Carpe Chao

nerds who want to talk about weapons & watch war movies 

nerds who want to examine the historical significance of weapons advancement & analyze historical inaccuracies in war movies

nerds who are interested in the ethics of how weapons were used & misused, and the way civilian lives were impacted

nerds who are interested not in the weapons but in any of a thousand other aspects of war, like battlefield medicine, or the impact on scientific advancement, or the longterm sociopolitical repercussions, or the way societies recover & trauma lingers, and how cycles of violence & unrest repeat throughout history. 

nerds who are interested in the way everyday lives were impacted 

nerds who came for the guns & costumes and stayed bc they got invested in the stories 

nerds who want to hear about military life

nerds would rather hear about the actions of women and civilians and resistance members, and the way people fought outside of battlegrounds

nerds who want to hear about the clothes, my god, the clothing 

writers nerds who want to engage in a very specific fantasy of being a lesbian nurse in a battlefield hospital caring for a mysterious and tragically wounded young officer who wears men’s clothing and signed up for the army under their brother’s name, and now it’s up to their clever and sympathetic lesbian nurse to hide their identity from the doctors. 

espionage nerds who know everything about carrier pigeons

and that’s just war. and even among all those types of history nerds, they’re still going to individually have different relationships w/ the subject matter. and that’s not even getting into motivation! nerds have so many different motives for studying history. some people find historical minutiae fascinating or relaxing. some have a strong sense of injustice or excitement, or want to understand why the modern world is the way it is. some people like to indulge in nostalgia for an era that never really existed. and some people use history to fuel their rage and political leanings. 

• Dress.

Designer/Maker: Norman Norell

Is there something you planned to do before you got trapped in the endless tumblr scroll?

Are you yelling at yourself to get up and do the thing, but you can’t, because you’re trapped in the endless tumblr scroll?

Consider this your save point.

A funny thing about introducing a new queen into a hive that has lost its queen (or one that you’ve killed because her brood was too fighty). 

You have to introduce the new queen into the hive with these special queen cages that are stopped up with candy, and are open enough to let the hive smell the new queen, but not open enough that they can get in there and kill her.

Because they will kill her. 

When you first put the new queen in she smells like an intruder, but by the time it takes the bees to eat through the candy and free the queen, the queen’s pheromones will have had time to work and the hive will have gotten used to her.

From the outside this kinda seems like: 

also these guys have been documented in gay pairbonds with fuckin BOTTLENOSES which isn’t even their species! fuck it up dude!

Crafts

quilting

embroidery

cross-stitch

knitting

crochet

sewing

Cooking and Baking

homemade bread

homemade butter

homemade extracts

dandelion jelly

Canning

26 canning recipes

canning jars 101

60 canning recipes

Gardening

edible trees to plant

what to plant to save the bees

cure and braid garlic

save seeds for next year

braid onions for long term storage

build a greenhouse

Animals

homemade chicken feed

raising mealworms for chickens

why to raise nigerian dwarf goats

Outdoors

starting a fire with sticks

trail signs

knotting

find true north without a compass

Medicine

homemade neosporin

Most people, when first approaching greenhouses, just build a generic shed that has clear walls and a roof. That’s what you see in the blog post above, while the author kept mentioning how incredibly hot it is. The author is located in central Washington state, USA.

Greenhouse with no ventilation/cooling or heating or electricity or gas, in a hot climate summer climate, cool winter. While conventionally attractive, it is not particularly functional, and is only useful for a relatively short period of the year.

How best to design a greenhouse can depend on factors like climate and latitude. 

If your greenhouse is located someplace very cold, you’re looking at issues with heating it, or else not using it at all during that time. There’s multiple ways to heat greenhouses, traditionally methane or propane gas, although in emergencies, and if it is wired for electricity, electrical heat may be used. Some people have even used wood furnaces (this is less than ideal) For any place with long winters this quickly becomes very expensive. Thermal mass is the clever trick to solve most, if not all, (depending on climate) heating issues in winter - no fossil fuels or deforestation required.

If your greenhouse is located someplace very hot, you’re looking at issues with cooling it, or else not using it all during that time. There’s multiple ways to cool greenhouses - fans/vents and shade cloth being the most common. Thermal mass can also help with this issue too.  

My favorite website on greenhouses (which longtime readers may recognize) is Penn and Cord. Heating and cooling greenhouses so you can use them for more than 6 weeks a year can be very expensive and very energy intensive - unless you start looking at passive solar greenhouse designs, such as those by Penn and Cord. You do sacrifice some space in the back greenhouse for the thermal mass aka giant barrels of water.

