But if you ask people who think about things, the answer is vague. Killing a hibernating bear would just feel… impolite? You can’t fucking shoot a man when he’s sleeping, that’s just fucking rude. It’s just not the right thing to do.

 Long before hunting laws were established in Finland, you couldn’t kill a sleeping bear, and what commands you is something older than law: tradition. Even at a time when hunting was a matter of life and death, and a bear fighting for its life is mainly a matter of death, you just didn’t kill a hibernating bear, you have to wake it up first. Hunters risked their lives, the lives of their brothers and everyone in the hunting party, who were friends, family and men that they loved, to give the bear a fighting chance.

 In the modern time, the hunting season of bears is in the summer, for the warmest summer months. There are many reasons for why they are allowed to tread safely in autumn and to sleep in peace through the cold months, almost all of which are rational and scientific, and do not touch the old traditions.

 Old faith says a living thing has many souls - henki, luonto, itse. Plants only have one - the one that wills them to grow. Animals have two, both the spark of life and nature that enables them to act. A human being also has the third, one that makes them a person, personality, itse, literally “self”. But the soul that travels in your dreams is not the soul that defines a human - animals have that one as well. When your dog runs in her sleep, her soul is elsewhere, where a dog is needed.

Also called wind towers and wind scoops, windcatchers have been used in North Africa and the Middle East for thousands of years to provide natural ventilation & passive cooling. They fell out of popularity after the introduction of HVAC systems, but are now experiencing a revival because they’re so practical and cost-effective. Here’s how they work:

Not only are they an engineering masterpiece–they’re gorgeous

The wooden rods protruding from the sides serve a variety of purposes. They stabilize and strengthen the structure, serve as scaffolding [1], and can be used to mount cloth and re-direct airflow [2].

Windcatchers vary greatly in design, and are tailored to individual building sites. The location’s airflow direction will determine the windcatcher’s shape, and the number and direction of its openings. (Windcatchers can be uni-directional, bi-directional, or multi-directional [3].)

The way the air flows through a wind tower is determined both by local conditions and by its cross-section design. Internal walls divide the tower in order to influence the way air passes through the building (see diagram) 

Windcatchers can be much smaller than the examples shown above! More modest structures like the one below can provide affordable ventilation to smaller buildings. 

Windcatchers can also be used to provide subterranean cooling, by ventilating underground structures, or evaporative cooling when used in conjunction with qanats (underground water chanels) or indoor bodies of water.

Due to the high cost and heavy CO2 emissions of electric air conditioning, windcatchers are receiving renewed interest. Specifically, architects are researching ways that windcatcher technology can be improved and adapted to modern times [4]. Long-standing issues with traditional wind towers include performance problems such as air short circuiting, and practical issues such as the ingress of dust, insects and small animals. New concept designs are emerging all the time, and some have already been built, and are being used in cities and universities throughout the Middle East.

In conclusion, be excited about windcatchers!

Excerpt from this story from Reuters:

Nearly $640 billion of investment in coal power capacity worldwide is at risk because it is cheaper to generate electricity from new renewables, research by think tank Carbon Tracker Initiative showed on Thursday.

Institutional investors are increasingly withdrawing from fossil fuel companies due to the risk their assets will become stranded as tougher emissions-cuts targets discourage their use and renewable energy becomes even cheaper.

The report examined the economics of 95% of coal plants which are operating, under construction or planned worldwide.

Globally, 499 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power capacity is planned or under construction with an investment cost of $638 billion.

More than 60% of global coal plants are currently generating electricity at a higher cost than could be produced by building new renewables.

By 2030 at the latest, it will be cheaper to build new wind or solar capacity than continue operating coal in all markets, the report said.

Strategies.

Discourse on Colonialism (Aimé Césaire) - this is more a focus on colonization, but I feel it's a necessary read in my opinion as in order to understand decolonization I believe it's important to first understand colonization.

