My first thought was "only 10" ...? Because my yard is 2 acres of generously landscaped habitat, designed for human/wildlife use, currently imitating a jungle because the lawn mower has been in the shop for over two weeks. Off the top of my head, my yard contains or has been crossed by:

10 Birds
Great-horned owl
Barn owl
Red-tailed hawk
Cardinal
House Sparrow
Red-winged blackbird
Mourning dove
Dark-eyed junco
Goldfinch
Downy woodpecker

10 Animals
Cottontail rabbit
Grey squirrel
White-tailed deer
Opossum
Skunk
Raccoon
Deer mouse
Monarch butterfly
Garter snake
Wolf spider

10 Plants
Red clover
White clover
Crabapple
Redbud
Oak
Foxtail grass
Echinacea purpurea
Lamb's quarters
Burdock
Blackberry

There are probably dozens of grass species alone. Central Illinois used to be mixed tallgrass prairie and eastern woodlands. Just walking through the yard I can see many different shapes and colors of grass ... at eye level, sometimes. This year we've got a new one. There are a few blades of volunteer ornamental grass sprouting beside the road, very pretty cream-striped ribbon grass.

Aside from planting things for food and shelter, I also provide bird seed and suet in winter. In summer I put out water gardens, which I just filled a few days ago. Those will have plants and goldfish added shortly. I keep hoping that someday a heron will stop by for a snack. So far, it's just cats and raccoons that I know have raided the water gardens ... hence the feeder goldfish.

So, what's in your yard?

Tags: nature, personal
Current Mood: busy

Today several friends came over to help with yardwork. Specifically, we made several trips to a place that was giving away free mulch -- it's where yard waste is collected, and they chip it up. We managed to get five pickup truck loads. This was much better than we expected; with six people to unload, there were more of use than could even fit in and around the truck, so we were able to take turns and not wreck anyone. I now have a lovely hill of mulch for use on the hedges, raspberry patches, and so forth. Huzzah for community effort!

Third Saturday of the month, we've arranged to swap off and do the same for the truck owner's yard. She has a newly planted orchard to care for, and a fencerow of raspberries established last year, and some other stuff. That's going be community accessible space too.

Yeah, community building is a lot of work. There are times when we get into horrible arguments and just about want to strangle each other. But then there are days like today, when it just flows and everything gets done so much better and faster than expected. It's like laboriously hiking up a mountain, and every once in a while you get this breathtaking view of the peak on your way up. For such days, I am grateful and gratified.

Tags: community, gardening, personal
Current Mood: satisfied

There is a company that specializes in making secret passages for your house.

This goes on my list of Fun Things to Do with Entirely Too Much Money.

Tags: personal
Current Mood: busy

Here's an interesting post about some simple tools that are useful to have in case of emergencies or the collapse of civilization. Seriously. The toolkits for temporary and permanent disasters are very similar.

It makes me grateful for my childhood. We had oil lamps so that when the power went out, which it often does in rural areas, I could still do homework and my parents could grade papers. The woodstove was auxiliary heat most of the time, primary during outages. We cooked on it when the power was out, more than once. We still have that kind of stuff in our house today. I've got an electric mixer, sure -- but I also have a hand-cranked one. Just in case.

Having everything handed to you ... isn't evolutionarily advantageous. It doesn't prepare you for the times when the world decides to remind you that humanity doesn't actually control most of what happens. Remember: our ancestors clawed their way to the top of the food chain through tool use, long before anybody knew that electricity was more than a streak in the sky.

Tags: personal
Current Mood: thoughtful

For years now I've been observing the climate shift. When I was little, the area where I live got heavy snowfall in winter, bracketed by substantial spring and fall rains, with hot dry summers. Now the winters are much dryer and somewhat warmer, spring and fall are dryer; summer sometimes brings droughts but has, bizarrely, also brought heavy rains in a few years. The overall climate is definitely warmer, enough to change what will and won't grow here. In my childhood our zone was 5b. Over the last decade I've become convinced that it's 6b.

Last year the Arbor Day Foundation updated its zone map. Sure enough, it says 6b for our area now.

The USDA is still lollygagging. That's government efficiency for you.

You want to know about the climate, for real and true? Go ask the farmers and the gardeners. Go ask the people who plant trees. They know.

Tags: environment, gardening, news, personal, politics
Current Mood: busy

Yesterday we had some friends over and got a lot of yardwork done. First a couple of folks showed up to remove the poision ivy from the northwest corner of the ritual meadow. (They aren't allergic to it.) Then two more people came over and we worked on carting brush to the firepit, pulling up dead field weeds along the north and south edges, and digging up thistles. The raspberry canes along the south fence are pretty well exposed now. The ritual meadow is looking nicer.

Today I bought more grass seed for bare patches in various parts of the lawn. I raked the leaves off the strip garden next to the cistern garden and weeded the strip. I also gathered up ashes from the firepit and dumped them down the big hole that some critter keeps digging in the cistern garden.

There are big clumps of herbs growing where they don't belong, as usual. I've already given away two pots of chocolate mint. There's catnip and motherwort out the wazoo. Also lemon balm, horehound, tarragon, and some other stuff. Last year I dug Attila the Tarragon out of the cistern garden and this year -- no doubt in response to the power vacuum -- the spearmint seems to be advancing. Comfrey, Lady's mantle, and rhubarb are all sprouting so those survived the winter.

