iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The Nooksack. And it's adjoining basin to the South, the Skagit...lots of water. Also, fishes. And farms (good ground...from all the flooding).

A map of the Nooksack River watershed in northwestern Washington in lower British Columbia Canada.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Here, have some Black-eyed Susans for the Monday. Tail end of the rain, happy as clams. Grown from seeds saved from last year (but perennials) and showing up all jazz hands with unexpected variations. Thwarted the rabbits and slugs by potting them up by the front door. Setting their lovely cones now

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Have a big old apple tree in the center of my place, over 25yrs old now. It’s producing tons of apples and I’ve finally figured out how to manage the abundance. Hardy, mostly disease free, crisp and tart. Most I freeze up for winter pie, some go to a friend for sauce and the ponies. Lucky to have it

A stack of four apples sitting on a stone, yellow green background under red. Crisp and fragrant.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Rigged up a watering station for the little tree frog that's moved into the grapevine by the front door. These frogs apparently (I learned today) absorb water through a belly patch and need shallow water sources. It's thumblina sized, so I clipped a water jug cap around the vine in the shade. 🤞

Bright green, thumb sized Pacific Tree frog with black eyebrow bands to his nose, perched on a grape vine.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

I don’t mind sharing, but there has to be a secret to saving at least my share from the squirrels, jays, and deer. I’m feeding the neighborhood, lovely, but I want some.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

These came in today. An heirloom variety called "Italian Torpedo Tropea (originally from the town in Calabria), they're just a great onion. Perfect as a Spring onion fresh, versatile in cooking and the store for a couple of months. And I think they're gorgeous.

A pile of pink, torpedo (oblong) onions, with papery skins and white roots. Just harvested.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

The new Jupiter vine, whose name is Elvis apparently, came with one cluster of grapes. They’re ripening up now and I’m besotted.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

It’s wasp season. The defender from this nest nailed me right in the cheekbone when I disturbed it tugging blackberry vines out of the rhododendron by the patio. Nicely tucked under the leaves until I cleared it. My big 20yr old rhoddies are struggling some as seasons keep trending hotter and drier.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Somehow, thankfully, NOAA is hanging in there and still producing fact driven reports. "This was the warmest July—and warmest month—in the 132-year record." www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/nationa...

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Been skipping my morning poetry practice, picked it up again this morning with Kevin Young’s 2026 Griffin Prize winner. What a colossal talent, the voice, the poems, from the first page. Stunningly good.

The cover of the poetry collection “Night Watch”. Stylized botanical painting, greatness leaves in the pack ground on the bottom two third and around the edges, like being in a forest, with a two headed bird at the center holding a red ribbon.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

It’s a good year for the apple.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Would you like an apple on a Sunday morning in the unraveling? Here you go.

Fist sized apples in the foreground in a tree with thick green foliage and vibrant oval shaped leaves. Green, just blushed with red.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Would be more enthusiastic about weeding if everything wasn’t trying to stab me… clearing burdock today and carefully clipping out the budding sections so they don’t end up in the community compost and spreading. The root is supposed to be good for the liver, grows 6+ feet here, super tough plants.

A pile of purple burdock flower buds, the inspiration for Velcro, they are spiney , round and stick to everything.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

I mean, they are gorgeous and the centers are kinda pokey.

Echinacea in full flower, spike orange cone in the center (spikes like a stiff bristle brush), with tender long petals in an array around the center.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Or maybe you’d like a coneflower with a crew cut, the local deer stood in the bed just outside the front door, munched plum branches and, very carefully, the petals off the echinacea (for good health, obviously).

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

I know everything is more than a bit ragged at the moment, so here, have a home grown baby apricot. It’s lineage traces back to a single sapling improbably found near the Anacortes ferry dock. Makes me ridiculously happy to have it here.

Apricots on the tree, oval shaped, soft looking, sun colored with a red scattered blush cascading from the neck.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Our native sword fern, new fronds in Spring.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Realizing that I'm reading many non-U.S. authors. I am also slightly cranky about our choice in covers (although I do love kelp).

US cover of Togetherness: Symbiosis and the Hidden Story of Life's Greatest Collaborations

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

There are wide stretches of this half acre that are an absolute mess at the moment, but there is also native Henderson’s Checkermallow waving in the breeze at the end of the longest day.

