Plant & garden nerd.Ā I grew up way out, growing our own food, foraging through the woods for both food and fun. I work as a gardener and garden educator. I love plants and ecology and love sharing knowledge and experiences. I have dyslexia and ADHD, so expect some (a lot) of typos.
What are some good stories about gardening? Or good non-fiction books about gardening? I'm looking to add to my TBR list on Goodreads. I haven't read many books where characters did much gardening. I can only recall three: two were fantasy about witches where one was really good and the other meh, and The Secret Garden with the bratty kids.
I'm finally starting to read Barbara Kingsolver this summer because I heard her writing often features plants and farming, while focusing on heavier everyday themes.
I recommend The Bean Trees. It's very surprising how a book set in the 1980s is so relevant in 2026. The larger themes deal with refugees and belonging, what makes a good mother, why raise kids in this burning world at all. All the while, there's a cute three-year-old who usually only talks about vegetables, if she talks at all. And a widow in Arizona running a tire shop with a massive vegetable garden in the back.
I just finished reading the sequel, Pigs in Heaven. There is less focus on gardening, but plants are always mentioned as the characters navigate the Indian Child Welfare Act.
Hi, I don't know if you've already moved to another account or not, but I read a post you made about caring for dogs and I wanted to ask questions about how I can take care of my own dog better.
My dog is a pitbull-lab mix and I love him with all my heart but walking him is tough. Not because he pulls me around (if I stop he stops, but only because he feels the tug of the leash) but because he refuses to walk at my side. I've tried using food to get him to slow down (which I thought would work because he's usually incredibly food motivated) but he gets tunnel vision while he's walking and will not stop to even sniff the food. Other than that he's an incredibly well-behaved dog. The only issue we really have is that he's started refusing to go outside to pee unless it's on walks (we think it might be because it's getting colder or he is holding it to pee on walks.)
Eh I decided to pop back on for a brief minute, we'll see how it goes.
So my first question is, if he's not pulling you around, then what's the problem? Walking in the heel position (which is the name for walking beside you) is an active response to a command, not a standard that all dogs need to hold to at all times, or even most of the time. Or ever- assuming he's got a strong leave-it, etc.
Put another way, what's the point of a walk? Why are you walking him? Is it a training walk, or is it for the dog to get some mental and physical exercise? As a pit lab, he's probably quite smart and has quite a lot of energy, and getting to sniff around and explore with his nose is actually really important for him, and other dogs.
Not getting to do that is kinda like a human putting blinders on before going for a walk, and asking them to only look straight ahead. For humans, a lot of the benefit of a walk is getting to use our primary sense (vision) and look around and explore our world.
Blinders image for people who don't know what I'm talking about:
Put another way, walks are really important for dog's mental and physical health. Being on heel isn't for the dog, and being heeled the whole time means that the dog isn't getting nearly what they should be from a walk. It's actually really good and healthy for them to be sniffing around and so forth, within good reason of course. Loose leash walking is a whole thing, and it's a good thing. If you want to train heeling as a command, I'd do it in the last quarter of the walk, when he's showing you that he's filled his sniff quota for the day, is relaxed, and has spent a good portion of his energy.
Some people think that a dog walking ahead means the dog is the pack leader, but that's based on the same screwed up study/misinterpretation of said study that came up with the alpha male malarky. One of my dogs walks ahead 90% of the time, but responds quickly and promptly to anything I say. The other walks behind, and his recall is like a glacier. A meandering glacier that's taking time to sniff the grass. Which is why he's only off leash in the house or in the fenced back yard.
Unfortunately I think a lot of people jumping to conclusions on your vent post probably haven't unpacked their responses ingrained due to abuse and feel upset by the suggestion that they have to change. It sucks, yes you were the victim, no it wasn't fair it happened to you, yes you learned this as a child, but you still need to unpack that and toss aside unhealthy coping mechanisms and behaviors. This coming from someone with diagnosed PTSD from child abuse and working through it
im not saying we shouldn't be calling out hypocrisy but i do think it's important to be aware of what i call the Two Different Guys Fallacy. and that's that whenever you're thinking to yourself, oh how come X group claim they want this thing but also support that other incompatible thing. take a moment to stop and consider whether it could just be Two Different Guys that think each thing
A federal agency says solar, battery, and wind additions will vastly outpace new gas facilities in whatās set to be a record year for power
Federal agencies report that a significant majority of new power capacity being built in the US in 2026 will be clean energy. Solar alone makes up 51% of this progress--fossil gas is the only fossil fuel to make it on the chart at only 7% of new power capacity.
