Web Log for 11.29.23

the

Censorship 

The ad that plays--twice--at the beginning of this video is an excellent example of the kind of misleading, fearmongering, greedy, self-serving, venal, repulsive content you have to learn to spot on the Internet. Is "digital money" dangerous? Obviously. Is the only way to be safe from this danger likely to involve buying a report from some jerk who's bought ad space? Is listening to the guy's grating voice likely to produce violence, at least violent fantasies, at least the kind that involve not just telling the guy to put a sock in it but demonstrating the literal origin of that expression on him? Obviously. That guy's yap hole is just a magnetic vortex for all the sad single socks who have lost their mates to the washing and drying machines...

So, do we need help to censor this kind of ad so that we don't have to listen to it? Hello, that's what the "skip ad" button is for. 

Use the "skip ad" button and listen far enough to hear the first joke in the video, not counting the variation in the coffee-sipping routine. How will the Biden Administration define misleading content? As content that might influence someone to vote Republican. A political group's examples of misleading content might include "the only way to protect yourself against the horrible danger is to buy my garbage right now!" as well, but you know it's going to include any effective publicity for the political opposition. Scott Adams may exaggerate it to cartoon levels, but he doesn't have to exaggerate much...

https://rumble.com/v3y69sw-episode-2305-scott-adams-cwsa-112723-can-tiktok-ads-cure-inflation-for-the-.html

Libraries 

Do you still have a library? As distinct from a building that used to be a library, but is having the lovely classic books stripped out to make more space for electronic junk and "community programs" where children run, scream, and fling sugary junkfood about, while yappy, bossy extroverts loudly tell people how to put ALL their confidential information into a computer in the middle of a room where everyone else can see and hear...

I'm in favor of funding LIBRARIES. Places for books. Quiet places where book lovers can curl up and read, where children can have fun and even learn something after school, where writers can do research...I'm not really in favor of putting computer centers inside libraries. There's too much temptation to get careless with the priceless old books when people can print everything off a computer. I think libraries that are worth funding need very strict regulations about the kind of electronics they can have--definitely no sound, no commercial or ad-funded sites, and no adult content should be accessible in a library--and should limit children's programs to read-aloud or sing-along programs conducted in an enclosed room. I think any attempt to appropriate library funding to sneak any doomed "community center" or welfare programs into the library budget should result in immediate, permanent unemployment for the employees involved. 

If you've been able to get local government to agree either to crack down on "change agents" and maintain a LIBRARY in your community, or to privatize the community's repository of books so that the "change agents" can't sneak in, good for you! You can recommend the new books you're discovering after the Booktober Blitz to your LIBRARY. 

Ellen Jacobson has taken it upon herself to set up a PDF you can use to request that your library stock her books. Is that something self-publishing authors (or authors who've sold rights to conventional publishers who then expect the authors to do all the actual publishing) should need to do? Or should do, at all? Once I would have thought that was a tacky idea, but I've observed how all the traditional, respectable book publishers of my youth merged into corporations that have been bought by foreign interests. Names like Scribner, Putnam, Ginn, Harper, Farrar, Penguin, St Martins, Simon, even Shambhala, no longer mean any of what they used to mean. Real books are being self-published these days. It's tacky that authors have to do their own publishing, but increasingly they do.

Whatever your position on that may be, this form is recommended to all who can use PDF as a sample they can use to recommend whatever delightful self-published books they discover through Book Funnel, Story Origin, Amazon or whatever other venues open up. 

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0768/6452/0493/files/Ellen_Jacobson_-_Library_Request_Info.pdf

Obit 

Aunts probably aren't supposed to like Tim Dorsey. 

https://theviewfromladylake.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-originnator-of-florida-man-has.html

Thought for the Day 

"I heard you had a baby! Someone said they'd seen you holding a little girl," the person went on to describe the child. "But they said you'd put it up for adoption because you weren't married to its father and couldn't afford to keep it."

I certainly never was married to the father of that child. I'm not even physically related, so far as we know, to the mother of that child. All the old families in Gate City are connected but her family moved in from another town. But it was flattering to know that the sort of people who've mistaken me for my own mother and for even older relatives are also capable of mistaking me for the mother of that little girl. She's only about twenty years younger, five inches taller, richer, better dressed... 

"I knew that family," I said. "They gave up the house, not the children. They moved to..." I named the town. 

But the family stayed on my mind. The little girl's grandmother was a friend; the little girl's mother was born and grew up during the years when I was mostly out of town. The one evening I spent in their home was less than a spectacular success. The mother had bought cheap, flimsy party costume dresses that fell apart after the first wearing, and hoped I'd be able to sew them together in time for the next preschoolers' party. The children reacted to the sight of a lap very much the way Traveller-kitten did...

That calculating look on his face meant "A lap! I'm going to jump into it!" and, a minute after the cell phone camera flashed, he did. 

No sooner had I sat down to thread a needle than a child started to swarm up onto my lap. Then the other one came on board from the other side. The older one had the advantage of being able to chatter while the younger one, who was barely talking, could only compete by clinging to my arm, which did not expedite the needle-threading process. The table with the dresses and sewing kit on it was cluttered with other things, all of which the children wanted to show me. What they wanted was adult attention. Oh how they wanted to practice telling someone how a simple toy works, and all about the things they did at their preschool play group, and the cartoon characters their dresses were based on. In less than half an hour I'd begun to form a hormone reaction of protective auntly feelings toward the children, been infected with the virus that was circulating in their preschool play group, and just started to baste together about half of the longest rip in the first dress--and then the mother of the children wanted to take me home, looking displeased because the dresses weren't as good as new. She was the busy yuppie sort of young woman who doles out strictly scheduled units of "quality time" to children.

I've seen the children a few more times. Not often. They'd be teenagers by now. I'm sure they no longer want to sit on new acquaintances' laps. Probably, like their mother, they're taller than most women. As a guess they no longer feel a great urge to tell adults everything the adults will sit still and listen to them telling about, either. They're at the age where adults want to know more about their lives, especially if sex or drugs or other crimes are within range of possibly being involved. Now it'd be the mother who longs for a chance to communicate with these children. As a guess, they're less likely to tell her things.

Even when the lines of communication have been kept open...As a teenager I remember telling Mother almost everything. Except for some of the things she probably most wanted to hear. Sometimes I censored details that I thought would worry Mother unnecessarily.

I don't know what kind of temptations or peer pressure those children now encounter in high school. I don't know whether they talk to their parents, or maybe their grandparents. It's none of my business. If I saw them in town tomorrow I wouldn't ask.

But I would say to parents: Listen to little children who want to chatter at you. Encourage them to tell you things. About ten years after the chattering stage they reach the stage when it's possible, of course, that talking with adults won't keep them out of the trouble they are determined to get into, but it's also possible that a grown-up confidant can help them think about strategies for avoiding peer pressure. 

