dandelionsresilience

[dandelionsresilience]

The sun and moon. [Dandelions]

[dandelionsresilience]

In the Footsteps of Fishers

A story of resilience and restoration for fishers in the Cascade Mountains

In the heart of Washington state’s lush forests, blink and you might miss the fisher — a cat-sized, forest predator. At first glance, a fisher might be mistaken for a squirrel, a ferret, or even a rabbit darting through the underbrush. But its distinctive features and predatory prowess set fishers, members of the weasel family, apart. Fishers have agile limbs designed for climbing and burrowing, allowing them to effectively find and hunt their prey. Native to the Cascade region before colonization, fishers were once integral to the local ecological community. But their glossy coat of dark brown fur was highly prized for its quality, second only to seal or sea otter, and made them prime targets for trappers in the 1800s. Driven nearly to extinction by over-trapping and habitat loss by the late 1800s and early 1900s, fishers were listed as a state endangered species in 1998 and designated as a candidate for federal listing in 2004. With additional protections, the fisher has been steadily making a comeback since the National Park Service, in partnership with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Conservation Northwest, began reintroducing fishers in 2015...

Read more: https://www.nationalparks.org/stories/in-the-footsteps-of-fishers

[dandelionsresilience]

The revolution starts with harm reduction BTW

[dandelionsresilience]

Colours of August 2025

This scavenger hunt is the newest enrichment in my enclosure - feel free to join in!

Japanese beetles & ?? / pearl crescent butterfly / black-eyed susans / immature pine cone / blue-fronted dancer / loosestrifes / ?? / goose feather / lakeshore

lmk if you can help ID these!

Bonus:

[dandelionsresilience]

Today I came across a beautiful thought: reality is unfinished. How beautiful is that? It made me realize that I am part of the construction of everything, that I am fundamental in the universe, no matter how fucked up my life may seem at times.

The unfinished is not a flaw; it is the essence of beauty in motion. As Marcus Aurelius said, "The universe is change; life is opinion."

I see it this way: nothing is completely defined, and that is the beautiful part. Because there will always be space in my life to create, grow, and dream.

[dandelionsresilience]

Take a break, this cute tardigrade needs time to cross your dash:

[dandelionsresilience]

[dandelionsresilience]

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - August 22-28

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles! (sorry for the delay, life has been kicking my ass again the past couple of weeks)

1. Illinois launches first-in-nation LGBTQ+ legal hotline

““The IL Pride Connect Legal Hotline offers free, confidential legal advice and referrals across Illinois”[...], including but not limited to access to health care such as gender-affirming care, discrimination or harassment, public benefits like Medicaid or SNAP, identity documents, and housing or safety concerns. [...] The hotline will be available at 855-805-9200 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. GMT Monday through Thursday, offering services in both English and Spanish. It launches August 25.”

2. Rewilding project aims to restore resilience to fire-prone Spain via wildlife

“Rewilding Spain says Przewalski’s horses, taurus and wild horses could help regulate the severity of fires in an age of climate crisis. But how? Simply by filling their ecological roles — in some cases, roles lost for tens of thousands of years. Despite all of these animals being herbivores, each of them, combined with local deer, plays a unique role in the ecosystem, creating ecosystem heterogeneity and niches for greater diversity.”

3. Waste-to-energy project could boost Brazil’s decarbonization goals

“[The Brazilian state of Amazonas] has one of the highest rates of landfill use, with almost 92% of its cities disposing of their garbage this way. […] The facility will process waste from human activities into biomethane, known as “green gas,” for its high decarbonization potential. […] “A cubic meter of biomethane reduces 90% of carbon dioxide emissions if it replaces natural gas.[…]””

4. When bison have room to roam, they reawaken the Yellowstone ecosystem

“Unlike traditional bison conservation efforts focused on small, fenced areas and controlled numbers based on grazing management principles, [new research suggests that…] "The return of a large-scale bison migration provides clear benefits to the ecosystem[…. Grazed] plants grow as much as they would if they weren't grazed but, strikingly, are 150% more nutritious. […] Plant communities changed in some areas, but productivity was maintained, and the biodiversity of plants increased across the migration corridor.”

5. Self-assembling electrolyte enables rapid disassembly for easier EV battery recycling

“To simplify the recycling process, the researchers decided to make a more sustainable electrolyte. For that, they turned to a class of molecules that self-assemble in water[....] When they immersed the battery cell into organic solvents, the material immediately dissolved, with each part of the battery falling away for easier recycling.”

And a bonus article that I found too late for last week's news: Rice, two curries and dal: The Indian cafes where you can pay in rubbish

August 15-21 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[dandelionsresilience]

website

[dandelionsresilience]

[dandelionsresilience]

whenever i see talk about third spaces people pretty much always mean bars, or other places of consumption. Nobody really talks about something like a public bathhouse that would be a massive boon for local homeless people, or making local laundromats a free public service. These can, and I think absolutely should be valuable and very utilitarian third spaces for community building.

