The Woods

Happy dog and I went off into the woods today.
Every spring, there is a temporary pond here.  It is a rather pretty, if buggy, spot.

 The May Apples are coming up all over the place.  

 

We are having a pleasant old-fashioned spring up here this year.  Some rain, some clouds, some sun.  Cool at night.  The snowdrops have been out.  So have the straw flowers.  The crocuses are flowering madly back in civ.

These particular woods were logged, thus many of the trees are young.  They were also parceled out into farm plots at one time.  So there are stone walls running through the woods too.

Some four wheelers have been trying to block off some of the trails.  Someone got annoyed enough to put up a notice.  [I erased the name and phone number of the one person who actually did sign it].  

 

  I'm pretty sure that the notice will not be effective.  I never thought of putting the words "degenerate" and "imps" together.  I figure the four wheelers dragging blow-down onto the trails are just a few kids fooling around.

 These woods are not alpine.  They are multi-use.  Everyone is allowed in: four wheelers, paint-ballers, people with and without dogs, even the solitary man who feels compelled to leave bird food by a stump here in these woods.

The trails this time of year are soft and covered with fallen leaves.

  Happy dog and I came back refreshed and ready to face a new day.

 

sapphoq n friends say:  I love the woods.

p.s.  Copyright trolls, go away.  I took the pics.  Enough already.

On Friendship

Friends drift in and out of my life.  I drift in and out of theirs.  We know where to find each other.  And that is good.  

I have learned-- really really learned this year-- something about being.  I have mitigated the harshness of my inner critic.  I have turned down the volume of the incessant reviews in my brain.  Yes, I have learned a new way of being.  

There's something about respect.  Something about believing in the possibilities that is each of us.  Something about allowing others to have their own journeys just as I have mine.  We are all different, but not so different that we cannot recognize ourselves in others and others in ourselves.

And yet, there is something else there.  Something that fiercely informs me that I will no longer be taken advantage of, that I am not a sheeple, that I protest.  Anger has become my truest friend.  Not my only friend, as a few people have mistakenly thought.  My truest friend.

I have been lonely too.  Not so lonely that my socks talk to each other in public.  But lonely enough.  I have felt the vastness of the universe.  We are each of us alone in our own skins.

I am a tiny speck among other tiny specks.  A bunch of specks can form a dirt pile.  It takes one person to start a revolution.  One person and a friend to gain momentum.  When you kick our dirt pile, we reform.  We are a mass of dirt piles.  We stir up and clink to your leather shoes and your lilly-white garments.  We interrogate authority.  We agitate for change.  We clog your vacuum cleaner when you try to suck us up.

There's something to be said for solidarity within the protest lines.  There's something deep about a bunch of dirt clumping together.  We form a network which plants ideas and dreams.  We know how to live.

sapphoq n friends     

And the Suckage that is CISPA continues

   

Tweets not loading?  Then go here to: https://cyberspying.eff.org/

Because CISPA really sucks...

More Frog Tags for Your Collection

These are public domain pics.  I added the words.

The horned frog and the blue dart were photos taken by Adrian Arpingstone and placed into the public domain by him.

The dumpy was found at the www.public-domain-images.com site.

As usual, no hot-linking please.  Right click and save the ones you want to snag to your computer.  Thanks.

    

Sharing is NOT Stealing, Frogs, and Tags

I love frogs.  I have some captive-bred frogs in tanks.  Currently I have eight frogs.  In one tank, I've got an African Pyxie male.  The other tank houses two green tree frogs and five fire-bellies.  

Frogs require care just like any other specimen would.  The water has to be kept as carefully as water for a fish tank does.  Frogs are sensitive to bacteria because their skins are semi-permeable.  Each species comes with its' own temperature, light, and environmental needs.  My tree frogs and fire-belly toads prefer community living.  They have a semi-aquatic tank with rocky pullouts, a mini-waterfall, some vines for climbing and some other stuff.  They mostly eat crickets.  The tank itself is also tall so the tree frogs have adequate space for climbing and jumping around.  The African bullfrog has a tank of sterile moss with a water-dish and a resting rock.  He prefers to sit in his water-dish much of the time.  Occasionally, he will climb out and dig out a hole to hide in.  