No promotion, no pay raise, no symphony or church committee or even funeral, is worth as much as the chance to be a real friend to a child. It's worth cutting office hours to the bare minimum and giving up social commitments during the years when a child wants nothing more than to chatter at any adult who will listen. Listen to that child.

New Book Review: Downright Bossy

Title: Downright Bossy 

Author: Tricia Newlan

Date: 2023

Publisher: Tricia Newlan

Quote: "All I have to do is sign on the dotted line. Sell my pride and joy."

Marcus Javernick worked his way to the top of the hotel where he worked, inherited the place from his former boss, built it up, and is about to sell it just so he can have the fun of building up another posh hotel, when he meets Adriana, an employee whose determination and ambition match his own. And she looks, he says, like "a brunette Grace Kelly." 

Men can proceed to disparage someone who reminds them of other actresses but, in my admittedly limited experience, if they compare a woman to Grace Kelly there is no hope. Princess Grace was the archetype of the woman men wanted to marry. And so, although Adriana proceeds, in this short novel, to break every one of The Rules, by the end of this book...

Well, it's a romance. I tend to disbelieve romances where the couple flop into bed before marriage, because in real life you can't be "just friends" when there's a possibility that you've produced a baby. You may think that such an icky beginning doesn't have to kill love dead, every single time, and maybe it doesn't for all I know. For me, everything else can happen in whatever order it may, but people who love each other save the act that makes babies for the time when they want babies.  

Hemileuca Chinatiensis

Though its claim to be a distinct species is now being disputed, Hemileuca chinatiensis, the Chinati Sheep Moth, has been one of the better studied Hemileucas, with dozens of search engine hits. Named for the Chinati Mountain in Texas, they're found throughout the Southwest. In Texas they're found only in the western part of the State. 

When the Hemileucas fly in the daytime, as they often do, they're often mistaken for butterflies.

Genetically, scientists now think there are only a few distinct species of Hemileuca, a genus of moths whose looks can vary widely depending on several hereditary and environmental factors. Litter mates can look more different from one another than individuals who have enough different DNA to be regarded as different species. Newly hatched Hemileuca caterpillars are gregarious, and while all the caterpillars in a cluster may look alike to humans, they may also include three different color patterns.

Hemileuca conwayae, which was listed as a separate species in the twentieth century, was soon recognized as not even a consistent variation of H. chinatiensis, just another variation within this species' range. Around Conway, Texas, the moths showed consistently darker wings (wider bands of black around smaller spots of white) and more black on the body. This question was settled before the Internet and, although information about conwayae was printed and may still be in some university library somewhere, documents about conwayae as a separate species don't seem to have been posted to the Internet. Photos and descriptions of chinatiensis and conwayae as distinct species have been preserved in https://repository.arizona.edu/bitstream/handle/10150/609134/dp_10_01-013-030.pdf?sequence=1 .Nevertheless, the melanism of conwayae proved to be caused by diet.

H. chinatiensis, however, seems to be keeping its status as a separate species. The species Tuskes recognizes, in his gorgeous $500 book, as distinct enough to be listed separately are burnsi, chinatiensis, eglanterina, electra, maia, and tricolor. However, confusion continues to rage. Some science sites list schemes of classification that do and don't mention chinatiensis.

Hemileuca chinatiensis typically have buff to orange bodies and gray-and-white to black-and-white wings. They often fold their wings, as smaller moths do, and look smaller than they are. The wings unfold to more than two inches across, sometimes almost three inches, 5 to 7 cm. Females in some Hemileuca species are consistently larger than males but this difference is less reliable for H. chinatiensis. Another way to tell males from females is their flight patterns. The big silk moths don't have energy to waste, so they usually fly only for a good reason. Males are most likely to fly toward the scent of a female, moving quickly, shifting directions as they follow the scent upwind. Females most often fly when looking for a place to lay eggs; they seem to need a bit of exercise in between getting laid and laying, even if already near a suitable plant, and their flight tends to be slower and steadier. Males usually fly earlier in the day than females. 

Adult moths also tend to curl up their flexible bodies, like caterpillars. 

Going by looks, in the past, scientists had named more than fifty species of Hemileuca, some of which were quickly recognized as sub-species or variant forms of the same general kind of moth.

Silk moths have short adult lives and try to make seconds count. When a female sheds her pupal skin and spreads her wings, it can look as if she is just sitting still, minding her own business, until she is surrounded by males. In fact, while pumping blood into her wings she is actively pumping out the distinctive scent of her type of Hemileuca. How much a moth is able to think and choose is a matter of speculation, but voluntary movement is visible; some refer to this pulsating and pumping process as "calling." Males usually follow the scent of a female of their own physical type, but often types that have been seen as different species hybridize. Really different species usually avoid hybridizing when possible, and produce sterile or otherwise physically disadvantaged offspring if they do hybridize. The willingness of most Hemileucas to consider mates who look very different from them, and the fact that offspring who show an in-between look can be normal healthy moths who can produce little stingingworms of their own, kept scientists debating about which Hemileucas belong to different species until DNA studies became possible. 

Repulsive though they are to all other lifeforms, the Hemileucas seem to tolerate or even like each other. During their first few weeks of life the young caterpillars stay together in family groups, showing complete immunity to the venomous spines as they crawl over each other (apparently to regulate body temperature). Older caterpillars ignore or positively avoid each other when each one needs to find its own food plant, but as moths Hemileucas tend to cuddle. They can mate back to back, as most moths do, protecting their wings, and their flexible bodies also allow mating while perched side to side, but they are often found mating face to face around a twig. With their wings unfolded, held up over their backs like butterflies' wings, this pair looks like one large moth. 

The things people hate about the Hemileucas do not include racism. H. chinatiensis don't normally meet H. eglanterina but, when they do meet, they consider each other as potential mates. Some authorities list chinatiensis as a subspecies of eglanterina for this reason.

Diet is a factor in the different looks Hemileucas develop as the half-grown caterpillars leave the clusters in which broods of baby caterpillars live, find their own way in the world, and usually find different food plants available. They can, for example, eat Forestiera species. Forestiera, sometimes called "fake" or "American" olive, can look remarkably similar to English privet (Ligustrum), and one way to know which you have is that stingingworms live on Forestiera and don't even snack on privet. 

This New Mexico Forestiera, with bigger sloppier-looking leaves, is a favorite food plant for Hemileuca chinatiensis. They can also eat condalia, ephedra, krameria, mahonia, and mimosa. But their very favorite food is said to be sumac--the flowers more than the leaves.. 

Thus one of the few caterpillars likely to raise a rash on your hand is often found on one of the few plants likely to raise a rash on your hand. A person who stumbled into both would really be sorry. (Actually, the urushiol in the Rhus plant genus is likely to do more damage to more people than the caterpillars are...but it's best to avoid contact with either.) 