Spears of soft pink flowers, with the sun behind.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Found carrots in random planter from seeds planted too late last year, total surprise. Went to weed it out thinking it was just tops. Like magic. Tasty too, despite not being tended.

A bunch of orange homegrown carrots with tops.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

This came today, it’s a gift in so many ways but not the least of which is the reminder of how fabulous and wonderfully important the work and tradition of the nation’s Poet Laureate and the Library of Congress is.

The book “Against Breaking, In the Power of Poetry” by Ada Limón. White cloth cover with black and gold lettering. The book is sitting on rough textured aged deck boards.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Getting a little nudge from Austin Kleon this morning.

A picture of the book “Show Your Work” by Austin Kleon. It is square, a paperback with a thick, kind of drippy cover in yellow with black text that look’s handwritten with a Sharpie pen.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Rain stopped way too soon, but with the hopeful promise of more, popped out to get some of these homegrown cosmos plugs in the ground. These are from last year’s seed so pretty pleased with myself. Slower rudbeckia to the right, and a smaller white cosmos on the far right edge.

A black plastic rectangle planting tray with 48 hexagon shaped cells full of soil and young green feathery plants.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

1909 illustration Canada thistle, Cirsium arvense, sometimes know as the "cursed thistle".

A 1909 page illustration of the plant, Canada thistle, showing its spiny green foliage and multiple small fluffy and purple flower heads.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Spent all morning with this. It’s as lovely as people say, one of those books that finds something true and puts it in the world. The rain has stopped and I’ve read to the end and I really need to go tackle the weeds, but, no rush really. There’s a whole life in these pages.

A picture of the novel “The Correspondent” resting in a pale wood deck. The cover is white with two painted English robins facing each other sitting on fence posts.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Hope and wonder is four baby apricots on a tree you just planted in February. Having a perfectly ripened homegrown apricot this summer, that’d be magic.

Four fuzzy oval shaped fruit on smooth branches with a weathered wood fence behind.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

My magnolia is stopping people in their tracks again this year. Flowering about a week later than last Spring, we had a cold start to things, it's just past peak now. A bit gray and windy today so petals are falling. Amazing plant...old, old family.

Large flower globes, tulip like, of a purple magnolia tree standing on bare silver-gray branches and a few fuzzy unopened leaf pods.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

Seeds 🤓. Field thyme, rudbeckia, coreopsis and cosmos, and a little sage leftover from last season. Sunny and warm today, lots of weeding. My nemesis the yellow archangel is running away and starting to bloom, wretched little plant. Restarts from any fragment. And the thistles are up. Work to do.

Flower seeds in three earthenware bowls.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

In happy news, the Artemis crew has left earth orbit and are now over 7000 miles away from the Earth on their way to the moon. What a ride. #NASAArtemis

A picture of the full moon on a black background.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Don’t have answers to all the big things, but every time I get frustrated, I’m outside. Digging holes, planting things, pulling weeds. Here’s some very sexy potatoes getting a sprout on before setting out. Humble, weird, a minor hedge against the apocalypses.

A tray of seed potatoes with small sprouts.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

It's out! Thrilled to have two poems published in this lovely journal--Daybreak and Clementine (pgs 9 and 10). They have one of the best digital experiences, gorgeous layout and when you open the issue you hear the pages turning (love that) www.tetheredliterary.com/current-issue

Cover of Tethered Literary's Winter 2026 Issue, black background, white header text and a lunar eclipsed full blood moon in the center, lit and glowing.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Got my "just one thing" done in the garden today, I swear that rule saves the day more often than not. A new miniature "Nectar Babe" nectarine in a big terracotta pot on the patio. Sun has cleared the ridge South of the garden and it's all feeling very Spring-like out there.

Ripe red/yellow round nectarines on a tree with long oval-lance shaped leaves.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Solid rain showers this morning, settling into a gray Tuesday. Went out and planted evergreen star jasmine down by the lower gate, hoping it's as tough and deer resistant as suggested, and two roses, the pink "Gentle Hermione" and the tough white rugosa, Blanc Double De Coubert from France.

A picture of a single double white rugosa rose blossom "Blanc Double De Coubert" with a background of darker, heavily lined thick green leaves.

