#low effort homesteading

[tightwadspoonies]

The Salvage Economy in Your Local Area (And Why You Should Use It)

A salvage economy is an economic system that incentivizes the use of existing ("used") materials over the use of virgin ("new") materials to create products and generate income. They are more circular economies, where profits are more equitably shared, waste is reduced, and items have continuing value beyond a single consumer.

Let’s give the example of a piece of clothing. In a mainstream economy, raw materials would be grown (in the case of cotton/linin) or mined (in the case of something like polyester). They would then be manufactured (a water- and energy-intensive process), shipped to a store (another energy-intensive process) and sold for a profit. Once the end consumer was finished with the item, they would throw it away, losing their investment entirely, as well as losing the material and energy investment in the production of the product. Depending on the disposal method, the item would either go to a landfill (which has a limited amount of space) or burned (which releases the remains into the atmosphere where it can be a danger to human health and the natural environment- even with the most stringent of filters/re-burners).

In a salvage economy, however, the piece of clothing is diverted at the point of the first consumer no longer wanting it. It may be donated or sold to a thrift/consignment shop (where the person may get a small return on their initial investment). It could then be re-purchased by someone else repeatedly until it was no longer in a decent enough shape to be re-sold, then it would be sold to a re-processing facility, where the material itself could be deconstructed, re-woven, and returned back into that cycle (energy intensive as well, but less so than creating a garment from new materials). Everyone gets a small cut of the money involved in the item.

If the material was too damaged to continue in this cycle in a meaningful/economical way, and it needed to be disposed of, it could be added to building materials like concrete (ideal for things like polyester, for which other disposal methods would be environmentally damaging), composted (cotton/linin) to create biogas (heat/energy/cooking fuel), or burned for heat/energy (same problems as burning just to get rid of it, but at least you get energy from it, and you’re displacing some of the fossil fuels that would otherwise have to be mined just to burn for energy)*.

Salvage economies exist in parallel with more mainstream economies throughout the world, with varying levels of accessibility and cultural acceptance based on a person’s location, generation, and background. You’ve probably shopped at a “thrift” or consignment store or bought something on Craigslist or Facebook/Amazon Marketplace- this is participating in a salvage economy. But it goes deeper than that.

Culturally in the US, salvage has traditionally been seen as a cheaper second-best option if you can’t afford something new. However, in younger generations and as new items become harder to find and of lower quality, older items are becoming more desirable, and purchasing pressure is shifting, if only a little bit. While I am no economist (my highest degree is in environmental health science) I also think that as the scales start to tip to raw materials becoming less viable economically, companies will look at alternatives, and those alternatives will be existing materials.

I’m not here positing that we should abandon mainstream economies entirely. People will always want new things and be willing to pay for them. But we have a problem of too much trash and too few (and too expensive) raw materials, which create both pollution and shortages** (a problem that has been increasingly in the spotlight in recent years). And I believe that over the next few decades, the pressure (both from market demand and difficulty/expense creating/mining raw materials) will begin to shift, and with it, if you believe traditional economic theory, so too will companies looking to maintain profits. CEO’s gotta eat, (and purchase his 14th yacht), you know.

But I am here saying that you can start putting this pressure on corporations early. Avoid the rush, as they say- before shortages mean everyone turns to the salvage economy all at once with not enough infrastructure to support them. Here are some ways you can participate and build up that infrastructure:

Borrow or rent things you don’t use regularly

Hardware stores rent tools/machines

Look into tool exchanges in your area

Libraries for books (eLibraries like Libby are great if you can’t go to an in-person one, especially if you like audiobooks)

Libraries for toys/games/kits/electronics

Industrial kitchen rentals if you preserve or sell food in moderate quantities

Buy as much as you can used:

Need clothing and home-goods? Thrift stores like goodwill and consignment shops are great at this.

Some thrift shops have a fabric or yarn section if you have/want the skills to knit/sew your own clothing. I’ve gotten some excellent quality wools from Goodwill for super cheap.

Need building materials or furniture? Salvage yards run by demolition companies and charities like Habitat for Humanity ReStore have your back.

Pull-A-Part for car/engine parts

Need books, textbooks, physical media, really specific tools/items, etc? Facebook/Amazon Marketplace, Craigslist, eBay, Thrift Books, etc…

If you can’t get it used, at least save it from a landfill:

Shop for clothing/ home goods/furniture/food at overstock and “damaged goods” stores like Marshalls, Ollie’s, Gabe’s, Rose’s, local wholesale stores and the like.

Look into salvage grocery stores. Some are run by charities and specifically serve low-income clientele, but many are open to the public (especially in areas with high Amish populations). These stores buy overstock, expired (doesn’t mean bad), and food with damaged packaging in bulk and sell it for an extreme discount (like 90% off). Some even have frozen, refrigerated, and fresh sections.

Craigslist sometimes have people advertising fruit trees in their yards that are a nuisance to them d/t falling fruit, and want someone to come collect it

If you already have something, but it broke, try to get it fixed instead of replacing it. Look into:

Appliance repair places are still a thing

Electronics repair and referb places

Repair cafes (events where people with repair skills, people with tools, and people with things that need to be repaired can meet)

Mending circles and learning to mend and alter clothing yourself

Tailor/clothing repair shops

Watch/jewelry repair shops

Shoe repair shops

Car repair places (it’s like I’ve always said- the best car for the environment is the one you’re currently driving, especially if you keep getting it maintained and fixed appropriately as needed, but even if you don’t, it’s better than creating demand for something new)

Gardening! (look at it as making something you have or have access to (land/a yard) into something you need (food))

Most of these are cheaper options, some of them aren’t, but it’s great to create a list of resources in your local area as you find them- that way you’ll be less tempted to go straight to Target for a new item.

Additionally, with the exceptions of a few chains and online resources, many of the “salvage” stores are small, local businesses. And you want these to thrive, both to stick it to Amazon and Wal Mart, and because they keep skills and resources circulating in your local community. Yay!

*You’ll notice I didn’t say the word “recycling” anywhere in there. While traditional recycling works for some materials, it is expensive and the infrastructure just isn’t there currently to handle the demand, largely because as it stands there wouldn’t be a lot of return on that investment. To the point where most recycling is either sent to US-based landfills or sent abroad (where we’re not really sure what happens to it- some of it is sold back to US corporations as post-consumer materials (primarily for “greenwashing” efforts, but that’s a whole other thing), but we think the majority of it just ends up in foreign landfills or above-ground dumps). While recycling definitely has a place in salvage economies, as we do it today it is divorced from the end consumer/waste generator and has little purpose or accountability beyond making people feel like they’re not just throwing stuff away.

**You wanna know how that happened? We abandoned buy-it-for-life models popular before WWII and adopted obsolescence models that provided extreme short-term profits for corporations at the near-immediate expense of human health and the planet.

We also developed the absolute scourge that is disposable packaging. Think about how much of your trash is just packaging from things you bought. Did you know before WWII you purchased most of your goods by purchasing your first metal can or glass bottle of consumables with a deposit, then came back and got the same can/bottle refilled a bunch of times? And if you no longer wanted it, you returned the container to get your deposit back? It’s true. Some companies (liquid manufacturers, like soda/milk, up until the 1970s) had a system where you returned your empties for a return deposit each time, and they’d wash and refill them, and sell you full bottles + deposit for the next go-round? Imagine how much less trash we’d have today if we still worked on that model. We literally had to teach people to throw things away with advertising (see below). But I digress…

#the salvage economy #salvage #food #clothing #gardening #tightwadery #economics #ideology #DIY #homesteading #low effort homesteading

[reasonsforhope]

Note: Reasons to Be Cheerful has had weirdly huge formatting issues for the past six or so months, so if that version is a mess, this link should work better.

"Florida Power & Light Company (FPL), the Sunshine State’s largest power utility, employs all the people you might expect: electricians, lineworkers, mechanical engineers — and a few you might not. For over 40 years, the company has kept a team of wildlife biologists on staff. Their task? Monitoring the giant carnivorous reptiles that reside in one of the state’s nuclear power plants. 

Saving the American Crocodile

What sounds like a low-budget creature feature is actually a wildly successful conservation story. It goes like this: In 1975, the shy and reclusive American crocodile was facing extinction. Over-hunting and habitat decline caused by encroaching development had pushed its numbers to a record low. By 1975, when it was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, there were only 200 to 300 left. 

Three years later, in 1978, workers at the Turkey Point nuclear power plant in Homestead, Florida happened upon something that must have made them gasp: a crocodile nest along one of the plant’s 5,900-acre “cooling canals.” Rather than drive the crocs away — perhaps the easiest solution — FPL hired a team of biologists and implemented a Crocodile Management Plan. Its goal was unconventional: provide a suitable habitat for the crocs within the workings of the nuclear power plant, allowing both to coexist.  

Over the course of the next 30 years, FPL’s wildlife biologists monitored nests, tagged hatchlings and generally created a hospitable environment for the reptiles. As it turned out, the plant’s cooling canals provided an ideal habitat: drained earth that never floods on which to lay eggs directly adjacent to water. Over the years, more and more crocs made the cooling canals home. By 1985, the nests at Turkey Point were responsible for 10 percent of American crocodile hatchlings in South Florida. In 2007, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service downgraded the American crocodile’s status from endangered to threatened, singling out FPL for its efforts. 

The program continues to this day. To date, biologists have tagged some 7,000 babies born at the plant. In 2021, there were a record-setting 565 crocodile hatchlings at the Turkey Point facility. 

"Reconciliation Ecology"

Turkey Point’s efforts are an example of what is known in the conservation world as “reconciliation ecology.” Rather than create separate areas where nature or animals can thrive in isolation from humans, reconciliation ecology suggests that we can blend the rich natural world with the world of human activity. Michael Rosenzweig, an emeritus professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, was a leading force in establishing this concept. The author of Win-Win Ecology: How the Earth’s Species can Survive in the Midst of Human Enterprise, Rosenzweig has pointed out that although human encroachment has typically been considered a threat to biodiversity, the notion that the world must be either “holy” or “profane,” ecologically speaking, is simply not true.  

“In addition to its primary value as a conservation tool, reconciliation ecology offers a valuable social byproduct,” writes Rosenzweig in his first chapter. “It promises to reduce the endless bickering and legal wrangling that characterize environmental issues today.”

-via Reasons to Be Cheerful, May 5, 2022. Article continues below. All headings added by me for added readability.

Dr. Madhusudan Katti, an associate professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University, was inspired by Rosenzweig when he did his postdoc at Arizona State. Katti has now been in the field of reconciliation ecology for two decades and teaches classes on the subject. “To me it’s finding solutions to reconciling human development with biodiversity conservation,” Katti says.

This common ground between development and conservation can be consciously planned, like FPL managing a crocodile habitat at a nuclear power plant or the state-sponsored vertical gardens and commercial farms on high-rise buildings in Singapore. Other examples include the restoration of the coral reef around an undersea restaurant in Eilat, Israel, or recent legislation in New York City requiring patterned glass on high-rise buildings, making windows more visible to migratory birds. Other planned examples of reconciliation ecology can be more individually scaled: a rooftop garden in an urban setting, modifying your garden to earn a “backyard bird habitat” certification from the Audubon Society, or even just mowing your lawn less often...

Reconciliation Ecology: Nature's Already Doing It Without Us

But there are countless examples of “accidental” incidents of reconciliation ecology, as well. One of Katti’s favorites is the kit fox of California’s San Joaquin Valley. “The kit fox was one of the very first species listed on the Endangered Species Act,” Katti says. Its decline was caused by habitat loss through agricultural and industrial development, as well as the extermination of the gray wolf population, which led to an increase in coyotes. So kit foxes adapted and moved to new habitats. One of these was the city of Bakersfield, California.