Poison ivy and poison oak are seldom eaten by insects but sumac is a favorite with many big silk moths. If you want to see North America's biggest non-tropical caterpillars, plant sumac. It hosts Cecropias, Eacles, Citheronias, and other big but harmless caterpillars, and then the Hemileucas, which aren't big compared with lunas and cecropias, and aren't harmless, either. 

Different food plants promote different looks as the caterpillars mature. The dark coloration of chinatiensis may be produced by the same phytochemicals that produce the coloring of a different silk moth, Agapema dyari, sometimes found sharing host plants with H. chinatiensis.

Few other lifeforms would ever try to eat a stingingworm. Even the adult moth's colors warn that it would be toxic to warm-blooded animals if ingested. Nevertheless, though overprotected against mice and birds, stingingworms are sometimes attacked by cold-blooded animals such as this little beetle, magnified for research purposes.

They are even more vulnerable to tiny braconids and tachinids. They can also suffer from virus and bacterial infections, microscopic parasite infestations, and, in wet weather, from fungus infections. A rule for rearing Hemileuca in cages is that the animals must be kept dry. The genus seems to have originated in the southwestern desert. Though the moths have spread northward and eastward, and some forms tolerate cold or rainy weather, the caterpillars may survive being stepped on more easily than they can survive a wet spring.

Braconids are usually described as a sort of miniature wasp or miniature fly. They lay their eggs on the skins of small caterpillars that will grow into large caterpillars. The braconid larvae burrow in through the caterpillar's skin, probably releasing anesthetic chemicals as they go, and proceed to eat the caterpillar's middle and back ends. The caterpillar may or may not know something is wrong--a few of the more conscious species, like the tent caterpillars, do squirm and try to shake off the egg-laying braconids--but it can't do anything about it. Sometimes a caterpillar's final molt discloses a skin festooned with little white braconid cocoons. This is optimal for the braconids; the caterpillar won't live long enough to pupate but the braconids don't need for it to.

Moths usually fly between September and November. Individual moths fly for only a small part of their season. Couples who meet usually stay together for several minutes, apparently admiring each other before and after reproducing. After separating, if they get a chance they may mate again with other moths. A female usually lays three clumps of eggs, and a male will try to fertilize three broods of eggs if he has a chance, which he seldom does. Both males and females are much more likely to pass on DNA on the first try.

Caterpillars usually crawl in late spring and early summer. 

They pupate in late summer and don't make much effort to hide while pupating. 

I found the caterpillar and pupa pictures above only at https://joias-da-natureza.blogspot.com/2022/01/hemileuca-chinatiensis-tinkham-1943.html ; they may be the blogger's original work. (It's generally a mistake to try to read Portuguese as if it were Spanish but scientific terms are meant to be a sort of international dialect.)  This blog also contained photographic evidence that the moths cuddle--one apparently putting its head under the other's wing, not mating, just snogging.

Another Blogspot blog, with no distinctive photos of this species, mentions that rearing this species in captivity in Europe was difficult because, for one thing, these desert moths' process of maturation in the pupa is tied to humidity rather than light. Their growth spurts occur during their natural environment's rainy season. In swampy Belgium, the blogger's moths started flying in June and July rather than September. http://silkmothsandmore.blogspot.com/ is a very flashy blog that doesn't link to individual posts; whenever the blogger has posted about enough other moths person has reared, the post for Hemileuca chinatiensis may or may not be easy to find.

Web Log for 11.28.23

One link's better than none?

History 

Dennis Prager reflects on what it means to describe Americans as "Judeo-Christian":

https://pjmedia.com/dennis-prager/2023/11/28/american-jews-who-worked-for-a-secular-america-made-a-fatal-error-n4924262 

Do You Like or Dislike True Crime?

This week's Long And Short Reviews question is whether reviewers like or dislike true crime stories, and why. 

I've researched a few true crime stories. Sometimes it's interesting to get at the facts of the case. Sometimes it's merely disgusting. 

I postponed linking this one in order to find out what others said. Results were evenly divided with a strong yes, a strong no, and qualified answers, but I do recommend everyone read the "no" answer:

https://lydiaschoch.com/wednesday-weekly-blogging-challenge-like-or-dislike-true-crime-why/

New Book Review: The Stolen Sauce

Title: The Stolen Sauce 

Author: E.L. Johnson

Date: 2022

Quote: "Christmas is ruined."

The first words of this mini-mystery take us right into the plot. Aunt Violet's Christmas is ruined because the special sauce she was cooking to go with the roast turkey and vegetables has disappeared. Which of Violet's siblings could or would have stolen the sauce, and why?

The cozy, wholesome family drama ends happily. It's quite a short story, offered as an advertisement for longer books by the author. 

New Book Review: The Insiders Club

Title: The Insiders Club 

Author: Shirley Day

Date: 2023

Quote: "Girl Friday wanted to look after a widower's young child on a paradise island."

That's the ad Hannah's sister encourages Hannah to answer when Hannah's fiance turned tail and fled right outside the church, before their wedding  Hannah has taken time off from her job in London already, for the honeymoon, so she's glad to go to Bermuda even if the job is a step down from her sub-editorial position.

Hannah is indeed too tough and stubborn for the wimp she was about to marry, which turns out to be just what Ed's problem child needs  When she not only delivers the lunch little Boo forgot to one of those very expensive, exclusive schools organized around the idea that all children need a positively miserable childhood to motivate them to grow up, but then leaps a fence to stop another child giving Boo a hard time, Boo is expelled--and Hannah starts homeschooling, spots Hannah's vision problem, and has the five-year-old reading in no time.

Feel free to skip this rant if you've read it before--I was an early reader. I was reading picture books about horses at four. At the time American children were expected "normally" to start reading at six, so I was a genius, right? (Wrong!) And so a majority of little boys, and quite a few little girls, were being told they were "slow" or otherwise inferior learners because they started reading later than age six. If there was a genius in my family my brother was it--but although he'd started spelling out short words with magnetic letters on the refrigerator at age three, just as I had, he read only picture books or the first few pages of a normally printed book until he was eight years old. In primary school he'd pick out a middle-school or adult-oriented biography out at the library, read the beginning for himself, then bring the book to some adult or to me and ask us to read the rest of it to him. I read several biographies and classic novels that way. I had, for example, read Tom Sawyer at seven, all by myself, but I didn't understand the whole story until I read it with my brother at ten. He was seven. He understood the whole story. But he wouldn't sit down and read a book of the size of Tom Sawyer for another year and a half. He was lagging through school, close to the end of the spring term of grade three, when he became a real, serious reader and never looked back.

Because he was a slower learner? Ridiculous. He was probably a faster learner. I kept ahead of him, growing up, but it wasn't easy; the kid was always nipping at my heels in everything we did, always looking for fields n which he could pull ahead. He took longer to learn to read because some children's eyes are able to focus on printed words at an earlier age than others. It has no connection with intelligence. A child who starts reading books at four usually will do well in school, because children who are exposed to books at four usually will do well in school. Whether they grow up to do any serious or original thinking is anybody's guess. A child who starts reading at ten is not less likely to distinguish perself as a thinker than one who starts reading at four. Some of the world's great thinkers were slow readers and, if boys, they may also have been late talkers as well. According to the Bible, Moses still considered imself "slow of speech" at eighty. 

