While reading Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer mentioned that:

In Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as “the younger brothers of Creation.” We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn—we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They’ve been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out. They live both above and below ground, joining Skyworld to the earth. Plants know how to make food and medicine from light and water, and then they give it.

And I noticed that a lot of the books form this beautiful stunning quest revolve around how plants can help us understand ourselves and our environment better. And it left me thinking how we should be learning from plants and animals, we are not above nature. We are nature🥹

The teachings of plants are vast, so I would love to know if there is something you have learned from nature!!

I’ll go first! I used to be a perfectionist, it had to be all or nothing. If I failed once then it was the end of the world. My adhd didn’t help, if I lost my streak then I might as well give up on the whole thing. But then, one day I started taking care of my garden and I was surprised at how fast it bloom and recover from months of isolation. If one day I forgot to water my plants or if I was to tired because of my back pain, it didn’t matter, I could always start all over again

I’m actually tearing up lol but it was a life-changing moment. It didn’t matter if I fell, I could always bloom again once I started taking care of myself❤️‍🩹

Feel free to leave a book suggestion in the comment section here! I can’t guarantee if or when it will be added to the quest, but know that I will at least investigate all of them.

Good suggestions include books that: 🪲 Are about a minibeast or minibeasts 🔍 Are about someone who studied minibeasts 🌻More general nature books that take the time to discuss minibeasts (for example, When the Earth Was Green, while discussing a breadth of plant and animal life, does discuss arthropods and their importance frequently) 📚 Nonfiction

Do not suggest books that: 🦟 Give in-depth or detailed medical or pest management advice 🪰 Fear monger 🕸️ Are redundant 🦐 Are primarily about crustaceans (I know, I know shrimp is bugs, but we gotta draw the line somewhere) or other marine life

Historically, the field of entomology has been dominated primarily by western scientists and all the trappings that come with them. If you’ve got books from authors that are or feature marginalized voices, or focus on non-western topics, I’m eager to hear them!

Thanks all, I can’t wait to see your suggestions!

Curious if anyone else here sneaks in reading while they're at work 😂 I'm a part-time customer service rep at a grocery store while I'm in college and I always bring a book to my shifts. Usually I can hide behind the counter and read when there's no customers or anything else to do. Do you bring a book? Ebook? Earbuds for an audiobook? Or do you have to begrudgingly wait till you get home? 😂

Happy Lunar New Year!

In honour of that. What is your favourite book from a country that celebrates Lunar New Year? Alternately who is your favourite fictional horse?

Not me searching videos on YouTube on how large centrifuges work lol.

Okay, please do not judge me, but correct me if I am wrong. Ryland needs to activate the centrifuge to artificially recreate gravity so that he can tinker about in his laboratory as the equipment does not work in zero gravity.

But how does a centrifuge create gravity when its purpose is to separate stuff in an item that has multi-density components? (like how to locate plasma in your blood)? Or am I misunderstanding this?

Howdy!

As spring is rapidly approaching in my neck of the woods it's time to start thinking about my garden plans for the year!

You might be surprised to hear this, please don't judge me, but I am a terrible grower. I super struggle to keep plants alive!! BUT I do a fair bit better when they are out in the ground instead of indoors. My husband and I used to garden pretty regularly, but life got in the way and a half finished back yard project meant we haven't made much of an effort in about a decade.

BUT. We finished the back yard landscaping! We have garden beds ready! And reading for this quest has really inspired me to try again. I'm eager to get my hands in the dirt and see what I can nurture and grow.

While our books here are not gardening How-To's or anything, I imagine many of us are interested in growing plants and maybe some of us are also old hands at it. I wanted to make a thread where we could share which books have inspired us to grow what, and then share our wins and successes with our growing efforts!

We started by planting some fruit trees last week (plum, pear, and apple), and we ordered seeds for lettuces and carrots for planting next month. We are going to overhaul our herb beds for both cooking and herbal teas. I have a long neglected tea plant I am committed to learning how to properly prune and harvest.

I don't think I would have gotten back into gardening if it hadn't been for reading all these plant books and being reminded how beneficial it is for me, for the earth, for my neighbor. We consulted with the folks we share a fence with and planted the fruit tree they were most excited about (apples) right next to their fence so that down the road they can harvest, too.

Specifically, recently finishing Soil and Plants Have So Much To Give Us, All We Have To Do Is Ask reminded me how important it is to have plants on hand. How empowering it is to chose what is on my property, and how to engage with it. And how many different uses really common plants have! Our neighbors have a 1.5 year old daughter and I enamored with the idea of her (hopefully) having childhood memories of eating apples fresh off the tree. With the seasonal readalong reminding me of the gift economy talked about in The Serviceberry I am stoked to (again, hopefully!) have a bounty of jam, fruit leather, and fresh fruit to share with my community. And to feed my old man pet rabbit lettuce directly from our garden! I'm looking forward to being able to pluck a sprig of mint to rub on my arms to ward off mosquitos.

Do you feel similar? Tell me what's in your garden, what local foraging is available to you, and how these books have been inspiring you lately - and continue to come back and share updates! 🌱🌱💕

I'm not sure, but summer might be my favorite season. It's hard, I like basically every season but winter! The moth section was lovely and it was fun to dive into secondary plant metabolites! It also made me feel like I should go mothing again this summer.

I do love a bumblebee, most of the pictures I looked through for this post were of bumblees! I used to work with them and have a definite soft spot in my heart for them, sweat bees, and carpenter bees.

There is a Cooper's hawk that likes to stalk the birdfeeders a neighbor and I have up in the yard - these guys normally go after songbirds, but I saw one swoop up a chipmunk once. I was kinda drunk and I cried about it.

I tried growing milkweed but it was overcome by milkweed aphids! This was early in their attack, they eventually drained the plant dry. Since the point of the milkweed was to attract critters and aphids are critters, it felt wrong to take any pest control measures 😅

This was taken during a trip to a state park in a mountainous area - the geology was so great to look at and there were loads of mosses and lichens on the rocks 💚

This squirrel was using the cool concrete of a porch to try to cool off during a particularly hot day!