“Bakersfield, surrounded by oil pumps, would be the last place you’d expect to find an endangered species,” Katti says. But researchers think kit foxes have migrated to Bakersfield because they actually have more protection there from predators like coyotes and bobcats. “The kit foxes have figured out that if they can tolerate the human disturbance and live with people, then they are safer from all these other predators,” he says. 

Living in the city has led to some interesting behavioral changes. In the wild, for instance, a female kit fox gives birth to her young and raises them by herself in a den. But in the city, researchers have observed multiple females raising their litters together in the same den. “It’s like a form of cooperative breeding,” Katti says. “That wouldn’t happen in the wild.” ...

The Big Picture: How We Think about Conservation

Reconciliation Ecology isn’t just we humans welcoming animals like crocodiles and foxes into our environments, though. It’s also living with nature in a way that most Western societies haven’t done since the Enlightenment. “In recent years, there’s been a recognition that the ‘fortress conservation’ model — keeping nature separated from humans and not thinking of or valuing human-inhabited landscapes — those ideas are outdated,” says Katti.

In fact, in Katti’s classes on reconciliation ecology, he embraces the notion of reconnecting people with their land if they have been unjustly separated from it. “The term reconciliation also applies to all the colonial legacies where both nature and people have been harmed,” Katti says. “For Indigenous communities, the harm done to ecosystems, it’s happened together. So you can talk about addressing both. That’s where a lot of my thinking is at the moment.” 

A hopeful version of this sort of reconciliation is happening in California where colleagues of Katti’s who are tribal members are re-introducing “tribal burns” in some areas. Controlled burns have been a part of many Indigenous cultures for millenia, both as a way to prevent devastating forest fires, but also to encourage the growth of certain plants like hazel that are used for basket-weaving and other crafts. 

“The notion that people don’t belong there and ‘let nature take care of itself’ doesn’t really work,” Katti says. “That’s the legacy of Western European Enlightenment thinking — a divide between human and nature. That is a real faulty view of nature. People have been part of the ecosystem forever.”

-via Reasons to Be Cheerful, May 5, 2022

#a bit older but still ongoing/relevant and still very cool #florida #crocodile #reptile #ecology #environment #sustainability #endangered species #united states #california #kit fox #nuclear power plant #reconciliation #colonialism #the enlightenment #conservation #human beings #good news #hope #urban ecology

[thestudentfarmer]

Seed saving succes!

I posted awhile ago about carrots I let go to seed this last season. I finally got round to doing the full seed cleaning, a small germination test and wanted to share on that.

Below, the heads when I finally pulled them, I did clip the heads from the stems and placed them in an open storage bin.

To be quite honest I set it aside and forgot about it for awhile. Day to day and all that. Thankfully the corner I set them in was well undisturbed save for a few spiders when I got back to them.

Still a lil bit 'stick'y but it's as filtered as I can get currently. I'll be looking into some sort of seives to make harvesting seed easier in the future.

Interestingly enough, when separating some of the junk, the seeds got a sort of perfume-yness to them? It was very pleasant.

I took the corn out to handle later, but the cleaned out carrot flowerheads I tossed them in the chicken compost area so any missed seeds would get enjoyed by either the girls or the wild birds and the remaining stems and sticks'll get composted before long.

Did a germination test on the counter to see if the effort was worth it.

Way more germination than I expected! 🥳 very much worth it!

Here's the seed bag, I expect there is still a chunk of chuff/junk that didn't seperate well but it weighed 9 oz. (gallon size ziplock) I'd feel okay saying mayby 5-7 oz seed from seed saving this year. Even at low end of 5 oz that's still pretty good :)

I think I'll keep half and sort the other half among some friends and family as gifts, and donate to the local seed library nearest to me.

And if opportunity arises I'll do the same with the next carrot grow :) they were pretty easy (aside from toppling so much), the pollinators loved them, they were beautiful plants and we can use every part of them as well which is a win win all around 🏆

They were from hybrids of rainbow x nantes carrots. Some got long (but not many, I have shallow soil) they did get nice and fat though and we enjoyed quite a bit of salad, pesto and pretty flowers thanks to them this last grow season.

🥕🌱 Happy Homesteading 🌱🥕

9.21.2023

#homesteading #self sufficient living #thestudentfarmer #studentfarmer #self sufficiency #food #garden #gardening #low waste #seed saving #going green as can be #ecofriendly #smalls scale differences #right to grow #carrot #preserving carrots #urban homesteading #homesteading in the city #small scale farming #one yard at a time #mother nature #small farm #urban gardening #urban farming #carrot seed saving

[photo1030]

Leather and Lace - I’ll Be Home For Christmas

Summary:  Its Christmas time and Arthur has been out in the cold, missing for several days 

Warnings:  A bit of swearing; but very tooth-decay sweet (sorry)

A/N:  I was inspired by the other Christmas / seasonal stories and images that I’ve seen so I wanted to try it for myself. *I crunched this out pretty quick, compared to my usual schedule, to meet the “deadline” so this may not be my best work. (For those following my current storyline, this one is out-of-sequence due to it being Christmas time, but it does go with it)

*This AMAZING image is not mine. This comes from @randomscreenshotsworld​

This image was a major influence on the storyline, so I thank you!!

It’s been a few days and the gang hasn’t heard from Arthur or John. With everyone tucked up in the mountains in the snow, Arthur and John went out for supplies. Local law has recently started collaborating with Pinkertons, and with enforcement creeping closer, Dutch feared getting cut off and surrounded. So before the Van der Linde gang could get trapped, Dutch pushed you all North. He figured with the coming winter, most people would head South, and hoped to find less densely populated areas for everyone to lay low and regroup.

The feeling in the air is low. Everyone is cold. Everyone is tired. Everyone is hungry. And, it is Christmas time.

Charles, Arthur and John had scouted ahead and found an abandoned house up in the foothills. Partially buried in the snow, it was large enough to house the group, along with some smaller cabins on the grounds. If you had to guess, it was a working farm at one time with the main house for the previous owner and the other buildings were the workers' quarters and/or various processing buildings. And by the looks of it, whoever lived here just up and left, maybe moved west.

The main house was solid, protecting all of you from the elements. Fires were lit in the fireplaces throughout the house, desperate to keep the cold at bay. After you had all arrived and Ms. Grimshaw had begun the process of setting up a secure camp, Arthur took John back out to scavenge for food, medicine, blankets, or anything to help stock up on needed supplies, while leaving Charles with the rest of you. His reasoning was that Charles is the best hunter of the group. Should something happen to either him or John, at least you all would have Charles to help provide. Plus, if Arthur himself isn't going to be in camp, he only feels safe leaving you with either John or Charles to look after you.

Your nerves are on edge with Arthur being gone so long. He is usually only gone a day or so in inclement weather, and its been two days already. The snow and winds are picking up fiercely and one cannot be out in these harsh elements for too long. Even someone as strong and capable as Arthur. But you try your best not to look too worried, for Abigail is in the same situation with John gone, too. And, she has little Jack to try to reassure as well. So in an effort to distract yourself, as well as the Marstons, you decide to try to make things more cheerful in your new location. It is Christmas time afterall. You, the girls, and Jack work to make Christmas decorations for the old house. Digging about within the house, you collect what few things you can find to work with, as well as your current supplies. You make colorful paper garlands and cut snowflakes and string them about the rooms. You bring in pine boughs and pine cones from outside to decorate the windows and fireplace mantles, placing candles about, glittering with their soft and inviting glow. Even Ms. Grimshaw is helping out. Her job is to take care of the camp, and she has made making the new homestead cozy and comfortable her top priority.

"Hey, I see something out there," says Javier, who is sitting on watch by the window. You and Abigail rush to the window as well, pressing against Javier's back to try to see what he sees. You all see a figure approaching, but only one. Its John. Javier and Charles rush out of the house and into the cold to help John stable his horse and carry what provisions he has with him. When he gets into the house, it is obvious that John is quite happy to have made it back. He's half frozen, but the good news is that he has a sack of food with him. "Thank God you're OK!" exclaims Abigail, elated for once to see the man. "Yeah, I'm alright. Freezin' as all hell, though. We got any coffee on?" John asks hopefully, looking over her shoulder to see if he can spot the coffeepot on the fire as he rubs his gloved hands together before blowing his warm breath into them in a futile effort to defrost his fingers.

"Where's Arthur?" you ask John, your voice laced with concern when you look around desperately and its apparent that John came in alone.

"We split up," says John, turning to face you in the small group that has gathered around him now. "We came down through the pass just as the weather picked up. Arthur thought we should cover more ground since we were losing time with the storm rolling in harder. So at the fork, I went right and Arthur went left," and he motions with his hands to reiterate. "I haven't seen him since we split, but I'm sure he’s fine," dismisses John with a wave of his hand, not paying attention to how your eyes shoot wide open in shock. The thought that Arthur was wandering out the cold by himself was almost too much to handle.

"What the hell is the matter with you two idiots?" asks Hosea, exasperated. "How are you supposed to be watchin' each other's backs if you're goin' two totally different directions?!"

"Don't get on his ass," huffs Dutch. "He came back with food, didn't he?" poses Dutch, pointing at John.

"Yeah, and without Arthur!" you interject, trying not to panic.

"Arthur is fine," Dutch says, trying to speak calmly, as he can see your nervousness starting to get the better of you. "He always is."

"I'm sure he's fine," you say, taking a deep breath and trying to remain calm, "but you don't know that for certain." You stare at Dutch, silently pleading for him to do something other than stand there. When Dutch simply stares back at you defiantly, you've made up your mind. "To hell with this, I'm going to look for him," you mutter, turning towards the door.

"No, you're not," Dutch warns as he walks after you.

"Like hell I'm not!" you snap over your shoulder.

"Like hell you are!" Dutch argues, his voice getting louder and moving to put himself between you and the main door. "'Cause the minute you leave here, five minutes later he'll be walkin' through that door!" he gestures with his thumb. "And if he sees you're gone, or you get your ass in trouble, or something happens to you, I'd never hear the end of it. I'll tie you to a God damned chair if I have to!"  

You hesitate and lock eyes with the man before you. This plan doesn’t sit well with you at all, but with the weather, you know he's right. Your shoulders slump just a bit in resignation as you reluctantly give in to reason over your heart. "I can't just sit here and do nothing, Dutch", you say with a broken voice.

Sighing, "That's where you're wrong, (Y/N)," Dutch replies, his tone softer now and filled with sympathy for you. "'Cause that's exactly what you're going to do." He can be a cold man, but Dutch is fond of you and can appreciate the love between you and Arthur, as it reminds him of himself and his once beloved Annabelle.

"I'll go," offers Charles, stepping over to you and Dutch.

You turn your tear-glistening eyes to Charles, overcome with surprise and appreciation. "You will?" The robust man gives you a nod, placing his hand on your arm in consolation.

"What, so you can get lost, too?" pipes up Micah from the corner with a wave of his hand. "You're all crazy."

Dutch looks from Micah to Charles, raising his eyebrows with an expectant look. Micah has a point. Charles sighs, just ever-so-slightly. "I'll go out for an hour or so, see if I can find his tracks. If I pick up on him, I'll track him down. If I can't find a trace of him in a few hours, I'll head back. Fair?" he asks Dutch, to which the older man simply nods in agreement. He may be a rotten criminal, but to be honest, the idea of his adopted son lost in the frozen snow didn't sit to well with him, either. And he steps aside and let’s Charles out the door.

