Notices by Cat (cat_lefey@pagan.plus)

Mastodon is not a marketplace, where you set up your little booth and wait for the crowd to walk by and check out your stuff.
This place is a lunchroom, or maybe a campfire; it's up to you to go and sit next to people and strike up a conversation if you want interaction.

Sure, you can sell stuff here, I've bought plenty of things myself that I saw advertised here. But it's not a storefront in a mall, it's door-to-door sales; you need to build a little trust first. Because we're not here to browse or shop, we're here to sit by the campfire.

@moss I usually give the advice to start with wooden knitting needles because they "grip" the yarn better and it makes it easier to hold it.

People who knit usually collect shit tons of needles, so honestly just asking around might produce a set for free. Maybe check your local library, senior center, or church if there's a knitting circle, they might even give you some yarn to work with too.

Sunrise hitting The Great GrandDaddy Tree in my front yard this morning.
He is a very old sugar maple in his 126th autumn season, practically a member of the family.

Dessert for after the feast!

#Mabon #Witch

I love the sherbert colors of this Lantana!

Sometimes called ‘shrub verbena,’ it's not edible like vervain tho. Only a bit toxic to humans, but very dangerous for grazing animals, which is why it's behind the fence in my #PoisonGarden

#bloomscrolling

A tale of two libraries:

I live in an extremely rural area between two larger towns, which are around the same size (population 10,000 ish).

One’s library is huge; two stories, multiple research rooms, reading areas with comfy chairs. There's never anything going on, it's empty every time I go. The only things on their event calendar are town board meetings. They're still charging late fees, and actually have a bookstore in the library where they sell books at cover price.

The other town's library is a small, squat building in a residential area. They run an adult learning program, and homework help, have history presentations every weekend, and game nights for the kids. I've been to a Titanic tea party, a Mario Kart competition, a reptarium presentation, a laser dance party, plant ID labs, movie nights, and more. All free. It's not a great place to study, actually, cuz it's jam packed with people constantly.

I'll let you guess which one is in a conservative town, and which one flies a rainbow flag out front.

My moon flower is gonna be open for the full moon, and I'm super excited to do some cool moon magick!

#witch

I'm loving everyone's pictures of the aurora!

A lot of these pictures don't have alt text though, and I get it, it's something that's probably indescribable. But I want to try anyway:

I could say that it's a filmy wash of colors in the sky that starts pink at the top and fades to yellowy-green, but that doesn't capture their majesty. Because the most breathtaking part of the Aurora is how it makes you feel. The bright bands of light that vibrate down like wavering harp strings give a depth of perspective in the atmosphere. The lights are at the top of the sky, and there is so much beyond it, the feeling of smallness is close to fear. The lights aren't constant, they pulse and writhe like living things, like the sky is alive and talking to you through glimmering ribbons. They look like song, like those old gospel choir tunes that give you goosebumps.

A lot of people living in cities don't realize that rural USA is a lot like those third-world countries a politician might describe as ‘shitholes.’

In my tiny village(which is basically a few far-apart houses and farms gathered around a swamp):

-No municipal water (we have a well)
-No sewer (septic tanks)
-No garbage disposal (burn it)
-No public school (There's one in the next town over, bus leaves at 630am, gets back 430pm)
-No public college (there's one in the next county, that means you pay out-of-county tuition which is double)
-No mail delivery (I have a PO box)
-No police (I actually love this, no complaints here)
-No fire/emergency services (volunteers are notified by the town siren, closest actual hospital is an hour flight by chopper after you've driven 40 minutes to the rural hospital, which is basically just triage)

Where do I live? In Michigan, but you'll never find my address cuz it's not even on Google Maps.

My kid is in a club at school, and they meet 4x a week for 4 hours. So all the parents chip in and stock a "snack cabinet" (granola bars, juice boxes, etc.) because teenagers are hungry goblins.
I went to fill the cabinet and noticed a padlock on it, apparently someone had been "stealing."
I admit, this triggered me.
I spoke to the coach and told him that perhaps he should talk to the kids and find out if one of them is food insecure instead of locking up some two dollar box of granola bars.
The look on his face, I could tell it kinda clicked, he didn't even think of that, just assumed it was some punk kid breaking rules.
People who grow up with wealth don't even realize that it changes the way they think. Luckily, he's a cool guy, and he was horrified that one of 'his kids' might be hungry at home. Sometimes it just takes one comment to open up someone's eyes to their privilege.

As I tell my own children: If you see someone stealing food, no you didn't.

10 Image #CaptionTips from a transcriptionist:

1. Any words are better than nothing.
2. You don't need to say it's "a picture of…" screen readers will already say it's an image.
3. Start with the framing or format (i.e. close up, landscape, meme, text).
4. Think about the reason you're posting the pic and describe that first, add background details if you have time.
5. Pretend you're talking to someone on the phone and want to tell them about this cool thing you're looking at.
6. Transcribe any and all text in the image, even if it's the only thing you do.
7. If you've described the image in your post, you don't need to copy and paste it again in the caption. But again, don't leave it blank, just put something like "as described."
8. You can add small subjective notes, but don't give too much interpretation of the image in your own opinion.
9. Caption jokes are fun, as long as they still describe the image objectively.
10. Use punctuation, and capitalize words properly. A lot of us have interacted with this tech when calling customer service or talking to Siri, so keep in mind that you're writing for a computer to read, and it needs all the help it can get.