Oh geez this. My parents never let me try out new things if they would be messy or might fail. I wanted a veggie garden, nope. Baking, too messy. Tons of craft things were vetoed for a very long time too. Thankfully as an adult I’ve rekindled these desires, and i have a garden I cultivate and a sourdough starter going (as examples). But I do mourn the learning I could have done as a kid.
I’m determined to let my kid do messy things. Right now the messiest thing she can do is spit up, but when she’s older she can have so much play doh and dirt time and baking time.
(Play doh only if she’s not eating it)
I appreciate the sentiment (it hasn’t gotten better per se yet, but we’ve gotten more used to the… nature of the screams) and also I wanted to apologise for being rather combative in explaining the context— which, yeah, was definitely missing in the original post. Gonna edit that now to make this post less rant, more informative.
Yep this. I’ve been given the advice to step away from my baby when she’s crying if I’m overwhelmed and she’s in a safe place. That’s advice from basically every medical professional I’ve encountered during pregnancy and post partum. Because it is so, so important to not let your nerves get fried in an attempt to be a perfect parent, because letting your nerves get fried will lead to shit you’ll regret down the line. Be that shouting or checking out mentally or way worse stuff.
Ear plugs =/= can’t hear. Loops specifically are designed to allow you to hear but not have hearing damage.
My baby is colicky AF and will scream while we’re in the process of making her a bottle. Or while we’re burping her. Or when we have to pull the bottle away to wipe spit up. Or while we’re in the process of soothing her but not soothed yet.
I’m pretty patient (with children, not judgy parents though) but I’m not perfect. I can parent better and be more present while not massively overwhelmed by a noise designed by evolution to be horrible and intolerable.
My baby is 6 weeks old. I’ve been planning to buy some loop earplugs “soon”. Well she just discovered a kind of cry that reverberates in my amygdala, so “soon” was NOT SOON ENOUGH.
Sigh. I’m gonna buy loops once my partner is awake. Yknow, so I can ask what colour he wants his in…
Eta for context! Loops and ear defenders specifically don’t block all noise, they just reduce the decibels of loud sounds. So using them means you can be more physically present for a baby with colic (and probably other fun ailments that happen later) longer before you need to step away from your nerves being fried. This is especially life-saving for neurodivergent parents, obviously, but I’d bet most parents get stressed and tetchy during certain cries.
Tl;dr still always reply to your baby when they cry! And it’s okay to use tools that make the experience gentler on yourself.
I’m so sorry. I almost wanted to downvote this because I want to downvote the circumstance.
But heeeeeey that would sort childcare… woohoo…
The swaddle. My child has learned being awake is fun. Including at night. By the power invested in me by this swaddle blanket, she will learn the beauty of SLEEP.
I grew up such a people pleaser that this would have worked SO well on me. Stop leads to “why?” But my parent being upset, or god forbid dosappointed… those are some words of great power.
I swear my nearly 3 week old is starting to turn her head towards me, and occasionally even try to focus her eyes on me, when I speak to her up close.
She wasn’t even meant to be born for another 12 days! At least going by due dates. But honestly as much as I’ve researched adjusted age for preterm babies, I’m becoming convinced I can ignore all that. I can see her speeding towards the 2 month milestones (the first checkpoint, essentially). She’s not hit them yet, that would be crazy, but I’m seeing early signs like the above.
Also she read Watership Down.
Okay it was an abridged version for kids and I did the reading. But she liked the pictures.
Okay not strictly words, like at all, but the other day I had my baby in my lap and she randomly arched backwards, pursed her lips in an O, and after a dramatic pause let out a long “oooooooooooh”
I knew then I was sleep deprived because I lost my shit laughing.
Tl:dr; “ooooooooh”
So I gave birth to my first (likely only) child about 10 days ago. First off, I can’t comprehend how much I love her. But more to the point, I’m having such big emotions about her and the world I brought her into.
I’m big into climate activism and uh, in general doing my damnedest to ensure there is a world for her to grow up into.