After a few hours, everyone hears the door rattle. Charles returns, but still no Arthur. When the burly man comes through the door, he instantly catches your eyes on him, but quickly averts his gaze in guilt. You slowly, quietly walk over to him with a blanket in your arms, ready to throw it around his broad, proud shoulders. "Sorry, (Y/N)," Charles says quietly. "I tried. I did. But I didn't see anything, not a sign." You say nothing, but simply nod in understanding. If anyone was going to find Arthur, it would be the best hunter/tracker in the gang. And even he couldn't do it. So unfortunately, all that you could do is sit and wait.

---------------------------------------

The next day is Christmas Eve. You've hardly slept all night as you see the first signs of the sunrise emerge on the horizon. You've been up sitting at the window, watching for Arthur and making sure a lantern was lit so that he could see a beacon through the snow, something to push forward to. You have an extra blanket at the ready, an endless pot of hot coffee and the fire stoked all night, waiting to welcome Arthur back into the warmth. Your mind raced all night with images of what kind of medical attention he would need and you wanted to be ready for it.

The snowstorm has stopped by the morning, yet you still sit at the window, staring out into the grey, hoping and waiting for some sign of your beloved. Morning carries into the afternoon, yet still no sign of Arthur. John and Charles both went out again for a few hours in vain to look, but to no avail, as the snow has begun to kick-up yet again as the afternoon falls.

Then suddenly, as your eyes continue to search through the frosted glass of the windowpane, you see that familiar shadow slowly lumbering through the snow. It is the unmistakable blue coat of Arthur's, lit by the lantern in his hand, and his huge, sturdy horse, Buck. Your eyes flutter to hold back your tears of relief. "Oh, thank God," you gasp in relief as you immediately jump up, throwing open the door. You dart out of the house, pulling your coat around you as you run. "Arthur!" you can't help but to holler to him across the yard. Arthur has finally returned and nothing else matters at this point in time. As soon as he recognizes you, a smile spreads across his tired and wind-chapped face. He’s frozen, that's for sure. Snow and ice is caked into his beard and his coat is plastered with white, but he is alive and in one piece. You run as fast as the powdered snow will allow and as soon as you're close enough to touch him, you throw yourself into his chest, hugging him tightly.

"What are you doin' out here in the cold," he chuckles into you hair as he deeply inhales your familiar scent like its his home, his arms folding you up against his chest. You can't even form the words to reply, as you are so overcome with relief. Hearing nothing but your sniffles in response to his question makes him pause and take in the state that you are in. 'Of course, she was worried', he thinks to himself. 'Damn fool, you keep forgettin' that.' “Hey, now, don’t be gettin' yourself all worked up over me. I’m alright," he insists, stroking your hair with his gloved fingers. "But if this is the kind of welcome I get, though, maybe I’ll stay out more often,” he teases.

Finally, you are able to get your mind together with Arthur's gruff voice ringing in your ears and pull back from him enough to look up at him. “You do and I’ll wrap my arms around your neck for a different reason than keeping you warm!," you half-heartedly threaten with a grin. You take a moment to take in his face, those features that you have been so desperate to lay your eyes on again. "Where have you been?!" you ask as you cup his face in your hands.

Arthur's chest rumbles with a faint chuckle, a gleam in his eye. "Oh, you can blame this big fella." He releases his grasp on you to turn to pat the hind-quarter of the 8-point buck draped across the rump of his horse. "John and I split up to cover more ground. I wasn't coming up with anything on my end, and then finally I saw this deer here. Had him in my sights, but couldn't bring him down. I tracked him, but he kept leading me further and further out." Arthur shakes his head as he recalls the last three days over again in his head. "I wasn’t about to let this meal get away from me, though," he grins at you. "A buck this size will feed all a'us for a few days. And I swear he knew I was comin’, too."

"Maybe he could smell you," jokes John as he and Charles have come out to greet Arthur and to help carry the carcass in. Arthur chuckles and nods at the joke at his expense. "Yeah, maybe."

"Glad to see you made back in one piece, brother." John claps him on the shoulder. "Yeah, same to you, John," replies Arthur warmly. For all their arguing and fussing, both men are happy to see the other safe and sound again.

"Come on," you say softly, tugging on Arthur's arm to pull him towards the house. "Let Charles handle the deer, and John can take care of Buck for you. Let's get you inside and by the fire. You probably can't even feel your feet by now." You smile up at him warmly and Arthur sinks into your care without resistance, as it is all he's been thinking of since he left, something to keep him pushing forward in the cold.

"Hell, I can't even feel my knees!" he jokes as he lets you lead him back to the house.

Charles brings the deer in under the overhang next to the house and quickly begins to skin and gut the animal. He cuts pieces of meat off the deer and brings them to Mr. Pearson who has already started to prepare food for Christmas Eve dinner. While Charles busies himself with the deer, you get Arthur into the house where its safe and warm. Upon entering, everyone greets Arthur, happy to see him return. After the initial round of "hello's", "what happened?", and hugs, Arthur takes a moment from all of the excitement to look around, noticing all of the decorations, and is pleasantly surprised by the cheerful atmosphere. "Wow, will you look at all this!" he says impressed. "Looks like you all been busy while I was out.".

"Just hush and get yourself over to that fire, would ya?" scolds Hosea, pointing at a stool by the fireplace with one hand, while pushing Arthur's shoulder with the other, ushering him in that direction.

As Arthur shuffles over to the hearth, your eyes begin to tear up as you watch him warm himself by the fire. You can't believe you are actually looking at him right now. You are scared to admit it, but you were having serious doubts if you would ever see him alive again. Noticing you sniffling and discreetly holding your hand over your mouth, he turns to you, his eyebrows knit together in concern. "Hey, now, what's this all about?" You just shake your head at him with a weak smile and wave him off, unable to speak. You are so overwhelmed by the relief to have him home again. He reaches out his strong arm to you as you walk over to him. "Come on, no, I told you I'm fine," he tries to reassure you again softly as he puts a hand on each of your arms, rubbing them slightly in an effort to offer you some comfort. All you can do is nod, looking down at his feet. He feels so bad for making you worry so. He lays a hand along your cheek, lifting your face up so he can see your glistening eyes. "Look, we can't have tears on Christmas, now. That just wouldn't be right."  And Arthur gives you that smirk of his, that one that you can't help but love.

As the evening carries on, everyone is getting along and there is little complaining. The room is comfortably warm with the large fire going, thanks to the firewood that Javier and Bill gathered. Soon enough, tonight's Christmas feast is served. With warm feet, full bellies, and everyone accounted for, there is much to be happy for. Everyone spends the evening eating, singing, and playing card games and dominoes. Some are snuggling up to each other by the fire. Even Micah is being pleasant and joins in on the festivities. With dinner finished and cleared, you suddenly ask for everyone's attention and announce that you have Christmas gifts for all. You disappear to one of the back rooms and emerge with a sack that is bulging with its contents. With a huge smile, you begin to hand out all of the items that you have spent months preparing for tonight. Among the gifts are:

Socks for Bill, a scarf for Lenny, a new red neckerchief for Micah; you commissioned a knife to be made for Javier, made your own arrows for Charles (made after he showed you how to do it); a new teapot for Hosea, a book for Dutch, a gilded hand-mirror for Molly, a writing pen for Mary Beth, a broach for Ms Grimshaw, new combs for Tilly, and mittens for Uncle. A hand-knit a shawl for Abigail, a new leather saddlebag for John and, of course, wooden toys for Jack, who is just so excited that he begins to play with the pieces instantly. Plus a few other items for everyone else as well.

"I’ve been working on this since August! A little at a time, but I managed to do it," you say proudly as you stand next to a seated Arthur whose arm is wrapped around your waist, keeping you close to him. "Do you know how hard it’s been to keep this all under wraps?"

"Is that why we’ve been lugging around that extra trunk with the lock on it?" Arthur asks, looking up at you, suddenly putting the pieces together in his mind. "Yep!" you quip with a huge smile. You look around the room, watching everyone enjoy their new gift, and you are so happy to be able to bring just a little joy to your fellow family members.

With everyone else taken care of, you finally turn towards your beloved. You give him a sly smile and an arched eye-brow as you reach down and take him by the hand, your smaller fingers lacing with his much larger ones. "Come with me," you say softly and you pull him up from the chair he's sitting in and head towards the door. Donning your coats, you take Arthur outside as the snow starts to fall again, but this time, its gentle and airy, not blowing and harsh like its been for the past few days. It’s dark out now, but the moon is full, casting a bright silvery light to dance upon the snow which shines and sparkles like billions of tiny diamonds. Its actually quite peaceful and beautiful, now.

"I haven’t forgotten about you," you say as you stop and turn to face him. "I’ve saved the best for last," a look of mischief upon your soft face. You reach down and take hold of his wrist, lifting it up to his chest level and open his hand to set a drawstring bag into his palm. Arthur gives you a quizzical look before he lets his fingers fumble with the soft fabric. He opens the little pouch and pulls out a silver disc.  

“A pocket watch?” he asks with a smile as he flips it around in his hand to admire the fine filigree etching that adorns its smooth surface.

"Open it," you reply simply, tilting your chin towards his hand slightly. He clicks open the item, pushing down on the top button to pop open the little door and sees the arrow and unmistakable markers of the cardinal directions. "It’s a compass," he confirms with a nod, his grin widening even more. (The irony of him holding a compass after being lost in the cold for the past three days isn't lost on him.)

"I know you lost yours in that poker game awhile back," you say, thinking back to a few months ago. "I tried to think of the perfect gift for my tireless wanderer." You cast your gaze from the compass in his hand to his beautiful blue eyes that catch the moonlight just so. "You know," as you lay your hands on his wrists as he holds the item between both sets of his calloused fingers, "The thing about a compass is, it doesn’t tell you where you are. It tells you where you’re going. So no matter where you are, Arthur, I hope you will always find your way back to me."

Arthur takes in your words and looks from the compass to your face. His heart swells so much he thinks it will burst. "I…I don’t know what to say." He is quiet for a moment, overwhelmed by your gesture. "I love you so, so much, (Y/N)." There is a tight knot in his throat, swollen with emotion. He holds your face with his large hand, his warm palm heating your chilled cheek. "But…I didn’t get you anything," he says, suddenly realizing it and feeling guilty.

"Says who?" you smirk. You reach your hands up to pull the collar of his coat up closer to his red cheeks to keep him warm. "You made it home alive and in one piece today. And all I want, all I’ve ever wanted, is you." Your large doe-eyes look up at him with such devotion that despite his ever-lingering self-doubt, Arthur can't help but to know your statement to be true. "In fact, I had a little chat with Dutch and told him that we’ll be “indisposed” for the next 48 hours." Your hands leave Arthur's wrists and snake their way around his torso and link together behind his back. When you do so, he brings his own arms around your shoulders to pull you in even tighter together. "So if you really want to give me a Christmas gift, Arthur Morgan, you will come with me into that cabin over there (tilting your head over towards one of the side buildings on the property that already has a fire glowing in the windows) and just... be with me, and only me." Secretly you can’t wait to see his reaction to how you've decorated your little nest for the two of you.

"I think I can do that," he confirms, touching his forehead to yours before pulling back again just enough to meet your gaze. "But I still don’t see how you’re making out on that deal," he jokes.

You smile and lift up on your toes to kiss his lips ever to gently. "Then I guess you’ll just have to improvise and think of something.”

