Acabwitch - Vedin (vay-den)

This is one of the oldest surviving recordings of a trans person.

Masoud El Amaratly (1897-1944) was an Iraqi trans singer who became famous in 1920s Baghdad for his folk music. He worked as a farmer before transitioning in his teens. The mustarjil, a term similar to trans man, then moved to the city and sang in cafés. A music agent discovered him there and his fame spread across West Asia.

Enjoy this 1925 recording of him singing the traditional Iraqi song, "Khadri al Chai" ("Please Make Tea"). Check out Ajam's website for more.

When you learned of the god of war, you thought he’d be tall and muscular and angry. When you were about to meet him, you braced yourself for the worst.

You weren’t quite expecting the short, scrawny, shy kid you ended up getting instead.

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.

apple blossomed trees / roots with the birds

Paris Is Burning, dir. Jennie Livingston (1990)

This is a form of permaculture known as hugelkultur. The main idea behind this method is to bury logs, twigs, sticks, leaves, and other organic matter in dirt and/or manure. The plants grown on these mounds will keep the soil together and penetrate that organic matter. As time goes on, the rotting matter time-released nutrients into the soil and creates heat. This makes it so that you don't have to bother with artificial fertilization every year. This mimics the way plants grow in the forest for your own benefit. There are a myriad of ways to implement hugelkultur in your homestead so go crazy with it.

With hugelkultur there is no more worrying about tilling, field rotation, razing crops, fertilization, or irrigation. It's worth noting that this doesn't work well with certain plants because it generates an enormous amount of nitrogen that can be too much at times. But a very good method.