(Source: photobucket.com)

Researcher decodes prairie dog language, discovers they've been talking about us (Video)

(Source: fuzzyhorns)

dirtyanddarling:

FIRST AND FOREMOST: My shower’s real gross, get over it.

Most importantly though, today I made some shampoo! I got the recipe from Raleigh Brigg’s zine Make Your Place. I haven’t tried it yet but the top picture is of the first stage where I was soaking the soapwort root and the second photo is all of the soaps I’ve made or use with the finished shampoo on the far right! (The other two are a vinegar rinse conditioner with vitamin E oil on the left and rose infused Dr. Bronner’s in the middle.)

Also I’m real stoked because I found those pumps at Target and they are just the cutest.

Anyway, here is the recipe for the shampoo:

2c distilled water
1.5T soapwort root, chopped
1t lemon verbena
1t dried nettles

Soak the soapwort root in the distilled water over night. In the morning, bring the mixture to a boil and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in lemon verbena and nettles. Sift out the leafy bits, decant into a fancy looking pump & enjoy ^.^

(ps. the amount shown above is what this recipe yields. It only lasts about 10 days so I only made a tiny bit to test it out. I also fucked up the recipe when I was making mine and used way more lemon verbena and nettles than it actually called for, so they probably soaked up more liquid than they usually would. Oops!)

bookofjoe: Handrail Grill

Dat’s great! 

cabinporn:

Cabin on wheels in Omaha, Nebraska. See the full building process on Tiny Midwest.

Contributed by Jamison Hiner.

Cicero (via thehouseofrisingsun)

(Source: cosmicroots)

What to Eat in May « (link)

via i have seen the whole of the internet

: What if...

buynothingnewforayear:

What if each of us was responsible for every ounce of trash we made? 

Would we shop differently?

What if our business was held accountable for every piece of trash it created?

Would we sell things differently? 

What if we had to clean up the mess made by everything we produced?

Would we construct things differently?

What if we were responsible for the garbage created by every product we helped sell?

Would we endorse things differently?

What if we became conscious of our impact on the earth?

Would we behave differently? 

Mountain lion spotted in Oskaloosa

A mountain lion was spotted in Oskaloosa over the weekend and officials asked residents to report any further sightings by calling 911. Residents spotted the animal on Saturday around 3 p.m. …

Let’s all be safe when we wander in the woods. The problem with cougars is they are so damn stealthy! But if you see one pre-pounce, here is what you do:

• make yourself larger. Spread your arms, yell, stand up straight. Make it clear to this cat that you are not easy prey. 
• Back away to safety. 
• Make noise. Hopefully you carry a whistle (I do!)
• Call your local DNR. 

Ten William S. Burroughs Quotes About Cats

nevver:

1. “My relationship with cats has saved me from a deadly, pervasive ignorance.”
2. “What went so hideously wrong with the domestic dog? Man molded the domestic dog in his own worst image…self-righteous as a lynch mob, servile and vicious, replete with the vilest coprophagic perversions…and what other animal tries to fuck your leg? Canine claims to our affection reek of contrived and fraudulent sentimentality.”
3. “And there are my cats, engaged in a ritual that goes back thousands of years, tranquilly licking themselves after the meal. Practical animals, they prefer to have others provide the food … some of them do. There must have been a split between the cats who accepted domestication and those who did not.”
4. “His whole being radiates a pure, wild sweetness, flitting through night woods with little melodious cries, on some cryptic errand. There is also an aura of doom and sadness about this trusting little creature. He has been abandoned many times over the centuries, left to die in cold city alleys, in hot noon vacant lots, pottery shards, nettles, crumbled mud walls. Many times he has cried for help in vain.”
5. “Cat hate reflects an ugly, stupid, loutish, bigoted spirit.”
6. “Cats didn’t start as mousers. Weasels and snakes and dogs are more efficient as rodent-control agents. I postulate that cats started as psychic companions, as Familiars, and have never deviated from this function.”
7. “Like most qualities, cuteness is delineated by what it isn’t. Most people aren’t cute at all, or if so they quickly outgrow their cuteness…Elegance, grace, delicacy, beauty, and a lack of self-consciousness: a creature who knows he is cute soon isn’t.”
8. “A cat’s rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue sparks, eyes blazing and sputtering.”
9. “Like all pure creatures, cats are practical.”
10. “The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself.”

Kristin van Ogtrop (via karrinainoregon)

Time, Google, and Nasa Create a Timelapse of the Earth’s Last Three Decades 

A: Beautiful
B: Eye-opening
C: Totally played with LANDSAT satellite photos in science camp in the 90s. 

Bike lanes led to 49% increase in retail sales

Back in November 2012, the New York Department of Transportation released a report called Measuring the Street: New Metrics for the 21st Century, which had some compelling figures on the way that local business benefits from bike-lanes, for the fairly obvious reason that cyclists find it easy to stop and shop, as compared to drivers, […]

Record nitrate levels in Raccoon, Des Moines threaten Des Moines-area tap water

“We are off our playing field. We haven’t seen this before,” Stowe said.

The Raccoon River hit 24 this week; the previous record was 22. The Des Moines was just under 18; the record was 14.2.

Stowe said the nitrates then are dumped back in the river, an EPA-approved arrangement he hopes to avoid in the future. He is researching better ways to dispose of the slurry.

Three items to highlight:

1. Removing these nitrates to a safe level costs my city $7,000 a day. 
2. The the nitrate-rich slurry is then returned to the river — so that cities downstream can remove them again I guess?
3. This is the deal with the dead zone in the the Gulf of Mexico.