The coal tit (Periparus ater) is a small passerine bird in the tit family, Paridae.
There are a few different subspecies of the coal tit, those being the British, North African and continental ones. They are most commonly found throughout Europe and Russia in coniferous forests and trees.
Seen in the window at Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick, Maine.
Photo: Bill Roorbach
Except America wasn’t an endless expanse of forest with no certain borders. At least not while human beings inhabited it. The idea that native peoples did not cultivate or shape our land and that we had no borders is white propaganda meant to dehumanize and de-legitimize native peoples.
This illustration here show Apalachee people using slash and burn methods for agriculture. Fires were set regularly to intention burn down forests and plains. Why would we do this? Well because an unregulated forest isn’t that great for people, actually. We set fires to destroy new forest growth and undergrowth, and to remove trees, allowing for easier game hunting, nutrient enriched soil, and better growth rates for crops and herbs we used in food and medicine.
Pre-Colonial New England, where my tribe the Abenaki are from, looked more like an extensive meadow or savannah with trees growing in pockets and groves. Enough woodland to support birds, deer, and moose, but not too much to make hunting difficult. We carefully shaped the land around us to suit our needs as a thriving and successful people. Slash and burn agriculture was practiced virtually everywhere in the new world, from the pacific coast to chesapeake bay, from panama to quebec. It was a highly successful way of revitalizing the land and promoting crop growth, as well as preventing massive forest fires that thrive in unregulated forests. Berries were the major source of fruit for my tribe, and we needed to burn the undergrowth so they could grow.
That changed when white people invaded, and brought with them disease. In my tribe, up to 9 in 10 people died. 90% of our people perished not from violence starvation, but from disease. Entire villages would be decimated, struck down by small pox. Suddenly, we couldn’t care for the land anymore. There weren’t enough of us to maintain a vast, carefully structured ecological system like we had for thousands of years. We didn’t have the numbers, or strength. So the trees grew back and unregulated. We couldn’t set fires anymore, and we couldn’t cultivate the land. And white people would make certain we never could again. Timber, after all, was the most important export from New England.
Endless trees and untamed wilderness is a nice fantasy. But it’s a very white fantasy, one that erases the history of my people and of my land. One that paints native peoples are merely parasites leeching off the land, not masters of the earth who new the right balance of hunting and agriculture. It robs us of our agency as people, and takes our accomplishments from us. Moreover, it implies that only white people ever discovered the power to shape the world around them, and that mere brown people can’t possibly have had anything to do with changing our environment.
Don’t bring back untamed wilderness. Bring back my fire setters, my tree sappers, my farmers and my fishers. Bring back my people who were here first.
So around November a friend gave me a deer carcass for a project I’m in the process of cultivating. I left it hang in a tree over winter to dry out. Today, I went to take it down…but to my surprise, I found new life forming in the heart of death.
Vegans of tumblr, listen up. Harvesting agave in the quantities required so you dont have to eat honey is killing mexican long-nosed bats. They feed off the nectar and pollinate the plants. They need the agave. You want to help the environment? Go back to honey. Your liver and thyroid will thank you, as well. Agave is 90% fructose, which can cause a host of issues. Bye.
Beekeeper here! Just wanted to say that the fact that vegans won’t eat honey is very silly. Harvesting honey does not hurt bees. The invention of modern moveable-frame hives means we can remove a selected frame, extract the honey and return it without killing a single bee.
If we destroyed the colony to harvest honey there would be no bees for next year, and beekeepers are incredibly careful to keep their bees healthy and thriving. We take *excess* honey that they don’t need, and it stops the hive from becoming honey-bound, meaning that there’s so much honey the Queen has nowhere to lay eggs. And if the winter is harsher than expected and the remaining honey store runs low, we feed the bees plenty to make sure they survive. We also make sure that pests are controlled, bees are treated for disease, and the hive is weatherproof and in good repair, all things that wild bees struggle with.
Keeping bees in properly managed hives where they don’t starve or die from preventable disease is much better for them than being left to fend for themselves, and they’re far too important to be left alone.
All the fruits and vegetables that vegans *do* eat couldn’t exist without bees, and the hives which pollinate those crops also produce excess honey which the beekeepers can sell to help keep themselves and their hives going.
TLDR: BUY THE HONEY, HELP THE BEES.
Additionally – local beekeepers care a LOT about reducing pesticide use and maintaining native plants, because that’s literally how they keep their bees alive. Support them and you don’t have to know jack about your local environment to help it out – they already know.
A lot of them will remove swarms from your property for you for cheap or free, because they get bees out of it. Obviously this is better for animal welfare than paying someone to poison your bug problem.
You’re often supporting local small businesses, especially run by retired folks (anecdotally there might be more non-retirees these days but when my grandpa was keeping bees most of the state fair competitors were old folks.)
Unlike pretty much every other “natural” remedy involving herbs and essential oils, honey won’t interact with your meds, so you can take it for sore throats or to try and stave off pollen allergies, and worst case scenario is it doesn’t work but is delicious.
Wax can also be harvested without harming the hive.
The hive lives longer in captivity than in the wild, due to clean housing, supplemental feeding, and disease control.
Boozhoo (hello), my name is Ken, I am a disabled Ojibwe artist from northern Wisconsin who has recently relocated to northern Minnesota to be closer to my children and have better access to healthcare. I am writing this post because I am having a hard time making ends meet and any donations I could possibly receive at this time would be greatly appreciated. Recent events have left my bank account depleted and I am still having to help cover the utility bills back home on the reservation for my father who is also disabled.
I do have PayPal, that is really the best way to donate at this time, the email I use for that is: baapimakwa@gmail.com, or you can click here.
All I want for xmas is bars in my shower, please help if you can.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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