Can be built out of used or scrap material.

Above, barrels are on the left, hidden behind the plants. Below, this is what the wall of barrels looks like before plant beds are installed.

These 55 gallon drums filled with water and painted black, all along the north wall, are the “battery” that keeps these greenhouses usable year round. The roof angles are designed so that these receive direct sunlight (hence why they are painted black) in the winter, the sun heats the water, and they help keep the greenhouse warm all winter long. They’re working at high elevations in Colorado which means 1) wild temperature fluctuations 2) it’s pretty cold in winter there, down to -30F/-34C. The barrels also modulate the hot temperatures in summer. There are variations around this idea, but hopefully the concept makes sense. Sometimes people will create the northern wall out of concrete, and then put the barrels or bottles of water in front of it, for a similar “battery” or modulating effect. The interiors are painted bright white, to reflect as much light as possible to the plants.

1. Modern subsistence movements need to be aware of and careful about not creating laws which may inhibit the subsistence practices of the poor. https://www.google.com/amp/s/grist.org/food/are-trendy-homesteaders-clueless-about-class-differences/amp/

2. Homesteading as a term is a means of claiming land with “no owner” by working it and making it yours. Unfortunately, at the time of homesteading laws in the USA the land did have an owner, the indigenous people who were then forced off their land and out of the places they’d likely inhabited for millennia to make room for more homesteaders. Not to mention that despite their new freedoms black people were not given land as easily as their white counterparts.

Consequently, the term “homesteading” has myriads of negative connotations not the least of which is racism. For this reason I propose those choosing to re-embrace this way of living use terms like subsistence farmer, self sufficiency, or slow living.

https://opb.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/aa3401af-a553-4d87-85a0-90efd49be07d/homesteading-displaced-native-americans/#.XjfA0CSIaEc

https://www.google.com/amp/s/aeon.co/amp/ideas/land-and-the-roots-of-african-american-poverty

Day 24095 They are siblings. They are loud. Always singing and talking and stomping. As if they must be louder than anything else.

Day 24106 There are bolts on the door now. Bolts and hideous, gaudy new locks. How dare they-

Night 24112 I was going to fill the night with terrors. But he woke up screaming before I began. She came running from the other room. They sleep right across the hall from each other, with the doors on a crack. …they are young, are they not, to be living on their own. Was I ever so young?

Day 24129 She has fixed the squeak in the door at the top of the stairs. It never squeaked when I still lived.

Day 24121 The noise of the doorbell scares them. But they get so many deliveries. It is a good bell. It has worked all these years- I can see one of the men coming now with his packages, trudging up to the door. …perhaps if I knock before he is here, they will come and look before he can sound the bell.

Day 24114 He is planting flowers in boxes on my windowsills. I always wished I could have some flowers.

Night 24137 She is afraid of the dark. I could see it in her eyes when she got out of bed. …I lit the lamps for her.

Day 24142 They have moved the couch to the sun spot a little to the right of the window. That is where I used to have my armchair. It is the only sensible place for it.

Day 24163 Sometimes the noises of the world are suddenly too much for him. He winces and tries not to sway his head. This is my house. …I can keep it calm and quiet for a while.

Day 24178 She just got a phone call and now they are both laughing. Laughter is a good sound, isn’t it. They said this house has been good luck…

Night 24205 They are singing in our kitchen. He found my cookbook in the gap at the back of the kitchen cabinet and now they are trying to cook. They wanted to start with the soufflé. They don’t even know how to make béchamel! I turned the page to the casserole instead.

HALLOWS’ EVE | October 31

🕯️ Decorations: skulls, bones, candles, cauldron, pumpkins, dark crystals

🌿 Incense: patchouli, rosemary, cloves, sage, cinnamon, nutmeg

🥧 Food: pumpkin, dark wine, cider, soups, root vegetables, potatoes, beer, hazelnut, pomegranates

Often known as the witches’ new year, Samhain is the pagan festival marking the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter. It is said that the veil between our world and the spirit world is at its thinnest. The celebration usually features a bonfire, and rituals of communion with the dead.

Rituals to celebrate:

🥳 With people, tell ghost stories or watch scary movies.

🍽️ In the kitchen, make a pumpkin soup.

🎨 Get crafty, by carving a pumpkin and lighting it at night.

