Go, Frenchie!

10•16•24 || just some stuff I saw at the antique mall. “Don’t EAT the candy!” The book is from the 1920s and it still has these colorful swatches in it.

9•21•24 || highway 38 garage sales in Grand Rapids, MN. Poe was just really happy when we got back home. Got lots of cute stuff for my future garden. Had $12 left before deciding to call it quits. Those sales stretch on forever and there wasn’t even as many as there usually is!

9•16•24 || this storm was actually pretty scary driving through, but that lightning was gorgeous

8•19/20•24 || lots of new flowers in my garden. So much more orange than I expected, too. I have some things to pull out from the flower box and then maybe add some I’ve been growing inside. Lots of alyssum.

Another reason to boycott McDonald’s:

They get their Minnesota locations potatoes from a company called RD Offutt Farms which claims on their website that it’s sustainable, good for the environment and the community, and does a lot of philanthropy and tree planting.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, but they left out the part where they’re suing the Pine Point residents, aka the Anishinaabe tribe of the White Earth Reservation, who keep losing more and more of their land by broken treaties (owning less than 10% of the reservations they were forced onto in the first place!) for what you might ask?

Protecting the water that they drink from the chemicals that have been causing cancers and a higher death toll among the tribe.

RD Offutt has been discovered to be “asking a federal judge to rule that the White Earth Nation has no authority to require farmers to get tribal water permits” and due to the poverty and opioid crisis pushed onto them by logging companies as far back as 1889, there’s no other place for them to go!

Their water is contaminated by the chemicals used by RD Offutt and once again, no one seems concerned.

No nasty ass, over-salted fries are worth letting an entire tribe of people die out because they didn’t have access to clean water.

I can no longer pick sage in the prairie for ceremonial purposes. Instead, I have to go deep into the last remaining wild places where R.D. Offutt doesn’t spray. I can hear them spraying from helicopters as early as 6:30 a.m.“

—Evelyn Bellanger, Anishinaabe, Pine Point village

7•18•24 || Poe went to the vet to get his shots. He was good when he went to the back room with the vet. Being with us made him bark at everyone protectively but I’m super sensitive to sound rn bc I’m on my period and recovering from pmdd symptoms.

6•26•24 || ninebark & red/white clovers

6•23•24 || this book has confirmed my suspicions that messing with your yard to make it “perfect” (like Hank Hill was always obsessive about on King of the Hill) will make it pretty imperfect. Leave it alone. Let the worms and bugs do their jobs. I’m enjoying the smell of the white clovers that have taken over. If you don’t have an HOA busting your balls about how they want you to do your lawn, please just let it grow out for a while. My only concern is my fear of bees, but they’re necessary so I’m just enjoying nature when they go home.

6•20•24 || got our steps in yesterday by walking around downtown bemidji and doing some thrift shopping. I finally have a book on canning (something I desperately want to try) and a crockpot. One day, I’ll make gumbo. A lot of buildings/businesses are either going under or already gone. Oh, capitalism. How i loathe thee.

5•15•24 || I’ve really missed foraging/plant identifying (picked and photographed on the 11th)

4•10•24 || i finished my shelving project! The entire wall is covered with 16 quart plastic milk crates from Menards. It took a while to get enough to fill the space but we did it!

3•5•24 || Finally got photos of this abandoned house that’s slowly being taken over by nature.

1•10•24

|| 1•15•24 ||

There was this really beautiful rainbow effect in the clouds caused by the sun. I wasn’t even the only one that wanted pictures of it. A woman outside of Walmart was taking pictures of it and risked being hit by a car lol.