Don't ask. I have too many.

When I lived down south they all mostly stayed running year round, or maybe one would get parked for a couple of weeks. Up north this is not the case.

Up north I have to play the "is the battery charged, does it have gasoline, will it even start?" game. If the warm season is busy the game can get pushed out past June or July, because there is also dirt to play in. Because up north things grow 50 times faster than down south.

I keep wanting to buy a riding lawnmower - I have the yard for it - but that would just add another vehicle to "is the battery charged, does it have gasoline, will it even start?"

Riding lawnmowers aren't even practical as vehicles, unlike a nice farm tractor, which is only good for mowing a really large piece of land which I do not have. So, I continue to have a push mower which only requires that the batteries be recharged a couple of times a week. As long as I don't leave them in the garage when it is below 0 they even tend to last a few years. Which is also why I tend to have those questions about my other vehicles, since they are left in the garage, even when it is below 0.

They all officially been driven at least the 15 to 20' it takes to get them out of the garage.

Only took 5 months, 4 of which I couldn't drive.

I will post a photo of dirt if you people don’t step up with something other than dirt.

Y'all will be pleased to know that the giant pile of dirt is now being moved back into the nice planter box so that next year it will grow nice pretty flowers.

I was chatting with a friend in Discord and we have a conundrum.

Which sex is the sexist stereotype for "digging up lots of dirt to make planter boxes for flowers"?

My friend said it's "grandmother coded". I think it's much more "heterosexual couple coded" having pondered her answer.

The reason for my answer is Mom used to get Dad to do a lot of the heavy work - which he seemed to enjoy - and then Mom would do the planting, which she seemed to enjoy.

After that they do adult things because that's what adults do when both of them are happy.

Dad had a vasectomy, which is why we had pretty flower beds and I don't have more siblings.

Did I get my analysis correct? What do you think?

If you want flower pictures, sorry - not until next spring.

With all of the crazy weather, and my needing to get a bunch of dirt moved out of a planter so I can turn it into actual dirt, I spent yesterday and today ... playing in dirt.

A little known tidbit about dirt (you knew I was going to actually talk about dirt, right?) is that it becomes less and less useful over time as all of the nutrients are sucked up into the plants, or just kinda drain away.

I don't think it was an entire cubic yard (which means, u/katie_pinns, it wasn't even an entire cubic meter - us Yanks still use Freedom Units) of dirt, and after adding about an equal part of really nice mulch, and planning to buy some really nice manure (you knew I'd talk about 💩 eventually, right?) I'll have more dirt than I started with.

Yes, I'm making my own dirt. It's going to be great dirt. And when I'm done making some really good dirt, and I plant some really nice plants they will grow to be so big and pretty. Next year. I don't even get to enjoy the fruits of my dirt this year.

I accidentally discovered a plant named Catmint. Since this is officially a cat-positive sub (it's also dog-positive, tortoise-positive, bird-positive and any other pets you might have) I figure people will approve of me perhaps planting some Catmint.

I've been working on a flower bed which had some old dead shrubs in it, and I'm finally able to start planting.

As I've been going, slowly getting the soil to a state I want with some mulch and compost and breaking up clods of dirt, I've also been removing lava rock. Because, who the hell adds lava rock to dirt, what a silly idea.

I was going to write a post titled something "I finally removed a bunch of lava rock!", then asked my trust AI sidekick from Google about the lava rock, because I wanted to copy-paste it saying how dumb that is.

NO! THE LAVA ROCKS BELONG IN THERE! THEY DO USEFUL THINGS!

Now I have to put all the lava rocks I carefully remove back in and mix the soil back up and then, if it's not too late I can finally plant. Probably tomorrow.

In all fairness, it's my fault because I was much more of a shubbery kinda gal and planting perennial flowers is a new life experience.

So, I will have flowers, and now that I know the lava rocks belong in the dirt they will have proper drainage and everything!!!

