iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

He gave me sunflower seeds and then later CA poppy seeds. I'm contemplating where I might plant them.

Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

We feel incredibly lucky that she found her way into our lives. She also quickly became our Poirot cat's best friend and daily play mate.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Every night when I sit on the couch she stares intently at me until I pick her up and baby-hold her. If I delay, she'll try to self serve into that position. She's been known to climb Ro while he's preparing dinner and successfully self-serve into being baby held. She's very baby-hold motivated.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

We have a cat who LOVES to be held like a baby. She was a barn cat who became my dad's 10th foster, and then she became ours when he died. I tried holding her like a baby and she was mildly unsettled at first but she didn't object. Now she insists on it every evening and at times throughout the day.

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certified boogeyman @jagheadroom.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

hey everyone. May Day came again.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

ProPublica is an independent non-profit that exists specifically to investigate abuses of power. The Guardian is another good option. WIRED and 404 Media have also been doing great investigative work.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

It's monarchs-on-the-meadow-blazing-stars season already?

A close up of a monarch butterfly on a meadow blazing star flower spike that is just starting to bloom.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

A sauntering soul surveying the subdivision

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

After a Robin family moved in and out of our provided lodgings this year, and before we got around to cleaning out the empty Robin's nest for our next guest, a wren moved in and began renovating. Yeah total hobo vibes.

A mini-house-shaped cove attached to our house, just under the eaves, for purposes of attracting Robins, is seen here with an empty Robin's nest barely visible beneath a dense snarl of hay, which is overflowing all over the place, sticking out well beyond the perimeter of the provided shelter. These guys have an extremely maximalist sense of interior design.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

And one more that didn't fit within the photo limit. Blue Hill Salvia with Amsonia Blue Ice and Monarda Bradburiana, all blooming together. (That's "Miss Manners" Obedient Plant taking over the large area to the left. This is so far ok with me.)

The soft purple blooms of Blue Hill Salvia take up a large part of the foreground with the cool blue blooms of Amsonia Blue Ice and the ghostly pink blooms of Monarda Bradburiana taking up the right two thirds of the background. The left side of the foreground is taken up by green tufts emerging from the ground. They fill in all of the space between the main characters and the flagstone patio that is visible in the upper left corner of the photo. Angelina and Antennaria and other sedums fill in the gaps between the flagstones.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

I am so far really happy with the Roy Diblik and Piet Oudolf inspired garden I planted last year. I've been doing small edits, but this has largely been effort free this season so far. #bloomscrolling #plantcombinations

Amsonia blue ice is in bloom along with catmint and Monarda Bradburiana. Veronica is also in bloom off in the distance. Filling in between the blooms are the fresh spring greeneries from agastache, Stachys summer crush, yarrow, Siberian iris, Artemisia silver lining, and the dark green and red emerging leaves of a Korean maple sneaking in from the right of the photo.

Monarda Bradburiana is in bloom along with catmint and a touch of Amsonia blue ice. Veronica is also in bloom off in the distance. Filling in between the blooms are the fresh spring greeneries from Stachys summer crush, yarrow, Artemisia silver brocade, and a touch of Artemisia silver mound. Allium summer beauty's dark green pre-bloom foliage provides a nice spikey contrast to it all in the foreground. The catmint blooms are intermingling with the allium foliage, creating a really nice contrast.

The pre-bloom stalks of a clump of yarrow take center stage with sprays of light purple catmint blooms in the foreground and to the left of the photo. Amsonia blue ice is in bloom along the middle of the background. Behind that is greenery from agastache blue fortune and Artemisia silver lining. Greenery from Stachys summer crush, another agastache, and a touch of Artemisia silver mound fill in the rest.

Ghostly pink Monarda Bradburiana blooms dominate this photo with Artemisia Silver Lining in the center foreground, blooming Amsonia Blue Ice in the left foreground, Artemisia Garden Ghost to the right, and very fresh spring greens from Agastache Blue Fortune coming up behind the Monarda. In the far background are more Amsonia blooms, some dark pink spikes from a pink Caradonna Salvia, some dark foliage from Huskers Red Penstemon, which has just started to display its own ghostly pink blooms, and other general greenery. There is not much room left between all of this plant activity to see the mulch between the plants.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

It's bleeding heart o'clock. My dad planted one of these by his front door while he was successfully recovering from major heart surgery, so now I have one by my front door to memorialize him. #bloomscrolling

Bright pink, heart-shaped dicentra flowers dangle from arching stems above fresh, spring-green foliage.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

Me too. I really want to know why he's on this list!

