oceantheorem | Reading

I got out to one of our local trails late last week.

This one is an old state park that has been partially developed. It's a fun but small trail that has a variety of habitats for wildlife.

It goes around this drainage pond, which attracts many birds and waterfowl.

Then it passes the condo development, eventually leading to a bike path along the bay.
You can see one of the condos on the right.

I keep forgetting to post about this: we've been troubleshooting the "missing notifications" problem for the past few days. (Well, I say "we", really I mean Mark and Robby; I'm just the amanuensis.) It's been one of those annoying loops of "find a logical explanation for what could be causing the problem, fix that thing, observe that the problem gets better for some people but doesn't go away completely, go back to step one and start again", sigh.

Mark is hauling out the heavy debugging ordinance to try to find the root cause. Once he's done building all the extra logging tools he needs, he'll comment to this entry. After he does, if you find a comment that should have gone to your inbox and sent an email notification but didn't, leave him a link to the comment that should have sent the notification, as long as the comment itself was made after Mark says he's collecting them. (I'd wait and post this after he gets the debug code in but I need to go to sleep and he's not sure how long it will take!)

We're sorry about the hassle! Irregular/sporadic issues like this are really hard to troubleshoot because it's impossible to know if they're fixed or if they're just not happening while you're looking. With luck, this will give us enough information to figure out the root cause for real this time.

After years of struggling to read new-to-me fiction, I’ve recently entered a phase of reading graphic novels and comics and I’ve been reading so much! (It helps that I accidentally got into a comics-based fandom via stress-reading fic late last year.) It’s only April yet I have already read more books this year than I have in any year since 2020, it's truly wild. I haven’t had this much fun reading in ages!

I wanted to share some of the things I’ve been enjoying, so I thought I’d write a rec list. I find graphic novels easier to focus on when I’m stressed than prose novels, and I also love getting to see so much art. I’ve been mostly reading MG and YA works – it feels like there is a lot going on in that space right now! Plus it’s a space where there tend to be many stories focused on friendship, which I really enjoy. I’ve also been choosing more lighthearted things to read. The world is stressful and I can’t deal with stressful reading at the moment.

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It's been busy times in the garden! I got the last of my cold-stratified seeds planted last night. On Sunday we took on the big project of replacing the old wooden bed out by the street that's been slowly rotting away and was full of grass anyway. It's all concrete underneath, and the bed was too shallow to be able to plant anything substantial, much less anything that I'd feel comfortable harvesting. In it's place we put in four 2x2 corrugated steel beds that are much taller, and there's space for another 3-4 small beds of that size if we decide we like how these first ones are working. Still some cleanup to do from that, but otherwise it's looking much better.

I've gotten the feverfew, oregano, and thyme settled in those new spaces, with the last bed ready for the tulsi seedlings whenever they're big enough to transplant. The nights are still getting quite cold, so I'm waiting a while longer before making the little things have to brave the weather. It's supposed to be a temperate variety that can handle our cooler temperatures, but I've previously only grown the more tropical tulsi, which makes me a little more cautious than I maybe need to be. I'll be curious to see how the varieties differ.

The elecampane officially survived the winter, which I'm very happy to see! I thought for sure I had lost it. It's much slower to wake than the rest of the garden. I'm not sure if that's just how it is, or if it's a function of the place where it's been planted. It seemed to lag behind other plants in growth last year, too, but I imagine the second year will tell me quite a bit about how it feels where it is.

There's plenty of maintenance work to do in the garden, but in terms of plants, it's back to a waiting game. All the big plant sales and swaps won't happen until May, and none of the seedlings are quite ready for transplant yet, so I shall bide my time and be patient. I still haven't quite decided where everything will go, or what else I'll buy when the sales come along. There's a real risk I'll run out of space, but at least the soil is amended and weeded and ready to go. Hurrah for warmer days!

Current Mood: chipper

This is largely cross-posted from my personal blog, since I figure a lot of us spend a lot of time thinking about soil quality and composting! I love worm bins because they can be made to work for all kinds of lifestyles, including people who live in apartments, since a well-managed bin does not smell and can be designed to fit in all kinds of spaces.

I think I'm reaching the stage where there's something of a steady-state for managing my new-ish worm bin bench. To begin with, by myself I generate around 1 batch of kitchen scraps a week that can go into the bin. My kitchen scraps mostly include spent coffee grounds, banana peels, apple cores, and vegetable trimmings from whatever I happen to be cooking that week. Eggshells now get handled separately, and citrus goes into the yard compost outside because citrus is toxic to worms.

( photos and description below the cut... )

The below is a crosspost from my own dw. Has anybody else experimented with a garden journal? What sort of stuff did you write in it?

For Christmas Husband gave me a nice Critical Role notebook as 'something to go with', so I have been vaguely pondering what to use it for. I have now decided to have a go at making it a garden journal.

I have no idea how one does that. I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm basically just putting stuff in there and seeing where it goes. I don't even know how long I'll be able to keep it up,* but we're having a go anyway. So far I've put in a list of what's in the different beds off the top of my head, I've put a todo list of tasks I'd like to get done during the spring (lol!),** and I've put in a number of ideas for how I would like to do the terrace pots and a list of other plants I might like to try and plant.

It occurs to me that it might also come in handy when we go to the garden center because I can take it with me and look up what I was considering, which feels far more attractive than a note on my phone, and I could potentially also put in things that I saw at the garden center that might be interesting later on, especially if I remember to also bring a pencil.***

This decision coincides, or is probably partially born from, the effort Husband is currently making to get through a vast stack of garden magazines that have piled up. We tried putting them in a specific place, so that they weren't always lying around on the dining table. This worked splendidly for me because it was more tidy, and not at all for him because the magazines tended to just accumulate and he'd never actually get around to looking in them. So now the magazine storage situation is a bit unclear. Anyway, he's making his way through them, tearing out the pages he wants a closer look at, and I got trough after him and do the same.

