Cassie 🌿 64c Piedmont Uplands

Mid-elementary-aged child with shoulder length hair grins goofily from behind a turkey leg. He is outside, surrounded by greenery, people in renaissance garb, and heraldic flags.

I still exist - but have been flaring for ages. Cooler temperatures mean more ow but also more awake time and less fog, which bodes well, I hope.

Meanwhile, enjoy kid's-first-ren-faire photo.

A short, wide glass vase filled with clay and volcanic rock substrate, with several chaotic Hoya cuttings in it.

So far, this is the easiest and most effective way I've found to root Hoyas. It's a big glass vase I fill with a mix of leca and pon and put a bunch of different cuttings. Didn't think to take the pic until I'd moved half to pots. I fill to about 1/3 with water and don't let it go completely dry.

Here's a close up of a (maybe Harmony's Rockin' Robin?) red Rex Begonia baby with some Selaginella and Fittonia in a prop box.

Six little mossy-ferny Selaginella varieties in a prop box with homemade potting mix. They are orderly little mounds, like topiary.

Rarer, ranger, more selaginella in another prop box

I have been putting together propagation boxes, which are basically clear plastic tote greenhouses. Mine have a lot of sustainably-sampled foraged native moss, and some tropical things I've bought. I'm hoping I can trade bits to increase box and future terrarium variety.

Vakarinye, a long haired black cat, curled up on a pale green, yellow, and blue bedspread.

Please enjoy your caturday. #catsofbluesky

I pretty regularly reply to Facebook marketplace listings in which folks are trying to sell or give away invasive non-native plant species to ask them not to. It doesn't often go anywhere, let alone result in a conversation that goes well, but it's nice when it does.

Blurry photo of a 9-year-old with his whole face anyone through the trailing tendrils of a rhipsalis plant.

The child was dismayed about this rhipsalis because it's another thing I will pay attention to that's not him.

But then I tickled him with it.

And had to continue until my arm just about fell off.

Bwahahahaha my A1C is 6! It hasn't been that low for years. ALMOST worth the horror of getting tests done to hear it. #type2diabetes

The seed pod cluster thingy of the Magnolia grandiflora, or Southern Magnolia, photographed in my hand over a wood floor.

Would anyone like to do a weird seed pod etc exchange for #terrariums?

Would need to figure out how to sterilize them without destroying them before shipping to avoid spreading invasive species, but I've got these and sweet gum balls and more just rolling toward storm drains.

Cat hair: gratis.

Close up image of a green, brown, ivory, and purple polypore.

Pretty turkey tail. I think. #trametesversicolor #polypores #fungusidentification

CUTE!

Close photo of tree bark with brown-green moss and two types of polypore on it - white on one side and gray-black on the other.

Ceiling shelf fungus and basement shelf fungus. #polypores #celestialbattle #decomposition

I went for a walk in the woods with my family and without my cane or rollythingy, and I may be half dead, but I feel awesome about it.

Small black cat curls around enormous creamsicle cat. Her (black) tail is draped over his haunches.

Breaking: 7 lb Vakka is now is now just about big spooning 18 lb Diddy. With tail blanketing.

I half hope to die happy before encountering the news again.

I shall endeavor to post them!

Close shot of black cat and orange cat's paws, touching.

... So this development is a balm to my much abraded heart in these times.

I'm honored to have been chosen as human to be present in case intervention was needed, too.

Didymus, orange, left, pines for vakka, black, right, from closer proximity than had historically been allowed as she gazes out a window. There are maybe eight inches between them. This is a few months ago now.

Didymus at a healthy weight is more than his younger sisters weight together, though, and is, well, orange. And Zhem is as jumpy as he used to be. And Vakka takes no sass from anyone. So Didymus has just been pinning the last three years. But Zhem seems to half consent to playing sometimes lately, &

2 small cats on a red blanket, long-haired black to the left and short haired table to the right. Tabby has a paw of the photographers outstretched hand.

So when some months after we lost Hob we adopted a these bonded sisters, who'd spent half their nearly 3 years of life at the pound, we hoped they'd help Diddy heal. That's Vakarinye, dust sprite, on the left, and Zhemyna, tabby, on the right. After 3 years, they sometimes brave laps for pets.

