Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

You can’t love your country only when you win.

A consequence of cucumbers

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Let there be snark.

Republicans don’t trust women.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Consistently wrong since 2002

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

You are here: Home / Climate Change / Changing Climate / Climate Solutions: Rewilding..and Bees

Climate Solutions: Rewilding..and Bees

by | 133 Comments

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ETA: This seemed appropriate to this post somehow

shawnbraleyillustration
Shawn Braley Illustration  https://www.facebook.com/shawnbraleyillustration

A couple of quick hits. As you may know, I listen to CBS Sunday morning while doing all those Sunday chores. These two stories had me going back to actually watch:

 

Some additional links:

More on the Knepp Castle Rewilding

Rewilding Britian

The Book of Wilding

Rewilding.Org

I want to check this one out more:  Mossy Earth

And as always, Kiss the Ground for a great primer on regenerative farming

=====

And this young girl gives me hope for the future…

Open thread

 

Reader Interactions

133Comments

  1. 1.

    Alison Rose

    I love bees and that girl is awesome. I’d be terrified to do that, though. I’ve never been stung and I don’t ever want to experience it!

  4. 4.

    Alison Rose

    @TaMara: I don’t think I’m allergic, because I had immunotherapy for my monstrous hay fever as a kid, and I presume beestings would have been tested for, too. BUT I was always the one getting bitten to all hell by mosquitos, and I just have this fear that if I were around a swarm, every last one of them would descend on me.

  5. 5.

    raven

    She was a rare thing

    Fine as a beeswing

    So fine a breath of wind might blow her away

    She was a lost childShe was running wild, she said

    As long as there’s no price on love, I’ll stay

    And you wouldn’t want me any other way

  7. 7.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Alison Rose:

    BUT I was always the one getting bitten to all hell by mosquitos 

    Well why don’t you boast about it?  Not all of us can have such delicious blood. 😁

  9. 9.

    BruceFromOhio

    Rewilding works. Where the Richfield Coliseum and its acres of parking lots once stood is now a meadow, part of Cuyahoga Valley National Park. People just have to decide nature is more important.

  10. 10.

    Math Guy

    Growing up in a small town in Nebraska, I remember the swarms of bees and butterflies in our yard every summer. The fact that we had plenty of dandelions and little, yellow sorel flowers had a lot to do with that, I’m certain. We also had plenty of cicadas and lightning bugs which we loved to catch. I don’t see as many bees and butterflies now, though that might have more to do with living in Minnesota now.

  11. 11.

    Eunicecycle

    @Alison Rose: my daughter is like that, too. We can all be together and she’ll get bitten so badly by mosquitoes when the rest of us don’t.

  14. 14.

    frosty

    @Eunicecycle: ​
     Ms F is a mosquito magnet; it puts a crimp on sitting outside on our patio. I, on the other hand, am a tick magnet. Last hike I went on, I ended up with 12. My hiking companions had 2 or 3.

  16. 16.

    Geo Wilcox

    @Eunicecycle: I have to wear long sleeved shirts and long pants with a bee keepers hat on and gloves in the spring summer, and part of fall. I look like w weirdo but I do not get bit by the skeeters.

    We rewilded our farm from old corn fields to forest and meadows. We have millions of insects, hundreds of birds, and so many wild animals it isn’t funny. It was a lot of work the first few years but then you can relax and let Mother Nature do her thing. Oh and we get a wonderful property tax break too, I only pay $5 per year on that 20.3 acres.

  18. 18.

    Another Scott

    @Alison Rose:

    Phys.org:

    Do you ever feel as if mosquitoes are always biting you and seem to target you? It may be because of your smell, a new study says.

    Mosquitoes are one of the most dangerous creatures on the planet, contributing to the spread of deadly diseases like malaria, which kills hundreds of thousands of humans every year. There are even mosquitoes that “prefer to bite people.”