Wretched of the Earth (Franz Fanon)

Decolonization is Not a Metaphor (Tuck, Yang)

The Wretched of the Earth (PDF, ebook)

Decolonization is Not a Metaphor (PDF)

Hand Painted Glassware

Oh, I like the sound of this. The boreal forests in the northern hemisphere have a huge impact in regulating the Earth’s overall CO2 levels!

garlic blossoms (allium) balls of tiny flowers, may be white to deep purple. literally just the flowering head of the garlic you use in food. it tastes like garlic. but colorful.

elderflower, the blossom of the elderberry bush. can be battered and fried. excellent with elderberry syrup or honey. tastes fruity with a tiny hint of anise. also good in teas and sweets.

Calendula, also known as pot marigold. (please, verify you’re using pot marigold, not regular marigold. calendula is actually a daisy.) tastes similarish to bell pepper, sans crunch. leaves are also edible. should be grown with broadleaf plantain:

as a poultices of calendula and plantain can be used to rapidly heal small cuts and scrapes, and are also helpful for other dermatitis. don’t use it on deep wounds though, as it can and will cause the surface skin to heal before the underlying tissues. all of broadleaf plantain is also edible. if bitter.

The flowers that come from any brassica (cabbage, radishes, broccoli, kale, etc) are all excellent and taste like the rest of the plant.

Queen Anne’s lace blossoms, (daucus carota, just like our domestic carrots) super common wild plant, and the flowers make a jelly that tastes kind of like pink lemonade?? It’s /delicious./ but make 100% sure you have a correct identification as water hemlock and other toxic species look similar.

Rose!!! Rose flavoured things taste exactly as they smell. So scrumptious!

[X] Big leaf maple (Acer macrophyllum) blossoms are excellent in fritters.

[X] Dandelion (Taraxacum offinale) is also excellent in fritters, or my favorite is separating the petals and mixing them into pancake batter.

[X] Miner’s lettuce (Claytonia sibirica) flowers have a delicate, lettuce-like taste.

[X] Oregon grape (Berberis/Mahonia aquafolium) flowers are delightfully sour. I like to pick off a few small flowers from the cluster!

[X] Wood sorrel (Oxalis sp.) also sour (from oxalic acid).

[X] Red clover (Trifolium pratense) is mildly sweet.

When eating wild plants, you should be completely certain in your identification and aware of any lookalikes. Be sure you are allowed to harvest and that the area has not been sprayed by any chemicals. Many of these plants are also medicine, so you should be sure that you can safely ingest them (do your research before putting things in your face pls). This was just intended to get them on your radar!

So when you say grow lights, I’m guessing you mean those purple coloured ones which they use in specialist greenhouses? I’m not sure exactly you’re asking for, so here’s a miscellaneous infodump.

Botanists use these. They contain two types of LED light, emitting in the red and the blue part of the spectrum, which is why they make everything look magenta. The reason for this is that chlorophyll only absorbs light at those parts of the spectrum, so if the only purpose of the lights is to grow plants, then using only those wavelengths of light saves energy.

This is the absorption spectrum of chlorophyll a and b (the two most common varieties in plants). See that stretch in the middle where there’s no light being absorbed? That’s why plants are green. The peaks show the colours which chlorophyll absorbs. Red and blue.

Specialist grow lights are a bit expensive though. If you have a dedicated growing area, like an indoor farm setup, they may be a good option. But if you’re like me and you live in a tiny apartment, you might not want your entire life to be constantly purple.

Another option is to use household LED lights, because they work surprisingly well. Here’s a spectrum.

The green shows where chlorophyll b absorbs, and the blue and red lines show cool white LEDs and warm white LEDs. That big spike in emission on the left lines up pretty well with chlorophyll’s absorption. 800-1000 lumen bulbs work well.

tl;dr plants like household LED lights, and they’re also low energy.

Cool white is probably best, but I use warm white in my apartment, because aesthetics. The baobab and the lemon tree in this photo have never grown under natural light. A note though, it’s difficult to grow fruit this way. My apartment tomatoes didn’t taste as sweet as the ones grown in sunlight.

ah, i’m so bad at posting here. acknowledging this Day of Mourning from the lands of Kiikaapoi, Peoria, Potawatomi, Myaamia & Ochethi Sakowin people, aka Chicago, derived from a native word for garlic (mmm…) which is really suitable for me because I live here now 🌱🧄✨