#invasives

Following the advice of the article below I’ll let it dry out first to shrink and then soak it to make it pliable

I didn’t get as much gathered as I intended because a family member showed up to mow the yard and they usually start about where I was working.

I’m not sure how long this will take to dry. 🤷‍♀️ So I guess now I just wait a little while.

Bindweed basket by Foraged Fibers

The second article has some serious goals. I would love to have some of those little baskets for offerings for Děduška.

The third article mentions all sorts of other vines many of which I have or have access too. This is seriously exciting!

Well, it's going to depend on the definition of "invasive".

Some of the thinking about this kind of problem (though on a smaller scale) appears in this post from some years back about wizardry and zombies, in which the difficulties of making judgment calls, and the right to defend oneself (or one's species), comes up for discussion.

If you're talking about something native, like, I don't know, kudzu... you relocate it if you can. If it's not native to the planet (and thereby potentially poses a threat of destabilizing established biomes), you get rid of it in whatever feasible way will accelerate entropy the least, and produces the least disruption to the local environment.

If it's an alien invasion we're talking about... well, there haven't been problems of that sort for a good while. And I doubt there will be in the near future, as one of the characters* (I believe somewhere in canon) quietly went off and signed the Earth up as a "baby member" of an interstellar non-aggression pact. (The galactic Earth Tourism "website" also discusses "Earth's Never-Defeated Ruthless and Terrible Space Fleet" as a done deal, suggesting that anybody who attacks the planet is out of their fucking mind.) (And this is probably true, for a whole sheaf of reasons that are beyond the scope of this post.)

Hope this helps. :)

Dumping anything out of an aquarium—fish, animals, and plants—can have devastating consequences for Texas' natural waterbodies. This is true for both freshwater and saltwater aquariums. Never dump them into a natural body of water or flush them down the toilet.

THE NEXT INVASIVE SPECIES COULD COME FROM YOUR AQUARIUM.

Your aquarium fish, animals and plants are likely not native to Texas. This makes them an invasive species. When they’re dumped into the wild they can introduce disease or become serious predators, killing off local fish colonies, and damaging reefs and vegetation that keep our underwater ecosystem alive and healthy.

THE LIONFISH INVASION

What started as a beautiful pet is wreaking havoc on our coastal ecosystem. Lionfish are from the West Pacific Ocean and don’t belong here. They are believed to have been released in Florida by unsuspecting aquarium owners and have been spreading rapidly since. This aggressive and venomous fish can grow up to 19 inches long and has no natural predators here. It has become a major pest causing enormous ecological and economic damage. This invasion has reduced the number of local fish like juvenile grouper and snapper, shrimp and crab species. They can also completely strip reefs. If you see one, report it immediately.

If you want to submit a topic you would like me to write on for this blog or my Patreon, sign up for the Ansuz level or above here on my Patreon. From Maleck comes this topic: “Localizing practice and sacred herbs. What do you do when your tradition’s sacred herbs aren’t native or are even invasive to your locale? How about finding new sacred herbs native to you (while avoiding…

#10 Cedars

Honestly a pretty nice guy in most situations, he likes the local birds, grows some local fungi, the works! He's from around the area, so he doesn't really seem like much of a threat, and honestly, I wouldn't even have him on this list if he didn't dabble in chemical warfare on the side. He's a big guy who grew up really fast and takes up a lot of space by putting down others, and he really does well in his own town with others like him. I would feel kinda bad watching the light fade from his eyes. 2/10 would strangle.

#9 Crown Vetch

Okay, now she seems pretty nice, and she looks super pretty! Loves being admired, and really thrives in people's backyards. Honestly, she has a bit of a problem with attention. Kinda the person that's 'any press is good press' if you know what I mean. She has the tendency to just crawl all over everything and can get a little stifling when you're next to her for a while. Not terrible... but I would feel little remorse shoving her in front of a train. 4/10 would strangle.

#8 Poison Hemlock

Now this one looks pretty normal from a ways away, and a lot of people really admire them from afar, but their intimacy issues really put them at odds with a lot of people. They have a habit of lashing out and just smacking the shit out of anyone that touches them. Also, they are on the run from the law for poisoning a string of their past husbands via laced teas, which is kinda a red flag... 5.75/10 would hold underwater until the bubbles stopped.

#7 Teasel

This fuckboy is absolutely notorious for pump and dumping anyone and everyone they can get their hands on. Like Ghengis Khan levels of sleeping around. This bitch has kids lining the highways for fucks sake. Always been very prickly, and a deadbeat in every sense of the term. Just for the sake of his kids, I wouldn't mind body slamming an elbow into his throat. 6.9/10 would smother with a pillow.

#6 Bradford Pears

Now, this guy came from the big city with the best of intentions, but if you ask me, I think the rural life drove him kinda crazy. Spring is his favorite season, and he's pretty easy on the eyes but gods he just reeks. Like someone never showed that poor kid what a shower was, he hasn't come within five feet of a stick of deodorant in his life, and was definitely on 4chan last night ranting about women and how their standards are too high. The only other good thing I could think to say about him is that he keeps bees, which prevents him from being higher on the list. Also his name is Brad, which put him up a rank from Teasel. 7/10 would snap crackle pop out of existence.

#5 Bindweed

This woman is a femme fatale if I've ever seen one. Pretty unassuming on the outside in a rich asshole sorta way, but she makes this fun little "game" of flying into poorer rural areas and absolutely devastating some people's lives by wining and dining the men of the family and finding some slight that her legal goons will latch onto to sue their generational farm out of existence. Just for the familial shredding, I wouldn't feel bad sabotaging her billionaire-ass private jet. 8.6/10 would snuff the lights from.

#4 Musk Thistle

This guy has been in and out of prison for most of his adult life. Kinda a failure of the legal system than anything. His temper has a shorter fuse than a full stick of dynamite, and he's kinda hot-potatoed all over the country's prison systems as a result. Definitely not the kinda guy you would feel comfortable with walking down the street towards at night, even if there were people around. Pretty sure he's on trial for a string of stabbings in Arkansas. Likes butterflies. 9/10 would feed to a coyote pack.

#3 Johnson Grass

Pretty sure this guy runs the local mafia chapter. He always has guys underground that are just waiting to pop up where you would least expect it, and the police have busted his ring like five or six times, but somehow he always comes back full force. Every one of his cronies (including him according to rumors) carries around a cyanide pill like they're an overseas spy ring. Maybe they are. 10/10 would feed to a hungry shark.

#2 Sericea

Oh, this fucker. She got a medal from the military when she was in her thirties for committing state-sanctioned genocide and now she has this pompous ass attitude like ma'am getting the nickname prairie killer isn't as big of a point of pride as you think it is. Zero redeeming qualities. 12/10 would send off a cliff with a loony toons sized cannon.

#1 Honeysuckle

Honestly, he's always given me Jeff Bezos vibes. This man is the CEO of a multibillion-dollar housing scheme that was given to him by his father and has the audacity to claim humble roots. Like sir, I hate to break it to you but just because you were born in Missouri doesn't give you the right to claim you know the struggles of the working farmers there. This asshole bought out a whole plot of old deciduous forest and remnant prairie and just decided to build skyrise apartments on them. Buddy. Pal. I would be surprised if you know what the term charity means. You put on a compassionate front with no light behind your eyes. Get a life. 20/10 would run through with a jousting pole