catsittingstill

Today is sunny, chilly, and calm -- much nicer than yesterday! :D

I fed the birds. I haven't seen any yet though.

I put out water for the birds.

The snow crocuses are open again.

EDIT 2/25/26 -- I trimmed the north edge of the wildflower garden. Previously I did the west edge.

The male catkins on the hazelnut bush are beginning to open up, but the tiny red female flowers aren't open yet.

EDIT 2/25/26 -- I trimmed the east edge of the wildflower garden.

EDIT 2/25/26 -- I trimmed the south edge of the wildflower garden. I'll still need to clear the middle and rake off the loose leaves, but that's less urgent since the spring flowers will emerge near the edges. In the process, I uncovered the dark purple leaves of a penstemon that I planted last year. :D It won't bloom for quite a while yet, as these are usually late spring to early summer flowers, but already it makes a lovely accent in the bed. The leaves are only about half the size of my hand, but the whole plant is easily a foot across.

In the savanna, the first of the snowdrops have flower buds, but none have opened yet.

EDIT 2/25/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I've seen a large flock of sparrows, a mourning dove, and a fox squirrel.

EDIT 2/25/26 -- I have many dozens of fruit tree seeds just starting to sprout in their bags of damp sand in the fridge. I decided to try putting some outdoors in water jug pots. I have the jugs cut, labeled, filled, and sown with seeds. I still need to tape the seams closed and move the jugs out to the parking lot. I put 5 seeds in each jug. The varieties are Pink Apple, Johnathan Apple, Ginger Gold Apple, and Yellow Pear.

EDIT 2/25/26 -- I taped the seams, then moved the jugs to the parking lot. There I set them in a square with the handles facing inwards, then looped some salvaged string through the handles to secure them. This way, they're less likely to get knocked over. Finally I watered them a little bit.

Daffodils and snowdrops are sprouting in the parking lot. I need to try moving these so they don't get killed by later parking lot work.

EDIT 2/25/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen a male cardinal.

I am done for the night.

This is an advance announcement for the Tuesday, March 3, 2026. Poetry Fishbowl. This time the theme will be "World Cuisine." I'll be soliciting ideas for cooks, fusion chefs, immigrant cooks, eaters, farmers, foragers, food scientists, inventors, recipe writers, famous figures in food history, cooks of disadvantaged groups who should have become famous, superheroes, supervillains, failure analysts, ethicists, activists, rebels, other people active in the food world, cooking, gardening, harvesting, foraging, preserving, writing recipes, discovering things, decolonizing diets, building or using kitchen equipment, conducting experiments, observation changing experiments, troubleshooting, improvising, adapting, cooperating, bartering, taking over in an emergency, discovering yourself, studying others, testing boundaries, coming of age, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, kitchens, restaurants, food trucks or carts, campfires, barbecue sites, laboratories, makerspaces, nonhuman accommodations and adaptations, picnics, grocery stores, farmer's markets, roadside fruit stands, U-pick farms, gardens, food forests, other places where people make food, world cuisine, ethnic cuisines, cookbooks, online recipe archives, permaculture, heritage diets, climatarian diet, traditional foodways, culinary archaeology, food sovereignty, drought-resistant crops, trial and error, ethnic spice sets, weird food, fusion food, secret ingredients, supplements that turn out to be metagenic, new ideas in cuisine, alternate agriculture, lab conditions are not field conditions, ethics of food, innovation, problems that can't be solved by hitting, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.

Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

An Army of One has to figure out how to feed a diverse, far-flung group of people who sometimes have special dietary needs.

The Bear Tunnels introduces modern principles to people in the past, including some aspects of food science.

A Conflagration of Dragons has the Six Races (plus the dragons) who all have different diets.  This often poses challenges for the refugees.

Daughters of the Apocalypse has people trying to find and prepare enough food to survive, when city libraries are out of reach.

Fiorenza the Wisewoman uses herbs and healing foods to care for her village.

Frankenstein's Family features two scientists running a valley in historic Romania.  Igor enjoys cooking and has gotten at least one of the werewolves curious about cooking the human way.

Hart's Farm is a community with food used as one of the popular bonding methods.

Peculiar Obligations combines Quakers and pirates in the Caribbean, among other groups and places, leading to a wide variety of foods.

Polychrome Heroics has ordinary humans, supernaries, blue-plate specials, superheroes, supervillains, primal and animal soups all of whom need to eat.  Primal soups and high-burn soups often have special dietary needs.  Comfort food and healing food are also very popular here.  The Rutledge thread includes Kardal and his food truck Syrian Foods, along with references to Vermont, French, and hippie cuisines.  Pain's Gray, Shiv, and the Finns are all fond of cooking too.

Or you can ask for something new.

Linkbacks reveal a verse of any open linkback poem.

If you're interested, mark the date on your calendar, and please hold actual prompts until the "Poetry Fishbowl Open" post next week. (If you're not available that day, or you live in a time zone that makes it hard to reach me, you can leave advance prompts. I am now.) Meanwhile, if you want to help with promotion, please feel free to link back here or repost this on your blog.

( New to the fishbowl? Read all about it! )

Today is cloudy and cold with howling wind. A beautiful day to stay indoors and write!

I fed the birds. Unsurprisingly I haven't seen any.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 2/24/24 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

A flock of sparrows is braving the wind to visit the feeders.  :D

EDIT 2/24/24 -- I did more work around the patio.

I am done for the night.