iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

I get that it's weird that "natural flavors" can get listed as an ingredient, but there are definitely natural flavors in my kitchen.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

Literally had this album on when I ran across this post!

A screenshot from PlexAmp showing Tracy Chapman's album "Telling Stories" playing

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

This is what I got as an autistic with ALL the food sensory issues who basically eats like a toddler. There were only 3 or 4 foods on that whole list that weren't a "hell no" for me 😆

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

I keep getting stoned and buying more firewood rack brackets. I have enough to store ~15 cords of wood at this point, but they're so useful and the good ones all come from China. I tried the American knockoffs and they were flimsy as heck.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 28/10/2024

@geohenning.bsky.social On a beach walk on Lake Michigan this weekend, I ran across a sand phenomenon I couldn't explain. I figured that if there's a "sand physics" corner of Bluesky you might be able to point me in the right direction.

A mini "cliff" that's formed in some beach sand.

An unexplained band of lighter, dryer sand

A band of light, dry sand between an area of rough sand and an area of smooth sand

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 15/10/2024

Presenting the extremely butt-shaped puffball mushroom I just harvested out of my yard. 16oz mason jar for scale. #foraging #mycology

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 30/08/2024

This is why I raise my own mealworms at home. So they don't interfere with my news consumption. (Could I come up with a joke funny enough to justify posting? Not particularly. But how often are my three dozen bins of mealworms going to be relevant to the discourse?)

Set of racks holding 30+ black bins. They are part of a farming system that produces tens of thousands of mealworms a week.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 29/08/2024

My home mealworm setup is expanding! I started in 2022 with 500 mealworms, and now the system produces tens of thousands every week. Which I'm still mostly giving away for free to people with chickens, because Doing A Business is not my strong suit. But still! Behold my mealworm army!

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 26/08/2024

This week's nails. I kinda enjoy the contrast between my ability to do elaborate nail art and my complete inability to take care of my cuticles. It reassures me that I will never turn into a nail polish influencer.

Three fingers of a Caucasian hand with elaborately painted nails. Each nail features a white background and a central red dot, with black and copper dots surrounding it.

Four fingers of a Caucasian hand with elaborately painted nails. Each nail features a white background and a central red dot, with black and copper dots surrounding it.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 18/08/2024

Yeah, yours matches better with Scruffy's "L'Oreal" era

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 18/08/2024

There should be social media shorthand for "hey, we have the same dog!" But in the meantime, hey, we have the same dog!

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 13/08/2024

If you see this, post an image you saved because it made you laugh

It's a three panel meme. The first two are the standard "people who don't know/people who know" meme with (Mr. Incredible, I think?). The third panel is a stone bust of Socrates labeled "people who know they don't know".

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 12/08/2024

Much sympathy. I have yet to convince my spouse to go on a long distance train ride with me, despite repeatedly exposing him to this meme.

A meme showing Russell Crowe from the movie Gladiator in a conductor outfit and holding a toy train. The text reads "are you not into trains!?"

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 11/08/2024

This week's nails. I've been wearing a lot of holo and flakey polished lately, so I went for some simple cremes for contrast.

A close-up of a Caucasian hand with elaborately painted nails. The backgrounds alternate between light grey and light blue, with a large dot of the other color in the center of each nail. Surrounding each large dot is a circle of small dots in a dark grey holographic polish.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 11/08/2024

Since quitting Pokemon Go, I've been using iNaturalist as a replacement outside phone game. It's not really gamified enough to scratch the "earn points and level up" itch, but it's helping me learn more local wildflowers. And occasionally giving me a sense of superiority when it can't ID yarrow.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 10/08/2024

We have a house in town that flies a "first responder" flag and my brain sees it as a pride flag every time I see it.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 10/08/2024

I do as much as I can in the woods without heavy equipment, because they are noisy, smelly, and enable the making of big mistakes quickly. That being said, there used to be about 40 stumps in this clearing, and a dude with a stump grinder took care of all of them in about three hours, so 👍

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 03/08/2024

I refuse to buy an air conditioner, because I am a New Englander living in Michigan and "air conditioning is for pampered rich people" is burned deeply into my soul. But it's been too hot to sleep this week, so my concession to reality is making myself a cold water bottle to stick under my pillow.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 06/05/2024

Wild strawberries are starting to bloom! I see them bloom every year, and I tell myself that I'm going to keep tracking them until there are berries to harvest, but I tend to forget they're there once there aren't flowers to remind me, so I've never actually seen a berry. #foraging

A wild strawberry plant grows at the edge of a bike path

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 06/05/2024

My spouse says this week's nails look like the logo/sigil of a secret organization, but we haven't been able to decide on which one. The slightly wobbly X-Men? (Which I assume to be a group of X-Men who organized with the IWW but don't take it that seriously.)

