awkwardbabyseal

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What I was taught growing up: Wild edible plants and animals were just so naturally abundant that the indigenous people of my area, namely western Washington state, didn't have to develop agriculture and could just easily forage/hunt for all their needs.

The first pebble in what would become a landslide: Native peoples practiced intentional fire, which kept the trees from growing over the camas praire.

The next: PNW native peoples intentionally planted and cultivated forest gardens, and we can still see the increase in biodiversity where these gardens were today.

The next: We have an oak prairie savanna ecosystem that was intentionally maintained via intentional fire (which they were banned from doing for like, 100 years and we're just now starting to do again), and this ecosystem is disappearing as Douglas firs spread, invasive species take over, and land is turned into European-style agricultural systems.

The Land Slide: Actually, the native peoples had a complex agricultural and food processing system that allowed them to meet all their needs throughout the year, including storing food for the long, wet, dark winter. They collected a wide variety of plant foods (along with the salmon, deer, and other animals they hunted), from seaweeds to roots to berries, and they also managed these food systems via not only burning, but pruning, weeding, planting, digging/tilling, selectively harvesting root crops so that smaller ones were left behind to grow and the biggest were left to reseed, and careful harvesting at particular times for each species that both ensured their perennial (!) crops would continue thriving and that harvest occurred at the best time for the best quality food. American settlers were willfully ignorant of the complex agricultural system, because being thus allowed them to claim the land wasn't being used. Native peoples were actively managing the ecosystem to produce their food, in a sustainable manner that increased biodiversity, thus benefiting not only themselves but other species as well.

So that's cool. If you want to read more, I suggest "Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of Northwestern North America" by Nancy J. Turner

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this has been said before but I feel like it is very important to view being kind as something you do rather than something that you are because all people have the capacity for meanness and cruelty and often use it inadvertently but the point is to change your behavior and your attitude and practice paying attention and being selfless and sincere and vulnerable and putting kindness and warmth into your actions and words instead of being like oh I value kindness and thus I am such a good person. like it’s about the attempt

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i’m printing this out and i’m putting it on the mirror so i can confront myself with it

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I don’t know how to say this in a way that doesn’t sound like I’m advocating for casual cruelty or whatever but something that grates so much about this current social moment is how many people are incapable of saying they dislike something or someone without cooking up some higher morally correct reason for their dislike. Sometimes you just disliked a book. Sometimes you don’t “get” an actor or a musician. There’s nothing morally wrong with your girl’s fuckass boyfriend he’s literally just annoying and you’re annoyed that you have to pretend you like him when you know he’ll be history in six months. It’s fine. You don’t need to justify your dislike.

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It is May 17, 2024. Happy 20th Anniversary to legal status for same sex marriages here in Massachusetts.

Never forget how recent some of our victories are. And how many more fights still lay ahead.

For our Trans siblings, our disabled siblings, our POC siblings, we fight on.

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x

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Republicans not wanting to fund libraries is part of their plan to make the next generation illiterate. That is why they are banning books too.

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One time I ate probably way too many mushrooms and I could feel my trip going bad. So, I turned to my roommate and I said something along the lines of,

"I feel amazing but I feel like this sensation has a price and I'm about to pay it."

To which he responded, "What are you, catholic?" And that knocked me so firmly out of my mental state that the rest of the trip was hands down the best time I ever did mushrooms.

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found these on twitter that might be helpful to all rpers who want to make sure their themes and carrds are accessible to all

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things i've heard environmental science majors say:

"For the test we'll need to tell the different flavours of mayflies apart." / "Did you just say flavours?"

"It amazes me how many city kids are in this program." / "We're all desperate to get out of this city."

"I think everyone who attended all the surface water pollution lab sections should be allowed to lick one piece of glassware of their choosing. Y'know, as a treat."

"Professor, nobody goes into this major unless they like to eat dirt." / "Great, so you can talk the Students' Association into convincing the board to give me funding for my trees?"

"What're we toasting to?" / "Nitrogen pollution."

"You look frustrated. What's up?" / "I had twenty-one Leptophlebiidae in my dish. He's going to think I'm lying about how many Leptophlebiidae are in my dish."

"If you weren't raised by Wall-E, do you even belong in this class?" / "The Onceler." / "Fuck, good point."

"Dude, I spent the whole exam trying not to sink my teeth into a really, really juicy bug in my sample—" / "Cranefly?" / "...yeah."

"Well, just make sure you're not (person)'s lab partner. Last weekend's trip involved him leaving too many fish in the dirt for the professor's liking."

[exhausted chorus] "And the fish go belly-up."

"What's the major difference between east coast and west coast soils?" / "Alcoholism."

"Got any plans for the holidays?" / "Gonna go home and listen to my entire extended family call me a tree-hugging hippie." / "Aren't we all?"