Still Passionate and Confused

Thanks to a lot of work by fuzzyred, you can now read A Poesy of Obscure Sorrows on its own landing page. :D This series of linguistic poetry uses novel words presented in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

Today is sunny and cold. 

I fed the birds.  I've seen a flock of sparrows.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 1/20/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 1/20/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen at least one starling.

EDIT 1/20/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

We brought in more firewood to stack beside the stove.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night. 

The following poems from the January 6, 2026 Poetry Fishbowl are currently available. Poems may be sponsored via PayPal -- there's a permanent donation button on my Dreamwidth profile page -- or you can write to me and discuss other methods. There are still verses left in the linkback poems "Delight in Another," "A Sense of Weather Changes," "Ouroboros Insects," "The Loving Embrace of Night," "Generations of Cooks Past," "Homefree and Clear, " "One Bite at a Time," "Stars and Diamonds," "Mishpocha," "Changing Your Nature," and "Besa."

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Today I made Crockpot Xawaash Chicken Stew.  I added some chopped cherry tomatoes.  They worked pretty well, but didn't cook very evenly.

I also made Sour Cream Biscuits. We had sour cream left over from a previous recipe.  Honestly, I thought these were a failure because they didn't fluff up at all.  The texture is more like a dumpling than a biscuit.  But they have a great sour cream flavor, and they worked quite well with the stew.  If you have spare sour cream, it's worth a try.

Scientists trace fertilizer microplastics from fields to beaches

Tiny plastic coatings from farm fertilizers are quietly reshaping the mystery of “missing plastics” in the ocean.

Plastic-coated fertilizers used on farms are emerging as a major but hidden source of ocean microplastics. A new study found that only a tiny fraction reaches beaches through rivers, while direct drainage from fields to the sea sends far more plastic back onto shore. Once there, waves and tides briefly trap the particles on beaches before many vanish again. This helps explain why so much plastic pollution seems to disappear after reaching the ocean.


That sounds like another problem that could be reduced with a ban on using plastic to make microbeads.

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Communities
OPN Seed Order
Website Updates
Climate Change
Birdfeeding
Poem: The Flavors of Our Days
Poetry Fishbowl Themes for Early 2026
Creative Jam
Today's Adventures
Birdfeeding
Philosophical Questions: Democracy
Greenland Defense Front
2025 Photos
Photos: Three for the Memories from 2025
New Year's Resolutions Check In
Birdfeeding
Poem: "People of Every Ethnic Persuasion"
Follow Friday 1-16-26: Leverage
Poem: "There's an Art to It"
Read "Hordes of the Khan"
Wildlife
Neighborhood Poetry
Birdfeeding
Community Thursdays
Birdfeeding
Poem: "The Most Dangerous Animal in the Zoo"
Cuddle Party

Animal Communication has 30 comments. Food has 53 comments. Trauma has 51 comments. Affordable Housing has 84 comments. Robotics has 125 comments.


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Radical Neighbouring: The Farm Where Nothing is for Sale

This video asks a compelling question: What does a human look like who isn't a consumer?

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xt1me  posted samples of Avatar: The Last Airbender playing cards, very well designed.

Study explains longstanding mystery of why trees don't grow faster when CO2 levels are high

The authors are clear that their framework is a foundation, not a finish line. It explains a big, stubborn piece of the puzzle – the coupling of CO2 gain to water loss – and does so at the leaf-to-tree scale where decisions are made.

The next challenge is scaling those decisions up into regional and global climate models without smoothing away the very dynamics that matter.

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These are the character notes for "People of Every Ethnic Persuasion" Part 4 Everyone Else.

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