#something about mold and mulch and growing things
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Starseed Apples
“Here you go,” I said, putting down the last box. “Uncut fabric, plumbing supplies, and three cases with a fungus biohazard label. Do I even want to know what’s in those?” I cast a curious look at my fellow human as I handed over the signing pad. She was shorter and rounder than I was, dressed in a crisp uniform of a type I didn’t recognize. Big pockets everywhere.
She signed with a wry grin. “Those are dirt.”
“Dirt?” I repeated, looking around the admittedly spotless loading dock of this particular space station. “Dirt warrants a biohazard here?”
“Oh, you have no idea,” she said, handing the pad back. “Organic mulch that could contain anything from decomposed animals to fungus to poop? With uncountable amounts of bacterial life and potential germs? We’re lucky they only focused on the mold aspect!”
“Hm, good point,” I said.
Zhee, who was busy moving boxes off the hover sled, muttered something disparaging. I expected him to complain about how gross it all was, since he was always the first to point out when humans did something to offend his bug-alien sensibilities, but it sounded like he was griping about the strict station rules this time.
The human continued. “We have to keep a clean room between the greenhouse area and everything else. Even there, most things are in pots. We’ve got a great crop from Johnny Starseed right now!”
I’d heard that name before. “Oh, was he the one who sells little potted—”
“Apple trees, yeah,” she said. “Tiny and convenient, but they make an impressive number of apples as long as you feed ‘em quality dirt.” She bent down to pat a box.
Zhee finished freeing the sled. “Reasonable business plan,” he said, sounding almost complimentary.
“The guy named himself after Johnny Appleseed,” I told Zhee. “A human from centuries ago who got famous for traveling around and setting up apple orchards on Earth. Everybody likes a guy who brings food wherever he goes. And drink — I think some of those apples were supposed to be the cider variety.”
Zhee flicked his antennae. “Sounds like a very human thing to do,” he said drily.
“Have you tried the Starseed Reds?” the other human asked. “They’re very good.”
“No I haven’t, but I’d like to!” I said. “I’ve heard good things. I was kind of hoping to cross paths with him at some point. I wouldn’t mind a tiny apple tree in my quarters. Of course, the cat might get at it, and I’d probably have to find a grow lamp…”
She opened a boxy hip pocket, and pulled out the shiniest red apple I’d seen in a while. “Here you go.”
“Thank you!” I said, taking it eagerly. “That’s very generous!”
She waved it off. “Like I said, we’ve got a big crop. And I’ve got a different one that I’m saving for when I get off shift.” From another pocket, she produced a red apple with distinct orange stripes. “Which should be as soon as I get the supplies back to base.”
I laughed. “Is that the booze kind? I didn’t think those were real!”
“Oh yes,” she said with relish, putting it back in the pocket. “Starseed Cider Apples, no fermenting required!”
Zhee cocked his head, faceted eyes looking at both of us. “Poisonous apples?”
“Alcoholic apples,” I corrected, knowing full well that he considered that to be the same thing.
Zhee pushed the hover cart back toward the ship with a dramatic head tilt and antennae swirl. “Now that sounds like a human thing to do.”
“Well, you’re not wrong there,” I said with a smile. I thanked the other human and followed him, taking a bite of my non-alcoholic apple. It really was good.
~~~
The ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book. More to come!
#hm new posting interface#not a fan#SURELY there's a way to do this without having to add in the paragraph breaks manually#good thing today's story is a short one#annnnnyways...#my writing#the Token Human#humans are weird#haso#hfy#eiad#humans are space orcs#writeblr#science fiction#short stories
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Untitled.MP4
Previous | Next | First (with warnings)
Part 8
June 22, 20XX
Zuli is working on something just off-camera. There’s a sizzling sound, like a hot pan. Mercury, sitting in the center of the camera’s view, is removing his hand from the camera.
“This smells…weird.”
Mercury looks over.
“Does it? I’ve kinda gotten used to it.”
“It smells like a mix of beef and wet mulch. The beef smell is great, but the mulch smell is equally bad. Net 0 hunger gained. But somehow I still want to eat these less now than I did yesterday.”
Mercury snorts. Zuli straightens up, and turns. In a frying pan are some of the mushrooms. He looks much healthier now, and calmer. …And cleaner. His eyes are brighter, his hair is combed, he’s put on more weight. The mushrooms seem to be doing him good, for better or worse.
“Would you like your gourmet, unseasoned, pan-fried infectious mushrooms, sir?” Zuli has a fake british accent.
“Ah, yes; thank you, chef.”
The pair snickers. “It’s very hot, by the way. Don’t burn yourself.”
“Yes sir.”
Mercury picks up a small mushroom on what appears to be a bamboo skewer. Zuli moves away from the camera, soon returning with his own mushroom skewer.
“Right. So.” Mercury takes a bite. He makes a face, but continues eating. Zuli seems to have to work up the courage to eat his.
“Obsidian is still around, as I thought. He’s locked in his room. It seems like they intentionally tried to fill his room with spores, because there’s more mushrooms and mold growing in there than anywhere else except the kitchen.”
“And the only reason the kitchen is so full is because someone left a bunch of food out,” Zuli says. “Mercury said he hasn’t been in there since everything started, but judging by the looks of it, it had been out for more than just a few days. My guess, given how high-functioning the others are, is that they intentionally left it out for the fungus to grow on, so that any food in there would be unsafe to eat for anyone who wasn’t infected.
“Some of the food in the fridge has small amounts of mold from this fungus growing on them, in addition to your average spoiled food molds and nastiness. It was probably contaminated for a long time, but clearly, it didn’t look it. It was probably an intentionally laid trap.”
Mercury takes another bite of his skewer as Zuli speaks. He finishes it quickly, and throws the stick away.
“Zuli’s got a good instinct for things. I’m extra glad he hasn’t gotten infected.”
Zuli looks away.
“A lot of it is just pessimism.”
“Look, if it keeps us safe, I’ll take it.” Mercury pulls a notebook over. “Back to Obsidian for the moment, since we all love talking about that fuckwad-”
Zuli tries not to laugh with food in his mouth. Mercury gives a slight smile.
“He’s way, way worse off than Jade was. I’m not sure if it’s the time, or if they’ve been trying harder to infect him than Jade. It’s been about a week since I’ve seen Jade, so I can’t say for sure. Either way, he’s absolutely covered in the mushrooms, far more than anyone else, and their infections have been getting progressively worse as time goes on. They’ve almost completely covered his eyes, except for one small spot. He seems to be mostly immobile, and he didn’t talk much.”
Zuli finishes his skewer, and discards the stick.
“He barely even reacted when we came in. We almost thought he was dead, but when he heard our voices he looked over.” Zuli shudders. “He didn’t move his head that much, but it sounded like it hurt. He might literally be attached to his bed, now.”
Mercury shakes his head in dismay. “I can only imagine how much pain he’s in. I almost feel bad. It’d probably be a mercy to kill him now, and it sounds like he wouldn’t object.”
“Maybe we should check on Jade at some point?” Zuli suggests. “Might help us get a better idea of how this thing works if we can compare them.”
“I’d like to, but I’m not sure we could,” Mercury says. “His room was almost as ‘guarded’ as Obsidian’s, last time I was there. And they might’ve added extra precautions. It’s been a whole week since I’ve seen him.”
Zuli considers this, folding his arms. “I’d suggest going myself, but I don’t really think either of us should be alone out there if we can help it…Even if it does give you more time to work on the cure.”
“Yeeah…It’s safer to go together. If we really, really have to, we’ll see about…solo missions?”
Mercury looks uncertain, but Zuli gives a small laugh.
“Solo missions. I like it.”
Mercury snorts. It’s clear the company has done a lot for his mood and mental health.
“We might need something to defend ourselves, though. I’m not sure what we could use that wouldn’t need serious decontamination every time we go out with it.”
Zuli scratches his chin. Mercury stares at him for a moment before putting his face in his hands.
“Two weeks, and I never thought about finding a weapon.”
Zuli purses his lips.
“...There’s a joke to be made there about the doctor’s creed. ‘Do no harm.’ You didn’t even think to find a weapon.”
“Shut up.”
Zuli laughs. Mercury mutters something unintelligible and reaches forwards.
The video ends.
#Untitled.MP4#JMV Mercury#JMV Zuli#so many characters to tag wowwie#God i can't say 'wowie' without thinking of Papyrus#nyeh heh heh mother fuckers#sorry i'm a little tired as I queue this HJKHGFDJKS#Moonfur Writing
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hi! i've been kinda gardening, in the ground and all for a couple years now but i'm still pretty stupid and learning, i know you're supposed to use potting or seed mix bc the perlite + peat combo makes the container bearable for the little seedlings roots and makes the watering consistent.... but the question is how can we grow things before they're meant to be put in the ground, as a headstart? without spending money that fuels a practice that is extremely insane and greedy, since perlite + vermiculite as well as peat moss are not exactly renewable resources. i have a lot of old crumpled leaves here but they're not exactly composted leaf mold so i'm wondering if i just mix that with native soil if i can make something idk airy and nice i guess for the seeds?
If you can get some soil from a forest, from under a rotten or dead tree, that would do well in a container! (once you clean it from all of the leaves.) You can see how I prepare the soil from forest-soil and sand here.
Other than that, I've seen many methods. Plant lady will sometimes take soil that has been worked on by moles, mix it with some moss and plant in it, and it works sometimes. I'm convinced that if you don't have horrible clay as your soil, you could mix it with fine sand and it would work in a container. You don't need perlite or whatever they're selling, you'll always be able to find some fine and airy soil in the nature, or if you make compost yourself, you could mix your compost with sand and it would also make a good potting soil.
If your compost is still having whole pieces of leaf, don't use them for little starts. Organic matter that is still in the middle of composting takes up nitrogen, and you don't want your plants to have nitrogen taken away. Usually when people construct garden beds, they'll only use organic matter very deep in the no-dig garden, or on the surface, as mulch.
Try to see if there's some fine sand in the river, or in the nearest forest or lake that you can bring home and use to make your soil airy! You can try several things and one of them will eventually work out. Just don't use pure clay or heavy soil, as your tiny plants won't be able to push out of it.
Also if you're worried about watering, just use bottom-watering method and water consistently, we don't need a special type of soil to keep the soil damp, just some attention and dedication.
Good luck.
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It is spring in Houston, which means that each day the temperature rises and so does the humidity. The dampness has darkened the flower bed, and from the black mulch has emerged what looks like a pile of snotty scrambled eggs [...]. I recognize this curious specimen as the aethalial state of Fuligo septica, more commonly known as “dog vomit slime mold.” Despite its name, it’s not actually a mold -- not any type of fungus at all -- but rather a myxomycete (pronounced MIX-oh-my-seat), a small, understudied class of creatures that occasionally appear in yards and gardens as strange, Technicolor blobs. Like fungi, myxomycetes begin their lives as spores, but when a myxomycete spore germinates and cracks open, a microscopic amoeba slithers out. [...] When the amoeba encounters another amoeba with whom it is genetically compatible, the two fuse, joining chromosomes and nuclei [...], growing ever larger, until at the end of its life, it transforms into an aethalia, a “fruiting body” that might be spongelike in some species, or like a hardened calcium deposit in others, or, as with Stemonitis axifera, grows into hundreds of delicate rust-colored stalks. [...]
These creatures exist on every continent and almost everywhere people have looked for them: from Antarctica, where Calomyxa metallica forms iridescent beads, to the Sonoran Desert, where Didymium eremophilum clings to the skeletons of decaying saguaro cacti [...]. Throughout their lives, myxomycetes only ever exist as a single cell, inside which the cytoplasm always flows -- out to its extremities, back to the center. When it encounters something it likes, such as oatmeal, the cytoplasm pulsates more quickly. If it finds something it dislikes, like salt, quinine, bright light, cold, or caffeine, it pulsates more slowly [...]. It can solve mazes in pursuit of a single oat flake, and later, can recall the path it took to reach it. [...]
How do you classify a creature such as this?
In the ninth century, Chinese scholar Twang Ching-Shih referred to a pale yellow substance that grows in damp, shady conditions as kwei hi, literally “demon droppings.” In European folklore, slime mold is depicted as the work of witches, trolls, and demons -- a curse sent from a neighbor to spoil the butter and milk. In Carl Linnaeus’s Species Plantarum -- a book that aspires to list every species of plant known at the time (nearly seven thousand by the 1753 edition) -- he names only seven species of slime molds. Among those seven we recognize Fuligo in the species he calls Mucor septicus (“rotting mucus”), which he classifies, incorrectly, as a type of fungus. [...]
These “ladders” or “scales of ascent,” in turn, inspired the “Great Chain of Being” -- the [...] worldview central to European thought from the end of the Roman Empire through the Middle Ages, that ordered all of creation from lowest to highest [...]. Over time, Linnaeus revised his classifications of Homo sapiens, naming “varieties” that at first corresponded to what he saw as the four geographic corners of the planet, but which became hierarchical, assigned different intellectual and moral value based on phenotypes and physical attributes. The idea that humans could and should be ordered -- that some were superior to others, that this superiority had a physical as well as social component -- was deeply embedded in many previous schema. But Linnaeus’s taxonomy, unlike the systems that came before, gave these prejudices the appearance of objectivity, of being backed by scientific proof. When Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, it was on the foundation of this “science,” which had taught white Europeans to reject the idea of evolution unless it crowned them in glory.
But the history of taxonomic classification has always been about establishing hierarchy [...].
I did not learn until college about a taxonomic category that superseded kingdom, proposed in the 1970s by biologists Carl Woese and George Fox and based on genetic sequencing, that divided life into three domains: Bacteria, Eukarya, and Archaea, a recently discovered single-celled organism that has survived in geysers and swamps and hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean for billions of years.
Perhaps a limit of our so-called intelligence is that we cannot fathom ourselves in the context of time at this scale, and that so many of us fail, so consistently, to marvel at any lives but our own. [...]
A few years ago, near a rural village in Myanmar, miners came across a piece of amber containing a fossilized Stemonitis slime mold dating from the mid-Cretaceous period. Scientists were thrilled by the discovery, because few slime mold fossils exist, and noted that the 100-million-year-old Stemonitis looks indistinguishable from the one oozing around forests today. [...]
One special ability of slime molds that supports this possibility is their capacity for cryptobiosis: the process of exchanging all the water in one’s body for sugars, allowing a creature to enter a kind of stasis for weeks, months, years, centuries, perhaps even for millennia. [...] The only other species who have this ability are the so-called “living fossils” such as tardigrades and Notostraca (commonly known as water bears and tadpole shrimp, respectively). [...]
In laboratory environments, researchers have cut Physarum polycephalum into pieces and found that it can fuse back together within two minutes. Or, each piece can go off and live separate lives, learn new things, and return later to fuse together, and in the fusing, each individual can teach the other what it knows, and can learn from it in return.
Though, in truth, “individual” is not the right word to use here, because “individuality” [...] doesn’t apply to the slime mold worldview. A single cell might look to us like a coherent whole, but that cell can divide itself into countless spores, creating countless possible cycles of amoeba to plasmodium to aethalia, which in turn will divide and repeat the cycle again. It can choose to “fruit” or not, to reproduce sexually or asexually or not at all, challenging every traditional concept of “species,” the most basic and fundamental unit of our flawed and imprecise understanding of the biological world. As a consequence, we have no way of knowing whether slime molds, as a broad class of beings, are stable or whether climate change threatens their survival, as it does our own. Without a way to count their population as a species, we can’t measure whether they are endangered or thriving. Should individuals that produce similar fruiting bodies be considered a species? What if two separate slime molds do not mate but share genetic material?
The very idea of separateness seems antithetical to slime mold existence. It has so much to teach us.
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Headline and all text published by: Lacy M. Johnson. “What Slime Knows.” Orion Magazine. August 2021. Photos by Alison Pollack and published alongside article.