Normally, if a five-year-oild isn't reading, I'd say don't  think about glasses, don't imagine the non-reading to be any kind of "problem," and don't let the child go to a school where anyone tries to make a "problem" out of it...but in this novel Hannah notices one of the things that do indicate that a five-year-old may have eye problems beyond simply growingu up at per own pace. Boo consistently misjudges directions in the same way. Boo's eyes really are developing abnormally, not just at a normal leisurely pace. Boo does need glasses. A few children do.

 End of rant. Boo likes Hannah better than other baby-sitters she's known. Ed likes Hannah better than any of them, too, in a different way. Everyone else on Bermuda, Hannah learns, still believes in a rigid class system. The housekeeper, Diwata, doesn't talk to her; neither does Ed's mother, nor do Ed's friends. Tara, the other single woman Ed known, is a subordinate employee at his office but that doesn't stop her offering to move in and supervise Hannah. Tara gravels Hannah's democratic soul throughout the novel but, doing credit to the British West Indian tradition of sportsmanship, when Hannah demonstrates an ability to do Tara's job better than Tara does, Tara shows respect...Hannah will, of course, end up working with Ed.  As a sub-editor, not a housekeeper or "Girl Friday." 

This is a full-length romance with all the backing-and-forthing, misunderstandings and making-up, appertaining thereutnto. Shorter than Jane Eyre or Gone with the Wind, it's more substantial and more interesting than the typical paperback romance sold on a rack in the supermarket. Hannah does behave foolishly with Ed before the wedding, which may turn some "sweet romance" readers against her and certainly makes her a bad example to teenagers. If you can forgive her for that, you'll like The Insiders Club.

To Kids Who Want Dogs

Don't do it, some people will tell you. Don't become a dog owner. Living with a dog is a commitment! Once  you take that pup home, the carefree days of hanging out at Tracy's house after school, or just going in to watch television or out to play after school, are over. You have Responsibilities. You have become a Dog Owner. No sooner can you take your shoes off than that dog will require you to put them on again and take it for a walk. A carload of your friends will pass you by on the way to the lake. You can't just climb into the car. You have to take the dog home! And feed it! And make sure its bowl is full of water! All the spontaneity has gone from your life, and your friends will get tired of waiting and go to the lake without you, and there you are, watching that dog slurp up disgusting Alpo...

In short: the arguments against becoming a dog owner, as a kid, are almost exactly the same as the arguments your Dad once heard against becoming a father. And if you say "Pooh!" to the arguments against your becoming a dog owner, now, you're less likely to listen to the arguments against being a good father when you are older. 

You will have learned that no amount of "spontaneity" is as good as having somebody waiting just for you, at the end of a day at school or work. 

You will have learned to snap yourself out of thinking bitter, angry thoughts about unreasonable assignments, sorry pieces of work who don't pull their weight in work groups, bigots, snobs, and bores, when the time comes to focus on how much you love the one who's waiting for you, back.  

You will have learned that, although there are disease conditiosn in which dragging yourself from the car pool to the couch is all you can do and you're not able to taked those few more extra steps to clean and refill the dog's dishes, you don't have them and it really adds nothing to your normal sense of tiredness, at the end of the day, to walk and feed the dog.

From these life experiences will grow your experience as a parent (or aunt, uncle, teacher, or foster parent) some day.

There are other ways to prepare for parenthood, like those silly one-week simulation games where you and one other kid have you drag a flour sack around everywhere pretending it's your baby, but nothing else is as close or as satisfying as being a "pet parent." 

A child's first venture into dog ownership can be made as casually as a parent's friend saying, "Our dog had puppies! This one's for you!" 

I don't recommend this. I think kids should sign contracts with their parents, before they become pet owners, specifying that nobody else is allowed to feed, walk, or clean up after THEIR PET unless they are in the hospital. 

Parents may in some cases have to drag kids home from the lake, turn off the television, confiscate the games, and order the children to care for THEIR PETS but parents must not deprive the children of the bonding experience responsibility can bring. 

There are benefits for younger children in living with family pets who are the parents' responsibility but, when children are old enough to want pets of their own, they are ready to form the habit of caring for their own pets. 

My first pets were chickens, and there's much to be said for chickens as pets for children, especially if the parents want the animals to teach the children something about family life. A younger generation of chickens won't add much to the budget. Hens usually pay for themselves, and roosters become food.

Around age six, having grown up with chickens, my brother started wishing for a dog of his own. When we were eight and eleven years old, a family friend's dog had puppies. Ours was not a successful dog ownership experience. I think that was partly because the dog was thrust upon my parents, who accepted it as a "family pet." "Family pets" work out better when they really are the parents' pets. For that poor little pup, being a "family pet" meant that he was nobody's pet, was not taught anything, spent his days chained to the fence waiting for a plate of mostly leftover human food to be scraped into his bowl, and envied the chickens, who were real pets and were allowed to roam around the yard. It was no life for a clever little terrier. It ruined him.  

Children whose parents have grown up with their own puppies, years ago, can grow up with a pup, with a parent guiding and encouraging them to teach the little fellow all that a dog needs to know. Our parents unfortunately were not dog people. They had liked dogs who belonged to other humans, as we did. They imagined that feeding a dog would make it as good a pet as those other people's dogs. I think it took our poor pup about two days to realize that no one at our house understood him at all, that although we liked the idea of having a dog we did not, in fact, even have room in our lives for one, and that we would have done better to be content with our chickens. 

And after that realization, for the dog, came six or eight months of having it ground into his consciousness...No companionship. We didn't take him along on our walks; we didn't make time to take him for walks since he was out in the yard, There was no room for a dog in any of our games. He was chained to the fence when we played tennis; nobody threw balls for him to fetch. We expected him to know how to do things the chickens couldn't do, thought less of him for not knowing what those things might be, and never gave a thought to teaching him anything--although we spent time, daily, teaching the chickens their tricks, and might reasonably have been expected to spend some time teaching a dog, but we just didn't. Dogs love to please their humans but this little fellow had no chance. 

So I say, to kids who want dogs: Don't imagine that you can just leave an animal out in a field and have it magically turn into Lassie or Flicka. A cat might decide it would be fun to make a pet of you, if you turn it loose in the barn and set out food every day. A dog or a horse will be lonely and bored. Dogs and horses are so interesting to so many humans because they are intelligent--in their way--but, because they have so much of their own kind of brain power, they won't become your friends and working partners without spending some time coming to respect your kind of intelligence. 

Don't be ashamed to get into conversations with adults who know more about dogs than you do...

"Going to the store? Why don't you take your dog?"

"There are other dogs along the way."

