dewline: "Truth is still real" (anti-fascism)
[personal profile] dewline
I'm skipping that. I have my mental health to preserve and plenty of other good people are risking their own to make sure that anything I absolutely need to know from that event will get to me.

Affordable Housing

Feb. 23rd, 2026 11:00 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The Paperwork Problem Behind the Housing Shortage

In more and more places, the rules technically allow incremental housing. Backyard cottages, accessory dwelling units, and small infill homes are legal on paper; beautiful, glossy images of these homes are shared on city websites and included in planning documents. Yet these homes rarely get built—not because of public opposition or failed rezonings, but because routine procedures treat small homes like major developments.

What we have is not a failure of vision, but one of process.


Read more... )

Today's Adventures

Feb. 23rd, 2026 08:05 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today we went up to Champaign-Urbana to celebrate Black History Month by visiting black-owned establishments, along with some other stops.

Read more... )
chicating: I have a new dragon (Default)
[personal profile] chicating
this wasn't the one.(I'm not sure that there could be one...not giving 110% kind of feels right right now.) But at least, I could fill in the part of my bingo card for "Another disabled person tells me a long sad story," so #smallvictories.
My story will be workshopped for last class tomorrow--I've gotten a little feedback, and it's pretty good.

On Trumpist ICE "Training"

Feb. 23rd, 2026 05:55 pm
dewline: Text: Memetic Prophylactic Recommended (memetic prophylactic recommended)
[personal profile] dewline
I assume there's a more thorough recording of Mr. Schwank's testimony before the US Congress available on YouTube?

https://bsky.app/profile/factpostnews.bsky.social/post/3mfknbgfzcd2f

Birdfeeding

Feb. 23rd, 2026 11:38 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is partly cloudy and cold.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a flock of sparrows.

I put out water for the birds.

I am done for the night.
brightknightie: Nick as 19th-century cowboy with horse (History)
[personal profile] brightknightie
I watch Masterpiece on PBS Passport streaming these days, not over the airwaves, but I still watch on Sunday nights, wrapping up the weekend as I have since at least Downton Abbey. Last night, I watched the finale of season 6 of All Creatures Great and Small (set at the first Christmas after WWII), which was a solid and satisfying, if busy, episode, and also the premiere of season 15 of Call the Midwife (set in 1971), which was also busy, but neither solid nor satisfying.

(On broadcast, Call the Midwife won't premiere until March 22 in North America. Come, support PBS and watch a month early!)

I love historical fiction, but I do need it to get the history mostly right. We all make mistakes sometimes! It's so easy to fall for an urban legend historical fallacy! But. This show has an entire staff, any of whom could have used even just Wikipedia at any point to spot-check this particular item and learn that it's not only false, but a deliberate slander/sarcasm against what the episode was trying ineptly to celebrate and ended up trivializing. Not every historical fiction show can be The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles for citations, but I remember when Doctor Quinn: Medicine Woman would sometimes end on a screen with a simple text paragraph about the real history of whatever the episode was depicting. Movies depicting real historical people do that regularly. And some novels. Maybe all historical fiction should try that, just to prompt someone to double-check.

Call the Midwife was so exceedingly excellent in its earliest days, when it was still directly based on the memoirs of the real Jennifer Worth. The farther it gets from that -- now in season 15! -- the more often it trips. Spoilers for what this episode messed up )

Monday Update 2-23-26

Feb. 23rd, 2026 12:37 am
ysabetwordsmith: Artwork of the wordsmith typing. (typing)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Poem: "The Struggle Against Overwhelming Odds"
Poem: "Embrace My Fate"
John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds Order
Poem: "The Spectrum of Your Being"
Early Humans
Birdfeeding
Vocabulary: Bricolage
Today's Adventures
Science
Birdfeeding
Meteor Shower Calendar
Philosophical Questions: Life
Edible Landscaping Order
Meme
Photos: House Yard
Water
Birdfeeding
Books
Follow Friday 2-20-26: Active Communities on Dreamwidth Winter 2025-2026 A-I
Energy
Birdfeeding
Community Thursdays
Photos: Flowerbeds
Books
Birdfeeding
Hard Things

Safety has 49 comments. Food has 53 comments. Wildlife has 39 comments. Food has 67 comments. Robotics has 146 comments.


