#which is also the problem with jerky & smoked fish

[cappurrccino]

i need a hundred bajillion dollars and an infinite supply of dried/cured/smoked snacking meats

[aisla229]

Finished the first arc of the tabletop rpg game I’m GMing, I can finally post all the art! More about the worldbuilding under the cut:

Sauris is a white moon who’s visible surface is mostly composed of clouds. It orbeting around a gas giant, Caelophy. Millenias ago one of the pieces of the crust rolled over in the sea, exposing its side to the sunlight above, past the violent chemically active (and colorful) clouds inbetween. Life boomed on the continent, giving birth to complexe lifeforms such as plants and animals. Currently, civilisation is on the verge of an industrialisation, with a wide and diverse range of trades, for the first time spanning the massive and entire continent.

The active Inner Cloud layer, in an event called the Cloud’s Shift, can burst outwards. When it touches the continent it is believed to be the cause of creation of magic, causing all kinds of odds events as well, like making felines walk on two legs, plants change color, or give mysterious abilities to hidden creatures.

Any magic needs to be cast with a magic circle, each categorised by naturally occuring sigils at the centers. There is 13 known sigils, each named and tide to the planets and moons of Sauro. However tides are about to move, with a few wary travellers coming across a 14th unknown sigil, with the only proof of it being a reserved kid and a suspicious necklace.

Dinosaurs are the prominent life form on Sauris, with only a few mammals (mostly rodents and our beloved humanoids), fish in the rivers, and giant insects in the bogs. Here is a world where dinosaurs are found as locomotion, pets, food, and terrifying predators. It being very cold on Sauris, all year round, they also all rock some fluffy feather/proto-feathers coats.

The seasons no Sauris, are divided into two summers and two winters, spending a large portion of the year partially obscured of Sauro by Caelophy. The highest temperature is around 10°C , and the lowest -30°C

Here on the continent:

- The Tower of Almonious: A distant land discovered by a great sorcerer who has constructed a massive tower on top. Not much is known to the common people of Sauris, and stays inaccessible even today.

- Pol Malleo: An Active volcano, that unlike the ones on Earth does not eject lava, but a hot water-like liquid. Said liquid, named Azura, has a bright blue-turquoise color that glows a powerful green when it comes in contact with certain gases. The jets can go as high as 50 km high in the sky, forming a long colorful trail as it floats away.When an eruption occurs during Altieme, the droplets of liquid tend to freeze instantly in contact with the cold air, forming icicles that drop on the land below, often causing great problems as they bullet the surface.

- Tiacus Mire: It is currently the land in which resides the biggest city of Sauris; Aegyp. It also has the biggest lake: Great Ophora. During Primaestas, the majority of its land gets flooded, creating humid bogs, prospice to massive creatures, such as insects, Spinosaurus, and water dwellers like the massive mosasaurus.

- The Isles of Breviq: It probably has the most unique land shapes of the entire Continent. Long, relatively thin pillars of land have slowly come apart from the main land mass over many centuries, resulting in its numerous islands appearing to float between the clouds. The people of Breviq are known for having tamed the difficult beasts of the sky; riding pterosaurs.

- Pol Incus: The tallest mountain of Sauris, and so the tallest point of the entire moon. Its difficult climb has challenged many minds to reach its freezing top where the air grows thin. Temples and even old artefacts lie across the peaks or hidden under it’s rocks, proving the curiosity this mountain has always inspired.

- Thyreophor: The biggest land of Sauris. Thyreophor is most defined by its lush forests with massive trees and year-long colorful plants capable of holding under massive amounts of snow. It still holds the title of largest population in total.

- The Sdomorphia Wild Plains: Long stretches of grass and brush-like plants extend for as far as the eye can see. Sdomorphia is the land of nomads and the biggest of the animal kingdom: the Sauropods. It might not contain many streams or lakes, but it’s vast stretches borrow perfectly for herd hunting.

- The Austro Tundra: Unlike the other more South lands of Sauris, the Austro Tundra’s soil never melts away. Its rock-solid earth and ice makes it difficult to build houses on, but it has not stopped villages from sprouting even on the coldest land.The Austro Tundra is the land of Theropods, having the biggest number of raptors alike, many of which have prized feather coats.

- The Coelorus Coast: It has some of the biggest rate of precipitation of Sauris, standing on the right side of Pol Malleo against the strong air currents brushing the clouds below. Perhaps from the warmth created by Pol Malleo, the snow in Coelorus tends to melt a lot quicker than the other lands, and with the high amount of rivers and streams lining the soils, it also is one of the most fertile places. The steep sides of the volcano create perfect ranges for step agriculture, and primarily corn and rice.

- Cephalia: It currently has the title of the land with the biggest number of farm-land. Cephalia is often defined as the most friendly populace. With its loudest voices being farmers and workers, it has a particular streak of freedom and carelessness attached to its name.

- The Shantung Sway: A land carrying its own ecosphere, the people of Shantung have remained centuries without connection to the rest of Sauris. The current path to its land is extremely recent and trades have yet to be initiated. Apart from a very few explorers that have left Shantung to see the lands, and all described as fairly eccentric, interactions have been minimal so far.Shantung has been described as odd and fairy tale-like. With plants that glow in the dark, upside-down trees that prevent snow from reaching the ground, and weird spiky structured rocks. With bizarre animals, dinosaurs naked without feathers, small floating octopus creatures, and long leg-less organisms that slithered like tree branches.

- The Tenonto Canyon: The great divider between Malleo and Incus, the canyon expands down as far as can see, battered with wild winds and dangerous looking tornadoes beneath the clouds. A single bridge has been built on the closest edges, where the trade route quickly bustled with life, and ultimately created Mer, an unique city split in two across each side, one in the Tiacus Mire and the other in Thyreophor.

I’d like to say a big thank you to the players for being so patient and being so invested in this world i created, I love you guys. And thanks to anyone who actually read this!

[tastesoftamriel]

What have you found to be the more popular meals, snacks, and desserts among the children of Tamriel? I can imagine a khajiiti cub getting scolded for sneaking a moon sugar cookie from the jar.

The children of Tamriel live diverse lives, but have one thing in common: a love for snacks and treats. Of course, every Province offers something different, making even the youngest among us ready for a future in culinary adventures!

Altmer

The High Elves are known for the strict discipline of their children, but they are for the most part pampered and adored. This definitely extends to the diets of Altmeri children, which are really quite impressive and prepares them for a future of haute cuisine. The average meal is an ideal balance of meat or fish, starches, and vegetables, while still being delicious. Grilled cheesy venison patties, a warm salad with brie and roast pears, and lightly fried potato chips with tomato sauce are typical children's fare in Summerset.

Argonians

Children are one of the most important groups in Argonian society, and care extends especially to snack time for the young! A common treat for young Argonians is a sweet sago porridge with mashed taro and sweet potatoes, lotus seed paste, and coconut milk. It's nutritious and delicious, so much that some Argonians still consume it well into adulthood!

Bosmer

Wood Elf kids love munching on sweetgnat "bark", a type of jerky that's made from a dried and smoked paste made from a local insect that is surprisingly sweet. The bark is mixed with honey and fat, and is chewy, nutritious and flavourful. Also especially good for teething infants.

Bretons

The old jokes about Hags preferring to steal Breton children because they're plump and juicy, likely due to the treats that they're plied with. From dried fruit bars to chocolate cookies, you'll find all sorts of sweet delights. Yet surprisingly, the most favoured food among kids in High Rock are "fingers" made from deep fried, breaded fish paste. They're dipped in a mild lemon-pepper mayonnaise, and are a great snack or meal alongside some baked potato fries!

Dunmer

Dark Elf children aren't quite granted the same luxury as others in Tamriel, as there aren't any specific foods for kids- in Morrowind, the tradition is that you eat what's on the table, no exceptions. That isn't to say that snacky morsels don't exist. Scuttle puffs are a cheesy-flavoured snack made from puffed saltrice that's mixed with scuttle and baked until crispy. The end result is absolutely moreish, and chances are you'll be eating them by the fistful! Try them dipped in some fiery Stonefalls-style chili-scuttle sauce for a grownup version of this treat!

Imperials

In Cyrodiil, children traditionally enjoy a balance of sweet and savoury snacks, such as roasted nuts, honey-basted jerky, frozen fruit, and all sorts of baked goods. One of the most popular hits with Imperial kids is a scoop of frozen fruit-based yoghurt (usually berry or stone fruit) that's served in a wafer cone. Sometimes it's topped with fresh or frozen fruit, or a dusting of chocolate chips. It's especially good on a hot day!

Khajiit

Kittens in Elsweyr get a taste for moon sugar early in life, especially when mixed with milk. As such, milk-based desserts and meals are at the forefront of every growing Khajiit's diet. One example of this is a creamy, steamed egg and condensed milk pudding, served with a good drizzle of moon sugar syrup. These little ramekin-sized puddings, usually served cold, are too good to resist, and are the undisputed champion of Khajiiti children's desserts. And yes, they come in big portions too.

Nords

The children of Skyrim, even orphans, are looked upon dotingly by most of the population. I remember snack time at the Temple of Mara as a child: in addition to sweetrolls, taffy, and honey nut treats, we also enjoyed delicious, bite-sized cinnamon buns with honey and cinnamon. They were an enormous luxury, and where I got my penchant for baking!

Orcs

Young Orcs have healthy appetites, and their meals and snacks are served in big portions to make sure they grow up right! One traditional snack that's always popular among the kids (especially those with growing tusks) is mammoth or echatere jerky. The meat is seasoned with spices, smoked, and dried, until chewy but supple...most of the time. I've had echatere jerky that was so hard I nearly broke a tooth once, but it was of course not a problem for the Stronghold youngsters.

Redguards

The Alik'r is a place where you grow up rugged, and even the wealthiest Redguards prepare for a life of harsh sun and sands. Children therefore have a special place in their hearts, and get plied with treats like sugar dumplings. These little parcels of glutinous rice dough are filled with an exploding coconut sugar syrup centre, and are rolled either in dried coconut or powdered sugar. A choking hazard to be sure, but life in Hammerfell is dangerous after all!

[lenademonn]

All This Time - 2

*Summary: Elena used to be closed off and composed, always in control of her feelings and actions. She knew how to survive long before world ended and didn’t need anyone to keep her alive. Because attachments are liability, make you weak especially in this new world where dead are walking and living are more dangerous than before.

A slow burn Daryl Dixon x OC; from season 1 forward, ongoing. Angst, Violence, strong language, sarcastic humour and more.

Chapter 2

Day 44

I was having a dream. I knew that part of my psychological training was to recognize reality from the fantasy. And that was definitely the latter, because there was no way in hell that his strong hands were tracing my calves, his calloused fingers making me shiver, and that his mouth was pressed to my core, licking and sucking giving me the endless pleasure spreading from toes to the top of her head. I moved my hips up, bringing myself closer to his face, which earned me a low growl from his throat's depths.

"Elena," his voice did wonder to me, but I also realized that it came out near my ear, so way closer then it should be. "C'mon women, wake up!"

I opened my eyes and sat up straight, knife in hand, quickly pressed against someone's throat. "Whoa, easy, it's just me!" I blinked rapidly and saw familiar blue eyes in front of me, hand grasping my wrist, trying to ease the knife's pressure off himself. He was crouched next to my sleeping bag, ready for the day, tents fold open, allowing the flow of the fresh air. I pulled away and put my hand over my heart.

"Shit Daryl, this isn't how you wake up people, at least not me! I could fucking kill you!" My voice was still groggy from the sleep, and my mind was spinning from remnants of the dream he interrupted. Seeing him here in my tent just seconds after his image - 'Stop it silly!'

"Ya said to wake ya up when I'm goin' for a hunt. " I closed my eyes, trying to even out my breathing.

"Yeah, give me a ten, and I'll be there." He grunted and gave me one last glance before crouching out of the tent.

It was more than a month since we set up our camp at the quarry and my revelations. We were hunting and sending Glenn to gather necessary supplies, we had laundry and cooking duties and perimeter checks. It was usually myself and Dixon brothers in the woods looking for a game for the whole group. Surprisingly, the older brother wasn't that horrible after closer interactions. Of course, he still called me 'Blondie' and 'Sweetcheeks' or 'Dollface' and looked at my chest every opportunity he could get, but after what I told them about myself, he seemed to respect me a little bit more. Maybe because he was in the military once or perhaps because he has morals even if they are a bit twisted sometimes.

Today Merle was going on a run with Glenn, though, so it was just younger Dixon and me. We planned to make it an overnight trip and hunt for something more than only squirrels or birds. Andrea and Amy offered to take a boat they found by the lake and try to catch some fish, so hopefully, we will have enough food to last us for a few days by tomorrow afternoon. If Glenn will grab all the items from the list I gave him, I would smoke some of the meat and make a nice jerky. About the only thing, I didn't fuck up in the kitchen department.

I quickly changed my clothes, including wet panties, and I smiled, remembering a vivid dream from just a few moments ago. It's only because I spend so much time with him recently and because I didn't have sex for months. No need to read into it. Right?

Once dressed, I put on my reigns and stashed throwing knives inside holders, the gun secured on my waist belt. I checked my quiver and counted the arrows, in the backpack I put all the necessary items for an overnight hunting trip and rolled an extra sleeping bag to attach it to the top of the pack.

"How much longer woman?" Daryl's voice startled me, so I quickly left the tent, spotting him next to the entrance.

"Jeez I'm coming, let me just fix my hair" He gave me a funny look "You don't want me to get grabbed, do you?" It came out harsher then I intended, but I just ignored it and pulled my hair down and run my fingers through it. Blonde curls spread all the way to the small of my back, I could fix it before I came out of the tent, but after my dream, I felt the need to show them to Daryl.

Since that day in the woods, when I was gathering things to make my bow, I wanted to make an impression on him and see how much I can push him, and my hair was the thing I liked about myself the most, well just after boobs. I quickly pulled it into a simple plaid and then twisted it, on the top of my head, securing everything with a hair tie. I could feel man's eyes on me through all that process, but when I finally looked at Daryl, he turned around and started walking towards the woods.

*

We were walking for most of the day, caught a few squirrels and three perky rabbits when we finally decided to set a camp next to a stream we found. Now when I say we caught that game, I mean mainly Daryl. I am good with my homemade bow, but shooting unmoving targets during training isn't exactly this same as using it on animals. One of the rabbits was mine, but that was an accident, but Daryl doesn't need to know that.