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

That book also taught me that being contrarian wrt femininity in general, as a young cis woman, wasn't punk, edgy, or feminist but was actually an epitome of patriarchal banality and repression. I became more accepting of all gender expressions, cis and non-cis alike, in both myself and others.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

Reading Julia Serano's Whipping Girl in 2008 or so opened my eyes to the experience of being trans, gave me a lot of language around it, educated me that gender, gender expression, sex, and sexual orientation are natural, independent aspects that mix & match in limitless ways in each individual.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

So: Once Greek philosopher, not necessarily always Greek philosopher.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

An improbable cat stack. Marceline has managed to ensconce herself in extreme proximity to Thursday Next. This is a miracle of a full year of couples counseling. These two were once sworn enemies. (There was blood.)

Marceline is a shiny white calico cat and Thursday Next is a big fluffy white British shorthair cat with grey-tipped fur in a tabby pattern. They are pictured here on the couch, both ensconced in an aqua-and-white fleece blanket. Marceline is slightly behind Thursday and elevated one cat-height above her. They are otherwise symmetrically situated with their heads in the opposite, outer parts of the frame. They both look content and as if nothing terribly remarkable is happening, which is the most remarkable part. Their flanks are definitely hugging. Do they know? I think they do!

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

As MPR once said, it's like a rubber ball bouncing down a set of stairs.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

It has come to my attention that not enough people are following @jacobsimonsays.bsky.social 's daily wins. Even in this current environment of uncountable things going wrong, some things are also going right. He's on my don't-dare-miss list here. He posts these in video format on other platforms.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

I'm hoping the sedges will survive long enough for me to move them in Spring to a very dry place that would love to have them.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

My plan to regrade the yard so that water will naturally pool near the birch trees we planted is working out swimmingly so far. This is just from snow melt. However I'm regretting planting Carex pensylvanica along the bottom of the regrade. I think they're probably drowning. #plantcommunities

Pooled water reflects the sky between one baby Sweet Birch tree, one adolescent Yellow Birch, and one adolescent River Birch tree. All three young trees are still wrapped and protected from winter and winter rabbits. There's a patch of snow in the foreground and two fences forming a corner in the background.

A closer look at the water pooled right up to the base of the River Birch tree. You can see brown tufts of Carex pensylvanica unhappily also wading in this shallower area of the overall pool of water.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

And yes I'll have to actively keep that yarrow in check these first years at least. Luckily it's very amenable to being cut back and divided at will. 3/x

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

A nearby angle on the same section of the garden. This is what happens when you consider a pale coneflower as existing on another plane and don't reserve a lot of space for it on the ground floor. It's sharing the sun just fine with its cuddly Artemisia friend. 2/x #plantcommunities #bloomscrolling

A pollinated pale coneflower rocket sits in the foreground with an Artemisia Silver Mound muffler engulfing the lower parts of its basal foliage. To the left you see Pink Grapefruit yarrow in bloom but on its way to going to seed. Along the back are sprays of white flowers from Calamintha Nepeta ssp Nepeta (these will turn blue before going to seed later) and a little pop of purple Summer Beauty Allium flowers. The Artemisia Silver Mound foliage forms a river from the foreground through the Calamintha in the back.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

Really looking forward to seeing what this plant community does this year. It's heavily inspired by Roy Diblik's designs. #plantcommunities #bloomscrolling

The bright glowing purple spherical flowers and deep green foliage of Allium Summer Beauty (or possibly Allium Millennium) and some visiting bee friends take up the foreground. Sprays of tiny white flowers from Calamintha Nepeta ssp Nepeta line the sidewalk as a backdrop. The fluffy silver-green foliage of Artemisia Silver Mound buttresses the scene from the left. A few seed heads and some spikey foliage from a couple of Echinacea Pallida plants pop up from between the Artemisia and Calamintha. Some mulch can be seen between the Alliums and the other plants. I expect that to get fully filled in and covered over this year, mostly by the Artemisia.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

WIRED seems to be covering DOGE like other publications haven't been, so I've subscribed to them (it's a pretty inexpensive subscription as these things go).

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

Whenever I read that a tree is an understory tree or a "woodland edge" tree, I picture this #cornuskousa ensconced in its massive blue spruce tree neighbor. Spotted on a walk in a residential neighborhood of Seattle some years ago. #bloomscrolling #plantcommunities

The lower portion of a massive blue spruce tree forms the backdrop for a variety of plantings. A Kousa Dogwood tree in flower takes up the middle layer of this sidewalk-facing front-yard display, along with what is probably a rose bush, flowering in pink, and a pink-purple rhododendron bush. Two sculpted bush conifers support the scene from the bottom, and finally a few lavender bushes and unspecified other greenery fills in from the bottom. Two houses peek through from behind the display, and one driveway cuts through the scene between the two sculpted bush conifers.

If the dogwood tree were not in flower, you might mistake it to be just part of the blue spruce tree if you didn't look closely, it's so well cuddled by its neighbor.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Look at this amazing tree. It lives at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. It's a Nissa Sylvatica aka Black Tupelo or Black Gum or Sour Gum or Pepperidge. That branching habit, though.