You stand there together in the snow looking at each other, drinking each other in with mutually adoring eyes. You observe the fat snowflakes catch on each other's eye lashes and cheekbones, neither saying anything for a bit and risk ruining this perfect moment of contentment.

"Merry Christmas, Arthur."

"Merry Christmas, (Y/N)."

#arthur morgan #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan x female reader #arthur morgan x f!reader #arthur morgan x reader fluff #arthur morgan christmas #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #arthur morgan x reader christmas

[bard-owl]

I have an idea for a small hamlet deep in hills and woods.

The central gathering point is a common area with an outdoor stage and benches like a campground and a longhouse that is a multipurpose structure. A section partitioned for equipment storage for well drilling, dirt road maintenance, scaffolding, timber sawmill, etc. A workshop of various disciplines to build whatever is needed and teach new skills. And finally a kitchen for community events.

Surrounding this common agora would be driveways to individual homesteads. The architectural designs focusing on using the renewable resources of the forest. Log cabins, timber frame, and A-frame homes of various sizes plus whatever barns, chicken coops, sheds, and greenhouses are required for each home. These all use related wood working techniques so each member's accumulated experience can help in the next project.

The idea is for the whole community to be gridless with individual power setups based on the terrain around the homes, meaning solar, hydro, biogas digester, etc. The longhouse gets two power systems, one either hydro or solar, with a woodgas generator backup. The land immediately surrounding each home should be gardens and livestock shifting into native forests. Silviculture would be a community effort with constant renewal of the forest and supporting wildlife.

While not 100% self sufficient (nothing really is) this supportive community with homegrown food surrounded by a healthy forest could easily go extended periods of time without needing to leave, while operating on a very low cost of living.

#self sufficiency #self reliance #prepper #off grid #fjarlsland #cabins #a frame #timberframe #wood gas #biogas

[wayhaughtprompts]

Hey, hope you're doing okay and still writing :)

Nicole gets excited about valentine's day and throw a lotta cheesy pick up lines to Waverly

I feel like Nicole didn't like Valentine's Day until she met Waverly

like TBH when she was with Shae they were more low-key about it

as well the other girls Nicole dated were also lowkey about celebrating Valentine's Day

But everything changed when Nicole started to see Waverly and after they got married

Nicole had the whole day planned bc she wanted to surprise Waverly

and to prove that she was also a planner

so the whole Homestead was decorated with hearts and pink

which Rachel and Wynonna teased Nicole about

also, Nicole had a dinner planned out later that night

Waverly was surprised and happy about all the effort Nicole had put into the day

After surprising Waverly, Nicole started to say a lot of cheesy pickup lines

like "are you from Tennessee cause you're the only ten I see"

and "Do you have a map? Because I just got lost in your eyes"

Waverly thinks it's cute bc she finds Nicole's cheesy humor funny

and a lot better than Champ's crude humor

so whenever Nicole had the chance she would say a funny pickup line or a joke

causing Waverly to laugh and think how lucky she is to be with Nicole

#wayhaught #wayhaughtprompts #nicole haught #wynonna earp #waverly earp

[chefilona]

CHEF ILONA: PANETTONE BREAKFAST BAKE

"Christmas morning should be a low effort meal-time; it’s the perfect day to savour a hot drink and the twinkling lights on the tree."

Several years ago, I was visiting the homestead for the holidays which meant I got to enjoy watching my mom putter around the kitchen cooking up all of our most favourite foods.

My dad has a penchant for the Italian Christmas bread, Panettone, and there is almost always one on the counter for the entire month of December.

Panettone is a sweet Christmas bread which has its origins in Milan. This rich dough is studded with citron, raisins, and other candied fruits. It is baked in a cylindrical shape and has a domed top. In some ways I can see a bit of a flavour profile similarity with Easter’s hot cross buns, but Panettone is much fluffier. Now from time to time, the Panettone gets a little stale or dries out a bit, and this particular year I was there for such a situation. My mom decided to use the bread for French toast. It tasted amazing, but I was still thinking there had to be an even easier way to make this French Toast, so mom didn’t have to stay at the stove. We decided to make a bake out of it, and it worked like a charm.

It is the kind of dish that is a hybrid of bread pudding and French toast. I started adding in eggnog in the last couple of years and it is even more festive. If you are so inclined, I recommend a jigger of rum mixed in with the eggnog base; it is so at home in this mélange.

This can be made and ahead the night before, or when you are ready to eat it.

Eggnog and Panettone French Toast Bake

Created by Chef Ilona Daniel

1 loaf all-butter panettone bread 7 large eggs 1 1/4 cups eggnog 1 Tbsp vanilla extract Zest of 1 orange 2 tsp cinnamon ½ tsp nutmeg ¼ cup brown sugar Icing sugar and Syrup for serving if desired.

Slice the panettone into slices that would fit into your toaster and tile them into a buttered casserole dish.

Gently whisk the remaining ingredients together and pour over the bread.

Cover and place in the fridge overnight so it will ready for baking in the morning or place into a pre-heated 375f oven.

Bake for 30 minutes and serve with syrup and powdered sugar if desired.

#pei #chefilona #canadianchef #eastcoast #cbcpei #eater #chefsofinstagram #yum #explorecanada #foodwriter #panettone #holiday breakfast #xmasbreakfast #breakfast #lazybreakfast #easyrecipes #easy breakfast #eggnog #french toast #prince edward island

[aikoiya]

DP AU - Family Legacy 2 - The Fenton-Nightengale Family History

The Fentons, Jack specifically, are descended from the half-blood son of Artemis & Orion that no one knew existed. After Artemis was tricked into killing Orion by her brother, she gave the boy away to keep him safe. That boy grew up to marry the half-blood daughter of Thanatos.

The resulting Legacy child was the start of the Nightengale line. Said line became a clan of supernatural hunters bent on protecting humanity from the dangers of the supernatural world. As such, every Nightengale descendant has the blessing of the night, the hunter’s touch, & the hearts of heroes. You see Orion was both a hunter & a protector, so his descendants are too.

The Fentons instead came about when an Albanian Lugat had a dhampir son. Dhampirs are known for their ability to sense the supernatural, as well as their wild, dark hair (characteristic of the Fenton, & later the Fenton-Nightengale, line), & enhanced, even somewhat superhuman, physicality.

Anyway, the dhampir son had grown up into a hunter himself & after killing his Lugat father, he married the Nightingale heiress & began the Fenton-Nightingale line.

One of these will be their Coat of Arms:

At some point, a Fenton-Nightingale daughter fled to Romania & married into the Graesinka family.

Then something happened in the 1600s where one of their witch hunters encountered a witch with a powerful ghostly familiar. He'd been unable to defeat them & it drove the man to pursue ghostly matters in a more detailed manner than the rest of the clan felt was necessary. This was the first time any member of the line had really come into contact with a Hereafter ghost & thus began the Fenton family’s obsession with discovering where such beings came from.

After an encounter with a strangely solid & especially powerful specter during a Fenton-Nightengale reunion, the witch hunter, now ghost hunter, was able to rally about half the family to his side & the clan was split once more into Nightengales & Fentons, the members that followed the ghost hunter became the new Fenton line while the new Nightengale line remained as general hunters.

Make no mistake, every last member was a Fenton-Nightengale, they just went by separate names.

Then, about 3 generations back from the modern era, the Nightengale heir decided that he didn't want to be a hunter anymore. The pressures of clan responsibility & the devistatingly low survival rates, not to mention the many hunts he'd been on had disillusioned him to the life.

One night, he ran away, using his survival skills to hide his tracks, until he met his future wife & took her name; Wayne.

They settled in the newly built homestead of Gotham, but the man recognized the many curses & hexes as well as the cursed pool of green water leaking into the murky waters of the forbidden swamp for the problem it was & knew that without help, it could become a blight that would spread its disease all over the world. Despite having just left the hunter's life behind, he couldn't just walk away & let this plague fester without a metaphorical doctor there to monitor it.

So, he set up shop. Beginning Wayne Enterprises in order to fund his efforts to, if nothing else, contain the madness that he could sense beginning to manifest in this town.

Under the guise of infrastructure & modernization, the Wayne man put powerful protective glyphs & wards & all sorts all around the city. Inside walls, as part of the architecture, in the streets, in the parks. Everywhere!

Even joining the Men of Letters to further his ability to protect the rest of the world from Gotham. All to minimize the spread of the swamp's madness.

After that, the Waynes passed down the wardenship & maintenance of these wards from one generation to the next via a small hidden library full to the brim with notebooks all about how to maintain them.

At some point, a corrupted spiritual manifestation of the city itself gained consciousness & with its help, the Waynes began to gain a foothold. Except, one day Thomas & Martha Wayne were unexpectedly killed before Thomas could really start teaching his son the family ways. Sure, he'd technically already begun, but Bruce was too young to really remember what, at the time, probably seemed inconsequential in the face of his parents' deaths.

If something didn't happen soon, the wards would fade & neither Zatana or Constantine would be able to fix them because the wards & spells used are somewhat magically isomorphic & specific to the Fenton-Nightengale line because there's just something different about their magic that neither magic user is able to replicate. (It has to do with the fact that it's a family of Legacies.)

Moving on, in some universes, Jack Fenton unexpectedly has an accident in the lab that leaves him sterile before Danny is conceived. Sometimes, it just straight up kills him. In these universes, destiny prompts Bruce Wayne to donate to a sperm bank. As a result, the Fentons, or even just Maddie depending on what happened, will end up using his sample & thus, Danny is able to exist.

Because he has to exist in every universe in some way or another. The Infinite Realms needs a king, so destiny provides one. Thing is, in every timeline where Vlad becomes a Halfa, & even a few where he doesn't, he always manages to unleash Pariah Dark from his sleep. And in many timelines where he doesn't, it's a group of Pariah's loyalists who do so. Either way, Danny needs to exist in order to stop Pariah. Period!

Destiny has many contingencies for these sorts of situations. Like, he is basically Clockwork's contingency plan.

For instance, in universes where it was Maddie who became barren or outright died, she has 3 sisters who could provide as carriers; Alicia, June, & Ann.

That isn't to say that the Waynes are the only hidden Fenton-Nightengales who ran away from the life & could work as a parent should Jack lose viability. In fact, there are many. For instance, there are the Lakes of Arcadia as one example, when a daughter of the new Fenton line married into the Lake family, said to be descendants of Sir Lancelot du Lac. Or the Potters of England. They actually split off from very far back, the founder having split off from the original Fenton-Nightengale line before they even came to America to pursue the study of magic with the rest of the wizarding world.

There's also the Winchesters of Kansas. Then there's the Higurashis of Tokyo. The late Higurashi patriarch was just another escaped Nightengale from America, making Kagome & Sota Fenton-Nightengales too.

There are even other descendants of the Fenton-Nightengales in Gotham that followed the new Nightengale heir & made their own families in the city to support the Waynes in their attempt to contain the Gotham Madness, such as the Todds & the Drakes. Up until the deaths of Thomas & Martha Wayne, they all kept in touch & worked together to keep the world safe from Gotham with a group called "The Children of the Night." Afterwards, it all fell apart.

It is prophesied that King Arthur would be reborn as a Fenton-Nightengale.