    But for some people, mosquitoes seem to attack more frequently than others. There are numerous theories about why that might happen, such as blood type, what type of clothing someone is wearing, or bacteria on skin, but none have ever been scientifically proven to be the cause.

    A study published in the peer-reviewed journal Cell Oct. 18, however, details how the production of a chemical tied to smell makes some people mosquito magnets, and it may be something they will have to deal with for the rest of their lives.

    Researchers came to their conclusion in the three-year study by having eight participants wear nylon stocking over their arms for six hours a day on multiple days to pick up their skin scent. After the stockings were worn, they were placed at the ends of separate long tubes, and Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes—one of the most common carriers of lethal diseases—were released to see which tubes they would pick in a round-robin tournament-like experiment.

    By the end, researchers made an alarming discovery: One of the participants, Subject 33, was four times more attractive to mosquitoes than the second-place participant and 100 times more than the least appealing participant. Any time the participant’s nylon stocking was pitted against another, the mosquitoes were always drawn to Subject 33.

    To see if that response was just an outlier, researchers got another 56 people to join in the study, but mosquitos still stayed loyal to Subject 33.

    After the so-called tournament was over, researchers examined the chemical compounds of each participant and noticed the ones who were mosquito magnets produced carboxylic acids, used by bacteria on human skin to produce unique body odors, at much higher levels than others.

    “There’s a very, very strong association between having large quantities of these fatty acids on your skin and being a mosquito magnet,” Leslie Vosshall, study author and neurobiologist at Rockefeller University in New York, said in a statement.

    […]

    Sorry.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  19. 19.

    Kent

    Rewilding is an excellent thing.  But it requires a lot of active management to actually be successful since our existing landscape is to fractured and there are so many invasive plants and animals.  You often have to do things like controlled burns and active eradication of invasive species to get back to some semblance of undisturbed landscapes.

    Scale is also immensely important, especially for large species like wolves, bears, bison, elk, etc.  One of the most interesting recent trends is wildlife corridors across interstate highways.  They are an excellent thing that we should do more of.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_crossing

  24. 24.

    BeautifulPlumage

    @Another Scott: there has to be something similar with fleas, which never bite me even when others are getting bit (ankles from the carpet in a home with multiple dogs).

  28. 28.

    cain

    @BeautifulPlumage: well, there has been no screaming from the media and right wing echo chamber so not a problem. Otherwise, you know it is an existential threat – just mentioni there are vaccines or something haha :)

  30. 30.

    West of the Rockies

    Who is the host/narrator on that CBS bee story?  He sounds a little like David Sedaris.

  31. 31.

    Faithful Lurker

    The rewilding projects seldom mention the need for predators. Or maybe they do but I just haven’e seen it. I don’t know what large predators are left in the UK. Or maybe the surrounding humans will count as the largest predators. The balance of nature depends on a number of predators, small and large. It ain’t pretty ( our local coyotes love preying on fawns) but not all of nature is pretty.

  33. 33.

    LiminalOwl

    @BeautifulPlumage: South Boston, this week.

    @AnotherScott: Thank you very much, from yet another mosquito magnet  (And shared with someone not on BJ, who needs to read it too.)

  34. 34.

    cain

    @Kent: I was at the farmers market and idly asked if they had english ivy and the look I got from the ladies there was one of deep offense and horror. It turned into a funny moment as some other guy was like “I got a bunch of ivy that i’ll pay you to take !” –

    I suppose I’m glad my wife was not there – she would have been very embarrassed and likely publicly lambasted me. :)

    I was also at some beer booth and we were talking about the heatt and climate change and mentioned that if we got this control it would be mankind’s greatest accomplishment. The guy was like  – in short while this planet is not even going to remember mankind. Most of our efforts around climate change is to protect the species   (something our right wingers don’t seem to understand) and food supply. In scheme of things humans on this planet is barely a blink in the geo life of this planet. We are only 300,000 years old of a 4.5 billion age so far. Whatever happens, if we kill ourselves off – life continues. The only remnant of our existence will likely be a box of hostess twinkies.

