Piece by Piece

Happy Saturday friends!

For those that are new, welcome! It's most often fun animals stories around here but the bulk of this post has been rolling around in my mind for a few days and it needed to be released. But don't worry, keep scrolling, there are dive bombing eagles and ospreys, garden beds being prepped, the ever present ponies and mini donkeys, and of course the memes!

This week I've been gardening every few days and luckily at least half of it with a tractor:

Facebook showed me this is tractoring season and gave me a memory from 2017 where I was doing the same thing back on our Colorado farm:

In just a week's time I've managed to move/spread about half of the 19 trees we had taken down and chipped last year:

Thank goodness for the machinery! When my body says, "Enough!" I hop up and move some more chips instead. Down in the lower pasture we have a huge mound of aged compost that I've also been moving as I work on topping off finished beds before the compost. It's all a big job (well, the raking part anyway) but it makes my heart so happy! Here are the beds I finished this week. This tiny little flower bed by the front door:

The giant lantana bed along the drive. It's still too early for the plants to come up but I bet they will be soon:

One of the beds along the sidewalk to the house:

I've spread compost on the bed under the Japanese Maple in the front of the house, now I have to do the wood chip mulch on top. Same for the community garden beds, these are about 12'x5':

This old loblolly pine stood watch while I worked today:

And the ponies and mini donkeys soaked up the sun in the upper pasture nearby:

The birds are coming back in full force now. This is the biggest Great Blue Heron I've ever seen:

And of course the video above with the bald eagle chasing the osprey away from the ponds! Wow! I've never seen that before! Brad and I were out on the far side of the pond and saw the osprey diving to catch fish. So cool. Then I heard a bald eagle scream and it came in with a vengeance, chasing the osprey and almost catching it multiple times, argh! I was surprised at the bald eagle's size compared to the osprey and thankful the osprey had more maneuverability! The osprey did finally escape. It came back a few minutes later and I looked around to see if the bald eagle was still around and it was, way up high, circling both ponds. The osprey quickly left. It's like wild kingdom over here!

Lots of things are popping:

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HOW TO WORK WITH ME:

Equine Partnered Coaching! With horses, without horses, in-person, or online, your choice. 

Neurofeedback Train your brain to calm and ease. The most common response I hear about neurofeedback is, "I'm so much less reactive in my life!" It really does smooth out the sharp spikes. Super helpful if the world feels harsh and spiky to you too right now. 

Reiki Another way to facilitate relaxation, calm, healing. If the weather is nice, you can choose inside, outside, or outside in the herd. 

And of course Women's Circles! The Wednesday circle has a waiting list, I will add you to it if you'd like.

Monday night online art group anyone? Playing with watercolors with other kind women AND in your jammies, no bra, no makeup? Yes please! The current one started Monday, March 16th and there is a drop in option if you'd like to paint just one mouse piece. You can learn all about it and sign up here! 

Don't forget my monthly, online, freebie art watercolor classes! These are for all abilities, even if you think you have NO ability. There is a line drawing to trace and then we saturate our paper with water and play with dropping in colors we like and watching how they dance together. We finish it up with some splatter, a little black outline, and of course, EYELASHES!

Saturday, April 11, 10—11:30am ET, spring foal watercolor
You can sign up here!

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My father told me this joke when I was a kid, and I've never forgotten it.

A mother is watching her son march with his military platoon. He's out of step. She leans over to the stranger next to her, beaming with pride, and says: "Look at that! Everyone is out of step except my Billy."

I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

Last week the United States cast the only "no" vote against a UN reaffirmation of women's rights. Not one of two votes. Not one of five. One out of forty-five nations. The US proposed eight amendments to water down the document. Every single one was voted down. Six countries abstained. Thirty-seven said yes. And somewhere in Washington, I imagine someone looked at that scoreboard and thought: everyone else is out of step.

March 9, 2026 marked the first time in the 70 year history of the annual United Nations Commission on the Status of Women gathering that its “agreed conclusions” were put to a vote rather than adopted by consensus.

What the US objected to:

DEI language: the document used language affirming that women of different races, ethnicities, disabilities, and economic backgrounds face overlapping and compounding discrimination, not just gender discrimination alone. The US objected to the entire DEI framework as “woke” ideology, consistent with Trump’s executive orders banning DEI language across federal agencies. (In case you don't know, "woke" originally came from Black American culture, specifically the civil rights movement. To be "woke" meant to be awake to injustice and to see the world as it actually is for people who are marginalized.)

Climate change effects on women: the document acknowledged that climate upheaval disproportionately impacts women and girls—particularly in developing nations where women are primary farmers, water collectors, and caregivers. When climate disasters hit, women bear the heaviest burden. The CSW was saying that climate policy needs to account for that. The US objected.

AI regulation: the document flagged that technological advancements including AI are enabling new forms of violence and abuse against women—including harassment, the spread of misinformation, and increasing safety risks for young women. The CSW was calling for guardrails. The US administration’s position is aggressively anti-regulation on AI.

Gender definitions: the document used language recognizing gender as distinct from biological sex, consistent with decades of prior UN agreements. The US objected, as per Trump’s executive order declaring that there are only two biological sexes. 

