Hemlock B Bootsalotta

Aaaand we're done. I hope you all make good progress on your projects and had a good month with all the rest of your life stuff as well.

Final tallies below the cut. Let me know if I missed your name at any point.

( all tallies )

Let me know if I have missed your name at any point. And don't forget you can jump in (or out) at any time.

300 words yesterday.

I can't believe it's almost the end of July. In August WED moves over to zwei_hexen. And if you are at all interested in hosting after that, you can sign up at the master list

Yesterday I sorted out the books in my Little Free Library so I could put some plant cuttings in there. People tend to jam it full of old textbooks and things that nobody wants. I get a lot of Jesus flyers and real estate agent ads. This time somebody had also tucked some hypodermic needles in between the books. Really? Like, I get that maybe you don't want them to go to waste, but is a book drop the best place to redistribute these?

There's a needle exchange down the street so I might call and see if they can use them. The expiry date is only about a month away.

Day 30 Tally


Day 29 Tally
badly_knitted lilly_c goddess47 sylvanwitch trobadora sanguinity dswdiane cornerofmadness shippen_stand the_siobhan

( past tallies )

Let me know if I have missed your name at any point. And don't forget you can jump in (or out) at any time.

The rain let up after an hour so I went outside and dug for about 50 minutes. Then it rained over night very heavily, so I'm going to give it a few days to dry out before I try again.

Last night was mostly some editing. I'm still musing what I want to happen next.

( 30 days in the hole )

You know, one of the reasons I do hosting is that it makes me blog every day. I'm a solid once-or-twice-a-month at remembering to do it otherwise.

Day 28 Tally


Day 27 Tally
china_shop sanguinity goddess47 badly_knitted glinda trobadora glinda sylvanwitch dswdiane cornerofmadness the_siobhan

( past tallies )

Let me know if I have missed your name at any point. And don't forget you can jump in (or out) at any time.

A friend of mine told me a story some time ago. According to her back in the 80s a local gay man wrote an article in some big zine about the burgeoning queer punk scene in Toronto. All the queer punks who read the article immediately flocked to Toronto - thereby creating a massive queer punk scene.

I have no reason to doubt that story. All I know is that when moved back to Toronto after school and started going to clubs and shows it was very much a thing. So much so that when I guy I knew told me that the punks in Miami where he grew up had a machismo attitude where they would reject gay people, I didn't believe him. It's an anti-establishment culture, that wouldn't make any sense.

Either way, all I know is that in 2026 I can wander into a punk flea market on a random Saturday and along with the band t-shirts and anarchy battle patches I can buy stickers and posters that say "feeling faggy" and "protect trans kids".



And then I sat on a shady patio with a cold drink and wrote four pages of longhand.

Day 26 Tally


Day 25 Tally
china_shop badly_knitted goddess47 sylvanwitch trobadora sanguinity dswdiane cornerofmadness carenejeans the_siobhan

( past tallies )

Let me know if I have missed your name at any point. And don't forget you can jump in (or out) at any time.

Yesterday made for a looooooong day.

My boss was in town so everybody on my team went into the office to meet up with her. (She's from Montreal). Then afterwards we went out for dinner and drinks and walked all over Harbourfront. Then on the way home I hit the farmer's market, because it had been cancelled last week due to the smoke. By the time I got home I was soaked from walking in the sun in my office clothes - I have to dress for air conditioning and also I refuse to spend good money on clothes I have to wear a handful of times a year so they're cheap polyester crap from Winners.

The evening was spent sitting on my couch in my underwear drinking water and petting the cat who was in high dudgeon about not seeing me all day. I also managed about 200 words longhand.

Day 24 Tally


Day 23 Tally
goddess47 badly_knitted sanguinity sylvanwitch glinda cornerofmadness dswdiane shippen_stand the_siobhan

( past tallies )

Let me know if I have missed your name at any point. And don't forget you can jump in (or out) at any time.

Last night was movie/TV night with the girlfriend so I only got in an alibi sentence when I got home.

The last three TV shows we've watched together have been Pluribus, Slow Horses and we just watched the first two episodes of Widows Bay.