DP Character Masterlist

#danny phantom #dp #dc #toa #legacy au #fenton family #fenton nightengale #hp #writing prompt

[rollforhellfire]

unremarkable things

BBEG

The Hideout is not the only bar in Hawkins, but it is the only one on the outskirts of town, on the wrong side of the tracks, at the lower boundary of what’s considered safe or civilized by the residents of Hawkins. About two miles down the road from the trailer park, it’s a low-ceilinged, single-roomed shack just off the highway, with bikes parked outside in clusters in between rusting work trucks, more or less at any hour of the day or night. Between his other errands and the time it takes to walk from place to place, it’s already pushing one in the morning by the time he gets there, but the Hideout is still open. Light glows dimly through smoky windows as Eddie approaches, and neon signs posted on the corrugated metal of the exterior walls promise a variety of domestic beers available within.

Despite appearances, The Hideout’s really not that bad. It’s the people on the inside that make the next part challenging.

Eddie’s weed guy is named Randy. He’s a decent dude, a chilled out old stoner of the variety that came up in the sixties, preaching peace and love and ganja as a solution to all of life’s myriad problems. He homesteaded for a while in the Emerald Triangle, and still has connections out that way. His house is out on the lake, where he catches his own fish and grows his own food, rents and bootlegs VHS tapes, and does all of this while mildly baked. Randy is harmless.

Randy also won’t come near The Hideout for love nor money. Eddie has come here to see a man named Roy.

Roy is a drug dealer. Roy is almost certainly a member of the Hell’s Angels. By the presence of tears inked on his face, Roy has probably killed at least one person. Roy is the sort of person that the general population of Hawkins would never imagine hangs out around the shadowy edges of their little midwestern town. Everything that seems scary about Eddie at first blush—the hair, the tattoos, the old black leather and raggedy denim and stainless steel jewelry—is multiplied a thousandfold in Roy, and represents someone actually, genuinely scary. 

As Eddie shoulders open the door of the Hideout, Roy is at his usual corner table, already watching expectantly as he enters. A booted foot kicks a chair out, and with no preamble other than a nod to the bartender, Eddie crosses the room to join him.

“Wondered when you’d turn up,” Roy rumbles from the opposite side of the table, behind a braided beard streaked with grey. There are two beers on the tabletop, but Eddie doesn’t dare presume one is intended for him until he takes a seat and Roy shoves it in his direction.

“Thanks. Sorry if I made you wait.” 

Roy just grunts and takes a long swig of his beer, though one eye doesn’t leave Eddie until Eddie does the same. The buzz from the beer Herman had offered in the back of the liquor store had faded on the duration of the walk over, but it comes right back as he polishes off half of what Roy had offered. Roy does not usually offer him anything—not a seat, not a drink, not anything other than his usual variety of illicit substances for resale to Hawkins residents. Eddie keeps his expression neutral, even though he’s wary of the circumstances.

“Got a message for you,” Roy starts casually, slowly spinning an empty beer bottle on the table, between hands big enough to reach out and crush Eddie’s windpipe, with about as much effort as it would take to crush an egg.

Coincidentally, his windpipe does feel like it’s being crushed, with the rising pressure of anxiety at the back of his throat, to do with the reasons why he knows Roy in the first place, and what the source and the content of the message could be.

“Your daddy says you ain’t been taking his calls.”

This is and always has been true, at least for the past three years. Every time a collect call from Pendleton comes to the house, Eddie turns it down. He’s heard Uncle Wayne take them once or twice, but usually these calls come in the daylight hours, and usually Uncle Wayne is sleeping and Eddie’s supposed to be at school. Usually. The conversations are always short and terse. The bad blood between Wayne and his brother runs dark and deep and has a great deal to do with Eddie.

Exactly how much Roy knows on the subject and exactly what his opinion of it is, Eddie doesn’t know. He drains the rest of his bottle of beer in a way that warms his gut and loosens the tension in his throat, and gives him an artificial sense of bravery as he answers with a question, dark and sardonic, “Can you blame me?”

“Ain’t really my business. But your dad shanked somebody on the inside when he got told to, on the condition that I pass this along: he’s got a new lawyer and he’s putting in an appeal. Time comes that it makes it to trial, he wants you not to say anything against him.”

That artificial sense of bravery curdles in his gut, flips it over and sets it churning with anxious nausea, in the same moment as his throat constricts again, this time with the pressing urge to vomit. Eddie doesn’t know what he looks like when this happens, doesn’t know that his features go still and his jaw sets and his face takes on a grim cast that’s uncannily like his father—but his voice is soft and strained and breaks slightly, betraying him, as he numbly asks, “Are you supposed to take a message back?”

“You got one for me to take?”

“No.”

Roy just nods, satisfied, and polishes off his own beer. As this vanishes into his gut, he gestures to the bartender for two more. “Then I done my part.” When Eddie doesn’t answer, still numbly hunched in his chair on the opposite side of the table, Roy clears his throat, as awkwardly as anyone with a presence as commanding as his can manage. Apparently Eddie looks wretched enough about this news to inspire the pity of angels. “Look, kid, you want to know what I think, it’s that it ain’t gonna come to nothin’. Puttin’ in appeals is just what inmates do. He ain’t gettin’ out, it ain’t gonna get back in court. You ain’t gotta do nothin’ but keep lettin’ him rot and keep your own ass outta prison, and odds are you’ll never see him again.”

“Yeah,” Eddie answers, still blank and distant, and when his second beer arrives, he automatically closes a hand over the top, and snaps the lid off with the inner edge of one of the rings on his fingers. Now when he drinks, it’s because he needs to. He wonders distantly if this is why Roy had offered him a beer in the first place.

Roy still watches him, caught between something that might be concern, and something else that might be disdain. He clears his throat, again, and gives Eddie a few more moments before he asks, “You wanna get down to our usual transaction?”

It’s a few moments more before Eddie snaps out of it, remembering the colour of lavender, the scent of lilacs, and the loops and whirls of Chrissy’s handwriting. He shakes his head to himself and pushes the bottle of beer away. “Y-yeah. Uh, yeah. Little different this time. This time I’ve got a list.”

It’s a testament to the depth and variety of Roy’s stock that he has no problem accomodating this list, and Eddie gets a price that only takes a fifty dollar bite out of his current profit, and leaves him with plenty of cash for assorted sundries. By the time their business is complete, Eddie has his fourth beer of the evening halfway finished, though the lurking terror of Roy’s message still churns through his gut like an augur, and its edges still cut deep and sharp inside him. His trusty old lunchbox is stuffed with a variety of substances that might help dull those edges—even Roy had offered him a couple Valium, on the house—but instead he gets up, and goes to pay his tab, before heading home.

He adds a generous tip, for the service, on top of the cost of a pint of rye. It’s a long walk home, and he’ll have to contend with the cold from without and the fear from within.

It’s hard to say which will be worse, but hopefully the whiskey makes at least one of them bearable. At least long enough to get home.

Wayne Munson works from 8PM to 4AM, but will occasionally clock overtime and not get home until half past eight, well after his nephew has already left for the day. Their lives don’t intersect very often, at least not during their waking hours, and so sometimes Wayne will make a point of getting home and staying up, to see Eddie in the morning before they both head off for bed and school, respectively.

It’s not due to any dislike or enmity that they don’t see much of each other—truthfully, Wayne likes his nephew a great deal more than he likes most other people. It’s just the way life is right now.

He comes home in the wee hours of Friday morning, parking his van and clambering out of it with a weary sigh, hard hat tucked under one arm and lunch box hanging from his other hand. Payday today. He’ll have to head into town and cash his check, once it clears, and then stock up on food to last the next two weeks. But that’s a problem for daylight proper, and with the sky overhead not even hinting at the onset of dawn, Wayne heads inside.

He’s quiet as he enters, because Eddie’s probably asleep in the back room, and quiet as he undresses, showers, and then puts on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, before going to investigate the fridge. Sometimes his nephew picks things up, sourcing an income from god knows where—but tonight there’s nothing but the half empty bottles of condiments and sprouting bag of potatoes that neither of them have dealt with. Wayne closes the fridge again, and then makes his way down the hallway to poke his head through the bedroom door and check on his nephew.

Instead he finds the bedroom, equal parts shrine and sanctuary, empty of his nephew, though not empty of his worldly possessions; his guitar and assorted sound equipment, a wardrobe stuffed with denim and faded band t-shirts, jars of dice, books and miniatures, cassette tapes, posters and other assorted memorabilia, all of which Eddie hoards like a dragon, or more accurately like a kid who was broadly denied or deprived of belongings of his own.

That Eddie isn’t there isn’t necessarily concerning—he’s nearly twenty-one, after all, and has more or less always taken care of himself—but it’s out of the ordinary, and Wayne is more puzzled than he is worried, until he hears the scrape of the key in the lock of the front door, and comes down the hall just in time to see it shoved open, as his nephew stumbles over the threshold.

Eddie either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care that his uncle is standing in the hallway, watching him stagger inside. There’s an urgency in him, masked but not hidden by the unsteadiness of his gait, and he crosses the narrow width of the trailer to half collapse against the edge of the kitchen sink, where he begins to retch and heave his guts out, with a remorseless vigour that doesn’t match his ability to hold himself up.

Wayne curses softly to himself, and crosses the room in a few quick strides, to snag a hand at the back of Eddie’s collar, looping his other arm behind his back and catching the faltering weight of him beneath the armpit with a grunt and a sigh. He feels the familiar shape of a fifth of something hanging in the pocket of Eddie’s jacket and wonders where he got it, how far he walked while drinking. Grimly, he drops his hand to rub up and down between his nephew’s shoulder blades. Hopefully it reassures him that his uncle isn’t mad, only worried.

In the brief pause between bouts of vomiting—the contents of the sink smell flammable, a rancid mixture of beer and bile and the acrid burn of undigested liquor—Eddie’s breath hitches and tears out of him in a way that sounds like sobbing. Then his shoulders lurch again, bony and narrow even through layers of leather and denim, and more of the evening’s libations fountain out of him, wracking his body beneath Wayne’s hands. 

After a few false starts, and then one more round that brings up only bile and saliva, Eddie finally shudders in a way that turns into a bodily shiver, then goes bonelessly limp, so that his Uncle has to follow the half-dead weight of him to the ground, helping him slump against the kitchen cabinets. He breathes shallowly, recovering, with his eyes closed and his face pale in the dim fluorescent light of the kitchen. Wayne puts a hand on his shoulder, but doesn’t say or do anything, except to study his nephew’s face and wait for some indication of what this is all about.

When he gets it, he doesn’t immediately know what it means—

“He’s gonna get out.”

“What?”

Eddie groans brokenly and his eyelids squeeze tight together as tears glint at their inside corners, and his arms wrap tight around his chest, pulling away from his uncle without meaning to, as he shudders again and tries to fold an adult’s body into a child’s posture of sheer terror, curling in on himself as he tries again, his voice a bare, raw whisper—

“He’s trying to get out, he’s going to get out. God. Oh god, he’ll kill me. This time he’s gonna kill me.”

There’s only one person in the world that Eddie is this afraid of, and he and Wayne both share the man’s blood. It sickens him to know that his own flesh and blood could’ve put such horror into his son—but he’d be lying to say he was surprised. His younger brother was always a monster. He never should’ve been allowed to father a child.

And as his nephew breaks the rest of the way down, crumpling to the floor in a drunken mess of abject terror, all Wayne can do is gather him up, gruff but gentle, and help him down the hall to bed. There are no monsters here. Not tonight, and not any other night, not if Wayne can help it. Eddie doesn’t want to go, but it isn’t hard to make him, though he raises mumbled protests the entire way there. 