💃 Dress up, as a witch and let people believe that it’s just a costume.

📜 Write in your journal, about dead relatives and loved ones.

🔮 Meditate, about the concept of death, your family tree and your ancestors.

Other ideas to celebrate:

Give offerings to the spirits by adding a plate at your table.

Harvest the last of your herbs before winter.

Use the night for spell casting, divination, and reading tarot.

the owl house: a weeb gets transported to hell and awakens an ancient form of magic.

amphibia: three idiots get isekaied into a magical frog land via a cool box™

she-ra and the princesses of power: the power of wlw saves the universe

gravity falls: fuck it it’s that triangle’s fault

the dragon prince: we have a fourteen year old, a fifteen year old, and a ten year old. they should all probably be in school, but now they’re your last hope.

avatar the last airbender: unfortunately, the fire nation existed.

tales of arcadia: “sir, i think you have the wrong overqualified and wholesome protagonist character(s).”

kipo and the age of wonderbeasts: “guess who learned how to put on a fursuit via mutation?”

you ever think about how catra doesn’t like to apologize because shadow weaver taught her that “sorrys” come when the other person has more power than you? that saying sorry is something you do out of fear, that apologies are about the recipient and not the giver? that saying sorry was warped into another of shadow weaver’s power trips, treating catra’s remorse like a tool to control her, acting as though catra needed to apologize for existing?

you ever think about how that made catra scared of apologies? scared of vulnerability in general? that even with the people she knows won’t hurt her, she doesn’t like the weight an apology brings, doesn’t like to bring herself to her knees and show her vulnerability? because she’s been taught that vulnerability is weakness, that emotions are distracting, and that apologies are something you give only when you’ve lost and need to placate the person who’s defeated you?

you ever think about how catra wanted an apology from shadow weaver? that she came back time and time again to shadow weaver’s cell because she wanted an apology? an explanation? that she wanted the confirmation that she’d won, she wanted to gloat in her enemy’s weakness like shadow weaver had always done, and wanted shadow weaver to feel remorse, even if it was manufactured out of fear? and how she never got that, she never got that real apology, until shadow weaver died telling catra she was proud of her?

you ever think about how catra finally apologized to adora? in corridors? that she thinks apologies are how you tell your enemy they’ve won, that they’re a mark of how powerless you are? and that in that scene, catra believes she’s lost? that she’s going to die? that adora’s finally won? and how catra’s apology is a reflection of not only her remorse but a misguided belief that she’s supposed to apologize, that this will somehow convey to adora that adora’s won, that adora’s fight is over and catra is finally defeated? and how she fully expects adora to leave, and then adora doesn’t, she doesn’t count this apology as a goodbye, a parting gesture, an admission of defeat?

you ever think about how apologies made catra feel powerless? how much she tried to gain power in her life? how much she clawed her way out of shadow weaver’s shadow, continuing the cycle of competition, of seeing her only way out as destroying the people who kept her down? how she viewed life as a fight and refused to accept help because that was another form of weakness? how adora was her greatest enemy because adora held power over catra, the power of she-ra and the power of their old friendship? how catra loved adora and that made adora the biggest threat in her life?

you ever think about, how after save the cat, catra never apologizes through words again? how she focuses on actions instead? how she leaps to defend adora, reaches out to old friends and enemies, tries to save the world? and how, in a way, that’s the biggest apology she gives–because after the words, the actions have to come? we know she spends time growing, time changing, and it’s true, isn’t it, that her apology didn’t save everything right away? how could it? when it was partially made out of fear, misguided self-hatred, internalized abuse? how could an apology born of a bloody past ever pave a future?

but you ever think about how she apologized, in her own little way, in a good way? how she worked to improve herself? how she reached out even when it hurt her? how she connected with adora and grew stronger because of it? how she stopped viewing the world as against her? how she learned to love without the fear of the vulnerability it brought? you ever think about how catra grew, and although she still avoided the words themselves, she found a million other ways to say she was sorry? and how those actions were what brought her to a new future?

you ever think about how catra used to think apologies were a surrender, but she grew to learn they’re a second chance? and how being forgiven, instead of being judged for losing the fight, showed her that she’s not powerless and doesn’t deserve to be? you ever think about how catra has finally learned she doesn’t have to apologize for taking up space, and that no one will punish her if she doesn’t admit defeat? that catra stopped fighting, because in the way that mattered, she’d won?