April 19, 2020

Quarantine Project #1 Part 2: Sitting On My Butt Taking Pictures

And now for the conclusion of flora and fauna in our front yard as photographed without moving from my chair. First up is our hummingbird. This is not technically a great shot, but I was fascinated by the spread-out, backlit tail feathers, which I haven’t seen before.

This is a true geranium. I’m sure it’s of some specific variety, but I don’t know which one.

Here’s an itsy bitsy spider climing down our gate post. Possibly Phidippus workmani?

Another true geranium. This one is Geranium Biokovo, the 2015 Perennial Plant Association Plant of the Year.

This is another one of our bees. I’m including it because it just happens to be a very nice, sharp picture of a bee in flight.

This is a salvia of some variety.

Here’s a clever little wasp who thought he could hide from me.

Another geranium! This one is a Geranium Karmina.

And finally, no survey of the local flora and fauna is complete without a picture of the apex predator, the queen of the jungle herself, Hopper. She loves the garden and frequently hides herself in the deep plants to take a nice little snooze.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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