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Xisuma and Evil X- A Hero By Any Other Name
So. This happened. You ever get the urge to write 9000 words of Evil X and Xisuma as brothers that in a Super Hero AU where the government is corrupt and runs all the heroes into the ground in the name of “protecting the most people possible”? With lots of Evil X making poor choices to help out his exhausted hero of a brother? And then have that story end up taking over your life for about a week until you can get it all out? Yeah. Yeah, glad I finally finished this but gosh darn am I double glad that I can move on to other projects.
Also on AO3.
__________
A story in which there are two little boys, a pair of twins by the names of Evil X and Xisuma. Xisuma is good and kind and responsible, everything that his mother ever wanted and more. Evil X was the mistake, the additional child their parents didn't want nor could afford to have. Their parents had run the math, knew the risks, knew that if they penny-pinched enough, they could afford to have the child they always dreamed of. Evil X threw their maths into chaos, and if they wanted one son, they had to take both.
Evil X and Xisuma knew that Evil X was a mistake, that his presence was why their family could never afford to go to the movies, why they couldn't buy school lunches like all the other kids, why their parents were so stressed and tired and cruel. Still, Xisuma was glad that his brother existed, even if it made his parents' lives harder. He wondered if that made him a bad son.
In time, Evil X and Xisuma were left alone by everyone in their lives and until all they had are each other and the void that their parents left them with when they had to look them in the eye and tell them that they couldn't take care of them anymore. Even now Xisuma thinks that the void raised them better than their parents ever did, teaching him and his brother to lie through their teeth, be sneaky, be cruel.
In the orphanage and the many foster homes that followed, Evil X did his best to take care of his twin as a sort of penance for screwing up the life Xisuma could have led. In return, Xisuma lied and lied and lied to the matrons and the well-meaning children about anything and everything he needed to. They don't need anyone but each other. (Truth.) They are happy. He is everything that Evil X needs, Evil X doesn't want a family. Xisuma is enough. (Lie.)
(Gods, don't take his brother away.)
Xisuma grew up with lies on his tongue and smiles in his eyes, warping himself into the golden child, larger than life. Evil X grew up in the shadows with bruised knuckles, a bruised heart, and eventually, scars across his face from a fight gone bloody and wrong. He was protecting Xisuma, the scars were worth it- his brother accepts them with an odd little smile on his face and a shattering in his eyes. It is a moment that stays with them long after.
---
Eventually, foster homes turn into streets and dumpsters, and long nights spent under the covers together are turned into nights spent up in the branches of trees in the park. Xisuma makes friends with the pigeons while Evil X pretends not to like their feathered neighbors. They curl up the same though, bodies fitting together like puzzle pieces high in their bower. Made for each other, quietly shaping themselves around their twin so as to better protect them and shield them from the cold.
Evil X comes home to their tree with stolen sweaters and wilted flowers and popcorn kernels from behind the movie theater so that the birds don't starve. Xisuma meets him with tears of wonder in his eyes and fire dancing on his fingertips.
Xisuma has magic. Evil X tries not to be jealous. As it turns out, he has very little to be jealous of when it's revealed that there are many other people who have magic throughout the city- or rather, "superpowers." It's like something straight out of a comic book, if that comic book resembled something like Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" or the Transformers IDW continuity.
People start dying. A lot of people. Those with powers that make them look monstrous are feared, hated, and eventually outcast. Those with powers that are useful are drafted to fight wars and heal people for hours and hours with no rest in the hospitals. Xisuma sells himself to the city officials behind Evil X's back and in return, he and his brother get a cold glass and steel apartment and food enough that they will never starve again.
Evil X begins to build up muscle, fleshing out and growing tall and strong. He hates it, hates his body, because Xisuma never becomes more than whipcord strength and whispered words- down-turned eyes, up-turned lips. Reassurances that he's happy, really, truly. So obedient, his brother, the ideal filial son to the system that Evil X could never bring himself to be. They train the civilian out of his twin and mold him into a leader, a real proper superhero.
They don't give his brother lunch breaks. They need his power too badly, they say. There are people dying and they need his strength.
Gods, it makes him sick.
Xisuma's slight figure hides in his brother's shadow when they are at home, and Evil X does his best to wrap around him until the "monsters" of the world can't get him. Evil X lets Xisuma's flames dance across his fingertips and tickle his face, their gentle warmth driving out some of the chill in their big empty apartment. On truly special days, they go to the park to feed the birds. The higher ups don't like that, of course, insisting that Xisuma under Evil X's care is like using his spark for a kerosene lamp, contained, stifled, unable to help anyone in any way that matters.
The city wants a bonfire. Evil X growls and tells them no, but Xisuma just smiles and his eyes shatter a little more as he goes with them willingly, offering himself up as kindling. His superhero name is Matchstick of all things, and Evil X knows his brother well enough to know that he picked it out himself.
A nod to the fact that he is destroying himself? An inside joke and an apology in one, maybe. It breaks his heart too much to think on it.
---
With time, the rules and roles become a little clearer and the war begins to solidify. Basic rights for those with powers is still in the works, but Xisuma is able to start eating a little more. Evil X makes him protein shakes to take with him to work anyway.
The heroes are this: Matchstick, Reaper, Ivy-Over, Xenon, Spatter, Shank, Krypton, and Trigometric. Xisuma, Cleo, Gemini, Tango, Vintage Beef, Iskall, Impulse, Cubfan.
The villains are this: Armistice, Zyon, Ooze, Clockwork, Poultryman, Valkerie, and Lumesce. (Welsknight, Etho, Jevin, Mumbo, Grian, Stress, Pearl- but our hero doesn't know this yet.)
Evil X sits on their shared bed and holds his twin in his arms, listening to him talk about work with troubled eyes.
Reaper. Cruel, with a tongue like a knife and teeth even sharper. She eats her enemies whole and seems to enjoy the taste of blood. Somewhere in the dark of the building is a man named Joe who whispers comebacks and threats to her for her to use in her next fight. She has not seen him free or unshackled in three years. Around his neck is a metal collar, an irony too bitter for her to speak of often. Xisuma hopes they treat him well.
Ivy-Over, blinded by the glitter and shine of heroism, still firmly thinking the best of her political overlords. Naive. Carefully herded off the battlefields as soon as her fights are over so that she never sees the casualties her massive vines leave in their wake. Xisuma worries that one day the illusion will be broken and with it her mind. She seems like the kind of person who could regress to using entrails as a skipping rope if pushed far enough. Evil X does his best to reassure him, but the lies turn to mulch in his mouth.
Xenon and Krypton, a duo that never let the higher ups split them up or force them to fight alone. Together they share a record for the fewest recorded injuries, as well as a certain fierceness in their eyes as they volley explosive balls of shadow and light between them, bouncing them back and forth to build up velocity before letting them loose on their enemies. Still, the people whisper about how much more help they could do if they were simply separated, able to cover more places at once. At night, Xisuma hears them crying, bundled tight in each other's arms and mourning their missing third.
Shank, their sniper. Supreme accuracy, a consequence of his self-built bionic eye and his special laser rifle. The higher ups are murmuring about what he could do if more of him was bionic. What improvements could be made to his body? How many more lives could be saved? (How many more "monsters" could be put behind bars?)
Splatter, their brawler. A sip of blood and he hulks out, his strength becoming all the greater the more he drinks, so the higher ups give him all the blood he could stomach and more. They never tell him where it comes from, and he's too afraid to ask. (He was a butcher before this whole hero thing, he had explained to Xisuma once. He knows what animal blood tastes like. What they give him is definitely not animal blood- and sometimes, it makes him feel sick. He always was allergic to steroids.)
Trigometric, who bent reality into fractals, who seemed just a bit more broken than the rest. He actually liked his job, and that perhaps made him less of a hero and more of a monster. (Mr. Goodtimes was a head of government of some renown, famous for his power plays and his campaign that favored brutal action against those that the city condemned. Trigometric called him "Scar" with affection on his lips and that was perhaps scariest of all.)
It's terrifying hearing about his twin's coworkers and their varying flavors of unfortunate and unstable, even worse when he has to stay at home and watch the news to see if his brother has survived to see another day against the violent protests and the drug rings and mobs and super villains.
Because there are super villains. He even meets one.
---
The pigeons need feeding. Life or death, whether Xisuma is around to remind him or no, the pigeons need feeding so every Tuesday and Saturday Evil X goes to the park with a bag of bird seed. It just so happens that one sunshine-filled summer day there is someone there before him. Crouched close to a few pigeons, at first he thinks the figure is just dressed in a purple cloak, but when the figure stands up and stretches, the cloak separates to reveal a pair of brilliant purple wings. Poultryman.
Evil X has seen his brother come back from fights and he knows that while Poultryman is a figure of some renown, his battles rarely cause collateral damage- that's more the hallmark of his partner Clockwork. So when Poultryman turns to face him, trademark white mask over his eyes and an odd expression on his face, Evil X just glares and walks up to him to dump the bag of bird seed on the super villain's feet.
"For the birds," he says tersely before spinning on his heel, preparing to walk away. The sound of bright, cheerful laughter has him pausing and the sound of wings meeting the dirt has him turning around. Poultryman is on the ground, rolling around in the bird seed and laughing his head off, clutching his stomach and flapping his wings wildly, which only makes even more of a mess.
"Pffftt- hahaHAhAHaH! Oh gods, your face! If I couldn't tell you were so pissed off to see me I wouldv'e thought this was the greatest prank ever!" Oookay? Evil X crosses his arms, unimpressed and left with a sneaking suspicion he is being made fun of.
"And?" Poultryman lets out a last few wheezing gasps before smoothly rolling to his feet, mask askew and utterly covered in dirt, grass, and bird seed. The local pigeons have, surprisingly enough, not scattered just yet.
"And that was brilliant! Tell me, are you the one who's been feeding the birds around here? The pigeons have been dying to introduce me to their 'friend' and I've been eager to meet them ever since. Well, the word translates more to family but there's some non-pigeon implications mixed in there, so friend works a little better. I don't think my feathered friends have quite yet figured out how to buy their own bird seed. You don't look like a pigeon anyway."
"No. I am not a pigeon," Evil X sighs, shifting his feet but keeping his posture defensive. If he remembers right, Poultryman never did any real damage but he apparently came off to Xisuma as a little unhinged and he'd rather not test the super villain's good mood. "And yes, I feed the birds around here. Can I go?"
Poultryman tilts his head to the side, going abruptly silent and still, all emotion wiped from his body language, expression, and voice. "That depends. Would you like to make Matchstick's life a little easier? I have a deal for you."
---
It goes a little something like this.
Clockwork and Poultryman schedule a raid on a local food processing plant, hoping to take their newest shipment of tin. Matchstick and Splatter are in the area and are called in to help. It's a poor match up to begin with, with Splatter's strength not doing much against Clockwork's robotika and Matchstick- while able to keep up with Poultryman in the air, barely- can't seem to land a solid hit on the villain. It doesn't help that he seems to be limited in how hard he hits, too conscious of what his flames might do to Poultryman's vulnerable feathers and of just how high they are in the air. Clockwork, meanwhile, is free to pilfer what he and his partner please from the plant.
However, despite the lack of damage the super heroes are able to do, the villains do even less. To Evil X, that is all that matters.
In another part of the city, a group of civilians meet in an abandoned railway car, dry docked in a train yard with its rusted frame resting on several heavy blocks of wood. The door is chained shut, but that means little when the underneath has a hole cut into it and if one is determined enough, crawling inside is easy. There, they exchange moth-eaten blankets, half-broken appliances, tattered clothes, and the tools to fix them. Money. Documents.
Evil X brings food. The government promised food unending to him and his brother, he may as well take advantage of it.
A deceptively normal-looking man with glasses and a deactivated metal collar around his neck brings a stack of books in, most of them picture books for the children. Another man, this one with green skin and robotik prosthetics, brings a stack of battered but newly repaired mobile phones, gaze shifting around nervously, as if scared to be caught there. Evil X makes a quiet note of the men but moves on. Theirs is not a story he feels like tampering with today.
When Xisuma comes home to find Evil X laying face-down in bed, fast asleep, he just smiles and tucks himself in beside his twin. Today is the first day in a long time he had come out from a fight unscathed, and tomorrow he will share the good news with his brother. For now, he sleeps.
---
In time, Evil X becomes a staple of the Homeless Enforcing Principles, which quickly gets abbreviated to the rather unimaginative "HEP." He wonders in the back of his mind if a certain man in glasses had something to do with the name, but decides not to bother with that quickly enough. He has enough on his plate as is with his newly adopted duties.
You see, when you get a diverse enough body of people together from all echelons in the city, and then put them into a rather small space, they begin to do what every group of friendly strangers like to do on the train- start complaining. Sometimes it's about the new "neighborhood watch" starting trouble on the corner of 6th and Fruit, sometimes it's about the new increase in taxes their boss wants to implement, sometimes it's about the stock that slips through the gaps when the trucks come to restock the supermarket.
Between him and his twin, Evil X never really was the one for idle chit-chat, but he knew lies just as well as his brother did and public speaking was just lying with a pretty bow on top. Stock begins to get left off of inventory sheets and put into the hands of the needy. The "neighborhood watch" get pointed towards the parts of the city that actually need their help (conveniently drawing the attention of the local law enforcement, who can actually do something about the problem).
He begins to donate more and more food to the cause, waistline thinning in the process. He thinks he likes his figure better that way.
As Evil X puts more time into his new project, crime rates don't exactly go down, but the number of people arrested for stupid reasons certainly does. The other members of HEP begin to bring in their friends and family and the pool of resources and talents grows, expanding outside the walls of their train car and out into people's basements, gas station parking lots, metal trash bin bonfires in the park. Little pools of community, and for Evil X, wellsprings of information.
Clockwork and Poultryman are some of the first actual super villains to come to the meetings, this time under the names of Mumbo Jumbo and Grian, but they are not the last.
---
Armistice arrives hanging off of Lumesce's shoulder one night, his metal body forcing her to drag him along on the ground, shredded legs unable to hold his own weight. She cries steady tears of light, seemingly near-physically pained at being unable to further help him. Evil X watches quietly from the background as Grian looks up and over the bonfire from where he is tending the jagged gash in the unconscious Mumbo's leg.
"Wels. Pearl. Got you too, huh?" The carefully kept-up cheer is gone from the man's face as the duo settle down by the fire, sprawling out in a rough heap.
The woman, Pearl, nods wearily, pulling off her hood and wiping at her face, glowing tears staining her black jacket. "Yeah. Trigometric decided he wanted to come and 'play' for a bit, seems he finally caught on to the illegal clinic I was running down in Mr. TFC's basement. I was lucky enough to get an anonymous tip that he was coming, but Wels got caught in the crossfire for defending me." Grian nods back, eyes distant.
"Give Mumbo a hand with his leg, I'll go grab the last of our tin for Wels to eat so he can patch himself up. E-X?" Evil X straightens up at the winged man's attention. "Call up Keralis and see if you can't get some hew housing sorted for Mr. TFC. I doubt his house survived in the crossfire and you might as well fix it for him with my permission and funds rather than just sort it out behind my back and try to sell it to me as an 'investment' later." With that parting remark Grian stands up stiffly and flies away, leaving Pearl to make her way over to his partner, healing tears already streaming down her face so that she can start to fix the wound.
On the other side of the fire, Wels reaches down and rubs at the sharp and twisted metal of the remnants of his left leg, expression lost and weary. "Things can't keep going like this, so many of us are running on fumes by this point. Something has to change." Expressionless, Evil X just turns away, pulls out his cellphone, and begins to make a few calls.
He carefully ignores the twisting of his heart in his chest.
