LallyLuckFarm @ LallyLuckFarm @beehaw.org

Small scale permaculture nursery in Maine, education enthusiast, and usuall

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Any specific varieties you have in mind? If not, we've been really pleased with our 'Marie du Bois' cultivar - they're huge and delicious

That sounds like a great set of goals!

I built up a few new raised beds / sunken pathways for more vegetable production before the ground froze, and used them to heel in dozens of perennials for the winter. We also have some spaces along our property boundaries that have newly opened sun access, so once the soil is workable again we'll be investing in native hedgerow to replace some of our fencing. We and a few of our neighbors have had tree work done by a friend in town recently, so we're going to have another 30+ yards of wood chips from the block for pathways and mulching.

That's awesome, I'm glad to hear that your community is doing one too!

<3 I have a hard time believing that a conversation between us would be intended as anything but constructive.

Despite being deep in the feels of the day, I agree with you; I try my best to be that force for good as well, and live up to being the person she and other people have believed me to be capable of. There are days it's difficult to see myself the way I view them, because of how well I can see my own faults and mistakes. That's not to say that they didn't have those same types of self perception, but those foibles seem larger when we're looking at ourselves, I think.

I have high hopes of being that kind of role model, dare I say, hero to our daughter. My wife surely feels the same drive in her own way. But there's something about having a grandmother figure who lived through desegregation and suffrage that seems, I dunno, grander (or at least more impactful) and it saddens me that she'll only know her through memories, rather than firsthand.

This week started off strong - forward motion with the seed library project, and I managed to get another person involved in the project. Our daughter had her four month appointment yesterday, and the doctor was thrilled with her progress and remarked at some of the developmental milestones she's hitting months ahead of schedule. Plus they gave us a super cute tote bag full of books - we've done a hundred or so of the "thousand books before kindergarten" challenge.

But last night I got a text from my best friend on this whole planet that his mother, someone I call mom as well, is in the ER. She's got pneumonia now, as though Parkinson's and touches of dementia weren't enough of a burden. Other tests are showing that her kidney function is falling.

Her first home was firebombed because she had the audacity to teach impoverished children of color how to read in Alabama at the beginning of desegregation. She kept doing it. After she moved north she started a program for children on the spectrum before it was as understood as it is today - my friend and I and countless other people wouldn't have been the same without her skills and understanding. She took me in when I was kicked out of my home, treated me like her own child, and taught me not just skills to manage my own challenges but how to do right in the face of what's wrong. I wish my daughter could meet her and know her, to have an understanding of what it means to be a true force of good in this world.

I've been preoccupied growing and training up a Juniper (our four month old), but I've also got a closet full of Cuban Oregano (Plectranthus). Every time they get tall enough to touch the grow lights I take cuttings to make more. Like Chris, I'm freezing my butt off.

I'm currently soliciting donations for our town's seed library, and will be getting together with folks in a few weeks to organize and package all the donations. The library also built a greenhouse with a grant this past year, so we'll be planning some crops and their rotations in there and in the ADA raised beds we built last year.

There are a ton of seeds we collected from our cultivated plants and ones we foraged during the fall, those will be started soon to be ready for spring plantings and for our library's annual plant sale fundraiser.

Those spare instruments on the walls aren't just for me, you know

I can see why it's your favorite, this is beautiful

A health insurer being permitted to vertically integrate a pharmacy chain to get around profit margin caps.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one officer stated that the current pool of suspects include anyone with any sort of knowledge of UHC's method of making money. "We'll proceed with the operation's scheduling as soon as we receive pre-authorization, but of course," he said, "pre-authorization is obviously not a guarantee that a given service will be covered."

Seventy secondth

The R-value of cats is absurdly high

Thanks! My wife says I need to get out more but I just end up volunteering at the library anyway

This past year, I did talks about composting, biochar, and asexual plant propagation (cuttings and divisions). There's another person who did a talk about lichens and another about the biology of mushrooms, and a third person did a presentation about vermiculture, or worm-powered composting. The talk about lichens had the highest turnout, but my talk about composting needed additional time due to the q&a session at the end of the slideshow. There have been a few others that I don't recall off the top of my head, but we're inviting anyone passionate about a topic who's comfortable speaking in public to give one.

It might take some effort to get buy in from your library, but all it needs, really, is a projector and a wall, some chairs, and that first person to share their enthusiasm with whoever shows up to get the ball rolling

I've been volunteering some more time at our local library, as well as attending a few of the board meetings recently - our interim director is a close friend who's done wonders with the community garden and we're pushing hard for her to be made the permanent director. I found out that their last story time for the kids in town only had two people reading for the kids, so I put my name in to help with their next one. I've also donated several envelopes of seeds to the seed library during seed harvests from our native perennials this past autumn. There's a possibility of a board position opening up and two of the librarians, along with family, have been pushing me to run for the spot.

We're also making plans for me to give several talks for the adult education evenings in the coming year; I did a few this past year and they'd like me to give those again as well as some additional ones on things like habitat building and pollinator support.

The fellow my wife and I have hired to remove some dying trees from right next to our house, met through working at the community garden this year, was also hired by a neighbor of ours to whom we referred him. They told me they're planning to emulate our woodland project by having his crew leave some slash piles for the local wildlife and using the wood chips to make some footpaths through their property so they can spend more time being a part of nature rather than apart from it. They're the first of our neighbors to adopt aspects of our forest management approach, but I'm very hopeful that it will snowball from here on out.

Thank you 🫂.

We were listening to the album Kerplunk today and she was kicking her knees to the beats, it's definitely my kid 🤣

😂 he's got a double coat, and his winter coat is coming in

We had to say goodbye to our cat, Maeko, this past Friday. Vet confirmed that her kidney function was dropping, and she had lost over half her body weight in the past two weeks. Meds might have stabilized her but wouldn't have given her much more than another month, and at reduced quality. I haven't had a decent night's sleep since before Thursday, I keep waking up and reaching for her.

She didn't require sedation, so we got to say goodbye to the real her and not someone halfway gone. And she got to go in my lap, getting her belly rubbed just the way she liked and purring. But I'm still hurting, even though I'm glad she doesn't hurt anymore.

Just trying to focus on the positives, like how our eleven week old daughter rolled herself over this evening, has a huge smile for me all the time, and watches my every move when I'm in the room with her no matter what else is happening.

Hi! I'm brushing a grocery bag's worth of fur from our dog, it's an every few days kind of task

People who don't admit it are a bunch of Pansies