This will also be the most energy capacity of any kind that the US has ever added in a year.
I'm gonna say cautiously this is good news, but I'm cautious because one of the biggest solar farms in the US, in Death Valley, is run by the military and vaporizes birds bc it has mirrors that heat up the air in a cone around the solar panels. And that's... bad.
Renewables can still be built in ways that don't care about the environment, and owned by those who want to extract rent. A lot of solar is being built in the desert by people who think the desert is "barren" and "a wasteland" without an ecosystem in it. A desert has an ecosystem as rich and delicate as a rainforest.
So like, yay for renewables but I have Questions and Concerns.
So I looked up the above mentioned solar farm, and it turns out it's a solar thermal plant, was built in 2014, and photovoltaic solar has become so much more efficient that in 2025 they were talking about shutting down though they did reverse that decision. It apparently is twice as efficient to do modern solar panels than the method they use at this plant, which is the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, by the way. It was never as productive as they expected it to be. It does kill birds by cooking them, but they're not vaporized for anyone hung up on the literal definition of that word. And it does kill a lot. Which is why a lot of people are working on the problem, more info here:
Apparently a solar thermal plant is where they use a lot of mirrors to focus light on one tower in order to heat it up, and use steam to turn a turbine. The U.S. hasn't built a solar thermal plant of this kind since 2016, so pretty safe to assume that they won't be building another now.
Solar thermal is very different from photovoltaic panels, and photovoltaic panels are way safer for birds. There are still concerns of course, but things have gotten better and people continue working to make them better. One cool thing is they used to think the usable life of solar panels would be about 25 years, but they've found they're still at 80% capacity after 30, and it's a slow drop after that.
This section addresses baseline environmental assessment prior to construction.
Solar panels do not have to have a negative impact on the ecosystems they're placed in, apparently:
The Science
Utility-scale solar facilities (āsolar farmsā/āsolar parksā) represent vast altered landscapes ā currently covering ā¼0.025Ā % of the earth's
Now, I should really get going so I'm not going to build a thesis level argument here. I personally would like to see more nuclear because on balance it seems to be one of the better options. There too, there's been so much improvement from what people in general know about nuclear power.
Ok, my previous attempt to share this list was kind of a formatting nightmare. I'm gonna try this again.
Here is a bunch of impartial news sources explaining what's going on in Minnesota right now, organized by persuasion tactic. The goal is to get as many people calling their Senators as possible, as fast as possible. Ideally, ahead of the vote Friday. But, even after that, we need people making noise about what's going on here.
Please wait till I get to the end to reblog. I'm constrained by the link limit.
In case they say āwell there must be a reason for them to do thisā
Oh boy are there. But they aren't good.
Hereās the Trump administration demanding we hand over control of our elections in order to stop the occupation (please see the ālaw and orderā section below for takedowns of the lies included in the administrationās letter.) (sidebar butāstateās rights? Hello?)
source
Here they are trying to override Minnesotansā objections to mining our pristine boundary waters. (As an added noteāthe mining company isnāt even US-based. The money will be headed to Trumpās cronies outside our borders. I oppose it anyway because this endangers the wildlife and drinking water ofā¦a huge number of people, but I guess some people care about that as well.)
source
He's been doing this to states that voted against him. It's not subtle.
Here are some arguments for the "think of the children!" crowd
ICE threw a gas canister into a minivan with 6 children inside who were on the way home from soccer. A 6 month old infant was hospitalized for days as a result.
source
Multiple children were kidnapped right off their school bus, including a 5 year old boy who was kidnapped right in front of family after being used as bait. He is a legal asylum seeker and pretty obviously not a violent criminal. He has since vanished across state lines
source source source source
ICE argues loud and proud that they are not responsible for sexual assaults occurring in their facilities- including those perpetuated by their own officers
source source
They have multiple facilities just for kidnapped children under age 5 who they took without their parents. These are our "dangerous criminals"?
source source
Multiple school districts have gone to all or partial virtual learning because ICE keeps sniffing around schools, presumably for more "bait" children.
