Just 1/8Billion

@vhemt4all.bsky.social

1061 Followers 1593 Following

Trying not to make the world worse. I’m a vegan animal living in Maine who loves reading, libraries, audiobooks, science, plants, permaculture, fostering, growing mushrooms and water kefir, worm farming and all things compassionate.

My Vevor hydroponics kit was surprisingly inexpensive. I hate bright lights so made a lightweight flexy wall to keep light inside— the plants love it too! My bok choy and ground cherry are doing best. My lettuce is slower so we'll see.
Weather app shows: 84F right now Feels like 89F (Today’s high 89, low 63)
Me holding the tip of my blackberry bramble plant with two ripe (and delicious, btw) berries! It’s very exciting.
WALKAWAY By Cory Doctorow
Incredibly inexpensive lettuce, fresh amaranth green, some skinny aubergine, zucchini and a boatload of various peppers. The lettuce vendor even threw in several when I wasn’t looking! Score!
One of our kitties, named RBG, relaxes on the ex-coffee-table-turned-cat-bed with her legs stretched all the way out and belly slightly angled upright.
A beautiful northern dog-day cicada just molted. You can see lovely pink to blue legs leaf up to a funny face with a googly eye on each side. Behind you see its translucent wings with bright sassy green veins. Lovely! It appears to be drying off after molting as it is perched atop its little crinkled exoskeleton.
A bullshit advertisement showing a cow lying next to a carton of milk. It says: cared for by our dedicated farm experts. Ensuring cow well-being every day.
Me eating handful after handful of blueberries while my partner did the same!
Short trail to the Giant’s Stairs open to a breezy, lovely, rocky coastline.
This says my biological age is 10.5 years younger than my calendar age: 47.7 - 10.5 = 37.2
Saw a dam and what looked like parking— score! Several short shaded trails to different rocky and sandy beaches.
Logo for: Samuel Alito's Mom's Satanic Abortion Clinic The Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic provides free religious reproductive healthcare. Patients only have to pay for medication to our partner pharmacy at a reduced rate. There's a comical drawing of a woman (Samuel Alit's mother) with a speech bubble that says "If only abortion was legal when I was pregnant".
Holding a black bean burger-shaped object. It’s just black beans that are covered in living, fuzzy mycelium. It’s actively growing in and around the beans— partially digesting them, making them bonkers delicious AND digestible for people like me who lack most of our own digestive enzymes for whatever reason. Intrigued or confused? Google more about how allowing mycelium to partially digest food before you eat it makes in more nutritious and also more delicious! Seriously!
Reacting to that nomination, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) recognized the importance of the Fourteenth Amendment to equality: "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, Blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only— protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy....
With the end of open access to global resources, markets, and strategic bases and without reliable friends or allies, the U.S. will need more military spending than ever. “Americans are neither materially nor psychologically ready for this future,” Kagan warned. They are accustomed to the “basically peaceful, prosperous, and open world” and have come to think it is “the normal state of international affairs, likely to continue indefinitely. They can’t imagine it unraveling, much less what that unraveling will mean for them.” Everything will be up for grabs, Kagan wrote, with myriad “flash points for potential conflict.” “If Americans thought defending the liberal world order was too expensive,” Kagan wrote, “wait until they start paying for what comes next.”
Close-up of the floppy flower head (called an umbel) of the common milkweed. It’s a globe of dozens of sturdy yet soft pale to dark pink flowers.
Graph showing US wildfires caused by humans spiking around July 4. Wow.
Red columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) seeds in my palm. The plants are so prolific that I take many of the seeds and spread them far away from the parent plant. All you have to do is turn the dried pod over into your palm, they fall out by the dozens or hundreds. Free and easy perennials FTW!
Gently removed a sprouted sunchoke from the container before popping into the ground, watering and mulching thoroughly.
Picture of a freshly harvested huge bunch of sun choke tubers! Harvest most for eating but plant some back for next year. Perennials are AWESOME.
A redone cover for Melania's "Book" retitled: From Prostite To First Lady The Untold Story of Melania Trump
With the loud sounds of rushing water ahead I walk downhill through the trees that open up on the beautiful Androscoggin River.
