The Mother Of All

She/They; It’s supposed to be a collection of Nature-Pics and -Fun facts, maybe some other Book inspirations.

[vintagegermany]

Black Forest, Germany 1900/20

[songs-of-the-east]

Sorbian Woman from Lusatia, Germany

[browsethestacks]

Still Can...

[elf-kid2]

Beautiful. The composition. Colors. The lamp. The fact that the photographer managed to make the moon look GOOD (not all cameras and photographers can achieve that).

Absolutely spectacular. Ultraluminary. Yes.

[whitepeopletwitter]

[weaselle]

here are some cross-sections of some undersea cables in case anyone wants to know why this is especially funny

and we know this happens regularly

[frogcroaks]

A comic (?) about my love of weird little bats for this halloween

[mapsontheweb]

Average color of US states based on satellite imaging.

[faeiri-tft]

fond of the average by county version of this:

also the world version:

[redfagdiver]

Australia is really out there doing her own thing

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

You’re just jealous of our apocalyptic arse sand

[sage-mcgavin-main]

Why is the ground made of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos?

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

It rusty

[doghowto]

Man unintentionally teaches his Corgi sign language! 😊 Follow me for more smart puppers!

[purplesaline]

A dog's primary language is body language, so things like hand signals and sign language they'll learn even faster than verbal cues!

[jackhawksmoor]

People really underestimate their pet dogs. I taught my dogs what 'excuse me' means by just saying it and nudging them out of the way. Now I don't have to worry about them getting underfoot when I'm holding a hot pan- I say 'excuse me' and they move. There's a hand gesture I use when I'm done giving them treats so they know there's no point begging for anything else.

They even know what 'accident' and 'I'm sorry' means. Anyone who has ever accidentally stepped on their dog's tail or done something else that hurts or scares them, and laments how they can't tell their dogs they didn't mean it?

You can. Literally, any time it happens, say that you're sorry and it was an accident while showering them with affection. If you have more than one dog you'll see they do that kind of thing when they accidentally hurt each other. If you act the same way and say the same words every time something happens, they'll learn what the word means. Hell, I accidentally taught my dogs to act really gentle and not get too close when they're around puppies and infants (or any animal delicate and small) just by always going 'that's a baby' very seriously and firmly any time they were around one.

[digitaldiscipline]

@lasrina

[pervocracy]

Fun statistical fact: Cows are about 300 times more likely to kill you than coyotes.

Minor sidenote to statistical fact: If it was common for people to keep several hundred coyotes on their property and routinely chase them into a corral and handle them, this statistic would be different.

[babyfoxcollectionthings]

[astercrash]

(via @wojit )

[batshit-auspol]

Fun fact for our international followers: If someone in Australia cuts down a tree on public land to improve the view from their house, the local government will install a sign to block that view again

[breelandwalker]

Buck Moon - July 20-21, 2024

Put on your flower crowns and your walking shoes - it’s time for the Buck Moon!

Buck Moon 🦌

The Buck Moon is the name given to the full moon in the month of July and is called this because at this time of year, the rack of antlers previously shed by male deer are beginning to regrow and harden in preparation for the fall rutting season. 

Other North American Indigenous names for this moon include Salmon Moon (Tlingit), Berry Moon (Anishinaabe), Month of the Ripe Corn Moon (Cherokee), and Raspberry Moon (Algonquin, Ojibwe). The West Abenaki also call this the Thunder Moon in reference to the often-stormy summer weather. (This one is my personal favorite and the name appears in lunar calendars just as often as the Buck Moon.)

European names for the July moon include Hay Moon and Wort Moon, and it should be noted that the name Stag Moon does appear in some European sources as well.

This year's Buck Moon will be at peak illumination at 6:17am EST on July 21st, so the moon will appear to be full on both the 20th and 21st. Also, it's a weekend, so plan your festivities accordingly!

What Does It Mean For Witches? 🦌

The July full moon continues June’s template of planning for the future, this time with a focus on your passions and ambitions. Reflect on what you’ve accomplished so far this year and plan your next step.

Dream big and plan big, but don’t give in to reckless urgency. Summer (and capitalist grind culture) gives us the urge to Go Go Go. Despite all this, it’s important to take time to rest and recharge, lest we find ourselves burning out and losing our motivation.

What Witchy Things Can We Do? 🦌

Celebrate your victories and revel in the abundance of the summer season. If you’re inclined to do so, take a page from the deer and do a bit of prancing around a bonfire or your favorite flower arbor with some festive flowery headgear.

Go exploring! Find a local park or garden and take a stroll among the greenery, or use TV and the internet to explore and learn about faraway places. This is another opportune time to go and check out pick-your-own farms and farmers markets as well. Sharpen your foraging and plant identification skills while you’re out and about!

