leneslandlust
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Cosimo Galluzzi

shark vs the universe

Love Begins
Monterey Bay Aquarium

tannertan36
RMH
Claire Keane
we're not kids anymore.

⁂
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me

★

pixel skylines
🪼
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
sheepfilms

祝日 / Permanent Vacation

Product Placement
Peter Solarz

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@decay
leneslandlust
Goth flowers appreciation post
Plant shelfie before it starts to rain again 💚
Conophytum pageae, sometimes nicknamed the Lips plant or the Button plant, is a succulent perennial plant that is native to the Cape Province regions of South Africa.
FreeHeirloomSeeds.org is a community resource connecting people with the means to produce our own food. We offer Free Heirloom Seeds to indi
Check out this website for FREE heirloom seeds. If you are able you can donate to support them.
grow mushrooms
Some John Chwekun hybrids this morning.
2023 01 19, deindoli csendéletek
(previously: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31)
sketchbook bits
you can make posts that are anti lawns and pro biodiversity without downplaying the real, terrible danger that ticks pose
[id in alt]
tags by @eatyourdamnpears
Yes, what really infuriates me, is when those posts will mention ticks, then wave them off. like go 'oh these dumb people think any taller grass is a danger to neighborhood aesthetics and full of tics' as if the two are in any way equivalent, and then, cruelly and dangerously, leave it at that, as if ticks are a made up problem. or they'll use their image in their memes as a boogeyman then ignore any concerns.
My point isn't AT ALL 'lawns are better because ticks', there can be a middle ground. There are things like bug spray and ultrasonic repellent devices, neither of which are 100% effective, so the most important thing is always looking over yourself/your family, especially on your scalp, after you've been in a risky area. Lyme is stored in ticks' intestines, not their saliva, so if the tick is removed within a day or two, the risk of infection is low. I know someone who sent a tick for testing, and it came back positive for lyme, but since they removed it fast, they don't have it (had every test possible) however other tick-borne diseases like encephalitis (brain inflamation, sometimes deadly) are in their saliva and will infect you immediately, so I absolutely don't want you to think it's fine to get ticks as long as you get rid of them fast. it's better to get rid of them fast, send them for testing, and probably get on preventative antibiotics for a couple of weeks, because if caught early, lyme is treatable, even curable.
So it's all about a reasonable balance. Yes we need to restore biodiversity, but it's not without risks. is the lawn somewhere children play unsupervised every day? Somewhere you often walk barefoot? do you live in an at-risk area, or near woods with wild animals like deer who can infect ticks? then keep it to short grass. Conversely, large swathes of unused land, or tiny patches of decorative grass in the middle of a city that no one ever walks on, hiking spots where you only go with appropriate gear and bug spray, maybe even a designated spot in your backyard if you live far from wild animals, can and should be used to restore native plants as tall as you wish.
Also I would love it if people who don't have lyme actually reblogged this too lol. This is a horrendous illness, that affects every part of your body, that ruined my life and killed comrade leslie feinberg, and you need an appropriate level of fear to stay safe from it.
Y’all know I’m all in favor of native plants and naturalized areas, but I have very much noticed the same issue as op. And it’s not just lyme! There is a surprisingly long list of tick-borne illnesses just in the US.
https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/tickbornediseases/index.html
Want your life wrecked? Pick up a case of babesia! My son was bitten by a tick that was carrying babesia (and a secondary infection of bartonella) when he was around 13. Babesia (also called babesiosis) is a close relative of the parasite that causes malaria. Symptoms? A series of fevers with deep fatigue. The fever comes and goes and comes back again - just like malaria. When we were trying to find answers for his persistent illness, I even TOLD the damned Dr. “This is just like malaria, a series of fevers that keep recurring.” It took us years to find a specialist, get a diagnosis, find a second specialist, and get him treated with a potent combo of antibiotics and anti-malarial meds. Years. He was 18 by the time he was cured - and took another year to get back up to a reasonable level of energy and fitness after such a long sickness.
https://www.healthline.com/health/babesia
Ticks are a nightmare, most regular doctors are spectacularly uninformed, and some of the symptoms are really quite hard to recognize. Use the bug spray, learn what diseases might be in your area, and check your skin after you’ve been in out.
I don't have Lyme disease, and I don't live in an at risk area, but I was curious, so I followed the link. Here's some additional information:
