2022

I keep coming back to this post on Daily Kos. Mostly because I get so incensed, I can't get past the first paragraph!

∞ Family Research Council actively advocates for women to die. This evangelical group and lobbying organization issued a statement, Abortion is never necessary to save the life of a mother.

Gah! The post addressing this disinformation is written by an emergency department nurse. They mention just a few of the ways a pregnancy can kill a person. And the cure is an abortion.

Abortion is health care!

Oh. Let me be very, very specific...

ALL ABORTIONS ARE HEALTH CARE!!!

An abortion to save the life of the pregnant person is health care.

An abortion after rape is health care.

An abortion after discovering fetal anomalies is health care.

An abortion for personal reasons is health care.

And yes... abortion as birth control IS HEALTH CARE!!!

Being pregnant is NOT a benign condition! And with maternal mortality being so incredibly horrendous here in the United States...

Getting an abortion will ALWAYS be safer than carrying a pregnancy to term!

Heck yeah!!!

∞ Free The Pill
The FDA has scheduled a formal hearing for November 18 to review the first-ever application for an over-the-counter birth control pill
Update... oh nevermind. Old white men still want to control women, and the Nov 18th hearing has been postponed... with no new date set. SIGHS.

Making birth control pills over the counter would be a pretty significant improvement in women's lives.

The fact that we have to get and go to medical appointments, on a very regular basis to get the simplest contraception is just one more thing women have to deal with... and most men don't.

I walked up to Hidden Trail today for the express purpose of taking photos of the Halloween decorations on the way!

My favorite of the house decorations today... Note the skeleton family sitting on the right. That might be a chimp skeleton on the shoulder. And on the lap is an animal, maybe a cat? and a kid skeleton.

My favorite decorations are skeletons, real carved pumpkin Jack-o-Lanterns, ghosts, spiders and spider webs!

So, when I noticed this in my notes from a couple years ago, I def wanted to share...

∞ Elva's Field Notes: Spiders, Spiders, Spiders

Elva's art is amazing, and she lives in the southern part of Oregon, I think, so I recognize some of the spiders she's painted!! She hasn't posted in almost a year, so that's a bummer.

*laughs* There were two Steller Jays goofing off together, siblings I'd assume. They were bouncing around too quickly for me to get a proper portrait... but I happened to catch this funny pose!!

There was a little flock of Townsend Warblers... it was bath time! They'd go down to the waterfall, then shake off and preen in the branches above the water.

*laughs*

Sprinkling today... It's nice because it clears most of the humans from the bike path. Of course, sometimes it clears most of the wildlife, too.

I had noticed before that this weedy patch of Blackberry vines was a hangout for some House Sparrows. But today, there are a couple other birds there, too!

Here's a female Oregon Junco standing next to a female House Sparrow...

At first glance, I had assumed the others were Golden Crown Sparrows. But a closer look and I realized the stripes on their heads are WAY too defined. These are White Crown Sparrows!

And one more Halloween pic... I just love the Jack-0-Lantern with the X eyes and the implied tongue hanging out!!

Always nice to be greeted by the wildlife, right outside the door!

Oh, good! They've finally worked some more on the bike path. Not that they are actually working right now, but I am glad to see some progress, such as it is...

They started this project on fri 14 oct... they worked one day and then abandoned it, and even left the big Path Closed signs that blocked the path. With no obvious work being done, people moved the signs. and then started dismantling the signs. I couldn't blame them, I'm pretty mad about this too!

The city must have done this bit of work on Monday and/or Tuesday. The signs are back up, blocking the path again. There are two sections of the bike path ripped up, and covered with plastic and puddles.

So. Will they continue the work? Or will they abandon us for another 18 days?

Poor Blazey! It's been raining for a while. I told him to go home, but does he listen?

It's not supposed to rain today, and there's cold weather on the way. So I'm going to dig up a Leek at the garden, for some soup!

No comment about the bike path... Yet again, no work being done. Sighs.

Still lots of colourful Dahlias at the Community Garden!

In more productive years, gardeners would leave extra produce on the picnic table in front for other, less successful gardeners. Usually there's a variety of squash, but this spring not many squash plants survived the slugs and the Striped Cucumber Beetles.

So, other than the tomato plants in July, this has been the only offering. When I went to grab some tomatoes... haha, they were frozen to the surface! And they were already thawing into mush. Foo.

More colour!

Wow, this black foliage is awesome...

Finally around to my own plot, the cold night has killed the sweet potato vines. I'll dig them up soon! Today I've come for a leek...

My favorite photo today...