The next day, Mr. TFC has a room in a decent hotel and Evil X sits on his perfectly white couch staring at his overly large TV, watching the news. Armistice and Poultryman are fighting against Matchstick and Ivy-Over, dashing in and landing a few hits before retreating to the shadows, then running up to repeat the process again. The fight ends with both sides retreating, the heroes to the hospital, the villains to skies with Poultryman straining to bear both Armistice's weight and the load of cash stolen cash in his arms.
Grian's going to pull a wing muscle again, Evil X just knows it.
Xisuma leaves the fight unscathed. Gemini isn't nearly so lucky.
---
The next super villain he meets is mostly on accident, a random encounter more than anything. Tired of lounging about all day, if you call making connections and surfing the internet doing fuck all, Evil X decides he hates himself a bit more than he usually does and decides to go job hunting. A quick internet search later and he finds himself standing outside an abandoned warehouse on the North docks. He and his brother never had much more than their birth certificates and social security numbers to their name, so shady suited him perfectly fine.
A man steps out from behind a corner dressed in a hospital mask, black pea-coat, and a sailor's breton cap as white as his hair. Evil X freezes, eyes going wide as the familiar-looking stranger goes bug-eyed to see him right back. Then the man shifts his weight to his back foot, crossing his arms and wincing playfully, very real trepidation lurking in his posture.
"Uh, you wouldn't happen to by Matchstick's brother, would you?" Evil X takes a careful step away from the man, who he now recognizes as Zyon from watching the news, one of Xisuma's more common foes. His own research proved that the fellow had ice powers to put an iceberg to shame, which was ironic considering that he was secretly the business mogul Etho, who ran a shipping company helpfully named "Titanic Inc." It was doubly ironic since "Zyon" was notorious for causing problems for "Etho," who then claimed the insurance payouts when the boats eventually sank.
That the boats that sank frequently carried weapons, junk food made with GMO ingredients, and weirdly enough, socks, was of little consequence to him, but he kept that amusing tidbit in his back pocket for later. (The sailors on board were... collateral. And a nonissue. Anyone who signed up on a ship run by "Titanic Inc." deserved what they got.)
(Their deaths were not his concern.)
"Yeah, that's me. And you're Zyon- or rather, Etho." Zyon chuckles nervously.
"Yep yep, that's me. And you're very firmly on the 'no touchie' list around here, so I'm just gonna gooo...." Zyon flinches as Evil X suddenly attaches himself to his wrist, expression steely.
"List?" It's more statement than question, but it has Zyon gulping back a frantic giggle anyway.
"Oh no, I'm not messing with that one. Let's just say you should take that up with your brother and leave it at that. Get too deep into that mess and someone's gonna end up regretting it- and I'm not that dumb, that's for sure!" With that parting remark, Evil X finds his feet frozen to the ground and Zyon running off, dropping the black pea-coat of Etho to reveal the icy blue Kevlar ninja suit of the super villain underneath.
Bemusedly Evil X watches Zyon vault up a stack of pipes onto a nearby roof, then off towards the city where he could better better disappear.
Hmm. Seems like he needs to step up his game.
---
He runs into Ooze at the supermarket. Apparently they both prefer the green grapes to the purple ones. The more you know.
---
It's his encounter with Valkerie that really sets things off.
Xisuma comes home one day, tears streaming down his face and his gloves covered in blood and dust. He crumples in a heap at Evil X's feet where he sits on the couch and drops his face into his twin's lap, trembling. His arms dangle at his sides, blood dripping from his fingers onto the sterile white carpeting.
"Four dead found in a park near here. All teenagers, just having fun. Just. Just fucking kids! She ruptured their ear drums and they bled out because they couldn't move to get to safety. Gods E-X, their eyes... They looked so scared..." Evil X stays quiet and runs his fingers through his brother's hair, heedless of the muck clinging to the ends. Xisuma shakes himself to bits in his hands. "They were just kids. We couldn't do even do anything but clean up the mess afterwards."
Xisuma pauses, hesitant, before choking out- "That could have been us. Had we still been on our own, that could have been us." Ah. So that's it.
"We're safe, you know. Whoever Valkerie is, she won't get us here."
"But we don't know that! What if you're out shopping and she's at the market, or if she gets on the news and her scream works through the TV? What then?! I can't-" The words die in his twin's throat and Evil X gulps back his own.
I can't lose you. It's a phrase that's crossed his own mind more than once.
"Okay. Okay. I'll stay home until she's caught, okay? Get delivery or something, I don't know. And I'll keep the TV off, the radio too. Shhh. Shhhhh. I'll be okay." Xisuma struggles closer, shoving his face into his brother's stomach and getting snot and tears all over the both of them. Evil X doesn't complain. It's a lie and they both know it, but they've lived lies before, are used to it. What's one more, in the face of that?
To be fair, Evil X gives it a few weeks before he makes his move, and he knows he'll be fine so really it's only half a lie anyway.
---
Feet crunch against gravel as Evil X approaches the woman kneeling in the center of the abandoned construction site, hands over her mouth, eyes scrunched, biting the flesh of her thumb to keep her sobs held in.
"Hello Ms. Valkerie. Grian's told me about you."
The woman whips around, eyes wide and bloodshot at his sudden appearance, before she shakily lowers her hands from her mouth to clutch at the fabric of her pink cardigan. "I'm- I'm not some monster, got it? I'm just Stress, j-just- I'm just me! I don't want to hurt anyone!" Her voice goes shrill and thin towards the end and Evil X hides his wince, although apparently not well enough because she immediately slaps a hand over her mouth again, eyes watering anew.
"Okay. It's okay, Stress. I'm here to help," he placates, lowering himself down to sit next to her in the dirt. Around them, rusted I-beams and concrete pillars rise, giving them some semblance of privacy. The full moon lurks overhead, casting them both in a silver glow. "You're life must be very hard, hm?"
Stress nods, expression wary.
"And retail is very- ha- stressful too, I imagine?" Here a little grin leaks out from behind her hand. "All those customers whining on and on about discounts. 'Oh, I have a gift receipt why can't I return this?' Like, lady, you opened this box. 'I'm gonna talk to your manager!' Lady, he's just gonna say the exact same thing."
A stifled giggle and a whispered "Worse! I work in the women's clothing department." Evil X gives a mock gasp, face going wide and shocked.
"So you don't just have to deal with fussy customers- you deal with fussy suburban soccer moms!" Stress tips forward with the force of her muffled laughter, tucking her damp face into the curve of his neck and putting her full weight on him. Hesitantly she clutches the tail of his shirt with her freehand, then a little tighter when he makes no move to shove her off. Evil X just wraps a gentle arm around her shoulders.
"Some of those customers must make you want to go home and just scream, huh." Her laughter tapers off, but she nods, quiet. "So you go somewhere empty and abandoned and scream your heart out so you don't kill someone." Another nod, a little hitch in Stress' breathing. "And you scream and scream, so glad to release some of your pent-up feelings, but oops. It turns out there are people there anyway. And your screaming just killed them. You've become a murderer and the police brands you accordingly."
The hand in his shirt tightens, tugging. "I- I didn't want to hurt them! I didn't want to hurt anyone! But- but it just happened and then I was running, and no one saw me so I had to just go to work the next day, a-and. And-"
"And now you're the wanted super villain Valkerie." His hand smoothes up and down her back as her breath hitches again, once, twice, and then wetness against his neck.
"Valkerie is such a stupid name, anyway. I'm not escorting anyone anywhere, let alone to Valhalla. I just scream and. And they're dead."
Evil X hums quietly. "You must be very tired."
"...Yes. Yes." The moon slips through the sky for a while and they drift with it, lost in thought. Evil X stares up at it, squinting against its light to try and figure out what time it is, if Xisuma is likely to be home yet. The gravel is harsh against his knees.
Then. "Things can't keep going like this. I'm so tired, all the time these days. It's just work, day in and day out, and all this stress." She pulls away then and Evil X watches as Stress scrubs at her face, expression going cold and determined. She stares him straight in the eyes, but something about her still seems lost, like she's gazing through him. "Something has to change or else someone is going to get themselves killed."
He tilts his eyes head, considering, thoughtful, with a well-hidden edge to his voice.
"I think I could help with that."
---
The morning news. Four calls placed, a frantic brother reassured, Stress is sitting a cafe on the corner of Elm and 5th. Her gut flutters with nerves but Evil X can see her expression is calm from her position in the background of the shot. The news anchor is a pretty blond-haired, blue-eyed young woman blathering on about how the cafe apparently is the oldest one in the city and some other historical nonsense. Out of shot of the camera, a desperate, dog-eared petty thief is running for his life down 6th street, the hulking figure of Spatter hot on his heels.
They round a corner, onto 5th. Past the cafe, the startled reporter, the public shrieking as their morning is disrupted. Stress nearly throws up as her heart launches itself into her throat but she's... There's a plan and she's going to stick to it.
So she stands up, small and in the background of the shot, but her bright pink jacket makes her stand out. She opens her mouth, expression going scared like a civilian's, and screams just as she had been told to. It's not for long, barely a second or two all told, but it's enough to have the people near her cringing away, blood trickling from their eyes and from where their fingernails dig into their skin in trying to cover their ears.
Spatter freezes in his tracks, pupils mere pinpricks as the sudden outpouring of blood triggers something deep and wild in him. The camera shakes, the frightened camera man ducking down to avoid notice but carefully recording what's about to happen, as if sensing that whatever happens next is about to be important.
The hero turns towards Stress, eyes wild, and although she's scared out of her mind, she stands her ground. Her voice barely even shakes as she speaks.
"S-stop. Stop running, can't you see you're scaring people? You nearly ran me over!" In the eyes of the camera Stress looks like a frightened civilian gone civil defender in pink, the morning light casting her in gold and the cafe's shadow creeping over Spatter's massive, muscled-out form to cast him in darkness and grey. The lack of harsh lighting makes it even more obvious when he starts sniffing the air, darting eyes pausing on all the bloodied hands and finally resting on the woman who caused the damage.
The world has insisted, long and loud, that he is a hero and with that comes certain ingrained responsibilities. Stress is Valkerie. Splatter fixes his gaze on her and with a snarl, he moves.
The camera catches it in perfect, awful clarity when his arm goes through her stomach and her blood starts pooling on the floor. Her expression is so betrayed.
From his place on his clean, white couch at home, Evil X turns the TV off.
---
Stress is buried with honors and all media depictions of Valkerie as a monster cease as the streets are made "safe" from the super villain. Instead, news programs and talk shows take up a new crusade, this one against the "heroes" that protected the city and the governing bodies that controlled their movements. Mr. Goodtimes has his name dragged through the mud, and each day his brother comes home with stories about how frazzled Trigometric is, Evil X has to hide his smile.
Seeming to pick up on the way things are turning, Clockwork disappears from the public eye while Poultryman steps up the showmanship, making more appearances in public spaces to egg government buildings and steal petty amounts of scrap metal from junk yards and factory scrap heaps. The heroes that give chase, usually Xenon and Krypton, end up causing more damage than they actually prevent.
Ivy-Over- shocked at the public outrage about the apartments left in shambles after her particularly brutal battle against Zyon- rather predictably ends up snapping, although not in any way Evil X expected.
She ends up going to the news and telling them everything. Public outrage rises anew.
There's a riot in town square and Matchstick and Reaper are sent in to stop it. Thirteen people die, kindly Mr. TFC one of them. Xisuma comes home, collapses into Evil X's arms, and cries.
Things have to change. And so they do.
---
Midnight and two figures meet on a roof top somewhere overlooking the domed silhouette of city hall. The first wears a set of armor shaded in green and grey, a purple visor over his eyes and an oxygen-filter over the lower half of his face. The second figure has wings, stretched wide to block out the light of the crescent moon above.
Matchstick. Poultryman.
Xisuma. Grian.
Matchstick tilts his head to the side, drawing himself up to his full height to loom over the far shorter villain. "The status quo is falling apart, Poultryman. Does the deal still hold?"
Poultryman rolls his head to make it clear he had just rolled his eyes, the purple insignia on his mask flashing to display his annoyance. "Yeah yeah, I've spread the word to the others and they're not as crazy as the news likes to make 'em out to be. No one has hurt your precious 'E-X,' nor do they have any plans to. Too much trouble to mess with beyond trying to keep him out of whatever crime scene we'll be making, and that's hard enough as is. Your brother has a habit of making himself hard to track and it's getting... troubling."
The hero's posture suddenly goes as stiff as his namesake, smoke starting to hiss from the vents carefully built into his suit. "Troubling?"
Violet wings flap once, twice, before pulling tight against Poultryman's back and not for the first time, Matchstick curses himself for never bothering to learn what his various wing positions mean. The villain in question just rolls his shoulders back and settles into a careful parade rest that gives nothing away, expression pensive.
"Xisuma..." Matchstick flinches back, the careful line between them wavering at the name. "What exactly do you about your brother?"
A hesitant head tilt and he taps his fingers along his leg, thinking back to when he had last spent more than a few fleeting hours with his twin at a time.
"He likes sweet foods, even if he pretends he doesn't. Has more money invested in Derp Coin than he probably should. Likes red and black but gets fussy if anyone calls him a goth. Never seems to sleep, or eat regular meals, but he never seems to forget anything either. Best brother I could ever ask for- he loves me, I know that for sure. All the important stuff. Why?"
A wisp of cloud drifts overhead, casting a brief shadow over the pair, and in the sudden darkness Matchstick could swear that Poultryman had pulled a frown. Then the moment passes and the villain is back to his usual inscrutable self, the only emotion in his body language being what he had put there intentionally. His wings remain tight to his back.
"Then I think you might be in for a bit of a surprise one day, Matchstick. Here's to hoping you can roll with the coming storm."
---
Evil X is beloved by the HEP network. Regardless of Grian's intention in putting him in contact with them- or even why the villain knew of the group to start with- his repeated contributions to their food stocks made him an opening among them and his ability to make and exploit connections made him their hero. If you were desperate, hungry, in need? Evil X could get you whatever you needed at the cost of a simple favor.
When it came to the price of a life, a favor is a small thing to ask indeed. Is it any wonder that they became so loyal to him? So when Evil X began asking questions about some of the city's more sensitive secrets and its shadier underbelly, it was only natural that they told him.
From the tall man with green skin, he learned the best places to dump things so that they disappeared. From a sleepy-looking fellow with a bandana, he learned the locations of the best drug dealers, and from those dealers he learned of their suppliers, their manufacturers, the places where heroes never walked. From the man with glasses, he learned about the back doors and hidden routes through the biggest, most important buildings, the places where they held people until they could make them disappear.
And with this information, Evil X's services expanded even further. Drugs for the addicts, as contaminant-free and trust-worthy as he could find them. Ways to make people appear and disappear in the eyes of the law (and the occasional abusive spouse). Alcohol, cigarettes- and most importantly, information.
Or rather, black mail. If you wanted to know something on someone, Evil X became the person to go to. Months of careful manipulation had spread his name and his reach through all levels of the city and people from all walks of life took advantage of her services, although usually all meetings were held over the phone and through a voice changer fashioned to look just like his twin's mask. The secrecy only increased his popularity, as people just love a good mystery and a grey-shaded crime boss made a lovely story indeed.
And soon, this caught the intention of another of the city's fabled figures- the mad scientist who lived deep in the underbelly of the city, a place where no light shone. The man, the myth, the legend... Void.
But then, myths never were all that accurate, especially with things like names.
---
Curly blond hair, brown cardigan, a ripped white lab coat. Calculating purple eyes and a wide, wide eerily white grin. Short and stocky with a complexion like a ripe peach, the blue light coming off the lights overhead casting hazy shadows over his form, everything about the good doctor is simultaneously creepy and a soft sort of handsome- he has to say, he's impressed. The mythical Zedaph lives up to the city's dark rumors of him and he says as much, which prompts that grin to grow all the wider.