Wayne ignores this, stubbornly ushering the kid into bed. Once Eddie’s settled down, his uncle makes sure he’s propped securely on his side between a hefty basket of unwashed laundry and a thin, folded over pillow, to make sure he doesn’t choke if he throws up again. He leaves Eddie’s jacket on, too difficult to extricate when his arms have locked around the pillow against his chest, but pulls his shoes off, dropping them onto the floor before pulling the blanket up around his shoulders. This accomplished, Wayne shifts to sit at the edge of the mattress, sagging with the weight of both of them, and watches until he’s sure that Eddie’s asleep. It doesn’t take long, though when it happens, it doesn’t look peaceful. Carefully, he lays a rough hand on top of his head, and sits a while longer, listening to him breathe. 

He can’t tell if it makes any difference, but he hopes that somehow, it helps. There’s nothing else he can do, for now.

<< prev || next >>

#eddie munson #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie x chrissy #stranger things #stranger things 4 #wayne munson #eddie fic #angst #fanfiction #stranger things fanfic #fanfic #eddissy #hellcheer

[utterimmolation]

Jedi As Quarians AU

Jedi were peculiar in that they seemed to be everywhere until you were trying to actually find one. Like the waiter that kept coming every five minutes to "see how you are doing" until you actually wanted the check and they were nowhere to be found.

At least, that's what Admiral Tarkin complained. Rex has never been to a restaurant, at least not the way the man is talking about, the fancy ones with the tables to sit down in and the shiny forks and spoons in folded napkins. The closest he's ever been is a little food truck that survived a Separatist carpet bombing and whose owner had been so grateful they'd started handing out free sandwiches and drinks.

It's not an analogy so far out of the way. Working Jedi reportedly often toiled away at low-paying jobs like line cooks and waiters and janitors, gathering funds to either make repairs to their ships or else sending funds back to the Order Fleet. Even for people dedicated to charity, they had to eat.

However, given that the only way they could move forward was with a Jedi, they needed to find one. And soon.

The Republic wasn't a patient entity. And clones had never been granted the luxury of time.

Tarkin sends Torrent to the nearest moon to chase rumors while the fleet maintains position a few jumps over. The planet they're planning to strike is one of those that, despite declaring for the Separatists, has only nominal control over the surrounding sector. The planet may be pumping out droids for the war effort, but the moons are full of traders, villagers, and refugees, both current and from decades prior. The CIS cares very little about them and the feeling is mutual. The villages and small towns have nothing the Separatists really want and so the presence of hostiles is more of a formality than an actual attempt to control.

As such, despite the proximity to a major factory, Torrent only encounters a token force of droids as they slip from settlement to settlement searching for their query. Rex is firm in ensuring his men utilize some element of tact and discretion in their search. It would be stupid to walk about in full plate screaming for a Jedi.

This means civvie clothing and minimal weaponry, casual inquires into the service of a cheap but gifted mechanic or restaurant or shockingly well-maintained motel, and to the delight of more than one brother, rotating shifts in bars and pubs to keep a lookout for waiters, bartenders or bouncers.

The first half dozen or so villages are dead-ends and Rex can't help but worry that this endeavor will be a waste of time, or worse, that there is a Jedi dirtside and Torrent has either missed them, or they're being actively avoided. Jedi have claimed neutrality in the war and many cultures, Republic or otherwise, still have a healthy respect and fear of their prowess despite their fall from grace as to not attempt to drag the ancient Order into the galactic squabble. While there have been sightings of Jedi on the battlefield, they tend to stick to defending and aiding civilian targets, blocking blaster bolts away from shelters with their glowing blades and redirecting missiles and mortars and stray shells with their mysterious powers and giving healing and medicine to the wounded. Jedi, while usually cordial to Republic forces, remained distant and avoidant. Probably because, just like now, the Republic made no secret that they'd love to have some of that skill and power on their side.

Some resented the Jedi's inaction. Precognition, telekinesis, telepathy—a fair few felt that the Jedi could step in and end the war in a heartbeat and that only an ancient grudge meant their pride was more important than the people of the Republic.

Rex didn't know what to think, but as they concluded their search in yet another homestead, he desperately hoped that said grudge wasn't real and that any rumors of such were unsubstantiated.

He can't afford another failure.

He'd never been one for religion, but for not the first time, he finds himself praying.

Dear Force—please send a Jedi. I need one. We need one.

Just one.

The galaxy has no mercy for clones. There are no miracles for flesh-droids.

But the galaxy is infinitesimal to the might of the Force and it seems to have a fair bit more kindness for them to boot, because it doesn't send them one Jedi.

It sends three.

He's a bit…skeptical at first, looking over the information the scouts have forwarded.

To be fair to him, only one of the Jedi actually, well, looks like a Jedi.

The oldest looking one, a human (or adjacent), sexually male (32% margin of error, according to Kix) with auburn locks and a nearly trimmed full-count beard, wears the worn but clean robes and tabard traditional to Jedi. He works as a schoolteacher apparently, and a pretty damn good one, according to the locals, teaching children by day and adults by night.

His companions…well…

A slighter younger human with riotous curls and a prosthetic forearm apparently works as a gifted mechanic with his young apprentice—a "Padawan"—, a young and vibrant-colored togruta, who, when not working with her teacher, apparently hunts the large plains and the small but dense forest, selling the meat and skins to the village.

Neither looks like a Jedi, apparently shucking the robes for admittedly more practical duraweave overalls on the job and tunics and breeches off. The only reason the scouts could tell was because the human had apparently levitated a speeder's engine block with a wave of his hand and the togruta walked about with a line of beaded cord attached to her headband that Echo swore was a traditional symbol of apprenticeship among the Jedi. Or Padawanship, probably.

So they'd found the Jedi. Finally. Now came the next hurdle.

How to convince them to aid the campaign?

"We could just…ask them?" Tup ventured.

Dogma rolled his eyes. "They're not going to agree if we just walk up and beg. They're not tooka. We need an incentive."

"...that sounds exactly like a tooka, though."

"What? No, it doesn't—"

"Do we have authorization to offer them anything?" Echo cuts across the two before they really started going at it.

Rex hesitated, thinking about Tarkin and his ever-present disdain for everything around him as well as his sly and cruel cunning. "We're kind of being granted a lot of leeway here. If this succeeds, it could change the course of the war completely. So…we're not not authorized, technically."

Fives who had been surprisingly quiet says with uncharacteristic seriousness, "If we find it we could kidnap their ship."

The squad hesitated at that. Tup looked uneasy, Dogma contemplative. Kix was visibly pensive while Echo went from horrified to angry.

"Wh-we can't do that!"

"Why not?" Fives challenged.

"Why not? There are rules to things like this! You don't touch a twi'leks headtails, you don't pull a trandoshan's scales, and you don't kark with a Jedi's ship!"

Echo wasn't wrong. Right up there with age old idioms such as "Don't pull a krayt's tail" and "Speak softly and carry a cannon" was "Make sure a Jedi's dead before you touch their home and bed". 

Rumors claimed that a Jedi could only love three things: their younglings, their kyber, and their fleet. Each ship was incredibly important to them, given it was a piece of the only real "home" they'd had for a thousand years. Reports were unclear as to how many Jedi there were, or how many ships, but estimates were in the tens of thousands of the latter, from little snub fighters to massive capital ships from the Old Republic era.

Fives crossed his arms. "Well, we need some incentive. How else could we make them listen to a bunch of clones?"

Rex sighed. "That's a last ditch idea, trooper. We don't want to make enemies of them. And starting a negotiation with a hostage might be starting from a position of strength yes, but it's also a besmirch on our honor. They haven't done anything to us. We're soldiers, not common thugs."

"Well that's a relief."

Rex would be so incredibly proud of his boys' quick reflexes if it was not drowned out by the sheer horror at what they were pointing their guns at.

To his credit and to Rex's mixed fear, consternation and hope, the Jedi appeared absolutely unruffled by the half dozen blasters pointing at his hooded face. 

"Hello there," the Jedi says, sweeping his hood away to expose his auburn locks to the weak sun. His smile is faint and gentle though his eyes hold a mirthful and wary steel. "I'm glad to hear you will not be stealing our belongings gentlemen. They are rather important to us, as I believe you know."

He doesn't specifically look at Fives but everyone there knows the last part is aimed at the ARC, who bristles. Before Rex can stop him, he opens his mouth.

"Ah well, Mister Jedi, you don't exactly make it easy to get your attention, given your lots tendency to, you know, ignore the galactic war going on."

"Fives!" Rex barks and oh, how could he not see this coming? He'd suspected that Fives was one of those who were rather disgruntled at the Jedi's refusal to rejoin the Republic, but haar'chak this was the worst karking time to have confirmation.

The Jedi only tilts his head at Fives outburst. "Given you have been watching me and mine over the last four cycles," he says drily. "I'm sure you fine lads noticed the doorbell."

Jesse gives a low curse and Rex wants to join him because sure, they know that the Jedi have supernatural abilities, but it's still a blow to hear the finest stealth and scout training in the galaxy means kriff all to these people. They must have thought Rex and his men looked like fools, scrambling around in the hills and dirt, thinking they were being discreet.

Inexplicably, the Jedi seems stern expression seems to soften. "Well. No use in ruminating over what-ifs. Come along." He swept past them, hands tucked in his voluminous sleeves.

Rex blinked. Around him his brothers do the same, glancing at each other, then him, then the back of the retreating Jedi.

"Sir?" Tup says hesitantly. It's up in the air whether he's speaking to Rex or the Jedi.

"Hmm?" The Jedi turns to gaze back at them, a mask of faint puzzlement on his face. "You wished to speak to us, yes? No use doing so in a field when there's warm stew and tea inside. My dear grandpadawan just caught a magnificent bovine specimen too. There should be plenty to go around." He turns and continues towards the village.

Rex feels his squad's eyes upon him and squaring his shoulders he follows after the mysterious Jedi, praying to every deity that he's not making an enormous mistake.

#drabble #tcw fanfic #star wars #the clone wars #clone troopers #captain rex #Jedi as Quarians #AU #obi wan kenobi #Not sure if I'll do anything else with this #ahsoka tano #anakin skywalker

[kikiskeysgame]

Kiki's Keys to the Chicago Blackhawks-Dallas Stars Game (01/13/2024)

Good morning, Blackhawks fans! The Blackhawks are back in Chicago for a two-game homestead; tonight, they face the Dallas Stars for the third time in the regular season.

Here are my keys for tonight's game: 1.) The last time the Blackhawks and the Dallas Stars played against each other back on December 31, 2023, the Stars gained momentum first by scoring three goals in the first period. The Hawks need to make sure that they dont allow the stars to gain momentum early again. Try to start & end off tonight's game on a good, strong note. 2.) Continue to have a good defensive effort throughout the game. 3.) Keep the penalty minutes low.

#chicago blackhawks #kiki's keys #keys to the game #dallas stars

[tightwadspoonies]

A taste of spring! Our peas are sprouting, the grapes are leafing, the orchard is coming back to life, we’re cultivating unused spaces to encourage wild food like raspberries and grapes and garlic, setting up our summer kitchen, finding cool plants in unused spaces to take and grow cuttings elsewhere, and our first crop of asparagus season!

#homesteading #low effort homesteading #tightwadery #food #gardening

[jdblogs11]

The Art of Hand Pumps A Deep Dive into their Types and Uses

Water Wells and Boreholes Hand pumps are frequently used to extract water from wells and boreholes. These pumps provide an affordable and sustainable means of accessing groundwater, making them indispensable in rural and remote areas. The different types of hand pumps suited for wells include the Afridev pump, the India Mark II pump, and the EMAS pump.