[dandelionsresilience]

Bought my uncle a burger and milkshake in exchange for letting me disrupt the holiest day of the week, NFL Sunday Football, so I could install a Pi-hole and free the household of ads...the thing abt the specific boomers I live with is they told me not to trust people on the Internet but they do not understand the algorithm or online advertising and think that Facebook has their best interests at heart. And every time I have tried to explain to them that no, blorbo from my dashboard is not selling my kidneys on the dark web but Google from your capitalism is definitely selling your web searches to every advertising company on the planet, they think I am paranoid. How could their personal friend Mark Zuckerberg want anything bad to happen to them etc. I am fighting battles I did not know existed!!!

[dandelionsresilience]

I’d like to tell you a little story today about why a lot of problems need social workers, not cops.

a long long time ago…like 2010, I worked 2nd shift (2pm-10pm) in a homeless shelter. I worked on a floor specifically for men with addiction and mental health problems. For most of the shift, I was the only staff working. Most of the time, the job was chill to the point of being boring. My job was to do the little things that needed doing, and be always ready to respond if shit went down. Most of the time, nothing much happened.

So one day I’m sitting at my little desk, trying to get up the motivation to organize the food pantry a little bit, and I head SCREAMING.

By the time I’m on my feet, one of the residents was in view. Dude was 6ft 4, with a shaved head, and a SOLID build. He was screaming down the hall, and in his raised fist he had, I shit you not, a blood-covered meat cleaver. He was spattered in blood all over. I knew the man- I knew all the residents. He mostly kept to himself. Sometimes he’d talk to me about his hallucinations and paranoid delusions. (no question these ones were delusions, kids. Man eating pythons can not fit in a half inch radiator pipe.) He had a history of getting pretty worked up.

Switch the camera around 180 degrees. I was 120 lbs and 5ft 4 on a good day, and all by my self. Totally unarmed.

Ask yourself- what would an armed cop do in that situation- alone, with a huge man running at them with a huge bloody knife?

I’m not gonna pretend for one second that my fight and flight instincts didn’t kick in. The ancient parts of my brain that exist to protect me from danger by fleeing or killing something saw this and screamed a great big NOPE.

But by this point I had like 8 years of other training, to. De-escalation training. Training on keeping a cool head in a scary situation. Training that reminded me that I was responsible for the safety of the other 17 men who called this floor their home.

Training that told me that this man was my responsibility, not my enemy.

In short, the opposite of what many police departments train their officers in. They are trained to view people as hostile, to treat their beat like a war zone. To act immediately. I wont say none of them have de-escalation training, but I will say it’s a bit of a useless add-on when they’re taught to go with their gut feeling of whether or not a situation is dangerous.

Because my gut sure as hell perceived a danger.

Anyways, I didn’t run, and I didn’t attack. I rooted my feet and I asked him what was going on.

That was when I saw that he was weeping. He was terrified.

He had bought a new cooking knife off the tv- he liked cooking, and had been looking at it. But one of the side effects of his meds made him clumsy, and he’d dropped it. He’d sliced open the back of his knee, where there’s a huge vein or artery or something- and was bleeding a LOT. 

He was understandably alarmed at the river-like quantity of blood gushing out of him, and had run to the nearest help- me.

In his rush and his fear, he’d just forgotten to put the damn knife down.

The other residents had, thankfully, all stayed in their rooms, because a month before I’d got on several people’s cases for coming out to defend me- with the very best of intentions- during a previous incident. Their motives were good, but de-escalating a situation when other people are ready to throw hands is WAY harder. I’d told them to keep their buts in their rooms unless I actually called for help, and God bless them, every single one of them had done it.

This is the point when I called for help. One of the residents got the first aid kit. One called an ambulance. One gave me the literal shirt off his back because our damn first aid kit didn’t have a tourniquet so we ripped the shirt up to make one.

We helped calm the poor injured guy down, and he got a few stitches, and everybody was proud of how we’d come together to help each other out.

Nobody was hurt beyond that one initial injury. Nobody was traumatized. If anything, the guy who’d been hurt was happier, more engaged with the rest of us, having seen that everyone here would take care of him when he was in need. He hadn’t had much care given to him in his life.

So when you see meme’s of “lol what are those social workers gonna do NOW huh?” please remember that 1) we’ve been out here doing this work ANYWAYS and 2) We’ve been doing it unarmed and level headed, which is better than the cops.

Now, does social work ALSO need reform? Does social work ALSO contain racism and ableism and every other social evil? You bet! Just look at…like anything to do with CPS to look at how these systems break down.

But do not use social workers de-escalation training as some kind of “gotcha” to prove we need armed and militant enforcers on every damn corner. And please don’t let others do it, either.

A better way is possible.

[dandelionsresilience]