"You'll need to keep him on a short leash and lead him past houses where there are other dogs. Can you hold him on a short leash? Practice every day until you're sure you can. Other dogs might be friendly if he started to approach their homes, or they might not. They need to see that you can keep him on the road, moving right along."

"And dogs aren't allowed inside the store."

"One of you will have to wait outside with the dog while the other goes in to trade."

Such conversations would probably have been good for both of us and our dog, but they didn't take place; the dog just  languished, chained to the fence, like a convict in prison.

If you are a kid who wants a dog, know that you're in for a daily commitment to be your dog's friend. Don't leave him to stare up at the sky and wonder what he did that was so bad that he's been sentenced to live with you.

Because a dog is a big responsibility, adults may want to let you start out with a smaller pet. One of the standard wails of childhood used to be, "My parents won't let me keep a dog. Only a dopey parakeet, or a goldfish." I lived with a few goldfish as a child, and I fully understand how children fail to bond with goldfish. Although goldfish are much more intelligent than the fish people catch and eat, they offer no emotional rewards for their humans; they are just a chore. Drop in only so many Fish Flakes per day, no more no less, for as long as you want to have something orange moving around on the shelf, catching the light. If you can provide good spring water and a few good healthy snails you can look at the pretty flash of orange for years...but maybe you'd rather look at a potted plant. My brother and I had a series of goldfish, mostly called Goldie; the one who came to us with a muddy brown stripe that looked like a horrible fish disease was the one who swam around for almost five years. We were responsible children, even for Stripe. He outgrew his brown stripe and looked nice and orange. But I think both of us would have preferred a plant. 

Sometimes people just don't bond even with parakeets. Before I was born, my parents had a pair of parakeets. We grew up hearing stories of all the cute, clever things those parakeets did, and one day a visiting aunt took us into Kingsport and bought us a parakeet of our own. And it never was any kind of pet. Dad's pet parakeet had become his "Little Buddy" in a day or two, he said, but ours never buddied up to anybody. It never tried to imitate speech, although we had chickens who did that. It never perched on anyone's shoulder or pocket,although we had chickens who did that. It was tame enough not to flap or squawk when food and water were delivered to it, but that was the only sign it ever gave of recognizing us. It didn't like anybody. It was a chore for three summers, and then one winter even our parents went down with flu. Well, parakeets who perch on somebody's shoulder now and then, or have at least a try at saying "G'day" or "Budgie," are more likely to have their food and water dishes maintained when people have flu. Our stupid bird did have a lesson to teach the world. He might have taught the world more if he'd learned to say, "Budgie wanna go back to Australia and live with my own kind," which is probably what his sullenness was saying. Some birds don't mind being cute pets in cages on the wrong side of the planet from their home, and some do.

And although the caged rodent family can be cute, clever pets, I've never personally bonded with one to the extent of not understanding the cat's or dog's view of them; "Someone went to all the trouble to bring us such a nice, clean, wholesome, delicious snack!" People do love gerbils; I never have. 

Anyone can learn to love an animal that seems to like or trust us in some way, although the smaller the animal is, the less likely it seems to be that what the animal feels is trust or affection. I write about moths and butterflies because so many other people don't. I don't think of them as pets, but I did once have a Personal Moth, a big colorful silk moth, who spent his few days in my closet. I doubt very much that the moth was capable of thinking "I am staying with a friendly human." I think its thoughts were more like "I was here before and nothing chased me, and a female of my kind has been somewhere near here."The collection of nerves that can be considered a moth's brain are not organized in a way that would suggest that moths are capable of much thought or feeling. His homing instinct was endearing, anyway. I didn't want to touch the moth--a large moth's feet feel remarkably like the feet of the large tropical ants we owe our existence to our ancestors' being unable to stand. I did feel protective of the moth. He had as much sense, and was as good a pet, as nature intended his kind of animal to be.

If you are a kid who wants a dog, and someone insists that you start by learning to care for a parakeet whom nobody loves...you do learn things from the dopey parakeet that carry over into relationships with more enjoyable animals. Like the importance of caring for the silly thing, or getting someone to care for it, even if you have the flu. Being kind to an animal who frankly loathes you is a special skill. It might convince a sponsor to send you to veterinary school.

Here are some dogs who have shown some patience with children and might be good pets for a ten- or twelve-year-old who signs a contract to care for a dog. Petfinder actually has a sort field to sort out animals who seem friendly to children, though it's not perfect.

Zipcode 10101: Will from New York City 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/will-66652004/ny/new-york/furry-smiles-international-rescue-ca2510/

Actually he's not from New York City. Something looks dodgy about the NYC Petfinder page this morning. Are there no dogs that have lost homes in the big city this week? Are all the dogs in NYC shelters surplus animals from other parts of the country? The situation warrants investigation but, meanwhile, here is a photogenic mixed-breed dog who is said to have a great personality and do well with children. The shelter that has claimed responsibility for him is in New York City.

The thought crosses my mind, not for the first time, that in a way these photo contests are contrary to the organizing principles of Petfinder.com. If people always look at the pages for urban hubs with convenient zipcodes, when will they ever see the adorable adoptable pets in the small towns? "You could at least look at the dogs near you!" the site seems to say reproachfully to me. I could, but people who live near me mostly don't use the Internet and people who use the Internet mostly don't want to drive out to shelters near me. Maybe it's because too many people just look for dog pictures on the NYC page that the NYC page is now clogged with photos of dogs from Alabama and Texas and Wisconsin and everywhere but NYC. And then again...maybe the War On Pets is being lost in NYC. 

 Zipcode 20202: Harley from DC 

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/harley-69746321/dc/washington/save-our-herders-outreach-va701/

She's young and pretty and lively and full of energy. She will roll over to solicit tickles. She will want lots of walks. If you want a dog who will walk with you everywhere, inviting compliments and scaring off evildoers, adopt Harley. Or one of the other homeless dogs--Harley just posed for an especially cute picture. 

Zipcode 30303: Huck from Atlanta 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/huck-69547570/ga/atlanta/rescue-coop-sc566/

As in Huckleberry Finn, or as in those Missing Persons Mysteries podcsts with the great lazy pale-colored rescue dog" Probably the former. Huck is a coon hound. This web site does not recommend hunting raccoons with dogs--it's hard on the dogs--but notes that coon hounds actually like long cross-country walk/runs. You don't have to hunt but you do need to hike. If you are a hiker whose parents would feel better if you travelled with a dog, Huck may be for you. 

New Book Review: Turning Back the Tide

Title: Turning Back the Tide 

Author: Valerie Wilde

Date: 2019

Quote: "It did say on the online form that the cabin is split into two residences."

So Jules, who is mourning the death of her twin sister, meets Aidan, who is mourning the deaths of too many of his patients, sharing the beach house of Jules' childhood. 

What's not to like? This is the sort of "book" only the Internet could generate. It's a short story. At a believable pace, Wilde shows us Jules and Aidan meeting. They like each other. They don't even get to that critical milestone of two introverts' romance, where the couple admit to each other that they enjoy being quiet together. 

