HSU IT Department

Prompt claiming is still open over at sshg_promptfest! It took me forever to narrow down my choices but I've finally picked one. I'm delighted to see that one of my own prompts has been claimed -- my favorite one, in fact -- so yay for that. Go browse, see if something sparks your fancy!

In other news...

Last week we went for a walk and three tiny ponies were roaming the neighbor's yard and munching his grass. We haven't seen them again since, so we don't know if they were (a) pets, (b) a new method of lawn-mowing, or (c) a marauding band of miniature wild mustangs, descended from the hills now that there's no traffic. I keep hearing that wildlife is encroaching into deserted cities, so you never know. I suppose it's also possible that they were (d) a hallucination. We haven't been getting out much.

Yesterday I made banana muffins for the first time! I make banana bread often, but this time Mr Psmith requested muffins. I had meant to put chocolate chips in half of them (because CHOCOLATE, amirite?) but I forgot. Fortunately, I remembered that one Seinfeld episode, so when they came out of the oven, all warm and smelling like pure heaven, I carefully took off the tops of two of them, inserted a few chips (ok, more than a few) (ok, a LOT), and put the top back on. They are DELISH.

Our chickens are out of the house and into their coop in the side yard. They seem deeply suspicious of the little ladder leading from the chickenhouse part down into the fenced run, but we are in hopes their natural curiosity will tempt them out eventually. I kind of miss their little "cheep cheep cheep" coming from the other room, but I can't wait to have our very own eggs. Mr Psmith wants to get goats so we can make our own feta, but I have drawn A Very Firm Line at that. At least for now...

Oh, and POTUS is still a brainless moron. By now that's not really news, though, is it?

The Biodiversity Heritage Library has animal sketches, historical diagrams, botanical studies, and all kinds of cool scientific research (do-it-yourself taxidermy, anyone?) collected from journals and libraries around the world, along with 55 million pages of literature dating back to the 15th century. Now, they've made 150,000 illustrations available for free download in high-resolution files. Is this not just the coolest thing ever??? Go forth and create!!

Winter storm Riley decorated our little corner of the country last night:

(click to embiggen)

It's snowing again still. Argh.

Taken this morning :)






(click to embiggen)
( Snow problem, really )

( Mr Psmith goes snowblowing )

So, just to be sure we're all clear on this: That was the MOLT I was posing with, NOT the actual spider. Please don't think me braver stupider than I actually am lol (For those of you want to look at it again, which may be none of you heheh, note how stiff the legs are and the clump of tissue filling the abdomen. Those are, er, "dead" giveaways!)

Also my apologies for not putting the picture behind a cut. I should have done, so as not to freak people out. There are things I just really do not want to see ever, and for some people, spiders are that. So sorry, guys!!

Here's the really funny part, though: when my brother and I were kids, he had snakes, rats and tarantulas. Our bedrooms were right next to each other, downstairs in a walkout basement. I had recurring nightmares that the spider had escaped and was sitting in my face. I swore that when *I* was a grownup, I would NEVER have those creepy things in my house no never not ever.

And now, here I am, *mumble* years later, with Mr Psmith, a room-full of tarantulas and snakes, and I'm letting him pose the damn thing's exoskeleton on my face.

Oh karma, you are a bitch, aren't you??

All that and more, here in this very entry!

A friend of mine has opened an Etsy store to sell her awesome fabric tote bags. My favorite is the Star Wars one. If you need a tote bag, make this your first stop.

Signups are ongoing over at sshg_giftfest -- there's still space for both authors and artists/crafters so hop on over! I'm thrilled that we have lots of people returning from last year as well as some new faces. Also signups are open at hoggywartyxmas, so start thinking xmassy thoughts!

This past weekend Mr Psmith and I went to the State Fair where we saw, among other things: llamas, sheep, goats (why are their testicles so enormous? why???), adorable baby piglets and monstrous full-grown pigs, and many many flavors of dairy cow including an adorable Jersey calf being raffled off. I wanted to enter but sanity in the form of Mr Psmith prevailed. As always, the food on offer ranged from standard to startling, the latter including a "Gators and Taters" food booth, kangaroo spiedies, and Shark-on-a-Stick. Sadly, we did not get to see the draft horses -- Percherons, Belgians, Friesians, etc. -- which was our main reason for going, as the barn was closed for some reason, drat the luck. But we did get to see the arts and crafts building (quilts! cross-stitch! handmade lace! paintings on sawblades! tiny model rooms!) and the sand sculpture, which is always amazing. One side showed a train going into a tunnel watched by some woodland creatures, including a very alarmed-looking beaver.