AgricultureHand pumps are essential tools in agriculture, providing a consistent water supply for irrigation. Farmers use them to draw water from shallow wells or ponds, ensuring their crops receive the hydration they need. The treadle pump is a popular choice for small-scale farmers, as it allows for efficient irrigation without the need for electricity.

Emergency Response and Humanitarian AidHand pumps play a crucial role in disaster-stricken areas and humanitarian efforts. During emergencies such as earthquakes or hurricanes, access to clean water is often compromised. Hand pumps, like the Tara pump and the Rope pump, can be swiftly deployed to provide clean water to affected populations.

Community Water SupplyIn many communities, especially in developing regions, hand pumps serve as a primary source of potable water. They are cost-effective and relatively simple to maintain, making them a sustainable solution for ensuring access to safe drinking water.

Homesteading and Off-Grid LivingHand pumps are also valuable for off-grid living and homesteading. These pumps are perfect for those living in rural areas or seeking self-sufficiency. The Bison pump, for instance, is a popular choice for people looking to install a hand pump on their property, providing a dependable source of water without relying on external utilities.

Types of Hand Pumps

Lever Action Hand PumpsLever action hand pumps are easy to operate, with a lever that is manually pumped up and down to draw water from the source. These are commonly used for shallow wells and boreholes, making them ideal for small-scale irrigation and household use.

Treadle PumpsTreadle pumps are foot-operated devices that are especially popular in agricultural settings. By stepping on the treadles, the user activates a piston that draws water from the source. This type of pump is efficient for irrigation, allowing farmers to water their fields without the need for electricity.

Rope PumpsRope pumps are a low-cost solution for accessing water from shallow sources. They consist of a rope and a pump head, and users manually pull the rope to bring water to the surface. Rope pumps are simple, robust, and easy to maintain, making them suitable for both rural communities and emergency situations.

Submersible PumpsSubmersible hand pumps are designed for deeper wells and boreholes. They feature a pump unit that is lowered into the water source, allowing them to access water from greater depths. Submersible pumps are often used in conjunction with solar power for remote off-grid applications.

Conclusion: Hand pumps are versatile and vital tools in various fields, from agriculture to disaster relief. They ensure that clean water is readily available, making them an indispensable part of many communities worldwide. Understanding the different types of hand pumps and their applications can help us appreciate the significant role they play in our lives. Whether you’re a farmer, a humanitarian worker, or someone interested in sustainable water solutions, hand pumps are a fascinating and important technology.

[lee--morgan]

The Bad Colour If you ever saw the M Night Shyamalan movie ‘The Village’ you might remember how red was called the bad colour... This is a story about foxgloves. When we moved to this property we were quickly pressured to begin the community effort to help destroy foxgloves. The first year I claimed we would only allow a small number of these beautiful flowers to live here. I laugh at this person I used to be. Reluctant to destroy these flowers I argued that there was no stopping them. By year three I began to realise ‘the bad colour’ had become our lord and master. By year four I watched helplessly, very sick, while they began to become our only surviving crop. Rats feeding on the chicken food, ate our apples and even our roses. These days, heading into year five on the property, I have learned some things. We fought the foxgloves on the beaches and the landing grounds. Not because I hate them but so the indigenous plants and animals could get the ground back. From the need to weed, take away opportunities from pests and sometimes kill them, I have learned there is no such thing as a low maintenance bush block. You can build a bolt hole for you and your people but you will have to fight invasive species (even if you are one, as the land doesn’t care about the finer points of your ideas on this), you will have to clear it, struggle with other creatures that want your food and otherwise get your hands dirty with the bad colour. #homestead #community #bushcraft https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm5YeJBLzoQ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#homestead #community #bushcraft

[spooookums]

Exirga - chapter 1

The sun radiates through a crack in the curtains, creating a bar of light that crosses over a woman in bed – more specifically, her resting eyes. She rolls in her bed to avoid it, facing the opposite wall, but the mirror propped on it reflects the morning light just the same. It is the 45th day of the 3rd season, yet the cold air has at least another dozen nights to reach the southern woods where Loga resides. She remembers this as she shakes herself awake, and remembers that she must prepare for a spell of low yield in the gardens as well as the hunt in the near future. She throws her legs off the bed and onto the cold wooden floorboards, grimacing through the discomfort of leaving the serene weightlessness that her dreams brought her. Her room was small and triangular, being where an attic might be in a well built home. It was as sparse as the rest of the cabin, the bare, splintered plank walls highlighting a disdain for time spent on frivolous things such as aesthetics. As Loga climbs down her ladder she notes this fact with pride, as if a lack of effort to make a shelter into a home proved her resolve as a wild woman, surviving outside of civilization. The night before provided a waning crescent, meaning for breakfast she would have eggs on buttered sourdough with a new homemade brew of mead. All of the individual pieces of this meal tasted odd compared to their professionally or commercially made counterparts – aside from the eggs – but after a year of trial and error Loga embraced her small victories. As she gnaws mindlessly at the scraps left on her plate, her eyes fix on the swaying branches and leaves out her window and glaze. Her thoughts dance through her plans for the day before they land on one she had almost forgotten about, one that’s scheduling isn't in her control. Anxiety spikes through her spine but is quickly suppressed as she lifts herself out of her seat and changes into her working clothes. ----- Making for an awkward sight, the brutish woman tends to her gardens with as much care for life as she can muster. After a few crushed sprouts and ripped roots, there was no denying she lacked a green thumb. Loga calms her frustrations by thinking about what she might hunt instead to make up for a lost tomato plant. The thought of fresh venison waters her mouth but she thinks it unwise to tease her appetite at this time. She moves to feeding the goat and the hens. She bought the livestock at an auction before her seclusion, and through the months they have developed a mutual respect for each other. If this lifestyle persists, however, she would be forced to return to a nearby town in search of a rooster and another goat to perpetuate her livestock’s population. The fences they were kept in were shabby – as was the rest of the homestead – but what Loga lacked in craftsmanship, she made up for in sheer grit. Only one chicken was lost to wolves in the whole year, and not for lack of trying. Loga kept a keen ear out in the night and the coops were within the field of view from the bedroom, so there have been many cold dark nights that involved some impromptu wolf hunting. ----- Keeping the road through the woods within eyesight in anticipation of a visitor, the woman takes to chopping firewood for the cold evening. After dinner, she likes to read by the fire and ponder the stars outside the window, and thus she has used more firewood than most during the previously warm nights. Her collection of books is sparse, but the contents contain a few classics of her time, some recommended philosophy books, a raunchy romance novel, and a large, heavily annotated cookbook. Perhaps she would be anticipating the next chapter in the verbose and dramatic narrative she had been chipping away at since the summer started if her mind wasn't completely clouded by the visitor that was sure to arrive any minute. The sun had crested the trees that surrounded her claimed patch of land, and beads of sweat rolled down her freckled and scarred skin. The sting of sunlight mixed with the tingling goosebumps from the cold paths the drops took made the suspense too much to bear.

Loga sits and forces her mind to think back on how long it’s been since she last spoke to another person. 3 full moons ago? Or does the passing woodsman not count? It was just an awkward wave, but if not then it would make it since the start of the summer. Suddenly she feels silly. She has lived through so many things that should have by all rights left her gutted in the mud, faced odds that no sane person would bet two rats on, much less their lives. And here she was, afraid of a conversation. Maybe instead of strengthening her, the isolation has weakened her. Maybe this whole endeavor was a regression. She shakes this idea away and continues on her work. Her body is strong and her mind is focused, and her decisions shouldn't be questioned so lightly, even by herself. ----- A few more hours pass before a hooved trot could be heard from the wooded road. Loga sits by the porch after finishing her chores with a new cup of her mead, feigning a casual demeanor. From the shade of the canopy emerges the head of an animal she was not at all expecting. Hailing from the mountainous regions of the east, a mount resembling a horse sized llama, or perhaps an alpaca, saunters towards the cabin. Behind its long and fluffy neck, the visitor rides on its back waving dramatically as if afraid he would not be seen. Loga gives a slight wave back, still in awe at the creature she was seeing. The visitor parks his mount by a fence post and hitches the reins before making his way up to the front steps. He dawns a cloak of hundreds of green feathers, obscuring his form like more of a forest apparition than a man. On his head rests a pair of small antlers, and to obscure his face a grinning wooden mask. If not for his lively demeanor, this druid would make a finer monster than witch. “Pondormio, you received my letter then.” Loga says, almost relieved she still remembers how to speak. “A letter? Nay, I only wished to police your garden. I heard the cries of fruits in agony and felt it my duty to rescue them from your clutches.” “Well I am afraid you arrive too late. The tomatoes lie there, slaughtered by me boot. Perhaps the cabbages will be next, should they lose hold of their tongue.” The two laugh heartily and Loga shows Pondormio inside. ----- Loga had water heating over a fire before the druid arrived and poured the boiling water into a pot to brew him an herbal tea, a simple gesture that took a surprising effort beforehand. She sat with him at her small dining table and gestured towards the window at the creature she gawked at earlier. “It appears to be from a distant land. Have you traveled far?” she asks, wondering more where she could find creatures as beautiful as that one. “Of the present seasons, aye. Though this visit was curiously along the way to my next destination, no excess effort to worry over.” Pondormio answered modestly, but the honesty of the statement was hidden by a tone as masked as his face. Loga had only met him thrice before, all within a short string of days as he helped her build and settle into her most recent home. Speaking candidly and with purpose of friendliness made her realize how hidden he kept himself, though. The lack of transparency rubbed her the wrong way, but she accepted that some people just keep others at arm's length. Besides, Pondormio has done nothing but good for her, and there is a trust to be had in that. “The trinket shop you had planned all those moons ago must rest where my garden does, I take it?” “Oh quite. The merchandise was plenty - and the prospects of customers willing to suspend their strict dogma long enough to entertain the esoteric truths and mysticism of the rotten books and mundanely hued stones on my shelves - were few. I did not wish to part with a large portion of my wares, by the by.” he waves nonchalantly. “Huh” Loga nods. She wonders how she would feel if she set up a shop only for it to promptly fail. “I suit the role of a traveler far better. Humans were constructed as nomads, and I have never denied the tides of nature in my veins. My mount, Ortuyae, was sold to me in a country called Pinyuni. Have you heard of it?” Loga shakes her head. “If fate ever wills you to the east, seek the Pinyuni mountain range. Small communities of wise and strong people co-exist with the frosted air and live lives of inner peace and magic. I learned much from them.” Pondormio sips his tea and straightens himself in his chair, ruffling his feathers in the process. “But you did not write me so I could tell you of my travels. Would you prefer the examination now or do you need to prepare?” Loga leans back in her chair and thinks for a second. “Aye, best to get the critical portion of the visit over with now.” She stands and moves to Pondormio’s side as he turns his chair for a better look. Loga lifts the left side of her shirt to the fifth rib, exposing a large blackened mark near the diaphragm and below the left breast. It is half made of a large centralized area – and another half by long snaking tendrils across the skin, bearing the resemblance of a growing tree’s roots. Pondormio leans close with the eyes of a surgeon. “This is the vexation I wrote you for” Loga grumbles. “It bears no ache, no further illness, but it is firm to the touch and grows by the day.”

