Feathering Nests

The blue tits seem not to mind that I fell the cherry tree and hung the nesting box on the plum. I see them daily there and they sing in the tree, so I think they are nesting there even though I have not seen them entering the box. What was my surprise then when I looked at this picture and I saw one blue tit and one field sparrow with a bunch of feathers in his beak. A few moments later I heard some squabbling and the fluff floated down from the tree. Maybe the sparrow was stealing bedding from the tits?  These tiny birds are pretty mean to each other so that would not be surprising.

Birds on a tree

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

And a first daisies came out.

Daisy

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

Y Is For Yachting.

Yachting.

This sailing boat was on the sea in May 2016. I took he photo on an evening sightseeing cruise to the Helsinki Archipelago.

The bonus picture is about the long off-season for yachting. These boats must have been sitting in the dry from late autumn. The sea ice could have broken them so they had to be lifted from the sea. The photo was taken in late March 2018.

Click for full size!

© Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved.

Jack’s Walk

There are several fallen trees blocking our usual forest path so Jack and I are scouting out new places to walk. Today we tried this path just outside town, but found that it was too noisy and not very scenic. It might look better with a bit of greenery, but winter just won’t give up this year.

©voyager, all rights reserved

Indian Country Today Is Back!

Who Will Be Our First Founding Member? The new Indian Country Today is launching a membership drive and an auction. Top bid will be forever known as Indian Country Today’s: “First Founding Member.”

Who Will Be Our First Founding Member? The new Indian Country Today is launching a membership drive and an auction. Top bid will be forever known as Indian Country Today’s: “First Founding Member.”

Indian Country Today is back! The NCAI has taken over, and this is grand news.

From September through February I have heard about the importance of saving Indian Country Today. So many people across Indian Country had the same idea:

What if … What if we all contribute?

What if I step up to make certain Indian Country has solid, accurate, fair reporting?

Is it worth it to save this voice? A national media platform for Indian concerns?  And how much will it take?

Yes. Yes. And the answer is a lot  — or perhaps a few tax-deductible dollars if we all contribute together.

We are building a new Indian Country Today on a public media model. We will have some advertising, but most of our resources will come from members, tribes, enterprises, and non-profits.

We need you.

We are launching a membership drive and an auction.

The membership drive will solicit help from our “members” as $100 Founding Members, $500 Sustaining Members, and $1,000 for Premier Members.

Unlike public media we don’t have nifty gifts as a thank you. No t-shirts. No coffee mugs. Just a better news report. We want to use the money to build our news operation, a multimedia reporting platform about what’s going on across Indian Country. We’ll stretch your dollars by partnering with other organizations, and amplify our reporting by letting others repurpose our editorial content.

We will serve.

This is great news, but to work, ICT needs help from people. If you can drop a few dollars into the fund, please do, and if you can’t do that, please, please, spread the word, get it out everywhere! You can read more by Mark Trahant at Indian Country today, or go straight to the membership drive. This is so very important, it’s vital for Indigenous peoples to have a voice.  Also, be sure to check out the new edition, there’s all manner of interesting reading!

ETA: I should point out that it’s possible to donate $5.00 to the membership drive, which is all I can manage right now, but I’ll be dropping more fives each week.

X Is For Xylem.

Xylem.

Xylem is a scientific term for vascular plant tissue that transports water and nutritients from the roots to other parts of the plant. Wood is xylem and the term comes from the Greek word for wood, xylon. The pictures are close-ups of the wood, pine, birch and oak glulam boards, used in the pieces of crude furniture I’ve made for myself. I’ve applied a mixture of linseed oil and polyurethane lacquer on them as finish.

The pine board with the Phillips head screw is the top of of my windowsill extender. With the extender I can get a second level on my window sill, so that I can grow more herbs. The extender stands on the windowsill and consists of an oak bottom board, legs and support structure of the top made of pine slats and the top itself.

The oak board with the holes is the top of a short-legged table for my laptop computer. The holes are there to help supply air for the cooling of the computer. The table is usually on top of my table/desk and I keep my music keyboard, WiFi router and miscellaneous other stuff under it.

The birch board is the top of a cabinet used for housing my plant watering equipment, Raspberry Pi stuff and paper to be recycled.

Click for full size!

© Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved.

Thor’s Day Mood.

Fit For An Autopsy – Black Mammoth.

BLACK MAMMOTH:

Fools gold, siphoned and sold, merchants of death. Dead in spirit, now dead in flesh.
Born of violent flames, landscapes of ashes. The roots soak up the rain, burning in acid.
The wounds are cauterized, and left un-bandaged. Wilting beneath a sun, withered and damaged.
Tragedy reigns forever.
Rejoice in masses. The tribe collapses. The mother weeps in her dying breath.
Rise from the ashes, oh foul Black Mammoth. Dead in spirit, now dead in flesh.
Tread on sacred terrain, envenomed and ravaged. The peace upon the plains, seized by the savage.
Primitive practices, uproot and vanish. Modern barbarians, new rite of passage.
Rejoice in masses. The tribe collapses. The mother weeps in her dying breath.
Rise from the ashes, oh foul Black Mammoth. Dead in spirit, now dead in flesh.
Tragedy reigns forever.