A Birchwood Path

"Lovely leaves fly loose, steadfast, a covenant, standing. The bare shining birch waits, mistress of the mountain."

[birchwood-path]

/ | \

About updated June 2025

Common tags for easy blog navigation here.

[mephastopheles]

Erotic Postcards. Circa 1920

[recordingsurface]

every day they hide more information in the cracks between tiles on the floor. such as, for instance, types and amount of grease dropped on the floor, types and amount of dust in the air, origins of that dust, genetic information of humans whose hair and skin constitutes that dust, ancestry information of those humans, evolutionary history of humanity up to the present day, general conditions of earth for the past few billion years, the very laws of physics themselves as they exist and have existed, even in high energy contexts, any hidden nature of reality that we don't know about yet,,,, type of grout used, etc.

[huariqueje]

Across the Bay - Scott Lloyd Anderson

American , b. 1958 -

Oil on panel , 16 x 12 in.

[anxietyproblem]

[rubacmk]

These paintings were created using bouquets I bought from women at the market and wildflowers I picked myself in the woods. Every single flower and painting was approved by my cat.

Every time, I tell myself I have enough flowers, but as soon as my gaze lingers on them, the urge to paint them pops into my mind.

[rubacmk]

One more

[fnordseer5]

our idiotic ancestors used to believe stuff that's not true but luckily we've now figured out all the true things to believe in

[creekfiend]

Wanna thank you for answering that anon’s question because your response was really out of left field for me and it prompted me to do some research about “backyard breeders”. That’s such a useless term isn’t it?

Having someone raising pets with love and attention while also being aware of their genetics and actively trying to breed better companion animals is the ideal way to breed dogs. The problem is not that we have too many dogs in shelters - it’s that we have too many breeders trying to make a quick buck (or just not caring enough about their animals) and surrendering the dogs that don’t sell because they’re ill-tempered or not suited for most families.

Very eye-opening experience for me. I knew the shelters are full of dogs that are staffy/pit mutts but I didn’t think about how they came to be born in the first place

I forget that some people don't know that "backyard breeder" is basically used a slur in the dog world lol 😅 I can totally see how my response definitely wouldn't make sense without that information.

There's definitely a LOT of factors that contribute to the shelter crisis, and I think that boiling it down to individual human decisions is a dangerous thing to do. There's definitely people who are irresponsible about their animals, no arguing with that, but we are often really hesitant to address the broader social causes of that perceived irresponsibility when we have conversations about this... like, what circumstances might people be in which make dumping a dog necessary or appealing? What circumstances might people be in which might result in "letting my intact dog have puppies and selling them for a couple hundred bucks on craigslist and then ghosting the buyers" seem like a reasonable way to make a few extra bucks? What resources are people being given to care for themselves, their families, and their pets? What resources are municipal animal control and animal shelters being given? Like, I've talked about how around here dumping dogs is becoming more common bc the price of both human and dog food (and things like vet care) are rising astronomically and wages aren't keeping up. If dumping dogs was simply due to people not caring enough, we would not be seeing a rise in dumping that's directly attributable to material conditions this way. That gives us a lot of information about what is driving these problems. In the US we have a homeless animal crisis for all of the same reasons we have a homeless people crisis. We have an animal welfare crisis for all of the same reasons we have a human welfare crisis. Addressing human welfare is one of the biggest things we can do upstream of these problems that will have the biggest impact on people AND the animals they care for.

That's not to say that I don't think it's good to be conscientious and thoughtful about breeding, or that there isn't value in things like pedigree tracking or health testing, because obviously if I didn't think that I wouldn't be doing those things! But *because* I am doing them, I can say from personal experience that it requires a lot of time, money, and energy to do it this way. Most people do not have an excess of those things at the moment. I find it much less useful to look at the people who aren't currently able to meet my personal standards of responsibility in terms of creating more pets than I do to look at the material circumstances that are preventing them from doing so. And yes, sometimes "ignorance" is one of those circumstances! And in those cases I think education and outreach are very useful. I've helped people in "designer dog" type fb groups understand the ins and outs of things like health testing and puppy raising just by presenting the information in an easily digestible way without judgment or condescension. The FDC has a lot of fairy straightforwardly presented information about this stuff available to both breeders and puppy buyers, and I think that's very useful. Breeding dogs well is incredibly gatekept, and that's by design. I don't think that gatekeeping benefits dogs or people. No matter which way you slice it, blaming breeders who we perceive as being less responsible than we would like them to be is just not a productive way to address any of these very real and very troubling social problems.

I totally agree that it would be ideal if most pet dogs could be produced in the way that breeders like Apsara are doing! And I also think that will never be the case if we can't figure out how to build a society that is humane for the people breeding and caring for the animals.

Anyway that was very long and kind of going off on a tangent lol, thank you for giving me a chance to spitball about this stuff and thank you for your message.

