
went to see if my late package maybe showed up without being scanned
mail is dumb
The mail lady saying “NO. I REFUSE to say it again” was more climactic than the Braveheart speech.
Omg these little bean finally got their package and I’m fucking crying
here is a short timeline of their development 🦭
adorable white coat ribbon seal pups. this baby fur is called lanugo.
after around 1 month pups will start shedding their baby fur to reveal a grey and silver coat
young seals with their grey and silver coat
then, the juvenile seals with start to develop their stripes over the next 3 years. they grow stronger with each moult, females can reach sexual maturity before they have fully developed stripes. this mothers stripes aren’t fully there yet.
once they’re 4 years old a ribbon seals stripes will have fully developed.
male and female are easy to tell apart by their coat colour, the males will have bold black and white stripes
whereas the females have more brown/beige/silver stripes
Unironically, vegans need to be advocating for more and better sheep, llama, and alpaca farms. Wool is one of the best fabrics we have in terms of versatility, longevity and most importantly, insulation. Even wet, it retains 80% of it’s insulation potential.
AND IT DOESN’T SHED MICROPLASTICS
Like, there’s literally nothing you can do to a sheep that’s as morally reprehensible as dumping plastic down the gullet of literally every other living thing. You wanna talk about animal welfare? Talk about reducing the amount of microplastics produced by rayon, polyester, and spandex.
You are brave as FUCK for saying this, and it’s 100% true.
Wool farming, if done with an eye on animal welfare*, does absolutely nothing to harm a sheep or alpaca. It’s no different than a haircut. And just like a haircut, it’ll grow right back. If your argument is that sheep may be cut in this process—very occasionally a sheep may be nicked. To be clear, I say NICKED, not cut. Think about shaving your legs or face and hitting a bump, and ow, you bleed a couple drops. That is what may, rarely, happen. But RARELY, because farmers are going to take damn good care of the animals who keep them in funds. Should it happen, it’s as much an accident as you finding that bump while shaving.
Likewise y’all should be promoting ethical beekeeping and honey farming. Bees are unique among livestock in that if they don’t like their keeper, if they think the hive is shitty, they can, and will, just…leave. You can’t put a collar or ear tag on a bee. Bee populations are declining and they’re incredibly important in our biodiversity (as pollinators, yes, but also in other ways). And bees do, indeed, make too much honey for themselves. That’s why they swarm. A nest gets too full of comb, or they outgrow it, and they just dip. Swarming is dangerous because it leaves the bees vulnerable—the queen is mostly unprotected, they have only as much food as they could carry with them so if it’s late in the season they’re dead meat, humans spot swarms and freak out and send exterminators because they don’t realize swarms aren’t dangerous as long as you’re calm….it is, BY FAR, better to have bees in a hive that never overfills, where they can be checked for parasites and diseases that would destroy the colony or even an entire apiary and can receive honey substitute rather than starving to death if winter should be particularly harsh or long, and where an excess of their natural product and instincts can be siphoned off for the benefit of humans with no detriment to the bees.
Honey is less harmful to us and to the planet we live on than agave syrup, stevia, or cane sugar. It does not rely on any kind of slave labor (again: if the bees weren’t happy, they’d leave). It does not upset entire economies. And by its nature there are more independent keepers than there are giant conglomerates, which is better all the way around! (Although the conglomerates are trying to change that, so like. Support your local beekeepers.) Plus, old no-longer-needed honeycomb is made of beeswax, which can be used in all manner of things in lieu of more harmful chemicals like phthalates. There is no downside here!
“Never do anything involving an animal ever” should not be the goal. That completely ignores that we are animals that grew up in a complete ecosystem. “Do the least amount of harm and be good stewards, because this planet doesn’t belong to only us” should be the goal.
Wool and honey. We can argue another time about eggs. For right now let’s agree that sheep, goats, alpacas, and bees make far more of these products than they will ever need, that in some cases an excess can even be detrimental to them, and that it is a GOOD THING to find a way to live in balance rather than poisoning our world with “vegan leather.”
*to wit: animals should have plenty of space, shelter, food, and clean water. I love meat and I fucking hate factory farming.
I feel like a good shorthand for a lot of economics arguments is "if you want people to work minimum wage jobs in your city, you need to allow minimum wage apartments for them to live in."
"These jobs are just for teenagers on the weekends." Okay, so you'll use minimum wage services only on the weekends and after school. No McDonald's or Starbucks on your lunch break.
"They can get a roommate." For a one bedroom? A roommate for a one bedroom? Or a studio? Do you have a roommate to get a middle-wage apartment for your middle-wage job? No? Why should they?
"They can live farther from city center and just commute." Are there ways for them to commute that don't equate to that rent? Living in an outer borough might work in NYC, where public transport is a flat rate, but a city in Texas requires a car. Does the money saved in rent equal the money spent on the car loan, the insurance, the gas? Remember, if you want people to take the bus or a bike, the bus needs to be reliable and the bike lanes survivable.
If you want minimum wage workers to be around for you to rely on, then those minimum wage workers need a place to stay.
You either raise the minimum wage, or you drop the rent. There's only so long you can keep rents high and wages low before your workforce leaves for cheaper pastures.
"Nobody wants to work anymore" doesn't hold water if the reason nobody applies is because the commute is impossible at the wage you provide.
what's that comment? "you wouldn't use a rapier in the same situation you'd use a folding chair"
[ID: text messages say, "Babe I love and support you
But you're unwell about this man". End ID]