iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 18h

Meet Tally, Rio Hill Kroger’s new inventory control associate.

A stick shaped robot roaming around Kroger with a lit up screen that reads, “Hi, I’m Tally! I check shelf inventory!”

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

We grow milkweed in the school garden so that students can observe the monarch’s life cycle each year.

A monarch caterpillar (black, white, and yellow-striped) eating milkweed with a red brick school building in the background and a bright blue sky.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Field Day at my kid’s elementary, which was also my elementary. Not sure whether to be aghast or impressed that they’re still using the same yarn balls 40 years later.

A Caucasian hand holding an old, faded red, white, and blue yarn ball against a backdrop of green grass. A plastic bin of yellow balls and a purple cone are in the background.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

POOPMAN and SHROOMZ wouldn’t be allowed by the DMV, but this is acceptable.

Blue car with license plate that says “ARIAN RT”

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

A 2012 report by the TJHD shows that lung cancer incidents in Fluvanna County between 2004 to 2008, the period just after Tenaska built its first gas powered plant, increased more than 30 percent compared with 1999 to 2003. Coincidence?

A colorful bar graph showing lung cancer incidence by county in the Thomas Jefferson Health District from 1999-2008

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

Christmas morning bagels with lox. Tomatoes were picked green from our garden the night before our first freeze, and left to ripen on the counter. Wrapped in newspaper and boxed up, they would have lasted longer, but I was hoping to have some for Christmas. Just cut into the last one this morning.

A bagel covered with cream cheese, lox, bright red tomato, and pieces of fresh dill. It sits on a white plate with water glass behind it. There is a red and green plaid tablecloth in the background.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

The family at Charlottesville’s No Kings Day.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 27/09/2025

Two great finds on the AT near Ravens Roost. A white-spotted slimy salamander and a glowworm! Glowworm beetle larvae are bioluminescent. The side spots glow like lighted windows on a passenger train giving them the nickname “railroad worm.”

A black salamander with tiny white spots is in the center among some leaf litter. There is a green moss covered rock in the upper right corner.

A glow worm beetle larvae is in the center in a crevice between two rocks. The segmented worm is black with two rows of orange spots, one along each side.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

The students who planted tomatoes and basil in their school garden in May got to enjoy mini Caprese skewers at lunch today. A bright spot on an otherwise bland lunch tray.

A paper plate with a blue flowered border is on a red table with a clip board and pen in the background. Three hands are teaching for the Caprese (tomato, mozzarella, basil) skewers that are on the plate.

A bright green plastic school lunch tray has French fries, nuggets, ketchup, a blue and purple chocolate milk carton, and a white plastic spoon. In the center is a mini Caprese skewer with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil leaves.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

Spending the morning with some of my least favorite caterpillars. The oh so painful saddleback and the oh so destructive hornworm.

A saddleback caterpillar eating a hydrangea leaf. It’s dark brown on the ends with spiky tubes covered in spines. There is a dark brown spot in the center of its back surrounded by lime green.

A hornworm caterpillar on a tomato vine. It’s the same green color as the vine with white stripes and tiny black spots along the sides of its body.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

These tiny, fluffy tufts are beech blight aphids feeding on the sap of beech tree branch. They're also know as boogie-woogie aphids because they dance as they eat. The spongy orange fungus is called a honeydew eater which grows on the excrement of the aphids, and eventually turns black.

Tiny, white tufts, beech blight aphids, covering a branch with several green leaves.

A branch of a beech tree in the woods covered with beech blight aphids, tiny white, cottony tufts. Below the brach is a straw-colored spongy fungus that's growing on the excrement, also know as "honey dew," from the aphids.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

Same vibe with The Christmas Crocodile. He doesn’t mean to be bad, not really.

The illustrated cover of a children’s book featuring a big-eyed, snaggletoothed crocodile with a red ribbon in its mouth, surrounded by fancy packages. There’s a surprised looking girl in the upper right corner.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

That large yellow dot is a very full pollen basket. She’s packed pollen and saliva onto the hairs of her leg to carry it back to the nest.

A bumblebee on a pale lavender head of monarda or bee balm.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

It seems there thunderstorms everywhere but the ball field. Tom Sox win 4-3.

A rainbow over the Tom Sox game at CHO Field. A player on third base and the Tom a Sox dugout in the background.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

Every year, I start tomatoes from seed and fuss over the timing and the transplanting and the spacing. Did I get it all just right? And every year, some rando volunteers pop up and take off without a care in the world, leaping ahead of everything I started.

Two green grape tomatoes with dark stripes near the top, growing on a vine with lots of green leaves around.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Mushroom Monday along the Rivanna River.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

Our son held a protest in our front yard. Gotta love the rainbow stormtrooper.

Lego minifigures holding protest signs, including “Dumbledore’s Army Still Recruiting,” “Stop Order 66,” NO NAZIS,” “Rebellions Are Built on Hope,” and “ NO KINGS.”

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

24hrs later and the chick can stand on her own and walk. It’s wobbly and one leg still tends to splay, but I think it will be okay with continued therapy. The kids have named it Simone, as in Biles, for her super splits.

A tiny black chick with a white chin and stomach standing on outstretched hands.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

A class at my kid’s school hatched chicks. One of them has splayed leg. The teacher hasn’t had any luck with taping and the kids are devastated. So, it came home with us for intensive rehab—standing in a mason jar so that its body is supported and its legs can be in the correct position. 24-48hrs 🤞🏼

A two day old chick wrapped in bright green felt standing in a glass jar with binder clips holding the felt in place. Red light from the heat lamp gives everything pink and purple hues.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Ron Finley said, “Kids who grow kale eat kale.” Indeed. Making kale chips at Stony Point Elementary.

