Rick Hollon
LightNews LightNews
banner
mimulus.bsky.social
Rick Hollon
@mimulus.bsky.social
2.2K followers 860 following 3.1K posts
Genderqueer SFF writer & poet. They/them. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Words in F&SF, Strange Horizons, Analog, Kaleidotrope, Crow & Cross Keys, ALOCASIA, Trollbreath, Prismatica. Loves dinosaurs, wildflowers, photography, human rights. ACAB.

mimulus.weebly.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
mimulus.bsky.social
First snow of the season blankets a late aster.
Photograph of a low-growing aster still in flower, dusted with snow in the artificial light outside our front door.
November 11, 2025 at 12:14 AM
mimulus.bsky.social
Walked around Vassar Farm with @craftyrowan.bsky.social on a weirdly warm day.
Landscape photograph of a pond reflecting winter-bare forest and blue sky. Photograph of a bright yellow maple leaf, with more leaves in the wooded background. Photograph of my partner R walking a trail through woods. Photograph of a community seed library, a wooden box with a lovely painting of a corn maiden growing from a planted field.
November 8, 2025 at 6:37 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
Post you from a different era.

Also an archaeologist, 2007.
Photograph of a much younger me recumbent on the dirt, posed above a square survey excavation at an archaeological site.
November 7, 2025 at 4:10 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
Following the turn of the year along the upper Hudson River.
1-2. Sunlight on the Hudson.
3. Colors in the forest.
4. Puffball mushrooms.
Photograph of sunlight playing across the rocky surface of the upper Hudson River. Forested hills rise in autumn colors beneath blue sky. Photograph of sunlight playing across the rocky surface of the upper Hudson River. Forested hills rise in autumn colors beneath blue sky. Wide-angle photograph looking toward a mixed forest canopy. A white pine rises in the center. Bright yellow and orange beech trees catch the sunlight on either side. Up-close photograph of a cluster of small puffball mushrooms growing on an old tree stump.
October 28, 2025 at 7:00 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
Cold, rainy morning in the heart of the Adirondacks.
1-2. Views of Henderson Lake.
3. Falls on the Hudson.
4. Maple leaf.
Landscape photograph of a lake reflecting gray sky and mist-shrouded hills. Photograph of the same lake from a different spot. The hills show vestiges of autumn color. Photograph of a small river (the Hudson, near its origin) cascading through dark rocks. Boreal forest rises in the background. Photograph of my hand holding up a vivid red maple leaf. A wide, rocky trail splits the forest, out of focus in the background.
October 23, 2025 at 7:52 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
Colors and mushrooms in the woods this morning.
1. Autumn color over the creek.
2. Some kind of gilled mushroom.
3. Fly agaric.
4. The healthiest beech leaves I’ve seen in a while.
Photograph of a creek flowing through a deciduous forest in full autumn color. A dead trunk hangs horizontally across the water. Photograph looking up at the hills of mushrooms growing from a dead log in the forest. Photograph of two fly agaric mushrooms growing in leaf litter on the forest floor. Photograph looking up at beech leaves catching the sunlight. The leaves are yellow, with some traces of green along the veins.
October 21, 2025 at 4:15 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
After a weird and stressful week, @craftyrowan.bsky.social and I took my teen out for some fall color over the weekend.
Photograph of my partner R (a short person wearing a blue shirt and backpack) standing on a rail trail over an old railroad trestle. A rugged cliff face rises above the trail, with a valley below. Photograph looking from the previous spot on the trestle with a view up a river valley. A paved road curves alongside the river, with houses visible through trees. Forested hills rise above the valley. Photograph of the rail trail receding to the vanishing point between metal rails. Trees along the sides of the trail filter sunlight. Photograph of brilliant fall foliage on a forested hillside.
October 20, 2025 at 12:32 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
We inadvertently inherited them (temporary cat-sitting turned permanent thanks to the housing market), so it’s still strange to think of them as “our” cats, but that’s what they’ve become.
Photograph of a tabby cat napping on top of a tuxedo cat in a blue cat bed on a wooden floor.
October 9, 2025 at 4:30 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
Reconfigured our living room by turning a big cube shelf 90 degrees, changing it from a room divider to a wall shelf. So much more light and flow to the room, and the various collections get shown off better.
Photograph of a cube storage shelf against a green wall. The shelves are loaded with colorful books and magazine collections. Lego sets and other tchotchkes are displayed on top.
October 9, 2025 at 4:19 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
Unseasonably hot amble on the Appalachian Trail today.
