Tree Tuesday

Minnesota was logging country in the late 1800s, and as a result, most of the state’s old-growth trees were cut down. At present, only 2% of trees in Minnesota’s forests are considered old-growth, but there is an extraordinary place known as The Lost 40, where the elderly giants survive en masse. It’s an area of 144 acres of pure old-growth forest, and its survival until now is due to a mapping error.

In 1882, a surveying and mapping error made loggers believe that the entire section of the forest was underwater, so they passed through it. This area, which is actually located in the Chippewa National Forest, was therefore never logged, and the trees that were growing then continue to grow now.
The tradition of leaving the Lost 40 untouched has remained, and the forest section is still thriving as a result. There is nowhere else in the Midwest like the Lost 40, since most of the trees in other forests are much younger than this swath of centenarians growing in the Midwest.

 

 

Story via: Atlas Obscura, where you can find more photos and a small map.

Jack’s Walk

My Bubba in his happy place ©voyager, all rights reserved

It’s winter in January again. That warm spring nonsense has gone back to its hiding place under the snow, and I hope it stays there for a while. Over the weekend, we had snow, rain, ice, and finally, more snow that decided to stay. Jack loves this weather, and we took a walk in the woods to celebrate. The air was cold (-12°c ), but the day was sunny, the sky was a soft turquoise blue, and the path had been nicely trodden by many sets of feet that came before us. There were also signs of life in the forest. We saw lots of squirrels out and about doing squirrel things, and since Jack can’t run in deep snow any more, he glowered at them all.  There was also a small, but vocal murder of crows to keep us company and they cawed and howled at us from the trees as we made our way around. Jack barked once or twice at them in reply, and I’m not sure what he said, but it wasn’t very polite.  It was a simply beautiful winter’s day, and walking among expanses of virgin snow instead of the slush and ice of city sidewalks and streets made it good for Jack’s feet and great for my mood.

 

They’re not bad at sex, they’re abusive

Every once in a while the following conversation happens in my Twitter feed:

Dude: “eating pussy too submissive for me it feel gay”

Woman: “I’m fascinated at this trend of dudes admitting on social media how bad they are at sex.”

And don’t get me wrong, I do get the joke, I’ve made it myself, but today I thought that this was only part of the story. When feminist people talk about sex, we usually think of something that most people (but not everybody!) wants and enjoys, that often includes orgasms and lots of fun together in a mutually pleasing activity. Therefore, a cis guy who is not invested in his cis female partner’s pleasure as well as his own is really bad at this activity. This idea also lines up with the very patriarchal notice of men’s sexual prowess, where a man’s value is linked to his ability to “satisfy” women in bed, only that in that version sheer exhaustion is seen as success as well.

So already we’re talking about different ideas of what “good in bed” means, but for the moment the following definition must suffice: straight guy is good in bed when his female partner enjoys the sex. The guy in this tweet does not think about his partner’s enjoyment. He thinks of his own masculinity, which is very cis and very heteronormative. In his world her pleasure does not feature. Eating pussy is evaluated in terms of his social standing and self image. Giving her oral sex would be submissive, and I bet you a tenner that he absolutely feels entitled to getting oral sex because usually the Venn diagram of straight dudes not giving oral sex and dudes seeing it as her duty to perform oral sex is a circle.

Given that he is very much invested in his own pleasure and not at all in hers, we can pretty much say that he will enjoy sex much more than she will. And usually people crave things they enjoy a lot more and things they don’t really enjoy that much less. What do you think happens when a dominant man who enjoys sex a lot is together with a woman who enjoys it less? Personally I don’t think that he’d simply accept a “no”. At least he will repeat asking, nag, talk about how she’s neglecting him. In the end there will be consent, but there won’t be consent that’s freely given. There will be “duty” at best and violence at worst. A man who publicly declares that he is not invested in giving his partner pleasure is therefore a man you shouldn’t let near you.

 

 

(Spring?) Flowers

Nightjar has sent us flowers. Mondays are always better with flowers. Thanks, Nightjar.

