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friesen5000

@friesen5000@mstdn.ca

I am legion. Canadian. Prairie boy. Bureaucrat. Ecologist. Family man. Gardener. Mennonite.

Before proceeding, you should know I play a mean game of Minesweeper.

Things you'll often find here: #ecology #galls #insects #EndangeredSpecies #prairie #grassland #Manitoba #Mennonite #DadJokes #entomology

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

friesen5000 , to random
@friesen5000@mstdn.ca avatar

@pluralistic found something of yours in the local little free library.

friesen5000 , to random
@friesen5000@mstdn.ca avatar

Are insects animals?

I've been asked this several times recently and as a biologist/ecologist I was taken aback.

Is it a common view among non-biologists that insects are not animals? If not animals, what are they?

Tagging some folks who may have encountered this: @alexwild @futurebird @nev @catselbow

loren , to random
@loren@flipping.rocks avatar

“Sir I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I’m calling to inform you that your barn has been swallowed”

friesen5000 ,
@friesen5000@mstdn.ca avatar

@loren We're dispatching security details for your bank and cliff.

friesen5000 , to bookstodon group
@friesen5000@mstdn.ca avatar

"All I know, boy, is that life is, on occasion, entirely too vast for my tastes."

The Baron, in Under Majordomo Minor by Patrick DeWitt

@bookstodon

friesen5000 , to random
@friesen5000@mstdn.ca avatar

Though the infirmities of age did their part to discourage her at every turn, when her mood turned defiantly carefree Penny would still sneak away from her sisters to visit The Flower. Here she would ambush the bees who came to visit, losing herself in adrenaline-fueled chaos as she chased them, antennae waving wildly as if shooing flies. If later one asked about her absence, they would receive nought but an absent stare and the mumblings of an ant at peace.

friesen5000 , to bookstodon group
@friesen5000@mstdn.ca avatar

Just finished Slaughterhouse Five, my first Vonnegut experience. Wasn't sure what to expect but it wasn't that. Many thoughts and feelings but they're still rather jumbled, not coherent. Worth the read. @bookstodon

friesen5000 OP ,
@friesen5000@mstdn.ca avatar

@BarryCooke @bookstodon I wonder if space is typically needed between Vonnegut novels; doesn't seem like a binge kind of author. But maybe that's just the combination of me and Slaughterhouse.

friesen5000 , to random
@friesen5000@mstdn.ca avatar

She was unsure why or how, but Darlene was always drawn to the leaf edge. No matter which way she had set out to travel, her feet, as if pulled by magnets, always brought her here. And then she'd stand, looking out at a world of many colors and experience an odd mix of melancholy and pride that she was and always would be a green weevil.

friesen5000 , to random
@friesen5000@mstdn.ca avatar

This headline had me thinking there was a mountain made of millipedes. I guess a mountain with lots of millipedes on it isn't bad, either.

Tanzania’s ‘mountain of millipedes’ yields six new species
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/03/tanzanias-mountain-of-millipedes-yields-six-new-species-helping-to-track-rainforest-recovery/

friesen5000 , to random
@friesen5000@mstdn.ca avatar

33 inches!!! That's a freaking long nectar spur requiring an equally freaking long moth proboscis.
‘Mind-blowing’ new orchid species found in Madagascar forest canopy
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/03/mind-blowing-new-orchid-species-found-in-madagascar-forest-canopy/

friesen5000 , to random
@friesen5000@mstdn.ca avatar

Yip yip yip yip yip

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

All the people who answered the poll saying they want a "strong leader" are invited to have me as that strong leader.

Under my care and rule we will begin with logic. Then move on to mathematics, and then the sciences. You will learn. You will journal daily. You will use effective language and "When you do X it makes me feel Y" statements.

You will spend an hour each day drawing and contemplating your assigned insect.

It will be very therapeutic and strict and "strong"

$1800 per month.

friesen5000 ,
@friesen5000@mstdn.ca avatar

@futurebird can we do another hour on an insect of choice?

friesen5000 , to bookstodon group
@friesen5000@mstdn.ca avatar

Great quote by Pitirim Sorokin in Thomas Jay Oord's Defining Love. @bookstodon

"At the present juncture of human history an increase in our knowledge of the grace of love has become the paramount need of humanity, and an intensive research in this field should take precedence over almost all other studies and research...Considering the immensity of this task, [my] contribution is very modest in comparison with the total sum of the necessary studies. Since, however, the better brains are busy with other problems, including the invention of means of extermination of human beings...[and] many a religious leader is absorbed in the intertribal crusades against various enemies - under these conditions somebody, somehow, must devote himself to a study of the miracle of love."
ALT
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    • bookgaga , to random
    @bookgaga@mastodon.social avatar

    It's my birthday in a few days.

    The greatest gift I can imagine is if you give yourself the gift of a book. For the 3rd year running, I offer my suggestions for how to go about that: http://bookgagabooks.ca/2022/02/28/the-gift-of-a-book-is-a-gift-for-many/

    • Purchase from independent booksellers and it's also a gift to those hardworking people and businesses.

    • Pre-order books as "a present to your future self" ... and a gift to tireless and determined authors and publishers.

    Please reply and let me know what you got, OK?

    friesen5000 ,
    @friesen5000@mstdn.ca avatar

    @bookgaga @bookstodon I must have had a premonition - I went to my local bookstore (McNally Robinson) a couple days to pick up an order of 2 books, but somehow walked out with 5. Funny how that happens.

    friesen5000 , to bookstodon group
    @friesen5000@mstdn.ca avatar

    Just finished The Little Liar by Mitch Albom. Poignant story of children experiencing and then navigating through life with the memories of the Holocaust. Definitely worth the read. More in my review here. @bookstodon https://books.theunseen.city/user/friesen5000/review/119547/s/a-poignant-mix-of-family-dynamics-cultural-belonging-and-the-ways-people-respond-to-the-tragedy-of-war

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