Friday and a frog. Exterminator prep Also indigenous fire culture

Friday morning brought this slug, evidently the one responsible for the holes in the leaves 

I flung him far into the trees, plenty there for him.

And the pond walk yielded birdsong, frog sounds and this mushroom

And here's one of my frog friends, not too worried about my presence. I wonder if it's like young rabbits, more curious than alarmed.

I got back with the Exterminator John for my quote and found he'd sent it days ago, never arrived, not in spam, trash, nowhere. He re-sent it, expensive job sigh, I approve, he's coming Saturday morning. And asked me to empty the storage closet. Oh. Nobody available to help, so I did it. 

The view from my front door, there's more round to the right 

Some of that is dumpster bound, some Freecycle bound, it's a good opportunity to winnow anyway.

Thursday brought a Fowler Museum online presentation  I'd forgotten signing up for, good thing I also signed up for a reminder.

Lovely young graduate student presenting her Master's project, a current exhibit at the Fowler Museum of UCLA, and this Zoom presentation.

Here you see left a plant untouched by fire, growing less fully. On the right, opened up by fire, it grows freely and provides basket fibers.

Left is a sand painting depicting night and day, right sparks of fire and flowers together

The poem is set out to depict the mountains of the poet's childhood

The poppies are California icons and they flourish after fire.

The presenter, from a long line of basket weavers, is now far from her home territory, and is learning the style of her adopted region, but she plans to return and continue in the tradition of her family.

This exhibit is part of a movement to reclaim the cultural fire practices of indigenous people, and further to reclaim them for the women and queer people who have been excluded from their own practices, reserved for straight men. It's a double task. 

For centuries the indigenous people tended the land using fire to cultivate and protect it, until colonized. Then fire was outlawed and the wrongheaded Smoky Bear campaign to eradicate even useful fire resulted in the current undergrowth and kindling situation ending in massive out of control fires.

Fire, life, renewal and art are all part of the indigenous tradition.

If you're anywhere near the Fowler Museum, this would be worth a visit.

Happy day, everyone. Everything is good in its place. I'm still looking for mine.

Meanwhile this came in the mail with the perfect card for the likes of me.

Thank you J, perfect deck reading to get my mind off termites.

And I updated the daily bouquet