If you're looking for a long but clean romance and you've already read Jane Eyre, Gone with the Wind, and Jubilee, I commend to you Shirley, Charlotte Bronte's other full-length romance. Shirley is well off and free to be even more ambitiously wholesome than Jane Eyre. She even talk about the conditions of the working people! Heady stuff for the early nineteenth century! I thought Shirley would be sententious but soon found myself loving it. 

If you're looking for a short sweet story, you might like Turning Back the Tide. Most of the story remains to be told. That's all right. You know how it goes. 

I did find it a bit unsettling that Wilde packaged this story together with the trailer for an unrelated Kindle Unlimited novel in which a different male lead, a banker not a doctor, is also called Aidan. It's one thing to start one romance without carrying the one before it through to happily-ever-after, and another thing to use the same name for both guys. I suppose the author known as Valerie Wilde had someone on her mind. 

Butterfly of the Week: West Mexican Swallowtail

Battus eracon, the West Mexican swallowtail, or Colima swallowtail, or Mexican Shadow, is a modest, dark swallowtail that does not actually have "tails" on its hind wings. Individuals can look iridescent blue in some lights, or fade to a dark drab color, but show little variation. More than most of the Battus group, their forewings show long, distinct tips that are free from the row of spots along the borders of the hind wings and the posterior halves of the fore wings. A gallery of museum specimens, showing the narrow range of variations, is at 

https://butterfliesofamerica.com/L/t/Battus_eracon_a.htm

Of butterflies that have the Swallowtail wing structure, most species have tails, some actively use the tails in flight, some don't, and some get by with no tails at all. In the genus Battus more species lack tails than have them. Some species, like philenor, may or may not have tails. 

Photo donated to Butterflies & Moths of North America "from Jalisco."

B. eracon is rare. Some people try to sell dead bodies to "collectors" who have gone to Colima, or Jalisco or Michoacan, and not seen one. The position of this web site is that one should never pay for a dead butterfly. By observing living butterflies for the time they are active, one will find dead ones, but it's harmful to tempt desperate students to kill living ones for money. Anyway, collecting boxes of dead bodies is unhygienic and obsolete. Collections of digital photos of living butterflies are nicer in every way.

Sometimes catalogued as if it were a separate species, because it can look like one, is the badly faded ab. incolorus, an "aberrant" form.

He really is the same sort of animal as the black-winged individual shown above.

Though Mexicans have abundant reasons to appreciate their butterflies, which attract tourists and money from all over the world, they give the sheer richness of their diverse butterfly population as an explanation of why Mexican scientists have done relatively little rsearch on specific butterflies less dramatic than the Monarchs or Baronias. They are still exploring, still trying to work out just how much biogeographical wealth they are sitting on. Mexico is one of the world's ten most fertile fields for butterfly studies. Books like Jeffrey Glassberg's Swift Guide to the Butterflies of Mexico and Central America can only give a general idea of what's out there waiting for someone to learn more about it. This is one of the areas of knowledge to which any random tourist has a chance of contributing useful informatio, just by snapping a clear photo of a pretty butterfly visiting a pretty flower.

It is a pollinator, often attracted to flowering trees in forests. (In several ways Battus species resemble the Atrophaneuras; some count them as Batwings.) Although it can fly high above the ground it lives at low altitudes, not found more than 1000 feet above sea level.

Photo donated to gbif.org by Zihuadean. If you're at school you can read all the torrid details of how the butterflies pollinate one particular flower with a "psychophilous syndrome"! ("Psychophilous" means, of a flower, having an optimal shape for pollination by butterflies or moths. Plants suffering from a psychophilous syndrome may depend on a specific moth or butterfly to survive.)

Javier Hernandez was able to follow a couple of these butterflies. The distinction between male and female shows up clearly only in the photo of them together, though several nice clear pictures of the wings have been donated to inaturalist.org. 

This pair were mating in Manzanillo in November--same time of year the caterpillar below was photographed. So generations overlap. 

Apart from her gravid body shape, the female has bright yellow spots along her sides; the male has white spots, and the whole top surface of his back section looks white with thin black borders between segments. 

The genus name Battus reflects the tradition of naming Swallowtails after characters in ancient literature. Battus was a shepherd boy who lacked the physical courage the ancient world admired. He saw some bigger fellows stealing sheep. Not wanting to be beaten up, he promised not to tell what he'd seen. Then he reported what he'd seen to the owner of the sheep. Possibly he didn't know that the owner, Hermes, was a Greek god with the power to find the sheep without mortal help, and was only asking to test Battus' courage. Although he did what businesses tell employees to do nowadays, the ancient world despised such non-aggressive behavior. Poor little Battus was turned to stone.

As a word eracon may have been created to name a genus of smaller butterflies in the Skipper family, to which we will eventually come if I live so long. (According to the same tradition whereby Swallowtails are placed at the beginning of lists of butterflies, Skippers are placed at the end.) Only recently was the "Erasmus Conference" named and abbreviated to EraCon. Online dictionaries don't list eracon as a Greek or Latin word or a given name. Eracon and Eragon are found as names, apparently of recent invention, for fictional characters, but not for characters in ancient literature. The butterflies may have been named after some otherwise forgotten person or family. 

They were only identified as a species in 1897. Before that, if seen, they would have been presumed to be one of the tailless subspecies of B. philenor. Frederick D. Godman & Salvin argued that they were a distinct species because of the distinctive pattern of spots:

"A male of this distinct species differs from all forms of this section of Papilio found in Central America in having the spots of the secondaries in a submarginal series away from the cell and the costa, and beyond them are some small submarginal spots. Beneath the coloration of the margin of the secondaries is very marked ; besides the usual black margined rufous spots there are whitish spots between them, as well as ochraceous ones next the margin."

(Most of the Swallowtails were still being classified in the genus Papilio in the books available to me in the 1970s, though scientists had started assigning different genus names to the different types.)

The Spanish version of Wikipedia, which is the only version that has much to say about B. eracon, begins by acknowledging that despite this distinctive detail, in flight it looks very similar to the more common Battus species. (That would make it fairly large for a North American butterfly, but small relative to South American butterflies, with a wingspread of about three inches.) One reason why it's been so little photographed is that people who do see one will not necessarily notice that it's different.

Harmless to humans, the butterflies are toxic to animals that eat them. Like so many swallowtails, they get their protective toxicity and "warning" colors--in this case black--from a diet of Aristolochia leaves, in this case A. tentaculata. Eating the leaves of these wild vines gives the butterflies some small economic benefit to humankind: the caterpillars don't munch fast enough to destroy the vines altogether, but they slow the vines' growth and give trees a chance to grow. 