  36. 36.

    Yarrow

    If you’re thinking you can’t do a big rewilding job, because you aren’t allowed to or you only have a small space, consider a pocket prairie. They have so many benefits including serving as a “waystation” for bees and birds as they go from larger area to larger area.

    “Few people realize that they have the power to sequester carbon, provide habitat for wildlife, prevent erosion and clean water by choosing to replace the norm — their non-native lawn or flowerbeds — with a prairie,” says John Hart Asher, environmental designer at the Wildflower Center.

    Make a pocket prairie

  38. 38.

    cain

    DeSantis’s failed campaign is being rebooted – he’s not going to get anywhere – but if he misses his chance to get the nomination – I think his time in Florida is only going to get worse thanks to climate change. All those ‘anti-woke’ laws he’s put in place, some of them anti-corporate is going to come to bite him in the ass.

    The man only knows how to strong arm stuff – he has no sense of how to negotiate. He has the emotional maturity of a 2 year old. I’m going to enjoy 2025 as he tries to deal with the multitude of shit – he’ll take his legislature with him.

  39. 39.

    Yarrow

    @Faithful Lurker: Returning apex predators is definitely a point of discussion in rewilding in the UK. Lynx and wolves. It’s complicated as they’ll attack livestock and pets and possibly people.

    There are other predators around, such as eagles.

  42. 42.

    BeautifulPlumage

    @HumboldtBlue: we HAD to watch Lawrence Welk every week. Apparently, he got his start playing around North Dakota and my parents used to go dance to his orchestra.

  43. 43.

    trollhattan

    @Alison Rose: Hurts like fuck. There’s the poke, which is not dramatic, then a pause when you think “hey, not so bad”, then fire, only the fire is inside your body.

    And yes, wasps can be far worse and unlike honeybees can sting multiple times then fly away shouting “Ha-ha, fuck you human, now I’m off to sting something else.”

    Special shoutout to yellowjackets/meat bees, which can bite AND sting you, sometimes simultaneously.

    Your daily reminder that nature does not care.

  45. 45.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Mr. Bemused Senior:

    That’s wonderful (even with the Mumford and Sons ending)

    @cain:

    of a 4.5 billion age so far

    I read a blurb just last week that scientists suspect the solar system is closer to 25-26 billion years old, but I can’t find the link right now, primarily because I’m not gonna go a-looking.

  46. 46.

    BeautifulPlumage

    @Cameron: the CDC map Yarrow linked to shows very few human infections this year (to July 18) for Nile. Good on Florida for protecting the endangered dengue & malaria viruses, though.

  47. 47.

    trollhattan

    @frosty: I get invited camping as bait. It’s a role I grudgingly acknowledge because it’s true. Sigh.

    All of Bill Gates’ money will not outsmart mosquitoes, there are too damn many.

  49. 49.

    trollhattan

    @BeautifulPlumage: ​
    Sacramento region getting a big uptick in West Nile.

    West Nile virus activity is increasing intensely in “many” parts of Sacramento and Yolo counties, local mosquito control officials said Wednesday, as California’s capital region has recorded dozens of new virus cases in mosquitoes and dead birds within the past two weeks.

    “Virus activity continues to be widespread and very intense,” Gary Goodman, manager of the Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District, said in a news release.

    “While this is not uncommon during the summer, we are seeing an increase in the overall abundance of mosquitoes collected in our traps.” The district reported that 69 mosquitoes and 43 dead birds have tested positive in Sacramento County this year to date. Those totals are up from 34 and 18, respectively, in the previous update from July 3. Officials first detected the virus this year in mid-May, in dead birds found near Florin Road in south Sacramento.

    In Yolo County, the tallies have jumped to 33 mosquitoes and two dead birds, up from six mosquitoes and one bird on July 3. Areas of concern include the South Natomas, Tahoe Park and Elder Creek areas within the city of Sacramento; as well as Davis and Woodland within Yolo County, according to Wednesday’s news release.