We were tracking a deer for the past two hours, but it turned unsuccessful, and we could always pick up its trail tomorrow. Daryl was setting the perimeter with a string and some old cans so we would be notified of any movements during the night. I started skinning the animals putting the guts and useless parts into the plastic bin bag we brought with us.

"I'll run the bag out, circle around, and take the meat to the creek," I told Daryl, and after receiving a nod, I took off quickly and run for about fifteen minutes in the opposite direction of the tracks we saw today. If there is any deer here, the last thing we want is for the dead to eat it. I dropped the bag, dug a shallow hole in the ground, and ditched inside, covering it back up with dirt and leaves, then I circled back towards our night camp, whistled softly while passing why so Daryl would know it's just me and jogged to the water.

I started washing the meat and cut it into the strips, made sure that I cleaned it properly of any spare blood, and put it down on a clean rug on a boulder next to me to cool down. That's the problem with overnight trips, we had to make sure that whatever we caught won't go bad.

We actually worked well together, Daryl was quiet, but it wasn't uncomfortable unless I said something stupid, usually with a sexual context, which made him blush and tell me to shut up. Now that I was thinking about it, I wasn't that different from Merle, when it came to his younger brother, and that thought gave me goosebumps. I scooped the meat and went back towards the camp, bent over the lines to not make any unnecessary noise, and sat down next to a small fire Daryl started when I was gone.

"Pass me my bag, please," I asked him, and he reached towards it and took few steps, so he was next to me, sitting down next to me on the ground to share the work. I took my clean rug from the backpack and set it down on the rock in front of us, and then I passed Daryl a tub of salt. We worked quickly and quietly till everything was done, took a few pieces, and started cooking them while the rest was put into the zip bags and then to into my pack.

"So, how did you learn to hunt like that and using this crossbow?" I asked him and looked in his direction. He was sitting next to me, but with enough space between, and he was turning the meat around. His blue eyes met my grey ones, and his face had a blank expression. I knew that he didn't let people in, but I hoped that the question was innocent enough for him to answer.

"My old man and uncle." He started slowly turning his gaze toward the fire. "Money was tight, and my da usually drank it away, so Merle and I had to learn how to get our own food." Ok, so maybe that question wasn't as safe as I thought. I knew that the last thing he was looking for was pitty over a little boy who grew up in a though home. So I settled for an answer, which hopefully would release the tension.

"Well, sure as hell, it's handy right now. No matter the reasons, I'm glad you learned. I couldn't ask for a better hunting partner" He looked at me again with a slight frown. "'Cause, you know, Merle talks way too much." That finally made him smile. Alright, that wasn't a smile, small side smirk, but I knew I couldn't ask for more, not from him, not yet. That didn't mean I will stop trying.

"What about ya? Were ya really a fed?"

"Really?" I looked at him and slapped his arm. "We don't like that term, just for the future. Yeah, I was. Behavioral Analysis Unit to be precise."

"And what's that?" He side glanced at me, unsure what kind of job I actually did. My nose crinkled as I was thinking of explaining what I did in life before all this shit without sounding like I was bragging.

"Well, basically we were catching criminals, mainly serial killers, based on their behavior. You analyze how the victim was killed and left what was done to them, where was the body left. We were profilers." I was looking blankly in front of me now, thinking about days on the job and all the evil people I've met and spoken to. How many close calls I had with death and yet nothing compared to the nightmare we're living in now.

"Not the most useful skill in zombie apocalypse though. I cannot just talk my way out with walkers by telling them how watching their moma kill herself made them what they are now, right?" I looked at him with a serious face, even if my words were laced with sarcasm.

"Whatever lay down, I'll take the first watch." He stood up abruptly to check the perimeter, and I was looking at him, my gaze following his actions.

"Ok, but wake me up in few hours so we can swap you need your sleep as well, Dixon." It was still early, but I knew we'll be waking up before the first light, plus all this walking around in the woods was tiring, but something didn't sit well with me. Daryl finished our conversation abruptly, even though he seemed interested in my story before.

What did I actually know about younger Dixon? Not a lot, most time we spend together, we were quiet and shared only a few stories before coming back to camp, most of our talks focusing on subjects of hunting or Merle talking his mouth off about nothing in particular. The rest of the information I had was just observation and some comments from Merle, and I didn't know how much to believe in his words.

Alright, so Daryl is in his mid-thirties and lived in Georgia his whole life, most of it with Merle, grabbing some odd jobs before they moved on. I suspected all that moving around was because older Dixon was doing drugs and owed money to many people or was trying to avoid jail time.

But that doesn't explain Daryl's social awkwardness and how guarded he behaves. He definitely is an introvert and doesn't like to be touched even when his brother puts an arm on him, I noticed Daryl goes still and tense. That suggests some sort of abuse, but not from Merle, no, he wouldn't be able to look at him like he does. Daryl actually looks up to his big brother.

I let a low growl of frustration. This new world makes me go crazy; I could separate myself from any personal emotions before all of this, but now we had people to look after, people to protect, and as much as it was flattering, I wasn't used to someone depend on her in that way. I started to care for those people, and my weird fascination with Daryl Dixon was undoubtedly unhealthy. I shouldn't be so invested in trying to get to know him. And for sure, I shouldn't give a damn if I hurt his feelings or stirred something from his past.

"Ya thinkin' so loud, that ya'll attract all the geeks from this woods." His low voice startled me, and I sat up in my makeshift bed. Daryl was sitting across from me, on the other side of our little campsite, cleaning his crossbow, eyes not leaving the weapon, but I could tell that he was alert, ready for anything to make a move in the dark. When I didn't reply straight away, he quickly glanced in my direction, one brow risen in a silent question. I let a small sigh escape my lips as I run my hand over my face.

"What I said before." The words I spoke were quiet and soft, eyes locked on him, watching for any body language changes. "I know that we don't tell each other a lot, but I'd like to think that you don't mind my company. The last few hunting trips were pleasant, and you didn't call me stupid in like a week, so that's progress."

I watched his lips twitch a little making me form my own small smile on my full lips. "But that last comment, about how I'd sometimes talk to suspects..." I stopped when Daryl stiffened, and a muscle on his face twitched while he clenched his jaw. It was very subtle, he was good, very good at hiding his emotions. But I was very good at what I was doing before the world went to shit, so I noticed it even in the dark of the night.

"There, that was this same reaction you have now. Now I don't want to pry... "

"Then don't" He interrupted me, his voice harsh, hands grabbing his weapon just a little bit harder than necessary. I looked down at my hands, thinking on how to play it out. Talking to Daryl was like a long and complicated chess game, one silly move, and checkmate.

"Alright, I just wanted you to know that I didn't mean anything by it." With that, I laid back down, turning on my side, so I was facing away from him, giving a man some sort of privacy.

Next Chapter

[scootoaster]

How aerial firefighters battle blazes from the skies

An Erickson Aero Tanker aircraft, left, dropping fire retardant. (Shelby Snow /)

The most dramatic way to fight a fire is from the sky.

An air tanker may fly about 150 feet off the ground at 161 miles per hour and can paint up to a mile-long line of retardant on the ground. A big helicopter could dump as much as 2,000 gallons of water to try to save a house. And smokejumpers fling themselves from airplanes 3,000 feet above their landing area below to snuff out a small fire in a remote area before it gets bigger.

Right now, California is home to two historically enormous blazes: the SCU and LNU Lightning Complex fires. The state is using aircraft to combat the two huge conflagrations. “They keep swapping positions for the second- and third-largest wildfires in our state history, unfortunately,” Brice Bennett, a spokesperson for CalFire, told Popular Science earlier this week. All the fires in the state right now cover an area larger than 1.25 million acres. “We’re dealing with just an incredible situation,” he comments. As of today, aerial assets in California have dropped 3.35 million gallons of fire retardant and 4.69 million gallons of water, according to Bennett.

California, of course, uses aircraft—it has both its own fleet and can employ contractors—to mount full-court presses on fires, but the practice is certainly not limited to combating burns in the Golden State. Here’s how these aerial operations work, and what it’s like battling blazes from the air.

Draw a perimeter

There’s an important, counterintuitive fact to know about those big planes full of retardant: “Air tankers don’t put out fires,” says Kevin Hopf, the chief pilot for an outfit called 10 Tanker. His company flies DC-10s that used to carry passengers; the seats and overhead bins and other equipment have all been removed. His aircraft has five external tanks that carry retardant and three big clamshell doors on the bottom, each about 22 feet long, which open to deploy the red stuff.

For the most part, tankers like the one Hopf flies drop a line of retardant not on the fire itself, but in a place that will help steer or contain the blaze. The “firefighting mantra,” Hopf says, is simple: “anchor, flank, and pinch.”

The first step is to begin the line of retardant at some type of anchoring area that can stop the fire, a starting point such as a bunch of rocks. Then comes containment. “You flank the fire, on both sides, and you keep running up the flanks until you get ahead of it, and then you start trying to pinch it off,” Hopf explains. Pilots will then begin bringing the two flanking lines towards each other.

That’s a standard firefighting tactic, although he notes that truly enormous fires—maybe 50 miles wide, 100 miles long—would be impossible to anchor, flank, and pinch. “There’s not enough air tankers in the world to do that,” he says. “Now you start going for structure protection.”

On those occasions, on a big fire when he’s tasked with guarding structures, “you hope to find out the next day that they’re all still standing,” he says. “We very seldom see our work.”

A tanker fighting a fire in Arizona in June. (John Hall - JDH Images/)

And it’s decidedly not about thrill-seeking or cultivating a cowboy image, says Brent Connor, the senior captain for Erickson Aero Tanker. Their fleet is mostly MD-87 aircraft that also used to be passenger-carrying airliners. “When I teach people how to do this,” he says, “I tell them that if your adrenaline is pumping, you’re probably doing something wrong.”

Deploy water from the sky

While the airplanes usually carry the red retardant, helicopters generally schlep water, which they dump on flames from above. Tanner McInnes flies a small, light helicopter—a Bell 407—for a Missoula, Montana company called Minuteman Aviation. If he’s dispatched to fly off towards a little fire in the forest—it might just be smoke spotted by a lookout, probably the result of a lightning strike—he’ll shuttle a fire manager in the front seat next to him, and two firefighters, part of a helitack crew, in the back.

After assessing the fire from the sky, he might land the helicopter nearby and drop off the firefighters. The manager stays on board. If the authorities want him to drop water on the fire, the manager will install a bucket that hangs from the bottom of the chopper, and McInnes will grab what he can from a pond or river. (He says he’s never picked up any fish.) And since he needs to be able to stick his neck out and look down while he’s flying with that bucket, the manager can remove the chopper’s side door and stash it inside. “It’s actually nice, because it’s hot generally when we’re flying,” he says.

He tends to carry about 180 gallons of water in a bucket. Still, he emphases that “aviation does not put out fires—it’s the firefighters on the ground.” Take a small fire, he says, by way of example, with one burning tree: he’ll douse it with water, only to find that the flames have sprung back up again. “It’s amazing how much heat there is: A lot of times, if lightning strikes, they hit the tree, and they smolder for days before they actually show themselves,” he says. To take care of the problem for real, the firefighters on the ground might cut down the tree, and break it up, and stir up the soil to make sure everything is out, and dig lines around it.

An Erickson helicopter in Greece in 2009. (Erickson, Inc/)

While McInnes’ chopper carries its water in a bucket, that’s not the only way to do it. Ken Chapman flies a strange-looking helicopter for Erickson Incorporated called an S-64 Aircrane, and to get the wet stuff on board, all he has to do is submerge a snorkel about 18 inches deep in a body of water. It sucks the water up through a hose, needing just about 40 seconds to fill up with around 2,000 gallons of fresh water.

When it’s time to drop the payload on a fire, Chapman’s goal is to deploy it from about 150 feet off the ground, flying at some 69 miles per hour. With that setup, as the water falls through the sky, it “loses its forward momentum, and rains down on the fire,” Chapman says. Dropping the water that way means that ideally there’s no “shadowing,” which is when the water smacks into just one side of the target. “If you come in low and fast, you’re going to paint on one side of the trees and stuff, and the other side is going to be dry,” he explains.

The most intense fire he’s ever flown was the 2018 Carr Fire in Redding, California. “The thing that was amazing to me was how fast it went, and it was burning in the city,” he recalls. “This thing was coming into subdivisions. It reached a point, where they just said, ‘Go save a house.’ And you’d get a load of water and you’d come in and dump, trying to protect a house, and by the time you went and got water and came back, the house was gone.”

Jump out of the plane

Not all aircraft drop retardant or water. Some deploy people known as smokejumpers. Pat McGunagle is a jumper based in West Yellowstone, Montana. He’s made more than 60 jumps, although the vast majority of those have been for practice—he’s a relative newcomer to the field. The jump height out of the Dornier 228 airplane he and the others fling themselves out of is 3,000 feet above the ground, although smokejumpers who use an older, round-style chute do it from 1,500 feet.

Jumpers aim to arrive quickly at a blaze in the woods—most of which get sparked by lightning—and deal with it before it spreads. They deploy in groups of two. McGunagle will jump out of the plane carrying supplies that include drinking water, food like beef jerky or peanut butter, solution for his contact lenses, and a pound of coffee. The coffee, of course, is for starting the day. “The youngest guy on the load has to make the coffee every morning,” he says.

Other gear, like chainsaws or Pulaski tools, comes down as cargo from the same plane from about 150 feet above the terrain.

To put the fire out, he says, you have to “dig and stir.” He’ll even use his arm to make sure it’s truly out. That works like this: “Stick your hand down in there, all the way to your armpit, down this scary, black, smoking hole, and find that little bit of fire down there,” he says, “and scoop it out and stir it.” That’s the way to make sure it’s truly extinguished—with work not from the sky, but on the dirty ground.

[creative-type]

Murder of Arthur Wright IX

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AN: Sorry again for the lack of updates. I kind of hate poetry and have no idea how some got into my story 

Also hawkshaw is Victorian slang for detective

Chapter Nine: Child of Sorrow

Margot reached the Red Griffin Inn as the bells struck noon. She scanned the streets for a familiar face, but Cain was nowhere to be seen. With a mild sigh of irritation she settled outside to wait. It was a cheerful and bright Sunday afternoon, and the traffic showed it. It was the sort of day to spend relaxing outside with loved ones, not investigating gristly murders.