Black Gum tree with tiny park bench just outside of its considerable reach, for scale. The tree's arms-out-wide branching tendency is very visible in contrast to its yellowing leaves and the surrounding autumn daylight.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

A whack of invasives never looked so good. Spotted in Seattle, where those creeping Campanulas are not yet listed as noxious. #plantcommunities #bloomscrolling

White daisies dominate a very small garden bed, whose crowded blooms spill over into the sidewalk in the foreground and a couple of steps on the left, which lead to a weathered fence, which forms a backdrop for the whole scene. Purple bellflowers, pink foxgloves, and what I'd guess are orange poppies (not in full bloom) all emerge from the daisies to create a striking scene.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

I also really miss our Seattle winter gardens. Our "hellscape" gardens were at their actual best in winter there (some sedums and other succulents turn lovely colors when they're distressed).

Sedum spathulifolium 'Cape Blanco' with its ghost white centers edged with red, orange, light orange, green, and yellow leaves.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

Omgsh yes I'm dying to see what the Roy-Diblik-inspired garden I planted last year does this year. I get so much more reading (audiobooking) done in the growing season too. Gardening is such an expression of hope for the future.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

There's so much planning I still want to get done before Spring, so I'm still pretty content here in Winter for now. ❄️ When living on the West Coast, I really missed Winter hibernation times, so now I treasure them.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

@ariellaelm.bsky.social posts 3 Wins and Dems Doing the Work threads daily. She's also available on Substack. Despair is tempting but ultimately extremely counterproductive. She is helping us to keep hope alive and stay in the fight. I recommend putting her on your priority reading lists.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Thanks for doing your part to make celebrating our civil servants cool again.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

Pictured here is an experimental bed I planted up shortly after moving back to Minneapolis, just to see what plants do here. I had heard that asters and goldenrods mingle well together, and so I threw some into the mix. They did not disappoint. #bloomscrolling #plantcombinations

Smooth Aster, New England Aster, Fireworks Goldenrod, Liatris, and Rudbeckia Goldsturm, mingling together, viewed from above

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Pete Buttigieg @petebuttigieg.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

Hi Bluesky! Glad to be here.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

I hereby proclamize that here'n after, Mpls neighborhoods will be known as SoBro or NoBro, depending on how they relate to our great street of Broadway. I will be forwarding this to Google to be sure our maps accurately reflect this change. And to protect the homefront, I will be annexing Pryes.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

Yep I got through but could hardly hear the outgoing message. I will be trying to get to her office tomorrow.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

100% agreed. The best way to get to the shanties is by lake.

A man biking on a frozen lake passing beneath a roadway overpass.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

I wouldn't have guessed it would have been such a straight line from joining Bluesky to blending in IRL with a lot of fun and inspiring locals, sharing generous helpings of catharsis, but here we are. Thanks @mplsnightmayor.bsky.social for 🪵🪓

A man wields an axe against a large tree stump after dark under a bright spotlight in Minnesota-winter temperatures, surrounded (at a safe distance) by friendly onlookers and general merriment, in a paved driveway area.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

It's not a FB replacement, but you can 🔖 people you don't want to lose track of when leaving FB. It's also not 🐦, though, since I actually use this. I mainly only used 🐦 for writing bots for work. Check out feeds & lists to see some of the power of Bluesky. And enjoy the relative lack of trolls.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

I highly recommend following Jacob Simon for your stupid mental health. He's not here yet, it seems, but he's on YouTube and Substack. He posts good news daily, and he periodically also posts roundups like this one.

youtube.com

The best stories from January 2025…

YouTube video by Jacobsimonsays

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Lots of us have permanently deleted our TikTok accounts, but Bluesky now supports video. I'd love to watch this directly in Bluesky.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Another #plantcombination I saw in Seattle once, in mid April. Looks to be a lot of scilla with the odd yellow tulip and weedy fern thriving beneath a gnarly old Japanese Maple tree. Scilla is invasive in MN, but I'm giving blue-eyed grass a go in my own garden for this kind of look. #bloomscrolling

Blue scilla covers the ground beneath a thick, old, knotty, laceleaf Japanese Maple tree, whose multiple prominent trunks hug the ground. The tree's burgundy leaves provide light shade and are visible in the back of the photo above the scilla. A few yellow tulips peek out from the blue flowers in the background and a couple of leggy bright green ferns poke out in the foreground.

All of this exists in a random front yard in a residential area in Seattle, so the front steps and siding of a grey house provide a peek-a-boo backdrop to the whole scene.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

I didn't realize Costco has online ordering. We will be exploring Costco this weekend with the rest of the Twin Cities area.

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Apricot S1 of 4 @earlapricot.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

After the endorsement-killing incident, I moved our household-supplies subscriptions over to Grove Collaborative. We had to switch brands on some things and it took a while to find things at similar prices, but so far we're quite happy with the switch. I love my new earth-friendlier TP brand.

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