( rambling about television shows )

Day 22 Tally


Day 21 Tally
badly_knitted carenejeans sylvanwitch warriorsavant trobadora goddess47 glinda sanguinity dswdiane cornerofmadness the_siobhan

( past tallies )

Let me know if I have missed your name at any point. And don't forget you can jump in (or out) at any time.

The smoke has officially cleared off and it was actually nice yesterday. A friend pinged me about hitting a patio so we did that for a couple of hours. Said patio is attached to a brand new tap room that just opened at the end of my street and all their customers are neighbours who found out about the place by just walking by, so it was full of people with their dogs and babies.

Then I came home and wrote 500 words before going to bed.

Today it's cool enough that I turned off the AC and threw all the windows open. Once I get this posted I plan to spend a couple of hours in the pit.

Day 20 Tally


Day 19 Tally
badly_knitted goddess47 trobadora sanguinity sylvanwitch cornerofmadness dswdiane garonne the_siobhan

( past tallies )

Let me know if I have missed your name at any point. And don't forget you can jump in (or out) at any time.

We were supposed to get a big thunderstorm with hail today. We got... a short thunderstorm. I have no idea if there was hail. It pulled down some branches and cleaned some of the crap out of the air, at least temporarily. I'll take it.

There has been a lot of Canadians posting indignantly about the size of the Boreal forest and how hard it is to manage and how small the population is and all I can think of is that there are people living there and they're the ones who are currently being burned out of their homes. I'm pretty sure it's mostly Crown Land - just give it back to the local tribes. They managed it just fine before white people moved here, including doing controlled burns and if they no longer have that generational knowledge there are plenty of modern-day experts who can help them figure out the details. Give them the resources and the control they need and get out of their way, they'd certainly do a better job than the people currently in charge.

So that's my take on Landback, anyway.

Since all of yesterday's plans got cancelled, I at least got lots of writing done. 1100 words last night!

Day 18 Tally


Day 17 Tally
goddess47 sanguinity dswdiane cornerofmadness shippen_stand sylvanwitch trobadora the_siobhan

( past tallies )

Let me know if I have missed your name at any point. And don't forget you can jump in (or out) at any time.

The sky isn't quite so orange today, but apparently the particulate count is higher so it's more dangerous. The farmers market cancelled because they don't want people outside. I decided to follow their lead and cancelled my own plans to go outside because yikes.

My dad ended up being admitted to the hospital for tests, but he's already doing much better in the air-conditioned environment. The forecast is saying the wind is going to change tomorrow and carry the smoke away from us so he might be able to go home then. (And in August he and his wife will be moving into a condo, so I can stop worrying about smoke, stairs, stoves, and every other thing.)

Last night I wrote about 700+ words of people arguing. Apparently channeling all my mad at politicians can be useful for something creative!

Day 16 Tally
ysilme

Day 15 Tally
china_shop badly_knitted goddess47 trobadora sanguinity cornerofmadness dswdiane ysilme shippen_stand the_siobhan carenejeans

( past tallies )

Let me know if I have missed your name at any point. And don't forget you can jump in (or out) at any time.

Another 40 minutes in the pit[1] yesterday! Even more mud-daubers showed up, which is definitely slowing me down. A few times I had to stand there with my shovel full of mud and wait for them to finish inspecting it before I could toss it aside. (They do seem to appreciate me disturbing the mud for them.) There were also some honey bees and what looked like a miniature yellow-jacket who I think were in there for the water. And a robin landed next to the pit to watch me just as I was mid-launch of a rock that went sailing over his head, we both jumped back and yelled.

Debating if I want to do any more digging today, we're in another "heat event" and today is supposed to be the worst of it. It's currently 36 C and climbing so maybe today will be catching up on stuff inside the house instead.

Only about 100 words yesterday, after digging and showering I was pretty wiped out.

[1] This always triggers me to start singing Thirty Days in the Hole, which goes to prove that I am An Olde.

Day 14 Tally


Day 13 Tally
china_shop badly_knitted sylvanwitch trobadora glinda cornerofmadness sanguinity dswdiane the_siobhan

( past tallies )

Let me know if I have missed your name at any point. And don't forget you can jump in (or out) at any time.