It seems most of the risk is from ticks carried into your yard by white tailed deer and white footed mice. And also ticks apparently like shade and humidity?*
Suggestions to reduce risk include:
Creating a three foot wide woodchip strip between wooded areas and your lawn/ areas that you frequent to deter ticks from migrating toward those areas. This is a point that they kept mentioning, so I guess it's a big one.
Keep your lawn area mowed.
Remove leaf litter, tall weeds, etc from your yard.
Discourage rodent activity. They mention sealing holes, I would imagine this also includes being careful about where and how you compost.
Keep your pets out of the woods. Practically, if you have a cat this means keep it indoors or build a catio.
Plant things deer don't like eating or build a fence. In my experience, they don't like herbs or alliums, and there's lots of ornamental options here. They will munch on native species, but they don't seem to go after them as much as some popular ornamental plants, which seem like deer candy.
Trim trees and shrubs to let in more light. This means you need to know the difference between a thinning cut and a heading cut.
Adopt less water-demanding gardening techniques. Like, let your grass go dormant in the summer and grow plants that can thrive with the rain fall pattern of your area.
The article also says that there's some evidence that creating increased biodiversity through native plantings may decrease the number of ticks. I hope more people look into this and share their findings.
They specifically mentioned pachysandra a few times as a BAD IDEA. I'm curious because this is a fairly tall ground cover- what about shorter ones? Like blue star creeper or creeping thyme or Corsican mint?
They also mentioned using pesticides to create a barrier.
Here's their suggestions for landscape alternatives if you don't want to have a manicured lawn:
This was all news to me, because as I said, the species that carry ticks aren't around here, so I've never had to think about it. I'm really glad it's being brought up, and I think this is a great example of why context matters when it comes to gardening advice.
* I've gotten a tick once in my life, and it was when I was on the other side of the state, which happens to have white tailed deer instead of the black tailed deer we have here. I've never found ticks on any of our animals, except the sheep we had when I was a kid. This is to say, I've almost zero real life experience, I'm just passing on the info I found through that link because in my experience, relatively few people follow links vs read long posts.
I also want to point out that there is a really vast middle ground between high growing meadows and mono cultural lawns.
A short lawn can still be home to a number of plants that are better for biodiversity than grass. Even the lawns in the parks here are nearly equally one part grass one part flowers like white clover, dandelions, daisies, buttercups and some I don't know the english name of.
These lawns are mowed like once a month and are frequently used by children and adults to play, to do sports, to picnic or to hang out.
They are kept this way because it is cheap and easy maintenance. And there is always some small flowers from March to November.
It is not a wild life haven, not a big blooming meadow but it is also not a monocultural green desert. They don't need pesticides and don't require watering once they are established.
diadà
HousePlantParadise
“People can’t anticipate how much they’ll miss the natural world until they are deprived of it. I have read about submarine crewmen who haunt the sonar room, listening to whale songs and colonies of snapping shrimp. Submarine captains dispense “periscope liberty” - a chance to gaze at clouds and birds and coastlines - and remind themselves that the natural world still exists. I once met a man who told me that after landing in Christchurch, New Zealand, after a winter at the South Pole research station, he and his companions spent a couple of days just wandering around staring in awe at flowers and trees. At one point, one of them spotted a woman pushing a stroller. “A baby!” he shouted, and they all rushed across the street to see. The woman turned the stroller and ran. Nothing tops space as a barren, unnatural environment. Astronauts who had no prior interest in gardening spend hours tending experimental greenhouses. “They are our love,” said cosmonaut Vladislav Volkov of the tiny flax plants - with which they shared the confines of Salyut 1, the first Soviet space station. At least in orbit, you can look out the window and see the natural world below. On a Mars mission, once astronauts lose sight of Earth, they’ll be nothing to see outside the window. “You’ll be bathed in permanent sunlight, so you won’t eve see any stars,” astronaut Andy Thomas explained to me. “All you’ll see is black.””
— Mary Roach. Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. (via hummeline)
2021 12 21, kis szobanövény kontent
My kind of house plants
She looks the cutest when she's like this.💕
This is what they looked like when they were dormant, and quite different from what they look like now!🤭
この姿の時が一番可愛く見えます💕
これは休眠の時の姿であり、今の姿とは結構違います!🤭