If you’re tending a garden, harvest some herbs and investigate what you can make with them. Whether it’s seasoning for meals, homemade botanical products, or just helpful spell ingredients, many herbs and flowers have a plethora of uses. As an exercise, select three plants growing in your yard or garden, research their magical correspondences and botanical properties, and try to think of as many ways as possible to use each one for witchcraft and for practical purposes. For extra credit, pick something native to your area that doesn't appear in the western magical canon and use its' physical, folkloric, and historical associations to create something new!

(Safety Note: Always clean and prepare home-harvested herbs properly before using them for kitchen, bath, or medical preparations. Always be sure to properly identify any wildcrafted or foraged plants. Always consult a doctor before trying an herbal treatment and take all allergies, medications, and pre-existing conditions into account. Please also note that while herbal treatments can be helpful, it can have negative interactions and side effects just like any other medication, and it is not meant to be a replacement for modern medical care.)

Apart from the usual full-moon festivities, I’ve always found this is an excellent time for weather-witching. Summer weather is notoriously fickle, but it is also highly malleable - one recalls that old American Southern epithet of, “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.”

If you’re hoping to bring some rain to water your garden or break the back of a heat wave, this may be the time to do it. My personal favorite folk magic ritual for rain-calling involves going outside with a broom and a bucket of water, using the broom to scatter drops of water over your yard, and shouting up to the clouds, “SEE? IT’S NOT HARD!”

Make sure you take local weather patterns into account and try to draw on existing fronts and nearby precipitation to get the desired result. And keep in mind that with weather magic, less is more and one casting is enough. Asking for too much or asking too often can produce undesirable results. And if you manage to make it rain, be sure to collect some for moon water!

If you’re interested in weather-witching, I highly recommend checking out this masterpost by @stormbornwitch for a number of excellent articles and suggestions.

Happy Buck Moon, witches! 🌕🦌

Sources and Further Reading:

Bree’s Lunar Calendar Series

Bree’s Secular Celebrations Series

Witchcraft Exercise - Creating Correspondences

Buck Moon: Full Moon in July 2024, The Old Farmer's Almanac.

Buck Moon Bonanza: Embrace July’s Massive Energy!, The Peculiar Brunette.

Everyday Moon Magic: Spells & Rituals for Abundant Living, Dorothy Morrison.

(If you’re enjoying my content, please feel free to drop a little something in the tip jar or check out my published works on Amazon or in the Willow Wings Witch Shop. 😊)

[milkywayan]

tfw you see some stupid post that paints medieval peasants eating just plain grey porridge and acting as if cheese, butter or meat was too exotic or expensive for them, and have to use all your inner strength to not just reblog it with an angry rant and throwing hands with people. so i will just post the angry rant here

no, medieval people did not only eat grey porridge with no herbs or spices, they had a great variety of vegetables we dont even have anymore, grains and dairy products, not to mention fruits and meats, all seasonal and changing with the time of the year. no, medieval food was not just tasteless, maybe this will surprise some of you but you can make tasty food without excessive spice use, and can use a variety of good tasting herbs. if you'd ever tried to cook some medieval recipes you would know that. medieval people needed a lot of energy for their work, if they would only eat fucking porridge all of the time they would get scurvy and die before they could even built a civilisation. they had something called 'pottage' which was called that because it was cooked in one pot. you could leave the pot on the fire and go about your day, doing stuff and come back to a cooked meal. they put in what was available that time of the year, together with grains, peas, herbs, meat etc etc. again, if you would try to make it, like i have with my reenactment friends, it can actually be really good and diverse.

dont confuse medieval peasants with poor people in victorian england. dont think that TV shows what it was really like. dont think that dirty grey dressed people covered in filth were how the people looked like.

they made use of everything. too poor to buy proper meat? buy a sheeps head and cook it. they ate nettle and other plants we consider weeds now. they foraged and made use of what they found. hell, there are medieval cook books!

most rural people had animals, they had chickens (eggs), goats (milk and dairy), cows (milk and dairy), sheep (milk and dairy) and pigs (meat machine), and after butchering they used ALL THE PARTS of the animal. you know how much meat you can get out of a pig, even the smaller medieval breeds? the answer is a lot

if you had the space you always had a vegetable garden. there are ways to make sure you have something growing there every time of the year. as i said they had a variety of vegetables we dont have anymore due to how farming evolved. you smoked pork in the chimney, stored apples in the dry places in your house, had a grain chest. people could go to the market to buy fish and meat, both fresh and dried/smoked. they had ale, beer and wine, that was not a luxury that was a staple part of their diet.

this post ended once again up being longer than i planned, but please for the love of the gods, just actually educate yourself on this stuff and dont just say stupid wrong shit, takk

[milkywayan]

As this post is making the rounds again, let me just add some medieval cook books for all of you!

Here is a great collection of information about medieval cook books from all over europe with links! Here is another simple summary and some cook book links from the british library!

