Hi Friends! I wanted to have a huge political rant, but I know many of you are being extremely careful about how and when you take in certain subjects these days, so I put my rants and links under the “Reading” heading at the end of the post and labeled it “politics” so you can skip it if you need to. I can’t promise I will always do this, but I will try to remain cognizant of how folks are trying to protect their mental health. Onward!
The weather continues its wild swinging. Friday it was 74F/23C and yesterday is 39F/4C with rain and a little sleet. We got a lot of rain overnight and into this morning and currently it’s a gorgeous 31F/-1C and snowing. Most of the week looks just as crappy. Of course the beautiful warm sunny day happened when I had to spend it indoors at work. Spring really sucks this year.
So I soothed my sorrows by dreaming over the newly released Friends School Plant Sale catalog. Because I don’t have to face reality yet, I went through and marked all sorts of plants that seemed interesting. Fig tree? Sure! I’ll totally grow it in a huge pot I can drag indoors to overwinter. Wonderberries? Bring ’em. Russian Sage, definitely and this time I will protect it from the squirrels digging it up. Then of course there are all the perennial medicinal herbs, not to mention the serviceberry tree and jostaberry. I don’t need to get real about any of this until the end of April around Easter time and I am determined to enjoy the dreaming while I can.
I got surprise seeds in the mail Thursday. Two seed packets I ordered from Fedco back in January were on backorder and I didn’t even know it. One of them, spilanthes, is an annual medicinal herb that has arrived just in time for me to sow indoors next weekend. The other, snakeroot, is a native perennial that needs cold stratification for which it is too late in spite of the wild temperature swings we’re having. That will have to wait until fall/winter. A bit disappointed about that, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
I did notice the other day that one of my cold stratification pots has a lupine sprout in it! So excited. The trick will be keeping the rabbits out of the garden so they don’t eat it. While I am outdoors, the tulips are poking up, a couple of crocus leaves are reaching out through the leaf mulch, and Silver Maple is flowering. If Silver Maple is flowering that means other trees are, or will be, flowering which means my seasonal allergies are about to kick into high gear. Yay.
In terms of the indoor seed starting operation, I’ve given up on the jalapeños sprouting and planted tithonia (Mexican sunflower) and white sage in the empty pots. Now watch, the peppers will sprout. Heh. Also planted indoors this weekend, German chamomile and zaatar oregano. From here on out the indoor seed sowing slows down with only a few things left to sow each week. This is a good thing because my seed starting shelves are crowded.
From the seeds I sowed last week, the fennel, basil, and tulsi are all up. The tarragon is being stubborn. The celosia is also sprouting teeny tiny sprouts that make me wonder how they could ever grow into foot tall flowering plants. Meanwhile the tomatoes and peppers have gotten true leaves and the onions are to the point when I need to start trimming their tops. It feels like everything is growing so fast and not fast enough.
I’m extra concerned about growing a garden this year after grocery shopping yesterday. Organic Broccoli from California is $3.99 a pound. Fair trade vegan dark chocolate chips are $15.99 a pound. And organic fair trade coffee? The really good stuff was “on sale” for $18 a pound. Needless to say we did not get the good stuff, but even the not good stuff was expensive. We also got some loose leaf English Breakfast tea to try out at breakfast some morning instead of coffee. Climate change and global collapse at the grocery store. It’s not going to get better, so I need to get better at growing and preserving.
On the side of joy, the redwing blackbirds are back. Ever since a noticeable contingent of robins began overwintering several years ago, the redwing blackbirds have become the harbingers of spring. I pass by a water retention pond to and from my way to work everyday. The pond is fenced off and more than half of it is surrounded by cattails. There are redwings who nest here every year. I was so happy to hear them singing on my way to work in the dark a few days ago, and then see and hear them on my way home in the afternoon. Also in the pond is a pair of Canadian geese. There was a pair who raised four goslings there last year, I wonder of these are the same pair? Joining the geese this year is a pair of ducks, mallards I think, but I’ve not been able to confirm since I’ve only heard them quacking in the dark morning and seen their silhouettes. Maybe there will be goslings and ducklings to admire and watch grow up this year!
Reading
- Essay: London Review of Books: This is Wrong by Judith Butler. Butler, philosopher and author perhaps most famous for their book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, takes on Trump’s Executive Order 14168, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. They pick it apart piece by piece and expose it for the authoritarian piece of shit it is.
