This journal is now friends-only. This is unfortunately necessary.

Some of my stories are under the same username at AO3 if you wish to find them there. Some are not and if you want access to them, please feel free to ask.

I still welcome new friends, old friends under new names, silent readers, etc.

If you have made the jump to DreamWidth, you can add me over there, also as rubyelf, but don't necessarily expect to see me hanging out over there unless LJ implodes or something. After all, I can't have 200 userpics there AND YES I NEED ALL 200 OF THEM SO SHUT UP.



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 This will be probably the last nature post I do from Photobucket. Since I already have a paid account there, it will not wreck all my links (supposedly) until January 2018, so people will have plenty of time to look at this one before it disappears, and before then I'll have found a new solution for image hosting.

Anyway...

LOTS of mushrooms, and most exciting, one of them was not only edible but was eaten by me! No matter how much I love mushrooms I have never trusted myself to identify edible ones, but this is one you cannot possibly mis-identify; it has no poisonous look-alikes. And HOLY SHIT IS IT GOOD!

Onward...


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Anyway...

Oh, and cats.



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And that will be all.

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My previous entry is friends-only because only people who are already my friends will be concerned that as of January 2018 every single picture in every single one of my posts will be replaced by a Photobucket advertisement... but everyone should know if you don't already, because you're going to start seeing it really soon. And if you've got pictures on Photobucket and you're using a free account... better go get them now, if you still can.

Photobucket decided to add a small note in their terms of service that they would no longer support 3rd-party hosting except for their top-tier account, which is $400 per year. Those who use the free service are seeing their embedded images disappear already. Those with paid accounts, like me, apparently have till January before all of our images are shut down.

Some people with free accounts can't even access their images to back them up... all they can see it Photobucket's demand that if you want your pictures back, you owe them $400.

And if you don't want every link in every post you've ever done using Photobucket to disappear, whether it was a month ago or ten years ago or all the posts in between, you owe them $400.

Don't want to pay $400?

You're out of luck.

There will be no grandfathering. Old posts won't be spared.

This is being widely referred to as holding users for ransom. If you don't want to hear it from me, see these articles:

BuzzFeed "Photobucket holding people's images for ransom"

NBC News: Photobucket jacking up the costs of your ebay and Amazon listings

CSO: Photobucket replaces images with ransom demand

New York Post: Photobucket shaking down its users

Digital Trends: Photobucket "goes nuclear" on users

TNW: Photobucket demonstrates how NOT to treat your users


Just for reference.

Most of my posts are friends-only but I'm making this one public, so please point people in this direction so they know what happens when Amazon, ebay, and lots and lots of blogs start losing their pictures.

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 I don't have much to talk about besides nature posts, but at least on the weekend I can take a walk and go look for some cool things. I do have to be careful, though... I've been told that my hip flexor injury will not get better if I keep damaging it. Psh.

Anyway...


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And that will be all.

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 I haven't had much time to get outside, unfortunately, and now I've got tendonitis in my hip flexor and I am supposed to be resting it for a week, so I am annoyed because it's been raining and I want to look for mushrooms. Oh, well.

I only have a few things from my last walk, but some of them are pretty cool, and one I had NEVER seen before!


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ANYWAY... that's all the nature I have at the moment, sadly!


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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND...

Honey and I have a new TV show addiction, which is good, since "Walking Dead" has been boring for like three seasons now and we quit watching...

And this is proof that although I do have a "type" when it comes to guys, whatever it is that defines that type is seriously fucked-up and proof that there is something WRONG with the sexual attraction part of my brain. Because apparently besides the whole bow-and-arrows thing, the only other thing I can identify as a "type" is usually of slim build, preferably tattooed, probably smokes, is deeply sarcastic, and is at least a decent part of the time either is (or plays the role of) an asshole with questionable mental stability. And kills people.

OK, so not all of those things at once, usually. But it's not an appearance thing... while I usually like thin guys, I can appreciate Hawkeye's nice arms and Thor's nice... well, everything... and so on and so on. But this latest one I can't explain AT ALL, but...

We have been watching "Preacher" on AMC... we watched the first season in a couple of nights and then the first two of the second season on Sunday and Monday when they aired. If you don't know, "Preacher" was a really, really excellent comic that has taken a long time to become a TV show.

I sent Honey this today, and it just proves he knows me really, really well.




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I have sooooooooo many issues.

Fortunately, my taste in random attraction to TV characters has no relation to the sane, reasonable, normal person I actually married...


That is probably waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than enough.








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 Mostly pictures here, because I was out marveling at the loveliness of my lake again... I did not have the energy this weekend to go climb down into a ravine and then back out again. Maybe this weekend. Anyway... my lake had some presents for me that I might not have found if I hadn't gone out to one of my special spots...


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Anyway, that will be all.

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 It's been a strange sort of spring... switching between scorching summer-like heat and rainy, frost-tinged winter cold. And it's been a busy one so far, without much time to get out to my lake. On this day, I'd decided that instead of walking around at my lake, I'd go check out the trails at the environmental center that borders along the state park section of the lake. I knew there was a hiking trail that went from the dam up the steep hill and through some swamp to the environmental center, and I knew it had some trails, but I'd assumed they were rather tame, meant for little school children on educational trips.

And yeah, some of the trails are like that, but a lot of what's down there isn't even trails at ALL, and it's fantastic. Fast-running creeks that cut deep ravines made the area too steep for farming, and there's an intense and beautiful ecosystem of hemlocks down there that's like nothing else I've seen anywhere around here. They are not true old-growth hemlocks, which can be astoundingly large, and the biggest of these were probably logged in the past, but some have been there a very long time.

I was quite disappointed that I had not come down here before...
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 Not a very amazing nature post, but it's early spring and the weather has been weirdly warm, which seems to have confused the plants. It's lovely to see everything starting to turn beautiful and green again.

Found some interesting flowers I don't think I've identified before, including one that doesn't appear to belong here, Also found a bit of fungus activity, although not much in the way of standard mushrooms (those will come later, and whatever morels have come up have been picked already).


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 I figured that it's pretty early in the spring (around here, you can expect hard frosts until near the end of April, or at least be prepared for them), my lake wouldn't have much to show me... besides the usual prolific skunk cabbage.

Instead, I found some lovely surprises and another favorite new lake spot I had no idea was there.

I should never, ever assume my lake has nothing new for me.

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Goodnight, my lovely lake. See you again soon.

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I thought bluegerl would enjoy a nature post today... and it was a beautiful day for an excuse to go out! I didn't go far... it is archery season here and also geese and some other birds are in season, so there are hunters around, and I didn't have anything orange with me. But I found some lovely things at my favorite dock, as long as you don't mind a walk that's heavy on pretty pictures and light on science today.

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