iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Surprised to see anti-AI graffiti on Gardiner's Road the other day.

A concrete overpass on which "NO A.I." is spray-painted in black

Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

I saw this little Chinese jade deer in the British Museum and it looks very sweet. Like I would trust this little guy if I met it in the woods

A small jade deer pinned to a museum display board

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

This is a tiny park but very nice.

View through bare branches at a stone building, from about the safe height as its roof. The photographer's other hand is gripping a branch.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

I feel so much more exposed climbing trees at this time of year, but honestly, people still almost never look up.

A view out through bare branches at a neighbourhood street in late autumn, from about five metres up

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

When baby turtles are in their shells, their heads are fully retracted, and when they hatch the heads pop out of their bodies like *sproing*

A hatching turtle about the size of a human fingertip, in the bottom half of its shell, with its head fully retracted.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Not pictured: two small dogs who, when I went up into the tree, became wildly excited as though they had just achieved the greatest victory of their lives

View from up in the branches of a maple tree whose leaves are mostly golden yellow. Tree is afflicted with tar spot fungus and coral spot canker. An empty running track is visible below.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

I admit there are logistical problems to just living in a tree, but, counterpoint, I am safe from emails here.

A view downwards from about five metres up a maple tree, showing the lower branches and the ground below. There are autumn leaves scattered on the ground. The maple is afflicted with tar spot fungus. The photographer's bare legs and black shoes are visible.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

Not a fan of AI, but I do appreciate that it assumed that I was asking whether to consume the centipede itself, rather than whether I ought to discard the ginger ale after I had removed the bug. Because yes, it's better to err in the direction of assuming the user will do the worst thing possible.

A Google query of "can I drink ginger ale that a house centipede fell into" followed by an AI Overview saying "No, you should not drink the ginger ale. Even though house centipede bites are not dangerous to humans, ingesting them can expose you to pathogens and parasites that can be harmful, such as the rat lungworm Angiostrongylus cantonensis. To be safe, it is best to discard the beverage."

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 21/09/2025

I love "chatoyant" - the shimmering light quality of a cat's-eye gemstone. Used it in a short story once and a reviewer was kind of a jerk about it, but whatever, it's a great word.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

I've met birds (sparrows?) in some of the parks in Montreal like this. Completely habituated to humans and relentless in their pursuit of people's lunches.

A woman is sitting cross-legged with her hands folded in her lap. A small brown bird is perched on her knee, eyeing the plastic container of pasta salad beside her.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

That's awesome, the closest I've gotten to any of my hometowns is a road in Kawartha and a parking lot in Dorval. The thing is the ticket kiosk out front literally said "Societatea de Transport Bucaresti" and the station is monumental enough that I figured it had to be prominent on the map.

Google Street View image of the North Railway Station in Bucharest

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

Woohoo, my first GeoGuessr 5K! Admittedly the fact that I spawned right in front of a major train station makes it a bit less impressive, but still, I am pleased.

Screenshot of the GeoGuessr end screen showing a perfect score (5000 points) with my guess being 88 meters from the spawn point, the North Railway Station building in Bucharest.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

"Don't mind me, ma'am, just doing a cucumber quality inspection. You know, you could water these more, they're a bit tough."

The corner of a raised garden bed containing some rather wilted cucumber vines, out of which a chipmunk is poking its head

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

Some pics taken from the bike lanes of bridges around Montreal. I do love the geometry of a bridge.

Bridge going into Montreal from the west, maybe at Dorion, I forget. Big red metal arch thing.

Champlain Bridge out of Montreal to the South Shore, circa 2012, on the bike lane. Lots of rusty metal girders. Electronic sign shows that the bridge is currently available.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

Just picked the first few cobs of baby corn from my garden. The difference between canned and fresh baby corn is incredible.

Five cobs of baby corn, three still in their husks, on a counter with paring knife for scale

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

This is what I do while playing GeoGuessr. "Dogs coming out to investigate the Google car" is one of my favourite types of image to run across.

A Google Street View image of a somewhat ramshackle house on a rural road in Laraquete, Chile. Two fluffy white dogs stand at the top of the steps, looking at the camera.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

I feel such an atavistic sense of contentment when I start harvesting a surplus from my garden beyond what I'm going to eat that day. Like yes my undersized garlic and the three tupperwares of yellow beans in my freezer are what will allow me to survive the coming winter

A few dozen undersized bulbs of garlic, stems still attached, laid out to dry on sheets of newspaper

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

Gooseberries and black raspberries are just finishing, beans and peas are in full swing, zucchini has just started. Garden season is such a joy. (Tomatoes are late this year, dunno why, it's certainly been hot enough.)

Four bowls of fresh raw food on a table: mixed purple and yellow beans, peas, gooseberries, and black raspberries, plus a small yellow zucchini sitting on the rim of two of the bowls.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 12/07/2025

In Montreal you're apparently forbidden to flush ghosts. I've visited this hotel for several years now (Chinatown Holiday Inn) and don't know what this is trying to convey.

A bathroom sign forbidding something involving a hand, a toilet, and an icon that looks like a startled ghost.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

One of the fun things about gardening is all the mutant vegetables. Grocery stores really give you an unrealistic idea of how uniform vegetables actually are. (They're not wasted; ones like this get chopped up and go in cans, or into smoothies, etc. But you don't get to see them.)

A yellow bean that has grown partly doubled, with two tips growing from one stem.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

Peas and beans got off to a late start but are certainly producing well now!

A plastic basket of yellow beans, red beans and snow peas

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

My gooseberry bushes have started producing and I am eating delicious fresh gooseberries for breakfast every day.