- Article: Laughing Squid: 18th Century Portuguese Library Employs Bats to Protect Their Priceless Manuscripts From Insects. There’s video of the gorgeous library and I zipped through it looking for bats, but alas, didn’t see any flying around. The library staff apparently has to cover tables and things at night to protect them from bat guano and then clean up the floors in the morning after the bats are done “working.” I wonder if that falls under “other duties as assigned?”
- Politics: Biglaw firm Paul Weiss is getting loads of bad press for caving in to Trump’s demands. They allegedly have some billions in revenue that they could have used to fight the good fight. Since Associates do the majority of work at Biglaw firms, there are rumblings that there is a movement afoot to organize and possibly strike if firms continue to cave in. This is a good thing because we are going to need lawyers willing to fight the good fight. U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has already floated the idea Congress can eliminate entire district courts in order to get rid of “activist” judges who are blocking Trump’s agenda. This is classic fascism folks. Meanwhile Jeff Bezos has filed a lawsuit arguing the Consumer Protection Safety Commission is unconstitutional (scroll down past the top headline articles). The CPSC’s job is to identify and recall dangerous products like kid’s pajamas that catch on fire or hair dryers that electrocute people. Under current law, because Amazon sold the goods, they are liable for issuing the recalls and refunding the people who purchased them. They already tried to say they had no responsibility in a previous failed suit. Now they are aiming to abolish the entire regulatory agency. But why not? I mean, the Florida legislature is currently debating state labor laws. With all the rounding up or immigrants there are so many jobs that need to be filled, so why not get rid of some pesky child labor laws? If the bill passes, children as young as 14 will be permitted to work overnight jobs even on school days. Since at the rate we’re going there won’t be anything left of public education anyway and all those kids need something to do so they might as well be put to work. And if all that isn’t appalling enough, there is the Executive Order signed March 27th, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. This order claims the “objective facts” of our nation’s history have been distorted by an ideologically driven revisionist movement that has been trying to undermine this country by arguing that this Perfect Union is flawed with racism, sexism, and oppression. To whit: A Smithsonian exhibit “The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture” that had the temerity to promote the view “that race is not a biological reality but a social construct, stating ‘Race is a human invention.'” Yes, you read that right, the U.S. government now proclaims that race is biological. Don’t be surprised when we get an Executive Order establishing the new governmental department of eugenics.
Quote
“Then again, that word, ‘efficiency,’ has no meaning anymore. In fact, I believe the definition is now ‘the state or quality of having been ruined by self-assured men who were not loved properly as children and who have not received nearly enough elbows to their faces as adults.’
Kenny Blumenfeld, Minnesota Meteorologist in his Weather and BS newsletter
Listening
- Podcast: Slow Burn: Season 8: Becoming Justice Thomas. This is a new to me podcast and season 8 is from a couple of years ago, but I’ve been wondering for ages how the heck Justice Thomas got to be the way he is. There are four episodes and I’ve listened to the first two, wow, he went from memorizing Malcom X speeches to deciding that racial preferences, from which he has been a beneficiary, are degrading. Fascinating.
- Podcast: How to Survive the End of the World: Is This the Rapture? with Roan Boucher. Another new to me podcast. This one is hosted by sisters adrienne marie brown and Autumn Brown. I discovered that Autumn currently resides in Minneapolis! This particular episode is about Christian Nationalism, what is it and what are their goals. The discussion also touches on Christian Zionism and the New Apostolic Reformation.
James’s Kitchen Wizardy
James made a dinner earlier in the week that was so delicious I thought, dang I have to be sure to include this wizardry on my blog. Unfortunately I no longer remember what the meal was! I do, however remember the treat James made yesterday: oatmeal raisin ice cream sandwiches. The fact that I can’t remember a delicious, healthy dinner but can remember ice cream sandwiches clearly reveals where my priorities lie.
Oh maybe I should start some tulsi….
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Oh Anju, I highly recommend it! I grew tulsi for the first time last year. It smells divine and when it flowers the bees love it. The leaves add some nice flavor in salads too. But it’s main draw, if you have seasonal allergies, is as a tea. It is anti-inflammatory and with a little mint added, calms the allergies and opens up the breathing passages. It’s quite soothing.