Homemade sourdough waffles covered in wild strawberries and some (imo boring) bananas. My partner loves bananas for no reason I can find so we both share our fruits. Variety is key to health after all. We have waffle weekend every weekend! The best waffle recipe ever: save sourdough discard. Mix in whatever you like — cornmeal, buckwheat flour, teff flour, whole teff, oats, too many options to list here! Let them sour for several days in the discard. Mix. Keep moist. The night before waffles add a bit of oil or fatty coconut milk, a dash of sugar and salt, yeast (because your sourdough bacteria are dead by now) and any flavorings you like! Try oregano with cinnamon. I also love rosemary in waffles. Have fun with it. And ONLY use whole organic maple syrup. Of course!
T-shirt for sale with a round TST logo encircled by one of its tenets “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s will alone.”
Strawberries are so great at camouflage. One meander around the yard is never enough. You miss so many! Pic: using my black shirt as a harvesting basket again. It’s filled with the ripe berries that I don’t eat while walking.
Your partner wants three kids, you want none. Could you consider having one child? It's "an excellent solution for many couples and also single people who want the pleasure of a child but don't want to be overwhelmed," says Bombardieri.
Quote by Sarah Silverman "We only make fun of scientology because it's new. But it's no more batshit crazy than every other religion."
Maps of states with highest and lowest wildfire risk.
Me holding the bottom of my black dress as a basket because I found a lot of ripe, delicious berries this morning and had nowhere else to put them. The dress made a nice, if temporary, basket.
Rolled injera before I scarfed it all down.
Close-up of Buteo platypterus (broad-winged hawk) I’m pretty sure, just outside my window in the heavy-for-Maine lovely rain.
A dabbling duck has its butt sticking out of the water while its head (probably adorably) grabs around for food. It says: "No ifs, ands or buts, colonoscopies save lives."
Quote from attached article: Someone will eventually bring up lions, deserted islands, or a hypothetical emergency in which the only available food is a cheeseburger. These arguments are rarely about survival. They are usually attempts to defend an ordinary purchase made in a supermarket filled with alternatives. The strange thing is that veganism is not asking people to stop enjoying food. It is asking them to enjoy food without requiring an animal to be confined, exploited, and killed. That seems less like extremism and more like progress.
The repair shop nearby was big, so much so that they called your name over an intercom when your vehicle was ready. After my name was called, the mechanic who had worked on my car told me that he had followed my campaign and liked what he had heard about me. "But," he said, "I could never vote for a Democrat." Words I'd heard dozens of times during my campaign. Democrats just couldn't be trusted, even when the betrayal of rural America - and working people more broadly - was bipartisan. So why has the GOP fared so much better with these voters?
I removed the bottom of the 14 gallon tote tote and cut 1/4” mesh to cover the entire bottom.
A snippet from this incredible article that you should absolutely read. “A desire to reassure immigrant families was the reason Chavarria decided to raise the Somali flag on school grounds on 5 December, three days after Donald Trump referred to Somalis as “garbage” in a cabinet meeting. When a video of the flag went viral on rightwing social media, staff had to temporarily take down the district’s website and social media accounts and unplug school phones because of death threats. Despite the onslaught, the staff kept the Somali flag up, beside the US and Vermont flags, through the following week to show support for Somali students, who make up about 9% of the school system’s student population. Chavarria – who, with his husband, stayed at a hotel for a few days following the episode after receiving death threats – said he believed if more school leaders publicly and vocally pushed back on Trump administration policies, Winooski wouldn’t be as big a target for hate. “It does feel like we are alone in an ocean,” he said.”
“ I do not want to see the Republican party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.” “I doubt if the Republican party could do so,” she added, “simply because I do not believe the American people will uphold any political party that puts political exploitation above national interest. Surely we Republicans are not that desperate for victory.” “I do not want to see the Republican party win that way,” she said. “While it might be a fleeting victory for the Republican party, it would be a more lasting defeat for the American people. Surely it would ultimately be suicide for the Republican party and the two-party system that has protected our American liberties from the dictatorship of a one-party system.” “As an American, I condemn a Republican….” Read the entire post here: https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/may-31-2026?r=18whyv&utm_medium=ios
Close-up of my lingonberry plants. The plants are barely a few inches tall and the blooms are half of its length! They look like a Seussian pink and yellow floof on a short, prim plant.