Two gooseberry bushes, full of ripe red gooseberries, stand against faded grey-painted siding. Bright yellow and red blanketflowers grow between them.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

My second year growing baby corn at the community garden, and this time it actually *is* knee-high by not-yet-the-fourth-of-July! (Was not able to get a picture that included my own legs while balancing on the side of the garden bed, so you'll have to take my word for it.)

Part of a community garden bed planted with corn, the largest stalks of which are about half a meter tall

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Bok choy is so great. It grows fast, it's good in lots of things, and it doesn't require constant care. I was away for ten days and came home to this deliciousness.

Three rows of bok choy growing in a garden. They are crowding each other slightly; a hand for scale shows them about the size a finger and thumb can stretch apart.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

Scenes from Montreal yard sales: raising the children correctly

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

Scenes from Montreal yard sales: A House Divided

A yard sale table featuring two Montreal Canadiens jerseys and a Boston Bruins baseball cap.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

At Scintillation 6, where I have unexpectedly acquired the shoulder dragon I never knew I needed

A woman in a blue top, an N-95 and glasses looks with mild surprise at the green dragon curled on her shoulder while sitting in the audience of a convention hall.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

I was sure it was gonna be about this guy.

Twitter post from Alexander C. Image: a hotel coffeemaker with raw chicken and a slab of butter inside. Text: "I'm traveling for work and instead of eating a fancy dinner out, I've decided to cook a cheaper meal in the hotel room. Even though the hotel room didn't have a kitchen, I managed to use the coffee machine to cook chicken with butter and garlic. Although my company allows me to expense dinner while traveling, I wanted to save money because I know that every dollar counts on the P&L. It's the little things that get you promoted. #work #money #hotel #coffee #promotion #careeradvice"

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Omg I carved a spoon awhile back with almost this exact same shape Wyrm buddies

A large hand-carved spoon made of maple, with a handle that has a twist halfway along and then ends in a dragon's head. It is held in a woman's hand resting on a grey marble table, with dishes and a banana in the background.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

I tried "No mercy for tomatoes" which is a real expression for "you sometimes have to be cruel to be kind" (because if you don't thin your tomato seedlings ruthlessly, the plants won't thrive) and it came up with the exact opposite meaning somehow.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

The box is done! I've learned a lot from this project, my first box, and I will definitely make more boxes in future.

A handmade basswood box, with a sliding lid carved in rosettes, partly open to show a bunch of pencils

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Written by an American, in other times. It's worth remembering, when things get heated, that this is what we want to return to. Canada will defend ourselves in whatever way we have to; but the end goal is to get to where both we and they think like this again.

Poem: At the Un-National Monument along the Canadian Border
by William E. Stafford

This is the field where the battle did not happen,
where the unknown soldier did not die.
This is the field where grass joined hands,
where no monument stands,
and the only heroic thing is the sky.

Birds fly here without any sound,
unfolding their wings across the open.
No people killed—or were killed—on this ground
hallowed by neglect and an air so tame
that people celebrate it by forgetting its name.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

So when I hear people say "I wish I could do that!" I just really want them to know that they can. The pretty stuff I post is my ten thousandth stick, that's all. This misshapen turtle is about my hundredth stick. It's a lot of practice, but the practice is *fun*.

A hand holds a crudely carved wooden turtle with an oversized head and flattened shell

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

So far so good. I wanted to do a very simple stylized leaf pattern on the sides in order not to compete with the carving of the top. I'll let it dry overnight and then trace and cut the ends.

A rectangular basswood pencil box with the ends not yet attached. The lid is elaborately carved with overlapping circles and partly slid open. A simple leaf design is carved around the sides. The box stands on a sheet of newspaper and a bottle of glue can be seen in the background.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Tonight's box progress: all the corners fit together and the lid slides freely (and despite the camera distortion, it all fits at right angles even). Next up is sanding and gluing, then making the end pieces.

A hand holds together the four long sides of a rectangular basswood pencil box with elaborate carving on the lid. The lid is partly slid back showing the grooves that it fits into in the sides.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

A little more progress on the lid carving this evening. Also drew and measured how I want the joins on the box portion to go. It's going to be a sliding lid as I don't feel like buying hinges and whatever.

A piece of basswood 20cm by 7.5 carved in a pattern of seven overlapping rosettes

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Working on a piece of carving today. I'm probably going to make it the lid of a pencil box.

A piece of basswood 20 cm long and 7.5 cm wide, chip-carved with a design of five overlapping rosettes.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

My local (Ontario) grocery store has origin labels on the vegetable bins that weren't there last week. Just for Canada, USA and Mexico; Moroccan clementines and Chilean grapes aren't labelled. I wonder how many people are thinking twice about their shopping choices today.

A grocery store vegetable fridge with handwritten labels indicating the national origins of the vegetables: zucchini from Canada, bell peppers and green onions from Mexico, cucumbers and lettuces from the USA.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

I tried out potato grow-bags last year and they were great. Much easier than digging the potatoes out of the heavy clay soil we have here. And you can pull out one potato at a time through the little window without hurting the plant, if you just want one potato for dinner.

An instruction sheet showing how to plant potatoes in a grow-bag: put dirt and potatoes in the bottom of the bag, keep adding dirt as the plant grows, and when it's mature, you can pull the potatoes out through the window at the bottom.

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Grace Seybold @graceseybold.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Just finished carving a cleat to hold the pull-cord for my new windowshade. The fins aren't quite right for a koi but I'm declaring it Good Enough For Medieval Marginalia.

Hand holding a 10cm cleat carved from maple in the shape of a head-down fish

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