    “We are closely monitoring all these areas and evaluating the best plan of action,” Goodman said in the release. “We need to do everything we can to ensure residents are protected.” State and local mosquito control officials urge residents to drain standing water to limit mosquito breeding; wear insect repellent that contains DEET, picaridin, oil of lemon eucalyptus or IR3535; secure doors and window screens in good working condition; avoid being outdoors at dawn and dusk if possible; and wear long sleeves and pants when outside.

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article277254303.html#storylink=cpy

  50. 50.

    HumboldtBlue

    @NotMax:

    I love some boogie-woogie, and here is some impromptu music with some impromptu dancers!

    @BeautifulPlumage:

    we HAD to watch Lawrence Welk every week

    We had to endure that post-Sunday dinner when grandma came over each week.

    It appears Elon has made another decision destined to destroy what’s left of Twitter.

    After 17 years, Twitter is officially rebranding to ‘X.’

    From now on, if you wanna watch videos on Twitter, you’ll have to go to x videos. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

    For those who don’t know, Xvideos is a rather popular porn site.

  51. 51.

    trollhattan

    @Yarrow: Something they discovered in the Yellowstone-Glacier Parks region was returning wolves made the elk herds more wary and as one result, fed much less on saplings and young trees which, in turn, helped forest health.

    Did not see that coming.

  52. 52.

    CaseyL

    Thank. you for this post, TaMara!  I’ve done a quick look into rewilding projects here in Washington State, looking for ones I can participate in.

    Alas, I can’t do much as a homeowner, since I live in a townhouse complex.  I have many decks, but also a cat, so setting up a microenvironment for birds is straight out.

    It is wonderful so see there are many, many humans spearheading many, many projects to heal what can be healed.  I am seriously thinking of devoting more time, energy and headspace into something along those lines.

  53. 53.

    Yarrow

    @trollhattan:  Yep. It’s an ecosystem. Take out a piece and it doesn’t work as well. Just like that massive Yellowstone fire several decade ago now. People thought it was going to destroy Yellowstone. Instead it revitalized it. Fire is an important part of that ecosystem, although not all the fire all at once.

  54. 54.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Like many, we are in the process of removing the grass in our backyard. We live in a townhome, so it’s not a ginormous amount but it is a decent size.

    About 1/3 was removed and a new oval bed created. A “garden in a box” was purchased with about 50 plants “made” for Colorado. It was planted late May.

    We have more bees than ever and several butterfly types never seen before. And hummingbirds, which the yard never attracted despite flower beds and a special feeder.

    No, this isn’t rewilding except in the reintroduction of native species but the results really are recognizable.

    And thanks, TaMara for the interesting links.

  55. 55.

    Geminid

    @HumboldtBlue: Lawrence Welk grew up on a North Dakota farm, and while a teenager he persuaded his father to buy an accordion for him. That cost a lot of money but Lawrence promised to work it off and he did. Welk left the farm when he turned 21, and ten years later he was a rising radio star in LA and then nationally.

    Welk’s family were Volga Deutsche, descended from Germans who migrated to Russia and later to North America.

    John Duesendorf was another Volga Deutsche musical star; we know him as John Denver.

  57. 57.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Geminid:

    And this folks, is why we read this blog.

    @Yarrow:

    You can still plant pollinator plants, even in pots. Attract bees, moths, butterflies, etc.

    And cannabis!

  60. 60.

    CaseyL

    @Yarrow: Excellent idea.

    I currently have many potted plants on the big deck: strawberries, and a lonely blueberry (the other one died), but have a few planters with nothing in them because I was on vacation and didn’t plant the usual lettuce and peas.

    I’ll see what pollinator-attractors I can add.

  61. 61.

    Kristine

    @trollhattan:

    Your daily reminder that nature does not care.

    After 30+ years with no trouble whatsoever, paper wasps hit me 3x during the summer of 2021’s serious drought—the heat and lack of water seemed to enrage them. By the time the last sting occurred, I was feeling my throat tighten almost immediately. Repeat stings over a short period of time can lead to development of allergies, and that’s what happened to me. I’m an epipen person now.

