Shelby Edwards
@sedwards.bsky.social
Writer poet with a day job | Senior senior risk manager with a knack for things going sideways | Army Maj (Ret). | Plant geek | Northwesterner | @STEWest at that other place
We're all going to need to take up skeet shooting. You know, for recreation.
Anne Applebaum@anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 4h agoThe experience of being chased by a murderous kamikaze drone, a flying machine that behaves as if it were alive, is not one that humans are equipped to understand: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
As much as I hate closing up the house, this looks like the day for it. Some of these reading in central Washington around Leavenworth are reading over 1000 this morning.
Dr. Jeff Masters@drjeffmasters.bsky.social · 4h agoUnhealthy smoke across most of the NW today. I prefer purpleair.com's map since it updates every few seconds (be sure to use the US EPA "Apply conversion" option). EPA airnow.gov data updates only once per hour and is up to a 12-hour average, so does not show rapidly changing conditions as well.
Far out in the Pacific Ocean, there are tiny islands that few have seen. The oceans around them are full of marine life, from thriving coral reefs to sharks and tuna. The Trump administration is rolling back protections for these places. NPR got a rare visit to a remote area to see what’s at stake.
These are some of the last pristine ocean ecosystems. Now, they're losing protections
The largest conservation areas in the U.S. are in the Pacific Ocean, where tiny islands are epicenters of biodiversity. The Trump administration is now opening their waters to commercial fishing, sparking a battle over some of the country’s most pristine ecosystems.
n.pr
Election day! Here's hoping everyone in Island County shows up to vote "yes" for the library.
Haze is getting thicker and the light's all orange, but there's a tree frog doing a best rusty-hinge croak in the hedge outside the window (he's confused by the cloudy but not really), and I'm thankful we've escaped the worst so far this year. Still lucky, the AQI is holding in the good range.
Just adding an extra layer of horror, the Spokane fire looks to be arson. | Arson suspect arrested as wildfires rage around Spokane, Washington www.reuters.com/world/us/ars...
Arson suspect arrested as wildfires rage around Spokane, Washington
Three fires have destroyed hundreds of buildings and forced tens of thousands of people to flee.
reuters.com
Deep watering the baby fruits trees with a north wind pushing the smoke in. Once a week, twice if it's trending hotter. We've had a lucky summer so far, clear skies and mostly lowish temperatures, despite everything being really dry.
Excellent piece in the NYT this morning. "Spokane Wildfires Destroy Hundreds of Buildings as Thousands Evacuate" www.nytimes.com/2026/08/02/u...
Spokane Wildfires Destroy Hundreds of Buildings as 60,000 People Evacuate (Gift Article)
Firefighters were hopeful that improving weather conditions in Washington state could help efforts to contain the blaze, which officials described as the largest natural disaster in the history of Spo...
nytimes.com
Love that smell of tomato leaf, so distinctive, so good. Tying up the tomatoes on a smoke hazy morning, hoping for more than a handful off the vines.
Sometimes I think people don't have the sense the universe gave a goldfish. Don't play with explosive things when everything is tinder dry, especially on an island dependent on a limited fire service. Saw the fireball, huge smoke, winds blowing straight towards my place... Need more gravel.
Spent lots of hours this weekend texting with a friend through the Tevis Cup endurance ride (100miles through the mountains and wilderness) including the best condition show off this morning, so good. Mega dosing on high Sierra views and hard working gorgeous horses and humans doing a big thing.
It's rumoured there was once a government team monitoring all of England's stone and wooden sleepers for signs of omenic twitching. While certain records do suggest that the Department Recording And Measuring Anomalous Statues (DRAMAS) once existed, there's no trace of it now.
Really rough night in Spokane Washington last night. This is the second largest metro area in the state, over 600 structures have been lost. Fire has swept into neighborhoods, like the Paradise fire, like LA. www.spokesman.com/stories/2026...
Old Trails fire in northwest Spokane destroys 640 structures: 'Probably the largest, most destructive fire in Washington's history'
The Old Trails wildfire in northwest Spokane destroyed 640 structures Saturday, according to Cody Rohrbach, Spokane County Fire District 3 fire chief.
spokesman.com
Reframed major thistle clearing as opening owl air lanes and it was a much better afternoon.
