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Alder Burns

@adiantum.bsky.social
183 followers 161 following 402 posts

Permaculturist, homesteader, pagan, plant lover...

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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Just when the flying fireflies disappear, it's time to look down! Every night now, there are glowworms, firefly larvae, in the grass! Though not as bright or fast as the adults, they will be there for months, till it freezes hard; and again in the spring.
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
So I woke up from a weird dream with an odd insight....encountering anything paranormal is a bit like playing with a cat and a laser pointer. The cat thinks there's a real object there to chase, and it goes after it till confused or frustrated or exhausted. But it's an image cast by something else
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
First fig of the year, and the first fig on a new tree; grown from a cutting of the tree at the old place. Planted tucked up on the south side of the aboveground pool-turned fish pond....this winter will see if that makes a difference as to how much it dies back, if at all.....
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
I have participated in this miracle nearly every year since I was 16....digging up way way more potatoes than I planted in the early spring. But these, in black Midwestern soil, are just about the best ever.
Photo shows me with 3 beds of newly dug potatoes.Photo shows size and abundance of potatoes after turning over the bed.
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Wow, afternoon and it's only 70F/21C out there! Apparently our Midwest summer is taking a vacation in Europe.
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Last night a view of "three lights" at once: stars, distant lightning, and fireflies. Three natural lights of entirely different origins.
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Ah, the fireflies!! And the nightblooming stock! Bliss of a warm moonless night!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
What is that noble tree in the distance I see, enduring it's parking lot habitat with so much glory, consoling me as I sit in the dentist's chair. Glasses off, I can't tell. But just from size and shape I'm guessing an oak or maple or something like that.
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Squash, cuke, and melon seeds in the ground just in time for sweet rain and thunder to bless them!!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
First fireflies of the year tonight :)!!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
First orange-tip butterfly, and first tick, of the year on the same day!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
First batch of radish greens in the pot today!! For those not in the know, radish makes greens from seed faster than anything else, and they are very comparable to mustard or turnip greens when cooked up. Later, the whole plant can be cooked, root and all.
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
This very strange thing is the bloom of Asarum splendens, right down at ground level at the base of the plant. I had to move mulch aside to see them!! (images show small, speckled brownish-purple flowers)
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Midwestern early spring: planting peas to the sound and sight of migrating geese!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 07/02/2026
Finding out that former coal mines underlie the place we live on. A lot of the research about paleontology ultimately has to do with the goal of finding fossil fuels. There are fossil spores in that coal. I can pull up images of the prehistoric plants that produced them. Tree ferns and ....
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
Ahh yum!! Roadkill venison backstrap on the grill!!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
There is no better kind of tired than after a full day digging new garden beds! Yay for warm weather in the middle of winter!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
What I call a "water light" now shows up every morning in the kitchen window! And through the prism crystal too! When these things show up, a part of me thinks of them as ephemeral living entities, little spirits of the time and place. Welcome to them all!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
Nearly fifty pints of canned meat safely stashed, plus some more in the freezer, thanks to that deer! Next phase, bone broth!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
A fresh deer presented itself on the roadside this morning, still warm inside. So all plans were changed and the next two or three days will be devoted to processing this gift of free meat, mostly canned as curry! Half a dozen new trees will benefit from the scraps and offal buried under....
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
Sweet potatoes out, garlic and onions in! The one neighbor stops and asks, surprised..."What in the world are you planting this time of year?" "Garlic!". It's the time to plant garlic every year. He's one of those who "puts the garden in" one day in the spring, and that's it.
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
No more highs over 60 in our forecast, so, frost or no frost, rain or no rain, sweet potatoes come out!!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
Listening to podcast about fairies sitting in the warm sunshine while taking the new small pressure canner on its maiden voyage with dumpster chicken curry in the jars! Gratitude!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
A good feeling to have all the winter squash safely gathered and stashed under my bed! Between that and potatoes finishing off, and sweet potatoes next month, whatever else happens, hunger is not in my future!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 14/09/2025
Okay, timeline cleanse. 🖤 Everyone who sees this post, quote post 5 things that make you happy: 1. Things that glow in the dark (like fireflies, mushrooms, ocean lights & quartz light!) 2. Weird plants (aroids, night-blooming flowers, bulbs, parasites etc.) 3. Cats 4. Seafood 5. Dumpster Diving!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Between firewood work in the morning and watering the garden in the afternoon, today and the next several warm days my time will be literally devoted to "chopping wood and carrying water" :) Including shower water. Motivates one to conserve when one totes it outside in a bucket!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
All it took was a cold morning and suddenly the cat, who has been unsociable for months, is happily sleeping on my lap! Fall is here!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
White potatoes out, rutabagas in! Also cardinal flower in bloom, the most intense imaginable red!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
I've dug potatoes almost every year of my life since I was 16. Every time it seems like a miracle. You plant one small potato, or a cut piece of a potato, and a few months later dig up a bunch. A very small patch produces staple food for months.
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
Finally had to get out netting today....found evidence of deer nibbling on the new fruit trees and two of the sweet potatoes. At least I saw the fair warning in time!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
A rare sight tonight...three of nature's lights at once! Fireflies, stars, and distant lightning!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
Toasted maple seeds with dandelion greens on my mung dal and sweet potato curry tonight! The seeds were picked out from their wings, dried, the thin bitter skins rubbed and then winnowed and rinsed away, and then they were boiled a while and afterward toasted! Yum!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 11/05/2025
For a few nights now there's been a single lonely firefly out. But tonight, in warming weather and despite the moon....more!! All of the same kind, three blinks in a row!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 15/03/2025
Last night on the way back from the tornado shelter, I find a spotted salamander in the yard!! A first for me....now I get to learn about a new creature in my world and what it might mean....
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 15/03/2025
Tornado shelter passes it's first use with flying colors. Yeah the floor flloods through cracks, but I made a raised platform down there. Me and partner and 2 cats just spent an hour watching radar and listening to thunder and hail and sirens.
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Snow going away and sun out today....and daffodils of some sort sprouting!! The next two days will be sheer bliss....even if most of them will be spent cutting and splitting firewood for next year :)
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
What to do when the high is only 15 degrees? Keep the wood stove fed, and go cut wood for next winter so it has plenty of time to dry!!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 24/12/2024
"You'll be visited by three spirits." The three spirits:
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
omg 65 outside all of a sudden! And sunshine! Enough of being cooped up....a day to let the woodstove go out and clean out the ash, a day to put the hanging fern out and water it (and let it get rained on later, even better) Cats on the porch and me, outside where I belong :)
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
Finding out that turkeys are often put on deep discount after Thanksgiving, it's become an annual tradition to get several and can them for stash food the rest of the year. Four ten pounders yielded 24 pints plus a few more worth that went to the freezer, plus innards and wing tips to grill...
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
Today officially ate the last of my white potato harvest for the year, having dug the crop in July. The longest storage period yet, aided by some mint oil diffusion and a couple of sprout rubbing-off sessions. On to sweet potatoes! ...
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 23/05/2024
After living without them for ten years in the West, the fascination with fireflies never gets old! Every likely night I go out to see them!
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Alder Burns @adiantum.bsky.social · 23/05/2024
A new adventure begins into alternative social media! Hopefully this will prove more beneficial than the addictive quagmire of the big corporate versions!
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