophones being the vast majority telling others that the movies are flashy visuals with not much else, there are many more people that find a personal or cultural resonance in them across time zones and get the points being made that fly past those that don’t.

For anyone curious, my ecological nightmare birth country is Scotland. Think of what I told you the next time you look at a postcard or watch a travel blog about the place. That “beauty” is death. By praising it you encourage it. They won’t put back the trees if people keep believing the national lie that there shouldn’t be any and that it’s better that way. This image should look barely any different from Austria not Binthu.

[lexa-griffins]

I know we have a lot of headcanons with Madi in farm clexa but almost nothing on her baby sister Saige. How is Saige?

Oh my god I've been hoping for someone to ask me about Saige!!!!!

So Saige is the princess of the household. I don't mean she is treated like one or that she acts like a spoiled princess, but she is the princesy girly fairy of the kids. She's all Clarke in looks, long wavy blonde hair, round faced, down to the beauty mark above her lip, despite her aqua eyes feeling more Lexa than Clarke. She's all the whimsy of her parents put together, a disney princess with Lexa's love for books and nature and Clarke's creativity and brighter look of the world.

Saige is a mama's girl completely, Clarke is her prince charming and knight in shinning armor while Lexa is her fairy god mother whom she adores so very much. She's a little romantic and she tells Lexa more than once she hopes she finds a boy just like mama when she grows up, making her older sister roll her eyes and Lexa promise her she will.

She's a creative soul, a natural storyteller who unlike Madi who fights dragons in the living room, sees fairies in the woods surrounding the farm, with names and unique stories for each of them. She has a wild imagination and always seems to be a little bit in her own world which can be a problem when she spaces out during chores or classes.

Madi is her idol, Saige adores her big sister like no other. She copies so much of what Madi does only to realize half way through she hates getting dirty in the mood like Madi enjoys, isn't a fan of heaving lifting of being around the noisy chickens. The bunnies and the soft sheep are much more her vibe. She gets her heart broken much more often than Madi ever did and more than once Lexa and Clarke have been called into school because Madi made a little boy cry for breaking up with Saige, who spent the entire time holding Madi while crying.

The farm is her happy place but in a different way than it is for her moms or Madi. She's much homier, prefers the garden where Lexa's flowers are to sit down and read, instead of learning about them from the gardening perceptive, prefer to learn about the meanings of the types and colors.

She's a princess and a fairy with a romantic personality that despite being so different from Madi's more independent and farm girl personality, there isn't much rivalry, perhaps because they are raised in an environment where they arent compared to one another or told one should be more like the other, just like their younger siblings aren't. As teen girls they do have some more petty sisterly fights, they share a room and its sometimes hard to have time for themselves in a house so full of kids but if theres one thing they are taught by their moms is to apologize and move on, which they do. They might have the strongest bound out of all the siblings, even stronger than the bound the twins have honestly. Madi adored her little sister since the moment Lexa told her she was pregnant and Saige adores her just the same back :)

[truckfreaks]

new house gratitude list:

i can sing at the top of my lungs and im not botherin anyone 🩷

farm across the street with fresh produce and eggs

i get to see chickens every day

backyard is huge and a million critters pass through and they all rule

my room immediately feels cozy and i was able to realize the vision i had for its layout easily 🩷

surrounded by woods and not much light pollution so i see a ton more of the stars than i normally do

walking distance from the corner store where i know everyone and they know me

two massive garden plots i can use for whatever i want

massive library rack style shelving in the living room for books and records and craft supplies

easy to get to for my friends and family

a nice big deck with lots of room for seating for when i have company

nice big range stove and oven so i can cook and bake a lot

big bay window where i can sit and read and the sun streams in but not too much so it isn't blinding

washer and dryer so i can do my own laundry

aunt cousin and nephew are right around the corner so we can visit each other whenever we want 🩷

lots of storage space so i can switch out my summer and winter clothes as needed

up the block from my old friends house and we are planning an electric mayhem watch party 🩷

[two-oaks-farmstead]

Natural Christmas Decor: Bring the Outdoors In

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[beaujagr]

life paths I couldn't take

it's wild sometimes the way things go

I traveled to Rhode Island with my spouse, where he grew up when very young, and we stopped by Brown and RISD. As a pre-teen and teen, I'd planned for years to try to attend Brown for archaeology. I even knew the neighborhood I'd like to look for an apartment at, I'd mapped my way through the whole college. John, had he not moved here, would likely have attended RISD if he had the chance.

Neither of us ended up having those paths - I had to give up archaeology because of health and money, and getting married early when John was going to deploy changed a lot of plans. Even though I applied to Brown and a few other colleges, most rejected me, and the letters I did get back about interviews went to my parents' house, and my mom kept them until I was in my 30s and never told me about them. It was a dream, and had different things happened, maybe my life would have been different, but I also know I could never have afforded to go to school there, and I would have failed out of archaeology just like everything else.

Weeks before, I'd attended my other partner's dad's wedding in Vermont. They live in this super rural, private place with a big house connected to the garage with a deck, surrounded by trees, and it's quiet as hell - definitely along the lines of the kind of living space I would prefer, tho I like desert quiet most. But the wedding was the hardest part.