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Those ice cream sandwiches look so thick! I’m wondering how you bit into them, lol. Thank you for the disclaimer at the top. I need that. And if you ever forget to add it, that’s still something tad that I know is my responsibility. You write the post, people read them if they want to. I’m hoping that by expressing your political feelings, you do feel better. Or perhaps get some engaging conversation in the comments? Also, I laughed when you started talking about going through the catalog again. I was thinking, I just read Stefanie’s post yesterday about not even remembering what she did with all of her starter seed pots! Haha. Lastly, I got caught in the rain yesterday when I walked to the grocery store, and all I kept thinking was, Stefanie is so brave for riding a bicycle through the rain in the snow and all the other crap. She’s a superhero.
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They were pretty thick Melanie which is why I ate mine in a bowl with a spoon 🙂
Spring has been so chaotic this year that I need all the green therapy I can get!
Aw, thanks. Sorry you got caught in the rain. It’s no fun if you aren’t prepared for it. I’m no superhero. As I’ve heard from a number of year-round cyclists, there is no bad weather, only bad clothing choices 🙂
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I always enjoy reading about your garden, Stefanie, but I value your thoughtful engagements with the wider world even more. The best is when you link the two together. And I’d never think of your words as “rants”.
It’s good of you to consider people who don’t want to hear about politics, but I saw an interesting quote from Laila Lalami on Marcie’s latest post: “It’s the ultimate white privilege to be able to ignore politics.” What’s happening in the world right now is truly upsetting and I completely understand why people want to look away, but I don’t think we get to do that. To do that is to accept that the dismantling of the rule of law is normal, the attacks on minorities of all kinds are normal, and so on. This is not the kind of politics we’ve known before, where we could agree to disagree on whether Party A was better than Party B. This is about whether we want to continue to have democracy at all.
The drift to authoritarianism is not limited to the US either. Your mention of the Friends School made me think of a recent police raid on a Quaker meeting house in London: https://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/quakers-condemn-police-raid-on-westminster-meeting-house. We all need to be alert to this and to speak up while we still can. I love the way you do that, and I hope you continue to do it. Some may find it depressing, but I actually find it comforting to know that there are good people out there who see what’s going on and are saying, a la Judith Butler, “This is wrong.” The depressing thing for me is when these kinds of horrors are met by silence.
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Thank you for your wonderful comment Andrew! Lalami is quite right and it is good to be reminded of that. I will rethink moving politics to the footnotes so to speak. If something is so vitally important, it should be more prominent.
The Quakers! How can the police even get away with that? They were holding a meeting and not even out on the street protesting! And even if they were on the street–wow! I thought things were bad here but it hasn’t yet sunk to that level.
Judith Butler is a gem. They have always been outspoken, but it seems they are popping up in all sorts of venues these days and I am all for it!
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You’re right, Stefanie, they shouldn’t be able to get away with it, but they can. There has been outrage, of course, and condemnations, but nothing changes. It all stems from incredibly repressive legislation passed by the previous government to clamp down on climate protesters who shut down motorways and so on. Now, pretty much any kind of protest is criminalised, and the police can take pre-emptive action to stop public disturbances. The UK is now a police state, basically.
One thing I think you should take comfort from is that people in the US tend to be better at asserting their rights and not taking shit lying down. You’ll need those qualities if you don’t want to end up where the UK is.
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What gets me is they weren’t even protesting, they were meeting to talk about protesting. That’s authoritarian sh*t right there. The US is headed in that direction, it starts with deporting people who disagree with the government.
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Absolutely! And I’m still waiting to hear protests from all the pundits who’ve spent years wailing about “cancel culture”. But the same people who lost their minds when a privileged author had a university speech cancelled are now completely fine with the much bigger cancel culture of governments arresting and deporting people for expressing their opinions. I guess it depends on the opinions…
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Sadly I have quickly learned in the US that when the opposition does something it’s wrong but when your own party does something similar it’s 100% just fine. I imagine there is a lot of that going on in the UK too.
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Love the Kenny Blumenfeld quote! And while I didn’t know half of those plants it felt good to read about such enthusiastic gardening. Inspires me to stretch beyond our current basil, tomatoes and peppers. And that ice-cream looks yum. Pics please of the plants 🙂
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I laughed out loud Pete when I read that in Blumenfeld’s newsletter! That you grow tomatoes, basil and peppers is awesome! So much more than a lot of people do, and an excellent place to start if you are interested in expanding. All my plants are currently little and indoors under grow lights. Here’s a post from a couple weeks ago of my seed starting operation: https://astoneintheriver.net/2025/03/16/blizzard/
It has since expanded 🙂
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The Blumenfeld quote is wonderful!