ECB official warns climate crisis poses growing threat to ‘core financial stability’
ECB official warns climate crisis poses growing threat to ‘core financial stability’
Exclusive: As wildfires rage, Frank Elderson says more work needed to assess risk from collapse of ecosystem services A senior policymaker at the European Central Bank has said the climate emergency and the breakdown of nature poses a dramatically growing risk to the global economy. Frank Elderson, a member of the ECB’s executive board, said the eurozone lender of last resort was stepping up its monitoring of the financial risks linked to the destruction of “ecosystem services”, which are nature-related processes or assets that support human activity. Continue reading...
theguardian.com
Somedays, often enough, I miss living in the city where I could walk down for a coffee, get a pastry, have great art and food, work and hum all around. But then, then just after sunset, when the sky is still lit, out of the quiet comes a coyote calling just outside the back gate and it's everything.
Took myself out on sabbatical at the start of last summer and the deal was a year. One year of grace, rest, discovery. It was absolutely needed and now I'm sorta perched on the edge of the next thing knowing it's not the last thing and really all I want to do is scribble, dig into dusty archives...
While the world burns. I understand how difficult it will be to decouple our societies from the petro-state, but it's time. Let's start by ending subsidies to these companies (that's our money), stopping all new leases on public lands, and charging fair market vs. pennies for existing leases. Enough
Reuters@reuters.com · 5d agoFrom Breakingviews - Breakingviews - Chevron and Exxon quietly gush over giant profit reut.rs/4bnSd9S
My apricot/apricotX harvest was...seven fruits. 😎 Seven fantastic flavor bombs. Three small, like oversized walnuts, four chonkers double an average apricot (those were the crosses). One tree just in ground for a few months, one for two years (and it struggled a little). Future in fruits.
There is no reason for this industry to exist. It's just theft. The service we pay for--insurance to cover medical costs--is not then provided. It's a breach of contract if nothing else. Also, deplorable. It's is just a funnel for taking people's money.
ProPublica@propublica.org · 7d agoInternal documents and former company executives reveal how Cigna doctors rejected patients’ claims without opening their files. “We literally click and submit,” one former company doctor said. (Published March 2023 w/ @capitolforum.bsky.social)
Was out pruning the lavender in the shade, which is one of the best garden tasks really, smells good, it's all soft and just the clip, clip of the secateurs. Anyway, out there in my pajamas when the gate rattles and it's the neighbor kid asking for a hatchet or if not, a machete for a summer project
Thursday, end of July, a PSA about paperwork and making sure you have them in order. Do you have a passport? Lot's of reasons other than vacation you might need one these days. What about a certified copy of your birth certificate, two would be better. Will? How about insurance? Powers of attorney?
Japanese officials have coined an entirely new word to signify the dangerous heat of #ClimateChange. It's "kokushobi," which means "cruel heat day." This coinage is but a drop of the coming shower of cultural changes that climate change will force upon us. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/23/w...
Hey y'all, Oregon's just staggering under the fires and a lot of folks are running ragged with not enough resources. I love Central+Eastern Oregon, but fire out there's scary business. If you have Insta, you can get a glimpse of what the fight's taking for one rancher www.instagram.com/daam_beef/
Create an account or log in to Instagram - Share what you're into with the people who get you.
instagram.com
It’s that time of year again: here are some of the books I’ve enjoyed this summer. If you’ve read any good ones, let me know!
A nuisance pox on anybody who flippantly says it's just so easy for people to get their birth certificates. Trying to sort a mid-70 year old parental unit's paperwork and I beg to differ.
Reading "Don't Call it Art" from Austin Kleon this morning... "when the future comes all the Experts become students" He's talking about art (and not), but in the face of these times? Yesterday I noticed I reached a point I could not absorb one more ounce of bad news.
Hay Meadow, collagraph prints (waxed) on blocks in vintage type case, (detail) by Hester Cox, UK printmaker #WomensArt