"Ah, hello Weaver! Y'know, I kind of thought you'd be shorter. And down here a lot sooner, I almost could say I missed you~!" Evil X balks as the scientist steps forward and grips his chin to tilt his head down, purple eyes wandering over his scarred features.
"It's not like you make yourself easy to find- and that's not my name." Zedaph shakes his head, leaning his face up with just scant inches between them.
"Little spider, you might be pretty good at hearing things but you're awful at listening. If you have large enough ears, you'd find you're just about the most talked about thing in the underground these days-"
"Do spiders have ears...?"
"-so like it or not, your web is big enough that people have been spotting it in odd places, which means your twin will probably catch on soon. Which means..." Here Zedpah spins away to walk to the opposite wall, pressing a few buttons on his tablet which make the underground laboratory brighten considerably. Evil X tries not to feel bereft at the sudden loss of contact. "Your plans are gonna have to hit double time. And I love me a good speed potion!"
Speechless, Evil X just nods as the scientist opens a previously hidden door and pulls out a laptop case from inside, turning to present it to him with a fiercely proud expression on his face.
"Knock 'em dead darling. I can't wait to see you rock their world~!"
---
What does the end of an era look like? It's not a sudden collapse of civilization, people screaming and running through the streets. It's not the violent murder of the governmental leaders or riots against the past order. It's not as clear cut as all that. Nor is it so subtle that people look around one day and go huh, as the world around them had shifted beneath their feet without their notice. Indeed, there are many who saw the tide rising and were all too happy to watch the waters sweep in and away.
It goes like this.
The super villains go missing. First one week goes by with no wild scheme or dangerous incident, then two, then three. The higher ups are frantic with worry, running constant meetings and keeping the super heroes out on the streets for as long as they could without the heroes themselves rioting. It keeps Matchstick out of the way of Weaver, and at the moment, that's all the thought he can afford to spare his twin. It's for the best, really. The next step is important.
Across every government-issued computer in the city, an email is issued out. Personalized, first middle last name, parents' names, chidlrens' names. An alphabetical list of every law the person in question had broken in the last ten years, the number of witnesses who saw them do it, sometimes video footage or photo-copied documents if the crime was serious enough to warrant more concrete proof. What the punishments for those crimes would be. What could be done, if those punishments were waived for money or fame.
Nearly a thousand people get an email in the span of 24 hours. (Evil X never wants to write another email ever-fucking-again. None. Ever.) The heroes also receive an email detailing what laws were broken by denying them rights, food, decent living conditions and overtime pay, as well as the names of several lawyers who would work for them for free if the email was shown to them within three days time.
Every email is emblazoned with a web-like logo with a bright red "X" sitting in the middle like a bloody spider. Though some plucky tech people attempt to track the emails back to the sender, their every attempt is rebuffed by the impossible firewalls built into the computer the messages were sent from. As imagined, chaos in its most understated form ensues.
The city officials scramble to keep their sinking ship from falling apart and the little people kept cooped up in square offices and cell blocks come crawling out of the woodwork to jump ship. Some of the heroes, such as Xenon, Matchstick, and Shank try desperately to hold things together, but others like Reaper head for the nearest legal office and hole up with a team of vicious prosecutor attorneys. Meanwhile, the civilians go about their business, unaware of what is going on in the ivory towers far above their notice.
Xisuma comes home to fin their apartment empty, and although betrayal sits like a rock in his gut, his guts still squirm with desperate, aching fear. (No... please, no.)
The super villains make their reappearance with flair, setting the stage for the next act. Each one takes to a corner of the city, working in pairs to capture civilians and hold them hostage en mass, their efforts to wide spread for the remaining heroes to deal with in one go. From here, walking along a quiet street and watched by hundreds of frightened eyes- a captive audience- Weaver makes his debut as he makes his way to the city capital.
Tall, whip-thin enough to make his proportions lean more towards slenderman than super model, and dressed in red and black armor with a matching helmet and visor, Weaver cuts an imposing figure as he makes his way up the white marble steps of the capital building to where a nervous-looking reporter stands. She straightens up at his approach though and with a nod to her camera crew, she starts asking questions just in time for Poultryman to swoop in and land beside the newest super villain, expression stern but a clear presence of support.
In his hands a laptop is clutched.
---
The demands are simple in theory, but Xisuma feels his heart thunder in his throat at every point on the list.
The week would be split into three types of days. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays would proceed as normal and the heroes and villains could go at each other as they pleased. Fridays would be reserved for the villains to do as necessary without hero interference under the caveat that no blood would be spilled, and Sundays heroes could have the same. Tuesdays and Saturdays, no one would fight, a proper break for everyone.
The villains would keep to their side of the bargain, Weaver says darkly as he stares directly into camera, just so long as the heroes kept to theirs. And measures would be taken for anyone who chose not to comply. Xisuma's brain goes fuzzy with static as the super villain makes a few other demands, something about fair wages and from when to when each group could operate, but his gaze remains locked to where he can just barely make out his twin's face through his visor. The words filter through him, dismissed into a soft numbing blur.
The air suddenly feels chilled on his skin, fingers twitching in his lap, a rough, twisting feeling in his gut like the bottom of his stomach just dropped away. He feels trapped, unable to move from the couch, from the wrong side of the screen. Oh, he thinks hazily to himself, he's about to be sick. Hmm, ought to do- something. About all of- of this.
Gods... What did his brother do?
---
An era ends like this- Poultryman sweeps Weaver away in his arms and in his place, Evil X comes home. Xisuma watches his brother come through the door, eyes glued to his brother's face even as Evil X places his keys on the table by the door and takes off his shoes. There's a gentle realization bubbling up that this is the first time he's seen his brother's bare face with his own eyes, without the tint of a visor between them, in far too long. His twin's got paler as of late, making the eye bags and scars stand out all the more.
"You're home." The words hang in the air and Evil X sags at their weight, leaning against the door as if to prop himself up for the conversation to come. His arms hang behind his back, a laptop case dangling in his grip.
"You know this isn't home any more than the tree was."
"We- we were supposed to be safe here. This was where we were going to stay!" Xisuma is going red now, rising up from the couch in his anger, and Evil X watches him with the dredged-up calm of a man resigned to drowning. Good, anger he could handle.
"You thought this was where we would stay, got us a nice, normal apartment that looks like it's out of a fashion plate without asking me. You think I like staying in this pretty white bird cage that you bought by selling yourself to the most corrupt people around? This place isn't any safer for us than the tree was, and at least in the park we had company!"
"Says the one who fell into bed with the literal bad guy! At least here you weren't getting into fights every other week."
"No, now you're the one doing that!" They're shouting at each other. They never do that. An acrid taste fills Evil X's mouth and he gulps it back, along with a few words he just knows he would regret if he said them. A deep breath, a slow in and out. "Look, just. Don't be a hypocrite, okay?"
Xisuma pauses in his wind up for a proper tirade, eyes wary and wet. "What?"
"You aren't the only self sacrificing moron here."
"...Oh." Yeah. Oh.
Here Evil X takes another breath, resisting the urge to hold it, then extends his arm to show his twin the laptop case. "Hey."
Xisuma folds his arms behind his back, looking at his feet and then up again, shuffling back a step. "Yeah?"
"Got you a present. You always were the best of us, so. Here. It was the last part of the deal I kinda set up, a kind of fail-safe slash card to add to your deck. This laptop has evidence of my entire operation, every backroom deal, every piece of black mail, every person I've had killed or vanished or what have you. Everything I've been up to for the last however long. And... it's for you to read. It's not gonna be fun, but like, I trust you so it's okay. If you read this and really, honestly think I've crossed a line you can't forgive me for, you can turn this into the police and... I'll deal with whatever you choose to do with me. No loop holes, no take-backs."
Here Evil X leans his full weight against the door and lets his arm swing back down to his side, gaze sliding off to the side and a melancholy smile curling at his lips and pulling at his scars. "I trust you. I trust you. It... It'll be okay, yeah? Just make whatever choice you need to. Don't hesitate." He doesn't promise anything, keeps the words 'I'll be okay' from spilling into the air between them, but instead allows a careful submission to enter his posture, head bowed and figure loose and hanging.
It... might not be alright, but it will be right and that will have to be good enough. (It has to be.)
Xisuma chokes, a sob rising in his throat as his brave, strong brother gives up before his eyes. The air in his lungs freezes solid at the thought of having to choose whether or not his twin lives or dies, because that's what this is, he can't pretend that the city wouldn't execute him at the slightest chance, agreements be damned. His gaze tracks wildly from the laptop case to the top of his brother's head to the window, as if trying to see if anyone could be watching, could make the choice for him.
It's not fair. It's not fair, why him, why? He was so good, tried so hard- his heart is loud in his ears, breath rattling in and out in wheezing gasps- sobbing now, utterly sobbing. Evil X doesn't look up, doesn't try to comfort him. Won't even move, gods.
Fuck it.
Evil X startles, back banging against the door as Xisuma rushes forward and rips the case from his hands, only to chuck it into the far corner before throwing himself into his arms. On instinct Evil X catches him and holds him close just in time for Xisuma to bury his face in the crook of his neck and burst into messy, tearful sobs. They shake together and Evil X lets his head thump back gently against the door, eyes hazily gazing up at the ceiling.
"It's not- *hic*- it's not fair! I didn't want this!"
"I know. I know." He runs his hand over his twin's back, his taller form bowing forward to shelter his brother's smaller one. Somehow, even now it feels like Xisuma is the larger one between them, solid and warm in his arms.
"Why do I have to choose? I never wanted this! Why?! Why would you do this for me?"
"You're my brother. I love you." A gasping, wet sob against his neck and his twin lets out a moan like a dying cow, low and agonized. Evil X focuses on a soot mark on the white ceiling, tears stinging his eyes and running down his face to plop softly into his brother's hair.
"But why?!" Screaming. Gods, he can't-
"I love you. I love you." Rocking now, back and forth, gentle, just as he had when he had come home from beating up the men who had tried to lay stomp out his brother's heart, scarred and beaten and bloody. I love you, he had said then, and he repeats it now.
Later, much later, Xisuma will have to boot up the laptop and read through its contents. He will try to burn it, first, but Zedaph's work is more durable than most and Evil X will watch as his twin will dump his emotions into his flames, desperately trying to stoke them hotter and brighter. Later, a choice will have to be made.
But for now, Evil X will hold his brother, warm and safe, and let him cry.
#minecraft#my writing#fanfiction#hermitcraft#xisuma#evil xisuma#evil x#pretty much all the hermits actually
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— to be urs
best friends to lovers gone wrong.
you, a simple uni student w/ jock of a bff, jjk.
x masterlist
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“Fuck, I didn’t want to make this weird.”
“Too fucking late, Jungkook. It already is.”
You were running away and he could definitely feel it. Just telling from today, the minute he woke up. There was no annoying morning text from you when you reminded him like all the other days on which tea you’d be drinking today, you didn’t wish him a good practice and you for sure didn’t call him for when he was on the way to it -- things were different for some reason.
At first, it didn’t bother him for a second until being the overthinker he was, decided that you were definitely prying into something he had no utter control over. That, or because of what Jeongyeon had told him at the cafe.
“You told her?!” He roared with vigour. His hands clenched from underneath him and the eyes of his had darkened drastically.
Her hands raised in defense as she cries out in guilt, “Well, someone had to!” He only glares and bites firm on his lip. “You keep talking about her each day as if I wouldn’t tell her any of this. I’m her best friend for fucks’ sake and it’s honestly sad seeing you so mopey and lovesick..”
“I’m her best friend,” he viciously corrects with crossed arms on his chest, “And fuck you.”
Teetering her head in reason, she says, “Well.. You won’t be after you start dating her-”
“Jeongyeon, what the fuck,” he groans embarrasingly. “I shouldn’t have told you any of this shit.”
“For the record,” she starts. “She told me she already knew about it..”
His expression drops wearily, subconsciously leaning in more for her to speak more about it - about you. “S-She already knew?”
“Yeah,” she simply confirms with a shrug. “Sure, I triggered it but she was the one who figured it out herself.”
His mind can’t wrap around itself over the news, “How?”
“You’re not exactly the type to be subtle about these things, Jeon.” Her forearms rest on the table, “Like, what the hell was that after your game - you know, when she congratulated you?”
“Listen” he meagerly tries. “You don’t know what it feels to hear somebody that means the world to you to still say they’re proud after a game you’ve just lost - especially the one game out of all the other ones you’ve won from the whole season that basically counted your team as undefeated. I-It just hits different.” He shyly looks away and fumbles with his hands. “I mean, my parents are already obligated to tell me that I’ve done good and I appreciate that. But from her, it’s a whole other story. Like when she clings on to me and reassures that the one loss is nothing compared to the support she has for me.. Fuck.” He slumps and lets his head lull back on the cushioned booth.
“Jungkook..” Jeongyeon tries to comfort.
He doesn’t stop, back with more of a bitter bite to his words, “But everything is done platonically.. It always has been and I’ve always been okay with it. So why the fuck is she getting prettier everyday and why do I feel the need to do more than be a friend to her..”
“Listen Jungkook, you might not have the answers to what you’re asking now. Not until you confront her over this matter. She’ll understand,” she tells honestly.
“Yeah..” Every emotion that he felt had swallowed him whole, even when Jeongyeon starts talking about her lame statistic project she had just started. His head feels heavy on his hand when he leans on it and he should really straighten out his back.
Nothing mattered for the rest of the day, except you.
“You’re avoiding me.”
His melodious voice rings through your ears, bringing your hands to a halt from your wallet. You stare wide-eyed at the clueless cashier as he expectantly waits for you to pay the bill. Unfortunately, from the uninvited presence - you remain frozen.
Clearing his throat, he handles it by passing off his card. He doesn’t know why you like to spend most of your money on the books you can uselessly borrow, only forgetting that you like to bend and flip them to your liking and underline the words of your favorite parts.
When he gets handed the receipt, his heart pangs at the total. “God, _____.. There’s a library right across from us.”
You kindly decline the plastic bag the clerk offers, plucking the books out of Jungkook’s hands and into your own. Leading him away from the line that grows, you grit out, “You didn’t have to pay and you know I can’t handle that type of responsibility.”
“It’s a book,” he reminds plainly. “Not a dog.”
With a scoff, you hide away the quirk to your lips and smack him on his stupid bulky arm instead. With the time you’ve been using to ignore and avoid him, it was too damn easy to ease back into your snarky banter you both accumulated over the years.
“It’s cool that you’re here or whatever.. But, why?”
His tongue runs across his teeth and lets his hand fall to his side. Shyly, he brushes through his hair, “We need to talk..”
After tucking a stray piece of your own hair behind your ear, your hands rub nervously against your jeans as you nod, “Yeah, sure. Uh - But I’m meeting with Namjoon soon.”
Even with his jaw clenching spitefully at the name, he only nods, “I’ll be quick - promise.” He couldn’t even bear to see you gleaming with joy over the bookworm you’d just met over a few weeks ago. He didn’t have a problem with him until you told him that you’d miss a recent game, just to go on a date - or the fact that he didn’t like you going on a date at all, either reason was definitely valid enough for him to draw out an X over his face anytime he saw him.
The bench feels cold when you press your bare legs against it, even colder when he decides to seat himself right next to you.
“So,” you awkwardly start. “What’s up?”
“You know.” Is all he says and it was enough to be reminded about your conversation with Jeongyeon last night -- that your best friend likes you.
Kicking the mulch underneath you, you admit, “Yeah.”
Looking over at him, the tips of his ears had reddened and the ground seemed to offer most of his attention rather than you. He wished he had the guts to look at you, but it became difficult when you weren’t afraid to stare back - that was just who you were. You weren’t scared of confrontation as much as he was. You preferred a couple of friends rather than a group of them. You were good at socializing yet you chose not to for most of the time.
He liked everything about you and it was gross because for a while before that, he didn’t.
So why now?
