Thinking About When I Was Small, How My Mom Told Me That Pipe Cleaners Were Just A Tool Until People

I don’t know if I’ve spelled it out on tumblr yet, but I want to talk about The Mammal List. 

The Mammal List is something I came up with when I was in a mental health intensive outpatient program four(!!) years ago. The premise is that we are at our core animals, and if I consider myself the way I’d consider a pet cat, I’m much more likely to practice good self-care:

1. Mammals need food. Eat something! If the Hellbeast doesn’t pass judgment on a piece of cheese, neither should you. (She also eats anything small enough to fit in her mouth, so be judicious in that respect. Food is good. Lint is not.)

2. Mammals need hydration. Drink something! It doesn’t have to be water. It could be delicious tuna juice. You’re a discerning creature. I trust you. 

3. Mammals need sleep. Make a soft nest and let yourself enjoy it. Knead it until it’s comfortable. Let yourself rest as long as you need. Just existing is hard. You’ve earned a break. 

4. Mammals need movement. Take your precious body and do something. Don’t hurt yourself. Be kind.

5. Mammals need stimulation. Treat yourself to a new jingle ball or mousie toy. Get a bird feeder and stare at it. Let yourself really enjoy it. Play is in your nature.

6. Mammals need socialization. I know this one is particularly difficult these days, but if you don’t keep reaching out, you’re going to forget yourself and start biting people. 

7. Mammals need cleanliness. Nobody likes scooping the litterbox, but it has to be done. Don’t forget your own body. Make your fur shine. Treat yourself as the luminous creature you are. 

And most important of all: don’t feel guilty. This isn’t about deserving (although you do deserve it). You’re an animal and you need these things to survive, and I very much want you to survive. 

I am gonna make it through this year, and the next four, if it kills me.

I will outlive this fascist sonuvabitch if it's the last thing I do.

I'm going to survive to see things get better and drag as many people as I can with me and that is a THREAT.

A technique for planting on hills. I'm sure there are many terms and traditions for this. If you're into permacture, you might recognize it as a sort of mini-swale. Basically, it serves as a way to help plants get established on hillsides, when you don't or can't terrace them.

The idea is that you plant in a little pocket, such that the plant is a little more sheltered & such that whatever rain falls on or up-hill of the plant is captured so that it sinks in rather than contributing to runoff.

In this particular case, one of my clients has a bald patch on a hill side that they don't want to invest any money in, because they don't think anything can grow there. Thus, I have been slowly populating it with divisions and transplants from other parts of their yard, with permission, and am slowly changing their mind.

The soil is not in particularly great shape, because it's a very steep hill, and a dog has been using it for a pathway. So it's steep, bare of any mulch or plant life, compacted, and the soil is poor in organic matter. A lovely challenge, no?

Today I was deadheading & thinning their rose campion, a tough little plant that is drought tolerant and can grow in very poor soil. Here's the first one I planted (and you can see why I included the diagram, it is a bit hard to tell what's going on:

On the left is an overhead view, right is a side-on view. Now, see what happens when you add water:

It pools at the base of the plant, and then slowly soaks in. Ideally, I'd have a nutritive mulch to add on top, but alas. These are tough little guys, and now when the rains come, they'll actually get watered instead of all that water washing down hill.

Look at him just having the funniest of times.

Having a traumatic childhood means you cannot talk even objectively about your basic foundational experiences without it being "venting", even if you're not actually venting. You just straight up have a huge chunk of your life you can't talk about, full stop, without it being trauma dumping.

And it not being socially acceptable to talk about your own childhood is super alienating. Sometimes people want to know why, and any answer you can give them is going to be off putting.

It's to the point I get irritated when something I said is framed as venting when I'm literally just talking about my life experiences, doing my best to keep emotion out of it.

Reblog to give the person you reblogged it from the energy to do one (1) chore or maybe many