Fragments: ’20 Week 11

So if I set up a kind of schedule and framework–say for every Thursday–maybe I’ll do a better job of posting at least once a week? Does it matter? Only that it might make me less the tree blogging in the forest with a few ears to hear, and I get to see a task completed. Might be, within the fragments, you’ll find a thing or two of interest or benefit. And the lists over time will let that browser know me better by seeing what has drawn my attention over the past week. And does that matter? The jury is still out.

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REALM OF NATURE ♻️

You’re Not So Different From an Octopus: Rethinking Our Relationship to Animals That we have allowed ourselves to see humankind as other than and apart from NATURE is part of the philosophical wrong path we’ve taken that lead us to see the biosphere as nothing but a commodity and fodder for the economic machine.

To save insects from extinction, we need to give them space | Ensia And how likely do you think this notion will gain traction? We won’t give space to Polar Bears, penguins, or tropical forests to grow. Imagine–in light of the above point–that we have fellow feelings (and our own self interest) to the point where we purposely create “insect corridors.” Nah.

WHAT PEOPLE DO ✂️

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak highlights serious deficiencies in scholarly communication | Impact of Social Sciences If there is a silver lining on the vast cloud that will become the global Covid19 storm, it might be that we rethink how we are failing to work as if we are all in the same lifeboat.

How South Korea Is Composting Its Way to Sustainability | The New Yorker This article came along when Ann and I realized we could play a role in community sustainability–and this, as we contemplated the need to be locally sustainable in our neighborhood as Covid19 sweeps through. We don’t have a dog now, and even though we don’t create a LOT of food scraps, what we have should be going to our neighbor (from whom we get eggs) who has chickens and pigs. Duh.

WHAT OUR TOOLS DO 🛠

Hand Pumps: An Option for Back-Up Water Pumping | Resilient Design Institute We are loathe to leave our water and wood independence on Goose Creek. The Other Place needs one of these. A friend called just last night and offered the unused manual pump installed just before Y2K, now unused because they are content to depend on a forever supply of propane for a whole-house generator. We are not.

How to add personal documents to Kindles and Kindle apps – The Verge So it is no secret I am trying to train myself to herd the million cats of information I come across. Taking smart notes is key. Getting text into annotatable format is the beginning. Then comes the hard work of winnowing the wheat and putting it in places and forms that my Future Self can find when needed.

How to Legally Download Movies for Free to Watch Offline It seems a wise thing to do to retain sufficient reading and viewing material to sustain a family through rocky times. I have lots of empty space on the iPad and iMac. Hopefully these downloads include older movies with less blood, a richer vocabulary and characters with character.

UP CLOSE and PERSONAL 🔎

Guest Column: ‘Holding Space’ at The Floyd Country Store – Blue Ridge Country Dylan and Heather are keeping the Heart of Floyd alive and well.

NRV’s ‘Fish Ladies’ retiring, ‘Fish Kids’ taking over | Business | roanoke.com The end of an era: but not really. We have bought from the “fishwagon” every week since we moved here to Goose Creek, I think. We’ll miss the ladies but keep enjoying the trout, catfish and shrimp. The article says when they started out, they discovered people would not buy shrimp with the heads on. Reminds me that, when I met Ann in college, she (from Biloxi) was the designated shrimp peeler anywhere they were served en mass. She was an experienced girl. In that way.

Amazon.com: Repel Windproof Travel Umbrella with Teflon Coating (Black Red): Upper Echelon Products So I decided I wanted my Last Umbrella: one that would be visible unique and less losable; one that was well made and warranteed; and one that (unlike my ten yr old golf umbrella) could be put in a car wet and not soak the passengers seat. This is it. When not expanded in use, it collapses, keeping the wet surface to the inside. Clever, if weird.

Why we need an absence of noise to hear anything important | Aeon Essays I have sought out, been steeped in, and learned from the solitude and (relative) tranquility of two decades of quiet. Places too big, too fast, too fake and too noisy send me into adrenal stress, as they do most people. Alas, most city folk don’t even realize the cost they pay.

Radio queen: DeVito has four decade ‘habit’ | Local News | roanoke.com So you Floyd folk might know Linda’s many current hats and voices, but not the background. She has quite a history, and brings pieces of all that into her multiple roles in Floyd County and SWVA, and we are the better off for that.

ORBIT OF EARTH 🌏

Earth View from Google Perusing the images of our Blue Marble from space never fails to elicit AWE for me. This is a “good” we rarely seek out or find. It is right under our very feet and the cosmos above. Day and night, the planet is an awe-inducing place if we care to look.

Why Do We Love the View From High Above? | Psychology Today Herein, an essay on the eve (well, three months off) of moving to higher ground. There is something happening when we stand on a peak and see the distant forest, river, mountain peak and meadow. What is about the “higher ground” that draws us–and often makes us pay extra?

A global shift to sustainability would save us $26 trillion – Vox The costs of the status quo keep rising; the costs of sustainable alternatives keep declining. To choose to live in an a world governed by an unsustainable economic model is self-destructive; we know that, and just hope the end of the road will not happen until some other people are behind the wheel after we’ve lived the good life.

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fred
fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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  1. Please, please don’t stop sharing your thoughts , observations and beliefs that there are better and responsible pathways for sustaining this beautiful “blue marble”
    In this vast universe .