If you [or your kids] want frogs or other sorts of amphibians or reptiles, please do your research first.  Although many of the herp books are lacking, there is good info out on the web.  A few places have a herp rescue or a herp club.  Don't take any animals from the wild.  Please buy captive-breds only and have your tank set up before you bring them home.  

Here are some tags I made with pictures of a few of my frogs:  As usual, if you want them, right-click to save to your computer.  No hot-linking.  Thanks.

By the way, if you happen to be one of those RIAA type midgets, I mean people, know that I took these photographs myself and added the captions myself.  They are mine to do as I wish with them.  The originals are stored on my computer.  I hate what you are doing.

Copyleft forever.  Sharing is not stealing.

sapphoq n friends     

Crypto.me

If you haven't been to crypto.me yet, you owe it to yourself to go check it out.  Crypto is a suppositor repository of documents from various sources.  Quite interesting stuff.

While poking around over there, I surfed through chat logs of a [now] known snitch and several anon members, wandered through a bunch of emails that people in professional sorts of agencies never should have written, read about various plans and visions that various American governmental agencies have for the Internet.  None of it was uplifting.  Much of it was frightening or depressing.  And yes, Facebook really should be renamed Fedbook [in my unasked for un-humble opinion].  I've thought this for a long time now.  A few documents over there illustrate my point perfectly.

sapphoq n friends say:  The government is not our friend.  Neither are some big name companies that are helping the creation of a modern-day espionage state.    
 

An Elitist Looks at Healing

I am privileged.  These words are not easy for me to write.  Even in my reluctance, I know these words to be true.

I am privileged.  I was born in a hospital, I had more than enough food and clothing and shelter growing up, I had the advantage of a formal education, a roof over my head, and family.

I am privileged.  When I got sick, I went to a doctor.  When I was bored, I could walk to a friend's house, take a bus downtown, watch television.  

I am privileged.  Although I have experienced some prejudice and discrimination in my life, I have not been shot at, maimed, or killed because of the simple fact of my existence.  I was able to practice the religion of my parents' choosing, write poetry, travel.  No one insisted that I sit in the back of the bus.  I was not considered to be an enemy of the state due to my political leanings.

A privileged upbringing usually yields a privileged adult.  I am not an exception to that axiom.  I am privileged.  As a privileged adult, I have options.  I do not always know what my options are, but I do have them.  I am not living under a bridge or in a rat-infested slum.  I do not have to pick through garbage in order to eat.  The water that I drink does not make me sick.  I have the use of a computer.  I have a refrigerator, stove, sink, toilet, bed, houseplants, pets, family, friends.  I have books.

Not everyone has adequate shelter, sanitary food, enough clothing.  Not everyone has seen a dentist.  Not everyone has access to a library, to the Internet, to a voting machine.  I am elitist scum; a materialist surrounded by consumerism and the urge to acquire more, more, more.  I am privileged.

How glibly I can speak of things like healing and empowerment while sitting in the stink of my privilege.  I am privileged.  I have not had to suffer because of an accident of birth or circumstances or geography.  Kids beg on the streets-- I've seen that in Reynosa, Mexico.  A family lives in a tin shack outside of Biloxi, Mississippi or in the Yucatan.  A teen gets raped in a troubled teen industry facility in Utah or in Jamaica by the staff that is supposed to be helping.  Someone's teeth are rotting out.  Another baby dies tonight.

I am privileged.  What nerve I must possess to engage in mental masturbations as if serenity and rainbows are the mark of a successful life.  My self-satisfaction makes me want to vomit.  To speak of healing to someone who does not have access to medical treatment is treason.  To speak of empowerment to someone who will die in enslavement is unjust.  Inequity is not solved by political rhetoric or clean hands.  Calling myself a radical means nothing without meaningful action.  If there is to be a revolution, I have to part with some of that privilege.