On one page, I was mainly interested in a small bit in the bottom third, so in a fit of inspiration I cut it out and glued it into my journal. I had a bit of leftover hobby glue that was still good, so I used that. I discovered that the paper is really too thin for this to be an ideal solution, but on the other hand, I'm kind of enjoying the tactile way the paper has gone a bit crinkly now where it has dried. Might acquire more unsuitable glue and do it again.

---

*But it is giving me some opportunity to use highlighters. I have far too many highlighters. But they come in so many colours, and you obviously have to have one in each colour. I mean, obviously!
**If I do a third of them, I'll call it a success.
***Not a pen. A pencil. And definitely not a mechanical one. An old fashioned one that you have to sharpen. I've been favouring them for years now. I think it has something to do how it feels to write with it.

Please welcome our anonymous reviewer!

The Poet Empress by Shen Tao is a debut Chinese-inspired fantasy centered on a poor village girl who rises from a concubine to the empress-in-waiting to an abusive prince heir. In a bid to save the kingdom from the tyranny of his reign, Wei decides to kill him in the only way she can, by writing a magic poem. Only deathly poems have to be love poetry, and only by knowing him well enough to love him can she kill him.

( Read more... )

King Charles III England Coast Path

The King Charles III England Coast Path (KCIIIECP), originally and still commonly known as the England Coast Path, is a long-distance National Trail that follows the coastline of England. Opened on 19 March 2026 by King Charles III, the trail extends for 2,689 miles (4,328 km).

Sections of the English coast already had established walking routes, most notably the South West Coast Path. However, the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 required Natural England, under section 298, to create a continuous coastal path. The first section, along Weymouth Bay, opened in 2012. The walking route is the longest coastal trail in the world, and its total length increases further when considered alongside the Wales Coast Path.

Those of you who live in or visit the United Kingdom may wish to explore this amenity.

Current Mood: busy

a comedy in four acts:

greylag goose flyrunning on the water

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April 2026 is National Native Plant Month

Please help to spread the word that the month of April is Native Plant Month and plan activities in your community to make a real difference by planting native plants, removing invasive plants, and teaching others about the importance of native plants as a source of food and habitat for wildlife.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

Soooo,the 1st of the Dwarf Columbine plants I started from seed last yr has come into bloom. Not so dwarf but all deep Blue!!!! There are 2 others from those seeds that have buds and can't wait to see what they'll be.
Only the Yellow Wallflowers survived last Winter and are Blooming. Some of the Sweet William's I started last yr are showing pre-buds. Looks like only one Sanguisorba survived so I'm going to move it to a less Shady spot with less competition. I've been too busy with seedlings so I'm behind a number of chores in the garden. I'm lucky I was able to plant the Fig and the Mulberry last week though they arrived at an inconvenient time to plant by the Moon(my project this yr).
I can't believe that my Mint didn't overwinter. The Roman Chamomile is about half it was last yr too.
Cheers,
Pat

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Lenoir City(Nevermore;>!)
Current Music: Heilung Radio

The woods in early April. Full of sunlight and birdsong: the pensive silvery songs of robins, the repetitive two-tone squeak of coal-tits, chiffchaffs singing their own name, and nuthatches whistling like football referees.

( Read more... )

Earth Month -- April 2026

Earth Month takes place during April every year. It’s a time to raise environmental awareness and create consciousness around the issues that affect mother nature during this time of crisis. Every April, leaders, and environmental activists from all over the world join hands to create sustainable development and offer climate solutions, to minimize our carbon footprint and prevent further harm to our planet’s natural resources. It’s increasingly important to observe this month as Earth starts to unravel the harmful effects of climate change which not only poses a threat to our existence but is irreversibly damaging all forms of life.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

It's getting warmer, the days are getting longer, and the scent of spring is coming in through the open window. Bird activity is very high. Some days, my birding app detects up to 25 different species within 20 minutes. Some of them are migratory birds, on the way back to where they came from in the winter. The others, about to start breeding, make as much noise as they can.

Today, as I was watering my balcony flowers, I looked down at the lawn because I saw some movement there. Two wood pigeons were wandering around, and between them, a hedgehog! I've never seen one in the open in broad daylight before. They're mostly nocturnal, as far as I know.

I googled "hedgehog active during the day" and found out that this could be a sign that the hedgehog is injured or malnourished. It did look a bit thin, as far as I could see from two storeys above, but not weak or distressed. It was walking around purposefully and seemed to be eating something, probably earthworms. In the information I found online, it said hedgehogs are often thin in the spring, because they're recovering from hibernation. It doesn't have to be a reason for concern. So I guess it doesn't need help right now.

When I checked again a few minutes later, both the hedgehog and the pigeons had disappeared.

I'm going to keep an eye out for the little hedgehog in the coming days. If I see it again and it looks like it needs help, I might take it to the vet, or to a rescue center.

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Page generated Apr. 16th, 2026 02:31 am

Passion

dreams, goals, thoughts

Reading

Trails

The case of the missing notifications

Graphic Novel Favorites From My Recent Reading

Spring Has Sprung!

Worm Dirt Harvesting

Starting a garden journal

Guest Review: Empathizing with the Abuser: The Poet Empress by Shen Tao

Nature

(no subject)

National Native Plant Month

Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy! ;>

The Woods in April

Earth Month

Nature diary

Profile

April 2017

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