Here two books that I have myself and found great, and am soon going to try to remake some dishes:

The Forme of Cury: oldest known english cook book, compiled around 1390 for the english king (aka they put saffron into everything)

Das Bůch von gůter spîse: a german cookbook from 1350, part of the Housebook of Michael de Leone, a prothonotary (so no king this time). Way more down to earth recipes, and sometimes simple but still very creative with different foods and some sounding very tasty (I only know the middle high german version of this, so sorry)

It is also important to note that of course the food was VERY dependent on where you were living! Like wine and grapes were super normal every day food and drink for people where i come from (Vienna) where most of the economy was built on wine and the city (that is in a basin surrounded by low hills) is surrounded by massive wineyards, even today, going back over 1000 years. Where I live now (Norway) life and diet was fundamentally different! The ground is frozen most of the year, it is always cold, but you have a lot of access to fish (no wonder they went raiding).

To the many people on the notes asking over and over again (even though I answered it already) about the vegetables we don't have anymore:

Every modern vegetable used to look quite different, and we used to have a lot more variety of all of it. E.g. carrots: you are probably most familiar with the orange one, but that is just one vaeiation. Even today we have yellow and purple carrots, and back in the medieval period they had even more variants. There are a lot of things, especially salads that have grown 'out of fashion' and thus are not cultivated anymore like they used to be. There are a lot of kinds of peas dying out that used to be an important crop before we had potatoes in europe. Grains used to look very different (think of grain fields as high as corn fields). A lot of foods that need to be foraged also are out of fashion, sadly.

But I am happy so many people agree, and so many people enjoy learning how medieval food was really like instead of buying into hollywood/victorian era propaganda :D

[yiddishknights]

I would also like to recommend Tasting History's Medieval & Renaissance Recipes playlist. A lot of good examples there of how medieval people used spices in their dishes.

[ecrivainsolitaire]

I would also like to point out that "buy a sheep head and cook it" is the recipe for birria, so maybe lay off that "proper meat" elitism because that's the best part

[prismatic-bell]

Something not mentioned here but important to know:

Unless you were obscenely wealthy, meat was not a main course, it was a side (and not eaten at every meal or even every day).

We tend to think of meat as a main course, but it wasn’t always. And this doesn’t mean they were lacking protein! Eggs were common, and not just chicken eggs. Bones would be cooked down to render into broth (let me tell you, one of the foods I miss from being a gentile is ham bone cabbage soup, it was so good). There were options.

But the majority of your calories came from GRAIN. That’s why beer was such a thing. Today we call it “empty calories,” they called it “necessary sustenance.”

[zarekthelordofthefries]

Not to critique evolution, but I would think orange and black stripes wouldn’t be as good for camouflage in a forest as, say, green and black would.

[acceptableduraz]

It turns out a lot of animals can’t see the difference between orange and green!  Elephants, for instance, have dichromatic vision (two types of cones, rather than three like most humans.) 

Check out this diagram from ResearchGate.  It deals with the color vision of horses, who are also generally dichromatic.  (I think, though I’m not sure, that zebras would have the same color vision as horses.)  See how orange and green look to them?

[zarekthelordofthefries]

Not to critique evolution but I think prey animals should be better at telling when their predator is dressed like a traffic cone.

[squeeful]

It doesn’t matter what zebras see, because tigers are not native to Africa and do not naturally hunt zebra.  Tigers are Asian and mostly hunt animals like deer, elk, and buffalo.  These aren’t animals with great color vision.  They don’t need to have it because they don’t eat fruit and so don’t need to know when the berry is ripe vs when it’s not.  Good color vision is too expensive to have if you don’t need it.  Deer put their vision stats in a wide field of vision that is sensitive to motion, low light capabilities, and possibly seeing UV light.  They don’t have great color and lack a lot of acuity, but have a great sense of smell and good hearing.  That’s way more useful if you’re prey.  Deer see well in the blue end of the color spectrum and less well in the red.  This makes sense because deer are most active in the dawn and dusk periods, when there is more blue in the light.  Tigers are taking advantage of deer eyesight by being orange.

We see tigers are being obviously colored because tigers are fruit colored to our tree ape brains.

[thelibrarina]

I don’t know what the best part of this is: implying that deer chose their attributes on a character sheet, or the fact that we get to see tiger colors because they look like a snack.

[authoratmidnight]

Ok but like, I think you underestimate just how well they blend in when actually in the environment. Like, just using tigers as an example.

or how about a leopard?

It’s called ‘disruptive colouration’ because the markings help to break up the animal’s outline against the grasses or rocks. And the rosettes on leopards and jaguars? Sun spots shining through the trees and leaves on the ground.

And this is how hard it is to spot them WITH colour vision. Now imagine the above images but with the limited coloured mentioned above?

[hecate-hollow]

I’m sorry but there is not an animal in that first leopard picture

[authoratmidnight]

Are you, sure about that?

[petermorwood]

How Not To Be Seen meets How Not To Be Lunch.

[tgirl-thucydides]

[oysters-aint-for-me]

[sparkqueen19]

[molive-0]

There are many benefits to being a marine biologist

[teaboot]

Rare Scooby-Doo good guy reveal

[caats]