The Cozy Cuttlefish

Closest match: Bombyx mori BmN4 cell DNA, chromosome 24, sequence Common name: Domestic Silk Moth

I’ve made mizeria today and it’s delicious.

(Does this mean misery btw? Anyway, it’s anything but misery, especially at 34 degrees Celsius!)

Ive been vegan in terms of diet at multiple points in my life, and am a lifelong vegetarian. Also im lactose intolerant so my diet is mostly vegan, although I do not avoid non-vegan lactose free foods (such as eggs, and some cheeses) because my diet is very limited by allergies, intolerances, sensitivities, and cost.

But im guessing, since this is a fiber arts blog, that you are actually asking me if I will stop using wool. Easy answer: absolutely not, and I never will.

Not sure if youre aware, but sheep need to be sheared. There are some exceptions; some primitive breeds are able to molt, either with or without help from humans. But either way, the wool needs to be gone by summer. A sheep keeping its wool over the summer, especially for multiple years, can lead to a variety of issues like heatstroke, flystrike, infections, mobility issues, etc.

Even in situations where the shepherd isnt raising the sheep for wool and doesnt want to try selling it, they still pay to get the sheep sheared or do it themselves, because the health of the sheep require it.

It also does not hurt the sheep at all, and is comparable to a vaccine jab both in terms of botheration and health benefits.

So, we've established that the sheep cannot remain in their wool.

In terms of me using it, yeah obviously I am going to--its being produced and shorn anyway, and, unlike all synthetic alternatives, not an environmental disaster. The production of synthetic textiles like nylon and polyester are toxic--the environmental damage varies based both on the synthetic textile and also sometimes on the production method. The dyes used for these textiles are also toxic as fuck.

The dyes used for wool and plant fibers are also toxic, again to varying degrees, and a significant source of pollution. One of the very few ways to make non toxic, or considerably less toxic dyes is to use plant or animal dye material and do it yourself. So, for example, dyeing yourself some wool with onion skins and spinning it up and making a pair of mittens is, and i mean this literally, the best possible way for a new pair of mittens to enter the world. It is miles better than buying a pair of polyester mittens made of petroleum, dyed with disperse dyes (which are not readily biodegradable, are harmful to whatever environment they end up in, and also can be harmful to humans while being used), and sewn together in a sweat shop with what is often essentially slavery. And as soon as you start wearing and washing them they shed microplastics everywhere, and will continue to disperse them either into the groundwater or the ocean, depending on what kind of midden they end up in, until they eventually decompose after a very long life of fucking up literally everything they touch.

Im not sure how any of that is supposed to be better than my wool mittens. In fact I would say it is much much worse. And I will continue to use wool until the day I die.

Hopefully this makes sense.

Sources:

https://www.nwvetstanwood.com/site/blog/2022/06/30/shear-sheep

https://nhspca.org/the-importance-of-shearing-your-sheep/

https://fibershed.org/2019/07/11/shearing-and-welfare-why-are-sheep-sheared/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/306035547_Ecological_and_Sustainable_Natural_Dyes

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9135010/

https://earth.org/fast-fashions-detrimental-effect-on-the-environment/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdrylgvr77jo

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969723054797

(If any of these sources dont work, no worries, you can find a ton of information and research about pretty much all of this stuff freely and widely available online.)

did you know that by the time fallow deer were introduced to the british isles in the eleventh century, drop spindle spinning was already at least an eight thousand year old craft?

it is thought by archaeologists and anthropologists that spinning developed from cordage rolling, where plant fibres and animal sinews would be rolled on the lap. this practice emerged between forty and thirty-four thousand years ago and is still practiced all over the world.

true spinning began with tying fibres to a rock and spinning the rock over ten thousand years ago and quickly developed into the drop spindle which consists of a stick and a whorl (or weight) around nine thousand years ago. the earliest drop spindles tend to be found in the fertile crescent and egypt, though it is not known whether this is where they first developed or where they preserved best.

there are many arguments about when and where the spinning wheel was invented. but when the normans were taking rule of england in the eleventh century, it would be another two hundred years before spinning wheels began to be used there and another three hundred years yet before wheels began to displace drop spindles within the british isles.

Up to a bit of tablet weaving and PBS (very into Secrets of the Dead and Nova).

I'm making a strap for the guitar I've been playing (my dad's from the 70's). I really love the feel of tablet woven straps, and you can make all kinds of patterns.

Up to a bit of tablet weaving and PBS (very into Secrets of the Dead and Nova).

I'm making a strap for the guitar I've been playing (my dad's from the 70's). I really love the feel of tablet woven straps, and you can make all kinds of patterns.