(George Beccaloni has just made available online a real service to humankind. This PDF book lists, organized by plant families, the plants butterfly caterpillars are known to eat. You can download and print it:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/George-Beccaloni-2/publication/262099000_Catalogue_of_the_Hostplants_of_the_Neotropical_Butterflies_Catalogo_de_las_Plantas_Huesped_de_las_Mariposas_Neotropicales/links/5cc0d98a92851c8d2202f3f1/Catalogue-of-the-Hostplants-of-the-Neotropical-Butterflies-Catalogo-de-las-Plantas-Huesped-de-las-Mariposas-Neotropicales.pdf .)

The caterpillar has that bird-dropping camouflage thing going, though without the extravagant effort to look as if the bird who dropped it had had massive indigestion that some Battus caterpillars show.

Photo by Santiago Rosalies (agave_rosalesii), taken in November in Boca de Iguanas.

Web Log for Thanksgiving Weekend

Hands up all who are tired of this "Black" commercial spew. "Black Friday" was all very well but it's getting out of hand. It's Thanksgiving weekend. Thanksgiving Wednesday. Thanksgiving Friday. It is primarily a religious holiday and its traditions, beyond actual, y'know, thanksgiving prayers, are about family gatherings. A round of shopping in the dear old home town is among some families' traditions, but there's no need to overdo it. I'm disgusted by the e-messages that seem to apologize for Thanksgiving rather than revelling in it. "We know this is a depressing time...people drink till they pass out at the thought of having to see their relatives..." Well if you hate your relatives all that much, stay home and talk to an emergency counsellor. That is not what Thanksgiving is about. 

I personally did not have a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend. I spent the day feeling unwell. That is not normal, for me or for anybody. Trying to "normalize" it does not help. We need a solid consensus that Thanksgiving is a time of joy, and people who besmirch that joy with their personal nastiness are very sick people and need to be locked up in a small dark cell, to which all the keys have been recycled, where something that started out as food might drop down a chute now and then if anybody remembers., but mostly they don't. Normal human beings who belong out in the air and sun may not want to see all of their relatives more than once in ten years, but we enjoy checking in and, seeing our cousins from Hawaii or Norway or wherever as the strangers they really are, getting a quick news story about their lives to last for the next ten years.

And let's leave the booze for wretched Europe, please. Americans have drinkable water. And ice. And, if we want to add calories, we can always add sugar and fruit juice, or chocolate, tea, or coffee. (We brew stimulant drinks, not depressant ones.) We drink soda pop. We drink bizarre holiday confections made out of different fruits with frankly incompatible flavors mashed up in ginger ale, which create the party game of trying to figure out what's in the punch, which gives people who don't really know each other something to talk about. Boozers are losers! Maybe if Europeans learned to drink soda pop or coffee like human beings, they could get through a decade without a tribal war. I say the sooner the better.

Art

This link takes you around the four walls of paintings in a California art gallery's main showroom. Click on "Artists" for more displays. Author/filmmaker/artist John W. MacLean was in the number one position, top left on the "Artists" page, when I clicked. For those who can afford to make Statements with gorgeous professionally polished chunks of rocks, he's been carving up some pretty ones and the prices are low for that kind of art. 

https://www.ahmadshariffgallery.com/

Bickering & Infighting 

Why ever would Drudge drop PJMedia and Townhall from their reading list? I don't know, but I can guess. Because those sites were eager for advertising. That's cool! Advertising is good! But they fell for evil advertising schemes that diminish the quality of the site. Lots of blogs, like this one, don't want to steer readers to (let's make a list we can chant at desperate or greedy bloggers)

* ads that pop up

* ads that jump around the screen

* ads that block content

* ads that flash, blink, or distract readers

* ads that slow down the loading or reading of the main content

* ads that crash browsers

* ads that interfere with printing

Try this, PJ Media. Line all the ads up in a linear sequence and put them down at the bottom of the page where readers can scroll down to see them if interested. Always remember...flashy graphics make an ad look like one of the corporate ads everyone ignores; small plain lettering looks like the classified ads people actually sit down and read.

If that doesn't get you back into everybody's good graces, take the paywall off the comments section.

You lost views, links, and readers because, like so many other sites, you sold out to arrogant, rude advertisers. To get us back, make your site a service to readers again.

https://pjmedia.com/paula-bolyard/2023/11/24/the-dirty-little-secret-about-drudge-n4924205

Book Reviews 

Some new authors have been waiting impatiently for others to get their books onto Goodreads, Library Thing, and other book marketing venues. Today the doors are closing. On this final Sunday in November the Goodreads, etc., reviews of October's new books go live. The following books continue to languish outside, waiting for author/publishers to set up pages for them. (I've tried doing this myself, and it works better when author/publishers do it.)

Sophie Michaels, Murder 101 

Sheryl M. Frazer, Genevieve's Sixth Choice 

Sheryl M. Frazer, The Treble with Mr. Swinger 

Willow Finn, Grumpy Billionaire Cowboy 

Steve Moretti, A Kingdom Is Lost 

Writers who are sending out e-mails to ask whether people have read your books, please make sure you've set up the pages where reviews of those books will be found! I will try to focus on Christmas-theme books in December, winter-theme books in January, and so on. I have e-books to review for every day in the next year.

Picture 

Colors that are too found in nature. Only not often.

Poetry 

We should all live in places where our "ordinary" days are beautiful enough to inspire poems. Even if we write free verse.

https://margaretbednar365.blogspot.com/2023/10/my-ordinary-geese-have-long-since-vd.html

Technology 

Should more towns reject "5G" wireless technology, which promises to put enough radiation everywhere to make the whole town a wireless "hot spot," for health reasons? Yes, and also for privacy reasons, economic reasons, and need-to-check-Verizon's-hubris reasons. I'd vote in favor of rejecting any new offerings from Verizon JUST because Verizon has failed to reconnect the cell phones people in my neighborhood actually liked, on the original price terms only with a year of unlimited free service for every day they were unethically disconnected. They can't stick to their existing contracts, they can't have any new ones. We'd hate to let towns sink public funds into contracts with companies that might just unilaterally decide to back out of those contracts in the hope of forcing us to buy something that didn't work as well and pay five times as much for it! 

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/stamford-connecticut-rejects-5g-health-risk/

Word, Wonderful New Useful 

Thanks to Lone Star Neanderthal at https://howtomeowinyiddish.blogspot.com/2023/11/a-bit-of-conjecture.html.

Winterfaire Wares

It's an annual tradition: Elizabeth Barrette and John Scalzi post "Winterfaire" posts where their readers offer writing, artwork, and craftwork for sale in December, thus allowing readers to buy unique gift items that are handmade by e-friends. 

In the interest of promoting friendship and conversation among readers, this web site will now follow suit. The body of this post is about stuff you can buy from me. The comments section are for readers to post links about stuff you can buy from them. That's for handmade, artisanal wares only. No commercial links on this page. If you want to post a commercial link, you can pay to place one in a separate post. Please describe your original, unique books, poems, calligraphies, fruitcakes, socks, sculptures, metalwork, paintings, baskets, quilts, or whatever else, the standard price, any discounts you offer, and your site. 

