#dry lands

[emmajoydesignco]

Plantation vs. Natural Regeneration

As the climate crisis continues, governments around the world are spearheading tree planting initiatives. While the intention behind such a goal is noble, the execution can fail if consideration for all variables in the trees health are not considered. This is especially true in dry land environments. Trees need to be planted in soil that has the nutrients they need and surrounded by a biodiversity of other organisms to assist in their growth. There needs to be a strategy for watering that does not rely on quickly depleting and expensive municipal water sources. Animal grazing needs to be regulated in order for the young trees to reach maturity. These are all factors that often get overlooked in amidst the green excitement that ensues from the combination of a very large number next to the words "tree initiative".

The Saudi government has a goal to plant 10 billion trees by 2030 under the name "The Saudi Green Initiative". The Saudi Green Initiative approached me with the desire to illustrate tree planting through natural regeneration rather than plantation so that stakeholders could quickly grasp the considerations that need to be made when deciding where and how many trees to plant. This illustration has been distributed throughout the Saudi eco-scientist and political realm, reaching as far as the crowned prince of Saudi Arabia.

[c-rowlesdraws]

it's the young lady in my icon again!! It's Chrysanthemum. I wanted to update her outfit to have it look more like clothes someone raised by a human would choose, because she never actually met another person of her species until she was a young adult. She also likes sewing and embroidery, and has been making/modifying her own clothes for a long time (out of necessity and also for fun), so her little top and the long, flowy part of her headdress (and her pants in the second sketch) have decorative flourishes.

Pata in the second sketch has lived away from his homeland and in a more multicultural area for a few years, so his actual everyday clothes also somewhat resemble the clothes worn by humans and other sorts of people-- but here he's dressed in a traditional outfit to show both the fashion contrast and height/build contrast between Chrysanthemum and an average adult of her species.

[kelocitta]

Day 2: Submerged Superstructure A shuddering breath from failing systems

[alkalische]

2/3 of the main fish polycue

[thefiresofpompeii]

his waters of mars moment, foreshadowed by a million preceding events, but this time he's not doing it out of hubris or to prove some kind of point, alone and unhinged: he's doing it for love.

all the way back in before the flood ... i'm changing history to save clara.

[i-am-dulaman]

Why I hate Golf

This is the Takapuna Golf Course in Auckland, New Zealand.

It is in the middle of Auckland's north shore suburbs.

According to their website, they are one of the most popular golf courses in Aotearoa and have an annual visitor count of 60,000 people. They don't clarify if that is individual unique visitors or recounts, but lets be generous and say its unique visitors. 60,000, not bad.

This is Eden Park Stadium (the little square on the right) and oh look there's another golf course on the left there, ignore that one for now.

(the above two images are at the same scale)

Eden park has a capacity of 50,000 people. Ed Sheeran was here earlier this year and sold out the two nights he performed. That's 100,000 people in a weekend all in that little red square. 60,000 in a year no longer seems so great.

60,000 people per year is also only 160 people per day. 160 visitors to a golf course that is 470,000 square meters in area. Now the average property size in Auckland is 500 square meters. So the golf course takes up the area of 940 houses.

940 homes worth of land for 160 people.

And that is Auckland housing sizes. Auckland is horribly designed and very spread out. Let's instead look at Barcelona, considered one of the most well designed cities in the world.

This is Takapuna golf course side by side with Barcelona

(The scale is as close to being equal as I could get them, I don't have ArcGIS data for Barcelona so had to use google maps)

Each red square overlaid on Takapuna Golf Course is exactly 133m in height/width, the same size as each city block in Barcelona, road width included.

There are 23 Barcelona blocks worth of space in Takapuna Golf Course with room to spare. About 640 people live in each Barcelona block, that's 15000 people.

15000 peoples worth of homes and living spaces, sacrificed so 160 people can play golf in a day.

Now this is just one golf course in a big city, what's 15,000 people to a city of 1.6 million, who cares right?

Here is a wider shot of Auckland City.

Those red dots? They're golf courses.

There are 16 golf courses inside the metropolitan area of Auckland City (4 not pictured as Auckland is too spread out to get one clean screenshot). Keep in mind these are not rural golf courses out in the country, these are right beside housing developments and shopping malls. And for the record I could not find a single golf course in the Barcelona metropolitan area, you had to go out into the country before finding one.

So lets multiply that 15,000 people by 16 golf courses?

240,000 people.

With Auckland City's golf courses you could house 240,000 people comfortably with some good urban planning.

That is why I hate golf.

