The fear: that nothing survives.

I can't find any comic books to read. That is, newsstand, paper comic books. There's nothing good. I just read the five-part "The End" 2099 (Marvel) comic and it was a chaotic tag team of Marvel 2099 characters, lead by Spiderman in an all out rumble against a load of alt-universe characters, all because Galactus melded with a Symbiote and wants to eat everything, soul and all. Why is the Spiderman of Spiderman 2099 leading the charge, or at least planning the winning strategy? He's easily the weakest of the bunch. And anyway, I don't really care. I never liked bickering X-Man team comics and this five part "End" comic had just two many cameos of characters I never followed. While there was action, the action looked like mostly opportunities to draw humanoids in mid leap, floating, doing gymnastic moves, or blasting at whatever. Chatting and comparing skills all the while.

What I liked about Spiderman 2099, back in late last century, was that it was set in a cyberpunk, corporate dystopia New York and that Miguel gave himself an experimental gene alteration in an attempt to escape a chemical addiction. All very plausible. Then, the rest of the story is him trying to reverse the gene modification, avoiding getting trapped and/or found out, and living with freaky strength, sticky polymer excretions and razor sharp talons in his finger tips. The comic was good for a while, then Marvel had a meltdown, the story got more convoluted, never reached a conclusion, crashed and died. There have been a few resurrections of Spiderman 2099 this century and they all lack.

Now Girl Genius, there's a good comic. The authors are going to die before they ever reach a conclusion, which at the present rate of progress won't be until 2050. But it's a wild ride. I frequently reread long sections.

I may have achieved lawn recovery! The raking out of two or three years of weed growth with a thatching rake and pruning a proto-stand of poplars, already two to seven feet tall, has left me with a lumpy but mowable residue of moss, weeds and some grass. I am not worried for the few flowers that might have been in the small cleared area in front of the house, between my llama tended field of colt's foot, the Spring beauties, trout lilies, trilliums, hyacinths, ground ivy and more, insects have have had and will continue to have a plethora of pollen and nectar sources all over my property, both native and invasive. Much better flowers than dandelions.



I saw a grand total of one dandelion on my lawn. Twenty meters west, on my neighbours gigantic, frequently mowed lawn, many dandelions.



I noticed that my garden flowers are not all staying put. Grape hyacinth will not persist where I planted it but has popped up twenty meters away under the staghorn sumac. The staghorn sumac appeared on its own decades ago and is cheerfully trying to take over any open area. At least the staghorn sumac doesn't grow tall enough to bother the hydro line, it feeds murders of crows in the winter and is a nice plant screen between me and the passing traffic, so go grow sumac, I choose youuu! Like the grape hyacinth, I have Scilla serbica migrating away, as well as lily of the valley. The lily of the valley is fine with persisting in the garden (one of the few plants to do so) but suddenly I've found some emerging further into the lawn and clear across the lawn to where I have (also un-killable) lilacs growing into a future hedge. Now what I really really want (so tell me what you want, what you really, really want), I wanna really, really, really wanna, innocence flowers to grow in my lawn.



I removed a huge quantity of brown dead vegetation out of my lawn. I had a mound five feet high and seven feet long. I spread it over a low spot beyond the furthest I've ever been able to mow. It will make a nice nesting area for a cottontail rabbit or maybe a hibernaculum for garter and red bellied snakes. I disturbed a few snakes while raking so I know they're around, snacking on slugs.