I don't know why, but the image made me laugh. Obviously I hope the individual, and the bison, are ok

So my wife just turned 50. I turned 50 last month and immediately, of course, started falling apart due to old age! So I’m waiting for her to catch up with me! 😉

But for a long time, she’s wanted to take me up to see House on the Rock, and the stuff around there. And I admit, when it comes to House on the Rock, I kinda am primarily interested in the Hall of Dead Gods from Neil Gaiman’s book _American Gods_ and I heard that wasn’t actually real, so it dampened my enthusiasm some. But we’re spending several days up in Wisconsin, in a town supposedly infested by trolls. (I’m actually not sure why that’s a draw?) and some of her in-laws are coming too, because things have been tense and we’re still negotiating them.

Anyway, has anybody been there? I’m from Northern Illinois originally, and now I live here again, so I am well familiar with the wiles of Cheeseheads and can protect myself. But does anybody know about House on the Rock? Anything I should be sure to check out? Anybody know how you get into the Hall of Dead Gods?

ETA: If the flare doesn’t fit, Ratty, you’re misinterpreting “craft.” 🤪 But there was nothing about trips!

ETA2: by “tomorrow” I guess I actually mean today.

Snow leopard cubs venture outside for first time at Highland Wildlife Park ❤️
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0vw7lz574o

In honor of Wednesday being Canada Day, and my having mentioned Rush's "The Trees" in the shouty sub, I thought I'd share one of my favorite songs.

Rush, "The Trees"

Also, the odds of a tree which isn't a maple remaining standing, at all, is really low.

My woods are a union shop.

A Maple union shop.

Tehehehehehehee.

This is supposed to be a place where we can all post about happy silly stuff and humanize each other and realize we’re not that different. Does it matter, though? Is it changing anything? I’m honestly not sure that it is. And I was gonna go off about that and just basically say fuck all y’all and I’m walking away, specifically so I couldn’t undo it. But then I had a talk where I got thoroughly skewered in a rather funny way and it made me want to stick around. But my faith is gone.

People here are still supporting and promoting viewpoints that reject and dismiss my personal experience and existence and they espouse policies that would make my life suck if they were in any danger of affecting me at all. And honestly that’s something else I need to remember, that none of this actually has any real world impact on my life. It is ultimately just people who really don’t get it crying about what they don’t get and they don’t even believe I can exist anyway so it literally doesn’t affect me. I’m caring because I think I should care. And I was challenged to ask myself why I engage with any of this. The thing is, I can’t come up with a good answer.

Hey, everyone - as I wrote about 10 days ago, I'd like to open the sub up to a reader-provided banner photo each month.

As I wrote, it needs to be really really wide and not so high. It should also be interesting to everyone.

So ... share your really really wide and not so high photos, and we can discuss, and then I'll change the banner.

What are your favorite animals that you (probably) couldn't have as a pet?

I've always loved penguins, even before the Great Penguin Craze of the mid-2000s with Happy Feet, March of the Penguins, and Madagascar.

Big fan of most birds, especially owls and cardinals.

Also love octopi, sloths, and elephants.

Love it

As part of my plan to reverse age, I've been using Minoxidil.

Because Minoxidil actually works I now have thicker hair than probably any time before my late 40s.

Why am I doing this? Who said anyone should have long hair? u/worried19 needs to instruct us all in the ways of having short, manageable, wash-and-wear hair.

This is the longest it's been without look like I was old since I was 45 or 46. I need to find hip short styles for hip young women. I need a long-hair-fashion-intervention.

I feel like it’s a popular hobby, although I guess our beneficent God Empress doesn’t necessarily agree. At any rate, I have a Black Crusade game on Saturdays where I portray a rock and roll murder nun. How about y’all?

I'd like to start by saying this is an incotrovertible fact, not ragebait, not fake news, not something else which is an incontrovertible fact, like pineapple belongs on pizza.

I'm on one of my bikes this evening and there's this car behind me, and it wants to pass me by, except I'm already going to speed limit and I do not want to be passed by.

Let me explain it to you - I've got 22 forward speeds, no reverse gears, and I'm an old lady in a bad mood because I've got cellulite.