1. Big oak tree.
2. Ghost pipe gone to seed.
3. Fields.
4. Autumn color.
Photograph looking up the trunk of a massive oak tree toward a colorful autumn canopy. Partway up the trunk, a white trail marker blaze has been painted on the bark. Up-close photograph of ghost pipe, a parasitic, non-photosynthesizing plant growing low to the forest floor. The pale pink stalks terminate in pink knobs, where the summertime flowers have closed. Photograph looking across a mown grass field toward a line of trees, with rolling hills beyond under blue sky. Photograph looking up at a colorful forest canopy, popping with yellow and red autumn leaves.
October 7, 2025 at 6:39 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
In the woods today with @craftyrowan.bsky.social.
1. Pond.
2. Wetland.
3. Maple.
4. Hemlocks.
Landscape photograph of a pond catching autumn sunlight. The foreground is a shadowy wooded shoreline. The far shore is forested, with pops of fall color under blue sky. Photograph of a sunny wetland area. Water and grassy open space fill the foreground. Autumnal trees form the middle ground under blue sky. Photograph looking up the bole of a large, scraggly old maple tree touched with autumn orange. Photograph of a hemlock forest catching sunlight in its branches. Bars of shadow stripe the forest floor.
October 4, 2025 at 11:03 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
A walk in the Adirondacks today.
1. Pond.
2. Stream.
3. Color.
4. Clubmoss.
Landscape photograph of an Adirondack pond and grassy wetland beneath a forested hillside under blue sky. A ledge of rock forms the shore in the foreground. Photograph of a small stream flowing through a screen of trees toward the grassy wetlands beyond. Some of the trees have turned with autumn, with yellow and orange leaves. Photograph of a forested hillside in autumn color. A footpath follows an old road bed, now grown with yellow ferns. Up-close photograph of low-growing clubmoss catching the sunlight.
October 2, 2025 at 8:08 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
Autumn scenes in western Massachusetts.
1. Field of goldenrod gone to seed.
2. Tree arches over the trail.
3. Color in the forest.
4. Goldenrod again.
Photograph of fluffy seed heads of goldenrod. A field rises to a line of trees in the middle distance. Out of focus mountains line the horizon. Photograph of a tree with a horizontal limb that stretches across a footpath at the edge of a field. Wide-angle photograph of a forest already gone into full autumn color. Shadows stripe the ground from the trunks. Up-close photograph of a fluffy goldenrod seed head, with yellow goldenrod fields out of focus behind it. Trees rise in the background.
September 30, 2025 at 6:28 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
Post a you from a different era.

Queer pirate in 2005.
Photograph of myself, a tall masculine-presenting person, in a Halloween pirate costume in a poorly lit basement apartment in 2005.
September 30, 2025 at 4:05 AM
mimulus.bsky.social
Finding what joy we can.
1. Hudson River, seen through a massive tulip-tree.
2. Chicken-of-the-woods mushroom.
3. Orange jewelweed flowers and Solomon’s plume berries.
4. Aster from the rock.
Landscape photograph of fields and forest rolling down to the Hudson River, framed beneath a horizontal branch of a massive tulip-tree. Photograph of a cluster of orange chicken-of-the-woods mushrooms growing from an old log. Dew drops hang from shelves of fungus. Photograph of two orange, conical flowers of jewelweed, next to a cluster of red berries of Solomon’s plume. Photograph of a bunch of aster flowers growing draped across a moss-grown fin of bedrock.
September 27, 2025 at 8:41 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
1. Hudson River, with the Catskills beyond.
2. Garter snake.
3. Puffball mushrooms.
4. Hudson River again.
Landscape photograph overlooking the Hudson River and its wetlands, with the line of the Catskill Mountains along the horizon under blue sky and wispy clouds. Up-close photograph of a tiny garter snake sliding along a gravel path. Photograph of a cluster of small round puffball mushrooms growing from an old log. Photograph of the Hudson River taken from its shore. Rocks dot the nearby water. Forest lines the far bank.
September 22, 2025 at 6:53 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
Went to the Yale Peabody Museum today with @craftyrowan.bsky.social.
1. Ediacaran fauna.
2. Deinonychus.
3. Old recipe card.
4. Malachite.
Photograph of a museum display of a rectangular chunk of sedimentary rock featuring fossils of the mysterious Ediacaran fauna, strange animals that lived before the Cambrian explosion. Photograph of a museum display of a mounted skeleton of Deinonychus, the maniraptoran dinosaur familiar as the “raptor” from Jurassic Park. Photograph of a museum display of a cuneiform tablet, which records a recipe for a dish resembling lamb stew. Photograph of a museum display featuring specimens of malachite, a beautiful green mineral that forms rounded shapes.
September 20, 2025 at 10:27 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
Other sights in the woods yesterday.