For the āitās a bunch of fringe terrorists resisting legal law enforcementā crowd:
- Firstly, some images of about 50,000 Minnesotans showing up in the middle of a negative 20-degree work day to protest ICE. We had the first general strike in 80 years. Look at these pictures. Minneapolis is a small city. We have never had this kind of cross-class, cross-generation, cross-race, cross-party lines unity before.
This is not fringe. This is because everybody here has stories of seeing ICE try to beat and abduct people. In the city, in our small towns, and in our suburbs.
source source source source
Even a bunch of local republicans are begging for this to stop
source source
For the Second Amendment fans:
NRAās statement about the murder of a nurse who worked at the local Veteransā hospital. He never pulled his gun; we have video proof from many angles. He had a gun he was legally allowed to carry, so they shot him many, many times while holding him down.
For the "it's about law and order" person in your life (this one will take multiple reblogs because I have SO MUCH DOCUMENTATION of ICE's flagrantly illegal behavior)
People seem to have forgotten that being undocumented is not actually a crime! Thatās why itās not handled by the criminal justice system. It is not illegal.
source
Here is some documentation of ICE arresting thousands of citizens with no due process, no Miranda rights, and not even with anything they can be charged for. Often accompanied by violent beatings.
source source source source source
ICE are grabbing people with no warrant, no probable cause, without even knowing their name. Being brown or black, having an accent, or filming them is enough for them.
ICE is claiming they can go anywhere they want - including into your house, without a judicial warrant. They think that because the Trump admin put out a memo saying so. This is flagrantly illegal.
source source source
Here is ICE lying about it being legal to film them. Again, they believe this cause the administration told them it is true. It is not.
In fact, here are a bunch of police leadership speaking out against ICE.
source source source source
And while we're at it, ICE and the Trump admin have been lying about Minnesota crime rates.
source source
ICE is whining about being āassaultedā by people laughing at them, shouting at them, refusing them services (remember that republican law that says you can deny services due to your beliefs? We can use that, too!), or putting water outside their hotel room. They say they can shoot people and itās fine, but people stopping them from kidnapping others with things like yelling, whistles, and singing is āassaultā to them. They then used this to try to suspend our right to assembly.
ICE running people off the road and then saying people are attacking them with vehicles.
source source source source
ICE insists that not only should they be allowed to do all this, but they also deserve anonymity. (Probably because they know state police are building legal cases against them)
source source source
Here they are lying about deporting veterans, under oath, and getting caught.
Here they are denying people access to their lawyersāagain, violating one of our constitutional rights. Like, not just once or twice, but as a matter of policy.
source source source
For āBut-But- The Fraud!ā nuts in your life:
The current round of āfraudā accusations was started by a YouTuber who showed up with a camera at a bunch of daycares and concluded, since nobody would just let the strange man come onto the private property with the children, that they were hiding something.
source source
The other fraud republicans are supposedly up in arms about was already prosecuted. Arrests were made.
ICEās budget is bloated to the extreme, and they want to keep expanding it, and no they don't want to be asked what they're doing with it all.
source source source source
Meanwhile, immigrants have always been great for Minnesota's economy- which is stronger than most of the economies of states with less welcoming policies. Just saying.
source source source source source
And that's it for now!
Across parties, when people know whatās actually happening, they are upset. So please, please help get the truth out here, and ask people to speak up to their elected officials against this occupation. Republicans know this is tremendously illegal and unpopular, and are relying on ignorance and racism to get away with it. Donāt let them. And please- speak up offline! People not on social media have very very little idea whatās going on here.
I'm gonna move to a new blog. I've made some posts here that seem to have resonated with a lot of people, and I want to leave them up for that reason. I think they're helpful, or at least people have told me that they are, and if one of them starts a person thinking and moving in a better direction for them and/or their community, that's worth it.
But also I am so very, very tired of people reading them with zero intent to engage with what they're reading before they reply and tired of my notifications filled with posts that broke containment and now people who don't know me are making incredibly inaccurate assumptions of my actions and character.