When John and I got married, I originally wanted an outside wedding, nonreligious, no kids in attendance, with a nice open space. We got married in March with a month to plan, so it snowed and his dad (a Baptist minister) performed the ceremony, we had it in a church with a VFW for the reception, and my mom still was basically running the show since I was 18 and we were broke so they decided there would be kids, that religion was a part of it no matter what, and there wasn't any pretty field or landscape for me to be married in. I was happy to marry John, but many of the guests are people who had already been hurtful toward me, and were hurtful to me afterwards.

When Thomas and I had our commitment ceremony, it was just the two of us at standing stones in Burlington, VT. It was very beautiful, but we didn't have a lot of money, we didn't have anyone there to witness, and it was brief. My photos are super dark from it and no one else even really knows about it, even though I wrote a little ritual game about it.

In both of these cases, I was still not really presenting as myself, either, because I hadn't come out before the first one and hadn't started T for the second one.

Thomas's dad's wedding was almost all adults, mostly nonreligious in the presentation (no church, no sermon, etc.), and on a beautiful alpaca farm in Vermont with all their family and friends there to support them and be happy with them. Behind the ceremony, you could see the mountains and clouds with god rays shining down, fields of wildflowers, and the big building for the reception was lit up with beautiful lights and had animals running around outside before it stormed just as we all got inside to have dinner.

I would have done anything to have a wedding like that. I think if I'd had more time, maybe some of it would be possible. But I don't even know who I would invite anymore, and I know neither of my partners is big on the whole redoing the ceremony thing, and it's not like we could ever afford something that nice.

It's hard to express that I am not regretful of who I chose to be with or of the choices I made to keep being with them, nor do I regret making the choices when I did, but that I wish sometimes that I could have fulfilled my dreams and still been able to be with them. the reality is tho, I likely would never have achieved those dreams. No perfect wedding would have happened, my chances at a career and an education that I wanted ended up failing even when I realigned anyway.

It hurts a lot sometimes. I cried at the wedding because I knew I'd never have that experience. I cried after going to Brown because it's just another thing I never got to experience and do, another thing I failed to succeed at and achieve. That hurts, even if I love my partners and want to be with them more than I wanted those things, and still more than I want those things now. I just want to get to have dreams that are possible, and that can happen.

[thereisanangelinyou]

Hello dears,

How are you?

Stream of consciousness below about life changes and everything that's happened lately.

I've had a lot of changes in my life recently. A few months ago I moved in with my partner, got a job four days later. Then I was sick for four weeks straight with three different ailments. Now I am on the mend and nearly back to full health thankfully.

My boyfriend and I have made many changes to each others life through this whole process. He has me interested in more games and media and I have him excited about plants and trying new things. We are opposites only in our methods of relaxing- he likes to lounge and I like to get out. Otherwise we match nearly perfectly on every matter. In way it works out- he gets me to slow down, relax my body and mind when needed. And I get him up and moving and out of the house when he needs it (or I am antsy and he tags along lol).

I work at sweets bakery now. I make cakes and cupcakes and cookies all day long and while I don't even really love our products I am happy to be learning. There is so much I want to do- to learn and try out.

I've been a lot happier since moving. Less lows and when they come they don't last so long. But I am having another problem. We are in city- a very small, southern one but still a city. My body has become used to well water, to living surrounded by trees and wild flowers. To waking up and feeding the chickens. To rounding them up at night and feeding the dog and cat. I didn't feel the best mentally there but was spiritual connection. In that area I often felt isolated, life the spirit of nature there was stagnant- and I still believe that- but I do miss how easy it was to enter nature and disconnect from the world there even if it wasn't fully the spiritual connection I was seeking. But I bring this up because there is nothing here of connection. The trees don't breath the same way. And while nature here grows beautifully it doesn't feel right. I worry wherever I go it will never feel right. I know I made the right decision moving here and being with my boyfriend but I am eager for us to eventually relocate. But the thing there is he wants big city and convenience while I want space and self reliance. We will compromise and make it work but it does make things a little harder in that sense. No matter where we are though- we are happy together.

I've been trying to buy cleaner and "healthier" options when I can- whether food or decor or what have you. There are so many farms in neighboring towns and cities and no where here sells local produce which baffles me. There is a farmers market but I work on the one day it's open. Though I've been eating better and working more and exercising more that I have in the last few years- I've gained weight. Belly fat and extra jiggle on my arms and thighs. I'm not really upset about it- just a little confused. It will move the more fit I become so I do not worry myself over it. Even if I were not to lose it I am just thankful I have a relatively healthy body.

I got some furniture for the apartment recently too- a rack for our eventual fishtank and terrarium, a table for our window garden that is expanding with something new every week it seems, and a bakers rack for the kitchen which I am so happy about! I think that's all I have for this stream of consciousness- I feel sort of in a rut- but I've been out all day today doing whatever and going wherever and I feel a little bit better. But I digress.

I hope you are well and have a good week dear xx