  62. 62.

    Yarrow

    @CaseyL: I’ve found that planting for pollinators has increased my food garden yield. More pollinators means more pollination, I guess. One advantage of native plants is they should be more able to withstand your local conditions. Heat, rain, cold, whatever. Need less watering. I find that a bonus!

  63. 63.

    Mousebumples

    Thanks for this! And thanks to the commenter above for the Pocket Prarie link. Our house is on about a third of an acre. Might look into starting in the front yard, maybe, and seeing how it grows and develops. I’d love to mow less, or not at all, but some grass is good for the kids to run and play.

    Ours raspberry plants in the backyard berm are a pollinator heaven. Saw a bunch of bees (*not hornets or wasps) when I was picking them earlier today. Yay for pollinators and Yay for berries!

  65. 65.

    BeautifulPlumage

    @HumboldtBlue: per Kara Swisher

    “Rebranding HBO to Max was the dumbest rebrand in recent history. Elon: Hold my beer and/or whatever is being partaken at 3 am.”

    And from her timeline (Lou Paskalis)
    The Twitter blue bird logo is beloved, ubiquitous and has nearly 100% unaided awareness globally, something most brands never come close to achieving. Virtually every newscaster, reporter and byline features the logo, exclusively, giving the brand $$$ millions of free marketing

     

  70. 70.

    Alison Rose

    I had no interest in the Barbie movie (can’t go to theaters anyway and also I’m just kind of tired of this “let’s make a movie based on a toy” thing). But seeing how massively dickhurt so many dudes are about it, I might watch it when it’s available to stream somewhere

    I took 1 star reviews of #Barbie from furious men on letterboxd and put them on the posters because it makes the film seem ever cooler. pic.twitter.com/V4YzmnB8bj
    — TechnicallyRon (@TechnicallyRon) July 23, 2023

  71. 71.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Alison Rose:

    I am convinced this man has a whiffle ball where his brain should be. 

    That’s a terrible thing to say about whiffle balls.

  73. 73.

    BeautifulPlumage

    @HumboldtBlue: I mean “X” is so unique and hasn’t been used for games, comic heros, tv shows, etc 🙄

    (and since Elon prefers ketamine rather than ecstasy he really should have gone with “K”)

  80. 80.

    trollhattan

    @Kristine: ​
    Yikes! Cautionary tale for us all.

    Have allergies galore but luckily the worst effect I’ve seen has been a large welt at the sting site. Fingers remain crossed it’s never worse than that.

  82. 82.

    Geminid

    The 40 acres I am fortunate to live on became a rewilding project 20 years ago. My landlord planted 18 acres of apple trees on it in the late 1970s. He later moved to town, and tenants tended the apples until warm winters caused early blossoming. April frosts would knock out the crop and the orchard failed. There was never much money in it anyway.

    Now the place has gone back to forest. Bill, my landlord has gotten interested again and has declared war on the Russian Olives that infest the place. He’s spent at least 100 hours this year tramping around the woods and injecting them with Roundup. Bill has a harpoon-like device that pumps a roundup cartridge into the trunks, 1 cartridge per inch of trunk diameter.

    The harpoon holds 4 tubes of 20 cartridges each, and Bill orders 500 cartridges at a time. There are a few Ailanthus that he also poisons. I think he’s stopped for the summer, but the Russian Olives keep their gray-green leaves into November and are easy to spot, so he’ll cut loose on them then.

  86. 86.

    Expletive Deleted

    @Sure Lurkalot: I’m slowly trying to make our new garden wildlife friendly here in the UK. Only cutting the grass twice a year, letting weeds and wildflowers grow, and getting some native plants in. Its slow due to time and budget, but a year and a half in I can see some changes in the variety of wild plants growing, and we seem to have a regular hedgehog visitor now, so it’s that’s exciting!

    Newest project is a little half-barrel mini pond.