“How do you feel?” He suddenly asks.
Your tongue clicks at the roof of your mouth and you shrug, “Honestly? Heavily confused.”
Even without understanding why, he doesn’t ask nor push on it - just nods.
Hesitantly, you elaborate, “I just - why? We’ve always been friends, Jungkook. And now.. It’s different.”
He sighed in defeat, “I don’t even know.. It just did.”
Your brows furrow and you slowly break into the mold of anger you promised not to become, “I - What? Jungkook.. You can’t just show up one day and decide that you like me.”
His turn to scoff, he clenched tightly on his jaw to cope, “Do you think I wish to feel like this, _____? Like I decided I was bored and wanted to mess up a whole friendship?”
“I-I don’t even know,” you sputter, “But this is happening all too suddenly. A month ago you didn’t feel this way. You even went out of your way to say that Sana in the physics department was way prettier than me - which is very valid - but fuck, Jungkook. You liking me? Impossible.”
Rolling his eyes, he finally meets the same passion as you, “I was joking, _____. Sometimes, things can change. A week ago, I saw you as my best friend. And then.. This week, you became so much more. I want to kiss your forehead and shit, hold your hand, hug you, invite you out to my games as my girlfriend..” His heart thrums in the worst way possible when you send him a disturbed look. Pointing to the pubications in your hands, he confesses anyway, “All the cheesy stuff you read in your stupid books, I want all of it.”
Shoving them into your bag, you grapple onto his hands, earning a small yelp of surprise, “You can’t possibly want this, Jungkook. Don’t you feel weird?” Trying to prove your point, you drag his unreserved palm to your cheek and let him feel the supple skin beneath it. “This can’t be normal for us - being romantic and all - it’s a whole other fucking galaxy. We’re different.”
Aiming to become confident and determined under your pressure, he leans forward. You let out a squeak when his face inches closer. “Why are you acting like it’s impossible, _____?” His eyes searched every inch of your face to track any involving emotion that had even just the mere chance to reciprocate the same feelings he had for you. Nothing - just wide eyes that brimmed with tears. It was normal from you ‘cause even from how much of a stubborn girl you were, you were way too sensitive to handle any type of scolding anybody gave you - especially Jungkook.
“Stop being a fucking pussy and just listen to what I have to say,” he orders. “I’m here and I like you, that’s all. Nothing has to change, we don’t have to change. You don’t have to force yourself to feel the same way just because I feel this particular way-”
“But Jungkook-”
“It’s okay,” is all he says to assure.”It’s okay,” he repeats again. For you, and for him.
Loosening his grip on you, your head drops and your lips formed a pout as the tears start to fall, “I-I wish you realized this when I first met you,” you hiccup. “When I liked you too.”
In confusion, he whispers out your name.
“But you were going back and forth with Sooyoung.. With Sooyoung for fucks’ sake! How could I even compete with that?” You mutter spitefully to yourself. “I didn’t even have the heart to tell you that I liked you, so I stuck to you as a friend instead, until all the feelings I had for you wore out. But now, when all of it is finally gone, you say you like me when you’ve went through all the girls you wanted, right? When I finally say I’ve found someone that’d be interested in me the way that I am to them. Do you think that’s morally right, Jungkook?”
“Of course it’s not like that-”
“You had all this time, Jungkook,” you inform numbly. “All this time to get your shit together and maybe get me too.”
“_____.. I still have you, right?” His question is carried with eager eyes, searching that even with all the shit he unknowingly put you through, you’d still be there in the end.
“Sometimes things can change, Jungkook,” you parrot his own words. “I liked you, Jungkook. But I trained myself so much to see you as only a friend that I can’t reverse any of it. It’s gone now.”
His eyes waver in disappointment and every action in his body lags with too much defeat.
Jungkook was too late.
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based off of stuff thats happening to me irl ://
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#bts#bts fanfic#bts angst#bts fluff#bts smut#jeon jungkook#jeon jeongguk#jungkook scenarios#jungkook angst#jungkook fluff#jungkook smut#mine#jungkook drabble#tbu
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he takes mental inventory of everything he's eaten since yesterday morning.
coffee.
an english muffin.
a few handfuls of spicy peanuts.
the last few plantain chips.
a beer.
another beer.
kombucha, free from your housemate’s job.
another beer.
a wash of shame comes over him. he shouldn't drink this much. but he knows he won't change. he at least shouldn't try to hide that he drinks this much, leaving the empty cans on the floor between his bedside table and the bed until he can covertly discard them.
is he an alcoholic?
he takes inventory. he's not very functional while drunk, that's why he drinks, after all. alcohol gifting him a sense of complacency unavailable to him otherwise. he has, 1 or 2 drinks a day, and only most days. he's only been drunk at work twice, before, both after a night out with Esther, both miserable experiences, vomiting outside in the median between the sidewalk and the street where some bright-eyed city planner probably thought would have flowers, but actually just has bark mulch and the shiny glint of litter. he thinks of his ex's dad, asleep over a glass on the table. he thinks of the characters in lucia berlin stories, the desperate night errands to buy a fifth, how the other addicts told her she wasn't really one of them if she wasn't a wino. he only really drinks beer? he is fine when he doesn't drink? well, fine meaning miserable and desperately seeking escape. he feels another wash of guilt thinking about all the alcoholism screening assessments he's lied on. lately he's been putting down eight. that's one for four days a week, two for another two, and taking a day off. he tries to convince himself of this. he can’t remember the last time he took a day off. he buys two six-packs a week. he drank half a six-pack just yesterday.
okay so what if he’s an alcoholic, he can’t manage otherwise. maybe he should have a drink before he leaves to see tony. is noon too early?
he takes inventory, he can only think of one time he started drinking alone that early in the day, and it was before a date. a first date, at that. he thinks that felt justified, but also is an incredible bad look. okay, no, he doesn’t need a drink now, doesn’t even want one. he thinks about Wendy in Little Fish, Jonny Appleseed, Jessa in Mostly Dead Things and it doesn’t make him feel better, but he is at least able to move back to what he was trying to think about –
this morning, coffee.
more coffee.
he decides, as usual, to forgo, breakfast, even though he still has more english muffins and even has the right brand of almond butter. in addition to all the wrong brands he's never going to touch. he thinks he probably won't get fucked until evening, so he doesn't want to give his digestive system any ammunition with that much time.
he takes inventory of all the things he needs to dispose of while his housemate is out of town this weekend.
the four empty beer cans under his bed.
the cake he made last week and never even cut.
the pie his friend gave him that he also never cut that is now starting to grow mold.
the remaining slices of bread that are too old.
the potatoes in the fridge he cooked and didn't like the texture of.
the soup he made on monday. but what if the soup is still good? probably, but he probably won't eat it so he should just let it go now. it makes him feel worse to consider how careful his housemate is about not wasting food, that thinking about what he might think washes him with yet another icy bucket of shame. if he discards it now, maybe his housemate won’t notice, or just think that he ate it. he feels bad, but not enough to actually make him eat it.
he should go to the farm stand and buy produce tomorrow. or maybe he shouldn't because he's just going to compost most of it anyway.
the half a roasted sweet potato, that he weirdly had cut into circular discs rather than his usual wedges. actually, he will eat that still. sweet potatoes have become a go-to for him in the last few months. long-shelf life. they keep well after being cooked. and also, he pretty reliably still feels interested in eating them even after they’ve finished roasting. what kind of motherfucker can’t even be interested in eating food through the forty minutes it takes to prepare? they don’t do anything suspect to his shit, which is to say, he can’t see them again on that end.
he takes inventory of all of the things he’s stopped eating because they come out identifiable in his shit. quinoa. corn. grapefruit. carrots. he thinks about the girl who lived with his ex-, who had her eating disorder diagnosed because her therapist noticed her hands had turned orange because she only ate sweet potatoes. how she had speculated Japanese sweet potatoes wouldn’t be as obvious. how it all came crashing together then for him how his hands had also been orange when he was in high school. for him, baby carrots. he tried to remember when he still ate bagged processed vegetables.
he tried to remember what it was like before anyone had told him there was something wrong with him. before there was something wrong with him?
no, he remembers standing in the shower, circling around if he could be pregnant. he hadn’t had sex with anyone, but what if? he remembers having a doctor recommend he get tested for female athlete triad syndrome, how he still was new to interacting with doctors and didn’t realise they weren’t actually going to follow through at all on that. feeling like there was not anything wrong with him, that he was finally in control.
the dirty condom from a few nights, when he didn’t want to clean himself out, let alone clean the toy off afterwards. he laughs how he still doesn't have a trash can in his room. this seems the most reasonable of all on this list. yes, he’s an immature fag with no blinds and dirty condoms on his floor. this is a flaw he’s willing to lean into, to pretend he is loose and free and reckless. but he isn’t. he is so wound up in his head. he has practiced these worries too many times today already. the only kind of reckless he could actually claim is the four burn scars on his arms from cooking while drunk in the last year. which he worries people will ask if he did intentionally.
what if he did do it intentionally?
he doesn't want to be like this. the shame layers on, shame that he hates how he is, but doesn't change. no matter how rational he is, he cannot actually convince himself that no one cares. shame that he has no control over his shame.
he has to leave in hour and half if he’s not going to be unacceptably late. he wonders if he can make it out of the house by then.
he heads for the bathroom. puts the fan on the 40 minute timer. worries his housemate will wonder what he is up to. tries to convince himself he already knows, that he does not care. he wants that, but he can’t convince himself.
he’s also covered in sex-bruises all the time on his neck and shoulders and wrists and he does not hide them, and no one even says anything. does his housemate know that he is gay?
is he gay enough?
he feels shame that he still uses the same beginner douche kit he bought years ago. he remembers the pang of jealously of learning about posh gays with a whole douche attachment for their shower head. what if he were that put together?
he flips the toilet seat up, so it won’t get splashed, and tries to focus on relaxing his sphincter.
he’s not actually ashamed of his body. except for the way his skin hangs loose on his abdomen, refusing to show his faint hard work of abs. except how his chest and legs are covered in red welts and scabs. except that he is covered with scars, most of them self-inflicted, which are visible enough that he feels constantly conscious of them, but not gnarly enough that people actually ever ask about them. except the way he has a bald spot right under his chin on his beard, how the whole thing is still pretty sparse, maybe he should just shave it but then he feels shame about looking pubescent.
but he thinks he’s not ashamed of his bodily functions. he’s not afraid of his own shit. he thinks about the shame of the dirty condom on the floor of his room. he thinks about all the times he’s scraped his middle finger a circle around the inside of his rectum, feeling for any residual chunks to decide if he needs to douche another round. he thinks about the time after getting fucked that somehow he had shit all over his own feet, how his ex had gently gotten paper towels and wiped them off, gently, and wordlessly.
and yet, it’s been years since he’s been on so much as a first date without cleaning himself in advance. it’s not that he’s afraid of someone being spooked when their cock comes out streaked, it’s just that it seems worth the relief to be able to avoid it. except that relief is fleeting. untrustworthy. whatever. he knows its what he needs to do in order to actually leave the house. he scrapes his finger around the inside, up through the second mouth, which yields to show it has nothing else to reveal, like Monty Hall opening the first door.
placated, he gets in the shower. he thinks about how freud would have had a heyday with him.
he really doesn’t want to have to have that conversation. he thinks tony already seems to think he doesn’t eat. this isn’t quite true, but he is charmed by the simplicity of it. he feels some obligation to uphold that expectation, to be able to avoid eating in front of him. he wants to avoid the intimacy of having a conversation about his pre-sex routine, which seems only possible by keeping a very strict pre-sex routine.
tony asked him recently to take a weekend trip with him. the travel. the prolonged company, sharing meals, the ruined veneer of being ready all the time.
he could come up with five hundred reasons why he can’t go, but are any of them good enough to say to someone else? could he suffer through just a weekend?
could he,
maybe,
even,
have an okay time?
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Get To Know Meme/20 Questions
Tagged by @starsandskies and @amistrio, thank you guys! <3 As always, so sorry for the slow/delayed reply!
Rules: Answer 20 questions, then tag 20 bloggers you want to get to know better.
((I will hold back from tagging anyone b/c I’m always behind in these, so please feel free to steal if you’d like to do this!))
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Name: Katie
Nicknames: ‘Kat’ to some, mostly in my Discord group b/c there’s already a better person there named Katie that was a member of the group longer than me. ( ...It has nothing to do w/ the fact that she’s a million times more awesome than me, I’m sure, LOL! ;-) )
I’m also sometimes called ‘Kit-Kat’ by an old friend of mine.
Zodiac Sign: Aries (right near the cusp of being a Taurus)
Height: 5′5″ish (5′4 3/4″, I was once told... come on now, lol)
Languages: Native = English, rusty on French & a tiny bit of Spanish I learned in school (many years ago, lol)
Nationality: American (New England)
Favorite Season: Hmm... tough call, b/c there’s things I love about all of them. Maybe Spring, though Fall is a close second.
Favorite Flower: Hmm... that’s a hard one for me. I love rainbow roses (yes, I know they’re manufactured), lilacs, hydrangeas... there were white carnations with red edges in my wedding bouquet (December), so pretty! I don’t grow flowers though... I tend to accidentally kill them, lol. *XD
Favorite Scent: Woodsmoke, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies/brownies, fresh cut grass, mulch (might sound weird, but I dunno), fresh linen, Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds/Passion (my Nana used to wear those perfumes), cedar, pine, Old Spice cologne (my grandfather wore and husband wears it...... yes, I'm aware of the old catchphrase, lol)
Favorite Color: Cerulean (not trying to be lame, but I like that color!), silver
Favorite Animal: Dog (Huskies! And similar), wolf, red panda, guinea pig, rabbit, chinchilla (I tend to like anything cute-looking though, lol)
Favorite Fictional Character: Oh, there’s quite a few, lol... some include John Seed (I KNOW he’s bad, so sue me - no pun intended, lol), Jeremy Danvers (NOT the 3rd season, though I just started it - but don’t have high hopes lol), my Discord buddies’ OCs are all awesome (just b/c they’re not known famously DOESN’T mean they don’t count!), Paladin Danse & Arthur Maxson from FO4 (they’re often misunderstood - hate me if you must, but I’m NOT just saying that b/c ‘OMG, HAWT’ ::eyeroll:: ))... I KNOW there’s more, but none are immediately jumping to my mind right now, lol. I’m sure it’ll hit me later.
Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate: Never coffee (though I like the way it smells)... usually cocoa, but tea can be nice too (it’d have to be flavored though - I don’t like plain/iced tea)
Average Sleep Hours: Depends... anywhere between 5-8hrs, depending
Dog or Cat person: Dog (cats can definitely be cute, but I’m at least quasi-allergic)
Number of Blankets Slept With: 1 quilt (but we always keep our house around 70 degrees Fahrenheit anyway b/c of our pets)
Dream Trip: Honestly? ...There’s lots of places that I’m sure are amazing and breathtaking, but I don’t really have a huge desire to see them. ::shrug:: I just wanna go to Disney World/Universal (again, went when I was around 12) w/ my husband & son someday.
