(by lvivcats)

I remember being taught in the mid 90s that there were only ~2000 left. Watching their tragic story unfold during my lifetime has just been heart wrenching.

Allium caeruleum. Plate from Edward's Botanical Register Vol XXVI, London, 1840. Royal Horticultural Society.

Please feel free to be more specific in the tags

This stuffed bird was sealed in the frozen barrows of Pazyryk, Siberia, for more than two millennia, where a unique microclimate enabled it to be preserved. The permafrost ice lense formation that sits just beneath the barrows provides an insulating layer, preventing the soil from heating during the summer and allowing it to quickly freeze during the winter; these conditions produce a separate microclimate within the stone walls of the barrows themselves, thereby aiding in preservation.

This is just one of the many well-preserved artifacts that have been found at Pazyryk. These artifacts are attributed to the Scythian/Altaic cultures.

Here’s the UNESCO article about the plush and other items!

I'm very proud of my little pollinator garden which I've built up over the years mostly from free plants my neighbours were digging up or splitting (and once liberating some seed heads from a flower bed at work). The last two summers especially, it has been visited by an increasingly diverse population: little busy honey bees and fat doofy bumblers and so many different butterflies like this exquisite swallowtail.

I think it's a black swallowtail? Not very good at identification. I've also seen spicebush swallowtail, a red spotted purple and so many monarchs.

Our summers are very dry so most of my garden is drought tolerant native plants, but this lavender was here when we moved in. It was in a very shady spot, all choked with invasive vines but since moving to the sun it has thrived. The bees love it and it pairs beautifully with my masses of pink echinacea (which self seeds with abandon).

I think of my little garden as symbolic in my life. I have been in many places where I have struggled to thrive, because of a bad environment. But with the right amount of sun and water, and with a little care and help, I do pretty well. I get enormous satisfaction from my garden which thanks to neighbourhood generosity and my own time and effort, blooms and grows. I hope when people walk by, it gives them a little joy too.

Waiting on my next round of yellow squash to ripen so had to give in and use a zucchini. This is my favorite part of the summer. I’ve tried it with every herb combination, peppers, onions, etc. doesn’t matter what I throw in, it tastes fresh and delicious. It feels so good to use only local produce, whether I grew it or not, in dishes. I was gifted everything but the onions and herbs here. Onions from farmers market, herbs form my garden. Gardeners naturally create their own little mutual aid communities, and I love it.

But yellow squash is superior. Naturally buttery tasting. Delicious. Looks like sunshine.

A little solarpunk inspiration for your afternoon, p'raps? And, yes, it's real. This is not AI.

EDEN tower in Singapore (streetview)

Solidarity Summer is well and truly ramping up. AS IT FUCKING SHOULD.

And another one! 📢

Barnes and Noble booksellers are working on forming a union as well! 

https://www.reddit.com/r/union/comments/rwczci/barnes_noble_workers_want_union/

Their flagship store and New York has unionized along with 3-4 other stores! This is happening! People are tired of being seen as dollar signs and being made to work just to get to work more, to survive instead of thrive. Keep it UP. 

surely this is a good idea that doesn't have the capacity to end real fuckin badly

Bridges aren’t supposed to have weight restrictions on them. That is, they don’t come with weight restrictions on them when they’re new. So a bridge with a weight restriction on it is a sign that something has gone wrong and the bridge does not meet current standards.

The maximum weight that a vehicle is allowed to carry on the Interstate System per federal law is 80,000 pounds gross vehicle weight (with a max of 20,000 pounds per axle). That’s 40 tons. That limit applies to every inch of pavement, not just the bridges. Since this is a known cap, a new Interstate bridge will be designed to accommodate an 80,000 lb GVW load on it. You could say the bridge’s weight limit is 80,000 lb/40 tons but that doesn’t really have much meaning, because a load higher than that would be illegal to transport on public roads anyway, and the road leading up to the bridge has the same weight restriction. (In practice, the bridge doubtlessly will be designed to have a little bit of let to it just in case some idiot tries to squeak by a few hundred extra pounds.)