1. Cardinal flowers.
2. Orange jewelweed.
3. Bluestem goldenrod.
4. Early leaf in the last pool of water left by the drought.
Photograph of the vivid red flowers of cardinal flower. The petals are shaped vaguely like dinosaur footprints. Photograph of a bee crawling into the tube of an orange jewelweed. Many more jewelweed flowers proliferate in the background. Photograph of the vertical flower stalks of bluestem goldenrod. Tiny yellow flowers rise above the forest floor. Photograph of a yellow maple leaf floating in still water. Forest reflects on its surface.
September 17, 2025 at 1:49 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
Mushrooms, despite the drought.
1. Chicken-of-the-woods.
2. Pear-shaped puffball.
3. LBMs (little brown mushrooms, don’t know what they are).
4. Possibly ochre-banded conk.
Photograph of a cluster of chicken-of-the-woods mushrooms, bright orange banded shelf mushrooms growing from a fallen log. Photograph of a small clump small puffball mushrooms growing on a mossy stump in the forest. Photograph of a cluster of small brownish mushrooms growing from a standing dead tree in the forest. Photograph of a rather shapeless blob of conk mushroom growing from an old fallen log. Beads of moisture dot the surface of the fungus.
September 16, 2025 at 4:57 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
Managed to get outside today.
1. Field oak.
2. New York aster.
3. Grassy fields.
4. New England aster.
Photograph of a field-line oak shadowing a mown path through grassland. Long limbs spread outward over the grass. Photograph of pale, purplish white flowers of New York asters. Photograph of a mown grass field rolling toward a line of forested hills on the horizon. Photograph of a brilliant purple flower of New England aster.
September 11, 2025 at 10:13 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
Mild day on the Saratoga Pine Plains.
1. Looking up.
2. Looking up.
3. Goldenrod.
4. Jack-in-the-pulpit berries.
Wide-angle photograph looking up the trunk of a conifer tree toward the canopy. A red trail marker is nailed to the trunk. Up-close photograph beneath a white, gilled mushroom on the forest floor. Photograph of a goldenrod in flower. A meadow of other goldenrods is out of focus in the background. Photograph of a cluster of brilliant red berries of the jack-in-the-pulpit plant. They grow from the fork of the plant’s stem, low to the forest floor.
September 9, 2025 at 5:12 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
Drought leads to an early autumn in the Catskills yesterday.
1. @craftyrowan.bsky.social hikes under a ledge.
2. A view east over the Hudson Valley.
3. A view south to North-South Lake.
4. Color on an outcropping.
Photograph of my partner R hiking a footpath beneath an overhanging cliff of conglomerate. The cliff is streaked with moss and lichen. Photograph from a viewpoint in the Catskills. Rock and autumn-touched trees fall away to a rolling view of the Hudson Valley. Breaks of sun dapple the distant forest. Photograph looking from a rocky ledge across forest to a lake in the middle distance. Forested mountains rise beyond. Photograph of a pair of trees turning orange at the foot of an outcropping of layered stone in the Catskills.
September 8, 2025 at 12:36 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
Adirondack saunter today.
1. Fly agaric.
2. Possibly pinewood gingertail.
3. Eastern newt eft absolutely hightailing it outta there.
4. Beaver dam.
Up-close photograph of a yellow-capped fly agaric mushroom growing from wood chips on a woodsy footpath. Out of focus, a creek bends in bottomlands in the background. Photograph of a cluster of tiny brown mushrooms, possibly pinewood gingertails, growing together on a moss-covered log. Photograph of a juvenile (red eft stage) eastern newt running across a dirt road surface. Photograph of a long beaver dam holding back a serene pond. Forest on its banks and hills beyond reflect in the still surface.
September 5, 2025 at 7:11 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
The Cheesecake Factory waitress brings you the menu.
Cropped image from the cover of The Sorceress and the Cygnet by Patricia A. McKillip. The art is by Romas. It depicts a woman in an ornate dress holding a massive book in front of a fantasy landscape of water and rock slabs. A swan swims behind her.
September 4, 2025 at 8:11 PM
mimulus.bsky.social
The year holds its breath before the downward swing of the wheel. Quiet hike in the Catskills today.
1. Conifers.
2. Club moss.
3. Drying pond becomes meadow.
4. Signs of change.
Wide-angle photograph looking uphill into a row-planting of conifers. A footpath climbs the remnants of an old road through the woods. Sun casts sharp shadows. Up-close photograph of a thicket of clubmoss growing on the forest floor. Photograph of a meadow encroaching upon an upland pond, beneath a forested ridge. Small clouds dot blue sky. Photograph of my hand holding up a small yellow maple leaf in dappled forest light.
September 2, 2025 at 8:23 PM