Up to a bit of tablet weaving and PBS (very into Secrets of the Dead and Nova).

I'm making a strap for the guitar I've been playing (my dad's from the 70's). I really love the feel of tablet woven straps, and you can make all kinds of patterns.

For those of you who aren't familiar, I live in an exceptionally flammable part of the United States, and despite the fact that every goddamn year multiple parts of my state catch fire, destroy homes and kill people, the local assholes insist on getting drunk and setting fire to a bunch of illegal explosives anyway. In 2023, God granted me a Miracle that prevented my house from burning down.

Last year, I had to resort to Psychological and Chemical Warfare to keep the patriotic arsonists at bay.

This year is apparently An Important Birthday for the clusterfuck we have the nerve to call a nation, so despite the fact there is so much smoke in the air that the sun has literally been blood red for the last week, the pyrotechnic fetishists are out in force.

Last year, I hit upon the concept that if my neighbors were going to act like problem animals, it would make sense to use the management techniques on them that you might use on say, a Bear that was doing serious property damage. Thusly, I created The Stench, a nontoxic but FOUL smelling concoction that I could discretely spray around the flammable gatherings and render the area extremely uncomfortable to occupy for the rest of the night, forcing them to give up or move on.

If this seems harsh: There is no story from 2024 because a grass fire was started by fireworks less than 12 miles from me and the high winds put me in the evacuation zone in under an hour. Over fifty people lost their homes. Errant fireworks burning my house down is a very real possibility, and I pay the price in anxiety and insurance premiums.

The Stench is noxious but harmless, and also very effective at building a buffer zone around my home. But sneaking up to parties on foot in this heat is both exhausting and nerve-wracking. There have to be more effective ways to do this

-And there is! It involves Weeds and Business Cards :)

On one hand: FAR fewer fireworks parties this year!

- Only nine to last year's thirteen - three of them had the good sense to be firing their recreational explosives out over the local reservoir - That's far from foolproof - and really bad for the fish - also y'all are RIGHT NEXT to where the Bald Eagles are nesting - but congratulations on at least attempting some risk mitigation!

On the other hand.

A rain garden is a shallow planted depression designed to hold water until it soaks into the soil. A key feature of eco-friendly landscape design, rain gardens—also known as bio-infiltration basins—are gaining credibility and converts as an important solution to stormwater runoff and pollution. Here we’ll show you how to make a rain garden fit handsomely into a landscape and still fulfill all of its environmental functions.

Refer to the list of links below to guide you through calculating garden depth, garden size, placement, and plant selection.

University of Nebraska NebGuide 1 – Rain Garden Design for Homeowners

University of Nebraska NebGuide 2 – Plant Selection for Rain Gardens in Nebraska

University of Nebraska NebGuide 3 – Installing Rain Gardens in Your Yard

Backyard Farmer Video – Rain Gardens and Rain Barrels

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/environment/waste-management/sewage/stormwater_planning_guidebook_for_bc.pdf

Heres a not so friendly reminder, as an lgbt metis person, i dont give a single fuck what your blog is themed or if this is too painful for you to look at. Reblog this post. Reblog this post with the sources of the 751 children who were found.

Your compliance and silence as well as the compliance and silence of your ancestors is what allowed these schools to open and kill first nations children. The children of MY people.

Dont follow me if you cant reblog this post or the one with sources to your political blog or your most popular blog. Add trigger warnings if you must but if your political blog is only focused on the harms you personally face like being lgbt then you need to see some bigger pictures and stop being afraid of angering your racist mutural or actually saying some shit about racism. If you can reblog some antifa graphics or add blm to your bio to be a surface level ally, you can reblog some sources on the genocide first nations people faced and still face today.

They were CHILDREN.

I’d like to add this photo I took last night in Victoria of the statue of Captain Cook. Though I myself am not indigenous, I 100% agree that these murderers, kidnappers and rapists shouldn’t have huge statues and plaques that decorate them and say how “great” they were.

Here’s another photo of the legislative assembly from yesterday. Later on there were more items, candles and signs at the memorial, as well as a big poster with 1505 painted on it but I didn’t get a picture

People need to see this. Not just quickly glance at the photos and keep on scrolling. They need to see this.

I went to a “Cancel Canada Day” event and burst into tears - not because I was surprised to learn of the unmarked graves (survivors told us they were there. Our government pushed it aside, and we let them), but because seeing all the people gathered in mourning drove it home: They. Were. Children.

This is my country’s legacy - and it’s not history. The last schools closed during my lifetime. My Father went to school with students who lived at the local residential school, after it was changed to a boarding house (read: holding centre) for indigenous youth who went to local schools.