Margot was especially dour after a poor night’s sleep, the new revelations of the Wright family churning in her mind. She was a mage, a woman of science and method, firm in both her opinions and convictions. She believed problems were best dealt with when they were small and manageable—whether that was in the workplace or at home.

The Wrights were messy. Even if Master Wright hadn’t been killed it was the sort of family drama that wouldn’t have been easily solved. In the past Margot had helped students deal with difficult situations at home, and knew on a more personal note that Lyra’s relationship with her mother was…complicated, to say the least. But this seemed different somehow, more tragic after two very preventable deaths.

She supposed part of her disappointment was with Master Wright himself. Their last interaction aside, she had always admired his work and was proud of the opportunity to play a small part in his research. A talent like his only cropped up once or twice in a generation, and with an elf’s longevity Master Wright could have contributed to his field for decades to come.

Margot was not so naïve to believe that being a good mage made one a good person, but it still shook her to have the pedestal of someone she respected—someone she had met and thought she knew, if only a little—crumble so spectacularly.

She was still mulling over her thoughts when Cain appeared ten minutes later lecturing a ratty-looking child in a newsboy cap.

“No scampering off till you make eyes with everyone in the building, then report back to me. Do you understand?”

The boy rolled his eyes. “Unlike your beard, I ain’t stupid. But I’m telling ya, that’s Rockhead territory. Louis broke his arm tanglin’ with one of their gang.”

“You saying you can’t handle it?” Cain asked.

“I’m saying you ain’t paying me to scoop a building and keep clear of the Rockhead lads.”

Cain fished in his pants pocket and thrust a handful of coins at the boy. “That ought to cover your trouble.”

The boy snatched the money almost before Cain had his hand out of his pocket. “It otta. Pleasure doin’ business, Mr. Cain.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Tobe. Ever think of cutting an old man some slack?”

“Only when my purse is as fat as your head,” the boy said with a cheeky grin. He tipped his hat to Margot. “This hawkshaw fancies himself a gentleman, so don’t let ‘em work you without buyin’ lunch first.”

“Tobe!”

The boy melted back into the crowd before Cain could say anything more. He rubbed his eyes, exasperated. “I swear that boy will be the death of me.”

“Who is he?” Margot said, suppressing a smile.

“A common ragamuffin,” Cain said sourly. “A scoundrel of the highest order, pickpocket extraordinaire, and my best informant. I’m having him watch the playhouse where you first met Anansi on a hunch.”

“He’s a kid,” Margot said.

“He’s a runaway who had a very good reason not to want to go back home,” Cain said. “I make sure he’s got money to eat and a fire during the winter, and in exchange get another set of eyes and ears on the street. He’s got a knack for it, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

Cain fished out a piece of jerky and sighed. “Do you have a half-penny I can bum? I just gave away all my spare change, and from what you said Anansi’s the type to stick to particulars.”

“You don’t have any in those magic pockets of yours?” Margot said.

“Pocket,” Cain corrected. “The rest are perfectly normal.”

“You never did say how it worked.”

There was a quiet snort, and Cain scratched the back of his head. “I’d hoped you’d forgotten about that. Shoulda known better. To make a long story short, it’s a vanishing pocket. Anything I put in there is technically in a state of existence and non-existence at the same time, which fools most spells protecting against theft—especially in old houses since the technique was only developed a couple of decades ago.”

“You’re lucky the Wright’s haven’t updated the defenses on their estate,” Margot said.

“They can’t, not without undoing a century of spellwork,” Cain said. “That house has had so many protection from fire spells on it you could douse the whole thing in kerosene and it still wouldn’t light. Would you risk taking that away on the off-chance an enterprising detective happens to have a workaround?”

“Tricky,” Margot said, impressed despite herself.

Cain tapped his forehead, grin spreading. “Mind like a steel trap.”

“And no change in your pockets, magic or otherwise.”

“Can’t deny it,” he chuckled.

“Anyway,” Margot said, “it’s probably best if I pay. Anansi very specifically said they would tell me a story.”

“That’s fair. Just remember, we’re trying to find out what Anansi knows about Desdemona.”

They walked inside together. The Red Griffin Inn was the type of place that, while not having the freshest paint or softest pillows, carried a certain amount of charm. It was only a few streets over from where Margot met Anansi for the first time, and catered to the same rough and tumble crowd. But the place was clean and sun streamed through open windows, carrying a fresh breeze along with the sunlight.

Margot’s attention was immediately drawn to a gaggle of children crowding the lobby. Some wore carefully mended clothing and went barefoot, while others were dressed in the crisp, clean linins of a merchant’s child. One girl, whose golden hair had been styled in the latest fashion, sat next to a boy so raggedy he made Tobe look like a prince in comparison. Every eye was glued to an orcish woman who sat at the center of them all.

She was dressed like a sailor and puffed contentedly on a long-stemmed pipe. Laugh lines framed deep-set brown eyes and a streak of white ran through a long braid. Even at a distance Margot could see the faint scars of a brawler across her knuckles.

The woman scanned the children while she smoked, a crooked smile spreading across her face as Margot and Cain settled in near the back. “Noon has come and gone. Who vould hear a story?”

As if by magic a coin appeared in each child’s hand. The woman handed around a battered cap, only pausing when she reached the ragged boy.

“For you, solnyshko, I vould speak a thousand stories,” she said, pressing the coin back in his hand along with a shiny red apple. Where she found one out of season would forever be a mystery, and the boy sat back with his eyes as wide as saucers, the fruit cradled protectively against his chest.

“Now yesterday I told the tale of the great Vizard Hym’s victory over the dread pirate Roberts. Should I continue his story, hmm? Or perhaps you vould like to hear the Dwarf King’s battle against the Lords of Night?”

The girl with the golden curls shot her hand into the air. “I want to hear about the Fairy Queen!”

“No, Khrone the Unkillable!” another shouted.

The woman listened to half a dozen suggestions and discarded them all before a young orcish girl at her feet said, “Can you please tell a story about the Wasted Lady?”

A hush fell over the children as the woman sat back in her chair and took another puff on her pipe. A glint entered her dark eyes, and she smiled. “You vould hear of the Lady? Very well, den. Our tale begins long ago, ven the stars vere still young in the sky…”

It was a story that Margot had heard a dozen times before, but the children were enraptured. Cain chuckled quietly under his breath and whispered to Margo, “When you said Anansi would tell any story in the world for a half-penny, I didn’t think it was literal.”

Margot craned her head at him. “That’s not Anansi.”

“What?”

Margot pointed behind the bar where a pimple-faced and beleaguered young woman was wiping down glasses. She was so unassuming Margot wouldn’t have noticed her, if not for the faint flicker of familiar magic that hid her true form.

“That’s Anansi.”

Cain did a double take. “You’re kidding.” Margot only shook her head, and he rubbed his chin in thought. “Right. Okay then. That’s not what I was expecting.”

“I get the feeling that’s how Anansi prefers it,” Margot said dryly.

Cain grunted in agreement. His eyes darting between where the orcish woman told her story and the false barmaid. Margot could almost see the gears turning in his mind as he processed this new information.

“Alright then,” he said so quietly Margot wondered if he was talking to her or himself. “Two can play that game.”

He strode over to the bar in a way that made his coat billow dramatically behind him. Margot followed in a less ridiculous manner and took the seat next to him. Cain had yet to remove his hat, and the shadows framed his face in a way that might have been intimidating if Margot didn’t already know him.

For a moment Margot felt uneasy. Trying to bully Anansi for information wasn’t going to work, but before she could say anything the not-a-barmaid was before them.

“What’ll it be?”

“It’s quite the crowd you’ve got here,” Cain said conversationally.

“If you don’t like the kids you can leave,” Anansi said. “Gudrid likes ‘em and she owns the place. Now what’ll it be?”

Cain nudged Margot softly in the arm, and she slid her half-penny across the bar. “I hear Gudrid isn’t the only one who knows her way around a story,” Margot said softly, voice laced with deceptive sweetness. “And I’m still looking for Desdemona Wright.”

Anansi blinked in surprise. It was the first time Margot had seen them break character, and her lips curled with the minor victory. The moment was gone almost as soon as it had come, and they regarded Margot carefully, dark eyes unfathomable.

“Still running errands for Felix then? I thought you were smarter than that, darling.”

“May I introduce my associate Mr. Dashiell Cain,” Margot said.

Anansi did the unthinkable and broke character a second time. They whipped their head toward Cain, sudden smile splitting their face. “Of course!” they exclaimed, drawing a look of ire from Gurdrid. Anansi offered a bashful apology before leaning across the bar table.

“You’re Conan’s little project?” they said in a stage whisper. “My goodness, you’ve grown.”

Cain frowned. “Do I know you?”

“No, but I know Conan Westmacott.” Anansi said. “Wonderful man. Spoke very highly of you, you know. I wept when I heard of his retirement. Wept. But it seems to be suiting him well, and he’s got you to follow in his footsteps. It all makes sense now.”

“Mr. Westmacott…talks about me?” Cain said, caught completely off-guard from this revelation.

“Of course, darling! You know, when I wrote that play of his he absolutely insisted on complete and total accuracy. No skimping on details, not even for the little half-orc who helped crack the case once and for all.” Anansi shook Cain’s hand enthusiastically. “Goodness, that’s been almost fifteen years now, hasn’t it? That play was my big break. I owe my career to Mr. Westmacott, and by extension you.”

“You wrote the play about the dwarven counterfeiting ring?” Cain asked.

“Wrote, produced, and acted,” Anansi said proudly. “My first one-man show. Conan thought the illusions were too gimmicky, but audiences loved it.”

“I didn’t know you helped Mr. Westmacott on the counterfeiting case,” Margot said, looking up at Cain.

“I…well, I didn’t. Not really,” he mumbled, his cheeks darkening with a blush. “It was a happy accident. I was just a kid who happened to be in the right place at the right time.” He coughed awkwardly.

“Anyway, that’s not why we’re here,” Cain said, trying to reassert himself. But it was as if the universe itself was trying to amplify his embarrassment. Any authority in his voice was drowned out as Gudrid finished her tale and released the small sea of children back to the streets.

Once they were gone Gudrid sauntered behind the bar and smacked Anansi on the back of the head. “I let you listen if qviet. Go make trouble someplace else.”

Anansi flashed her a charming smile that looked downright wrong on the face they were wearing. “You let me listen because I’m willing to work the bar for free—ow! That was uncalled for!”

Rubbing the back of their head, Anansi turned mulishly back to his audience of Margot and Cain. “See the abuse I put up with? I come trying to learn from the best storyweaver this side of the Tributine, offering free labor and asking nothing in return but to listen…”

Gudrid let out a low growl of warning, and Anansi raised their hands in a pacifying gesture. “I’m going, I’m going! Stars and stones, you’d think I drank all your beer and punched a hole in the wall.”

With nimble movements Anansi vaulted the bar before slinging an arm around both Cain and Margot’s shoulders. “Let’s go someplace more private, shall we? It seems I owe the professor a story of my own.”

Anansi led them to a private table and took the liberty of ordering them drinks. When Gudrid came around Margot took a polite sip and complimented the orc on her ale. The orcish woman softened a little at that, and Anansi was able to spout a cheeky retort without getting smacked.

The relationship between the two made Margot curious, but so curious enough to risk their chance at Desdemona by asking. Once they were are comfortably settled she caught Cain’s eye, and he gave a subtle nod.

“We would like to speak to Desdemona if it’s at all possible,” Margot said. “Do you know where she is?”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you, darling,” Anansi said.

“Can’t or won’t?” Cain asked.

Anansi shrugged languidly. “As long as you work for Felix Wright, I fail to see the difference. I’m disappointed, Mr. Cain. Conan never would have taken a client of his sort.”

Cain’s features hardened, but he gave no other reaction. “What’s your beef with Wright junior?”

“He’s a pompous, self-inflated buffoon,” Anansi said. They leaned on their hand and looked at Cain with a dreamy expression. “I’ll admit I don’t know him, but what I saw at the mage’s conference was enough. The conference paid for rooms for all the speakers. I always enjoy speaking with the locals when I travel, and was having a lovely conversation the proprietor of the hotel after my show when young Mr. Wright came stumbling in, drunk and angry. It must have been near two in the morning, the day before his father’s great demonstration and he was near-shouting with the help for not having his rooms ready.”

Anansi went silent for a moment, frowning slightly at the memory. “I was aghast. Felix Wright portrays himself a gentleman, but what sort of gentleman needs his daddy to come down and get him to behave out in public, hmm? I’ve seen his type before, and I despise it. I’ll not lift a finger to aid whatever cause that overgrown child is championing.”

Cain and Margot shared a look. The story Anansi told was completely at odds with Felix’s tale of the night before the murder. But which one was telling the truth?

“What exactly did Master and Mr. Wright say to one another in the lobby?” Cain asked.

“Oh, Master Wright knew better than to cause a scene in public,” Anansi said. “But I would give one of my eyeteeth to have been a fly on the wall in their room.”

“What about the performance itself?” Margot asked. “I was told The Death of Desdemona was written anonymously.”

“You heard rightly,” Anansi said. “People often give me copies of their work. I honestly don’t recall where I picked it up. The play itself is nothing special, there was a line of verse that caught my attention. That’s the only portion I performed at the conference.”

Anansi cleared their voice, and their demeanor changed, the playful trickster replaced by the famed performer. And with the change came a new face. Gone was the comely human, and in its stead was an elven woman with long brown hair. Almond-shaped eyes were the color of emeralds, her skin a rich olive complexion.  

It was not the face of Desdemona Wright. The girl in Master Wright’s photograph had brown eyes, and even at the tender age of five it was obvious that the Wright twins took after their mother. The mask Anansi wore bore little resemblance to that of Adaline Wright, but at a distance, in a darkened performance hall…

Margot tried to think of it from Felix’s point of view. It had been a decade since he’d last seen Desdemona. Her name alone shook him, perhaps enough to subliminally suggest that the woman he saw on stage was in fact his sister.

Whether the guise fooled Master Wright was another matter entirely, but Margot could believe that the name, along with a face that bore a slight resemblance to his daughter, would be enough for him to storm back stage and demand answers.