Unrolled my tomato seed snail to plant them this weekend (on an overcast, misty day). Wow! The seedlings were ridiculously strong and had longer roots than I’ve ever managed before. Note: I also planted the stems underground halfway. Don’t forget! For plants like tomatoes whose stems can also become roots it’s a great way to grow stronger plants.
On May 22, 1964, in a graduation speech at the University of Michigan, President Lyndon Johnson put a name to a new vision for the United States. He called it “the Great Society” and laid out the vision of a country that did not confine itself to making money, but rather used its post–World War II prosperity to “enrich and elevate our national life.” That Great Society would demand an end to poverty and racial injustice. But it would do more than that, he promised: it would enable every child to learn and grow, and it would create a society where people would use their leisure time to build and reflect, where cities would not just answer physical needs and the demands of commerce, but would also serve “the desire for beauty and the hunger for community.” It would protect the natural world and would be “a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.”
Bender's head flies off his body and he shouts, "Coming through!"
THE GREAT US SIDE SHOW On the stage two sniveling men have their beards intertwined. The left man's jacket says "America First" and the right has a swastika on his shirt. The ringmaster is shouting to the crowd: "And on this platform, folks, those most perplexing people... the Lads with the Siamese Beard! Unrelated by blood, they are joined in a manner that mystifies the mightiest minds in the land!"
The agreement says the amount dedicated to the fund "does not represent the value of any current claim by [Trump], but rather is based on the projected valuation of future claimants' claims" and thus "is not taxable income" for the Trumps, "who receive no economic benefit" from the agreement. But the number the Justice Department released for the establishment of the fund puts the lie to the idea the number was random. It is $1.776 billion, linking the fund directly to the attempt of Trump and his cronies to destroy American democracy and begin it again, on their terms.
Elderberries are slowing coloring the kefir water from the top down. You can see very dark berries on the top. The liquid just below them is a very deep purpley pink and the lower part of the jar is a peachy color from the pineapple water that has been able to mix a bit with the elderberry.
Upset with AI using up water? Wait until you hear avoid lawn. Posted by ‘Prairie Up.’
Dilute calico just lounging in a hammock made from an upturned cat bed hung on the ceiling. They’re great and so cheap! She was hearing one of her subjects (another cat) doing something noisily across the house and she appeared to be trying to decide if it was worth coming down for. It was not.
I want to pause for a moment and really ask you to imagine the horror of this. You are a single mother of two children, living in poverty, and trying to do what's best for your young daughter. You're already dealing with the trauma of having to take your teen out of state for medical care that you can't afford— then a state agent threatens to take your children and jail you for life.
Holding two small bushes with huuuuuuuge and hard-to-pull root systems.
Letter from insurance company says: “We care about your health and we want you to get the best care for your needs. But based on our review we can’t approve the request. We’d like to explain why and let you know what you can do next.” Liars.
Organic tomatoes were on sale. I had a bag of dried apricots getting drier. Boom! Vary the peppers, spices, fruits, whatever you want. Roast some, not others. Shake the jars everyday. Test it after a week.. it’s alive so keep it going to get better flavors and fragrances!
Picture of a maypole surrounded by about 8 ropes all around. Growing up each rope is a healthy, beautiful, floofy green hops bine! There's dappled shade underneath and plenty of room to plant other things or have a seating area. Gorgeous!
A dozen active hops rhizomes ready to pop into the ground. Hopefully it’ll rain in the next day or two. Those are the best days to plant!
Typical chicken farm where hens are kept in cages the size of one sheet of paper. Their legs become injured, broken and infected from living on wire. Their eggs fall down and are gathered while they are never allowed to stretch or move or live a life without pain. They never breathe clean air or see outdoors until they are on their way to a slaughterhouse. Don't forget that all male chicks are immediately killed -- either in a wood chipper, thrown against walls, throw into large dumpsters or piled together so that they suffocate as more are thrown onto the pile. Do not fall for advertising. Animal agriculture is always cruel. If you actually love animals you cannot use them, eat them, wear them or pay for them suffer.
A: I have attempted science B: please explain A: I formed an idea and then discovered I was wrong B: There are numerous diagrams A: I was wrong in numerous ways B: I produced a detailed tribute to my wrongness A: That is science