#d. rambles

One of my father's friends has been indispensable to his good mood lately, and I like to bake! So I made him a large batch of baked goods for him and his family.

It's also nice that I'm.. very much just writing this for my own entertainment, because:

It's very satisfying to just dig hard into the nostalgia with this series, haha. And it's educational to read back through, and say: okay, this is how I perceived this as a child, when I didn't really understand the material, and this is how I'm reading it now, as an adult with a full context for what I'm reading. It's like a little personal study on how reader perception changes, and what each target audience might be focusing on more.

I'm also getting to indulge in very dumb jokes, too, which is fun.

Then he said: "- oh, right, I forgot! I decided to bring my fitness watch to work, since we're climbing the eight flights every day, and the guy I'm working with did too! And my heart rate was only 111BPM when we got to the top, and his was only 135BPM.. which means that your 170 shit really is super fucking high, huh?"

Reminder, this has been going on since fucking April.

Palomacy should be referenced twice in this document. The first time is in the shorter feeding bulletpoint, where they are listed among others - as the bullet point itself says - to show that even groups that disagree on the purpose and role of pigeons very strongly still all agree on the topic of eating vegetables. The groups used in total are Palomacy (companion pigeon / rescue), Pigeonpedia (companion pedia), VCA Hospitals (veterinary / academic), Coachella Valley Preserve (rescue), and Racing Pigeon Sport (a racing loft). None of these groups agree 100% on anything about pigeon care.

Palomacy supports a position that is directly against what I personally believe, as reading the document would show: Palomacy argues specifically in that link I used that pigeons do not need insoluable grit.

The other time that Palomacy is referenced is as one of the leading companion pigeon sites / rescues. I have been in the hobby since 2009. In 2009, pigeon owners in the United States were primarily focused on pigeons as either food, racers, or show animals. Palomacy helped normalise the idea of them as pets. I don't have to agree with them or their views in order to acknowledge that there is a very large portion of the community - especially off of tumblr - who had never heard of pigeons as pets prior to Palomacy.

If people disagree with the information I've put up, that's why I put in multiple references - from racing lofts, from veterinary sites, from rehab sites, and from fancier forums off of tumblr. Animal husbandry can have a large variation in what people want to pursue, and as I said in the document, this is not a care guide. Specifically, right at the top of it, I say:

"With that said: this is not a care guide and you should not use it as such. While I’ll be listing my criticisms of Ramsey Loft and what the fuck she’s doing, everyone who owns a pigeon should be doing their own, intensive research to figure out what you should do to care for your birds. Most areas have local clubs or racing groups: talk to them, attend the shows, read the forums, and connect with your community, because a large portion of the community has been breeding birds for longer than I have been alive, and on average, they are perfectly happy to help introduce you to the hobby, and get you started."

Dani has been abusing these pigeons for several years. I decided to comment on it, despite not being a part of the pigeon community on tumblr, because she has been abusing these pigeons for years, and it has gone largely unremarked. I only noticed Dani existed about two or three weeks ago, but she has been a cornerstone of the pigeon-keeping community, per what others have said, for way longer.

But I will allow one slight marginal boon is that I get to spend a shit ton of time with my spoiled beast of a dog, which is great. Does she think, despite constantly being rebuffed, that she should be allowed to bark in lulls of a conversation to join in? Yes. Is she convinced every pot on the deck needs to be brought to me for inspection, every time she’s out, even when she has to leap up to grab them? Yes.

TL;DR: I love geology, I love gardening, I love plants, I love my region. I can talk off people’s ears about soil composition in my area, pre-Columbian farming practices vs. post-Columbian, past vs. current plants and the impacts on our soil, etc, etc. And I have! I am a little obsessive about it!

So there is something so thoroughly bombastic about my father looking me dead in the eye, and trying to sincerely, earnestly say: oh, no, I’m confused! Don’t I know that rain gardens are fake? Plants don’t actually help store water, and the only way to keep an area from getting muddy is through just adding even more soil until it stops getting wet.

I’m going to drown him in a mudflow of his own creation. No jury could convict me.

In other news: the soil in my area is gross and I refuse to use it. I’ve got concrete planters, wooden planters, and hanging planters, which has all felt very extra at points, especially when I’m paying to get them filled.

But I was moving shit around in the flowerbeds, which do grow in the soil, and there’s nothing quite like seeing some bright yellow worms, wtf-ing, and looking it up to find out.. oh, okay, that’s linked to arsenic contamination, that’s just great. What the fuck is going on in my soil again?

Geologic and soil processes are to blame for significant baseline levels of arsenic in soil throughout Ohio, according to a study published in the May-June 2014 issue of the Journal of Environmental Quality.

The analysis of 842 soil samples from all corners of Ohio showed that every single sample had concentrations higher than the screening level of concern recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

(Did you know thunderstorms generate radiation? an exciting fact if not! weather is great and it is terrible!)

With that said, sometimes I can acknowledge I am a huge dipshit instead. I've been avoiding a lot of my usual crafts and hobbies lately, because: sick! But also, I've been kind of grouchy and avoidant before this particular flareup, and I couldn't figure out why. Maybe I just wasn't feeling it..?

I was listening to people natter about crochetting, knitting, the long-term impact on your hands, and what styles have evolved to mediate that impact, and realised..