So it’s so weird looking at her. Thinking about the kind of tasks she has ahead of her should she go down the activist path. Wondering what kind of struggles she’s gonna face thanks to my generation. And also, I’m aware she’s her own person and will become herself, not mini-me. But in light of all of that, whenever I look at her, I just feel so much hope. It’s so irrational, this child’s highest achievement so far is drinking 85ml of formula in one go. But I look at her and feel like we will be okay.
It’s a stark contrast from the typical doom n gloom around child-creation you find in activist circles. Stuff about overpopulation and dooming your progeny.
Anyways… does anyone feel the same? Am i just a super sappy postpartum person?
If your freshly born newborn doesn’t poop because she’s constipated, well they work surprisingly like toothpaste tubes if you hold their knees to their chest.
I’m sorry for the image. I’ve earned my “grit your teeth and do what you gotta” merit badge at just a week and a half postpartum, so I’m… happy?
I would love a general/weekly discussion post! Currently 8 months pregnant with my first, so I’ll take any chance to connect with other parents once she is here.
So I live in a touristy part of Scotland, and my street is absolutely overrun with "secondary lets" (i.e. someone buys a house in addition to their normal home, and instead of being a normal scumlord, they turn it into a short term rental situation like AirBnB). If you search on my street on booking.com or airbnb, there's a total of 9 that I'm able to count-- and we're a small street! And the next door neighbour has posted a notice on their window that they're seeking a licence to become an AirBnB themselves.
Things of note:
- They're already operating as a short term let. And it's obnoxious. And eroding the community spirit of the, well, community. Because a tourist here for a week is not a member of the street's community.
- When I say next door, I mean I live in a semi-detached house, so this airbnb is/"would be" literally attached to my house. (Americans, think duplex if that terminology is more familiar)
- I literally have not been able to meet the owner of this airbnb in the year I've lived here, which sucks because hey, I like to know my neighbours! But also because we had a rat problem in winter and their side of the building had a massive gaping hole in the front exterior wall, which the exterminator wanted to fill but couldn't because it wasn't our property. We left letters for the owner, even just to introduce ourselves, no dice. I'm salty, yes.
So on to the point of this post. I submitted an objection to this licencing, and was informed of its safe receipt today! But uh they also said in the email "there will be a meeting to discuss the licencing, you are invited to attend and make your objections in person"
I'm not exactly a stranger to public speaking, or trying to be persuasive. But I'm autistic as fuck, out of practice with said public speaking, and also like 8 months pregnant. But I recognise that showing up to speak is going to be influential, moreso than my letter. So I'm gonna haul my pregnant autistic ass to the wherever and make my statements. I do feel like being a heavily pregnant person is going to help my case from an emotional standpoint? Who knows.
But oh god. I'm nervous. I want to have solid facts, solid arguments behind my case. I don't want to come off as a petty NIMBY, I want to present myself as someone who cares about communities being eroded, who cares about people being unable to find affordable housing because everyone and their cat wants an airbnb, and I want to have sources to back myself up. I just feel a bit lost in finding those sources and knowing what to say. Heck, I don't even know what the council will ask! Or expect! Or what it'll be like!
I am taking any and all advice. I'll also be scrubbing the identifying details from my objection letter and sharing it in a comment here, if that's helpful at all.
Do note: "You can do it!" is also a VERY welcome comment right now.
Beautiful! And I bet it’ll be even more beautiful in bloom!
Do you harvest from this patch and eat them? I’ve never had prickly pear, but everyone I know who has raves about it. Therefor, I am jealous 😄
I would just like to both validate and challenge your view of the UK. I lived in Torquay (Devon, so the southwest) for a good long while, albeit during the height of lockdowns, and community felt nonexistant. There were some punk-type-folks attempting to get stuff started right when I moved away, but only just then iirc.
I moved to Inverness (Scottish Highlands) and it’s night and day. There’s a queer community doing hella shit, there’s a tool library popping off, lots of good local initiatives are being organised and taking off.