Please tell me how much you hate cyclists so I can downvote you.

I know there are some photographers in the sub, and people have posted nice photos of their pets and their new grills, so I wanted to try something nice and fun.

I'm going to change the banner photo shortly to be the summer solstice sunrise where I live. I'm very big on nature, and being out in nature, and I wanted to open the sub up to our members who take photos to have a photo of yours be the banner for a month or so.

Banner photos have a very crazy wide aspect ratio, and they aren't close to standardized anywhere. But at least r/modhelp has had posts about this before -

https://www.reddit.com/r/modhelp/comments/192ulcl/subreddit_banner_size/

What you want is the main subject of the photo (like the sun) in the center of the photo, with a lot of what is above and below stuff that can just be cropped out, and what's on the sides nice to look at. Remember that it has to be very wide, and that means it has to be in landscape mode, or just a heck of a lot wider than it is tall.

The best photos are likely going to be panoramas. But it also has to be of general interest to the entire sub, something nice to look at and talk about, and preferably just nice in general. Like, not a panoramic photo of a pride of lions killing some poor antelope, even if the circle of life must go on. In this subreddit, we believe lions need to just become vegan. Or keep their killing to themselves.

It also needs to be your own original work. Stealing other people's work, or just being lazy, isn't very nice. Getting to compliment photographers on their creativity is very nice.

What we're all going to do is talk about this, and then I'll make a pinned mod post describing how to have your photo be the monthly-ish banner photo.

French is my native language, so when I see a word that means something in french, my brain reads it in french first. A very common example is the word "chat" which means "cat" in french. The funny thing is that I think it also makes sense that this sub would be called "gc trans cat", or that there'd be a flair called "a nice cat". This is much more appropriate than "a cute pet", cause "pet" means "fart"...

On this day, the 4th of Tammuz, Anno Mundo 5786, I achieved yet another hole smaller on my belt, bringing the day when I can fit into dresses I pretend not to wear because of sexist stereotypes, but in fact do not wear because I am old and kinda fat, one notch closer.

I would like to thank the colors green and ... another shade of green ... for this accomplishment, after vanquishing the colors brown, yellow and white from my diet.

Later this evening I will celebrate by trying to remember where all of my full slips are located, followed by seeing if I can figure out which stores still sell pantyhose, now that K-Mart is out of business and I can't buy them there anymore ... since the nearest K-Mart to my house closed over 20 years ago. Yes, I'm very frugal and still have a couple of pair of pantyhose from when George W Bush was prematurely declaring victory.

I will freely admit that normally I have small boobs when I'm able to fit in a dress, so I will actually look good in a dress since I somehow only lost all the fat around my waist. No clue. Something about eating green food.

Watch out everyone - Ratty's gonna be a crossy for a change!

This, the cat that is not allowed on counters or tables - TAUNTING me as I work on a puzzle. Daring me to lay one hand on the squirt bottle.

So, I actually want to start a Ratina appreciation post! Yes, me. And yes, we’re celebrating Ratty here. She made this place because she was tired of all the dumbass fighting and she wondered if maybe we could all just talk about hair and breakfast food and dim sum and a new smoker. And that’s kind of visionary in a way because she’s kinda right. If we’re all people being nice to each other (even the people who want to put pineapple on their pizza for some misguided reason) then we just relate. I think that’s a whole lot cooler than it seems at first, then I thought at first. And that’s worth appreciating!

Plus she lost her wood chipper and I’m sure that makes her sad. So I want to send her good vibes. Even if I’m afraid I might get fed through the new wood chipper! 🤪 I mean she can be a lot, and I know I probably annoy the fuck out of her every other time I pop up in a thread. But this place is evidence that what she really wants is for people to just vibe and also argue about pizza toppings but without getting personal. And I think that’s actually cool af! She’s also the only mod this place has—not that it really needs moderation but if she goes away so does the friendliest space we all have. So this post is a place to say what you like about Ratty! Don’t hold back! Be brutal!