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Today is partly cloudy and cold.  It snowed a bit more last night, leaving white patches sprinkled over the yard.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.














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These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Extreme Animals
Birdfeeding
Grand Prairie Friends
Communities
Photos: Lake Charleston
Photos: Coles County Community Garden
Photos: Charleston Food Forest
Activism
Safety
Birdfeeding
Philosophical Questions: Community
Today's Smoothie
Poem: "A Clear Path of Freedom"
Climate Change
Birdfeeding
Follow Friday 11-7-25: Kingdom Hearts
Climate Change
Birdfeeding
Food
Birdfeeding
Poem: "To the Rational Mind"
Early Humans
Hard Things

Trauma has 36 comments. Affordable Housing has 60 comments. Robotics has 97 comments.


Last week's Poetry Fishbowl went well. I still have at least one more poem to write.


"An Inkling of Things to Come" belongs to Polychrome: Shiv and needs $191 to be complete. Maiara and Arthur discuss taking notes.


The weather was pleasantly cool, then today the temperature suddenly plummeted and it snowed a little. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a large mixed flock of sparrows and house finches plus a goldfinch. A great horned owl has been hoo-hooing outside along with a shrieking owlet. :D 3q3q3q!!! Currently blooming: dandelions, marigolds, red salvia, sweet alyssum, blue lobelia, firecracker plant. Fields are almost all harvested.

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There are currently three poems available from this week's fishbowl, and I'm working on the next.  If you're still shopping, now's the time to make your choices. 

Life found in a place scientists thought impossible

Life defies limits in the deep sea—microbes flourish where Earth’s chemistry seems too extreme for survival.

Deep beneath the ocean, scientists uncovered thriving microbial life in one of Earth’s harshest environments—an area with a pH of 12, where survival seems nearly impossible. Using lipid biomarkers instead of DNA, researchers revealed how these microbes persist by metabolizing methane and sulfate. The discovery not only sheds light on deep-sea carbon cycling but also suggests that life may have originated in similar extreme conditions, offering a glimpse into both Earth’s past and the limits of life itself.


Extremophiles are fascinating.

Also, I really want to play with that blue serpentine mud to see if it would stand up to pinching, coiling, slabbing, or throwing and what would happen to it in a kiln.  It looks  like clay.  I am betting it would fire either to a soft blue-gray (nice) or a sky blue (so much wow).

I know, two baking entries in a row, but I really do need to write down my riffs and recipes when I make them so that I actually remember what I did! Especially when I use up the tail end of things I don't always keep in stock. So playing a little bit of catch-up here.

For choir baking this week, I started with Nik Sharma's Spicy Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies, and King Arthur's recommendations for making drop cookies into bars.

( the process of riffage )

( spicy hazelnut ginger bars )

*

I also made Smitten Kitchen's Chocolate Toffee Cookies for the first time in awhile.

( everything is riffs )

( chocolate toffee cookies, modernized )

*

I had a glut of carrots, so I tweaked Serious Eats' Brazilian Carrot Cake recipe to fit a 9x9 pan.

( riff notes )

( carrot cake in a blender )

*

Cramming one last recipe riff in here while I'm thinking about it: yet another choir bake, furikake marshmallow bars. Basically crispy rice cereal treats with added furikake, black sesame, and a little sesame oil.

( furikake marshmallow bars )

Today is cloudy and much colder.  Bits of snow and grauppel are falling from the sky.  Last night it drizzled a bit.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 11/9/25 -- I went out looking for more bits to use in the lantern terrarium, but didn't find much.  It started snowing more briskly, enough to collect in places on the ground, which counts as First Snow.

EDIT 11/9/25 -- I went out looking for more bits to use in the lantern terrarium, and found a bit more.

I've seen a large mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

EDIT 11/9/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 11/9/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

I am done for the night.

We're getting our first snow today! Possibly a lot of it, too; the forecast is for more than fourteen cm with high winds and a risk of freezing rain and ice pellets, and they add that they're still not sure of the exact track of the storm. And we haven't put the winter tires on yet.

So I'm getting Geoff to drop me at church, since it's not bad out yet (I hope), and I'll walk home. He'd rather I just took the car, since he thinks it's safer to be in a car than walking, but I feel safer walking than driving, and I'm the one doing it, so I win. I'm not looking forward to the walk, except that in a weird way I am, because it will be a challenge? I hate being cold, I'm already feeling the winter slug blahs setting in (and I've been using my SAD light for a few weeks), but it will feel good to have done it and come home to a warm drink. Also I am bundling up as though it were minus twenty, so what I'll do when it actually is minus twenty I do not know.

ETA: well, it's dusk and there's been zero accumulation today, a light dusting of snow on grasses but nothing on asphalt. But it was hard-hailing tiny painful bits of ice the whole time I was walking home, like needles in my face, and footing was iffy; the local-traffic-and-safety Bluesky account has reported fourteen car accidents in the metro area this afternoon. So I'm glad I walked home. And I'm also glad that Geoff put the kettle on for me as I came inside, and that we had excellent sourdough to toast up to go with my tea.

In Flanders Fields
The poem by John McCrae

In Flanders' fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders' fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high,
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders' Fields.