So I'm gonna blog else where about gardening and frugality and getting through the next period of time while giving as little money to our megacorps as possible.
Food stamps may stop in November if the shutdown continues. This may be a good time to look into food banks, kitchens, meal trains, and discount markets and programs for outdated foods if you are depending on SNAP.
There's at least one regional org where we live doing a massive food drive in response, so we'll be participating. I'm openly asking anyone who can help out to do the same for your local communities.
211 is another service you can call (by dialing 211) or web searching to find your local 211.
For those relying on SNAP it's worth reminding people that the shutdown will eventually end and snap will resume whether or not Democrats are able to secure millions of Americans access to medical care (that's what this shutdown is about), but at the end of 2026 the Big Beautiful Bill that passed this year will take effect and SNAP and medicaid benefits will be severely cut, permanently. Funding has been slashed for these programs and there will be more arbitrary paperwork required of recipients to remain on the program, which will mean more eligible recipients will lose their benefits completely.
If you are an American and care about the poorest people being able to eat and afford medical care, bother your representatives. Do not ignore your opportunity to vote. Don't be apathetic while there is still time to undo this theft of public resources and prevent further long term damage ahead.
turns out i wasn't making that up, his name is Dr. Toru Miyazaki! he also wrote a book called "The Day Cats Live To Be Thirty", so cats are kind of his thing.
apparently, cats' kidneys tend to be the thing that takes them down, something about their bodies being unable to self-clean their kidneys, and the vaccine is supposed revitalize the body's ability to do just that. It would be very VERY fucking cool to have cats suddenly reaching 30 years of age be the normal thing.
As they age, almost all cats develop kidney disease, from which they eventually die. Just as in humans, kidney disease i
Dr. Toru Miyazakiās AIM injection for cat kidney disease enters trials in 2025, aiming for a 2027 release. Greycoat Research supports the sc
whoa wait i actually read the articles and it's so much cooler than just that!!
dude cracked the case about WHY kidneys fail, across the board as far as i can tell. turns out there's a specific molecule whose job it is to attach to waste and signal macrophages to come eat it. it remains inactive in cats for some reason, but the molecule is still there. basically what he's done is found the switch to activate them. this will be profound not only for our domestic babies, but for big cats too - especially cheetahs!
although his research was focused on cats, it's already being used to develop drugs for humans too!
on top of that, since these molecules are tags for waste, this could also dramatically lower the rate of fatty liver disease, liver cancer, urinary crystals, rheumatoid arthritis, and even some neurological cases! like, they're hoping it may have an impact on parkinson's and alzheimers, but it DOES have an impact on stroke recovery. like. holy shit.
furthermore, he's insisting that the feline drug be affordable if and when it rolls out onto the market. he wants this to be something anyone can get for their cat!! idk how much sway he'll have over the human drug, but hopefully enough that it, too, won't be that expensive.
annnnnd in his research that he's still doing for the human side of things, he's found a potential link between this molecule and estrogen. in the 20,000 samples he's tested, women between ages 10 and 29 had the highest amount of this molecule present in their blood (a higher amount means Something Fucky is going on, essentially. There's a higher amount of waste the body is trying to clean out) but it drops down to be almost equal amongst men and women after menopause. it hasn't been looked into yet, but fuck, just the fact it's noted and known and probably WILL be looked into soon??? imagine if this is what leads to figuring out all the various ways the ovaries and uterus fucks with people and how to fix it. or even like, maybe there's something about estrogen that makes it work better. who knows! but it's rad the link is there to be researched :D
man just think, not only could our kitties start living longer, healthier lives, but just maybe dialysis will become as rare and obsolete as the iron lung is for people. what a badass Dr. Toru is!
Earlier this week I was able to visit Willow Bar Beach on Sauvie Island, which I adopted as part of SOLVE's Adopt a River program. It's actually the second time I have adopted this place; the first was before my eight year sojourn out to the coast.
I was glad to see that the dumpster in the parking lot has reduced litter by quite a bit, but I did manage to pick a bag full in an hour. Mostly litter but also some strands of invasive Eurasian watermilfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum), which reproduces in part through fragmentation.