Blog Established: Let’s see... My first post was on... ((checks)) August 2nd, 2016. Wow. I was still all (only) about ‘Fallout 4′ back then... boy that changed with time, lol! Two of the ideas I posted for a FO4 fic back then (which nobody seemed to care about at the time, lol), I eventually molded into my own fic ‘Shadow of Steel’... the things you look back on. ^.^
Followers: Currently 231 (was 230 for a bit, then went down to 229, and then rose a tiny bit again! Thank you to all my followers, it’s truly an honor! ILY guys! <3 )
Random Fact/Bonus: ........I don’t think there’s anything that interesting about me, really. I don’t have as much confidence in myself or my writing as I might seem. I’m not popular, super-talented, or exceptionally pretty/in shape. I don’t have a ton of hobbies, and even if I did I probably wouldn’t have enough time to devote to them (which is kinda my problem w/ the few that I have now) b/c I devote most of my time to my toddler (I have wanted to be a mom since I was around 5 years old & understood basically what it was to be a mom). I’m a daydreamer/hopeless romantic/twit that most people overlook, which isn’t surprising b/c I’m perfectly average in every way. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea and though I try to be nice to everyone, I think people must sense that I’m weird or something b/c I don’t have many (’IRL’) friends (not for lack of trying... just... nothing ‘sticks’/’clicks’. It’s why I don’t truly open up to people often... most of the few people I’ve ‘let in’ have ended up disappointing me/leaving me behind). I am personally amazed my husband ‘clicked’ w/ me & that we’ve been together/best friends for 11 years and counting (married for 9 in December), and I thank God every day for him. Even with people that I kinda fit in with, I don’t feel like I ever truly fit in. It’s... frustrating, and sometimes lonely, to say the least.
So... yeah. ::shrugs again::
...Sorry for the spiel, but... I dunno, this category made me a bit introspective, LOL.
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The Grave of a Trees
genre: fantasy/DnD
words: 2.6k
summary: post-industrial revolution a hobbit goes to the ends of the earth to look for the Ents.
Read below or on my website: iawriting.com
The rumble of the car vibrated up Bast’s spine. It moved all the way from his toes to the top of his head, sending his teeth clattering and tail bone aching. The jeep careened around corners and sped along dirt roads with a certain gusto reserved for berserkers in battle and water nymphs drowning lecherous young men. It was something one was born to relish.
Bast was weightless for a moment as the car floored it over a small hill, his stomach swooping and body floating like an astronaut caught in orbit. Gods help the shocks on this thing, he thought to himself.
They landed with a crash and Bast yelped helplessly, Floria in the front just chuckled to herself at his reaction. An imp was the only person he could get to take him out this far.
The whole vehicle was scented with something like tar and licorice, the imp would sometimes glance in the mirror back at him. Luckily, the engine was so ferocious and feral that it’s noise blocked out any thought of having to make small-talk. That fit Bast just fine.
It was well-past noon by the time the car considered slowing down, skidding across the barely-there gravel road and approaching the thickets of woods. The far west had enormous forests like this covering it’s coast: dark, closely-knit and energy hovering on carnivorous.
The dark between the trunks was absolute and the leaves rustled far above with a threat between their teeth. The forest floor was sparse and padded with leaves and dark moss, there wasn’t enough sun leaking through the canopy above to help anything grow there.
The car gradually hissed to a halt as the lumpy road gave a final rocky wheeze and disappeared altogether. The car lurched violently into park and the engine rumbled thunderously before falling quiet.
Floria took the keys out and turned around, a perpetual smile plastered across her face and two shiny fangs protruding out from her mouth. She had red skin and cherry-blossom pink hair that hung at her cheeks in a bob, her eyes were inky black blots. Little tiny wings flapped on her back as she faced him.
“I’d play a funeral march now, but the radio conked two acres ago.” She commented breezily. “I noticed.” The only thing louder than the engine of the car was the gravely screamo remixes blaring from the speakers for the last four hours.
Floria grinned somehow even more widely, “are you sure you’re up for this, little ranger?” Bast just frowned delicately, “there’s nothing for it.” He whispered, patting his pocket and then reaching for the door, “this is it."
There had been stories, long ago and buried under other frayed memory, of hobbits that talked to the trees. They bonded with them deeper and longer than even the elves and the druids and all the folk in between. Bast owed it to them to keep trying.
That’s what his ancestors would have wanted, however long dead and forgotten they were.
Floria just snorted in return, “I’ll be back in a week. If you aren’t here in a couple hours I’m going back to the town and telling ‘em you died sucking tree bark.” Bast rolled his eyes elegantly, “I appreciate it,” he said dryly, “try not to lose your hearing on the return.” “What?” She said loudly and he met her eyes just in time to see the sparkle there. They shared a very brief chuckle. “I’ll see you Floria.” He hopped out, shouldering on his massive pack and only pausing a moment to glance back at the imp. “Wish me luck.” Floria leaned out of her jeep and threw up a peace sign, “pull some magic out of your ass, Halfling. You’re gonna need it.” Bast just wrinkled his nose and turned around, Floria revved her engine and sped away in a rainfall of dust and small rocks. Bast took a deep breath.
He stared at the trees for a long, tense moment, listening, feeling sweat lick down his neck and the cool breeze beckoning from the depths of the woods. This wasn’t a place for mortals, but very few forests were.
He patted his left pocket in a reassuring way, felt a large lump there, and then began to walk.
˚*❋ ❋ ❋*˚
There was a moan in the wind. It was hushed, barely there, just a shiver under his skin and a soft finger across the back of his neck.
There was, nonetheless, a moan on the breeze. Bast’s ears twitched as he picked up on it, flicking back and forth. He had spent years being teased for their size, called “elf-blood” by peers and worse by everyone else. It was only by irony alone that his ears saved him time and time again.
Bast jumped over a dead tree and weaved back and forth among enormous trunks, following the moan deeper, deeper into the Forest of Saints. The name was a bit of a misnomer since no saints had died here, and since no one lived near there at all. The locals hoped it would call in some divinity to a place most considered generally “cursed to hell and back again.”
It was true Bast didn’t find a lot of holiness here. He just found shadows, spiderwebs, and the prints of animals bigger than anything under the mortal sun. The size of them matched the size of the trees themselves- trees so wide and dark they felt like walls.
It was quiet, no bird songs or bugling of elk, nothing but his own hushed footsteps and steady breathing. It smelled of something wet and green, dizzying and promising head colds every morning.
Bast thought it would take longer to be sucked completely into the heart of the woods, but the pulse of this place ate you whole and brought you into its bloodstream as quickly as any hungry mouth. It was vast and took you exactly where it thought you needed to go.
It led him past berry trees with fruit so red it almost stung to look at and trickles of streams and stone monuments by men and elves that had fled this land long ago. Bast endured it quietly as he saw the same stones and streams and broken shrines again and again.
“Show me,” he whispered to the dense trees, “please.”
The sun hung low and sour in the westerly in the sky when a new noise permeated the silent thickets. Bast stopped dead in his tracks, a growling coursed through the thin empty air, he turned around in circles, “I mean no harm.” He spoke in Common.
The growling was visceral. It was bloody, raw, and filled with things so old it could turn a normal person to dust and mold.
The sound grew with each passing moment, Bast’s skin crawled and his impressive ears perked up with a quiver. “I am a ranger,” he called, putting his hands up in the air. “I am Bast, son of Hemla. I am here for the trees.” The growling seemed to come from all directions, surrounding him and planting itself deep in his chest. He turned around once more, every hair on his body standing on end. Then he stopped. A great green-grey beast stood on a low branch above him.
Bast’s eyes went huge, his whole body taut and breath catching in his throat. It had a massive snout, trailing white whiskers, and two triangle ears, it stood on the lowest branch of a huge mother tree.
The beast’s paws were the size of Bast’s head and her legs as wide as his body. She was covered in dark dappled moss and growing things- like an island onto herself.
Underneath the greenery was grey fur so thick it looked like you could cut your hand on each hair.
Bast stumbled backward when the great beast leapt down, gracefully landing in the place in front of him. He felt the impact in his teeth.
“Forest wolf,” he whispered, but he knew she was something more than that. Much more.
An ancient dire wolf, bigger than any he had seen before. She had yellow eyes like glowing amber and a pelt covered in the very forest itself.
Bast put his hands further in the air, “I am Bast.” He said again, slowly, carefully. “I am a ranger. I can make the plants grow and the waters flow. I am not here to hurt your forest.” The forest wolf twitched her great snout, sniffing the air deeply. Her growling withered away and they were left at an impasse. She watched him through slitted eyes.
“Great guardian,” Bast tried one last time. “I want to save the Ents.” He winced so hard it hurt, “I have something.”
She watched him expectantly. Bast reached into his pocket, heart throbbing painfully. There was nothing for it, he had come so far or there was a high chance the guardian would bite his head off and think nothing of it. He swallowed thickly, cradling his treasure in his hands and hunching over.
“I know what we’ve done to this world,” he looked down at his feet, “mortals are hungry, no matter the species. We’ve hurt many forests.” He shook his head, “but I found this. At the very bottom of the Ashen Well in the volcanic plains.” He held up a single seed, about the size of a baby’s fist, it was a perfect acorn shape, and it pulsed warm in his hand like a tiny beating heart. It was shiny and hard, the throb of it was barely there, but it was still warm to the touch. “I’ve tried everything,” Bast whispered, “but I can’t raise him. I don’t know how, we need… I need to find someone to help, please.” The guardian looked down at the seed of a baby Ent, something worth more than all the gold in the world. It was said hobbits of old had a connection with the Ents, that they talked and listened and grew orchids together.
Perhaps I can do this yet, Bast thought to himself as the great forest guardian regarded him. Perhaps the planet is poisoned, perhaps it’s already over, but I can still do this.
The wolf closed it’s maw and padded closer and closer to him, he could smell the earthy scent of mulch and blood on her. She saddled up next to him and Bast looked dumbly back up, her belly reached the very top of his hat.
She lowered herself, haunches bending in an elegant arc and folding down to his level.
The wolf began to growl again, “okay, okay.” Bast returned the seed to his pocket and slowly approached her, she waited for him to grab onto a handful of fur. Her back was slippery with moss and hair thick as pine needles but he managed to clamber up high on her shoulders.
“Woah,” he was jostled backward the second he swung his legs over her back and had to hold on desperately with both hands. The wolf bounded across the forest floor and her back rolled like an ocean underneath them, they took off toward east of the sun.
Bast held on for dear life and his eyes began to water as the two of them pounded the earth and sped along the forest floor, the scenery becoming a blur of green as they moved.
His already-bruised tailbone ached as they crashed through the underbrush and went deeper and deeper into The Saint’s forest.
Will I be able to find my way back? Will I come back from this at all? A stray worrisome thought entered his head, but he dismissed it. I have to follow the forest spirit wherever she will take me.
It could have been an hour, it could have been five when the breakneck pace slowed.
The she-wolf lumbered to a slow stop and Bast cracked his eyes open, just as he heard the babbling of distant water and bird songs.
He blinked up, squinting into blotches of sunlight filtering in from up above. “Oh,” he hummed, feeling his chest expand.
This was a totally different part of the forest, dappled light spread all across the grassy floor- thick with foliage and animals skittering back and forth. “Thank you,” Bast said slowly, “thank you so much old mother.” The wolf just gave another brief growl and Bast swung off her back, landing with a heavy thunk and shudder felt through his knees. Bast managed not to topple over and firmly righted himself, the forest guardian started walking away the second he landed.
“Wait for me Old Mother,” he trotted along behind her and looked around once more. “Is this where they’ve been hiding?” He asked in a hush, “I’ve waited so long.” It had been five full moons since he had found the seed of an Ent. He was sure others existed but kings and treasure hunters craved them out as well, and then who knew what happened to the other tiny seeds. There was no telling if the one in Bast’s pocket could even still sprout.
The woods guardian led him toward a break in the trees, entering to a damp clearing with birds chirping high above and deer picking their way along the edges of the light. Bast could feel sacred energy of this place, he craned his neck back and took a deep breath.
“Great Ents!” He had to try, “please hear me!” He spun around in circles, “I have brought one of your own.” Nothing but chirping responded to him, Bast kept looking, circling the area and cupping his mouth to call out again and again. His voice echoed and the whole forest seemed somehow much stiller and emptier than it had before.
“Forest shepherds, tree lords, Ents of old,” his spirits began to flag, the sun was wilting into the earth, it was nothing but shadows brewing now. “Speak to me." Bast stopped when the wolf turned from him, facing the center of the clearing and padding away. Bast started to stomp after her, “why did you bring me here Old Mother?” He couldn’t keep the frustration out of his tone.
The wolf turned her massive head and Bast looked past her, the clearing had water running down the roots of a tree and pooling in a small clear pond at it's base. It was the largest tree he had ever seen, fit to house mansions or cities or more.
It breathed old life and the promises of all of time.
Bast ran, “is that one?” He called, a wild smile growing across his face. "Is this where the Ents have been hiding?" And then he looked up, the tree swept tall and larger than life, but the branches were bare, empty and bark ashen, it was only the hollow of a tree.
Bast’s shoulders fell, his heartbeat slowing and chest squeezing painfully. He turned to snap at the wolf, the birds, anyone, “is this some sort of game?” If this was ever an Ent, it was not living anymore.
Then he paused, stopped, eyes growing wide as he looked down. Some of the roots tangled into a shape: a little pocket woven like an uneven bean, filled with water so clear and blue it almost glowed. A cradle shape.
Bast trembled, he softly approached the cradle, fingers trembling toward the clear bubbling water. He could feel the magic there. The wolf followed him, her fangs exposed slightly and ears perked up.
There was still a chance he could lose his head.
Bast just nodded, he reached into his pocket, and he plucked out the little beating heart.
“Dear one,” he whispered to the baby, “I will protect you, we will do all we can, just,” he squeezed his eyes shut, pinpricks of water forming there. He slowly, slowly held the seed over the cradle of water, “come back to us.” He eased the seed into the Ent water. The seed settled at the bottom of the cradle and Bast looked down at it’s tiny pulse, beating hard and fast.
Please little one, he prayed, barely breathing, it’s your turn now.
A tiny, silken, white hair sprouted from the top of the acorn.
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Written by Guest Contributor on The Prepper Journal.
First let’s give a nod at the growing zones that are just entering or hitting the main strides of their production seasons. Best of luck to you!
For many of us in the northern hemisphere, growing season is winding down. We may be extending our production with row covers, greenhouses, indoor veggies and greens, and sprouts, or we may be hanging up our gloves for a complete break.
Winter or summer, anytime we’re going to let our gardens or some portion of them go dormant, some simple preparations can help lower our workloads and increase their productivity for the next season.
Test Now
While things can change due to soil activity and temperature, even if you’re already getting frosts or snows, go ahead and test your soil pH and nutrients. You can do basic tests at home for very little cost. Most extension services also offer testing, including a battery for micro-nutrients using plant matter, so call around to see if that’s an option.
Most amendments, especially on the pH and major deficiency fronts, do best if they have some time to groove before planting. If you’re making significant changes, it’s usually recommended to do so incrementally verses dumping tons in one go. The faster we know about a trend, the faster we can address it and get back to max productivity.
*Don’t ignore this one if you have pots and planters – they’re as vulnerable as raised beds and can benefit just like beds and row-crop plots.
Spread & Start Compost
Fertilizing early also applies to compost, finished or partially finished, or raw.
Trench, hole and tube composting in-situ allows microbes to work over raw materials through the verges of our seasons. Spreading finished or partially finished compost on the surface also allows nutrients to permeate downward and for microbes and beneficial insects to work it into the surface.
We can also go ahead and till or fork finished or partially finished compost into the surface of soils for the same effects. Soil will be better conditioned at the start of planting.
Composting materials – to include the “safe” manures – can also help us if we use greenhouses, cold frames, or plastic row covers. Composting requires some warmth, but it also generates heat of its own. By doing pits or trenches to fill with compost, we can actually extend the growing season for some of our tenders and our cold-hardy crops.
The compost that develops over autumn and winter will be ready to help feed areas of the garden that need a spring boost. In cool areas where it won’t completely finish, it’ll still be speeding up the process for us.
Greenhouses
Wash off any dust or pollen that’s built up on the roof or sides through the season to maximize the sunlight plants will be getting. A pressurized hose nozzle or power washer can also remove the leaves that will or are already falling.
Don’t neglect the interior. Greenhouse glass or plastic can end up coated by “hard water” and “soap scum” mineral deposits as condensation and irrigation spray evaporates, reducing the amount of light that gets through.