[emeraldbroam]

Re this paragraph: (not pasting the entire thing)

There's definitely a LOT of factors that contribute to the shelter crisis, and I think that boiling it down to individual human decisions is a dangerous thing to do.

OP is 100% correct and I'm gonna build diagonal to it's point a lil!

Do you (general) know how hard it is to find a pet friendly place to rent? If you get on zillow or apartments.com and filter by 'allows pets', you'll see the number of available homes drop anywhere from 50-70 percent.

Speaking of renting, did you know that landlords often allow cats and small dogs, where a large dog is anything over 45-50lbs? And of course there's breed restrictions. No 40lb pitbulls here please (and how many people can actually ID a dog breed? My neighbor asked if my solid brown pit/lab was a malinois the other day). Do you have three pets? Get fucked. Most landlords in my area set a pet limit of 2 animals per household. But you need to move, so you filter to just the homes that are in your budget, have no breed restrictions, allow large dogs (about 1/3 of dogs in my local shelter are under 50lbs), allows more than two pets (you can't leave your dog or cats behind!) And you may be facing homelessness, because there isn't shit. Or there's one, but now you're weighing the cost of a 45 minute drive to work every day. Or! Congrats! You've found a home that fits your requirements. And....you've just learned your landlord charges $500 per pet at move in. Do you have $1500 spare dollars laying around? On top of first and last months rent, and the moving truck, and the cost to sign up for all your new utilities?

Do you have the time and energy to put in that work to begin with? It's months of apartment hunting to find that diamond in the rough. I know, because I tried and failed. As far as my landlord knows I have one cat and one dog and any other cats are ghosts haunting this house. *And* I am not at risk of homelessness if my landlord catches me in this. This is a low risk high rewards situation for me. If I didn't have the support systems I do, I can't say I'd have made the same call.

Like pip said, we have a homeless animal crisis for the same reason we have a homeless people crisis.

[creekfiend]

REALLY good addition, thank you!

[birdbyt3]

kiiiiinda in the mood to go camp in the mountains and swim naked in streams and fuck by the fireside and and

[notsofrangible]

the world has been horrifying recently but i have personally witnessed something that brought me joy

Every year, California’s largest sheep and fiber festival, Lambtown, takes place in Dixon, CA. On the second day of Lambtown, teams of eight compete in a “sheep to shawl” competition, where the teams must start the day with un-spun wool and end the day with a 72” woven shawl. Teams may “warp” a loom ahead of time (where you thread the loom with its foundation of parallel threads), but on the day of competition they must spin their wool into yarn and weave it into a complete shawl.

This year competition was stiff, and very very close, and the winning team finished their shawl with two and a half minutes to spare.

I frequently hear about “needing to keep “politics” out of fiber arts, but art is inherently political.

These were beautiful, masterfully spun, woven, and finished shawls and that in itself is worthy of note.

But watching this team of eight would fight for hours, and pour their love for their community into their art was deeply moving and I am still reveling in the opportunity to have seen this win.

There are few things to rejoice in today, but they do exist. The horrors may persist, but so do we.

[haydenthewitch]

my cat lying on top of a blanket I crocheted and a sweater I knit because he really likes the texture of knit/crocheted yarn

#histextures

[riotd]

i’m very self aware. which unfortunately hasn’t solved anything

[spaceshipsandpurpledrank]

[anais-ninja-bitch]

unrestrained summer fun

[tlirsgender]

Really big fan of when a big masc bear type notices you're family 🌈 and breaks out his gayvoice. It's like a cat showing you its tummy. (Loading screen tip) bears can also show you their tummies if they like you

[tlirsgender]

Shoutout to the bear I saw rolling a joint in a bar arcade who I told I liked his (black, sleeves cut off) dolly parton shirt & he said, in a voice higher than you'd expect to come out of this man, "Thankyou she's my hero" I love you. That was an angel

[vanpeltfoto]

"Roof (Shelter)"

(Photo: d.)

[butchdeanjohn]

positive image: a portrait of gay america (1985) by stephen stewart

[queenlua]

all engineers are brothers (found attached to a steamship's engine):

1. 'The Squeak' apparently is originating from the Low Pressure (LP) valve. This is a large "D" slide valve with a lot of metal to metal contact. 2. We have inspected the valve, seat and LP cylinder and piston numerous times. We can find no evidence of rubbing, galling, burnishing, or any other sign of metal to metal contact. 3. 'The Squeak' is dependent on engine speed and temperature; as the engine heats up 'The Squeak' increases. Inexplicably, as the speed increases the sound decreases. 4. Suggestions about using WD-40 or needing sewing machine oil are not helpful. 5. If you wish to discuss 'The Squeak' with the Chief Engineer please donate $1 to The Squeak Abatement Fund to aid in construction of a new LP valve. If too many passengers speak with the Chief regarding 'The Squeak', the donation may be diverted to the Chief's beer fund.