How to gild moss

I promised you the comeback of my podcast NatureMatchCuts (Opens in a new window) with a fluffy topic - and here it is: Moss - The Emerald Treasure (Opens in a new window). You can listen it with your favourite podcatcher and on several platforms.

Let's dive into the emerald green magic moss worlds of this primordial plant and climate champion, play voyeur at their courtship, and meet moss-lovers around the globe! My interview guest is experienced in space and winner of the Guardian Prize for the Invertebrate Of The Year 2025.

But before, I want to tell you about the chaotic life of the podcaster behind the scenes … and all these small catastrophes that tried to prevent me from publishing the new episode. Imagine a cartoon character crawling to the finish line on all fours with the last of her strength: that's me today.

I worked hard on the research as always, scripted several days, and finally did the sound design. No joke: At the moment when it was ready and I just wanted to save a backup, there was a bang. Not loud, it was more a big nothing. Once again, the power was simply cut for a fraction of a minute. If you want to sell me one of these machines that keep power in such cases, you can donate some machine parts on my Ko-fi (Opens in a new window) or become a supporting member here, thanks!

And don’t tell me about back-ups, please. I’m a great back-upper! If you have to handle about 40 GB, you only don’t do it every ten minutes like with a word file. And who could know that it’s one vulnerability of Audacity crumpling up the entire file, spoilt for lifetime. Did you know that you can open their file format only with their software? (At least I didn’t find another one.) I know now.

This was last week and I needed extra time to repeat the whole sound editing. When suddenly my windscreen wipers stopped moving (and I can't even go shopping in our neighbourhood without a car, no public transport etc.). As if the sky was laughing tears, we had heavy thunderstorms. My time ran out. With the first sunshine I was at the garage … three times a day only for checking. They were crowded. Then the appointment for Monday, I waited there, my moss podcast waited at home. The sun smiled. My brain became green, moss everywhere, still so much to do!

And then came the revenge of the moss.

I needed a new windscreen wiper motor, a nasty expensive repair. At least, I wanted to know what can break this piece. The garage owner grinned askew: “Well, it was moss that had killed the motor.” MOSS ???

My parking place is under trees. Some moss that had learnt to fly, had been washed into the windscreen wiper drain by the rain, got stuck, then water came to the engine ... and bang! Killed by flying moss.

Now you now how I learnt to gild moss . .. with that invoice.

I felt like in a bad film. Everything seemed to be conspiring against my comeback. What had I done to the moss!? With my grimmest grin, I sat down at the computer again and repeated the entire sound editing, this time backing up so often that not even moss could fall from the tree in that time. It was boring, extremely boring, I was exhausted. But then came the sound editing with music and nature sounds and I had fun working again.

Yesterday, I uploaded the episode, it worked.

And another bang.

During my podcasts long break, the hoster had changed the webadress, the user interface, and the login. Everything was broken: the RSS was not catched by others, I suddenly had two podcasts: one old, and one with the new episode only.

I make it short: Today, my hoster’s support helped me during one hour of work, with high concentration and several screenshots. Since lunchtime today, everything is repaired, in the meantime Apple has catched the RSS again, and some smaller platforms, too. And best of all: your favourite podcatcher now gives you again all episodes of NatureMatchCuts!

I need a silly film for the evening and early sleep. Probably I’ll dream of some moss cutting electricity and giggling loud about these humans.

If you like to cut my invoices or just support my crazy work: you can do it regularly as a member here or with a one-time-donation on my ko-fi (Opens in a new window). But you can support me also without money: podcasts become more visible, if you give them good ratings on your platforms, if you subscribe to listening to them, or if you just recommend them on social media. And if you want to give me feedback directly, I’m mainly on Mastodon (Opens in a new window)but also on Bluesky (Opens in a new window)now. And starting on Monday, I work on part 2 of the moss adventures …