Man, you know what I hate? When someone complains about not having enough energy/struggling to do what they need to do, and inevitably at least one sweet, well-meaning person comes along and is like, "You just need some rest! It's okay!"

Fucken--yes, I obviously know that! I would like to need much less rest! I would like to need a normal amount of rest. Posted a few weeks ago about accidentally taking an eight hour nap, and got told "I need some rest". Fucking obviously my guy! I would like NOT to have needed an eight hour nap! That was bad!

Today, someone who has a relative passing away posted that they were really struggling with the grief of it all and having trouble getting out of bed. And of course everyone told her that was normal and to take care of herself, which is eminently true as far as it goes, but my favorite was the guy who said, "don't get caught up in the rat race!" MY GUY. She's trying to open a restaurant! She's remodeling, running two satellite locations to keep the money flowing, and doing events on the side. She is as caught up in the rat race as you can be. That is a thing that has already happened. She's well fucking aware that she's doing too much, but until it WORKS, just stopping is not an option.

"Your body is telling you to rest! It's okay!"

Guys. GUYS. please. It is the NEEDING TO REST that is the PROBLEM. You missed the step and you're bouncing right past me.

Ordering a few hundred dollars of plants would sure perk me up about now.

Crassulas looking like shai hulud

my favorite customer service slip ups

That ace partner frustration that the allo partner is genuinely incapable of giving a massage without getting distracted.

Every time I remember that there are actual children out there destroying their health because of our society's relentless fatphobia, I just fill up with rage and sorrow.

i’m sure teenage girls know that eating disorders are unhealthy, but i feel like they don’t really know why. it’s not their fault: they don’t know because they haven’t been taught. they haven’t been taught because we just found out, and we just found out because, honestly, research into women’s health has been extremely lacking, historically.. women are just small, weak men with breasts and uteruses, right? WRONG.

every system, every organ, every cell in a woman’s body moves to a complex symphony of hormonal signaling that is circadian (cycling once a day), mensual (once a month), and seasonal (once a year). this beautiful dance is directed by the endocrine system, which consists of glands. the high chieftesses of these glands are the incredibly sensitive gonads, the ovaries. 

these almond-sized glands are so delicate that they will go dormant at the first sign that the outside world may be a less than optimal environment in which to birth and raise a baby. and only now, in the last decade or so, are we finally starting to understand the devastation that is wrought on a developing girl’s health when this happens.

back in the 80’s, when endurance sports were starting to go mainstream, the saying among elite female endurance athletes was “if your period stops, you’re training enough.” those women are now at the tip of the spear of our emerging knowledge of the long term effects of the “female athlete triad”.

the female athlete triad consists of 1) not eating enough, 2) no menstrual cycle, and 3) low bone density. grouping them together like this is rather misleading, because it makes it sound like these symptoms can occur in any combination. the actual relationship is one of definitive and terrifying cause-and-effect.

when a teenage girl stops eating enough to fill her calorie needs, or deliberately exercises beyond her caloric intake, her ovaries receive signals that there’s a famine afoot, that the outside environment is a hostile place, and they shut down. they fucking shut down! can you imagine a male marathon runner saying “fellas, if your testicles still work, you’re not running enough”?

the ovaries are responsible for releasing estrogen, which most teenage girls probably know is responsible for menstruation, breast development and female fat distribution in puberty. what they probably don’t know, because nobody tells them, is that estrogen is also an incredibly powerful steroid that is the primary hormone, in both sexes, that is responsible for mineralizing growing bones. bones are rapidly expanding in volume during puberty, and if a girl’s estrogen is depleted because her ovaries are on strike, she won’t even be able to maintain the bone density she enjoyed in childhood (and her bones are supposed to be getting significantly denser as she grows!).

if she is ignorant of this, a talented and driven teenage female athlete will write off an estrogen crash with “well i didn’t really want periods, tits and hips anyway, they’d just slow me down”, not realizing that she is inducing permanent osteopenia in herself... because she can’t just remineralize her bones after she’s done growing. once she attains her full adult height and her growth plates fuse, that’s it! 

the same women who, in the 80s/90s/00s, were saying “if your period stops, you’re training enough” now suffer from brittle bones. they get multiple compound fractures, shattered bones, just from tripping and falling on a hike. i know many such women. and this is irreversible.

we didn’t, and still don’t, know everything that the ovaries do. how irresponsible we were, to think we could just kneecap our most important glands, with no consequences.

i know some teenage girls follow me, and i want to say this: research nutritional requirements for girls your age, be vigilant about eating enough, and eating a variety of things. take responsibility for your health now: you will thank yourself in 10 years, when you can still stand up straight, when you can fall on a wet floor at work and just laugh it off and move on. you are the only one who has to live with yourself 24 hours a day, and you’ve got to keep yourself safe. you’ve got to.