“You were right to call upon me” Pondormio sighs as he leans back. “This would perplex most doctors to be found in the nearby towns.” He looks around the cabin, then turns to Loga and asks “where can you lie comfortably?” ----- The witch doctor leans over Loga as she stares at the pointed ceiling of her chambers, answering rapid questions of ‘can you feel this’ or ‘does this hurt’ with variations of ‘no’ and ‘slightly’. It was becoming apparent to her that the situation might be more serious than an oddly shaped rash. The questions take a sudden turn. “You hunt often, yes?” asks Pondormio “N- aye? I suppose I do.” Loga answers, surprised “Anything… particularly unique?” “Do you wish to raid my pantry? Or do you only aim to rasp me? I find this unimportant at this time.” she states in an irritable tone. She had only expected this to be an annoyance at best but was feeling wary now. “Answer.” Pondormio is suddenly stern and cold. He stands straight and looks Loga in the eyes. Loga pauses, and lets out a long breath. “A buck of blue pelt and silver flecked prongs. Two moons ago. The meat tasted sweet, as if honey ran through its veins. Is this…?” “Yes.” the druid says kurtly, never breaking his gaze. “Will you help me?” Loga asks, disinterested in the apparent mood change. Pondormio says nothing for a moment, but she can sense something bubbling to the surface – Something real. “You slaughtered the chosen deer of these woods. Poached the gods’ favorite. This sickness is an Exirga, a holy rot that will spread from your belly and consume you just as you consumed the sacrament of the blessed creature. A penance for your overreaching gluttony. It is not in my power to cure you.” the witch says in a matter of fact tone as he packs away what instruments he had drawn. He does not seem too stricken by the woman’s fate. Loga sits up and glares into the wooden mask. “If you have only come to foretell my death and preach of penance then perhaps you should find your way to the front of a temple instead of my bedside-” she snaps, voice shaking “...but at least tell me of my time left in this realm.” “You have three seasons of being whole. After that, your soul will have faded too much to keep your wits. First your memory goes… then your senses. In one more season you will be reduced to a shade, a body that moves mindlessly through the world. By all means but physically, you will be dead.” Pondormio looks away Loga lies back down. Facing death is what she did well, but never has it sounded so certain, so prophetic. It strikes a different nerve to hear that you will die within a year – as opposed to surviving where death could strike at any time. The finality twists the stomach and the hopelessness weighs the bones. It feels like ages go by as thoughts of depression and attempts at planning final days rush through Loga’s head, battering her mind to a quiet and sorry state. Then Pondormio speaks. “There may be something to be done.” “The diagnosis rang terribly bleak in my ears, Druid.” Loga says in a raspy and tired voice. “I cannot help you… but I may know of someone who can.” Pondormio pats her shoulder “up you go, you sorry sight. I will draw us a path.” ----- “Here-” points Pondormio “-is where we reside.” The map is so large that it barely fits on the dining table, with small tears where the yellowed paper folds. Small annotations and bits of writing litter the landscape, some notes about the culture of the peoples, some about the quality of the wildlife to be found. Pondormio is a well traveled man, and seems to make the most of his journeys. In the wars of old, Loga thinks, he might have been a powerful ally for a kingdom to hold. “Here-” he drags the map down to reach the point “-is where we may search with the best chances for the Sovran Mystic.” “A wizard?” Loga raises an eyebrow skeptically. “My personal pedagogue and master.” Pondormio nods. “And he is so far? That is…” Loga compares the known distances on the map to the one presented “at least four moons away, and that is only if all passes without obstacle!” Pondormio shakes his head “Five. The Beltorn pass collapsed two years past, meaning to proceed across the Lemented River we must make a crescent through the kingdom of Diermoth to cross the Great Arches.” “We?” Loga faces the witch, suddenly noticing his word choice. He nods quietly. “I know the way and you do not. This is not a journey one makes alone.” Pondormio drags a soft red stone lightly across the parchment, making a chalky line across the snaking roads with small red particles. He stops at the expansive lake to the north-east of Deirmoth and dots a path around the islands that pepper the middle of the body of water. It seems they will need to stow themselves on a ship at some point in the journey. It was a prospect that made the lengths and distances Loga will have to go to save her own life sink in as reality. “We leave next morning, wasting no time” he folds his map and tucks it in an unseen compartment of his cloak. “stow only what is necessary and cannot be bought or foraged in a day. We will come together again here the hour before the sun rises, for I have obligations in the village to the east before this sun sets.” Pondormio stands and starts towards the door. “Ah-“ he catches himself “and burn whatever remains you still hold of the Teilou, the buck of the wood.” “Slow yourself, Pondormio. Do you not have business elsewhere for the year? To uproot yourself so suddenly is… strange. Did you not call this ‘penance’?” Loga asks almost scornfully. The riddle of his mind has taken a toll on her own, and it seems to be impossible to follow his meanings. Was he angered by her actions or just trying to make her feel remorseful? Was this whole endeavor planned by him? And how could she even trust his diagnosis? Pondormio turns to face her and speaks “Bring more of that tea, will you? This region mothers the finest herbs…” And gone he was. ----- Loga leans over a neatly sorted array of clothes, tools and camping supplies sprawled over the wooden floor of her cabin. She unlatches a lantern from its hook on the ceiling and places it with the other supplies. Something feels missing though. Her footsteps creak across the floors as she nears the cupboard against her back wall, a noise she never paid much mind to before, but was deafening in the still air now. She opens the cupboard to reveal her stash of rudimentary weapons and cutting tools: a bow made of stripped wood and deer hide, a handful of twisted and uneven arrows, a knife of sharpened stone with a wood grip, and her iron axe (the only thing she hadn’t made herself). She knew these would not do. She pushes the cupboard to the side, making another sound that threatened to ring in her ears until they could be filled with something else. The floorboards under the cabinet were bare now, and it was obvious they were modified. A hatch of sorts is revealed, with a single protruding nail keeping it in place. With her fingers, Loga pries the metal stud from the wood and throws the hatch open. Under it, a metal chest containing the last shreds of her past, the things her hands would not let her discard. She takes a deep breath and undoes the latches, opening the chest, and hastily digs through the items that were best not thought about. She finds what she was looking for and makes a pile beside her. In the pile is her pistol, her saber, in its ornate scabbard, and musket – along with the ammunition and cleaning supplies needed for them. She makes one last reach for her knife, but as she pulls it up it catches on one of the undesirable objects. In her hand is her old dagger, an object immaculately maintained and invaluable to survival that – though utilitarian by craft – is no stranger to bloodshed. On its tip hangs a white glove with now brown stains soaked through the fingers and palm. Why it was not dust in the mound of black ash and colorless scorched fabric behind the goat pen escaped her. She acknowledges the memory, but casts it back into the armored and easily-locked-away box. To give it any more thought would be an act of psychological self harm. Her attention turns to the pile. The contents of which would all make her feel more secure on her journey into the unknown, but to bring them all would be condemning her back to break. She takes only what is necessary: her dagger and flintlock pistol, along with two horns of gunpowder and a bag of bullets. It was light and compact, and in a tight situation it would have to do. She replaces the other weapons and re-organizes the floor and cupboard to where they lie before. The past stays buried, but it does not sleep. ----- As the sun tucks itself behind the horizon, so too does Loga tuck herself under her blankets, watching the fire crackle and sputter in the fireplace – a fire lighting a good fraction of her abode with warm light. She considers dislodging a book from the shelf and clearing her head with the fantastic escapades of legends past, but decides the dancing lights of the lantern flies out her window and hum of the crickets soothe her better. Her life was soon to take a dramatic turn, but the mundane would be what saves her from spiraling off the edge. She used to hate the monotonous tasks of the day growing up. Living in town as a girl, the chores seemed to never end. Her only respite was the friends she accompanied, causing disturbances felt across the whole block and taking what they wanted from those too dumb or too slow to catch them. But here she was – living a life of solitude, her days nothing but chores and work. Age had dragged her to places she thought she would always be running from, and made her sit quietly and accept it. Or maybe it was just time that changed her? She felt a bit better about leaving now. She built a life for herself and her dedication showed in the walls and the furniture. To leave it to rot would feel like betraying her effort, but it had surely served its purpose. To lie stagnant now is to wait for an end – but even before her doom was foretold, the end to the stillness would have been the same. A slow death in a makeshift bed, alone and with little to show for it. She was never meant to stay here forever, she just needed some encouragement to remind her. Loga climbs up to her cot, blanket still over her shoulders, and rests her bones against her feather-filled mattress in preparation for what might very well be the rest of her life.

#exirga #fantasy writing #original work #original fantasy #illustration #chapter 1 #writing #fantasy

[juulmcbride]

Phenotyping respiratory system decompensation following definitive end of the patent ductus arteriosus inside preterm infants.

In addition, the outcomes suggest how the breadth with the supercontinuum spectra may be relying on your soluble fiber duration along with pump power. The more time fiber in larger push electrical power can produce larger supercontinuum spectrum.Source of nourishment information through downtown encroachment as well as farming actions have already been suggested as a factor within causing environmentally friendly well being fall and lack of living thing range involving Miami environments. Rigorous agricultural pesticide utilize may also problem these types of environments. One particular possible system can be way to kill pests launch for the atmosphere after request. To obtain the vehicle increased in this area because of the calcareous soil, frequent bad weather, and high dampness along with conditions. These studies reviewed the environmental circumstances of the widely-used pesticide endosulfan. Atmosphere samples ended up collected over a five-year period of time (2001-2006) at a internet site inside agricultural group involving Homestead, California and at web sites located in neighborhood Biscayne as well as Everglades Nature (NPs). Suggest gas period air flow concentrations regarding alpha-endosulfan were Seventeen +/- Nineteen onal m(-3) at Homestead, A couple of.3 +/- 3.Half a dozen ng m(-3) in Everglades NP, as well as 3.Fifty two +/- 2.Sixty nine ng meters(-3) at Biscayne NP. Endosulfan pollutants via farming places around Homestead gave the impression to affect oxygen awareness findings on the NP internet sites. During an rigorous trying campaign, the very best complete endosulfan amounts at the NP web sites have been witnessed in times any time air flow packages had been forecast to advance through Homestead for the testing spots. Your alpha-endosulfan fraction (alpha/(leader + try out)) was used to check the actual info involving way to kill pests drift compared to volatilization on the total deposits stage. The particular designed item has an leader small fraction of roughly Zero.Seven, although volatilization is anticipated with an alpha small percentage associated with >Equates to Zero.In search of. The median alpha-fraction noticed in periods regarding higher farming action at Homestead and also Everglades NP was 3.86 along with 2.88, respectively, and throughout durations of lower farming action the average at Homestead has been 2.Ninety, suggesting efforts via go. The average leader small percentage with Everglades NP has been A single.Zero in times regarding low farming activity, while Biscayne NP has been A single.3 year long indicating atmosphere levels are generally primarily relying on localized volatilization. Created by Elsevier Ltd.Introduction: The particular muscle groups involving mastication are important within positioning your mandible and may for that reason get a new patency in the higher airway. The purpose of this study ended up being determine whether regenerating masticatory muscle tissue activity affects the actual a reaction to mandibular advancement splint treatment method in people with osa. Techniques: Thirty-eight mature patients along with osa had been recruited to the examine. Standard electromyographic activities with the proper anterior as well as rear temporalis, masseter, and also submandibular muscles ended up documented together with area electrodes while the patients have been conscious, inside the upright along with supine opportunities, using the jaw in the posture place, along with along with with no mandibular progression splint. Muscle mass task of the patients along with osa ended up being in contrast involving responders (apnea-hypopnea index change >Equals 50%, as well as <15 situations per hour) along with nonresponders (apnea-hypopnea directory adjust <50%) for you to click here mandibular advancement splint treatment method.

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