We're Gonna Get There In The End

Holmemes pt. 55

I had just gotten back from my dog's neurologist appointment, which was...4 hrs long and stressful😭 Planned on eating a nice lunch and then getting some work done while there was still time in the day.

Only to watch a myna with a fat grub in it's beak land by my back door and then deliberately drop said grub and stare at it for a moment before flying off with a little "bwee" sounding coo.

And then I watched the grub move.

And then the horror dawned on me that it was not a grub.

it was this fucking thing:

I had a very ugly reaction that I will not describe in detail but fuck me 😭 I did not need this rn.

because I knew. I KNEW no rehabber here would take a myna hatchling. And I was right. Was basically told "congrats, it's urs" or "let nature take its course". It's such a strong, spirited little guy, if he's gonna die, he's gonna die warm with a full belly. Got a heatlamp and the appropriate food.

Let me be frank, I have no hope for this guy.

I have hand reared chicks before, but never this young. I hated doing it back then and I never wanna do it again. but this guy...He is like..1-5 days old.

SO, my life for the next week is gonna be waking up at 5:30am to feed this guy every 30 minutes until midnight. All day, every day. Assuming (biiig assumption) he doesn't just die overnight.

But he IS eating and pooping very well so far...so maybe he's gonna force me to live like this for a while after all 🫩 I give it a 50/50 chance, very generously. There's still a matter of diseases n' shit. He looks and acts healthy but who fuckin' knows what's going on under the hood.

So, I have 2 plausible theories abt this

usually, when a parent kicks a chick out, it's because the chick is obviously very unwell and tending to it further is a waste of resources.

This chick, however, is very strong and determined AND had apparently been fed prior to abandonment. So--not unwell and not a waste of resources.

my first plausible theory is that these are first time parents who are very stressed by the monsoons and LOUD construction taking place across the street. Filicide can occur under such conditions.

survived the night :V

Ate a fuckton of breakfast.

So it's time to

get weighed, idiot!

9 gram.

When I weigh him tomorrow, I wil be able to get a clearer picture about whether or not he is on a trajectory of healthy development or if his growth is stalling and he is failing to thrive.

He can look good and strong, but if he can't absorb the requiered nutrient load and grow, then that could very well be the end for him.

I've been watching him around the clock and his behaviors seem good so far as my eyes can tell me...but more importantly, pls look at his tiny feetie claws

"guess who's hungry!!"

How does this happen? Terminal lucidity???

Anyways, I fed him. Slowly. Over the course of an hr. As much as he begged for. He ate a lot.

we'll see.

like...he was GONE gone when I fell asleep last night. I mourned the little bastard.

He went 14 hrs without food. I don't where he got all this enrergy from at 5am.

I hate had rearing baby birds

also, I like to think this looks like some development:

but it could just be the lighting hah...

Tho...even just looking at the size of the fibers on the towel compaired to the size of his head...hm.

Wigh time is in another 2 and a half hrs, but I'm realizing a critical flaw: I should be weighing him in the morning when he hasn't eaten for a few hours. Not in the afternoon after eating all morning. Oh well.

I'll start weighing him properly in the morning if he wakes up to see another sunrise tomorrow. But I'll also keep up the 1pm weigh-ins as well.

This time yesterday, he wasn't eating at all...so I am very happy not to repeat that situation today!

When you're talking about the design of the boat, you say "it".

When the boat is still being built, your say "it".

When the boat is nearing completion, you can say "it" or "she".

When the boat is floating in the water you probably say "she", unless there is still a lot of work to be done (e.g. no engine yet) then you say "it".

When the boat is officially launched and operating, you say "she". If you continue to say "it" at this point you are not incorrect but suspiciously untraditional. You are not playing the game.

If you are referring to a boat you don't really know anything about you may say "it" ("there's a big boat, it's coming this way"). But if you know its name, it's probably "she" ("there's the Waverley, she's on her way to Greenock").

If you are talking about boats in general, you say "it" ("when a boat is hit by a wave it heels over")

If you speak about a boat in complimentary terms, it's "she" ("she's a grand boat"). If you are being disparaging it may be it, but not necessarily ("it's as ugly as sin", "she's a grotty old tub").