Today I bring you another wildflower, I think it is Verbascum virgatum, also known as twiggy mullein or wand mullein. According to my field guide it should bloom from April to July, which last time I checked doesn’t include January, but I suspect that such information is no longer useful so I’m standing by this ID anyway. The photo was taken with my telephoto lens while I was looking for birds (with limited success).

©Nightjar, all rights reserved

Behind the Iron Curtain part 34 – Prices

These are my recollections of a life behind the iron curtain. I do not aim to give a perfect and objective evaluation of anything but to share my personal experiences and memories. It will explain why I just cannot get misty-eyed over some ideas on the political left and why I loathe many ideas on the right.

There is a lot of sentiment now about that during the Communist Party’s reign everything was cheaper and thus living was by default better. But that is not something I wish to talk about since it is really difficult to evaluate. Statistics about income from that era are not particularly reliable and one cannot directly compare today’s prices with prices then.

What I want to briefly mention is how wares were actually priced – centrally. Every piece had its selling price printed on the packaging straight from the manufacturer, and it was given. There was no such thing as “a discount”, there was no haggling and no local fluctuation of prices. There was also no sales tax. What item X cost in the center of Prague, it did cost in the smallest mountain village as well, and what it said on the packaging was what you paid.

(One of the biggest cultural shocks during my visit to the USA was local sales taxes. You go to the store, you pick up an item for $ 4.99 as per label, and at the counter, you are asked to cough up 6.00 or some such, which I found, and still do, to be utterly idiotic.)

Not only wares were thus priced, but services and rent were tightly regulated too. I do think that such strict regulations d were a bit too inflexible, but on the other hand, what is happening now is the opposite extreme. For example in Prague near the main tourist routes, some ware can cost several times as much as it does just a few streets away. Predatory landlords are a thing now, thriving on the welfare state that is supposed to help their customers, etc.

I do not think we have found the proper balance yet.

Slavic Saturday

Some trivial trivia about Czech beer.

The juvenile joke about feminism aside, it is indeed true that one of the persistent gender-assigned “roles” in the Czech republic is that men drink 0,5 l beers and women drink 0,3 l beers.

I did drink a fair amount of beer during my studies in Pilsen, but I have never heard the terms “šnyt” or “mlíko” shown in this video. That leads me to believe that either they are relatively new, or they are Prague-specific.

Jack’s Walk

H is for happy. ©voyager, all rights reserved

Winter has returned! It’s properly cold (-6°c) and the forecast is predicting snowfall of about 15 cm. over the next 2 days. Then, next week the temp is supposed to rise a few degrees above zero again. Great, it’s another round of snow – shovel – melt – mud, but  I’m not going to complain today.

Instead, I’m going to tell you that’s it’s been a wonderful day here. I awoke to a bright cornflower blue sky full of sunshine, and it made the getting out of bed ever so much easier. I made coffee and drank 2 cups while getting dressed and coifed, then Jack and I took a slow stroll around the neighbourhood. I could see that the sun was sitting higher on the horizon, a sure sign that the days are finally getting longer, and I could feel my mood brighten. The glittering rays of the sun warmed my cheeks and my nose and the bite of cold air couldn’t compete. Neither Jack nor I, wanted to go back inside so we lingered a bit longer at electrical poles and trees. We talked of this and that, as we meandered past the school and towards the park, and we even stopped to sing our song* as a train droned past in the background. When we arrived back home, Jack found a sunbeam in the living room and chose the spot to stretch out and nap. When he awoke a few hours later, we went for another walk, just to enjoy the wonder of the day. Tomorrow will come in its own time and there’s no sense worrying about it. Today, Jack and I lived in the moment and it was grand. I hope your day was just as pleasant.

 

*This is Jack’s favourite song

Gingerbreads of 2019 – Part 4

More details of the gingerbread eggs from yesterday – the backsides.

The eggshells are baked on a special form. Before we had that, we baked them on impromptu shapes made from alluminium foil with the help of a spoon. but the results were mixed.

 

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full