Reproductive health rights: language around reproductive rights has been contested territory at the CSW for years, but phrases like “reproductive rights” and a woman’s “right to have control over and decide freely on all matters related to their sexuality” had been hard won language carried forward from previous CSW agreements. The US wanted to remove it entirely. This was language that 36 other nations had no problem affirming.

What happened to our American values? What happened to basic human rights in the United States? Christian nationalism, that's what.

I think about the countries that used to be our allies in trying to run this world safely and peacefully, who are now turning away from us. They are pushing back by moving forward, actually putting into law the very rights we are busy tearing down. France put the right to abortion directly into their constitution. The European Parliament—twenty-seven democracies speaking with one voice—formally condemned what is happening here. Argentina, Colombia, Mexico—countries we once lectured about human rights—are now the ones expanding freedoms while we contract them.

And I think about the autocratic countries we are now in bed with. Because when you cast the only "no" vote in a room of forty-five nations, you have to ask yourself—who's cheering? Not our democratic allies. It's the governments that have always wanted women smaller, quieter, and easier to control.

That should keep all of us up at night.

I keep thinking about a photograph I saw a few years ago. It was taken in 1971 at the University of Tehran. Young Iranian women walking across their campus in miniskirts, looking exactly like college women anywhere in the Western world during those times. Eight years later, it all changed. The revolution came. The hijab became mandatory. The female Minister of Education was executed by firing squad. Seventy years of progress for women, rolled back virtually overnight. I guarantee you those women in that photograph never thought it could happen to them either.

The photo of the Iranian women is exactly why the SAVE Act terrifies me.

It doesn’t happen all at once. The women in that photograph didn’t wake up one morning and find their world had changed. It happened in bits and pieces so no one suspected. A law here, an executive order there. Language removed from documents most people never read. The rights that felt permanent turned out to only be as permanent as the men in power decided they were.

The SAVE Act has already passed the Republican House of Representatives. It requires proof of citizenship, a passport or birth certificate, to register to vote. It sounds procedural and boring, doesn’t it?

It is neither.

Here is what it really means: 69 million American women changed their name when they married. Their birth certificate, of course, no longer matches their current legal name. The bill is vague about a process for women whose names don’t match, leaving it so legally risky for election officials that voting rights advocates say it’s a process in name only.

Obviously men don’t face this problem. It’s a barrier that falls almost entirely on women. By design? Indifference? I’m not sure which is worse.

And we’ve seen this playbook before. Kansas tried it, but it took  years before the courts threw it out. Years the people affected couldn’t vote.

This isn’t theoretical. Of those 69 million, an estimated 21 million eligible voters don’t have the documents this bill requires.

21 million will be silenced in the midterms if the SAVE act passes.

Twenty-one MILLION.

The Senate has not yet voted on the SAVE Act. They are in debates now, there is still time. Flood your senators with calls. Both of them. You can find them at senate.gov. Call, don’t just email. Calls get counted differently. Tell them you know what this bill does to women. Tell them you're paying attention. Tell everyone you know.

The women in that Tehran photograph were not so different from us. They were educated. They were optimistic. They believed their country was moving in the right direction and that their progress was permanent.

We cannot afford to think that anymore.

Eyes open.

senate.gov

And if you don't have your birth certificate, your marriage license, a divorce decree (if needed), or a passport, it's time to get a certified copy, just in case. If SAVE passes, you will need a paper trail for every name change you've made after you were born.

Birth Certificate, $10-$30: vitalchek.com

Marriage Licenses, $10-$20:  The county clerk's office in the county where you were married. Many are now online. 

Divorce Decree: The clerk of court in the county where the divorce was finalized. Some states have online portals, others require an in-person or mail request. Can sometimes take weeks.

Passport: travel.state.gov. First time passport is $130-$165, renewal is $130. Current processing times have been running 6-8 weeks routine, 2-3 weeks expedited and expedited costs extra. 

You can see how, with everything being so expensive, some women will not be able to afford to get these documents and therefore will not be able to vote :-/ 

And because that was a big one, it's time to enjoy A MILLION MEMES:

American Eagle "skinny kicks" (skinny all the way down to a little flare) are my go to :-)

Ok, I'm going to admit, I didn't get Nathan Pyle's comic:

Until I read this:

And then I went to read the comments and didn't feel so bad, a bunch of other people never thought of it either! Lord.

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Did you know, the No Kings march is next Saturday, March 28th? Can't join? Please drive through a couple and honk your horn a bunch, it adds to the energy :-) You can learn more here and find out where you can join. These maps that show where the protests are being held tell a very loud story that reiterates the joke about Billy marching out of step:

Learn more:

Official UN press release on status of CSW vote.

Amnesty International on status of CSW vote.

Show me your papers, Brennan Center on the SAVE Act.

Heritage Foundation's own data proves noncitizen voting is NOT a problem.

Brennan Center, noncitizen voting is ALREADY illegal and rare.

ACLU of Kansas about Kansas's version of the SAVE Act.

What life was like for Iranian women before the 1979 revolution.

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This is an AI-free newsletter! While I love to use AI to help me figure out a piece of software I don't understand, my intention is to use it to help me with the drudgery, never with writing, art, creation. All em dashes are intentional and mine, I was using them way before ChatGPT was a twinkle in Sam Altman's eye :-) 

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Thank you for reading :-)

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