If she has a boy's name, she's still she. "Boy James", "King Edward", "Sir David Attenborough"? The pronoun is she.

If it's a dumb barge (no engine), you say it. But if it's a rowing boat (no engine), you say she.

Walnut was born in a species-recovery breeding program in the 1980′s.  The program had crane chicks hand-raised by human volunteers, and at that time they did not fully understand the measures necessary make sure that the chicks do not imprint on humans and retain their identity as cranes.  

As a result, her keepers believe, Walnut does not recognize other cranes as members of her own species.  

It has not been proven that Walnut killed her previous suitors; however, there is a persistent rumor in the white-naped-crane-conservation community that she did.  

Because this species is highly endangered, and the gene pool of the captive population is small, it’s pretty important for the survival of her species that Walnut A) mate, and B) not kill a bunch of other cranes.  

The actual name of the keeper is Chris Crowe.

They both arrived at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in 2004.   

Walnut immediately began paying special attention to Chris--and ignoring the eligible male crane in a nearby enclosure.  

Walnut initiated their courtship, performing the opening moves of a mating dance.  

Chris realized that if he reciprocated the mating dance, it might be possible to artificially inseminate Walnut with her participation and consent.  (The process normally involves restraining the bird.)  

It worked!  

Chris and Walnut have had five children, who were raised by other crane couples at the facility--sometimes the biological dad and his mate--both because it’s unclear whether Walnut would accept the chicks as her own, and because Chris is not equipped to be a Crane Dad.  

However, the Institute provides her with artificial eggs to sit on, and Chris takes his turn looking after them.  (This would not work with real eggs because he can’t sit on them properly, but Walnut seems to feel that he is on the job if he just stands over them.)

she has not been PROVEN to have killed her exes, but there is a PERSISTENT RUMOR (really officers she's simply DEVASTATED, she sobs, wearing a new feather boa unfortunately resembling her most recent deceased husband)

His name is Chris CROWE. (Mrs. Walnut Crane-Crowe?)

the mental images of a whole human man learning and performing the crane mating dance, and "sitting" on artificial eggs so she thinks he's performing his duties as a husband and father (and apparently OBJECTS if he does not?)

"chris, buddy, you gotta marry the possibly-murderous crane lady for the GOOD OF THE SPECIES." (alternately: "chris, my man! good news! we found you a very interested lady! She's 36, she's very spirited and independent, she holds a very important and rare status in her society! ...Is there a downside? WELL...")

B-17 bomber is riddled with German anti-aircraft fire but miraculously survives. Later they discover the explosive shells were all inert; sabotaged by Nazi slaves working in armament factories.

My boss, putting on white grease paint and a red wig: Oh, of course! Let’s do it quickly so that you’ll want to keep working with us since you’re going to be making business decisions!

Me: I would sell you to satan for one corn chip and I’m allergic to corn but before you do this maybe you should call someone who is actually on our contact list for our customer and see if they’ve ever heard of this stranger.

My boss, looking through a selection of shoes that honk when you walk: Oh, but she said that it was very important that none of the employees know what was happening because they’re making staffing changes.

Me: As your lawyer I recommend that you just call a single one of our contacts and see if they’ve ever heard of her name.

My boss, shoving all of our technicians into a VW beetle: You’re not my lawyer.

Boss: On the bright side, it’s only the last five

“Hello I am [name] from [security firm] we’ve been hired to verify the security of the facility I need to see your computers.”

“Erm…I’ll have to verify that with my managers.”

“Congratulations, you have just passed the security verification.” [Scribbles on clipboard] “But in all seriousness I do need to verify your security so I need to see your computers.”

Imagine, after decades of your world becoming colder and colder, you are saved. A single Eridian, the only one of twenty three to survive, arrives in an alien ship, accompanied by a creature you can barely conceive.