All of this flashed though Margot’s mind in the time it took Anansi to finish their illusion. In the blink of an eye she wasn’t in the Red Griffin Inn, but the grand stage of Benson Hall where Anansi stood on stage. The auditorium was dim save for a spotlight where Anansi stood.

Margot gripped the arm rests of her seat. She knew it was only an illusion. She knew. But her senses disagreed with what her brain knew to be true. She could feel the uncomfortable wooden seat, taste the familiar buzz of two hundred mages sitting in the same space.

Anansi spoke, their voice clear and ringing throughout the auditorium.

“Child of sorrow, none do mourn Alas, tis fate, now bear their scorn Lord and Lady turn their face And abandon thee in thy disgrace

Child of sorrow, none do mourn From friend and kin cruelly torn Fortune’s favorite son turns his head And finds another in your stead

Child of sorrow, none do mourn Lost in mis’ry, wandering lorn Seeking, searching as silence swallows pity’s cry Your father’s daughter bids thee die

The sun soon rises on an empty grave Though once abandon’d, hope doth save Child of sorrow, none do mourn As fire consumest dross, thou hast been reborn”

Each word was dripped in honey and hit with the power of a berserking orc. When Anansi finished Margot’s heart ached and tears were streaming down her cheeks, and she didn’t know why. She was not sentimental enough to fall apart over a melodramatic poem, but with Anansi’s performance that didn't seem to matter.

Suddenly Margot was back at the inn. Anansi offered her a kerchief, an apologetic smile on their face.

“I’m sorry, darling. I forget sometimes the affect it can have the first time”

“Hells bells,” Cain breathed. “That was…wow.”

“It’s not a great work by any means,” Anansi said. “It doesn’t scan and there’s no meter to speak of, but sometimes even a poorly written piece can have meaning.”

“A really depressing meaning,” Cain said.

Anansi raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Cain, do you know what the name Desdemona means?”

“Not a clue.”

“Ill-starred,” Anansi said. “Unlucky, miserable, and—dare I say it—sorrow. The death of Desdemona is the death of misfortune.”

“Reborn through hope,” Margot said.

“Exactly!” Anansi said. “Whoever the author was, they weren’t writing a lament. They were writing a celebration.”

[forbiddenwords]

Stranded (Chapter 3)

Written By: TheHeathenSlave Rating: Mature for Plane crash, injury, survival, desert island, stranded, drug usage, drinking, alcohol, awkward flirting, voyeurism, watersports, fetish, sexual tension, extreme illness, graphic, puss, wound cleaning, surgery, vomiting, oral sex, fluff, angst, romance, drug usage, assault, near death, happy ending. Fandom:  Real Person Fiction (Hours Era But Modern Day)

She never thought that a trans Atlantic flight could end in perfect paradise with David Bowie. Well…almost perfect paradise.

Previous Chapters.

When they got back to the camp, Leila sat down near the fire. The sun had passed high noon in the sky and had started to descend. She was very much hoping that it wouldn’t get freezing there at night but there wasn’t much way to tell until they spent the night there. David moved the cans of soup from the stone where he’d had them set to heat up. They were quickly placed into the sand to cool a bit. The rock was pushed off the coals at that point and he stoked the fire up more, glancing over at her. In the morning she planned to explore as much as she could. Find food sources, fresh water, and see if by any miracle there was going to be some other human on there. Friendly of course. The problem was if they were all the way out here then they probably weren’t the kind to want guests around.

“Thanks for everything.” She said, touching the sides of the can gently to see if it had cooled enough that she could pick it up and sip at the broth inside.

“No, thank you.” David said.

“What exactly have I done that I need to be thanked for?” She asked with a bit of a chuckle. All she’d really done was pull the metal out of him (which he could have done himself) and passed out a lot. Especially after making him shift her bone back into place. He’d made a fire, helped with the tent, and some how never once muttered any sort of complaint about how his side hurt. Which she was sure it did he just wasn’t saying it.

“I think you’ve done more for me than you have realized.” He said, “A lot of it has to do with anxiety…long story.” She gave him a look and decided not to ask. It probably wasn’t her business. However, maybe he was bringing it up because he wanted her to know and wanted to talk about it. If he had anxiety he could have ended up with a worse person than a psychiatrist.

“I can probably understand, now. I’m a psychiatrist.”

“You said you were an FBI agent.” He said, “And a doctor…now a psychiatrist?”

“You are aware that I can be all three of those things at once right?” She asked with a smirk. The can had cooled enough so she picked it up. After rotating it a bit to find an edge that wasn’t sharp she took a sip of the liquid inside. She honestly hadn’t tasted anything this good in a very long time. Desperation could make a gourmet meal out of just about anything.

“Yes,” He said and picked up his can as well, “Usually people go with one specialty and, there they stay.”

“Except you who has had how many stage personas by now?”

“You get my point.”

“Sorry…” She laughed, “I’m not upset. I know that people usually don’t take this into consideration.”

“So you aren’t a clinical doctor then, are you? Or even a psychiatrist. You must be forensic, which means the most you do on a daily basis is autopsies.” He pointed out.

“Correct. You’re very knowledgeable about this.”

“I read a lot.”

“It shows.” She said and drank more of the soup. “So maybe all I do is cut up dead bodies, it doesn’t mean I lack the medical skill of a practicing doctor. Autopsies get you very intimate with human anatomy just on a dead person. I still had to get the same life saving training and do the same rotations as any other doctor you’ll meet.”

“Considering my options were being stuck here with someone who didn’t go to medical school, I won’t complain too much.” He said, “Just…try not to think of me as a cadaver before I am one.”

“Yeah, same.” She smirked. He smiled back at her and then got more relaxed in the sand to consume his soup. Rest would do both of them good. Recharge them. Tomorrow they could sort out the items they had found more. Some of it would need to be buried before bed, to ensue that if there were animals around they couldn’t get to the food. It was easy to do that in sand since a hole could be dug deeply and with relatively little effort. All they needed to do was jam it into a suitcase and shove it down in there until tomorrow.

When she had finished her soup, she got up and moved to the rest of the stuff. It was all still in the raft. She grabbed the side of it and pulled, dragging it up towards the tent. David joined her a moment later to help, and it was a great help. She cautioned him to be careful of the wound on his side, though. If she had to literally stitch it shut that would risk far more infection than the superglue method he’d used before. She did pretty badly want a chance to clean it out properly but opening again also definitely meant infection. A bad one. He’d probably get an infection now, but it would be mild. Should be. It wasn’t something she wanted to mention to him. Hopefully she’d go through all of the pills and find some antibiotics. She’d already found narcotics. It was more likely that someone was traveling with penicillin than narcotics so she felt her odds were good.

“What are we doing now?” He asked.

“We need to separate the food. Anything that has a scent or could possibly draw animals this way.” She said. “The rest of the things we can move into the tent and keep there. The last thing we want is to attract wild bears here or something.”

“Bears? On a tropical island?”

“Okay whatever then, giant birds.”

“You really don’t know much about island wildlife, do you? This isn’t Australia.” He laughed and started to go through the supplies they had. She glared at him and then smiled as she looked away. Tropical islands and the animals that lived on them was definitely not one of her ares of expertise but she didn’t think her logic was flawed despite her being correct (or incorrect) about what type of animal might come snooping around their camp.

“I know enough. At least enough to stay safe in the areas where I usually camp. When I go to a tropical island it’s usually a vacation not…this.” She said. She found a small suitcase to empty out so they could pack up some of the food. They had found some beef jerky, which would be pretty essential when it came to protein in the next few days unless they could find a way to replace it. She wouldn’t know until tomorrow. They also put the potato chips in there, someone had packed a whole bunch of weird Asian flavors only really found in Japan. They were sealed in their bags but Leila was still worried the scent could attract animals even if it was very mild.

The other things were less fragrant. Some cans of food were left over from the emergency rations off of the plane. There were still a few bottles of left and some bottles of alcohol. Really good stuff that was being transported back. Including an incredibly expensive bottle of sake. There were chocolates, cookies, and a few candy bars. That was about it. A place like this would definitely had some kind of fruit, even if it was just coconuts. The bigger problem would be figuring out how to get up the palm trees to collect them. Also opening them. A big rock may do the trick. This could work reasonably well until they were found. If they were found. No, that wasn’t the way to think. Not only was she with David Bowie, but being an heiress there would be a whole fleet after her. Rika wasn’t the type of friend to give up a search until there was a body found (alive or dead) and she had plenty of money at her disposal. It really was a matter of when they’d be rescued. Not if.

Once things were taken care of to her liking, they added a bit more fuel to the fire. That would also help keep animals away. It was only a few feet from the outside of the tent. They didn’t exactly have blankets but they did have a ton of clothes. The few blankets they did have were still soaking wet, despite them being hung over an impromptu line to dry in the sun. Who knew that airplane blankets could hold that much liquid? Maybe they needed to move them more towards the heat of the fire. They still had a bit of time until the sun was completely set, they could dry in that period. Leila folded up some of the warmer clothes she could find, and piled them into a bed shape. She did this for David as well. A large down coat was all they really would have in way of a blanket and a lot of other clothes had to be set out to dry as well.

When it came to finding other medications they came out fairly well. Another bottle of narcotics, half a bottle of amoxicillin, a bottle of nyquil, some claritin, a few different bottles of ibuprofen, and then a very tightly sealed baggy of pot. Whoever had packed that had risked some serious problems boarding a plane with it. However, she knew from the dank smell the moment she’d opened it that it couldn’t be anything other than marijuana. It had been a long time since she’d smoked any pot but it may be a better idea for a painkiller than continuing to down narcotics. At least there was a pipe also packed in that bag. Along with drug paraphernalia magazines, bumper stickers, and a bunch of hippie style clothing. Like this guy had walked right out of 1977. She’d even found an Aladdin Sane shirt but had decided not to mention it to David in the chance that it would put him in a sour mood.

“So,” She said once he was laying on his ‘bed’ in the tent. “I’m going to need to check your side and make sure it’s clean, at least as clean as it can be given the situation.”

“And if it’s not?”

“Well, there are a few options, including opening the wound again. We have fishing wire and hooks that could be used to stitch–”

“Don’t finish that sentence please.” He said, wincing heavily at the thought.

“I know that it’s not great, David, but, like it or not you’re already risking infection. I want you to take the antibiotics I found.” She said, grabbing the bottle for him. He took it and looked at her.

“You’re sure this is…okay?”

“I know what the medication is and what it does. It’s only half a course but it’s better than nothing. Unless you have a severe allergy to amoxicillin I wouldn’t worry.” She said. He nodded and opened the bottle then dumped one pill out into his palm. “Drink a lot of water with it.”

“You need water too.” He said and took the pill anyway.

“True but we may find other sources of it on this island. If not, we can rinse out those soup cans and boil it. If we can find a fresh source. If not…I’ll have to see if I can remember the weird process of making ocean water drinkable. I think you can filter it through sand or something then boil it after that.” She sighed and grabbed the emergency flashlight from the first aid kit. Getting closer to him she turned it on. The little window in the tent let in light but not nearly enough to inspect a wound. “Now, hold still.”

“This is going to hurt, isn’t it?”

“It’s not going to feel nice.” She said, “You want some codeine to help with it?”

“Yeah that would be…a…good idea.” He said laying more on his side. She got out two pills of the T3 and handed them over then one of the packets of cookies they found.

“You’ll want to eat with that.” She said.

“Two? Leila, I don’t really–”

“You are trying so hard to pretend you aren’t in pain, and if you want to keep doing that, fine, but I know you are from how you tense, gasp, sigh, and move around. If you want to be able to sleep, two is what you need. One will help but it’s really just going to relax you and you need rest if you are going to fight this.” She explained. He nodded and took the pills, opening the packet of cookies to eat them, propping himself up so he could do that while she looked at his wound.

She moved the shirt back and shone the light on him. As suspected, there were already signs of infection. Swelling, bruising, and a bit of puss there. The good news was that the seal was holding up, the superglue that was in the kit had come in handy for that, but it had also managed to seal in any sort of dirt, debris, or rust that would have been left in there that couldn’t be cleaned out before he could seal it. Had she not passed out like she had, she’d have done it for him but she hadn’t gotten that opportunity. She resisted the urge to touch the area. It was tempting, because she wanted to feel if the redness was actually swelling or if it was trapped fluid. If it got any worse she was going to have to start draining the area and that was going to not only be painful, but incredibly gross.

“The good news is, the seal is holding up.” She said, “There is some signs of infection but the antibiotics should help keep it at bay for a bit. I want you to take six within the next 48 hours then 2 every 24 hours after that until you run out.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to space them out and conserve?”

“Not really.” She said, “The faster we get the into your system the faster they will work. Normally you’d be on 4 a day, not three, but I also have to consider how many we have. Antibiotics do keep working even after you finished the course, for about two weeks. So even when you are done they should keep flowing through your system. Your stomach isn’t going to be very happy with this you know.”

“Oh I’m well aware.” He said. He got comfortable again and closed his eyes. She grabbed the large down coat and draped it over him.

“Just try to get some rest, I’ll be outside if you need me, I’m going to try to dry those blankets better and maybe dry out a book or magazine to read.” She said. “I’ll be back in here around the time the sun has completely set as we really don’t have that much light to work with and I want to keep the flashlight for emergencies. That or having to go use the bathroom in the middle of the night.”

“You’re quite the angel you know, even if you are a bit anal retentive.”

“Thanks, I think.” She said and stroked some of his hair back softly. “Call if you need anything, okay?”

“Of course.” He said and closed his eyes. She moved out of the tent and zipped it up. From the outside she opened the other two windows so that a nice breeze could pass through the tent and make sure the temperature stayed tolerable. It already wasn’t too bad in there but she needed him to stay comfortable so she wouldn’t move around a lot and risk tearing open his side. Once that was done, she got to work attempting to dry the blankets. She dreaded the first night there but at least she wasn’t going to spend it alone.

Next Chapters.