Last week's half-price sale in Not Quite Kansas went well. All sponsored poems have been posted, so you can find those via the title links on the sale page.


The 2026 Rose and Bay Awards are now open for excellence in crowdfunding. It's time to vote for your favorite projects!

The award period for eligible activities spans January 1-December 31, 2025.
The nomination period spans January 1-January 31, 2026.
The voting period spans February 1-February 28, 2026.

These are the handlers for the 2026 award season:
Art: [personal profile] gs_silva Nominate art! Vote for art!
Fiction: [personal profile] fuzzyred Nominate fiction! Vote for fiction!
Poetry: [personal profile] gs_silva Nominate poetry! Vote for poetry!
Webcomic: [personal profile] curiosity Nominate webcomics! Vote for webcomics!
Other Project: [personal profile] curiosity Nominate other projects! Vote for other projects!
Patron: [personal profile] fuzzyred Nominate patrons! Vote for patrons!

"The Struggle Against Overwhelming Odds" belongs to Not Quite Kansas and needs $34.50 to be complete. Raymond and Gideon get attacked on the way home from research.


The weather has been variable here. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a large flock of sparrows, several starlings, one male and two female house finches, one female and two male cardinals, a mourning dove, and a fox squirrel. I flushed the great horned owl from the ritual meadow when I went out there. A skein of geese flew overhead, going north. Currently blooming: crocuses.
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This poem is spillover from the October 2020 Creative Jam. It was inspired by a prompt from [personal profile] wyld_dandelyon. It also fills the "demons" square in my 10-1-20 card for the Fall Festival Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with [personal profile] fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Not Quite Kansas.

Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes feeling lost, an unprovoked attack, hellhounds, violence, gore, unexpected rescue, playing with prey, fatally injured opponents, minor injuries to main characters, awkward discussions, willing sacrifice, intimate magical healing, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

This microfunded poem is being posted one verse at a time, as donations come in to cover them. The rate is $0.25/line, so $5 will reveal 20 new lines, and so forth. There is a permanent donation button on my profile page, or you can contact me for other arrangements. You can also ask me about the number of lines per verse, if you want to fund a certain number of verses. So far sponsors include: [personal profile] fuzzyred,

355 lines, Buy It Now = $44.50
Amount donated = $10
Verses posted = 13 of 118

Amount remaining to fund fully = $34.50
Amount needed to fund next verse = $0.25
Amount needed to fund the verse after that = $0.75


Read more... )

Poem: "Embrace My Fate"

Feb. 22nd, 2026 10:39 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This poem is spillover from the October 6, 2020 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from [personal profile] librarygeek. It also fills the "How do you want to do this?" square in my 10-1-20 card for the Fall Festival Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with [personal profile] fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Not Quite Kansas.

Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes feeling lost, sorting through a lair acquired by combat, reference to past abuse, cursed artifacts, damned souls, worry, magical body modification, restraint for safety, awkward emotional discussions, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

Read more... )
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
I picked out what I wanted from John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds. This catalog has the Safe Seed Pledge, meaning everything is non-GMO/toxin-free. My partner Doug further notes that they have the best, easiest ordering system of all the catalogs we use. Call up the Smart Order Form and when you key in the product number, the rest autofills, tells you if it's still in stock, and lists the price. \o/ Somegeek earned their coffee today!

Read more... )

Poem: "The Spectrum of Your Being"

Feb. 22nd, 2026 05:51 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This poem is spillover from the September 1, 2020 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from [personal profile] librarygeek. It also fills the "How do you want to do this?" square in my 9-1-20 card for the I Want Fries With That! Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with [personal profile] fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Not Quite Kansas.

Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes feeling lost, a headless chicken running around, a fight with bit character fatalities, moderate injuries to a main character, messy medical details, an imprisoned demon, torture, binding magic, demonic healing, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

Read more... )

Early Humans

Feb. 22nd, 2026 03:01 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Homo erectus fossils in East Asia rewrite the timeline of human migration

A new analysis dates three Homo erectus skulls from central China to about 1.77 million years ago, making them the oldest securely dated hominin fossils in eastern Asia.

That older age shifts the arrival of early humans in the region back by roughly 600,000 years and compresses the timeline of how quickly our ancestors spread across Eurasia.
[---8<---]
The same layer holds stone tools and animal remains, tying the skulls to a specific moment nearly 1.8 million years ago rather than the younger dates long cited.

Birdfeeding

Feb. 22nd, 2026 01:23 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is cloudy and cold.

I fed the birds. I've seen a large flock of sparrows plus one female and two male cardinals separately.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 2/22/26 -- I planted 3 peonies 'Sorbet Mixed' under the apricot tree. The mix includes white, light pink, and dark pink. These cost $14.98, so about $5 a root. That's a great bargain for peonies, which average $20-30 each and catalogs and the high end is downright exorbitant. So if you want peonies, look for cheap ones at home or garden stores this time of year. Due to the unseasonal warmth, the ground here is unfrozen, so I was able to plant them immediately. \o/

EDIT 2/22/26 -- I labeled and mulched the new peonies.

I put out a fresh cake of peanut suet.

EDIT 2/22/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 2/22/26 -- I started the process of trimming dead stems from the wildflower garden, which is going to take a while.

EDIT 2/22/26 -- I did more trimming in the wildflower garden. I discovered a little wildflower putting up leaves, probably echinacea, possibly penstemon or something else.

EDIT 2/22/26 -- I did more trimming in the wildflower garden.

EDIT 2/22/26 -- We hauled in the potting mix bags from last night.

I've seen a fox squirrel in the forest garden.

EDIT 2/22/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I am done for the night.

Candy Hearts author reveals!

Feb. 22nd, 2026 06:26 am
vriddy: Hawks (happy)
[personal profile] vriddy
[personal profile] candyheartsex has revealed authors!! Another delightful round. Because the minimum requirements are so small (300 words for fic) and there are usually several hundreds participants, I decide to go mega self-indulgent and ask only for my rare polyships, in tiny (K-9) and larger (Wind Breaker) fandoms. And therefore I was SUPER DELIGHTED to get, guess what?? A gift for one of my beloved rare polyships :D :D :D :D 💖💖💖 *happy sigh* A delight, truly.

pile of five by [archiveofourown.org profile] yesthisisnarumi | Wind Breaker | Sakura/Nirei/Suou/Kiryuu/Tsugeura | ~700 words | rated T

Summary: Akihiko wakes up in the middle of their bed and tries his best to find a way out.

Read it on AO3



Meanwhile I wrote two things :D :D One for a beloved BNHA polyship, and the other for K-9... I was so glad to have an outlet for some of my feelings over the fact that OBORO CANONICALLY GETS A COLLAR lol. This is probably the FIRST EVER K-9 fanwork in an exchange, too? >:D Mwahahaha

hardly an abduction | Boku no Hero Academia | Miruko/Dabi/Hawks | ~800 words | rated T
Summary: Dabi is injured. Miruko and Hawks take a risk to help, hiding in an abandoned shelter in the mountains.
Read it on Dreamwidth or AO3.

tailor-made | K-9 | Ren/Oboro/Fujimaru/Kagari | ~400 words | rated M
Summary: Oboro pretends not to make a big deal out of it when Hidaka hands him a collar.
But it is.
Read it on Dreamwidth or AO3.
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