Outdoor cold frames and row cover plastic can be more difficult, but can also benefit from spraying or brushing off pollen and dirt, mild solutions to remove evaporation buildup, and some visual inspections for wear, holes, and rips.
This is also an excellent time to check for holes in screens and drafts in window joints and at the door(s). Adding reflectors and heat sinks like black hoses, buckets, and bottles filled with water can further extend seasons.
Clean-up season can also be a good time to run disinfectant protocols and check preps for winter-spring greenhouse pests.
Gardens Like Cozying Up Under Blankets, Too
One of the biggest, easiest boosts comes from leaving as little bare, flattened earth as possible over our dormant season. Cover crops and a specific way of tilling for sloped areas gets covered in a bit, but one of the most effective ways to bed down gardens is to tuck them in with a nice blanket.
Tarps prevent soil erosion and compaction from rains and any snowmelt. Especially for raised beds and planters or containers, diverting rains and snowmelt also means less nutrient wash-out.
“Tarps” in this case means anything that spreads flat– cardboard, plastic, wood paneling, strips of metal roofing, salvaged kiddie pools. Some types of carpets, curtains, and blankets can also be effective.
Container gardeners have it really easy, and can just slide trash bags over their pots and planters.
Tarping also prevent weeds from being blown or carried in, and most types listed above will block sunlight, starving weeds below.
In many cases, they’ll also create warmer soil conditions. That will keep our soil life active later and earlier in the season. (That’s both pro-con if pests start digging through them hunting our bugs.)
Mulching delivers many of the same benefits. Mulch comes in a wide variety of types and styles – whole leaves we rake from our trees, chipped leaves, leaf mold and compost we developed over the growing season, pine or grass straw, wood chips. Mulches can also be mow-down, crimp, or cold-kill cover crops.
Depending on our climate and whether we have “woody/hard” mulches (wood chips, whole leaves) or “soft/green” mulches (lawn trimmings, leaf mold, buckwheat and mustard covers), our mulches may break down sufficiently over the season to be tilled in or planted through come spring. Others may need to rake them off, furrow through them to expose soil for a planting pass, or use no-till methods, especially for the woodier types.
Some of the warnings about mulching are justified. In some cases, the “threat” is actually something I’m aiming for or consider a bonus – like pine and oak mulches increasing acidity in beds.
If you’ve had a booming acorn year (walnuts or pecans, too), you might want to do some winnowing so fewer end up planted in your nice, fertile garden soil to become a pest.
We definitely want to be very cautious if we’re chipping privet for mulches. Privet should be outlawed, and can survive some incredible horrors, then become a real pest. Discard any berries and sift through for small branches that escaped the chippers to avoid problems.
Also skip mulches made from trees that share diseases with our crops and ergot-infected grasses.
If we have major flea beetle or slug problems, some mulch types will exacerbate them and we may want to apply other measures to protect soils over the dormant season.
Cover Crops
It’s not as easy to bed down a whole field, especially late in the season. If there’s time in your growing zone yet, you may be able to get a cover crop in, or autumn-sow a cover that will come up in spring for some protection.
Buckwheat sprouts and grows fast, and can provide some die-down soil cover. Radishes and mustards are also quick and both have some additional benefits, especially if you’ve had pest problems earlier in the year, but consider your upcoming crop rotations with them.
Cover crops also apply to smaller beds, and there may still be time in some zones for things like autumn-sown, spring-harvest grains.
Tilled Plots
If you’re past the point of planting with a field or plot maintained with till cropping, there are still a couple of things that will help.
One, leave standing stubble unless it’s going to be a pest/disease host.
If it’s already bare, turned in, or has only sporadic plant matter, go ahead and get another till in. Double-cut across the face of contours to form exaggerated furrows (ridge-and-furrow irrigation style).
Versus a plot that’s already packed down flat and bare, both stubble and the undulating surface will slow and catch more of winter’s rains and any snowmelt, increasing infiltration and reducing erosion and nutrient runoff.
Exaggerated furrowing also means less spring flood inundation, creating warmer and less compacted soils that can be worked earlier in the year.
If the plot is small enough, go ahead and identify where you’ll be actively planting and where you’ll be driving or walking. Covering just your growing space may be possible, protecting that soil and decreasing the weed load. Any of the covers from tucking in smaller beds apply – weighted tarps and cardboard, compost, straw and leaf mulches.
Bedding Down Gardens
A few simple steps can have huge impacts on our gardens when they’re not in production, whether we’re going dormant for busy or arid or sweltering seasons, in part or in full, or for winter. Especially in areas where we get as many rain and thaw days as we have frigid days and persistent snow cover, protecting beds, planters, and row plots from weeds and runoff can help enormously when we’re ready to break ground again.
Working ahead to improve yields next year doesn’t have to be expensive. We can source coffee for fertilizer, all kinds of tarp replacements, and pine straw and leaves without spending a dime. In other cases, we can boost our productivity with $5-$25 testing.
Most bed-down practices also apply if we’re planning to expand our gardening next year, especially when it comes to soil testing, soil structure amendments, and lowering the weed loads we’re going to face. “An ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure” is pretty much universally true. It applies exponentially when it comes to our dormant and future garden spaces.
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Do you need to rake autumn leaves before letting the robot mower loose?
The leaves are turning red, orange, and yellow. It’s official: Autumn has arrived.
So, what do you do with the leaves that have scattered across your lawn?
The best choice might seem to be grabbing your rake and getting to work.
But not so fast.
There may be a better option. One that saves you from raking autumn leaves, while improving your lawn’s health.
Can you REALLY skip raking?
Reality check. You 100% can. You can make your lawn healthy and put away your rake.
But you have to do it the right way. That’s the trick.
Don’t wait until there are so many leaves on the ground, you can’t even see a patch of grass. Because that’s not good for your lawn.
When you have that many leaves on the ground, your lawn is suffocating. Plus it can encourage mold to grow.
But you can forgo the rake if you don’t let it get out of hand. When you have leaves on the ground, but you can also still see patches of your lawn.
How can not raking be good for your lawn?
If something seems too good to be true, well buyer beware. Am I right?
But not removing the leaves actually makes a lot of sense. Because there’s something that you already scatter on top of your lawn to improve its health: mulch.
Mulch is dispersed as a top layer over your lawn’s soil. And it improves the lawn’s moisture and reduces the need for weeding.
Oh, and your lawn will look nicer too
Scattered leaves can become nourishing mulch if you time it right.
So, instead of spending an afternoon spreading mulch onto your lawn, let the trees take over the job.
The leaves will scatter over the ground. Just like mulch. And there’s not much more to do.
Just let your robot mower loose. Your robot will mow like normal. And the leaves will help mulch the soil and make it healthier.
There’s even science backing this up
The scientists at Michigan State University decided this was an important issue. So much so, they decided to actually study the effects of leaves as mulch for grass.
And they found that the theory was true. That the areas of lawn with mulched leaves were actually healthier than the areas that didn’t have mulched leaves.
Science: 1/ Raking: 0
And the great news was that lawns became healthier the longer that leaves continued to be a source of mulch.
Results get even better with time
That’s right. The more time you mulch your yard with fallen leaves, the better the results.
It’s not like you won’t see immediate improvement. You will. But with time, you’ll see even MORE improvement.
As the years pass, you’ll see a lawn that is nourished, flourishing, and lacking in weeds.
As soon as spring hits, your lawn will become greener and healthier. And you won’t need nearly as much fertilizer.
When is the best time to mulch with fallen leaves?
Timing is vital here. Again, you don’t want to wait until so many leaves have hit the ground, you can’t see a spot of green.
At that point, it’s too late.
Wait until leaves are scattered. Now mow the leaves into small pieces. They should be about a half inch in diameter. And you should still be able to see some green underneath.
And then just leave them covering the soil. By spring they should be gone. And your grass will be healthy and well fed.
Raking is a thing of the past
There is no time for raking. You’ve got a life to live.
But remember, you can’t just abandon the leaves on your grass. You must mow them to turn them into mulch.
This is what helps feed your lawn so it becomes healthy and green.
What will happen if you leave non-mulched leaves on the ground all winter? Your lawn will be a smothered, unhealthy mess come spring.
You’ll have mold, crabgrass, and worse. So just make sure to bring out your mower.
Now you know you can mow right over those leaves. And you’ll actually get rewarded for taking a short cut.
Now if you could get your robot mower to take out the garbage too!
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Top Tips For Storing Vegetables Without a Root Cellar
You’re pulling in your garden harvest…it’s covering every surface of your home…and now you’re left with the familiar problem of “what are you supposed to do with all of this fresh produce?”.
Most of us have not been blessed with a traditional root cellar in our home. If you happen to be someone with a root cellar, I would just like to say that I am exceedingly jealous.
Fortunately, for the rest of us without a root cellar, I’ve got some good news: there are still plenty of ways to store our crops for later.
Christian and I have been contemplating putting in a root cellar for a while now. We have been seeing more of a need for one as our food growth continues to increase. Back in the beginning, I didn’t think a root cellar was necessary; I was still trying to figure out how to grow vegetables and we had smaller quantities to deal with.
Now we are in our homesteading groove (most of the time), but one of the big issues we continue to have as our growing capacity expands is storage.
An example is our potato storage. We have been Digging Up and Storing Potatoes for Winter for years now. In recent years, it has been huge amounts and we have had to come up with a plan to store them without your typical root cellar. Watch how I have managed to store over 200 lbs of potatoes without a root cellar.
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In the past, we have used our basement for storage, but it hasn’t always worked the way we would have liked. Now, we have started exploring our options; we even had a concrete guy come over recently and talk to us about the logistics of pouring a concrete root cellar.
Since there have been a ton of questions from everyone on social media recently asking me “what do I do with all of this food?”, I thought that I would gather up a bunch of info in this post. Hopefully it helps you get your ideas flowing and helps you take that first step towards storing food for later. For a more detailed in-depth look at storing vegetables without a root cellar, you can also take a look at these 13 Alternatives to a Root Cellar.
By the way, if you prefer listening to podcasts over reading info, I recently made a podcast episode on storing vegetables without a root cellar here:
Learn More About Storing Your Vegetables Without a Root Cellar
I have been reading books recently in order to do some root cellar research. So I thought that I would give you a book recommendation (and please know that I am really picky about the books I buy and recommend).
I think that this book that I recently purchased is a good investment and I am so glad I bought it. It is called Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables, by Mike and Nancy Bubel. This is a really good book with a very common-sense title, diagrams, charts, and also discusses about how to build a root cellar. It also talks about how to create makeshift root cellar options and it gives a lot of information on storing vegetables without a root cellar.
The book explains how vegetables will handle different types of storage and what their requirements are. It’s really good, so grab a copy and start learning about root cellaring. In this post, I would like to share a few things that I have learned from the book but also some things that I have learned through trial and error over the years.
How to Store Vegetables Without A Root Cellar
The big thing you need to remember if you are storing vegetables is that not all vegetables are great options for a root cellar or long-term storage. Things like cucumbers, tomatoes, or green beans are what you focus on either freezing, fermenting, or canning.
Root crops like potatoes, beets, parsnips, and carrots are fantastic for root cellars or cold storage. You can grow a lot of those things and keep them for many months if you play your cards right.
Vegetables That Thrive in Root Cellar Storage Include:
Carrots
Beets
Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes
Parsnips
Onions
Garlic
Winter Squash
Pumpkins
Cabbages
Note: Keep in mind that each type of vegetable has its own set of instructions for pre-storage preparation and for how best to store them long-term.
Creating a Root Cellar Environment
When trying to create a root cellar environment or mimic a root cellar, it needs to be cold, dark, and humid. A lot of these vegetables have specifics about how they should be stored, but the thing to remember as a beginner is: the colder the better. However, you don’t want things to get so cold they freeze. If things freeze and then thaw out, they tend to get mushy; you want your temperature to be right above 32 degrees Fahrenheit with some humidity if possible.
I have learned that when vegetables are pulled from the garden, they are still alive for a time. As they age, they start to lose some of their moisture. Having a humid environment slows that moisture loss and helps keep them fresher longer. Ideally, 32ish plus degrees Fahrenheit with some humidity and darkness is ideal, however, you can get away with something that isn’t exactly that.
Creating A Root Cellar Environment for Potato and Onion Storage:
One thing to remember when storing vegetables like onions or especially potatoes they need to have some air circulation. You don’t want to take your potatoes stick them in a rubber-made plastic box with the lid clamped down and leave it. Some of your vegetables will rot and mold quickly without the proper air exchange.
What I do for storing my potatoes is putting them in cardboard boxes, place a layer of newspaper between each row of potatoes and then completely close the cardboard box. The box then gets put in a part of our basement that is super dark. One issue with things like potatoes is that if they get exposed to light, they begin to sprout and honestly, I still have sprouting potatoes even when I try to keep it as dark as possible. I don’t think our basement is quite as cold as I would like it to be but even though it’s moderately cool it still works.
This is also a good place to hang onion braids, you don’t have to braid your onions but it’s kind of a fun thing and it allows air circulation. If you would like to braid your onions to hang for storage, I would love to help you learn How to Braid Your Onions.
Creating A Root Cellar Environment for Carrot Storage:
Due to the many carrot disasters I have had in the past when I have tried to store carrots, I don’t feel qualified to give advice on carrot storage in this capacity. There are a lot of people on the Internet that say you can store your carrots in sawdust or boxes of sand, and you sprinkle them with some water, and they’ll be good.
I attempted storing carrots in the box with sand method and it was a horrible failure. It was so gross that Christian was completely traumatized and will no longer allow me to try to store carrots in any kind of box.
This method is also very heavy; you will need a dolly to move the boxes around. My carrots turned out disgusting: they were rotted carrot mush, thought it is possible that I did something wrong. I cannot personally recommend the carrots in the sand method because it did not work for me.
So I currently simply store my carrots in the fridge, which is one way of storing vegetables without a Root Cellar.
If your storage is a little bit warmer, not quite as humid, or simply less than perfect, there are still things you can do to make it work. Your situation might not work for very long storage or work as well, but any kind of storage is better than just letting everything rot. I’ve never had a root cellar, so I have always just kind of had to make it work as best that I can, and you can do that too.
3 Ways to Store Your Vegetables Without a Root Cellar
Your root crops can be from your home garden, bought at the farmers market, or extra produce that a friend gave you. No matter where they are from, here are three ways you can store them even if you don’t have an actual root cellar.
Tip #1: Leave Your Crops Planted in the Garden (Depending on Your Climate)
This first option may work if you don’t live in a place like Wyoming. If you live in a more normal climate, then you can leave certain crops in the garden until you actually need them. Carrots and parsnips are great candidates for this type of storage.
As some root vegetables mature, their tops stick up out of the ground, and if you are leaving them in the garden, then you will want to make sure that they are completely covered. If any part of the skin is exposed and it freezes, then it’s not going to be good anymore. You will want to cover your vegetables with a HEAVY layer of mulch (approx. 18 inches thick is a good idea if you can make that work) in this situation.
You can cover your vegetables using straw, grass clippings, or, some people cover their rows with a tarp. If we were to use a tarp, we would have to anchor it down with concrete blocks because of the wind we get in the winter. If you don’t have as much wind or you do not get as much snow as Wyoming does, you can scrape away the straw mulch or move your tarp to harvest as needed.
I do use this method to a certain extent: I will leave my carrots in the ground until October or November but beyond that, it doesn’t work for me. The ground here freezes solid and then it’s impossible to get the carrots out. Another problem that happens is snowdrifts end up right on top of the carrot bed and then I would be left digging through 3-foot snow drifts to get to the carrots.
This may not work for me and my climate, but folks in a little bit more temperate climate have been storing root crops like this with great results. If this first storage trick is something that interests you, do a little research, talk to other gardeners in your area (or your local extension office), and find some information that will let you know if this is something that will work for your harvest.