  89. 89.

    Geminid

    @NotMax: No, just three barn cats and a John Deere riding mower. There are about 2 acres of grass on top of the ridge that I keep mowed when I’m not pretending to repair and paint the exterior of the cottage I live in. I’m still not finished after working on it for two years, and it’s not a very big cottage.

  97. 97.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Geminid:

    Staffer: “Governor, you’re still sliding in the polls!”

    DeSantis: “We’re gonna need a bigger rake.”

    And he doesn’t even need the orange shitstain calling him a loser.

  102. 102.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Geminid: @MattF:

    It all stems from the fact that DeSantis has all the charm of cancer and the interpersonal skills of an angry wasp (to keep with the thread’s theme) and in addition, the man comes across as perpetually pissed off, angry and snarling.

    He has no verve, no jazz, no bounce.

    He’s a small man in all ways and it shows.

  104. 104.

    Expletive Deleted

    @HumboldtBlue: Hah, that may be a bit advanced for my little suburban garden!

    I am trying to improve the current hedges though, by leaving/adding dead leaves on the ground and adding some climbers and hedge-bottom plants. Its slow going but relatively low effort.

  111. 111.

    kalakal

    @Kristine: I too am an epipen person.

    Allergies can be really specific. I sneer at bees*, they hold no terror for me, I hardly react to their stings and they don’t hurt me much. Hornets hurt but I don’t react much. Wasps ( before I had allergy treatment ) would kill me in 40 minutes due to cardio vascular collapse as I found out 5 years ago. I love SunStar ambulances they saved my life with an epinephrin injection.

    *Not really, I like bees

  112. 112.

    lowtechcyclist

    @HumboldtBlue: ​
     

    Talk about re-wilding, here’s the Lawrence Welk show and its take on One Toke Over the Line.

    Just for that, here’s where Brewer and Shipley in 2018 talk about what it was like to have your song covered by Lawrence Welk and Jerry Garcia at the same time, while Richard Nixon was trying to have the song banned. (I remember that last part – heaven forbid that the word ‘toke’ should be in a song getting radio airplay!)

    They also mention that Garcia played on the B side, “Oh Mommy,” which was actually the first Brewer & Shipley song I got to know, courtesy of a high school friend of mine who hung around the UCM coffeehouse on Kings Highway south of Alexandria, and played it for me on his guitar, along with “Okie from Muskogee” which I would only find out years later hadn’t been written to parody the attitudes described in the song.

  113. 113.

    StringOnAStick

    In 2021, I removed the very neglected backyard grass and gave away any water hungry plants and shrubs back there, then sourced free local rock and built an assortment of raised beds in swoopy curves, then planted nothing but water wise pollinator plants.  It’s year two and it’s been a riot of colour and all kinds of interesting pollinators, including a hummingbird couple raising babies high up in the neighbour’s native juniper tree and claiming the various natural nectar sources as their exclusive territory.  They’ve also chased off some scrub jays who would have robbed their nest.

    I’ve entered our backyard into the list to potentially be on the local garden tour next summer.  People need to see that you can make something that looks like an English cottage garden but is quite water thrifty and less than a quarter of the water a lawn requires, something this dry area will have to start limiting sooner or later.  This year’s garden tour was sorely lacking in anything but extravagantly watered yards.  Growing a lawn in the high desert with a 14″ average annual precipitation is obscenely wasteful.  In two more years I will enter the completely native front yard; zero lawn grass, clumps of native grasses and various blooming forbs and shrubs.  It needs a couple more years to mature so that green lawn people aren’t immediately turned off by something so different.

  114. 114.

    kalakal

    What gets me in Florida gardening is how many people seem to spend a load of time/effort/money on trying to recreate gardens from where they came from. Espescially lawns, waste a zillion gallons of water, drain aquifers, and then wonder why you get sinkholes. There’s lots of great plants that llike almost any particular environment. Go with it, don’t fight it

  115. 115.

