UCF Library

I usually can’t finish a drawing to save my life but I had to

Jo Brown

Biologist and artist

there was once a little boy.

he is born disabled. his body hurts, and he can’t walk properly the way the other children do. he doesn’t understand why. he’s a little boy. but he plays with wooden boats and pulls toys on a string.

somebody makes him a tunic. they sew ducks onto it in red and green and yellow and blue. the bright colours of a child.

the little boy is eight years old, and he’s going to be king now. there’s a big ceremony about it. he doesn’t really fully understand what’s going on, because he’s eight, but he wears the tunic with the brightly coloured ducks for the occasion because he loves it. look at his ducks! aren’t they great?

he is a child. the adults around him manipulate and coax him to gain more power for themselves. he still plays with toys.

as a teenager, not yet an adult, he fathers children. they do not survive. he’s not even old enough to have full agency in his job and is still being manipulated, but he had babies and they died.

he does not make it to his twenties. at eighteen or nineteen years old he dies, and is buried. his babies, so tiny, are buried with him.

and so is his tunic with the little ducks that he loved so much he kept it long after it no longer fit.

yeah i think that like. especially with historical figures in your mind people who were kings and queens or important nobles were adults. even if you know how old they were it doesn’t really click. it doesn’t seem real

but then you get something like a little tunic with brightly coloured ducks on it and it hits you like a fucking truck that this really was a little kid and no matter how far removed you are a little kid is still a little kid. their brains didn’t develop any quicker back then. he was just as developed/mature mentally as any 8 year old now. he had cartoonish animals on his clothes and he played with toy boats and probably terrorised the local cat population.

tutankhamun was a child and he didn’t make it to adulthood because he was unfortunate enough to be a very important child

his dad died when he was 8. he saw his own babies die when he was still just a boy himself.

tutankhamun had a little pair of sandals with ducks on them. he had earrings decorated with ducks. he kept those, and other items of childhood clothing. some toys. keepsakes. things he loved, and treasured. he kept them all in a little wooden chest. the chest… was carved with ducks.

and that little duck chest, filled with things he kept from his childhood, was buried with him. maybe he was keeping them for the little babies who did not make it. maybe they just reminded him of good days and fun times.

WITH PLEASURE

(greyscale makes it hard but the duck head is on the right above the toe strap. always takes me a while to find it too)

This message brought to you my Michael Martin Murphey

Here we go, a more useful bunch of information than “GO GET A RESPIRATOR AND PANIC WITH ME”.  I appreciate this person so much.

I hope this information gets around as much as the post I made about cold weather dressing - this is just as important, just in the other direction.

I was guilty of not having enough carriers for all of my animals - I’ve since rectified that.

I also ordered respirators today.  They aren’t that expensive!  You can get them on the Evil Site of Evil for ~20 and up.  Make sure they either come with the filter pads, or you get some.  It’s not always standard.

The following links were provided in subsequent posts:

Wildfire planning resources 

Evacuating with animals

Emergency supply kits

Pre-evacuation prep steps - includes a checklist

If you can’t leave in time

Alix Powell @thatpowellgirl Y’all remember last year‘s wildfires? @MinkasaurusRex [hey that’s me!] brought to my attention that is wildfire season again, and I think that calls for a safety thread. These graphics showcase last yeardrought drought versus this years drought. This year has the potential to be much, much worse.

I’ll put the rest in the Read More.

In fact, it already is.

Fun update!

Image: Western Drought map, June 2021 showing the dramatic increase over last year.

Drought can make it *much* more likely to have fires, and if you recall last year, it was pretty shit.