Kids (faces hidden behind smiling emojis) standing outside of a brick school building holding kale they just picked that they grew in their school garden.

Making kale chips: a sheet pan lined with parchment with glossy leaves of kale, mixing bowls, and a bottle of olive oil.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Our beloved cherry suffered from a bacterial attack and gummosis last year. I winced as I pruned away large portions of the tree, hoping to save it and not kill it in the process. It survived and rewarded us. We picked as many as we could before the incoming rain splits them.

A cluster of shiny, dark red ripe cherries on a branch surrounded by thick veined leaves.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

I love it when community nonprofits team up! The Piedmont Master Gardeners have partnered with the Albemarle County Fair to have a sunflower growing contest. It’s a great way for kids to learn about plants, food, and fairs. You can pick up free seeds at Gordon Ave library and start growing!

A flyer for a sunflower competition at the Albemarle County Fair next to a green plastic basket with envelopes of sunflowers seeds.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Just when I thought I couldn’t love our library any more.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

I’m in bluebell heaven at Shenandoah River State Park.

Bluebells in full bloom along the Shenandoah River.

Bluebells as far as you can see along the trail at Shenandoah River State Park.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

We made it though another winter.

One sprig of asparagus growing out of the ground with dried stalks around it. Bare trees against and pale sunset abs blue mountains are in the background.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

While cleaning up the raised beds in the school garden, a student presented me with a freshly picked playground bouquet.

A tiny bouquet of henbit dead nettle (magenta flowers) and hairy bittercress (white flowers).

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Another fallen tree weeping ice sickles. Spent a while hypothesizing about this one with my kid today. The tips of the ice sickles are dark and dry, presumably from sediment that flowed out of the log along with the moisture.

Tan colored ice sickles hang from the end of an old downed tree. The tips are dark brown and dry like dead leaves. The snow covered forest floor is in the background.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

Female prisoners at Asuchwitz were forced to work in greenhouses cultivating flowers and herbs. The Raisko subcamp focused on agricultural research like using kok-saghyz, or Russian dandelion, a species that could produce latex as a substitute for rubber. www.auschwitz.org/en/history/a...

Black and white photograph of a straggly dandelion with five stems and small blooms growing in sandy soil. A wooden ruler on the left measures the height at 6 inches.

Black and white photograph of the Interior of a greenhouse at subcamp Raisko at Auschwitz, 1941.
https://subcamps-auschwitz.org/auschwitz-subcamps/wirtschaftshof-raisko/

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

I’m trying to learn to identify more lichen species. Here’s Cladonia asahinae, the pixie cup lichen. Its podetium, the upright, hollow stalk, is less than a centimeter tall.

A jumble of sticks, moss, and lichen with a single pixie cup lichen in the center.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

These ice sickles were either formed by rainwater that had gathered inside the rotting log or from slime flux, a bacterial infection that causes fermented sap to weep from a tree. Given the volume and how long the tree has been down, my guess is rainwater.

Amber colored ice sickles hang from the end of a fallen, rotting tree lying in the snow.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

One of my favorite things about walking in the snow is the stories it reveals. We see the deer move on the same paths, the squirrels leap from ground to tree everyday. But the snow highlights the movements of the more elusive coyotes, foxes, birds, and rabbits.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Straight out of Owl Moon: Walking up our half-mile, mountainside driveway tonight, my son and I stopped to listen. Silence. No cars. No wind. No barking. Thwack! We turned our headlamps up expecting to see a large branch crashing down and were met with a great horned owl erupting from the pines.

Night scene in the woods. Talk black trees stretch against a dark sky.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Oyster mushrooms along the Rivanna River. In addition to dead trees, they also consume nematodes. As the worms approach, the fungus exudes “sticky nobs,” like tiny lollipops that release a toxin that paralyzes their prey. The fungus can harvest the worm’s nitrogen by sending hyphae through its body.

A cluster of light brown capped oyster mushrooms growing vertically on a tree with the Rivanna river in the background.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

Garden Club students pulled carrots from the school garden (a first for most) and chose the best one for their (pumpkin) snowman’s nose. They named him Boop and sang and danced around him. Not bad for a 30 degree gardening day.

A child’s hand holding a dirt covered carrot that they just pulled from the garden. Their leg with a grey pant and blue shoe is on the right.

A child’s hand is placing black circles on a snowman made out of painted pumpkins. The snowman has a grey hat, red scarf, and carrot nose.

A snowman made from three pumpkins painted white wears a red scarf and grey hat. It’s standing on grass with a brink wall behind it.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Found last night when I was cutting flowers in anticipation of our first frost (which didn’t happen). It was too cold and dark for it to make its way back to the nest, so my son revived it with sugar water and gave it a temporary home. Tomorrow should be warm and sunny enough for release.

A carpenter bee in a jar with a marigold flower, dried leaves, and bark.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Still no frost and the zinnias are making the most of it.

A bouquet of zinnias in shades of pink. Maple trees in the background with yellow and orange leaves.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

I lead an after school garden club for 2nd graders. Today’s project: constructing bug snugs. A stick frame layered with dried cuttings from the garden provides an excellent winter home for pollinators. I bet we’ll find a praying mantis cocoon in one of them come spring.

A bug snug in the garden. Three sticks tied together with twine and filled with dried plant matter like stalks, stems, leaves, grasses, and pinecones.

A bug snug under construction. Three sticks tied together frame dried plant matter that is being stacked up.

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Amber Capron @acapron.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

My rose bush is refusing to give in to November.

Small white roses in full bloom with fall leaves in the background.

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