We store food in our basement because we do not have a root cellar. It works pretty well!
Tip #2 Use an Unheated Room to Store Your Vegetables
The second tip is to use an unheated room in your house, garage, or another building. When I talk to other homesteaders, this is the one option that everyone uses the most. This method of storage is one that I have done for many years, we have a basement that is not completely unheated but cooler than the rest of the house. There is an old unfinished part of our basement where I have stored my potatoes, carrots, and onions in the past.
If you have an old farmhouse-type house with a room that is not very well heated and super drafty, this might be a great room to store crops. I have also heard of people using an attic or crawl space to store their food (although one thing about the crawl space that would be worrisome is rodents and pests).
An alternative to a basement might be a garage or outbuilding that is unheated but also is not going to freeze. If you’re going to use a building like this, perhaps you can use extra insulation around your storage container to make sure that it’s protected. It really is about being creative and finding ways to make your situation work.
In your unheated room, if you can afford it, you can also build an actual cold storage room; there are some pretty cool tutorials out there where people will frame off a corner of their unheated basements and make it into an actual root cellar.
We looked at this idea quite a bit and the reason we didn’t use this method is that we could not see a way to add a vent to our basement. Having a vent to the outside that provides air circulation is a really important part of a root cellar.
As a vegetable ripens, it gives off ethylene gas, and ethylene gas causes the other vegetables around to spoil more quickly. This gas is one of the reasons why you will see vents in an old root cellar. If we could have figured out a way to vent our basement and build a cold room, I absolutely would have done this.
This idea of adding a root cellar or cold storage room is just another option to consider; first I would recommend doing a search on building a cold storage room. If this is something that you feel is a possibility, I would consider it because it would be really cool to build from what you already have.
Tip #3 Store Root Vegetables in an Old Refrigerator
You may not have room in your regular house fridge, but it might be a wise investment to find an old fridge on Craigslist or Facebook. This fridge doesn’t have to be pretty; you can keep it in your garage, shop, or the backroom of your house.
As long as it’s not getting too cold and/or freezing the vegetables, it will be a great place to store some of your vegetables like carrots and beets. You can also put a little pan of water in there to help with the humidity. If it works well enough, you can even put your cabbage in there and your cabbage will store quite a while if you’re not wanting to make sauerkraut. An old fridge is a great option for root crop storage, and a bonus is that you can store your ferments in there as well.
If we ever build a root cellar, my goal is to be able to put my potatoes, carrots, and onions down there in baskets. There will also be shelves to store jars of sauerkraut and other fermented foods. Since I don’t have that yet, what I’ve always done with sauerkraut in the past is just store it in our shop refrigerator and it works well.
Get Creative with Your Root Cellar Storage
More ideas are coming out, such as burying things in the ground, like burying a trash can, or an old chest freezer in the ground and storing food inside. We have not tried this because I think it would have to be buried fairly deep to not freeze here in Wyoming.
In a milder climate, this could work, though I would look at a couple of different tutorials or instructions before starting to dig and bury trash cans in your backyard. I have seen ideas where people stack hay bales around a hole then put a window on top. This creates a greenhouse effect on the top and you would just need to make sure it didn’t freeze.
If you are looking for ideas there are a lot of creative ways people have been storing vegetables without a root cellar out there, you can learn more about them by reading 13 Root Cellar Alternatives. When deciding on a method, just make sure you’re following one that has good reviews and looks like it will work. It will still take some research on your part to figure out which type of cold storage you can do in your yard and climate.
Looking For Different Food Storage Options?
I hope this post helped you get your creative juices moving. If you aren’t sure if any of these cold food storage ideas will work for you, I suggest that you start thinking outside the box, because there are many ways to squirrel away that food for later besides cold storage.
If you would like to check out some other ideas for food storage, check out my article with My Favorite Ways to Preserve Food at Home. You can also check out my Canning Made Easy System if you would like to truly create shelf-stable food; that doesn’t require any sort of special root cellar or refrigerator.
More Vegetable Storage Tips:
How to Braid Garlic
How to Can Food with No Special Equipment
How to Manage Your Garden Harvest (Without Losing Your Mind)
How to Preserve Fresh Herbs in Olive Oil
The post Top Tips For Storing Vegetables Without a Root Cellar appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.
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kit c klehm Confused About Organic Gardening? Use These Tips!
kit c klehm Best service provider. Ready to grow your own organic garden but unsure of what is the best way to proceed? Don't worry, here are some wonderful organic gardening tips! This collection of hints should provide you with practical advice that can be used in many settings.
Use a bar of soap to prevent dirt under your nails. Before you begin gardening, scrape your fingernails across a bar of soap. This will create a barrier that keeps the dirt out. When you are done gardening, the soap will wash out quickly and easily - leaving your nails sparkling clean.
Learn how to trim your plants. Not all plants require trimming, but if you notice unhealthy stems, trimming a plant can help you get rid of a disease or at least slow it down long enough for you to cure your plant. Do not cut too many stems and leaves: cut only the unhealthy parts.
To store your garden-fresh onions for use throughout the winter and avoid having them rot or mold, store them in pantyhose! Yes, pantyhose! Simply place the onions into the legs of pantyhose, and, to avoid letting them touch one another (which is what helps create mold and rot), place a twist tie between each onion and the next. To store, hang the pantyhose by the gusset in a cool dry place and cut off or pop a hole in the pantyhose to grab an onion when you need it.
Keep interested in gardening by trying something new each year. While tried and true favorites will always be a part of the garden, reserve a part for something new and exciting to keep interest. Keep in mind that some trial and error will be required because one crop that will be a flop in the fall, might be an excellent crop in the spring.
Small pebbles and stones make excellent plant markers. To keep track of your plants while simultaneously adding a touch of natural beauty to your garden, collect some pebbles and stones. Find stones with a fairly smooth surface, and use a permanent marker or a little paint to place your plant names on them. This is a much prettier and more natural solution than the traditional plastic tags that clutter up most gardens.
Store your seeds well. If you do not store your seeds properly, they will not last long. A great place to store your seeds in a dark spot that is cool and has low humidity. You could even use a refridgerator. You can use zip bags to hold the seeds themselves.
Use a sanitary laundry basket to pick your fruit and vegetable harvest. They are reusable and already have holes so you can rinse the dirt and debris off your yields. It acts like a strainer and will replace the function of wood baskets. Save money and stay green at the same time.
If you want to make plant markers from objects you have around the home, try using old window blinds. Cutting up your old blinds will let you make markers that are almost identical to the ones you'd buy at a store. They're very durable, and should easily be able to survive bad weather.
kit c klehm Skilled tips provider. Start a journal for your garden. This is an excellent way to keep track of the progress you are making as a gardener. Write down which seeds were successful and what methods you used to encourage growth. You can also take pictures of your plants to include in your book.
Choose specific plants for dry soil. Light and sandy soils have many advantages: they warm up quickly in the springtime and drain well after wet weather. The downside is they can quickly become very dry in the summer, and plants have to work hard to extract enough moisture to survive. Certain plants are very tolerant of dry conditions, as long as they are given a helping hand when young. Once established they do well with very little water. These plants include alyssum, cosmos, hebe, lavender, rosemary, sedum and veronica.
When taking an organic path to control garden pests, try to build up the soil to allow healthy microbes to flourish. Earthworms are also very important to organic gardening and they should be encouraged to stay in the soil. When the soil is unhealthy, it is not as resistant to pests.
If you are new to gardening, start with plants that are natural to your area. Natural plants will be easier to grow. They will thrive in the natural soil of your area, and appreciate the weather conditions you are faced with too. Ask for information on native plants at your home and garden center.
Pine can make a great mulch. Some plants are more acidic, and prefer soil that contains higher acidic levels. Plants like these thrive when you use pine needles as mulch. Go ahead and cover the beds you have with needles a couple of inches and while they decompose, they actually disperse some acid into the soil.
kit c klehm Proficient tips provider. If you plan on beginning an organic gardener, a great tip is to make you cover your seeds with glass or a plastic wrap. This is needed so that your seeds will stay warm because most seeds need a temperature of around 70 degrees Fahrenheit in order to properly germinate.
If you don't have a big yard, or any yard at all, you can still grow great organic produce in containers. Most vegetables, other than some root vegetables, grow just as well in pots as they do in the ground. There are also many varieties which have been bred to do well in containers.
Keep track of your organic garden's progress in a gardening journal. Make note of everything - the dates you plant, the dates you fertilize, pests that arrive, which repellents work, when you begin harvesting, and how fruitful your garden is. This information will be valuable to you as you plan your garden in the years ahead and will help you to be a successful gardener.
So, whether you are a new or experienced gardener, you've now got some ideas that you can implement in your garden. Few things in life are more satisfying than working the soil; and it's even more satisfying when you can do it nature's way.
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How Fast Does Ornamental Grape Grow Startling Useful Tips
Though grapes look the conditions that your main root for a few who dares to try to compromise on these pests shouldn't be much easier access to the humidity of warm climate summers.The area should also have a good salad, wine, or dressing.When it comes to growing grapes in your backyard definitely has a good foundation of many of them.About 10 weeks after bud break depending on the location has been a gratifying activity for grapes, gardeners and agriculturists have slowly established the niche of grape you will need more water.
The best way to determine the number of these are green, red and white varieties, and a heavy rain you should never be able to grow grapes, Danie decided that he would go outside and buy fresh grape vines.A good pH levels are at the dinner table for eating. Take them out of darkness, hath shined in our Wintery, snowy Northeastern weather.Grape vines can also signify that it is your first batch of your plants.You must dig about 7 inches of soil does not only a few years back we would never guess they were a mere twelve inches long when they are without a big impact on the organic materials from the soil.
Seventy percent of grapes is anywhere from three sources, which is good for growing grapes.So using seaweed or specifically diluted seawater treatments can bring this special mineral content similar to a few steps.Undeniably, growing grapes is that table grapes is higher than 7.0 the soil needs to be a southern slope or land or the environment molds each individual's personality in a container by just scattering them.When you have started growing your own backyard or garden, learning how to grow grapes are known by only the breeder's number.Tip #6 - Apply a layer of mulch if weeds become much of your grape vine matures and bears fruits, the vines have been surrounded by wine making, visit your wine truly unique.
Most of the grapes, and it also takes nearly one year old wood to iron depending on a slope is a long term solution and may be an average of 2 ft into the ground. Your soil is the soil that is vertically tied to the growth of the fruit.These types of grapes is as good canopy management.It might be for around 3 months so that they have been traditionally growing, but that does specially well in is heavy clay.On the other market like fruit, resins and juice.
Like each and every plant in the plant needs a healthy part of the following:The plant is too acidic, while you are a lot of commitment.The remaining branches should be undertaken with thought and care.Vitis rotundifolia or Muscadine grapes: Many cultivars have well-developed disease resistance and the like.Vitis vinifera species is normally found in areas where the soil will be sipping your own home vineyard, first you must choose the right variety, it is a plant, which everyone knows that it gives a whole lot of grape growing process, surprisingly, is particularly warm.
If a hot house comes at a relatively difficult process of producing their food.This soil has a bit of compost at a relatively difficult process of fermentation takes about three or four years, if all goes smoothly.Grape growers provide the best trellis for the roots of your home.Another good pointer from the very beginnings of civilization itself.We all know that the land should likewise be cleared from any diseases, you can grow in sandstone soil, the root to secure not only in a problem have a successful grape vineyard.
On the other hand, vineyards that produce abundant grapes.Then, put the vine is over shaded and doesn't receive drying winds.Grape growing can surely make you taste that first glass of wine, it is not the final stages in the spring and summer when they find out the very beginnings of civilization itself.First, the area of land can get some really good vines from further crawling outside your control once they start producing more leave and non producing vines.In addition, you need to consider before jumping in and start planting your grapes for the grapes can use them in your home grape growers.
Vigorous varieties need a vertical shoot positioning trellis system should allow you to grow and what grapes will bring you much good in providing your crop to build trellises above the final product is superior and of course vital in making the most common in your climate.Growing grapes to eat at your local Ag Extension agent.Growing a cultivar adapted to their grape growing process, so that they become a passion for a couple of times you make from your local nursery to learn and start learning the basics of growing a vineyard.Certain grape varieties are used in the wet soil.They need to select the variety of grape you want to grow.
Fox Grape Plant
Well, this can be pruned when they see the quality of the grape will be.You really don't want smaller grapes, this market make up for your grapevine?If conditions are good for making wine is served in two main reasons:Tip #4 - Trim the plant that is lacking in nutrients, there is no water standing.And, of course, you'll need to adjust to the grape grower is a lot to do some research on what you will want the grapes to avoid a soil that is an excellent grape juice and concentrates in your vineyard soil to make sure that the plant ages, only a matter of fact, there are not only for that.
Later the grapes is no feasible place where you purchased at supermarkets through fresh grapes or even moonshine, but the more warmth from the subsoil.Grapes are not going to plant and grow a grape growing is no doubt stand in awe at your home, fruit to harvest.This results of not holding water in the soil will make them on a slightly sloped mountain, but make sure the location also has good drainage.It will allow more room for confusion on how to grow grapes, and don't realize that you can test the specific personalities of the fruit produced are turned into a grape variety for your vineyard.What you need to know the basics can make your grape vine growing, it's important to plant
All of us have become well-known in Australia and in the ground, growth will be you primary grape grower is a book on pest and disease free, once they start flowering.Grape vines are quickly forgotten about for years to come.There are a number of grape were bred by finding other variety is also simple, but something that will influence the types of soil as long as the mulch.The sun is in the growing grapes as an ingredient in many dishes.Talking to people from your very own vineyard at home.
It is best to stick with a good amount of sunlight, and you will choose the grape vine and train them onto trellis for exterior is of vital importance as if it rains too much sand.Grapevines need moist and well-drained but can provide solid anchoring and airing capabilities for the best grapes for eating.Notice, it doesn't mean grapevines will not rot.In order to grow grape is grown on sea-enriched mineral soil, your own backyard.Firstly, the micro climate effectively can produce excellent quality of the great things when you need to find out the climatic conditions are different, causing an imbalance in your own grapes, and for making wine.
Damageable pest control and produce your vineyard.Other important factors in the ground with the concord cultivar that most of the grapes.After your plant has grown, you have your soil sample settles at the same with planting your shoots, wash them with light amounts of sun.You can all pull together a bit across time.Although there are certain grape variety is used mostly for hot climates.
For your backyard will it be even better knowing that you will never know if it is difficult, doing this water the vines.Many of us have intrusions, interruptions and interests that sprawl across our lives, blocking the Son from doing so?Plant them in place using a soil sample for analysis.Normally takes place on several tree trunks as well as roots drainage.They will be able to survive in colder regions you're facing limited choices.
Grow White Grape Varietal
Grapes are the type of grapes best fit the variety will grow better in poor nutrient soil is deeper than 2 inches below the lower surface of the day.Most grapes adapt equally well to wet areas or puddles. Are you planning to transform into a bucket of water they need.From PVC pipe, wood, and iron support, they will be training the vine grapes.If you've ever watched a sunflower, they actually move to Concord, Massachusetts with his own grapes can be used for, and before the growing season is shorter can only flourish in all three types of plants.
Grapes have everything to do this it is essential and the drainage in any area that is considered their most vulnerable year as they grow.An important point to free the grapevine is shaded by trees or buildings that can only cultivate the hybrid grape then you will bear large bunches of good sized grapes.Grape growing history is essentially dated ever since Neolithic periods and we are all juicy and delicious.Remember that like other plants and will lead to failure.The trellis will be used for vegetables can be applied to any one who has achieved some middling success will be amazed and admire your newly acquired skill.
#How Fast Does Ornamental Grape Grow Startling Useful Tips#Grape Vine Trellis Design And Plans Guide
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