Notices by Flick 🇬🇧 (flick@spinster.xyz), page 12

@DrFell @aighead You mostly see them grown up houses, here, but I do think they make beautiful trees as well.

@aighead @DrFell Yes, very much like a vine. You train the stems along wires attached to the house.

@aighead @DrFell Maybe not a thousand, but yeah, pretty long. There’s a wooden frame supporting them. I’ve seen them go all the way around the four sides of a house before.

@DrFell @aighead It looks like a wisteria. Definitely could be real.

Nature is pretty amazing, isn’t it?

@thatguyoverthere I’m honestly not sure it would stop him: it’s not that he wants to chew the boot, he wants the boot gone so that he can chew the foot!

Little bugger.

We’re having an arms race when I need to leave him along for more than a few minutes: two cones, with a towel stuffed between them, and duct tape. And a bootie.

Had a brainstorming session with his swimming instructor today, considering vetwrap around the top of the boot and possibly duct tape on top of it.

All done!

Not sure about the colour, but I can always change it.

I’ve buggered up and will need to move one of the raised beds, I’m hoping I can just slide it as it’s one of the solid steel ones.

Shed day today!

@thatguyoverthere @TinyHouse4Life Not one I know, but standard advice for mystery squash: before doing anything with it, lick a raw piece to check it’s not bitter.

It feels like society went into second grade. And there are only two tables you can sit at.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/preserving-an-open-future-for-kids

How, then, does “gender-affirming care” put a child in jeopardy? By placing him or her on a path of no return, parents and doctors endanger a child’s rights to self-determination and autonomy. He or she will likely never be able to reproduce or even to reach sexual climax. He or she will be forever dependent on hormones prescribed by doctors, undergo ongoing surgeries further to “feminize” or “masculinize” appearance, and suffer the pain, dysfunction, and follow-up operations that frequently accompany surgeries to create mock penises or vaginas. Perhaps worst of all, the child will be trapped in an identity that was formed and frozen in childhood—before puberty, before sexual awakening, and before he or she has had the opportunity to go through adolescence and put that difficult time of social, physical, and emotional change behind.

Legal philosopher Joel Feinberg divided children’s rights into various categories, one of which he called “the right to an open future.” Parents have the obligation to protect and preserve a child’s options so that the future adult can, upon reaching maturity, make fundamental decisions on his or her own. This protects the child “against having important life choices determined by others before she has the ability to make them for herself.” By preserving the future adult’s ability to make determinations about sexual and gender identity at an appropriate age, state bans on changing a child’s secondary sex characteristics promote just such an open future for children.

@GrumpyOldNurse Especially given that it’s an elementary school, so little kids!

https://tnc.news/2023/07/19/ontario-teacher-muslim-students-pride/

An elementary school teacher in Windsor, Ontario was caught on tape berating Muslim students for skipping the school’s LGBTQ pride day, telling them their abstention was “disgusting” and “an incredible show of hatred” that made her not want to be their educator.

The Northwood Public School teacher’s long tirade came amid reports of a very high absence rate at the school on its pride day. According to Life Site News, approximately 600 out of the school’s 800 students stayed home – a 75% absentee rate.

My feet hurt :(

@HebrideanHecate @thatguyoverthere @tangleofsnakes I’m frankly astonished, given how I bang on about it at the slightest opportunity!

@thatguyoverthere @tangleofsnakes A couple of years ago, one of the main UK seed suppliers had a contaminated batch of courgette seeds: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-53402497.amp

@thatguyoverthere @tangleofsnakes Oh yeah, you need to be aware of it if you save seed. Some of the ornamental gourds are poisonous, and it’s an incredibly promiscuous family.

If you’re at all suspicious (say if it doesn’t look quite how you expect), lick a piece of the raw fruit. If it’s bitter, don’t eat it.

It won’t kill you, but it can make you very sick and have weird side-effects like hair-loss.

@thatguyoverthere @thor @rzasharifi I’ve recently seen reports of self-service checkouts having an option to add a tip, and of someone paying for a self-service breakfast buffet and being required to choose between (iirc) 10, 15 and 20% tip (no option for no tip) on the credit card machine.