The biggest problem is Himalayan blackberry thickets (Rubus armeniacus). I'm hoping to start doing a bit of experimental removal when I get back in town after the book tour, with a goal of getting some larger group activities together through SOLVE. I also need to learn more about the native plant communities normally found in the riparian and upland habitats on Sauvie Island so I know what we should be looking for and planting once the blackberry starts to thin out. (We're always going to have to keep spot-treating the blackberry, but we can at least make the place better and more resilient.)
Any time you feel like the world isn't good, remember me and all the people like me who are doing small but impactful things to make this world a better place. We don't make the headlines, but that doesn't make our work less important, and there are a lot more of us than you think, bringing small kindnesses into our communities.
Certain parts of the Marshall Islands have been widely affected by invasive rats on their delicately balanced ecosystems. Bikar Atoll, one o
October 3, 2025
Two small islets crucial to the resiliency of the local environment in the Marshall Islands Republic are witnessing a major ecological revival.
Island Conservation, a global nonprofit organization with a mission to restore islands for nature and people, has successfully eradicated invasive black rats, allowing the native forests and seabird population on Bikar Atoll and Jemo Islet to recover.
The rats have had a devastating effect on their delicately balanced ecosystems on certain islands in the Marshalls. Bikar Atoll, one of the smallest atolls in the country, is located 360 miles (580 kilometers) north of the capital, Majuro. The reef surrounds a lagoon roughly 14 square miles.Ā
The Jemo Islet is a 16-hectare inhabited coral island thatās known to be one of the major feeding grounds for green sea turtles and a seabird sanctuary. With the arrival of invasive species such as black rats on both these landmasses, the native environment has been heavily disrupted as native plants, seabirds, and other animals fall prey to the ratsā scavenging.Ā
In addition to turtles, Jemo had been used for generations as a place to gather and hunt, but had become something like an ecological graveyard since the rats arrived. Having already eradicated black rats on dozens of islands before, Island Conservation trained local teams with the best practices to remove the rats via poison without harming the native wildlife.
After one year, a trip back to theseĀ islands, accompanied by Island Conservation, the Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority, Ministry of Natural Resources and Commerce, and community members from Utrik Atoll, found that the efforts to eradicate the rats had succeeded and that wildlife was bouncing back. The recovery of the native seabird population has positively impacted the link between land and sea. The nutrients from the seabirdsā droppings play a critical role as natural fertilizer for the plant population which anchors the local food web.
Part of a trend
The rat invasion has depleted the useful resources of Jemo for the Likiep people for many years, but with the help of major participating organizations, it not only benefits the natural ecosystems of the Marshall Islands but also the communities that depend on these resources.
āOur Marshallese friends continue to add restored, pest-free islands to their list of achievements,ā said David Moverley, Invasive Species Adviser for the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP), who partnered with Island Conservation on the project.
āParticipating in the first rat removal workshop in Tonga ten years ago allowed them early on to achieve successful eradications on small islands by themselves. Now with modern technology and expert technical support from our partner Island Conservation, they are really pushing the boundaries and people are starting to realize the treasures that abound within the Marshall Islands and the opportunities that they presentā.
Previously, WaL had the opportunity to report on Island Conservation projects, one being Loosiep, located in Yap State within the Federated States of Micronesia.
The project focused on the removal of invasive ratsāthe almost ubiquitous problem on Pacific islandsāthat threatened the biodiversity of its area. In partnership with the Island Conservation, local groups removed the rats allowed the āturtle islandsā to thrive once again.Ā
WaL also reported on the 2022 Island Conservation removal of invasive rats across the Pacific Islands using technological advancements of drones and poisoned bait.
These ambitious efforts by Island Conservation have already benefited 65 Islands worldwide, and their continuous work in restoring ecosystems creates lasting benefits for both nature and communities across the globe. WaL
I measured four tablespoons of the flying dragon orange jelly that I made yesterday and heated it in the microwave for 20 seconds to reduce it back to syrup. I poured it over ice, topped it with 8 oz. club soda, and voila, homemade orange soda from my own tiny little oranges. Super refreshing!
Commercially made sodas must have so much artificial color added.