I'm hoping to get a couple truckloads of mulch with a friend's help, some time after Beltane. Then we can re-mulch the south hedge to help keep the weeds down there. I'm tired but happy. Well, except for the fact that the friggin' lawnmower did its usual trick again, mowing for a few hours and then breaking down.

Tags: community, gardening, personal
Current Mood: tired

There was a minor earthquake in Illinois, in the wee hours of the morning; followed by at least one aftershock in the mid-morning. We slept through the former (which evidently did not exceed the vibrational factor of wind, as applied to our second-story bedroom) but definitely noticed the latter. Fortunately there is no discernible damage in our area at this time.

I've been working on soothing the Earth-dragons. This reminds me of a favorite science fiction novel, Sherri S. Tepper's Six Moon Dance. I find that the lullabye works very nicely as a focus here too, although Earth does not contain an infant alien in a thermonuclear-powered egg.

Niasa, little Summer Snake,
Turn in your egg, the world will shake.
Niasa's mother, down so deep,
Sing your baby snake to sleep.

Tags: magic, news, personal
Current Mood: awake

I found the inner workings of this quiz intriguing.

I'm into Harry Potter or some other mainstream trend.

I'm sure the muggles would be horrified to hear Harry Potter described as "mainstream." But it is, and it made me laugh.

This quiz also impressed me by spitting out a tiebreaker question:

I am really into Dungeons and Dragons or Magic the Gathering.
I like vampire novels quite a bit, and I have a soft spot for plush bats/skull candles.

I found this on the journal of gothikfaerie ... we were two of the earliest people discussing Gothic Paganism, in the mid-90s. Now you can buy books on it. Some of them are even good.

What subcategory of Goth best fits you? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Fantasy Goth You are a Fantasy Goth. You may or may not actually be a goth, but "normal" folks see you as one of those weird kids, and you are probably considered a geek by quite a few. Click on my name to take my other tests if you liked this one. Fantasy Goth 79% Romantic Goth 79% Anything-Goes Goth 46% Old-school Goth 46% Ethereal Goth 42% Understanding Outsider 42% Confused Outsider 33% Perky Goff 33% Death Rocker 29% Cyber-goth 29% Industrial/Rivet-Head 21%

Tags: paganism, personal, survey
Current Mood: busy

Actually, far more of the items in the quiz were apt -- most categories there were several valid answers for me. But the end result is still pretty accurate. For those of you who know our colors-of-love code, you'll be especially amused.

Your Heart is Blue and Green

Your heart is open and dynamic. You are flexible, optimistic, and expressive. You bring honesty and intimacy to relationships. You're good at expressing your needs to your partner.

Tags: personal, survey
Current Mood: busy

Gakked from omnivorously in respect to those in my audience who want to see more personal tidbits from me:

1. My username is ______ because ______.
2. My name is _____ because ______.
3. My journal is titled ____ because ____.
4. My friends page is called ____ because ____.
5. My default userpic is ____ because ____.

1) "ysabetwordsmith" because "Ysabet" is the familiar form (the Welsh version, actually) of my given name; and "wordsmith" is my profession, because I'm a writer and editor and xenolinguist and memetic engineer and so forth.

2) ... of reasons explained in the March donor post, actually.

3) "The Wordsmith's Forge" because this is one of the places where I do my work, where I create things; and because it's also a primary place where I promote my writing.

4) "Friends" because that's how it showed up and I saw no need to change it.

5) an excellent depiction of myself in my sidhe form, as a gift from an artist-friend who was utterly delighted to hear that I was launching my own LJ; and because I wanted an illustrated rather than photographic avatar of myself.

Tags: blogging, personal
Current Mood: busy

Gakked from chadu:

A Challenge-Experiment Meme: Categorize Me
What it says on the tin. When you think of me, how do you categorize me in your own head?

Feel free to repost to see how folks categorize you.

Tags: meme, personal
Current Mood: busy

There's a wonderful essay about things that have "deep value" -- that are long-lasting, durable, and/or subject to user repair at need. I'm not enough of a mechanic to favor machines that can be tinkered with, but I can mend ripped clothes. (We have several friends who borrow our laundry room periodically. It's not rare for them to ask me to mend something.) Mending conserves both money and material resources.

I love shopping at historical fairs because almost everything sold there will be sturdy. Sure, I can buy a package of 3 wooden spoons at Wal-Mart for $.99 but I'll have to replace them a year or two later. If I buy a wooden spoon from a carver, it might cost me $4-6 ... but I have a few of those that are more than 10 years old now.

I despise "planned obsolescence," the modern business practice of making things that are intended to break so the customer will have to buy a new one. I've heard repairmen talk about "terminal components" and "fatal repairs" -- the parts that, when they stop working, can't be fixed and require purchasing a whole new machine. That infuriates me more than I can describe.

We do have disposable things in the household, but preferably things that don't lend themselves well to re-use. When possible, things are cycled through degenerating uses: good clothes become garden clothes become rags. Grocery bags are saved to become garbage bags, or bundled and given to a shopkeeper for re-use. We have a tremendous amount of stuff ... but that means, if something is needed, chances are we either have it or have something that can be made to do the same job.

There's a saying I picked up from my grandparents, who came through the Great Depression: "Eat it all, use it up, wear it out. Make it do, or do without." That's a good philosophy in a world that's running low on some resources.

Tags: environment, personal
Current Mood: busy