*Distant asexual screaming*

And when I say we're "camping", it really should be clarified that our camping set up includes hot and cold running water in a kitchen sink, a "bathroom" sink, and a shower, a large stove, a fully equipped kitchen with pantry and drink station, beer, cider, and club soda on tap, and more.

6 bouquets! 💐

Which is your favorite?

I'm gonna owe them serious treats for this. For all we know, if there's a sheep in the flock that's already stressed for some other reason, some shade and extra water could save their life this week.

This is why safety rules matter!

Don’t forget if you like my videos and want to see me test more stuff, I’m looking to commission a set of historically accurate fitted armour for testing!

You can pitch in here if that’s something you’d like to see:

mushroom: can you feel your heart burning? can you feel the struggle within? the fear within me is beyond anything your soul can make. you cannot kill me in a way that matters

Me: "Look. They're crab raving for all they're worth."

Phantom: "That's fair. Wish it was us."

Me: "Us next. Then who's next? A pissed oligarch could assassinate Putin. We could support the Sahel Alliance in chasing out colonial exploitation. See? So much to live for!"

Phantom: "So many bad people for bad things to happen to!"

And yeah, that's some quality energy for 2026. So many bad people for bad things to happen to.

Last year I took a little day trip to visit my daughter at college in April. There happen to be millions upon millions of violets in the lawns across the campus, and we had a lovely time walking and admiring every spring flower we could find. Many of them were an odd, lavendar color-morph with darker centers. This winter, when the semester was starting up, K made me promise to come do it again - because doing it once CAN become a tradition!

Yesterday she sent me a message; the violets are blooming! Can you come this Sunday?

And so, off I will go.

A Trump-appointed immigration judge has denied asylum for 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his family and ordered their removal to Ecuador. A judge, by the way, with a 96% asylum denial rate nearly triple the national average. The family never even got to present their full case before he shut it down.

This is the same child ICE agents used as “bait” to gain access to his home. The same child who was dragged 1,300 miles to a Texas detention facility while his pregnant mother waited in terror behind a closed door. The same child a federal judge called a victim of the government’s “ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented pursuit of daily deportation quotas.”

They never stopped coming for him. His family’s lawyers are appealing the decision a process that could take months or even years. That means this family has to wake up every single day not knowing if today is the day they get ripped apart.

Starting a garden does require some monetary inputs, but there are ways to soften it. If you are renting or only have a sunny balcony, container gardening is the way to go. You may not grow much, but it'll be fun and you'll gain experience. To save money on containers, you can use grow bags like these:

[get these particular ones at the Epic Gardening store]

Or you could sew your own if you have a stash of heavy canvas, or drill holes in old buckets or trash cans, or in a pinch even just grow right in the soil bag by putting drainage holes in the bottom and rolling down the top (though it will break down sooner or later, especially in direct sun).

If you're handy with a hammer and saw, check out the idea of salad boxes.

[Information here from the University of Maryland extension service]

If you can plant in-ground, know that tilling is neither necessary nor recommended, so you don't need a tiller. What you can do instead is something often called lasagna gardening. See what you can get for free cardboard (chain stores tend to have a compactor these days, but if you ask at smaller local stores you can probably get a bunch of boxes) and yard waste. Then pick a spot and put down the cardboard, then top it with whatever you can afford/get for mulch, yard waste, and compost (or aged manure if you live in an area with farms; often you can get this for the cost of hauling it away). Ideally you'd (*I'd* haha) have done this in the fall, so the material has a chance to break down and be processed by the soil life, but if you do it now, you can still plant small plants by just cutting through the cardboard with a trowel to dig the holes. The material will break down over the course of the year.

Notably, planting seeds directly is trickier with this method. You might be able to get away with just piling a couple inches of bought potting soil on top of the paper and hoping the paper breaks down enough by the time your plant roots get down that far. I'm going to have to learn more about this myself this year.

If you only have a sunny windowsill or a single grow light to start seedlings, that's fine; check out the seed snail method of starting seedlings--it's economical of both space and soil.

Seeds are pretty affordable as-is, but you can also check around in your area for seed swaps and seed libraries, where you can often get seeds for free. Your public library, Master Gardeners group, or FB are all good places to look.