A left hand with elaborately painted nails, featuring a green background and crossed stripes in black and white. The white stripes have black holographic dots on them, and the black stripes have silver holographic dots on them.

A right hand with elaborately painted nails, featuring a green background and crossed stripes in black and white. The white stripes have black holographic dots on them, and the black stripes have silver holographic dots on them.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 30/04/2024

My streak of "my bike hauls more than your pickup truck" continues.

A cargo trailer attached to a bicycle, on which are two milk crates and three wooden pallets.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 23/04/2024

Today I made a brush storage bay out of sticks and paracord, getting me one small step closer to my supervillain dream of organizing all of the sticks in the woods. The trees just leave them lying haphazardly all over the place! It's downright uncouth 🥸

A wooden pallet is surrounded by an improvised lattice of sticks lashed together to make walls

The same brush bin, this time filled with brush

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 21/04/2024

My dog found a truly amazing smell in the woods. He rolled in it six or eight times to make sure he could truly capture its essence. Sadly, his humans did not appreciate his artistic expression, and he is being persecuted for his art.

A small, blonde, usually-fluffy dog stands in a sink. He is wet and bedraggled, and has a look of ultimate betrayal on his face.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 07/04/2024

This week's nail art is beetle-themed. It came out pretty much the way I planned, with the beetles looking like little jewels. Next time I think I'd go for more beetles/nail.

A hand with elaborate nail art, featuring a pale gold base, a variety of dark grey kaleidoscope patterns in the background, and brightly colored beetles in the foreground.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 06/04/2024

My dog is a reverse Velveteen Rabbit. He's a real dog, but he just wants to spend all day being a stuffed animal.

A small blonde fluffy dog with floppy ears nestled among a bunch of stuffed toys.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 01/04/2024

This week's nail art is woodland themed. Ideally I would have included a broader swath of the ecosystem, but I was working with a limited range of stamping plates.

A hand with elaborately painted nails featuring a pale yellow background, green trees, and brown woodland creatures

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 30/03/2024

Rural ebike alliance! I'm guessing my Magnum Pathfinder has hauled more straw, firewood, and forestry equipment than most of the pickups in town. Also, enclosed motorcycle helmets are great for reducing wind-chill during cold weather biking.

An ebike with an attached cargo trailer carrying two bales of straw

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 27/03/2024

This week's nail art, featuring holographic oyster mushrooms.

A hand with painted nails. The nail depicts clusters of oyster mushrooms in holographic champagne colored polish against a background of blue tree bark.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 20/03/2024

I'm getting better at nail art stamping! This week's manicure started out as a double stamping experiment, which didn't work out the way I planned, but I redeemed it by adding some reverse stamping mushrooms on top. I hope my inner teenager is proud of me 😆

A picture of a hand with nail art on the nails. The nail art features a white, black, and turquoise background with yellow mushrooms in the foreground.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 11/03/2024

As I get back into organizing and my PTSD tries to convince me that burnout is inevitable, I've been fighting back with a weekly self care routine. I clean my room, do all of my weekly chores, and give myself a #nailart manicure that I can look at to remind myself that I'm worth taking care of.

A picture of a hand with painted nails. The base coat is black, with metallic blue and green patterns stamped over each other.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 09/03/2024

@thewaroncars.bsky.social Thought you might enjoy this shot from the rural front in the war 😄 We're breaking down our community maple camp for the season, and I've been biking straw bales through our small town for a week. I like to think they're a moving billboard for car-free rural life.

An electric bike with an attached cargo trailer carrying two square bales of straw

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 07/03/2024

The maple trees decided tapping was over last week, so I've begun wrapping up our sugar camp. Today I started ferrying home the straw bales we used as walls. There's something hilarious about passing pickups with empty beds while I'm towing straw bales on my ebike. Micro mobility for the win!

An electric bike with a cargo trailer attached. On the trailer are two square bales of straw, held down by a bungee cargo net that barely fits.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 03/03/2024

Here are some pictures from ours. It was at a city-owned campground in the middle of town with ~40 maples in it. We had elders come by who grew up tapping with their families, and a local girl scout troop who came by to learn how it all worked. Plus we got to look out at a wetland while we boiled.

