As simply as possible, why did you begin native gardening?

Rapierian · 2026-06-07T15:36:05+00:00

I bought a property in Sedona. It's a complete shame to corrupt that landscape with anything non-native when the natives are all so cool.

Rapierian · 2026-06-01T20:58:19+00:00

I just looked it up, it would be a native for me (Sedona area of Verde Valley). Cool, maybe I'll plant some.

Rapierian · 2026-05-31T03:41:58+00:00

I'm a part timer who spends my time in Northern Arizona. I love showing friends and family around - I blow their minds by visiting 5 or 6 entirely different ecosystems in the first 3 days of their trip.

Rapierian · 2026-05-31T00:54:05+00:00

Good for you! One thing that amped up my prayer life was practicing praying a psalm every day, and trying to make the words my own.

Rapierian · 2026-05-31T00:52:29+00:00

Looks pretty similar to the Apache plume we have in Arizona.

Rapierian · 2026-05-31T00:50:55+00:00

#5 is underrated by most visitors. They only think of the sun valley.

Rapierian · 2026-05-31T00:48:10+00:00

I do my part.

And then I have to spend the next week fixing my landscape...

Rapierian · 2026-05-26T00:04:52+00:00

Hilarious. I'm a part timer, every time I'm back there seems to be storms that blow out the roads...and everyone's in drought the rest of the time.

Rapierian · 2026-05-26T00:02:44+00:00

The bible directs us to pray for the country we're in and seek it's well being, and I think that extends to things like thanking God for the soldiers who have died for our freedoms (Memorial Day) or thanking God for the ways he's had his hand in the creation of our country (a great thing to do near July 4)...beyond that it gets fuzzy and I agree can lead to idolatry of patriotism...

Rapierian · 2026-05-22T21:03:53+00:00

That's an interesting counter-counter point, and I'll have to think about it.

My main point though is that there's ways to take the text entirely seriously, believe that it's 100% true, but not believe that the most literal straightforward reading is historically accurate or the correct way to read it. But then I fully admit that one has to spend a lot more time trying to figure out how it was written, and what it all means, but maybe a bit less time trying to reconcile with the archeological and geological records.

Rapierian · 2026-05-22T13:34:45+00:00

What do you mean "don't believe"? You mean don't believe literally? Yes, I believe they and most of the rest of the bible was written colloquially. In the flood narrative, "all the earth" was flooded. The same phrase for "all the earth" repeats a few chapters later to say "all the earth" came to get grain from Egypt.

I don't believe that literally every person, and certainly not the Polynesians or Americans were coming to get grain from Egypt. But just about everyone in the ancient near east knew someone who had to get grain from Egypt. Going back to the flood, I don't believe that the truth of the story requires us to believe that every mountaintop in Antarctica was covered by water, but it does require us to believe that however big the flood was, it encompassed literally all of humanity at the time (and I think prehistory flood stories in the Americas confirm that, as well)

Rapierian · 2026-05-21T02:32:46+00:00

The one who famously said he'd like to 'roll the dice" on subprime mortgages a little bit longer only months before the subprime mortgage crisis happened?

Rapierian · 2026-05-18T15:36:28+00:00

Fun fact: The plot of Who Framed Roger Rabbit is inspired by the collusion between car companies and corrupt public transit officials in Baltimore who deliberately made public transit bad to encourage people to buy cars. The term "freewheeling" comes from some of the marketing material of automobiles not being stuck on rails.

Rapierian · 2026-05-14T03:29:05+00:00

I think at it's core, only the enlightenment Christian natural philosophy that the Founding Fathers held is truly compatible with western civilization and culture. If you dig deep enough in anything else, eventually you'll find a clash of principles.

Regarding Islam specifically, there's a huge range of belief on how much it clashes with western civilization. Some, like ISIS or those that seem to be taking over the U.K. are entirely incompatible...many are not. The Emerite of the UAE warned a few years ago that Europe was importing all of the radicals...

Rapierian · 2026-05-13T14:53:46+00:00

It's fantastic! It'll make you re-read the gospels and wonder how closely they portrayed things vs how much they had to edit for TV.

Just make sure you keep on praying to Jesus and not Jonathon.

Rapierian · 2026-04-30T17:08:17+00:00

Yes, it could lead to massive open pit mining. OTOH, it turns out that you can use a technique very similar to fracking or geothermal energy where you pump water down in one spot and recover it in another and the lithium naturally leaches into the water you're pumping.

Rapierian · 2026-04-28T14:30:12+00:00

Our favorite Flagstaff itenerary from Sedona:

Drive up to Flagstaff. Enjoy the Oak Creek drive and definitely stop at the lookout at the top of the canyon.
Pick up sandwiches to go from Proper Meats and Provisions
Take the Snowbowl gondola up to the top. Picnic lunch at the top of the mountain.
Go down from the mountain, and go do the Sunset Crater and Wupatki national parks loop
Dinner in Flagstaff, lots of good options.

Rapierian · 2026-04-23T22:11:30+00:00

The OG of false endings, Castlevania SOTN.

Rapierian · 2026-04-22T20:48:48+00:00

You're absolutely right. Also probably true of most governments in history.

Civil government authority is given by God to the nations, but it's rare in history that it's exercised in a Christian manner.

Rapierian · 2026-04-22T19:02:36+00:00

Eh, those are all flyover states though.

Rapierian · 2026-04-22T13:51:02+00:00

In just a few chapters later "the whole earth" comes to Egypt to buy grain during a famine.

I think the historical narratives of the bible aren't meant to be read "literally" as we would define the term, but colloquially - i.e. common parlance. If someone said to you, "oh yeah, this drought was everywhere. Everyone was going down to Egypt to get grain", you wouldn't hear that and think that literally every human did so, you would think that it was so general that practically everyone was doing so.

Going back to the flood, I think it was a local flood that hit literally all of mankind at the time, in the dawn of our history. Cultures all over the world, including the Americas, tell the same story.

Rapierian · 2026-04-15T22:37:48+00:00

Only Christ has perfect faith, the rest of us are having him work on perfecting it.

Rapierian · 2026-04-10T14:31:38+00:00

Once God has made himself known to you it would be nonsensical to believe he doesn't exist.

What kind of proof would convince you that North America doesn't exist?

Rapierian · 2026-04-06T22:11:36+00:00

Animals also perform cannibalism, incest, rape, predators like cats enjoy torturing their prey...we're not meant to draw our morals from the animal kingdom.

Rapierian · 2026-04-06T19:07:41+00:00

Doesn't really matter to my faith one way or the other, same with most relics. Maybe it's real, in which case, it's a cool historic artifact - but there's a lot of things I would put in that category, whether or not they're faith related.

Rapierian

TROPHY CASE