[shadesmaclean]

Tradewinds 20 CH 18

Aboard the Albatross, Roger Wilco sat in the rearmost modular seat, on the seaward side, power pistol in one hand, and his revolver on the seat next to him. Bandit slumped near the tail between a couple crates, trying to sleep in spite of himself. By the fourth day, he had drained his last flask of liquid courage. Even his stash for celebrating shore leave after particularly lucrative hauls. So for the last two days, he had faced the Woods cold-turkey sober. Found himself occasionally recalling a snatch of some old saying, something about staring into the Void, and the Void staring back at you, an all too apt description of his six spooky days out here. Years ago, he had managed to finally quit smoking, only a matter of months before he wound up in the Sixth Dimension, and he usually thought of it as being for the best, if for no other reason than that cigarettes were hard to come by in most realms anyway. Back then, one of his pilot friends lost his license because of heart problems. It was a tough call, but Roger decided he preferred the pleasure of flying more, so he rode out the worst storms of withdrawal to kick the habit, topping his several years of fundraising to acquire his Albatross as the toughest thing he ever did. Though he would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit he could use a good smoke right about now. That first day, after their argument about the rescue plan, he nearly talked himself into dragging one of the modular seats out onto the beach as a makeshift lawn chair, because he didn’t want to buy into all this talk about Rannigan’s Wharf and the Woods. At the time, he talked himself out of it only because of Erix, figuring that it would amount to making a sitting duck out of himself against a marksman of his caliber. Much to his chagrin, though, it didn’t take long for the Woods themselves started getting to him in earnest. Awakened that first night by a terrifying dream about the logging vehicles Shades mentioned all coming to life and tearing down Camp Stilton, before turning their wrath on his poor Albatross. Shocked at how vividly he could imagine things someone only described to him, yet somehow he knew he was seeing the exact same machines they saw. By the second day, Erix was fast fading to a secondary concern. After all, Erix could enter at will with those energy blades, so if he was still in the neighborhood, he surely would have by now. Mostly, he was just glad that hadn’t happened, that at least the hull and the rest of the airframe were still intact and presumably seaworthy, the damage mostly cosmetic. Based on the others’ accounts, he marveled at how he managed to land on about the only section of the coast in these parts that wasn’t strewn with clumps of jagged rocks. A sweep of mostly sand and gravel in this small inlet. Probably why this site was chosen for setting up the lodge and docks in the first place. The second night, he was awakened by the sounds of scratching outside. Certain it wasn’t anything he cared to meet, he held still and kept his weapons close at hand. Every time he started to doze off in spite of himself, it would start up again. Later that morning, after sunrise, he stepped out to take a look, hoping against hope that it was all just a bad dream. And nearly wept at his poor paintjob. At streaks of long, gouging scrapes that even scratched the metal. He tried to tell himself it was just the local wildlife, not that he’d actually seen any. Unless the trees counted. The third night, he miscalculated, pouring himself a little too much, and passed out. Worse off the next day, knowing that he could ill afford to be hung over out here, he cobbled together what remedy he could from his First Aid supplies, and tried not to deplete too much of his water supply. By noon, he was feeling little better, not sure he even wanted to see the aftermath of whatever he was sure he managed to sleep through, and even the thought of his own good fortune that nothing broke in while he was unconscious was less relief, and more the feeling that something unknown had surely danced a full Broadway musical on his grave, possibly with a side of Thriller, just to spite him for not waking up for any of the show. By the fourth day, he swore the trees were moving behind his back. Seemed to be in slightly different positions every time he turned around. The fact that he had been drinking each night for three straight days did little to resolve the matter. Sometimes he saw movements out in the Woods. Herky-jerky, like old stop-motion film. Stuttering and blurring in ways that hurt his eyes to look at. Things outside, which his eyes refused to dwell on. Tangled tree-shapes that moved like stop-motion in fast-forward. At times they would rush toward the plane at jarring speeds, even as he fumbled for his weapons, only to stop just short of the water’s edge and vanish. By late afternoon, he took to drawing the window shades, even during the daytime. Of course, he still had to let Bandit out periodically to do his biz. Noted the big cat never stayed out for long, nor moved very far from the cargo door. Anymore, he was just glad there was so much sand out there for his feline charge to bury it in. A game of cat-and-mouse, where he timed their moves by Bandit’s instincts, as there was clearly something out there he didn’t like the smell of, and which he did his best to cover the big cat against while he was vulnerable out there. The fourth night, he no longer had enough booze to knock himself out like he had the night before. All he got out of it was a dream conversation with Erix on the radio. Talking about things he never wanted to talk about, and he considered it a mercy he couldn’t remember anything coherent about it after he woke up. His radio could pick up a wide range of bands and frequencies, but he only tuned in intermittently, as he found he could not bear to listen for long to all the creepy noises it made. The ones that stuck with him most being the one where he heard only heavy breathing, hard footsteps, and the occasional snapping of twigs, or hearing the distorted croaking of frogs. At least that’s what it started off sounding like, before it started to sound like some form of bestial speech. At which point, he turned it off, fearing he might start to understand it if he kept listening… By the fifth day, he found those .38 Specials seeming to beckon to him in an unhealthy way, introducing thoughts he’d rather not finish. Didn’t want to believe Erix was encouraging him to do it last night, but one of the few things he at least thought he could remember was him saying, It did wonders for me! And then hysterical laughter. Made a point of keeping both Erix’s power pistol, and his old revolver on his person at all times. While ammo for the latter was scarce, energy weapons tended to be back-engineered from the same handful of mostly bootleg schematics, which meant that most power clips would be compatible with most energy weapons. All the same, he still felt the revolver was more reliable. It had seen him through some troublesome situations back on Earth, even before he had to deal with any troublesome situations in this world. Back then, he would sometimes be approached by some rather shady clients, most likely drug smugglers. Only occasionally threatened for his refusal to do business with them, once by some folks who claimed ties to one of the nastier cartels. Though nothing came of it, he still had every intention of defending himself if corned, in that world or this one. Told himself that for most things that prescribed cold iron, hot lead would do the trick just as well, and now he hoped that would hold true. That fifth night, he woke up from more nightmares. Of crashing noises, and huge, hoary, angry trees smashing Camp Stilton to splinters. Then turning to the Albatross… He never really made it back to sleep after that, just sort of hovered on the edge of dozing, slipping back up toward consciousness at every little sound out there. By the sixth day, his leg was doing somewhat better, and he struggled with the temptation to just hop out and hoof it over to Rannigan’s Wharf. Still he could tell, just from how much trouble he still had getting around the cabin, that even with a crutch he would make piss-poor time on that gravelly, sandy shore. Would be all but guaranteed to get caught out there after dark. Not to mention that Bandit was still having trouble, and he had no clue how he would ever face Max, in this life or the next, if he just abandoned him. That, and after each successive day out here, Shades’ dire warnings seemed more and more to have the right of it. The fact that he had neither seen nor heard from Roxy, and Erix’s only appearance was in a bad dream, was just another nail in that coffin. Though he had no way of knowing if either of them actually made it over there at any point, the things going on over here inspire little confidence about anyplace else around the peninsula. Now, when he let Bandit out, he kept expecting to find one or the other of them— occasionally Max or the others— nailed-up or dangling from the porch beams of the lodge, and feared he would lose what little sanity he had left if he saw any such thing out there. Over the intervening days, he had also kept an eye to the sea for any passing ships, having seen nothing of the sort, though sometimes he thought he caught glimpses of other things drifting out on the tide, but always too brief to confirm. His original food rations were still holding, though his appetite was lacking, so at least he didn’t have to worry about resorting to the dubious canned goods the others retrieved from the lodge for at least another two or three days. Knew he wasn’t up to crabbing or fishing, even if he thought for one moment that it was safe out there, though he feared he might have to risk it if the food was no good. Unless his leg was healed enough to try hiking the peninsula coast by then, but he doubted it. Rubbing his face, he noted for the thousandth time that his usual five o’clock shadow was getting downright furry. Not that he didn’t want to shave, but he needed to conserve water. Though he knew from the map that there was a river on the far side of Camp Stilton, he was loathe to set foot outside the plane anymore, despite the certainty that he was going stir-crazy in here. After five nights with so little sleep, he was starting to fear he was losing his mind in this remote outpost. When he first heard the drone of a motor in the distance, he was half afraid he was hearing things. At least until he noticed that Bandit heard it, too, snapping the big cat out of his own fitful napping. Slipping open the nearest window shade, he watched an unfamiliar ship anchor just offshore in front of him, and several people board a smaller craft to come ashore. But as they approached, they angled toward the rear of the plane, so he lost sight of them before they drew close enough to get a good look at any of them. A few minutes later, he could hear a boat being dragged ashore, and some muffled conversation just before things went silent. For a long, horrible moment, Roger feared that potential rescuers might have just decided the wreck was a lost cause and turned back, so he snatched up the flare gun and limped over to the cargo door, certain that this would be his last chance to survive this mess. As he reached for the door latch, though, someone knocked, and he nearly fumbled the flare gun as a familiar voice announced, “Take it to the Maximum.” Unable to believe his ears, he slid the cargo door shade up a crack, just to be sure.

[kristablogs]

How aerial firefighters battle blazes from the skies

An Erickson Aero Tanker aircraft, left, dropping fire retardant. (Shelby Snow /)

The most dramatic way to fight a fire is from the sky.

An air tanker may fly about 150 feet off the ground at 161 miles per hour and can paint up to a mile-long line of retardant on the ground. A big helicopter could dump as much as 2,000 gallons of water to try to save a house. And smokejumpers fling themselves from airplanes 3,000 feet above their landing area below to snuff out a small fire in a remote area before it gets bigger.

Right now, California is home to two historically enormous blazes: the SCU and LNU Lightning Complex fires. The state is using aircraft to combat the two huge conflagrations. “They keep swapping positions for the second- and third-largest wildfires in our state history, unfortunately,” Brice Bennett, a spokesperson for CalFire, told Popular Science earlier this week. All the fires in the state right now cover an area larger than 1.25 million acres. “We’re dealing with just an incredible situation,” he comments. As of today, aerial assets in California have dropped 3.35 million gallons of fire retardant and 4.69 million gallons of water, according to Bennett.

California, of course, uses aircraft—it has both its own fleet and can employ contractors—to mount full-court presses on fires, but the practice is certainly not limited to combating burns in the Golden State. Here’s how these aerial operations work, and what it’s like battling blazes from the air.

Draw a perimeter

There’s an important, counterintuitive fact to know about those big planes full of retardant: “Air tankers don’t put out fires,” says Kevin Hopf, the chief pilot for an outfit called 10 Tanker. His company flies DC-10s that used to carry passengers; the seats and overhead bins and other equipment have all been removed. His aircraft has five external tanks that carry retardant and three big clamshell doors on the bottom, each about 22 feet long, which open to deploy the red stuff.

For the most part, tankers like the one Hopf flies drop a line of retardant not on the fire itself, but in a place that will help steer or contain the blaze. The “firefighting mantra,” Hopf says, is simple: “anchor, flank, and pinch.”

The first step is to begin the line of retardant at some type of anchoring area that can stop the fire, a starting point such as a bunch of rocks. Then comes containment. “You flank the fire, on both sides, and you keep running up the flanks until you get ahead of it, and then you start trying to pinch it off,” Hopf explains. Pilots will then begin bringing the two flanking lines towards each other.

That’s a standard firefighting tactic, although he notes that truly enormous fires—maybe 50 miles wide, 100 miles long—would be impossible to anchor, flank, and pinch. “There’s not enough air tankers in the world to do that,” he says. “Now you start going for structure protection.”

On those occasions, on a big fire when he’s tasked with guarding structures, “you hope to find out the next day that they’re all still standing,” he says. “We very seldom see our work.”

A tanker fighting a fire in Arizona in June. (John Hall - JDH Images/)

And it’s decidedly not about thrill-seeking or cultivating a cowboy image, says Brent Connor, the senior captain for Erickson Aero Tanker. Their fleet is mostly MD-87 aircraft that also used to be passenger-carrying airliners. “When I teach people how to do this,” he says, “I tell them that if your adrenaline is pumping, you’re probably doing something wrong.”

Deploy water from the sky

While the airplanes usually carry the red retardant, helicopters generally schlep water, which they dump on flames from above. Tanner McInnes flies a small, light helicopter—a Bell 407—for a Missoula, Montana company called Minuteman Aviation. If he’s dispatched to fly off towards a little fire in the forest—it might just be smoke spotted by a lookout, probably the result of a lightning strike—he’ll shuttle a fire manager in the front seat next to him, and two firefighters, part of a helitack crew, in the back.

After assessing the fire from the sky, he might land the helicopter nearby and drop off the firefighters. The manager stays on board. If the authorities want him to drop water on the fire, the manager will install a bucket that hangs from the bottom of the chopper, and McInnes will grab what he can from a pond or river. (He says he’s never picked up any fish.) And since he needs to be able to stick his neck out and look down while he’s flying with that bucket, the manager can remove the chopper’s side door and stash it inside. “It’s actually nice, because it’s hot generally when we’re flying,” he says.

He tends to carry about 180 gallons of water in a bucket. Still, he emphases that “aviation does not put out fires—it’s the firefighters on the ground.” Take a small fire, he says, by way of example, with one burning tree: he’ll douse it with water, only to find that the flames have sprung back up again. “It’s amazing how much heat there is: A lot of times, if lightning strikes, they hit the tree, and they smolder for days before they actually show themselves,” he says. To take care of the problem for real, the firefighters on the ground might cut down the tree, and break it up, and stir up the soil to make sure everything is out, and dig lines around it.

An Erickson helicopter in Greece in 2009. (Erickson, Inc/)

While McInnes’ chopper carries its water in a bucket, that’s not the only way to do it. Ken Chapman flies a strange-looking helicopter for Erickson Incorporated called an S-64 Aircrane, and to get the wet stuff on board, all he has to do is submerge a snorkel about 18 inches deep in a body of water. It sucks the water up through a hose, needing just about 40 seconds to fill up with around 2,000 gallons of fresh water.

When it’s time to drop the payload on a fire, Chapman’s goal is to deploy it from about 150 feet off the ground, flying at some 69 miles per hour. With that setup, as the water falls through the sky, it “loses its forward momentum, and rains down on the fire,” Chapman says. Dropping the water that way means that ideally there’s no “shadowing,” which is when the water smacks into just one side of the target. “If you come in low and fast, you’re going to paint on one side of the trees and stuff, and the other side is going to be dry,” he explains.