Creamsicle cat sits on adult humans chest between said human and his laptop on a paisley recliner, dispensing perhaps uncomfortable amounts of affection.

But Didymus took it especially hard and has basically tried, desperate, to make my spouse Gob's proxy. He was less frantic in his snuggles with Gob but still sometimes seems to try to inveigle himself under M's skin (or into his armpit) to hide.

Toddler asleep entangled with a very pleased cat who is enormous enough to probably still be bigger than the toddler, in a paisley recliner.

Hob died around 4-5 years ago and that is still what my kid thinks about whenever there is grief. He was the sort of cat we will all miss forever. He took care of us all in a way that made everyone who met him feel seen and loved.

Creamsicle cat grooms tabby and white cat with persian squished face. Both are long haired and improbably enormous.

Except with his friend, Hobgoblin, who I found emaciated and alone at a rural rest stop several years before and who was absolutely made of love.

The wide eyed face of a hyper vigilant creamsicle cat.

Didymus, orange, has been with us almost nine years. We adopted him as a nearly full grown kitten who'd been abandoned with his mother and sister into the care of a friend who was only briefly supposed to be pet sitting them. He was terrified of everything, especially kids. Eyes always like this.

On a yellow and blue floral bedspread, a black cat and a pale orange cat lie curled toward each other, slightly touching.

This is happening right now, and it's a long-hoped-for moment between a couple of adopted cats with separate, sad histories of abandonment. #adoptdon'tshop #catsofbluesky #snuggling

Thank you! There's rubber sealant all over the wood inside and various other attempts to prevent mayhem. Still working out temperature and humidity, and will probably add more lights.

Large wood curio cabinet full of houseplants, mostly hoyas and epiphytic cacti

The plant cabinet is welcoming some epiphytic cacti. #epiphyllum #disocactus #rhipsalis #pseudorhipsalis #lepismium #kimnachia #selenicereus #schlumbergera #hatiora #pfeiffera

Small red clapboard and red brick cape cod house with a large yard, lots of trees, and water behind it.

The side of a red cape cod house shot from low in the field/forest next to it.

Canada geese stroll by a backyard lamp post with white pines and a huge silver maple behind them, and water beyond that.

A view of a large back yard sloping down to a lake-sized pond, with a strip of causeway holding a bike path beyond, and the mile-wide Mohawk River beyond that, with a wooded island in the middle of the river and a huge wooded nature preserve as far as the eye can see beyond that. ... Okay not much is clear beyond the bike path from this vantage, which follows the Erie Canal, but you can see it all from the second storey, especially.

Pictured: where @wearegonnafindout.bsky.social and I grew up and a lot of why we are who we are.

If you know a native plant person or other environmentalist in upstate NY, who might want to rent a place...

Clear plastic containers containing coco coir sit on a deck, several with visibly sprouting seeds inside.

The side of a row of stacked clear plastic shoe boxes, with native plant labels visible.

Weird discovery: plastic shoe boxes (got used) seem to be the most effective #wintersowing containers I've yet tried. It's not apples to apples, because different species, but they're doing way better than my milk jugs. #nativeplants

Two white women with brown hair blowing in the wind smiling with their heads together, outside in front of a bunch of parked tractor trailers, 18 wheelers, big rigs, or what you will.

Sister tailgate selfie because BIL got a Lightning and we are cosplaying as truck people. With @wearegonnafindout.bsky.social on the left.

Moody sky distant skyline of NYC with marsh, radio towers, invasive phragmites, and a billboard that asks if you got hurt in Jersey in the foreground.

Pretty sure Hackensack is a directive if Jersey hurt you. #marauding

Under moody clouds, the distant skyline of Manhattan, underlined by a train in the foreground.

@wearegonnafindout.bsky.social and I are feeling grateful for the NE Corridor. #nyc #trains #graysky on #bluesky

They're happening to you personally. They're very personal. They just also are happening to a lot of other people, too. People who can hopefully work together to salvage things