Now, note that that law applies to the Interstate System only, because the federal government only has a governing interest in the Interstate System (and other roads that together make up something called the National Highway System) because they partially fund it. Most long-distance roads are owned and funded by the states. The states could theoretically set lower standard weight limits and/or design bridges with lower weight limits...but in practice they don’t.

One, because all of that 80,000 lb GVW traffic on the Interstate system has to go somewhere when it exits the system.

Two, because a group called the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO, who are best known for picking the road numbers) maintains a catalog of standard components for making bridges that meet Interstate System requirements. Engineers are expensive on a per-hour basis, so if you can direct your engineer to use standard components and make a standard bridge, that’s a lot cheaper than having them design a bridge from scratch to go over the creek in Nowheresville. As a result, most new bridges meet Interstate standards and have an 80,000 lb GVW rating even if they aren’t on the Interstate system. (This is also why all new bridges kind of look the same, but we’re not worried about how boring the bridges are for the sake of this post.)

So a bridge only has an explicit weight limit if it has been damaged in some way (through failure to properly maintain it usually) or because it predates the application of Interstate System standards and the standard AASHTO bridges.

Older bridges often have other problems in addition to the weight limits: many older designs are what we call “fracture critical”, which means that if one component of the bridge fails the whole thing collapses. Modern bridge designs have redundancy designed into them so that if one beam fails the other beams will carry the load until the damaged beam can be replaced. Older bridges also often don’t meet other standards, like height (16 ft clearance) and width (12 ft per lane plus 14 ft for shoulders) requirements.

Biden isn’t advocating eliminating weight limits and letting it be a laissez-faire free-for-all where trucks can just go wherever they want. He’s advocating for replacing bridges that carry weight limits with new ones that don’t have them.

wow i got absolutely schooled thank you for all this this is really informative. i have learned so much

This is a great explanation of what the fuck Biden was talking about in his tweet. because I will freely admit that I also went ".......wtf?????" when I read it. So thank you.

Today I learned about civil engineering.

Hello Americans I need your help with my vegetable thing

TL;DR: If you are able, could you email your senator and tell them that you support the Fresh Produce Procurement Reform Act? They will actually give a shit this time I promise, they just need to know you care*. Email is fine! All you have to type is “I support the Fresh Produce Procurement Reform Act”. You can tell them Tumblr sent you if you want.

HERE’S WHY: In my day job I help administer paperwork for one of the best government programs you’ve never heard of, the Local Food Purchase Agreement. This program:

^ This is a stock photo but the produce genuinely looks like this. I have both worked in and lived off food aid programs in my lifetime and if you ever have you know that “brown bananas” and “fun game! find the squash that isn’t moldy” is usually the best it gets. Produce that is actually fresh and high-quality and tastes nice and is heritage varieties of culturally important foods is basically asking for the moon. Except they might actually give us the moon this time. It turns out that the moon only costs, like, twice what my small town spends on police every year. Let’s get the moon!

*Here’s the thing, no one hates The American Farmer. Farm stuff is almost always bipartisan. This makes it easier to get food to people! Let’s do the thing!

渌洋湖湿地公园 Luyang Lake Wetlands Park, Yangzhou, Jiangsu

Willow at dawn.

I don't have to agree with everyone I build coalitions with on every issue. The point is that I share space or community with them, and they share with me, and we agree to build solidarity with one another despite our disagreements.

This is why I often argue with people I like and respect--and why I take care to note that I like and respect them as human beings even when we conflict. I have done some of my best organizing with people I disagree with, sometimes vehemently, on a number of political points. The organizing works nevertheless because the bonds of respect, and affirmation of the many points upon which we do agree, keeps our working relationship strong.

(I also often ally or advocate with people I don't necessarily like on a personal level. That's fine. I don't need to like someone personally to do good work with them. I just need them to respect me and for their work to be worthy of respect.)

Making Desert Land Fertile with Water Bunds