The most intense fire he’s ever flown was the 2018 Carr Fire in Redding, California. “The thing that was amazing to me was how fast it went, and it was burning in the city,” he recalls. “This thing was coming into subdivisions. It reached a point, where they just said, ‘Go save a house.’ And you’d get a load of water and you’d come in and dump, trying to protect a house, and by the time you went and got water and came back, the house was gone.”

Jump out of the plane

Not all aircraft drop retardant or water. Some deploy people known as smokejumpers. Pat McGunagle is a jumper based in West Yellowstone, Montana. He’s made more than 60 jumps, although the vast majority of those have been for practice—he’s a relative newcomer to the field. The jump height out of the Dornier 228 airplane he and the others fling themselves out of is 3,000 feet above the ground, although smokejumpers who use an older, round-style chute do it from 1,500 feet.

Jumpers aim to arrive quickly at a blaze in the woods—most of which get sparked by lightning—and deal with it before it spreads. They deploy in groups of two. McGunagle will jump out of the plane carrying supplies that include drinking water, food like beef jerky or peanut butter, solution for his contact lenses, and a pound of coffee. The coffee, of course, is for starting the day. “The youngest guy on the load has to make the coffee every morning,” he says.

Other gear, like chainsaws or Pulaski tools, comes down as cargo from the same plane from about 150 feet above the terrain.

To put the fire out, he says, you have to “dig and stir.” He’ll even use his arm to make sure it’s truly out. That works like this: “Stick your hand down in there, all the way to your armpit, down this scary, black, smoking hole, and find that little bit of fire down there,” he says, “and scoop it out and stir it.” That’s the way to make sure it’s truly extinguished—with work not from the sky, but on the dirty ground.

[obduratemoon]

Sedimentary City 12: ABLATIVE QUALIA

The black empty was soon replaced by a reticulate grid approaching Jan at a fearful speed. The mesh resolved itself to be streets, and then he saw within those urban veins throngs of demonstrators, tightly packed, dynamic particles rampant with energy.

In the next moment he was amongst them, the animal smell of those around him filled his nostril. Sour smells of fear and anger, of long suffering that bid the people to stand up even if it meant their own personal death that very day and hour. They wanted to continue living but could see no other way and now steeled themselves for all that would happen. Various forms of demise were arrayed before them: drones, armored attack vehicles, cybernetic police soldiers garbed in black armor standing with casual viciousness.

Waves of anger ebbed and flowed with spikes of panic shuddering through the crowd, the clot of humanity compressing and expanding like a coil. Each particle acted and reacted to create an emergence which lacked any consciousness but possessed an adamantine will to struggle. Dumb and serpentine, it thrashed itself against a barricade of militarized police which had arrayed itself at cut-off points behind vehicles and smart auto constructing shield walls. 

The air was filled with a contrapuntal intermeshing of sounds: the steady chanting of slogans, the spoken word commands from police loudspeakers (“disperse, disperse!”), the sporadic eruption of automatic gun fire and followed by screams of humans turned to corpses, a morbid kind of call and response.

A hand came out to hold Jan’s firmly. It was Eva, she was still alive here, ever vibrant and keen like an edge ground by time and destiny into a bristling sharpness. She wore a shit eating grin above which her eyes sparked and flashed as if possessed by ghosts. 

With a natural awareness she had sensed this was the pivot point, the fulcrum upon which her entire being was balanced upon. It was as if the events of her life always approached some attractive point but would overshoot and sling out only to have some secret intuition, private and indigo, lead her back.

“Jan! I thought I lost you for a minute, let’s try to push on to the front!” Her voice was dusky from shouting.

“Eva, I really think we shouldn’t do that. You know what is happening at the front, they are firing live rounds up there. They’re slaughtering them!”

“No fucking shit Jan, that’s why we have to go there, to see it with our own eyes, to be there with them! This is the State in showing it’s unalloyed murderous intentions, they’ve given up all pretense! This is history and we will be victorious for nothing can stop this momentum! Oh Jan, can’t you feel it, taste it in the air?

“We shouldn’t do this, it’s gone too far, we can come back and fight another day! Please, please Eva, don’t do this, let’s get out of here. We’ll reorganize, build it all up again, I’ll talk to my father, maybe he can help, I’ll beg him. We can change things in some other way, please.”

Tears streamed down Jan’s face, he knew what was about to happen, a memory which had stalked him as if he were a prey to his own psyche. A surging nausea filled his guts, as if his stomach had rotted and dissolved into a putrid jelly. He dry heaved but no alimentary action can assuage existential sickness.

Eva moved in close and hugged him tight, wrapping all of herself around and compressing hard as if to consume him within a squeeze. They lingered. Jan tried to suckle everything from it, focusing intensely upon each passing aliquot of sensation, examining each frame as it sped by hoping that he could stop time. But inexorably, one flower withers and another one blooms. 

She whispered in his ears, “I love you Jan, you are a dumb-ass but I always liked that about you.”  And then matching his desperate gaze, “You have to take care of yourself, ok?” 

Before Jan could react she was gone, pushing through the crowd, lost.

A chill settled upon Jan’s innards like a cold morning’s frost. A lump vaulted up into his throat which strangled him with a feeling of pain black and sweet as tarry opium. Like an opaque veil it occluded everything except its own numinous darkness which shone like an unnatural gem recovered from some remote Hell. 

His body, strapped down and reclined inside the Pain Amplification Chorion, shivered in a jerky hum and some froth erupted from his mouth.

Most people live with some balance of dissociation so that bare life can be buffered and tolerated. Existence is corrosive and caustic like isotopes. It is imperative to live at a distance, to have escape routes of daydreams and denial built in like a complex of rabbit warrens. The irony of the pain amplifier is that it forced its subjects to live full-on and direct, it pushed the consciousness right up to scrape against the harsh fabric of sensation. The victim was shackled and exposed to the full conundrum of exquisite experience, leashed up like a sacrificial goat before an uncaring God.

Jan hunted for Eva like a man obsessed, pushing his way to the front where the churn of protestors crashed up against the black phalanxes of police. He shoved a man out of the way, who turned to headbutt him. It hardly slowed him down, a ringing clanging migraine now the least of his problems. Some assumed he was drunk or drugged, his motions purposeful yet erratic.

He moved towards the sides of the street where it was less densely packed. The stores and shops along the way had all been smashed. Some erupted with billowing grey smoke, others consumed in flickering tongues of fire. It was a city immolating from the inside as if some accelerant had pooled and permeated there, the accumulated black tar of resentment now suddenly lit aflame.

Jan watched as a shopkeeper ran out into the streets waving a pistol, a last stand, shooting loose and arbitrary with eyes half closed. A belligerent crowd soon encircled and disarmed him. They made quick work of his face stamping it into a smear, suddenly finding themselves capable of unrelenting atrocity.

One man stepped in towards the shopkeeper and with a sharp obsidian blade disemboweled him as some others pinned his arms and legs. The shopkeeper looked rapt and unbelieving at his own belly as it was opened in a clean, smooth slit. The sharp blade revealed a pretty cross section of stripy fat and burgeoning hot viscera. His killer crouched over him and, working his knife in, tore out the heart and held it aloft in a manus so bloody that it was hard to distinguish heart from hand. The abhorrent crowd cheered with an enveloping bloodlust. Somehow the heart continued to beat with metronomic aplomb, unaware that it had been removed from the rest of its corporation and ignorant that its Sisyphean chore of beating would soon cease. It was a slave to the body no longer but also now a pointless organ of meat, rhythmically clenching for no one, not even itself.

The shopkeeper’s corpse seemed to deflate into the ground, flattening as if all resistance to gravity had vanished. A column of blood had briefly issued from his severed aorta -- a vermillion fountain rising up higher than anyone could have imagined -- and the faces of his assailants were covered by a pink baptism. The erstwhile shopkeeper’s countenance was now an ashen green, the color of flesh depleted and revoked of life. Jan thought he perceived a small and impossible smile on the dead man’s destroyed face. Or was he merely projecting? Oh respite! So desired and yet so unattainable. Once again, a great gargantuan void opened up inside of Jan, a bottomless exhaustion at this continuation of perception and presence. The bloodspeacked crowd huffed air savage and natural-like predators, simultaneously self satisfied and dumbstruck by their own actions.

Jan pushed on forward, he could not linger; like an astonished Odysseus cursed by a God more forlorn and un-beseechable than Zeus, he was drawn towards a personal and acute destruction crafted and ornamented by fate just for him. 

The sound of gunfire and screams became louder and more distinct, the reverberations against adjacent buildings and off the roof of the level created a dense layering of aberrant echoes. Here the crowd sucked forward and back like schools of fish caught in the surf. Thick plumes of noxious gas crawled and pooled thickly chasing protesters like a foggy curse. Jan wore his shirt over his face and squinted into the conflagration of humans.

Suddenly there was a loud report of automatic fire and a mass of people ran past Jan, fleeing the front line. He soon saw a frontier of police soldiers rolling forward like a black wave. Every cell in his body screamed with dread and his stomach boiled with acid. He could not close his eyes, or turn back, his legs no longer under his control. He struggled in vain to do anything besides stand in stupefied inaction. 

A few brave souls remained out there in solitary doom. Perhaps they were apoplectic with fear. Or perhaps they yearned for death.

Amongst them was Eva, standing relaxed and unafraid of approaching destiny. Jan clutched his chest as his heart seized up. She stood still save for a slight involuntary realignment of her shoulders at the last moment. Then bullets cut her down onto the ground upon which her blood spilled generous and giving. As she fell, her wan eyes canted up towards the leaden roof and in that way she crept away from there forever. Despite being a memory, Jan was made to suffer it anew, to see it again in the direct and unvarnished light of novel apprehension as if his life was on repeat.

His legs compelled him to run away and duck into a side street where he watched the soldiers nudge her still form. A strange trilling vibrated through him until he was shaken loose and sent outside of his body, made to haunt himself from the outside as if in a dream. Jan saw there a pallid figurant shivering in anguish, a failure and a coward. Initial feelings of tenderness for the sad man soon turned to hate and disgust. How odd it is to despise oneself in the 3rd person! And then he was back inside, once again caged and forced to gaze out from the jail he hated most.

In the Chorion the interrogators replayed the scene over and over, each time adding some cruel novelty. They had taken bets on how many times the memory could loop before Jan broke, as everyone did. Soon they heard him plead, murmuring through the mouthpiece with rising pitch: “Kill me, please kill me. Kill me. Kill me, kill me, kill me, kill me ...”

[megabrocklesner1world-blog]

Are Fruits Advantageous to Your Teeth? The Special and Sour Reality

Munching on fruits is a great method to cleanse the body, increase energy and fill you with nutrients. Nutritionists have valid reason, then, to suggest that people get at the very least five meals a day. As far as how excellent particular fruits and juices are for our teeth, however? That is a small tacky topic.

While reaching for a number of grapes are a good treat option to processed carbs, it's essential to note that fruits themselves include large levels of carbs that will trigger erosion and caries inside our teeth. But there are many ways to eat fruits - new, frozen, processed, juiced, dry and maintained in the shape of jellies or jams - and don't assume all kind of treat may affect our oral hygiene exactly the same way.

Nature's brush

Organic, fruits - particularly Notenshop crispy types like oranges and pears - execute a combined teeth-cleaning role. They are harsh enough to drive through the crevices of our teeth and gums to scrub away food contaminants as we chew and in addition they cleanse our mouths with new juices and soften our mouths. Recall a humid mouth is wonderful for oral hygiene, as it promotes spit production, and the substance is essential for rinsing food from your teeth and preventing p buildup.

Beware juices and drinks

Strip away all of the materials and roughage in a fruit and what you are frequently left with is just a high-sugar fluid concoction. Actually normal carbs can result in tooth rot, and drinking too much of these juices - as healthy as they could be for our anatomical bodies - can damage our teeth. One way to lessen the impact on your own teeth is always to suck the juice from a hay, decrease the juices with water or even to drink a glass or water or dairy to counteract the sweet and acidic beverage.

Our fondness for fruit juices and for serving them to teenagers has been attributed on a climbing incidence of early childhood carries. The problem is so significant that the National School of Pediatrics now proposes that children outdated one to six consume no more than 4-6 ounces of fruit juice a day.

Dried fruits

They are lightweight, quick treats and part of a healthier diet. But actually without added carbs and sweeteners, snack-seekers shouldn't think that dry fruits may also be secure for their teeth. On the contrary, the fact they're dry means they're hyper-concentrated with carbs and actually stickier to chew. That could be anything to be wary of, as tacky ingredients can entice bacteria which could result in cavities. The exact same moves for fruit jams and preserves.

Drying food is anything that has been performed, possibly almost provided that man have been around. It's possibly among the earliest methods for preserving ingredients of all types.

Back, before freezers were invented, ingredients were maintained by drying, smoking or salting and also in more recent instances, bottling and pickling. In years removed by however there were no electric food dehydrators of course to dehydrate food, so sunlight and air were used.

This counted of course on having an environment that would let food to be dry successfully. Most types of ingredients may be dry, including fruits, veggies, herbs, vegetables and actually beef and fish.

Since the technology of the freezer, dry ingredients are not counted on so much while they would have been previously, although some dry ingredients are still commonly consumed such as for example Jerky, many forms of dry fruits and fruit leathers and herbs.

One of the advantages of course to drying your own personal food is that you understand you can find nothing of the compound ingredients which can be so commonly added to commercially dry ingredients today - especially beef products such as for example jerky and in the event of some dry fruits which may have sulphur added to keep colour.

Different advantages to dehydrating food your self are:

Cheaper food charges - Possessing your own personal food dehydrator implies that you have the ability to get ingredients when they're at their cheapest and dry them for use as time goes by

Health advantages - Precisely dry food is raw. Meaning it however contains all of its enzymes along with supplements and nutrients as there has been no injury performed by heating.

Ease - Being able to dry your own personal food implies that you usually have a method of getting food available. This is good in case there is problems such as for example floods or other times when food and electricity might not be readily available for a period of time limiting the ability to prepare food and when frozen and new ingredients become useless or spoiled.

[timclymer]

The Most Important Food to Avoid During Pregnancy

Along with the many food groups that you should include in your pregnancy diet to make sure that you and your baby get the proper nutrients, vitamins, and minerals for healthy growth and development, there are also several types of food that you should avoid during pregnancy. These are foods that have a higher risk of being contaminated with bacteria or parasites, and since pregnancy causes a woman’s immune system to become slightly compromised, foods that may have been eaten before pregnancy without worry could now be a health risk.

