@ChristineMalec
My personal favorite kitchen item is my Grandma's Silverseal roasting pan. This is the only kitchen item that I will not lend to anyone, because I don't want to chance it not coming back home. It holds an entire chicken or beef roast, with all the potatoes and veg, and the metal is so thick that it retains heat all through and yet never burns. But don't drop it on your foot!

@ChristineMalec
My grandma's ice cream scoop sounds similar. Not by any chance the same model as your mother's?

@maaikees

In the same vein -

#pets #catsofmastodon

Pick the best fallacy

Birdsounds. 🙂

#birdsofmastodon #sounds

@mayintoronto
Obviously, a common sparrow! Chipper, resourceful, and very ordinary.

A Moist Owlette is freshly showered at Owl Park San Vigilio, a zoological park in northern Italy 🇮🇹 via https://fb.com/816647270688824 #owlsintowels 💛🦉

This is why no one believes anything they say ever at all anymore, this has happened over & over & over. It’s enough already.

Agents Suspended After Their Story of #Shooting an #Immigrant Falls Apart

The top federal prosecutor in #Minnesota asked a judge to drop charges against [another] immigrant shot by an #ICE agent.

#Trump #StateSponsoredTerrorism #law #immigration #murder #ExtraJudicialKillings #CivilRights #UseOfForce #ExcessiveForce #Sturmabteilung
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/us/prosecutor-dismiss-charges-men-shot-by-ice.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Burst open windows!
Come, wind, and sweep clean the house!
Scour away winter!

#DailyHaikuPrompt - Wind

@StevePeterson
Moss in winter seems so magical. I have mossy patches along my walk, and when I shovel snow and that emerald green patch is suddenly revealed, it seems miraculous!

Beneath knee-deep snow,
muffled from subzero wind,
secret moss stays green.

#DailyHaikuPrompt - Evergreen

https://mindly.social/@selzero@syzito.xyz

In response to request for favorite songs not in English:
Malaika. Sung by Belafonte and Makeba. It always puts me in a happy mood.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=NLozhasoPks

@selzero

Also, Je Ne Regrette Rien, sung by the incomparable Edith Piaf. Makes my heart soar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Kvu6Kgp88

In order to continue pissing off racists, post a song that you like that isn't in English.

https://youtu.be/2VY5Pt3fi0k?si=S3t3IWXhI8Cn1wE6

One cloud feels lonely,
so they call vaporous friends,
a gray company.

#DailyHaikuPrompt - Cloud

@deirdrebeth
Nowadays, we all need to know where to find good neighbors!

(Some final thoughts about this busy afternoon.)

I've never had such an unpleasant experience during any of my solo street-corner protests before. If it's just the occasional driver giving me the finger as they pass by, it doesn't upset me. But someone pulling up in front of me to scream obscenely at me was definitely harder to brush off. It's left a very dark cloud over the afternoon.

Then, the guy who pulled over to scare off the harassing guy, that was a better experience. Taking the trouble to actually pull over and get out of his car, and stick around long enough to be sure the other guy was really gone, was such a neighborly thing to do. It cleared the air and let me breathe again. I felt oddly a bit embarrassed that I had needed rescuing, but at the same time grateful to the rescuer.

Then, the encounter with the policeman made me nervous again. Was I somehow in trouble for blocking the street and causing a scene? Should I just pack it up and go home? Should I give up doing these little protests? I started to doubt myself, anxious to smooth this over..

Then, finally, the group effort with two neighbors I didn't know, to clear the snowy driveway of a third neighbor none of us knew, with everyone being so happily engaged, feeling the flow of good energy, seemed to shovel away all the bad energy from earlier, so that I was able to go home in a much better state of mood and mind.

Went home, warmed up, ate supper, and have been slowly gathering my thoughts.

end/

(... second adventure, continued...)

I told the woman with the snow problem that I live just up the street, and I'd be back in a few minutes with a snow shovel. On my way home, I passed a teenage boy shoveling his own driveway. He had seen my interaction with the older woman, and offered to help. By the time I got back with my shovel, the woman had parked her car parallel with the curb, and the boy had an arm around her and was assisting her through the snow to her porch door.

Then the boy and I together tackled shoveling her driveway. It wasn't a very neat or pretty job, but we did at least remove enough snow so she could get her car in. She told us she had a couple bags of pavement salt in her trunk, but they were too heavy for her. We got into her trunk, but found the bags were too heavy for us. The boy said he's run home and get his grandpa.

He was back in a few minutes with his grandpa, a strong guy who was able to easily lift an entire bag of salt and carry it up the driveway. We got it open, and the three of us together salted her driveway. Then I assisted the woman to walk safely back down to where her car was parked, and she got it into the driveway, and got herself back to her porch door. She said "Bless you all! I have such good neighbors." We all took our shovels and went home.

(... end of adventures... some concluding thoughts in next post...)

4/

(...this afternoon's adventures continued...)

About five minutes after the second guy left, a police car pulled up at the curb, and asked if I'd had a car here blocking a lane of traffic. I said briefly that some guy had pulled up to harass me, and then another guy pulled up to chase him away. He said I might feel unsafe, might not want to be out here alone. I said I've been doing this for several weeks, and this was the only time anything like this had ever happened, and I'm completely fine. He drove off. I usually only stay out for an hour, because I get cold and tired, but today I continued to stay out for an extra ten minutes, just so I didn't appear to be quitting. Then I began walking the three blocks home.

About a block from my own house, my second adventure of the afternoon began. I encountered a car parked perpendicularly across the road. An older woman was in the car, and she was flustered and upset. She was making several attempts to get her car into her driveway, and just spinning tires in soft snow and getting nowhere. Earlier this morning, the town street plow had come down our street, and thrown a deep load of soft slushy snow into the foot of all the driveways. I had got my own shoveled out, but I could see she was stuck in the mess.

(... second adventure continues in next post...)

3/

Now that I'm having a quiet evening at home, I've been able to settle down after this afternoon's stuff. It was a roller coaster ride of both ups and downs.

Started with my little personal roadside protest. I'm still aiming to get out there with my "No ICE" cardboard sign for an hour twice a week. Usually, I just stand there with cars passing by. Most of the drivers pass without any reaction, maybe not even registering that I am there. Sometimes I get a honk and wave. Sometimes I get a thumbs down or rude finger. But mostly it's just traffic passing by.

Today, a car pulled up at the curb right in front of me. A middle-aged white man rolled down the passenger side window and berated me for several minutes, in very foul language and very loud shouty voice. I continued holding my sign and staring off at more distant traffic, trying to act as though I was unaware of him.

Then another car did a U-turn and pulled up at the curb. A middle-aged black man hopped out. The man berating me drove away. The second man said, "Let me show you something", and pulled a "No Kings" sign out of his car. He stood next to me on the sidewalk for several minutes, waving his sign alongside mine, shouting anti-Trump slogans, interspersed with "That guy harassed you, he's not coming back, he knows I could take him". When it seemed certain that the first guy wasn't returning, the second guy got back in his car, said, "I'll keep an eye out for you", and drove off.

(...continued in next post...)

2/