My life continues to be far too busy, and sometime between now and the end of September, we have to pack up our entire house. Eek.

...because a Certain Someone (::waves at teddyradiator::) likes keys and I found these on Etsy and had to share:

Keys of Azhar
Keys to Atlantis

I devoutly hope to be back on LJ more regularly in another week or so. I have been so busy with freelance work, regular work, co-mod duties for my writing group, prepping for teaching a workshop in a couple of weeks, and getting everything settled for my upcoming two weeks of vacation that I have had zero time for anything else. Not only have I not posted here, I have not even had time to read and so have no idea what's going on with y'all (though I did catch shiv5468's post about the hoo-ha fairy which made me laugh immoderately). I hope everyone is well and happy.

In other news, it's actually really truly finally spring here!!!!!!

"I saw one once," said Piglet. "At least, I think I did," he said. "Only perhaps it wasn't."
"So did I," said Pooh, wondering what a Heffalump was like.
"You don't often see them," said Christopher Robin carelessly.
"Not now," said Piglet.
"Not at this time of the year," said Pooh.

Lots of elephant-y things have crossed my path lately. A recent issue of The Economist focused on biodiversity and conservation included a fascinating piece on the success of a demand-side approach to reducing elephant poaching. Back in the 1980s Japan was the largest importer of ivory, at something like 500 tons a year. A group called Traffic launched a campaign to basically make ivory uncool:

[Traffic] worked on the newspapers and helped persuade them to write anti-ivory editorials. But the big breakthrough...came when Britain’s Prince Philip gave a rousing speech at an event organised by the World Wildlife Fund, which encouraged Japan’s crown prince to speak out. “It was the first time that Japanese royalty had taken a stance on a wildlife issue. It was an amazing moment,” says Mr Milliken. Ivory became uncool.

Japanese ivory imports today are down by 90%, to roughly 5 tons a year. Isn't that incredible?? ::does happy dance::

So after that the elephant population rebounded pretty well, but in recent years two things have caused elephant killings to go up again. One is demand in China. To combat this, a group called WildAid is trying the same approach as was done in Japan, only using celebrities, sort of the Chinese version of royalty, I guess. (The picture of the giant basketball player next to the baby elephant is just adorable!) WildAid was really successful in a recent campaign to reduce demand for shark fins in China, so there's a good chance this could help. ::does hopeful dance::

The other problem, though, is terrorists -- Al Shabab, for example, who killed all those people at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi. They're using poached ivory to fund their activities. And these aren't some local yokel with a 20-year-old rifle. These guys are organized and they have higher-tech equipment, like night vision goggles and laser scopes, and their effect on the elephants is devastating. The LA Times and Huffington Post both recently ran stories about the ivory/terrorism connection. If there were no market for ivory, these guys couldn't make money on it and they'd leave the elephants alone. Sadly, this also has an indirect death toll because it leaves orphan baby elephants who aren't old enough to survive on their own. ::does sad dance::

This is the sort of thing that makes me wish that homo was more sapiens, or at least that our position at the top of the food chain was automatically accompanied by compassion and rationality...

Well, then yesterday I got a newsletter from the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, an elephant rescue operation I've contributed to for years in honor of my grandparents. The DSWT is an organization in Kenya that rescues/raises orphan baby elephants and then returns them to the wild. They're a fantastic organization, founded by a British woman (Dame Daphne Sheldrick) but staffed and run largely by native Kenyans, and the work they do is incredibly important. The newsletter mentioned that they're currently doing a fund-raising campaign -- sponsored by Kristen Davis of Sex and the City, of all people! -- on crowdrise, including a video with some beautiful footage of elephants in the wild. This gave me mixed emotions because yay! publicity and they're doing well with their campaign, but sad :( that they are busier than ever with so many orphaned elephants to care for.

Christmas is coming -- maybe you know somebody who's hard to buy for? You could contribute to the campaign in their name, or foster a baby elephant in their honor!