The top foods to avoid during pregnancy are:

* Unpasteurized Milk

* Soft Cheeses

* Raw Eggs

* Raw Meat & Undercooked Poultry

* Deli Meats & Hot Dogs

* Pate

* Raw or Seared Fish and Fish That Contain Mercury

* Smoked Seafood

* Game Fish

* Raw Shellfish

* Unwashed Vegetables

* Alcohol

* Caffeine

Unpasteurized Milk

Unpasteurized milk can carry bacteria such as listeria, a bacteria that’s found in soil and stream water. Listeria can cause listeriosis and can cross the placental barrier which can cause miscarriage, preterm delivery, infection to the baby, and possibly death to the newborn. Contracting listeriosis from listeria is rare, but pregnant women are more more susceptible.

Soft Cheeses

Soft cheeses, such as Feta, Brie, Gorgonzola, Roquefort, Camembert, blue-veined cheese, and Mexican-style cheese that include queso blanco or queso fresco are not safe to eat during pregnancy because they are made from unpasteurized milk. Unpasteurized milk can carry bacteria such as listeria (mentioned above). When in doubt, check the label on the cheese to make sure it states that it’s made with pasteurized milk.

Raw Eggs

Eggs are a great source of quality protein. The yolks also contain choline, an essential amino acid that’s helpful for brain development and the formation of the neural tube in the early stages of pregnancy. However, in raw form they can potentially contain salmonella, which pregnant women are more susceptible to contracting. Order your eggs scrambled rather than sunny-side up or over easy during pregnancy. And avoid foods that are made with raw egg, such as raw cookie dough or cake batter.

Raw Meat & Undercooked Poultry

Raw meats and undercooked poultry could contain coliform bacteria, toxoplasmosis, and salmonella. While it’s said to be relatively rare, these can can cause stillbirth or other serious health problems. Be sure to cook your poultry all the way through and your meats between medium to medium-well so that there isn’t any pink showing. Remember to always wash your hands thoroughly after handling.

Deli Meats & Hot Dogs

Deli meats and hot dogs are said to be unsafe to eat during pregnancy because they’ve been known to be contaminated with listeria, a bacteria that’s found in soil and stream water. Listeria can cause listeriosis and can cross the placental barrier which can cause miscarriage, preterm delivery, infection to the baby, and possibly death to the newborn. Contracting listeriosis from listeria is rare, but pregnant women are much more more susceptible. Even if deli meats and hot dogs have been been properly refrigerated, unless they are heated until steaming hot, it is not safe to eat them during your pregnancy. But if you must, you should also wash your hands thoroughly after handling. You’re safer to just avoid them altogether.

Pate

Pate can carry bacteria such as listeria, a bacteria that’s found in soil and stream water. Listeria can cause listeriosis and can cross the placental barrier which can cause miscarriage, preterm delivery, infection to the baby, and possibly death to the newborn. Contracting listeriosis from listeria is rare, but pregnant women are much more more susceptible.

Raw or Seared Fish and Fish that Contain Mercury

Fish that contain high mercury levels and that should be avoided include king mackerel, shark, swordfish, tilefish, and albacore tuna. However, canned light tuna contains much lower amounts of mercury, but it should still be eaten in small portions and in moderation – no more than once a week. Mercury consumed during pregnancy can have negative effects on fetal brain development. It’s best to avoid sushi during pregnancy as well since uncooked and even seared fish is more likely to contain bacteria or parasites than cooked fish.

Smoked Seafood

Smoked seafood, such as smoked salmon, trout, whitefish, tuna, cod and mackerel could be contaminated with listeria, a bacteria that’s found in soil and stream water. Listeria can cause listeriosis and can cross the placental barrier which can cause miscarriage, preterm delivery, infection to the baby, and possibly death to the newborn. Contracting listeriosis from listeria is rare, but pregnant women are much more more susceptible. These types of seafood, often labeled as lox, nova, smoked, kippered, or jerky, are only safe to eat during pregnancy as an ingredient in a cooked dish or casserole.

Game Fish

Game fish are fish caught for sport in local lakes, rivers, or streams, such as trout, salmon, bass, pike, bluefish, and walleye. The concern is about pollution that could be in the water and contaminate the fish. Check with your local health department or the Environmental Protection Agency to find out which waters are safe to eat from.

Raw Shellfish

According to the Food and Drug Administration, raw shellfish, which includes oysters, clams, and mussels are responsible for causing the majority of seafood borne illnesses. These illnesses, including Salmonella and other types of bacterial, parasitic, and viral infections can be serious for anyone, not just pregnant women. Cooking can help to prevent some of these types of infection, but not algae-related infections associated with red tides. It’s best to avoid raw as well as cooked shellfish during pregnancy.

Unwashed Vegetables

The only reason vegetables are on this list is because they should be thoroughly washed before eating. Unwashed vegetables could be contaminated with toxoplasma, a parasite that can be found in soil and can cause an infection that, although relatively rare, can cause stillbirth or serious health problems.

Alcohol

Drinking alcohol during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage and stillbirth and is the leading cause of birth defects. Alcohol exposure before birth puts the baby at risk for fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) which can include any of a slew of problems ranging from learning disabilities to physical abnormalities to disorders of the central nervous system.

Caffeine

There are studies that show that caffeine in moderation (under 300 mg a day) is OK and others that show it could be related to miscarriage, preterm labor, low-birth weight, and withdrawal symptoms in newborns for the first few days after birth. With inconclusive evidence, it’s best to avoid caffeine during pregnancy, especially during the first trimester. However, know that caffeine is a diuretic, which means that it increases the frequency of urination which can cause dehydration and calcium loss. It’s also a stimulant, which means that it also increases blood pressure and heart rate. It also can also contribute to heart burn. None of this is ideal, so it’s best to avoid caffeine during pregnancy.

Source by Brian Kellman

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/the-most-important-food-to-avoid-during-pregnancy/ via Home Solutions on WordPress from Home Solutions FOREV https://homesolutionsforev.tumblr.com/post/185506791955 via Tim Clymer on Wordpress

[homesolutionsforev]

The Most Important Food to Avoid During Pregnancy

Along with the many food groups that you should include in your pregnancy diet to make sure that you and your baby get the proper nutrients, vitamins, and minerals for healthy growth and development, there are also several types of food that you should avoid during pregnancy. These are foods that have a higher risk of being contaminated with bacteria or parasites, and since pregnancy causes a woman’s immune system to become slightly compromised, foods that may have been eaten before pregnancy without worry could now be a health risk.

The top foods to avoid during pregnancy are:

* Unpasteurized Milk

* Soft Cheeses

* Raw Eggs

* Raw Meat & Undercooked Poultry

* Deli Meats & Hot Dogs

* Pate

* Raw or Seared Fish and Fish That Contain Mercury

* Smoked Seafood

* Game Fish

* Raw Shellfish

* Unwashed Vegetables

* Alcohol

* Caffeine

Unpasteurized Milk

Unpasteurized milk can carry bacteria such as listeria, a bacteria that’s found in soil and stream water. Listeria can cause listeriosis and can cross the placental barrier which can cause miscarriage, preterm delivery, infection to the baby, and possibly death to the newborn. Contracting listeriosis from listeria is rare, but pregnant women are more more susceptible.

Soft Cheeses

Soft cheeses, such as Feta, Brie, Gorgonzola, Roquefort, Camembert, blue-veined cheese, and Mexican-style cheese that include queso blanco or queso fresco are not safe to eat during pregnancy because they are made from unpasteurized milk. Unpasteurized milk can carry bacteria such as listeria (mentioned above). When in doubt, check the label on the cheese to make sure it states that it’s made with pasteurized milk.

Raw Eggs

Eggs are a great source of quality protein. The yolks also contain choline, an essential amino acid that’s helpful for brain development and the formation of the neural tube in the early stages of pregnancy. However, in raw form they can potentially contain salmonella, which pregnant women are more susceptible to contracting. Order your eggs scrambled rather than sunny-side up or over easy during pregnancy. And avoid foods that are made with raw egg, such as raw cookie dough or cake batter.

Raw Meat & Undercooked Poultry

Raw meats and undercooked poultry could contain coliform bacteria, toxoplasmosis, and salmonella. While it’s said to be relatively rare, these can can cause stillbirth or other serious health problems. Be sure to cook your poultry all the way through and your meats between medium to medium-well so that there isn’t any pink showing. Remember to always wash your hands thoroughly after handling.

Deli Meats & Hot Dogs

Deli meats and hot dogs are said to be unsafe to eat during pregnancy because they’ve been known to be contaminated with listeria, a bacteria that’s found in soil and stream water. Listeria can cause listeriosis and can cross the placental barrier which can cause miscarriage, preterm delivery, infection to the baby, and possibly death to the newborn. Contracting listeriosis from listeria is rare, but pregnant women are much more more susceptible. Even if deli meats and hot dogs have been been properly refrigerated, unless they are heated until steaming hot, it is not safe to eat them during your pregnancy. But if you must, you should also wash your hands thoroughly after handling. You’re safer to just avoid them altogether.

Pate

Pate can carry bacteria such as listeria, a bacteria that’s found in soil and stream water. Listeria can cause listeriosis and can cross the placental barrier which can cause miscarriage, preterm delivery, infection to the baby, and possibly death to the newborn. Contracting listeriosis from listeria is rare, but pregnant women are much more more susceptible.

Raw or Seared Fish and Fish that Contain Mercury

Fish that contain high mercury levels and that should be avoided include king mackerel, shark, swordfish, tilefish, and albacore tuna. However, canned light tuna contains much lower amounts of mercury, but it should still be eaten in small portions and in moderation – no more than once a week. Mercury consumed during pregnancy can have negative effects on fetal brain development. It’s best to avoid sushi during pregnancy as well since uncooked and even seared fish is more likely to contain bacteria or parasites than cooked fish.

Smoked Seafood

Smoked seafood, such as smoked salmon, trout, whitefish, tuna, cod and mackerel could be contaminated with listeria, a bacteria that’s found in soil and stream water. Listeria can cause listeriosis and can cross the placental barrier which can cause miscarriage, preterm delivery, infection to the baby, and possibly death to the newborn. Contracting listeriosis from listeria is rare, but pregnant women are much more more susceptible. These types of seafood, often labeled as lox, nova, smoked, kippered, or jerky, are only safe to eat during pregnancy as an ingredient in a cooked dish or casserole.

Game Fish

Game fish are fish caught for sport in local lakes, rivers, or streams, such as trout, salmon, bass, pike, bluefish, and walleye. The concern is about pollution that could be in the water and contaminate the fish. Check with your local health department or the Environmental Protection Agency to find out which waters are safe to eat from.

Raw Shellfish

According to the Food and Drug Administration, raw shellfish, which includes oysters, clams, and mussels are responsible for causing the majority of seafood borne illnesses. These illnesses, including Salmonella and other types of bacterial, parasitic, and viral infections can be serious for anyone, not just pregnant women. Cooking can help to prevent some of these types of infection, but not algae-related infections associated with red tides. It’s best to avoid raw as well as cooked shellfish during pregnancy.

Unwashed Vegetables

The only reason vegetables are on this list is because they should be thoroughly washed before eating. Unwashed vegetables could be contaminated with toxoplasma, a parasite that can be found in soil and can cause an infection that, although relatively rare, can cause stillbirth or serious health problems.

Alcohol

Drinking alcohol during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage and stillbirth and is the leading cause of birth defects. Alcohol exposure before birth puts the baby at risk for fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) which can include any of a slew of problems ranging from learning disabilities to physical abnormalities to disorders of the central nervous system.

Caffeine

There are studies that show that caffeine in moderation (under 300 mg a day) is OK and others that show it could be related to miscarriage, preterm labor, low-birth weight, and withdrawal symptoms in newborns for the first few days after birth. With inconclusive evidence, it’s best to avoid caffeine during pregnancy, especially during the first trimester. However, know that caffeine is a diuretic, which means that it increases the frequency of urination which can cause dehydration and calcium loss. It’s also a stimulant, which means that it also increases blood pressure and heart rate. It also can also contribute to heart burn. None of this is ideal, so it’s best to avoid caffeine during pregnancy.

Source by Brian Kellman

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/the-most-important-food-to-avoid-during-pregnancy/ via Home Solutions on WordPress

[naturalhealthtipsfan]

9 Foods You Should Never Eat While You are Pregnant -Most foods are completely safe for pregnant women to enjoy without worry. However, there are a select few foods that should be avoided during pregnancy because they can be potentially harmful to a developing fetus as well as a pregnant Mom. Now, I will share with you about 7 food you should never eat while you are pregnant. Number 1. Fish including mercury. Fish such as shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish have high mercury levels and must be shunned. Mercury, an element found in oceans, streams, and lakes, converts into methylmercury in the human body. It is a neurotoxin and is linked to brain damage and developmental delays in babies. You could choose fish such as salmon, catfish, cod, and canned light tuna, which have low mercury levels. According to the US FDA, you can eat up to eight to 12 ounces of fish per week, which is two to three servings. Consumption of white tuna should be limited to six ounces per week. Number 2. Alcohol. When you find out you are pregnant, it is important to stop drinking alcohol immediately. Exposing your baby to alcohol in the womb even at the earliest stages of development can interfere with the healthy growth of the fetus. In extreme cases, it can even lead to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. The next time you have a team-building night out with your co-workers, we recommend toasting to success with a glass of clean, clear water. And try ordering it neat or on the rocks for added fun. Number 3. Smoked seafood. Do not take smoked and refrigerated seafood, which are labeled as lox, jerky, nova style and kippered as they contain Listeria monocytogenes bacteria. This bacteria causes listeriosis that could lead to illness in newborn and even miscarriage or stillbirth. Moreover, processed seafood contains high levels of salt which can lead to increased blood pressure and swelling of the body parts. Number 4. Street foods. You may be craving for those sweet, sour, and spicy treats. They can increase the risk of infections, stomach problems, and food poisoning. They are harmful because of the poor food and water hygiene standards. Some examples of street foods include hot dogs, burritos, churros, cotton candy, soft pretzels, simit breast, corn in a cup, chicken rice. Number 5. Raw Eggs. Raw eggs may contain salmonella which can make you and your baby sick. Cooked eggs and products that contain raw eggs but are cooked or baked at some point are fine in moderation.But products like homemade ice cream, mayonnaise, and Hollandaise sauce should be avoided at all costs. Number 6. Raw meat and poultry. Having undercooked and poultry, such as pink or raw meat that is bloody, can cause toxoplasmosis as it contains Toxoplasma parasite. It leads to flu-like symptoms that develop a few weeks after consumption of that food. It can lead to miscarriage or fetal death during delivery. Undercooked meat also contains harmful bacteria salmonella, which increases the risk of food poisoning. All Health Tips and Information here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQpHfetbUaZqOHOoMCsUVp5nPTEHxmF57 Thanks for watching love you guys so much! And thanks to supporting my channel! All my opinions are my own! Please do like, Comment, subscribe Facebook:: https://www.facebook.com/NaturalHealthTps/ Twitter:: https://twitter.com/Dr_helps Blogspot:: http://naturalhealthtipse.blogspot.com/ Tumblr:: http://naturalhealthtipsfan.tumblr.com/ Wordpress:: https://naturalhealthtipsfan.wordpress.com/ FreeBackgroundMusic Ben Vanderbosch - Rainy Day https://youtu.be/xMsSMAzZMOM Health Disclaimer The information on this channel is designed for educational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for informed medical advice or care.You should not use this information to diagnose or treat any health problems.Please consult a doctor with any questions or concerns you might have regarding your or your child's condition. #NaturalHealthTips #Health #Tips #HealthTips Creative Commons license Licence: CC-BY-NC https://search.creativecommons.org https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

[iamnotthedog]

THE HOH RAINFOREST: AUGUST 11-12, 2001

I walked up the road a ways, wondering what the hell I was doing. I felt like I could have just kept walking forever. Then, right up around the bend, I saw a sign. Leaning at a diagonal angle like an unmanned oar attached to the side of a boat was a sign that read “Dennis’s Friendly Salvage.”