My kneejerk response is to say that Inverness beats the hell outta Torquay. But the thing is, about 4-5 years ago NONE OF THE STUFF I mentioned was going on. The queer meetup was organised by one dude who moved up from London and was gobsmacked that there wasn’t an active community. Now it’s consistently a huge, weekly event. There are even offshoots of quieter meetups that had to be created because the main one is So Successful. But all the local queers will tell you that before this started, they thought they were all alone up here.
And the tool library is only about a year old, but keeping on well.
So on one hand, yeah, I think the UK has a very… independent culture. But once someone identifies a need in a community and fills that need, people tend to show up and appreciate it.
Also, i reckon this is a good time to be an organiser. People are tired of being alone during a pandemic, people are tired of seeing what other communities do via the internet and want their communities to do the same.
Tl;dr be the change! There’s an appetite for it.
What an awesome thing. Reminds me of the Trans Couch Network on tumblr back in the day, I always wondered if there was something else to take its place.
(I have the same concerns as I did then of the potential for abuse, like someone else said, but I don’t have any actionable advice/etc yet. But queer housing is a major Thing to me so I might do some research/thinking on the subject of abuse mitigation, if that’s welcome)
I can see the concern, as a trans and nonbinary person, about the phrasing of the headline. Casual readers will totally think the actual guidance says “if you fuck up a person’s pronouns, you go to jail” or whatever.
But not the guidance itself. We need more protections against intentional, malicious misgendering as verbal harassment. Which is usually less “she said— oops, they said—“ and more stuff like “(female coworker) put has pronouns in her signature? I thought she was a REAL WOMAN”
(The second being a real example from a friends work place. Funny thing is, friend is stealth trans and the coworker being misgendered is cis, but i digress)
But yeah all that aside I think the real context is misgendering when someone needs the bathroom, e.g. “you’re in the wrong bathroom” type comments. Where we really need stronger protections.
I like option 2, I thought I would prefer Option 1 before I saw 2 but it’s executed really well in 2! Also, that illustration is gorgeous, and thank you for sharing the illustrator’s details. I want my next novel to be solarpunk, and I am definitely in the market for a new cover artist…
I need to add this and Murder in the Tool Library to my storygraph. And preorder/buy a copy of both tbh.
This looks like the kind of feeder a small bird would build for itself, and I mean that in the best way. I love it
Part of the issue could be in overlap of identities. I could have identified myself as transmasc on the poll, but I chose nonbinary instead. Both are true most days, anyways.
This makes me so happy because at least half of the things in community sufficiency column are things I see happening in my city. Saw a flier for a fermentation course recently as well as general veg growing, not to mention the community gardening initiative where people plant edible plants in public spaces. I still need to find a day I can help out with that one. Then we have a local mattress store that sells bespoke and/or handmade mattresses for affordable prices, and specifically employs disabled folk so they can be paid a living wage while upskilling. Then there’s the tool library that’s saved many a DIY project of mine…
I live in a chronically underfunded part of Scotland. In the past i lived in an underfunded part of England. Don’t get me wrong, no city should be underfunded to start with, that’s a government crime imo. But the Scottish city took underfunding and went “fuck the government, we have each other” while the English city just kept crumbling.
All of this said not to brag, but because it proves that this shit can work, does work, and is working. And i find that inspiring.
The other morning my dogs woke me up way too damn early, but it meant I got to watch a very fat pigeon on the power line behind my house, and I got to see the finch population rapidly increase around it. (I swear I saw one little bird and by the time I got out of bed there were 5 jetting around. Pigeon did not move.)
I agree that these are luxuries for a lot of people. Some of them can be found with mindset shifts (from "fuck you dogs" to "oh look, pretty birds" for example) but it's also hard to shift your mindset to positivity when our society tries its damnedest to beat happiness out of you.
Weird title, I know. But I've recently found out that I'm pregnant with my first child. It's an equal mix of anxiety, excitement, and anger at just how consumeristic having a goddamn baby is. So I'm curious how my fellow Solarpunks would handle the introduction of a new small mammal into their world.
My main concern revolves around Amazon and general gifting.