Bob Radlinski

fuck looks. relationships NEED to based on your ability to be SILLY TOGETHER!!!!!! you better be laughing together or ELSE

This apple tree was sold to me in 1999 as a semi-dwarf Stayman Winesap. It is not semi-dwarf; it is in fact gigantic by apple tree standards. It isn't Stayman Winesap, or even red at all. Because I planted it in the correct spacing for smaller trees, it has almost completely overshadowed its nearest neighbor, a rather nice Golden Delicious. It responds to pruning by aggressively getting Much Larger. The apples are divine. I love her; I'm vexed by her; I hope she lives forever. I'm deeply curious about what I'd get if I planted some of her seeds.

Strawberries, rhubarb, two small blueberry bushes, and Nanking cherry bushes that did, even though their blooming time was cold, set fruit. I will continue to try to acidify the blueberries; maybe add some acid once a week until the soil tests around 5 pH.

I did this compilation right after Vine went down, and I thought I lost it, but I finally found it

I didn't get my act together for the art show dropoff, but I managed to scrape out a time to drop my stuff off with the gallery runner on Monday afternoon. Naturally, now that I have time, I feel compelled to try and squeeze out another showpiece over the weekend, rather than just....doing a good job of presenting what I already have. Apparently the gallery operator is Queen Goth out here with an office full of occult art and pumpkin tattoos. Seems like a great time to use these bone bits I've been collecting! Except....I still have no idea how to harmonize lampwork that showcases my skill alongside the bones.

Gonna go collect some animal bits and stare at them hoping for enlightenment.

A murder mystery film set in a medieval village. After an outbreak of plague, the villagers make the decision to shut their borders so as to protect the disease from spreading (see the real life case of the village of Eyam). As the disease decimates the population, however, some bodies start showing up that very obviously were not killed by plague.

Since nobody has been in or out since the outbreak began, the killer has to be somebody in the local community.

The village constable (who is essentially just Some Guy, because being a medieval constable was a bit like getting jury duty, if jury duty gave you the power to arrest people) struggles to investigate the crime without exposing himself to the disease, and to maintain order as the plague-stricken villagers begin to turn on each other.

The killer strikes repeatedly, seemingly taking advantage of the empty streets and forced isolation to strike without witnesses. As with any other murder mystery, the audience is given exactly the same information to solve the crime as the detective.

Except, that is, whenever another character is killed, at which point we cut to the present day where said character's remains are being carefully examined by a team of modern archaeologists and historians who are also trying to figure out why so many of the people in this plague-pit died from blunt force trauma.

The archaeologists and historians, btw, are real experts who haven't been allowed to read the script. The filmmakers just give them a model of the victim's remains, along with some artefacts, and they have to treat it like a real case and give their real opinion on how they think this person died.

We then cut back to the past, where the constable is trying to do the same thing. Unlike the archaeologists, he doesn't have the advantage of modern tech and medical knowledge to examine the body, but he does have a more complete crime scene (since certain clues obviously wouldn't survive to be dug up in the modern day) and personal knowledge from having probably known the victim.

The audience then gets a more complete picture than either group, and an insight into both the strengths and limits of modern archaeology, explaining what we can and can't learn from studying a person's remains.

At the end of the film, after the killer is revealed and the main plot is resolved, we then get to see the archaeologists get shown the actual scenes where their 'victims' were killed, so they can see how well their conclusions match up with what 'really' happened.

The Devil's Garden 🌹 🩸 will he paint them red?

Chicks are outside! Outside, but still securely enclosed by layers of scrap wood, dented roofing, and wire. They're fast, fast growers, though, and will need more space all too soon.

This "chicken tractor" style coop was actually given to us by an old neighbor, who built it. It needs... Well probably the boards that touch the ground should just be replaced. But I'm still very grateful to have it.

Naatu Naatu