I walked into the yard. By that time it was around six in the evening, so I wasn’t even sure there would be anybody there. But a big Native American fellow was behind a little shed, filling up a bucket with water from a spigot. He was wearing blue overalls with a plaid shirt, and had a braided grey and white ponytail that hung down to the small of his back. There were chickens bouncing around, clucking stupidly, and this tall, dilapidated aluminum fence was swaying and creaking in the breeze. There were car parts strewn all over the grass and the gravel lot.

I walked up to the guy and told the guy my dilemma. He introduced himself as Dennis, patted me on the back with a huge hand, then waved for me to follow him and started walking up the highway, back to the Olds. I followed him, watching his ponytail sway back and forth, and neither of us said a word. There was still smoke in the air around the car when we got to it, and it smelled like burning rubber. Dennis shook his head, lifted the hood, and checked out the engine, humming to himself in low tones.

He eventually told me the deal—said something about the radiator, and showed me a bracket that had broken in the engine, causing something—maybe the alternator—to drop, and causing the timing belt to hit the cooling fan. Something like that. I don’t really remember. But it looked bad. Surprisingly, though, he said it wasn’t a lost cause. He told me he’d tow it into the yard and fix it for three hundred bucks.

Despite the fact that it seemed as though Dennis was offering me a pretty good deal, I didn’t really feel like spending my last $300—literally all the money I had left to my name—and I didn’t feel like waiting around the salvage yard while he got the parts and fixed the Olds, anyway.

“How about if you give me $300, and I just let you keep the car?” I asked him.

Dennis put his hands on his hips and looked up at the sky, which had taken on all the colors of a sunset on the Pacific Ocean. Deep blues fading into reds, with oranges and yellows on the horizon, over the trees. Then he kicked at the dirt and clapped his big hands together and said “I’ll give you my truck for it.”

I smiled, and Dennis smiled back, knowing that he probably had me. And he did. Driving a junkyard truck with Washington plates back to Joe’s place would be worth it just for the absurdity of it all.

Dennis walked back behind the tall aluminum fence, and I heard a hood pop open and a loud engine roar to life, and then a door creaked open and slammed shut, an engine revved up, and the big Indian came cruising around the far side of the fence, out onto the highway, in a tiny blue pickup truck.

The thing was hilarious. It looked nice enough at first, but upon closer inspection it had really just been put together with spare parts from the yard. The exhaust pipe was the exhaust pipe from a car, not a truck, and poked up in the middle of the truck bed and spewed exhaust into the air, like the steam from a steam engine. And there was a sunroof in the cab, but it was just a hole cut out of the roof, and then a piece of fiberglass duct-taped over the hole. The steering wheel was huge, like it had come out of a big rig. And the upholstery on the seats looked like the kitchen rug from the house I grew up in.

“I don’t have any papers for it,” Dennis said, cutting the engine. So you’ll have to get those yourself. And here...” He leaned into the driver’s side door and grabbed a crowbar from the floorboard. “Let me show you how to start it.”

Dennis popped the hood, lifted it, and touched the pins on the starter together with the crowbar. The thing sputtered, and then started. “Pretty sweet, huh?” he said, smiling at me.

“What’s wrong with the ignition?” I asked. “There’s no key?”

“The key’s in there right now. It has to be in there for it to start. It just doesn’t turn over.”

I sat in the driver’s seat.

“Fuck,” I said.

“What?” Dennis asked.

“I don’t know how to drive stick.”

Dennis struck the same pose he had struck before: his hands on his wide hips, his face turned up to the sky. Then he walked around to the passenger side and hopped in.

“Well shit,” he said, pounding his fists on the dash. “Let’s go.”

Dennis and I drove west and south down Highway 101 through the town of Forks and inland to the Hoh Rainforest where I learned how to drive stick.1 We stuck to Highway 101 and Hoh Valley Road for the most part, but we occasionally turned off onto the narrow, fern-choked side roads to practice stopping and starting on hills, or doing three-point turnabouts in shadowy, pine-covered parking lots. Dennis was patient with me until it got dark, then he got a little salty and told me to take him home. I was still pretty jerky with the clutch, and I couldn’t get the damn thing going on steep inclines without rolling backwards quite a ways, which I saw as being a possible problem when I got back down to California and the Sierra Nevada. Sometimes rolling backwards in Yosemite will roll you right off a cliff.

“You’ll be fine,” Dennis said, his big face and pointed cheekbones shining in the dashboard lights. He patted me on the leg, then got out of the truck and went into his house without even asking me where I was going, or if I had a place to stay.

I stopped by the Olds to say goodbye to it forever and grab my pack and my book, then drove for a couple of hours back west and south to a turn-out by Kalaloch Lodge, right there on the driftwood-strewn coast, where I slept in the cab of the truck.2 The following morning, I awoke to a dark gray sky and rain pattering on the windshield. I dug through my pack for my army green hooded jacket, threw it over my head, popped the hood, grabbed the crowbar from the floorboard, and got out of the cab to start the truck. Some tourists in a van that had pulled into the parking lot to snap pictures of the rugged Pacific coast looked at me curiously, as if I was hotwiring the truck to steal it or something. I smiled at them, and lifted the crowbar over my head.

“No ignition!” I yelled. Then I jumped back in the driver’s seat and headed due south on the 101, back to Olympia.

 Forks has always been a sleepy little tourist town, serving as a central lodging and dining destination for travelers planning daytime excursions to the Pacific beaches or the rainforests on the western edge of Olympic National Park. The city’s economy was fueled by the local timber industry until the efforts of various environmental groups and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—along with the Northern Spotted Owl’s categorization as an endangered species and President Bill Clinton’s subsequent Northwest Forest Plan—substantially reduced timber harvest in the area in the early ‘90s. The economy suffered following the local timber industry’s collapse, with most jobs being sourced by two nearby corrections centers until the success of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series brought tourists to the town in droves. If you can count yourselves among the few lucky ones who have never heard of Twilight, well then, allow me: Twilight is a series of four vampire-themed fantasy romance novels that concern themselves with the comings and goings of a clumsy and dim-witted girl with low self-esteem who a handsome and much more capable vampire falls in love with for some reason, anyway. The girl gets herself into all sorts of trouble and the vampire leaves because he feels like it’s his fault for some reason, and then the girl gets involved in a less steamy and more platonic relationship with another equally handsome vampire. But eventually the first vampire returns, and she sticks with him for some reason until they eventually get married and she has a half-vampire/half-human baby that I think is supposed to be a metaphor for Jesus Christ or something. I don’t know. I haven’t read any of the novels or seen the movies, I’ve only heard about them. What I’m getting at, though, is that the novels are set in Forks, and when the first movie based on the series came out in 2008, tourism rose from 10,000 annual visitors in that tiny town to 19,000. In 2010, the number was up to 73,000, and I’m sure it’s even more today, as the series’ fifth movie came out on November 16, 2012. ↩︎

 Olympic National Park is actually comprised of four separate regions: the drier forest on the east side of the park, the glaciated Olympic Mountains in the center of the park, the temperate rainforests on the western side of the park, and the sixty-mile-long, three-mile-wide stretch of coastline that runs from the Makah Indian Reservation in the north all the way down to the Quinault Indian Reservation to the south. The coastal strip of Olympic National Park is also home to two other Indian Reservations: the Hoh Indian Reservation lies at the mouth of the Hoh River, and the Quileute Indian Reservation lies at the mouth of the Quillayute River. Both reservations have been there since the Quinault Treaty of 1855, long before President Teddy Roosevelt created Mount Olympus National Monument in 1909, or before Congress voted to re-designate the monument as Olympic National Park in 1938. “Kalaloch” is a corruption of a Quinault word meaning “a good place to land,” which refers to the Pacific inlet in the community being one of the only safe places on the coastline in which to land a dugout canoe. ↩︎

[montemoutdoorgear1]

Six Super Foods You Should Always Pack

Don’t get the wrong idea, we didn’t say “superfoods,” we said, “super foods.”

The former refers to foods that provide substantial health benefits; the latter refers to foods that are simply awesome. Or, in this case, well-suited for hikers and campers.

However, there is certainly a bit of crossover between the two. Some of the foods discussed below may very well boost your metabolism or fight free radicals or help you live to 197 years of age, but that’s not why they’re on this list. Besides, many superfoods, including tomatoes and pomegranates, are full of water (read: they’re heavy), and therefore make less-than-ideal foods to take camping.

We’re talking about foods that are so spectacularly helpful for hikers and campers that you’ll always want to incorporate them into your overall meal plan.

Nuts

Nuts are essentially little bundles of protein, fat and fiber that don’t require refrigeration. They are also full of important minerals, which will help keep you feeling your best while traveling miles across backcountry trails. You can munch on nuts as a snack, incorporate them in trail mixes or use them in recipes (almonds, walnuts, pecans, filberts and cashews can turn many dishes into veritable five-star meals).

Note that we’re not distinguishing between true “nuts” and “legumes” or “seeds.” Sure, botanists will recognize some important differences between the various groups, but they won’t matter much from a camping menu point of view. So, don’t feel limited to true “nuts.” Bring sunflower seeds, Brazil nuts or peanuts, if those are your preference.

Anchovies or Sardines

Anchovies, sardines and other types of canned fish are great proteins to bring along on your next trip. They don’t require refrigeration, are rich in both protein and fat and they can be incorporated into a variety of different dishes. And while some people may not enjoy the taste of anchovies or other canned fish, they can be incorporated into recipes that largely mask their taste.

Aside from their caloric value, these small, oily fish also provide a wealth of omega-3 fatty acids. These compounds help your body fight off inflammation, which can help keep your knees, back and legs feeling fresher as the trip goes on.

Chocolate

Chocolate is often considered an indulgence, but it provides considerable value on the trail. For one, chocolate is high in calories, relative to its weight, and it is full of sugar. While sugar-rich foods aren’t always considered ideal dietary items in the everyday world, they can be worth their weight in gold on the trail. Fats, proteins and complex carbohydrates may help fuel your body in a steady, long-term fashion, but there’s nothing like a little sugar to give you a quick boost. This can be invaluable for those facing one more steep hill before arriving at the designated campsite.

Additionally, chocolate is delicious and helps to boost your mood. This can be very helpful when trying to navigate challenges or deal with problems. So, when you have to take cover from the rain mid-hike or you have to sit down with the map and figure out where you went wrong, break out the chocolate – it’ll help you stay positive.

Jerky

Proteins are difficult to bring on the trail. Most will spoil in a matter of hours if not refrigerated, so relatively few campers bring along filet mignon or rack of lamb when heading into the wilderness. You can bring some types of bacon, sausage and other smoked or cured foods, but these foods don’t offer much variety.

By contrast, you can get jerkies made from a variety of protein sources and flavored in myriad ways. You could select hickory-smoked turkey jerky, apple-flavored bacon jerky, spicy-beef jerky or any number of other combinations. This will help you avoid flavor fatigue and keep the menu interesting.

Also, jerky doesn’t require any preparation – just remove the wrapper and eat it. This makes it especially helpful for trail-side or early-morning snacking when you don’t want to break out the stove and make a proper meal.

Instant Noodles

We’re mostly talking about those noodles that start with an “R” and end with “amen,” but any brand of instant noodles will work. Instant noodles are great for a warm, but quick-and-easy meal and they are lightweight and easy to pack. And they come in roughly 3 billion flavors, so you don’t have to bore your self to tears eating the same ones during the entire trip.

But the real reason instant noodles are especially valuable is that you can eat them as-is. You don’t even need to cook them if you find yourself in a difficult situation. No; they are not particularly delicious this way, but it is nice to know you have an emergency meal at the ready.

Kale Chips

Before you skip this section like an 8-year-old tries to skip his lima beans, hear us out: When roasted with a bit of olive oil and sea salt (and perhaps some pepper, if you are so inclined), kale can be quite delicious. And because your food supply probably won’t have many vegetables, and kale is one of the healthiest foods in the world, you really should consider bringing some kale chips along.

Note that kale chips can be eaten as-is, but they can also be incorporated into other dishes too. You can crumble a few kale chips in your soup, or add them to pasta dishes, among other things. Incidentally, while kale is the vegetable most commonly used to make chips, you can experiment with making chips from plenty of other vegetables, including carrots or squash.

Give some of these foods a try on your next trip. They are all extremely well-suited for life on the trail and flexible enough to use in different ways. In fact, as you may have noticed, these foods can all be eaten as-is, which means they’ll also work as mid-hike snacks too.

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