Everything about the alien is so loud, hinges formed from tissue thumping and stretching in constant movement, even while unconscious. Completely organic, reliant of oxygen and hydrogen. Instead of a protective carapace, it regrows its damaged tissues. It has senses you do not, and technology so unlike your own, both able to utilise a force you have never heard of. The same force that killed almost your entire mission team. Highly adaptable, able to teach itself how to fly its ship in under a week, able to become fluent in the engineer's dialect in less than four years.

And if Erid's best engineer is correct (and there's no reason it wouldn't be), this creature not only managed to breed a predator of the warmth-taker to survive in various atmospheres, including Threeworld's, but also turned around to provide aid when it discovered that the predator could escape xenonite.

And you think: Surely, this creature which protects itself without a carapace, which sleeps so lightly and knows so much and learns so quickly, which saved two planets at the cost of ever returning to its thrum, surely, a creature so extraordinary must have a name to match

And you think: Perhaps it is strength, Mountain-Base or Lonsdaleite-Carapace. Perhaps it is intellect, Diamond-Claw or Lockpick-Mind. Perhaps it is courage, Song-Through-Silence or Path-Carver

And you think: None of these names hold the true weight of what this creature is to them. How do you describe something like that, which aids without expectation of anything in return, which risks its own life for the sake of a species it cannot touch, which performs miracles simply because it was asked.

You do not understand

Most modern Ag operations don’t even have a proper A-Horizon. They’re too busy turning the earth every time they replant. The A-horizon is the Black Gold that makes Soil Soil. It’s a structurally complex soil horizon that must be built in place by the interactions of Plants and Fungi and Insects. It is The Thing that soaks up rain and holds onto it for plants. The A-Horizon is The Thing that builds up when you let a field sit fallow. The act of tilling creates fecundity by breaking up the A-horizon. On a really good Organic no-till farm you might find an A-horizon between 3-6 inches.

His A-horizon was 4 feet deep. 50 inches.

I-

I have no context. His farm was covered in a living skin thick enough for a child to stand in.

Gives me hope for what we could accomplish if we got our collective heads on straight, you know? Like. This was one guy. A brilliant man, who knew what he was up to, but. The thing about brilliant ideas is they can be shared.

Humus, or Humic Compounds, are a cryptic and poorly understood set of organic substances. As the final metabolic result of once-living things being digested first by macroscopic organisms, and then by microorganisms, they resist most forms of analysis, and have cryptic structures. A few that we have managed to isolate and study are the Humic & Fulvic Acids.

Humus has a number of remarkable tendencies. It is capable of retaining water far better than any raw mineral clay; it also retains electrically charged clay granules, which themselves retain mineral ions, all of which is essential to make a soil a high-quality resource for Plants to grow in.

A composter is a box that contains an environment that is conducive to the production of Humus, but the best way to produce it is in-place, by laying layers of organic material down over an unbroken earth and growing things out of that. The interaction of the plants rooting, the fungus weaving itself through everything, the bacteria and archaea metabolizing as they do, and inorganic weathering forces all combine to gradually build up the microscopic equivalent of a complex megastructure capable of retaining far more water, and containing far more nutrients, than any inorganic substrate.

This stuff is black gold. This is the stuff that determines whether or not a plot of land is going to be “productive.” The knowledge of how to make it, how to care for it, is an essential piece of wisdom that our civilization needs to remember.

Fortunately, folks seem to have the right response:

Farmers are more important to the continuity of civilization than administrators, no matter what the elitists say. This knowledge is important.

Paid service with no ads: Well, if they're not funding it with ad revenue, they need to charge us something.

Paid service with ads: Well that's bullshit.

- Religious satire/commentary (the absurdity regarding the bet with Job, the archangels being generally clueless, the deconstruction of how to-the-letter you need to be with following the laws of religion)

- Genuinely funny (Ty Tennant having like 3 minutes of screen time and out-fruiting his dad, Jemima and her pot and wanting to be turned into a salamander, Bildad the Shuhite and all that that entails)

- an emotional, character-driven core (Aziraphale learning the limits of his own morality, the discussion of the role good and evil play in events and how each is perceived when done by different parties, learning just how similar Aziraphale and Crowley are as it pertains to personal desires (which we as the viewer know, but chronologically it’s one of the first times they connect like they do)

And of course