I live in the UK, but I'm from the US originally, and my family and most of my friends are back in the US. Their go-to for sending me anything is Amazon, because you can easily shop in the US and ship to my home in the UK. I've had mixed feelings about this for a long time, but now that my entire family is gonna want to Buy Something for Baby I'm especially cautious. I don't want to tell them not to buy anything (Well I do, but more on that later). But I absolutely do not want to receive anything from Amazon. Environmental, economical, political, and ethical concerns aside, I don't really trust items from Amazon to hold up like I'd want them to. Might not technically be an issue with baby clothes, since they'll be worn for a day at most, but anything else I come into possession of needs to be sturdy enough to be safe, and to be able to be reused/passed down/given to other parents in the community when no longer needed.
I found a website called LittleList that's a UK-based baby registry, which seems to allow people from anywhere to order anything to my door, and they even seem to have an emphasis on more eco friendly brands. My plan as a result is to tell people they can only order off of the LittleList registry, or they can just get a card for my family and/or baby. That said, I'll take advice for either how to get people to actually listen to this request, or for other, better requests to make.
My other concern with getting gifts (and even buying stuff myself) is I don't know what I'll actually need and use, and I'd hate to buy or receive useless stuff just to clutter my house. Also, I'm in Scotland, so the government will send us a box full of baby necessities when baby is born. I hope I can use this little fact to convince people that really, I don't need anything.
TL:DR; anyone have advice for how to keep people from inundating me and baby with cheap Amazon stuff?
I'm also wondering if there'd be interest in a solarpunk parenting community here, because god knows if I posted this on a generic parenting forum I'd get all kinds of people not getting it, and I know this won't be the last weird question I have.
(view this in gemini too! gemini://okasen.smol.pub/how-a-dress-becomes-a-sweater)
I just want to share this sweater DIY project I did last night in a furious anger at fast fashion. If anyone wants specific construction details, I can try to provide answers to questions! But in general, it was very slapdash and haphazard and I don't recommend anyone just jump straight into turning one piece of clothing into an entirely other piece. It takes a lot of practice and... battle-hardenedness... to not give up or be too perfectionist with this kinda stuff. So if you're already a sewist, give something like this a go! If you're not a sewist: become one!
(NOTE: this is mainly hosted on the gemini protocol, a New to Me thing that I've really enjoyed. If you want to get into the small internet, check out https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
If you're already a geminaut(?) you can find this post here: gemini://okasen.smol.pub/dead-cities)
I wanted to share this post I wrote on my tiny blog because it inspired me while writing it, so I thought it might inspire others to read it. The summary is "All life is futile so live anyways"
Also, I wanted to share how nice the smol internet is. It's really refreshing to write a post and know that it'll only be seen if I choose to share it (like, here) or put it on a feed like Antenna. I don't need to worry about too-catchy titles or clickbait or dreaded SEO.
I barely even edited this, mostly because I wrote it in vim and that sounds like a nightmare. But I'd love to know y'all's thoughts.
(Also I wasn't sure if this REALLY fit into solarpunk as a broad community, but... well I'm putting it here anyways. That said if anyone else wants a solarpunk-adjacent-personal-blogs community, I can make one and moderate?)
This is my smol.pub blog! It's on gemini, gopher and the web. I'm super stoked about this tiny interent. Here's the gemini link:
gemini://okasen.smol.pub/about
I'm also really liking astrobotany. Gemini link to my garden:
gemini://astrobotany.mozz.us/public/8a025bdd014c443e8fa21282674fa99b/m1
Put these gemini links into wobbly if you don't have a gemini browser!
https://warmedal.se/~wobbly/
(See also: My awesome gardening coveralls, which I made myself to be as Loud as possible. Also, one of my dogs)
I've recently bought a house and there's a LOT of work to be done in the back garden to get things ready for my purposes. Little by little I'm clearing away dead stuff and overgrown bushes... and oh god so much of it has thorns. but I'll persevere.
(But if anyone has a brand or type of garden glove they like for dealing with thorny plants, I'm all ears.)