    Ruckus

    @MattF:

    In another 15 minutes someone would be able to declare him, if he wasn’t the head, or is it head asshole of russia.

  117. 117.

    lowtechcyclist

    @cain: ​
     

    Whatever happens, if we kill ourselves off – life continues. The only remnant of our existence will likely be a box of hostess twinkies.

    Easier to have that attitude if you don’t have children. Hell, even if I didn’t, I have co-workers that I’m friends with who are forty years younger than I am. I’d like their world to not be a disaster.

  118. 118.

    Ruckus

    @Alison Rose:

    As someone who made molds for Barbie Dolls I have no interest in them either (being a male may have had something to do with it as well….) but considering that they have been in existence for a whole lot of decades and in many versions I think I have to say that it is a very successful toy, so there must be something to the concept.

  120. 120.

    Ruckus

    @HumboldtBlue:

    I’ve had cancer. I didn’t like it, didn’t like the “cure,” don’t even actually like talking about it. But there was a cure, and while I’ve never actually met/seen/heard SFB II in person, there is no cure for his level of hate and stupid. He’s worse than political cancer.

  121. 121.

    cain

    @HumboldtBlue: You might recall that he was trying to name the brands of his tesla cars to spell sex. He couldn’t use ‘e’ so he went with ‘3’.  That dude is all kinds of messed up.

  122. 122.

    Ruckus

    Just got a message on my phone that it might rain here in SoCal in the next hour. It’s 89 deg, it’s been cloudy today but the clouds they are a building. Seems strange to know it might rain in July in SoCal. I’m sure it has rained here in July, I just don’t remember it. I do remember February 1969

  123. 123.

    Eyeroller

    @HumboldtBlue: ​
    Nooo there is a lot of evidence for the age of the solar system. It is something about the age of the Universe (currently thought to be about 15 billion years old). And it’s one guy’s theory, so take it with a grain of salt until/unless there is more evidence.

    This kind of inconsistency has happened before and usually the “new’ theory is wrong. But I’ll wait till I see more data to dismiss it.

  125. 125.

    Eyeroller

    @trollhattan: Years ago there was a yellowjacket nest not far from the house (they live in burrows and they were nesting where some cables went underground).  I captured one inside and took it out to release it near there and said something like “go home little one” and it flew off and then another yellowjacket blasted out of the hole and tried to attack me.  It was late in the season, near the peak of their population, but since it was cooler back then I was wearing a heavy sweatshirt.  The aggressor latched on to my sweatshirt and I could watch it try to simulateously bite and sting me, but the sweatshirt was too thick for it to penetrate.  I was afraid to crush it, since that releases a pheromone that attracts the other members of the nest, and I was still pretty close.  Eventually I was able to carefully disengage its jaws and it flew off and I went inside immediately.

  127. 127.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Geminid: ​

    The 40 acres I am fortunate to live on

    @NotMax: ​
     

    What, no mule?

    If you want these old mountains, you can have them
    there’s nothing here but forty acres and a fool
    -Si Kahn, “Take Me Back to New York City”

  128. 128.

    Ken

    @rikyrah: They ask 100 Black people
    What would it take for you to vote for Trump?

    I don’t tik-tok, but I’ll guess there was a lot of laughter, a certain amount of cursing, and a couple of “getting brain damage”.

  129. 129.

    Miss Bianca

    @Alison Rose: I tried beekeeping for a friend and got stung multiple times. Turns out I *am* allergic, how’s about that, so I will happily let the younger generation be the beekeepers so long as I can get the honey from them to brew my mead!

  130. 130.

    Miss Bianca

    @StringOnAStick: I would like to subscribe to your newsletter! :) Being that you used to live in CO and all, I am sure you would be able to advise me on water-wise pollinator plants.

  131. 131.

    The Lodger

    @Cameron: Lancaster, Harrisburg and Reading? Pennsylvania Dutch food may not be the most heart-healthy cuisine in the world, but you’ll enjoy it as long as you’re around.

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