I had a really rough night - yet another stomach upset, which may (or may not) be a bug that’s going round. It came on in the night, but at least this time I got out of bed and my sheets survived without being pooed. So there was that. I am not playing DnD today as I just can’t manage to think that much.

Cats

I took Opal to the vet on Tuesday because she’s chewing the fur in front of her tail and on her left back paw. They have prescribed Metacam, some more Gabapentin and a capsule called Cystaid. I told her she was a very expensive hobby - it cost over £150, not including the taxi fare there and back.

Teeth

I’m going to have to cancel tomorrow’s dentist appointment because I don’t know the cause of this bug, and I don’t want to give it to the dentist.

Chris Horton's Ghost Nation: The Story of Taiwan and Its Struggle for Survival was a spontaneous recent get, and also published this year, so I figured I'd better read it quick before uh........ the situation changes.

I'm not very familiar with the issues surrounding Taiwan, though living somewhere that's been affected by China's recent oceanic expansionist policies, it's not difficult to pick up at least some of it casually. I have also been to China to attend international exhibitions multiple times, so I'm well-aware of the sensitivity of maps and flags which are always, ALWAYS pre-checked on everything you bring into the exhibition area (backgrounds, flyers, posters, etc.) and they WILL boot you out and/or destroy your materials if they find anything not fitting the accepted standard.

Anyway that, plus my previous reads about Mao, WWII Shanghai, and that book about the triangulation of Japan-Korea-China relations, means that I knew of the broader history of Japan's occupation and the ROC's fleeing to Taiwan when the CCP took power, but not much that's more modern than that. The book's a good read for learnings, through Taiwan's history through colonization and resistance to cultural oppression through the changing periods, with pain and trauma forming their modern self-confidence into one of the freest democracies in the world. I feel like I have a better grasp of some of the nuances of Taiwanese identity, too? Like, I knew about Taiwan's indigenous tribes, but not their roles in the evolution of the island through its modern societal development and with immigrants coming across the strait.

Horton, who has lived in Taiwan for a while, is I think very clear about the potential benefits but also the potential cost that would need to be paid for annexing Taiwan (islands are just harder to invade, etc.), plus the arguments being made for the supposed historical justification of it, which isn't really an argument because it's not about justifications, it's about location, economy and resources. Look at those resources! Fascinating stuff about Taiwan's massive semiconductor industry, as the greatest supplier in the world, and I wonder how that's been going with the AI boom as well.

Grand Prairie Friends Acquires New Property- Warbler Bend

Grand Prairie Friends (GPF) is thrilled to announce the purchase of Warbler Bend, a meandering 110 acres along the Embarras River in Coles County (IL). This purchase expands the Conservation Land Trust’s existing Warbler Ridge Conservation Area, now totaling almost 1,400 acres. Warbler Bend is GPF’s second property north of Highway 130, joining Warbler Bluff, located on Harrison St. Rd (Charleston).

Over the last decade, GPF has restored more than 1,200 acres at their Warbler Ridge Conservation Area including the addition of 90,000 trees, nine acres of wetlands and hundreds of acres of pollinator fields.

Connected to Lake Charleston to the north, and Fox Ridge State Park to the south, Warbler Ridge Conservation Area began in 2015, to connect these three landscapes to create an over 4,000 acre contiguous corridor for wildlife, natural habitats and public natural space for the community.


I am so excited! More riverfront!

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displacementdiaries  -- Displacement Diaries
A reflective space for journaling life abroad, family complexity, grief, and personal growth.
Displacement Diaries is a reflective space for journaling life transitions, grief, family complexity, and experiences abroad. This community is for those who write about survival, emotional upheaval, and the slow work of rebuilding one’s life. Longform personal narratives, introspective essays, and memory-based storytelling are welcome.

For my friends who are from afar, or forced away from home, or may become so.

Today we visited the Charleston Food Forest, Coles County Community Garden, and Lake Charleston. These are the lake pictures, thus meeting my fall goal for birdwatching / leafpeeping. (Begin with the food forest, community garden.)

( Walk with me ... )

Today we visited the Charleston Food Forest, Coles County Community Garden, and Lake Charleston.  These are the community garden pictures.  (Begin with the food forest.  Continue with the lake.)

( Walk with me ... )

Today we visited the Charleston Food Forest, Coles County Community Garden, and Lake Charleston. These are the food forest pictures. What started out as a beautiful fall day, sunny and cool, clouded over by the time we got out of the house. So the lighting isn't great, but at least the pictures look okay. (Continue with the community garden and the lake.)

( Walk with me ... )

Engineers built a drifting wheelchair for an injured colleague. 

Given how crappy the official  medical equipment is, and how expensive, I'm delighted to see people making adaptive equipment on their own.

Common pesticides may cause testicular damage and lower sperm counts

Widespread farm pesticides may be quietly undermining male reproductive health.

A decade-long review by George Mason University researchers reveals growing evidence that neonicotinoid insecticides—the world’s most widely used class of pesticides—may harm male reproductive health. The findings, based on 21 animal studies, show consistent links between exposure and reduced sperm quality, hormonal disruption, and testicular damage.


This will be useful to people seeking to ban or limit harmful pesticides. Perpetrators may not care about the environment or other humans, but they almost certainly care about their own virility.  Similarly victims who are lethargic about other health threats may rally over this one.