I'd probably replace the blue jay with a cardinal and instead slot the blue jays in with the honk squad. Not honk, but similar volume and propensity for chaos

The author is a little gimmicky but his advice is legit. For example, he claims his "Conscious Spending Plan" isn't a budget - it's a budget. He knows his stuff, though, even though he does all the usual influencer things of trying to sell courses, etc.

This looks awesome! I love the way the vine is twining around the line of the tear

I'm my experience tears like that are hard to fix by just stitching the two sides back together - if it comes apart again it might benefit from a patch, which you could put on the inside if you want to keep the current look

The cityscape looks much like Lowell, MA or Manchester, NH - I'm a big fan of the brickwork of the old mill towns along the Merrimack River. Great work as always!

I've been harvesting lots of kale, radish, and lettuce for salads. In hindsight I should have staggered my radish plantings a bit because they're all maturing at the same time - and some are getting quite spicy!

Miraculously the two blueberry bushes I planted last year which subsequently got chomped down to sticks have survived and leafed out, so I'm pleased about that. Also spotted a wild grape vine growing near by which I'm going to encourage.

The corn's starting to come up now, and it's that fun time of year where stuff starts just taking off.

Cucumbers and tomatoes are getting nicely established, and the corn is starting to come up in the 3 sister mounds. I spotted the first snap pea flower today. Love this time of year!

I also recently tried spicebush tea for the first time, which was amazing - I will be thoroughly enjoying the 5 or so bushes I found in the woods out back!

Planting the garden is well underway, we added a bunch of new beds this year. We've been building tomato cages out of last year's sunflower stalks, you can see a partially constructed one on the right. The cucumbers in the center will get something more conventional with metal stakes and netting. I also just acquired a spicebush, which I'm very excited to put in the ground! Just gotta figure out the right location.

AntennaPod is good on android

My seed order arrived last week, planning to start at least the onions soon!

This solar powered electric cooker operates on a kind of similar principle (store up heat to cook food using minimal continuous energy input), and is a good example of one way to construct the insulation - https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2025/10/how-to-build-a-solar-powered-electric-oven/

I don't think the intent or messaging should be to shame people for their choices in buying ultra processed convenience foods - because the real problem is that they don't have the choice. Systemic factors have made whole, locally produced, healthy foods inaccessible for too many people - food deserts and the consolidation of the agricultural and food production sectors, and the fact that people juggling multiple jobs and childcare just don't have the time to prepare meals from scratch.

Systemic problems require collective solutions, either from government or from direct organizing. But the first step is to identify the problem and research the harms that UPF and long supply chains cause.