Posts here will get hundreds or thousands of views...mostly from hackers and/or relatives of mine who never buy anything online. But you never know. As you share this post and your comment with people you know, readership will expand. I am totally cool with readers wanting to buy Elizabeth Barrette's poems or Pbird's socks instead of mine. May cross-pollination of all readers' blogs flow!

Check out the blogs that set the example and, if you're selling stuff, by all means post links there too:

https://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/6615913.html

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2023/11/24/whatever-2023-holiday-gift-guide-starts-monday/

My wares:

Sponsor a Post: This web site has two ongoing series you can sponsor for $5 per post. There are a total of ten frugal living posts and an as yet undetermined total of moth posts. Eight moth stories and one frugal article have been funded during the past week and will be appearing on a weekly basis. You can propose more topics for more posts or series you'd like to sponsor, too!

Buy a Blog Post: Here or on your site--your choice. "Bloggy" posts that ramble about a general topic that supports a product cost $5. "Sciency" posts that contain serious research about a topic that supports a product or organization, as in the butterfly posts here, and can be SEO in a way that will put your page at the top of search results if you have the credentials, cost $25. (They can be about topics other than butterflies! I've sold "sciency" posts about home improvement and decor, cars, food, history, language, college scholarships, even real estate in towns where I don't live, if people were paying.) We reserve the right not to support products, in which case you will not be asked to send payments.

Buy a Poem: Limericks and quatrains, $5. Longer, more elaborate pieces of Bad Poetry (TM), prices are negotiable.

Buy an E-Book: You keep all rights and may publish it as your own work, with or without revisions, for prices starting at $300 for fiction. Prices for nonfiction are negotiable based on the length of the book and amount of research involved. Cutting-edge research at university libraries costs $150 per day (drivers must eat).

American Butterflies Daybook: PDF version features full-page, full-color photos for every week of 2024. Print to use the pages as organizers in a three-ring binder, or order an editable version to type in appointments and deadlines right on your computer.  PDF costs $10. Printed versions unfortunately cost more. If you specify a State you'll get butterflies found in your State; otherwise you'll get butterflies found in Virginia. Daybooks are not sold on Zazzle.

American Butterflies Almanac: PDF version features a butterfly for every day of 2024 plus standard almanac information for the day--tides, astronomy, holidays, history, quotes--and space for you to add your own daily reminders. Cost to create the PDF is $300. If this amount is received by mid-December, the PDF will be created by the first of January and sold for $50 per copy in January, discounted afterward, and any profits can be returned to funders. If the full amount is not received by the 15th of December, 2023, the Almanac will not be created for 2024 but the option of creating one for 2025 will remain open. If people send contributions toward the creation of the Almanac for 2024 but the contributions received do not fund the Almanac, contributions will be applicable to other purchases in December or may be held for a possible 2025 Almanac.

Hand Knits: I still sell these things in real life. It's harder to sell them online without a digital camera so I've all but given up trying. However, digital photos, mostly very low-quality, are scattered around this web site and can be mail-ordered from the site. Click on the "Greensleeves Knitting" label to see posts with photos, and/or visit https://ko-fi.com/album/Knitting-in-Progress-Album-I2I22R5AU to see some new samples you can still have knitted to the size and/or finished in the way you want.

Buy a Dish Rag: $10 gets one unique, handknitted cotton dishrag/ $15 gets three. Send mailing address and choice of color(s). 

For all knits to order, you will be invited to choose colors from manufacturers' selections of yarns available to me. If you make or sell special yarns you'd like to see used, please e-mail to discuss the discounted price for me to knit with your yarn!

Buy Placemats or Coasters: $15 gets 2 color-matched placemats or 4 color-matched coasters, each unique, hand knitted in acrylic. Add $10 for another 2 placemats or 4 coasters.

Buy a Baby Blanket: $40 gets one baby (or small animal) size acrylic blanket approximately 36" x 36". Send address and choice of colors. Allow 2 weeks for knitting time.

Buy a Blanket: $100 gets a unique, handknitted acrylic blanket approximately 36-40" x 72" (couch or single bed size) OR cotton afghan approximately 40" x 50" (child's or wheelchair size). Send address and choice of colors. Allow 4 weeks for knitting time.

Buy a Window Insulator Curtain: Choice of cotton or acrylic fabric knitted to the dimensions of your window and folded around insulating material. Wash and reuse it year after year to save hundreds of dollars on heating bills. Prices and knitting time depend on size and number. Send measurements of windows to be insulated, address, and color choices. Prices are proportionate to prices for blankets. 

Buy a Used or New Book Reviewed Here: You can still order books that don't have Bookshop links here if you want to, though you're still basically paying me to order them from Amazon for you, which makes sense for local lurkers but not so much for online readers. It made sense when this web site was an Amazon Associate; Amazon chose to change that.. Still, it's a legitimate paid job and I'll do it if you pay for it. You should be able to use BOOKSHOP links to order new books online through this site in the way the Amazon links were supposed to work, in the past. Buying Bookshop books here should still direct a small part of your payments to this web site.

Buy a Book with a Matching Fashion Doll: If a book cover or illustration portrays a person, you may order a doll dressed in a matching hand-knitted costume, shipped with the book, for $10.

And of course you can always buy my visual designs on Zazzle. 

https://www.zazzle.com/store/priscillaknits

Should be the place to find all your Fix Facts First, Cheering Cardinals, Tortie Face, Land Is Not For Sale, Save the Butterflies, Glyphosate-Free New Year, and related printable merchandise. (When I tested the link, Zazzle was pushing for more collections. Other stores have ten! Well, we'll see what ideas the new year brings. I'm still working slowly on the perfect State postcards for the Glyphosate-Free New Year collection. Alabama is already available--they should appear in alphabetical order.

Everything you buy from my Zazzle store currently directs profits to the Save the Butterflies campaign at USPIRG. This web site receives no funds from Zazzle. For those who'd prefer to support a more "conservative" cause, although I think saving wildlife is conservative, all you have to do is organize a right-wing campaign that approaches banning toxic sprays that destroy butterfly habitat in a conservative way--I'll do a collection for that cause too!)

HOW TO PAY

By far the best method is to send a US postal money order payable to Boxholder (Priscilla King), PO Box 322, Gate City, VA 24251-0322. 

If unable to send a postal money order, please e-mail the address at the bottom of the screen for current information about mailing bank cheques. This information may change. 

We look forward to working with Paypal again when Paypal has been prevented by law from dipping into customers' accounts with its purported attempts to enforce the law. We look forward to a federal law requiring online payment services to process payments honestly and impartially, with no prejudice for or against any kind of business and no access to any information beyond the addresses between which payments are transferred. Until that happens, don't even ask about online payments. This web site does not and will not support attempts on the part of money-handling services to play at law enforcement as a pretext for robbing their customers.