Two pale pink fully open and billowy roses "Gentle Hermione".

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

My "just one thing" in the garden today--divided some Black-eyed Susan, planted lavender around a fruit tree I want the deer to leave be, and got this amazing apple in the ground for an espalier along a sunny fence--Hudson's Golden Gem. Originally found feral in an Oregon hedgerow in the 1930s.

A picture of a Hudson's Golden Gem apple, cut in half on a wood cutting board. One half is face down showing the warm yellow-gold skin of a large oblong square apple, the other half sits to the right face up showing crisp white flesh.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

In the assessment itself it highlighted one example--over a decade old now. Migration will escalate. Its even happening inside the U.S., we have places that are running out of water, getting too hot. We have huge work to do, fast, and our country is all tangled up in ~~~mess.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

“We hold these truths…” Must read, gem of a book. It goes phrase by phrase through that historic sentence and is full of insights into the drafting and the drafters while raising important questions about this moment in our history. Book clubs, coffee circles, this needs talking about.

The cover of the book “The Greatest Sentence Ever Written” by Walter Isaacson. Cream white back ground with Black text and a golden quill centered.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

It’s gray and wet and refusing to freeze, but the witch hazel is blooming, despite it all.

A branch of witch hazel in bloom on a winter’s day. Brown twig with clusters of copper orange spidery flowers

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

Purchased my analog wall calendar for 2026...always need something that lets me see what's coming at a glance. And it's always the Wild Desert Calendar from the Oregon Natural Desert Association (ONDA). Think I was colonized by sage dust and cottonwoods early.

The cover of the 2026 Wild Desert Calendar from the Oregon Natural Desert Association showing a worn rocky cliff in the foreground, with a river winding on the right, and a thin green plateau above in the background.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

Just one, named by the europeans Quercus garryana aka, the Garry Oak or Oregon White Oak. One of the most endangered habitats, we only have the barest remnants on Whidbey, but few of the individual trees left were here when Vancouver came ashore. The Oak Society and Land Trust are replanting.

A black and white map of the western states with a narrow north/south shaded band running from the Canadian border to northern California, inland from the coast and west of the Cascades, marking the range of the oak Quercus garryana.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Looks like another very concentrated punch for Whidbey tomorrow afternoon with expected gusts over 65mph. We lost major transmission lines and had damage to four substations last night, repairs are still in progress. Crews from Canada are down to help, lots of lines still up but holding trees.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

Next round. Another 4-6 inches on the coast, with up to 8-12 inches in the Cascades by Friday. Even 2 or 3 inches in Seattle and Portland. Serious flooding expected along the Nooksack, Skagit (both North Cascades) and Snonomish Rivers. Very happy to be in that little blue bubble.

Rain forecast map for Washington state, in color, with the rain totals ranging from 4" to 12" on the west side of the state.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

First thing I did this morning was check the Skagit... Good news over night is the basin didn't get the worse case rainfall totals and the expected peak is now back below 40'. Still a huge flood event, but every inch matters to the flood walls and dikes holding.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Just excruciating flood event developing in the Skagit.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

River gauge at Mount Vernon. Running 26.64 feet and rising as of 9:15 this morning. Flood warning for 4' to 5' over previous flood events (here's hoping we don't go that far).

A screen shot of the USGS river gauge results at Mount Vernon, WA showing the river water level over the course of 2025. Today's 26.64 feet is the high water point for 2025 (so far).

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

Went to my shelves…There’s Snyder’s “On Tyranny”, Helen Hanff’s wonderful “84, Charing Cross Road”, “Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions” from Valeria Luiselli, and older and the shortest, “Here Is New York” from E.B. White, which still has my boarding pass from a visit 20 years ago.

A picture of four books, covers up, laid on a table. Starting in the top left corner “on Tyranny” from Timothy Snyder, clockwise to “84, Charing Cross Toad by Helen Hanff, lower right “Here is New York” by EB White, then “Tell Me How It Ends” by Valeria Luiselli.

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Shelby Edwards @sedwards.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Fancy book mail today, the UK edition (because it has a far better cover).

The poetry collection “The Poems of Seamus Heaney” UK edition, hardback with its abstract plaid cover in muted blue, green and red. The title is in white.

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