Spiderslug!

Today in the morning I went to my greenhouse to plant some tomatoes and I was greeted by something I had never seen before – a slug hanging from the ceiling on a thread something looking very much like spider silk. It was not easy to snap a picture with my phone but I managed to get the bugger into focus twice and the thread is visible if you look closely. I do not know if it was bitten by a radioactive spider or somesuch. I suspect more that it was a freak accident where the slug fell from the ceiling and the humidity and temperature were just right for it to remain hanging on a thread of desiccated slug slime.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

The slug did not survive its attempt at an aerial assault on my tomatoes. No slug that gets caught within the greenhouse survives long enough to tell the tale I am afraid, and neither do many that I encounter in the garden. I do not like killing living creatures but I am not working my ass off so slugs can have a feast and I learned a long time ago that one can be on the side of either the slugs or the veggies, but not both.

Land unter (Floodings)

Did you ever read that quote “Climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you’re the one filming it”? (afaik by Perthsire Mags on the dead bird site)

Well, here I am

muddy brown water of a flooded river under a bridge. There#s less than 30 cm of space between the bottom of the bridge and the water

©Giliell, all rights reserved

This is our village centre. If you want a reference: Normally, if you jump off that bridge, you’ll fall for 3m and then break both your legs. On Friday, heavy rain started falling in the southwest of Germany, especially my Bundesland, the Saarland. While there had been warnings, it was even worse than foreseen as the rain just didn’t move on. Within 24 hours, more than 100 l of rain fell per square metre, in the capital more than 150l , which is twice the amount we usually get during the whole month of May. The situation evoked bad memories of the Ahrtal flooding three years ago, when hundreds of people died, but at least they seem to have learned from that and the crisis management worked really well, with just one person injured and no deaths.

Personally, I’m fine, our house sits above the wetlands that are there to absorb the rain and our village wasn’t that badly hit, though the people next to the river had flooded basements. Other places are much worse off, with evacuations and water up to the ground floor. Rebuilding will take time and money. Oh, do I need to mention that the same day we were hit by this, the legislative finally gave green light to gutting our climate protection laws?

Facon (Tofu bacon)

I have recently discovered my love for tofu. Turns out all the people who always told me that you just needed to do x to make it taste good were lying and you actually need to do Y. We’re currently using about 2 pounds of tofu per week and a lot of it is used to make fake bacon.

Start by making am marinade: soy sauce, barbecue sauce (if you really want it vegan, use some without honey), liquid smoke (the secret ingredient to so many things) and whatever you like. I often use herbs, or some fruit sirup, garlic, … Put it into a ziplock bag or plastic box. Slice some smoked tofu into thin slices and put into the marinade. It should be in there for at least a couple  of hours, best over night. You can now fry it in a pan or an airfryer, or use it like that. And unless you need to be careful with sodium, you can eat hlf a pound and still call it healthy.

A Question About the Student Protests.

I have a question to ask regarding current student protests against the genocide in Gaza. Police in the USA is cracking down on them violently, as is usually the case. There have been a lot of student protests throughout history all around the world. I am of course not familiar with too many of them, but two from my own country were most remarkable. One such protest in 1939 led to a violent crackdown led by the Nazi secret police Gestapo and extrajudicial executions of a number of students and it is today the reason for November 17 being International Student’s Day The other was in 1989, the violent crackdown was led by the Communists secret police StB and it has sparked the Velvet Revolution.

In those two instances a pattern arises, one that is not difficult to spot. That leads to my question:

Was there at any time and any place in history an instance of violent smackdown on student protests where the judgment of history was on the side of the police and not on the side of the students?

From the top of my head, I do not know about such an occurrence.