I’m a bit jealous you can have tulips; the deer come through and eat them all up around here.
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We can grow tulips but they rarely actually bloom because the squirrels and rabbits come along and eat the flowers before they open. Sometimes they are kind enough to leave us one. I have found the little species tulips are not interesting to the critters though. They are not big and dramatic but they do add pops of bright color so that’s something!
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The Blumenfeld quotation is awesome.
The ice cream sandwich looks AMAZING.
Redwinged blackbirds have such a fun song. I’ve been noticing them down here too.
I decided to plant a bunch of tulips in the fall after seeing so many beautiful ones around here lately.
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Redwing blackbird songs are so pretty, that deep throated trill makes me smile every time I hear it.
Yes to all the tulips!
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Hang on a minute…didn’t you start this new blog specifically to highlight the reality of the world beyond the printed page? Wasn’t the whole intention to put your thoughts about art and literature in a bullet-point endnote to draw focus to essential and necessary changes? What happened!
Ok, I get it, we are living in disorienting times, and goals set years in the past can change, and you said you are simply experimenting with different options…but I think the way that you’ve been writing your posts, with a mix of everything in there, is balanced and healthy.
Ranting or whining isn’t useful, no, but you have been focusing on action and resilience and resistance. If you are getting backchannel complaints and grumbling,, I understand why you might be reconsidering. But I hope you will…reconsider reconsidering. heh
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Thank you Marcie for your comment! You are 100% correct, A Stone in the River to change the direction of things and write a new story. I haven’t gotten any direct pressure, just lots of expressions of “preferences” and also I feel like I have actually gotten a bit lazy in some ways. But your comment and Andrew’s have had me thinking and what is happening in the US and the world is more important than a footnote. And I am remembering that old feminist adage the personal is politcal. So I very much appreciate what you have said! I am working out how to re-dedicate myself to the original intention I set here. More to come!
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You are doing so well with your seedlings. We have had a huge fail on germination, with only one plant coming up out of 20. Turns out the lids we put on the trays kept the compost too wet and the seeds rotted. Mr Litlove’s friend with a PhD in Plant Science came over this afternoon and did a Sherlock Holmes on the pots. We will try again, sigh.
Andrew is right – things in the UK are not good right now and I hear you on those grocery prices. When items go up in price here, they go up not by a few pence but by a 10-20% increase. Almonds, which come from the US, jumped in price last week from £3.50 a bag to £5.20. Needless to say they did not go in my trolley. I do appreciate your account of what is happening in the US because good information is hard to come by, and eventually I fear that we will be reliant on blogs and the rare news outlet that dares to stand against Trump. But I also understand the desire to protect friends who want to sleep at night. It’s a difficult balance. Still, you always write about things in a cool and lucid way, and I would never call what you put a rant either! Just know we are standing in solidarity with you in the UK – we’ve been so close to Fascism with the ghastly Tories, we know what it’s like.
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Oh no! Sorry about your seedlings! Has the re-try gone better? I hope so!
Ouch on those almond prices! I suspect you are correct that we will eventually become more reliant on blogs and small independent media for keeping track of what’s going on. It’s really disappointing that the big media outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post and probably your UK equivalents, are so silent about the things that people want to know about.
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I am reading in reverse order so read the later post in response to this before this. Generally I agree with Andrew and Marcie, but it’s not a simple yay or nay is it. Putting your politics up front preaches to the converted (which does have some value) but putting it under a heading means the people you may want to inform can miss it completely.
I’m mindful of Andrew’s sharing that comment that “It’s the ultimate white privilege to be able to ignore politics.” I agree his comment on that, and particularly his statement that “I don’t think we get to do that”. I appreciate that for some people their mental health is seriously affected by distress, but (being judgemental) I think it can also be an easy out for people who don’t want to feel uncomfortable, who don’t want to feel their lives challenged. But, to truly understand and to be truly empathetic to others, we need to go on their journey. (Which I don’t always do as well as I could because life is complicated – no person is an island, for example. We can’t just decide unilaterally what we read, see, respond to.)
But, I’m rambling so I’ll just say, like the others, I also enjoyed the seed and gardening, and cooking parts of your post too!
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Thank you for your wonderful, thoughtful and insightful “rambling” 🙂
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