[mother-lee]

sumter & everywhere

[evankinard]

^girl watching the bucktommy kiss for the hundred thousandth time in the span of four hours

[altschmerzes]

you ever work on your wip for a while and then minimize it and do other things or go to bed or whatever and then you open it up to work on it later and get immediately bodied by a line that completely takes you out at the knees that you don't remember writing

[waywardstation]

okay joke idea but hear me out

PMD: everything is the same or similar except Akari is a Phione. She needs to be careful when playing around with Ingo when he is Thyplosion. Also I believe she would be spitting water at everyone being mean to him.

And once again she becomes a passenger on him as a Phione.

I don’t think things would change too much for the AU if she was a Phione, but some things would definitely be different.

Compared to an eevee, she’d probably be useless anywhere else, but I could see her being pretty helpful in water-based dungeons where Ingo would struggle more, as a sort of trade-off.

I think she would spit water at those who are rude as well; it’s annoying but it’s not harmful. The Miss Fortune Sisters (in the place of Team Skull in this AU) would probably be subjected to that a lot haha. Like you said, she’s just got to be careful not to accidentally douse Ingo’s hot spots on his back — lots of steam, and/or brief difficulty with igniting, depending on how much water is sprayed.

And I do think Ingo would have to carry her around most places. No legs and flimsy flippers make for a very slow pace on land — she’d stick herself to his shoulder like a starfish lol. And maybe stay in the bag/under his hat in hot weather.

[landwriter]

god, but garlic! garlic!!! garlic is SO neat

rows are may thru aug & the final row is after cleaning and trimming them for storage. they should keep until early feb. in another two months it’ll be time to plant new cloves and repeat the process. year round garlic action! how cool is that?? 🧄

[ichthyorelationships]

an idea i invite anyone else to write about / run with lol....

the premise that The Change gets all messed up for alberto, say it's something that can happen from stress, &/or happens rarely and you just have to wait for it to resolve itself....used as some parallel to struggling through some emotional turbulence / upheaval / questioning / Realizing Things, etc etc

[kaidanalenkosprmanager]

THE BEST OF SHENKO 1/?

The end of the world has a way of reminding you of all the things you forgot to say do. Mass Effect: Legendary Edition (2021)

[hedgehog-moss]

I love hearing your stories and I wanted to send you well wishes, with the ongoing drought in Europe. I don't know how much it's affecting you but I hope you're doing well.

Thank you! Sending my own well wishes to anyone struggling this summer from heat waves or lack of rain or destructive floods... :(

We were supposed to have three or four days of rain this week and disappointingly the weather forecast changed its mind; we only had some rain yesterday which was better than nothing, but still, it's crazy. One day of rain in the entire summer. Everything looks burnt and sounds crackly when the typical summer landscape around here is one of lush green pastures and wildflowers everywhere...

Someone was saying at the library the other day that the headlines this summer felt rather dystopian as far as we're concerned, like "cheese production halted", "walking in the woods now illegal"... (Amongst the requirements to produce an 'AOC' cheese, the cows need to have a diet of at least 75% natural, non-fertilised pasture grass and, well, there’s no grass right now. And some municipalities have made it temporarily illegal to go in the woods at all, for fear of someone starting a fire)

But yes it's not nearly as bad here as in the regions affected by the massive fires. I have a friend in the South-West who owns some land and spent her free time in July helping to evacuate people's horses from affected areas to her land and hoping the fires wouldn't reach her. My mum was in Brittany recently and told me the forest of Brocéliande was burning, which sounds apocalyptic because the #1 source of jokes about Brittany is its perpetually wet weather, so, no one is safe... (They’re finally getting some rain, though!)

I'm really, really grateful for my spring. All the water I use at home + the water for the animals comes from that one spring, there are twelve of us depending on it + my vegetable garden and it has continued giving us the exact same amount of water as usual all summer; both troughs in the pasture are full and overflowing. I've been hearing about major rivers all over Europe that had an incredibly reduced flow rate and looking at my valiant little spring like, what's your secret...? When all the waterfalls in the woods have disappeared and for miles around you see nothing but fried yellow grass and even the older fruit trees are struggling and reluctantly producing a handful of cherry-sized plums and you sit by a water trough that just keeps cheerfully overflowing all day long, it feels a bit witchy.

[prototypelq]

Let's press F in chat for the amazing and atmospheric concept art of DMC5, and how the game is just...devoid of any colour, except some rare cases.

[catmanbowser]

Rummaging my folder to see if i ever draw timkon kissing

Theres nothing here im...