I'm also curious what you all would do with all of the garden waste this generates? I have a bin I can put garden waste in, but before I start binning the clippings and such, I want to be sure they can't be used. I have started a compost pile that desperately needs more browns, but with regards to the greens it's getting quite full!
so this is the other end of animal husbandry, but I feel it's important to know how to deal with an animal on the cutting board with skill and respect before you ever dispatch one. I'll try not to make this too long and rambly, but here's my thoughts on why you should try to learn how to properly break down whole birds.
First, respect. I find that seeing an animal in a form that still looks vaguely like an animal helps build that connection in your mind that yes, this was a living creature once. And I think that's important when we're still buying chickens from the grocery store-- obviously if you're raising your own chickens already, you're more intimately aware of that. I have a lot of issues with the meat industry, and one of those is how sanitised and detached the meat buying process is. It's a lot easier to ignore that the food you're buying was once alive when it's a plastic package of seven breasts from 3 and a half different animals.
Second, frugality. I'm not saying it's strictly cheaper to buy chickens as whole birds vs. a pack of breasts or thighs, maybe like for like but I find when I buy a whole bird I'm more likely to purchase one that was as high-welfare as possible. But once I have that bird, I'm more likely to use the whole thing in a frugal mindset. I'm not going to toss the drumsticks if I don't like dark meat, or discard the skin. I worked hard to make that one bird into what can be around 10 meals (for a single person), and I'm going to appreciate each bit, up until all that's left is bones and I'm making stock.
Third, meal diversity. I know a lot of people just eat the breasts, but continuing from the second point, when you've broken down the entire bird you're kind of boxed in to making a meal with the drumsticks, with the thighs, with the wings. Maybe this is only a benefit to some people, but I feel like when I have ingredients I Must use I have an easier time deciding what I will make. And I'm pushed out of my comfort zone of diced chicken breast into remembering that there are recipes I love for thighs, and that I can make my own hot wings.
Anyways, now that I've hopefully convinced you that you should have this butchering skill whether or not you intend to raise meat chickens, here's a video I used to learn how to do it myself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTNEjPOixKY
Also please enjoy the photo of my recent chicken butchery... nobody make fun of me for having the shittiest plastic cutting board and knife, I just moved house and all of my nice stuff is still back in my old place and I needed Something on a tight budget so I could still cook. (But in general, if you're looking for a cutting board, get one made of wood. The heavier the better. These shitty plastic cutting boards are like chicken turntables I swear to god)
Hi, I escaped from r/solarpunk. Content Warning, this post is about raising animals for their meat, so may be upsetting to some. I'm putting this under farming because I couldn't identify a better community (maybe food?) but I'd be happy to move this topic into a new, specific community if that can be done.
Something that's been going in my mind for a bit is the role of backyard farming and homesteading in solarpunk. First caveat, I think vegetarianism/veganism for 99-100% of the diet of 99% of the population is a fantastic goal, but I think we need to have solutions for the interim where society is still coming around to the idea. Even people who want the best for the planet and animals might be intimidated by the prospect of veganism or even vegetarianism, whether or not they have sound reason for this.
While we're still reliant on animal meat, I think that moving our animal raising from big factory farms into local smallholdings or even our backyards would help immensely. On one hand, the welfare of a factory-farmed chicken pales in comparison to that of a chicken who grew up knowing love and foraging. Also, each meat-based meal that is grown at home or on a well-run smallholding diverts business from the factory farms that are killing our planet.
Quite frankly, I'm hoping to own chickens soon, mostly so I can have fresh/ethical eggs and share the same eggs with my community. But I'm not averse to raising chickens for meat either. In fact, my goal would be to stop eating meat entirely unless it came from my flock or a flock that I knew first hand was cared for to the same standards.
In my eyes, meat should be something you eat as a treat, and only if you can psychologically grapple with how it got to your plate and give due respect to the animal who provided it.
There's a lot I'd like to discuss about this, and I think it's important to discuss. I know the subject of veganism or lack thereof can get heated, but I think we need to have these hard conversations if we want to come together as a community with proper solutions for the future.
So tl:dr; does discussion of home-reared meat belong here? If so, does this align with anyone else's goals?