A picture of a person in dark clothing feeding wood into a barrel style maple evaporator

A low wall made up of bundles of small diameter firewood

A bucket of crushed charcoal with a label reading "#2 -1/4 inch: add to animal bedding to reduce urine smell"

A line of jars of maple syrup on a picnic table in front of a cattail marsh

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 17/02/2024

Had to cancel today's maple boil because it's too cold to work outside safely, so instead I'm curled up with some cocoa and a new book

A hand is holding a paperback book. The title is Power Lines: Building a Labor-Climate Justice Movement. The editors are Jeff Ordower and Lindsay Zafir

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 03/02/2024

The community sugarbush officially starts tomorrow! I tapped the first tree today so that I could do it without an audience and make sure I had all my ducks in a row. It's the biggest, most public thing I've organized in town so far, and I'm torn between proud of myself and terrified.

An open-air park pavilion with makeshift walls made from straw bales and firewood. Inside are three wooden benches in a U shape. In front of it is a white barrel stove maple evaporator with a black chimney

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 25/01/2024

I try not to take it personally that my dog LOVES it when I'm sick or injured. "Oh, finally, you've given up on all that boring human stuff and spending all day in bed where we can snuggle. You should do this more often."

A small beige dog looking up from a pile of blankets and stuffed animals

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 14/01/2024

Today's experiments in ice blocks: we've got traditional pykrete made with sawdust, and four variations. Three with different particle sizes of biochar, and one with shredded paper. (Plus two with food coloring, because my spouse wanted to see what happened.)

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 12/01/2024

Most of the time, I'm fairly immune to my dog's cuteness, because I've been building a tolerance for 8 years now. But sometimes, he gets tiny shreds of paper stuck to his nose.

A small blond dog with a soft fluffy coat and a scrap of shredded paper with the number 33 on it stuck to his nose

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 08/01/2024

This used to be one of the most generous Mulberry trees in town. I've been gathering from it for years. I've taught grandparents about it and watched them pass it on to their grandkids. All gone because someone in the parks department didn't recognize it for what it was. My heart is broken.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 07/01/2024

Just finished four "Phoebe and her Unicorn" books by @danacorn.bsky.social and the next book in my pile is providing a bit of a contrast ^⁠_⁠^ The odds seem reasonable that I'm the first person to go directly from one to the other but if I'm wrong I want to meet the others.

Two books are sitting on a fuzzy blanket. The one on the left is "The Big Sparkly Box of Unicorn Magic". The one on the right is "The Basics of Edible Insect Rearing: Handbook for the Production Chain."

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 02/01/2024

I've been dragging around a giant box of rancid lip balm for years, because I wanted to turn it into fire starters instead of letting it go to waste. Today it finally happened! May this be a year of Finally Getting Around To Doing The Thing!

Around 40 cardboard toilet paper tubes filled with dryer lint soaked in wax

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 29/12/2023

Without downloading any new pics, what's your energy going into 2024?

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 28/12/2023

You are what you do In order to Prevent becoming what you're busy not doing

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 18/12/2023

Disposable lunch meat container + scissors = pupa bridge for my mealworm colony. I place pupae on top of the bridge when I find them in the larvae drawers. When beetles hatch, they fall off the platform into the bin below. They have food and veggies available, but can't get back up to eat the pupae.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 16/12/2023

Also I got a pretty good picture of my favorite bundling knot. It creates a ratcheting effect, which makes it perfect for bundling kindling for future biochar use.

Orange paracord is wrapped around a bundle of sticks. The ends are tied in a knot that is currently loose so that the structure of can be easily seen. Unfortunately I'm really not sure how to describe it in words.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 16/12/2023

I gathered around 60lbs of acorns this year, and I'm still working on leaching out the tannins so I can turn them into flour. Cold leaching takes a little less than a week per batch with twice daily water changes, so I'm guessing I'll be done by early January? Labor intensive, but worth it.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 13/12/2023

Had some room left over in the last batch of red willow twigs, so I'm throwing in some old stewbones my dog has lost interest in to make some bonechar. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out. The retort is still showing no signs of degradation after ~20 burns, and the biochar quality has been 🥳

A biochar retort made out of a stainless steel milk pail is sitting on top of a cardboard box. It is filled with sticks, and on top of the sticks is a layer of old beef stewbones with the marrow gone.

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Ankle Moss (they/them) @anklemoss.bsky.social · 02/12/2023

Today's retort is loaded with twigs and ready to go into the fire. These twigs have been charring extremely quickly (and occasionally blowing the lid off the retort). I'm guessing it's a combo of the small diameter of each twig and the impossibility of packing them tightly. Biochar ho!

A stainless steel milk pail with the lid off, showing that it is full of twigs ready to be turned into biochar

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