The Rose's Grove

Wheels upon wheels, eyes of flame, the roar of a thousand wingbeats: BE NOT-

Me: nope [closes door]

Bearer of the throne of heavenly God, through door: YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN TO-

Me: I don’t live here

Celestially Ordained Mover of the Unmoved: I CAN SEE YOU-

and EVEN WHEN things were more muted/neutral, the neutrality was OFFSET by ACCENT COLORS and HIGH CONTRAST between the wood tones and everything ELSE

ALSO AMERICAN COLONIAL INTERIORS POPPED OFF, Y'ALL (IN TERMS OF COLOR/COZINESS)

PEOPLE USED WHITEWASH AND COLORFUL TRIM OR EVEN JUST COLORFUL FURNITURE IF THEY COULD AFFORD TO DO SO

AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON FRENCH AND BRITISH AND AMERICAN WALLPAPERS

"ELIZABETH" YOU CRY, "WHY ARE YOU BEING SO EXTRA THIS MORNING?! IT'S MONDAY"

Because, my friend, my war on GREIGE will NEVER end.

Historic interiors were filled with LIFE and LIGHT and COLOR. ALWAYS HAVE BEEN.

Part of the reason we don't see a lot of textile art is because, frankly, textiles tend to degrade over time - especially ones that had utility! And yes, pigments and weaving and dying all boosted the expense of things, when we were finally reliably block-printing fabrics and broad reams of paper, it was no longer just the wealthy who could afford pretty patterns!

In the Americas, a far wider variety of pigments also became available because of the abundance of... well, a shitton of flora and minerals, some of which weren't as common in Europe.

WHY THE HIGHLIGHTER COLORS? you ask.

CANDLES.

Those colors reflect candlelight and natural sunlight REALLY WELL.

Humans LOVE bright colors, it's NOT just a thing for kids. We live in a brilliant, vibrant, multifaceted world. We ALWAYS have.

(If ever you have the opportunity to visit the Stencil House at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont (pictured above at 3, 4, and 5), I highly recommend.)

And that's before you get into American painted murals:

There has been a growing trend in permaculture called "food forests," where you plant a bunch of native edible plants (and plants that shelter essential wildlife to keep the edible plants healthy) in layered ways that increase productivity and protect each other from extremes in weather as climate change ramps up. There was a study in Japan that produced the Miyazaki Method for planning a food forest. It seems now that, while this is extremely effective in the temperate parts of Japan and ecosystems similar to the one the test was done in, this may not be universally true, especially in places that don't naturally sustain forests.

Still, I think the concept can be expanded to produce things like "food scrublands," "food prairies," "food marshes," etc. The biggest hurdle in my opinion is that many colonial settlers are unfamiliar with the native food that grows or once grew in their area, making the idea of a native food ecosystem daunting to those who hold the power to actually implement these ideas.

1. If you see this post, highly recommend taking it as an opportunity to set a timer for 15 minutes and switch over to ACTIVITY YOU ENJOY. if after those 15 minutes, you want to go back to scrolling, that's okay!

2. Huge shout out to this popping up in my notifs often, bc I do go back to activity.

do not taste plants if you don't know what they are

do not identify a fruit as edible just because it tastes sweet

hope you didn't eat any fucking seeds, bro

I saw the photo in my feed and went ohh, dude, no, we do not handle yellow rocks with our bare hands until we know for sure what they are. And I know that orange...

In comments, they continue:

and that's where I started cussing at the computer monitor. But someone else had got there first:

Birdie-berries, you see, are any berry that you cannot solidly identify and/or that is definitely not edible for humans. Basically, any berry that is NOT known to be 100% safe to eat is, until your child can be trusted, "a birdie-berry."

Why a birdie-berry? I'm glad you asked. You see, that enticingly-colored berry isn't UNKNOWN! My goodness, no. That might make your child want to test it! (At least if your child is anything like mine...) Nor is it poisonous, which, again, for some godforsaken reason, might make your child want to test it (again... if your child is anything like mine). It is a berry which the birds—which your child probably loves, again, if they are anything like mine!—NEED TO HAVE AVAILABLE TO THEM. We can't eat those! Those are BIRDIE-BERRIES. They are explicitly and exclusively FOR THE BIRDS. They need them. And therefore we cannot touch them.

Anyway. If you don't need that, great. Maybe YOUR kid is great about not trying to eat every berry they come across, or very obedient when you tell them not to eat something, or has a reasonable fear of death when you say the word "poison." Or maybe your child has much better plant identification skills than thinking that everything faintly blue is a blueberry.

"The America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries."