scrubjayspeaks

Lake Lewisia #1444

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 02:06:09 GMT

After weeks of carefully watching the silks begin to dry, she felt along the ears of corn and felt many large, firm kernels hidden below the layers of husk. Very, almost troublingly firm kernels, she thought, which was all the mental preparation she got before folding back the husks to find rows of white, apparently human teeth studded along the cobs, tidy and terrifying. Still, a harvest was a harvest, and she hadn’t spent all summer watering and weeding for nothing, so she started making calls around town to see who might be able to use a bumper crop of bicuspids and molars.

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LL#1444

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Lake Lewisia #1443

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 01:33:16 GMT

The creature, spindly in some places and squat in others, small all over, had done a credible job of recreating the tools from first principles. Notched sticks served as crochet hooks, and sharpened bone made darning needles large enough for the rough cordage twisted from dandelion stems. Still, self-sufficiency cannot entirely defeat the allure of a good yarn shop, and the fiber arts have brought together stranger pairs than the creature and the human running the shop that morning.

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LL#1443

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Lake Lewisia #1442

Tue, 01 Sep 2026 00:48:37 GMT

Have you spent the summer wrestling with an uncooperative garden hose that tangles, kinks, or ensnares local pets and wildlife? Don’t just tell it to spend the winter coiled in the corner and thinking about what it’s done; bring it to the Buried Garden’s Hose Obedience Classes, starting this weekend. By next year’s planting season, you could have the helpful, self-coiling garden hose you’ve always wanted or even a trained guard hose to fend off raiding raccoons from your produce.

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LL#1442

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Done This Week

Sun, 30 Aug 2026 18:48:17 GMT

Well, my duck did not survive, despite a vet visit and intensive care at home. Fuck. Our regular vet is pissed that none of the on-call vets would treat her Sunday, because that likely would have saved her. It is not, in his words, rocket science. At least now we know how to go about it ourselves if need be in the future.

Mum’s follow-up with the surgeon went well. Her ribs are visibly healing. Her lung is improving, although there’s still some fluid to work out. She’s able to do more, so now we’ve entered into the “overdo it and pay the price later” phase of her recovery. *sigh*

We’re at a point where, if I haul ass, I can get the animals taken care of in the morning and make it to work more or less on time. I hated coming in late, even if it’s expected.

Mornings will be a little easier going forward also because I will no longer have to flip one of the tractor tire hay feeders back upright and drag it halfway across the corral every morning. (And every afternoon, for that matter.) The horse, horrible bastard that he is, also ripped two of the 4x4 boards off the base. So I have a skinned knuckle from hammering myself while reattaching those. The old hardware has been pulled and replaced so that it can once again be chained to the fence to prevent this behavior.

I also went around the corrals with bottles of spray foam, sealing up holes in the pipe of the fence and shelters. There are wasps starting to nest in there, and I am Not Having It.

All this has set off another lupus flare. This is the worst I’ve been since my first year on medication. Swollen, white joints, muscle twitches when lying down, and the all-consuming need to just go the fuck to sleep at any given moment.

Lewisia: 5 new pieces written, still need one extra to catch up

Day job: 32.25 hours--one day off for mum’s appointments, and a short day for vet visits

Cleaning: reassembled and anchored tire feeder, plugged wasp pipes

Reading: Platform Decay by Martha Wells (been waiting until the audiobook was available with credits on Libro.fm, this one was so charming)

Watching: rewatched Paprika (my beloved)

Listening: Heartsongs by Dolly Parton (*ugly sobbing*)

Clock Mouse: still taking a break

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Lake Lewisia #1441

Sat, 29 Aug 2026 02:57:26 GMT

As the summer sizzled onward into a series of blistering days and merciless nights, the last remaining cultivators of match fruits began to harvest another year’s crop, clad in fireproof gloves and armed with non-sparking tools. Slightly spicy, slightly sour, the thin skin and minimal flesh of the match fruit (technically classified as a drupe) was no culinary delight, a brief fad in the 1700s notwithstanding, but they were spectacularly flammable when dried. On short, stiff stems, they lived up to their name and were a waterproof fire-starting method that had saved many adventurers during damp winters.

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LL#1441

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Lake Lewisia #1440

Thu, 27 Aug 2026 02:24:08 GMT

With its tall weeds, half-obliterated paths, and tumbled-down climbing frames, the feral park was a child's dream and an anxious parent's nightmare. It was kept that way deliberately--or more accurately, it was unkept that way, in a willful act of benign neglect--to provide children with a necessary access point to danger, mystery, and secrecy. It was watched, to satisfy certain minimum standards of child mortality, by the sorts of creatures whom children would find agreeable to encounter, even if they were technically spies as well.

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LL#1440

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Lake Lewisia #1439

Tue, 25 Aug 2026 02:04:16 GMT

Visitors to Rocky Head Beach this summer may have seen recording crews from our local radio station, barefoot and wielding boom mics along the waterline. Radio Free Lewisia KL∞R 104.2 will be broadcasting Shanty Hour, a new series on sea folk music that captures the musical traditions of local mermaids, selkies, and others. Listeners are advised to remain on dry land and avoid both the beach and the lakefront while listening, as these songs may stir up strong feelings of wanderlust, a thirst for adventure, and a conviction that one knows how to tie complex rigging knots despite having no previous sailing experience.

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LL#1439

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Done This Week

Sun, 23 Aug 2026 17:56:27 GMT

Yeah, you know what? Fuck everything.

The work week was somehow Oops! All Mondays! flavor. A relentless parade of broken equipment and horrible screw-ups.

I spent the bulk of Saturday doing grocery shopping and other such chores for which there is no time in the week currently. I also donated blood, because I was eligible again and there’s a critical shortage.

And now this morning, one of the ducks has a prolapsed vent, a major medical emergency. None of the emergency vet clinics has anyone on staff today who can handle birds. So we’ve got to try to keep her alive long enough to see someone tomorrow.

I am really reaching my limit on coping with life.

Lewisia: no new pieces written

Day job: 40.5 hours--I managed to scrape together an almost normal amount of time, and it only cost me my sanity and my sleep

Watching: X-Files season 2 episode 21, rewatched Atlantis: The Lost Empire for the first time in many years (RIP my VHS copy of long ago)

Listening: no new album this week--I just don’t have the processing power to enjoy anything new; I did recently finish listening to Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast season on the Martian Revolution of 2247, which was marvelous

Clock Mouse: still taking a break

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Lake Lewisia #1438

Sat, 22 Aug 2026 02:30:59 GMT

Within the let’s eat genre of podcasts and video channels, the Forbidden Fruits team had something of a corner on the market for exotic foods. Having already endured backgrounds of fae abduction, curses, and year-and-a-day servitude pacts, everyone from hosts to editor to researchers had established immunity to fairy food’s more well-known hazards. So apart from the dangers of obtaining the food in the first place--the midnight fairy fort raids, the crossroads visits, the haunted u-pick orchards--they ate freely their golden apples, flower wine, and cheese and ice cream from fairy cattle.

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LL#1438

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Lake Lewisia #1437

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 02:02:04 GMT

One might have missed the bird entirely, mistaking it for just another twist of cracked, sun-bleached deadwood on the half-fallen tree. Or one might have assumed it was an adaptation to its preferred haunts, growing plumage in the same palette and pattern as the outlook over a field of mousey morsels. Rarely, one might know on sight a reforester hawk, also known as a deadwood phoenix, whose nesting habits began with assembling a skeletal tree, which would hatch into new growth along with the bird's eggs.

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LL#1437

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Lake Lewisia #1436

Tue, 18 Aug 2026 02:06:46 GMT

A recent meme on social media, prompting users to list the loot drops that appear when they are defeated in imaginary combat, has had some troubling consequences here in Lewisia. As a reminder, while there are plenty of hobbyist groups for various forms of armed and unarmed combat, it is not considered acceptable to challenge others unprompted to duels in the street. This is true even if they have stated, in person or online, that they are full of delicious candy or will drop rare trading cards when bested in battle, and such comments should be taken as enticement to mischief.

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LL#1436

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Done This Week

Sun, 16 Aug 2026 20:45:05 GMT

So, look: it’s possible that I’m cursed. With what, exactly, remains unclear.

On Tuesday, mum fell in the bed of her truck while unloading hay bales. (We don’t have time to get into the why of *that*.) And after two trips to the Urgent Care, one to the ER, and an overnight hospital stay, she’s back home with her five (5) broken ribs. *pinches bridge of nose*

I haven’t been back to work yet, but I get to try to make that work tomorrow. It’s not so much that mum needs me present constantly. She’s mobile on her own, so long as she doesn’t drop anything on the ground. But she’s not allowed to do anything. Like, oh, say, feed five horses and two ducks. Or water dozens of fruit trees and three separate vegetable gardens. So I’m having to try to do that. On top of my own usual responsibilities.

Adding my day job to the mix might actually kill me, so watch this space. But don’t bother to watch too closely, because I am likely to be thin on the (internet) ground for the next month or three.

Lewisia: 3 new pieces written

Day job: 17 hours

Gardening: succulent club meeting, harvesting

Reading: Witch Hat Atelier, Volume 3 by Kamome Shirahama (*narrows eyes* I think there’s some bullshit afoot...)

Watching: X-Files season 2 episode 20

Listening: Hunky Dory by David Bowie (I recently listened to the Hit Parade podcast “Starman to Black Star” episode on Bowie and had a mighty need for more; I will point out that the opening noise garbage on “Andy Warhol” sounds too much like medical device alerts and sets my teeth on edge right now)

Clock Mouse: still taking a break

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Lake Lewisia #1435

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 17:27:32 GMT

Her friends had all seen her fall into the river, pulled under by the weight of her armor, and even if they had not presumed her dead, they had no way of following her where she had really gone. It would have been easiest to stay on her side of the portal, pretend she had died until maybe it would be true in some sense. Instead, she strapped on her armor, rusty though it was, and stomped back through the portal, defiantly alive and determined to keep her friends that way too.

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LL#1435

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Lake Lewisia #1434

Thu, 13 Aug 2026 02:31:35 GMT

It was surprisingly easy to keep the entity alive, once he realized that there was more to novelty than just whatever new trinket money could buy. It hungered for newness, and so he fed it sentences never before spoken, grammatically sound and nutritionally complete nonsense. He kept records of every sentence meal he gave his otherworldly companion, which years later would be gloriously misunderstood by the poetry world and published to great acclaim.

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LL#1434

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Lake Lewisia #1433

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:41:02 GMT

The agricultural science and necromancy departments at the community college have spent the summer in the teaching gardens, cultivating the new Resurrection pepper variety. An offshoot of the Carolina Reaper, this pepper is fatally hot to the living but has been tested as capable of reviving the recently dead with only minimal tissue damage to the areas exposed during force feeding. Due to the use of live human tasters as part of the normal testing process, it is not currently possible to assign a Scoville Heat Unit rating to the Resurrection pepper, but those working on the project are hopeful that individuals brought back from the dead may be able to help with future rating methods.

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LL#1433

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Done This Week

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 01:17:42 GMT

Well, I bought some fancy clothing, which isn’t all that fancy and definitely isn’t vintage. I just couldn’t justify the price tag, especially when factoring in shipping and tariffs to get something from the UK. I think I’ll pick up the flashy set of suspenders I liked, though, because that was a stateside company. I’ll have to sew buttons on myself, because these trousers only have belt loops, but that’s not that difficult.

The heat has been getting to me in the form of the sort of headaches that threaten to become migraines. I seldom get migraines, but when I do, it’s during summer heat almost exclusively. It’s supposed to cool off this next week, so, uh, here’s hoping?

Lewisia: 6 new pieces written, caught up again, August posts queued up

Day job: 43 hours

Gardening: garden club post

Watching: The Cabin in the Woods (oh! oh, it’s funny! I see! *cackles*)

Listening: Days by The Mountain Goats (new album! this feels more like the sound of Bleed Out!, which itself sounds more like Beat the Champ, which is my personal TMG album)

Playing: whoops, Humble Bundle had a bundle of desktop/taskbar idle games, a thing I most certainly did not need, but I am now helping robots tend a garden in Rusty’s Retirement

Clock Mouse: still taking a break

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Pandemic Garden Club

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 03:15:26 GMT

Welcome to the August edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!

Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.

Warning up top: large bug picture below! It's a mantis, just chillin' out. I'll put it at the end for those who wish to avoid it.

As for myself...

( Read more... )

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Lake Lewisia #1432

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 00:33:27 GMT

The VPN service came highly recommended, but the location list still gave him pause, populated with city names he did not recognize and no countries whatsoever. But he selected one and went on with his browsing, thinking no more about it until the ads started to change. In the midst of his podcasts and streaming videos, he now heard about at-home cauldron conditioning services and restaurants catering to those on a strictly dream-based diet, all piped in from somewhere that started to sound rather appealing.

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LL#1432

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Lake Lewisia #1431

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 01:22:07 GMT

When she heard that hungry ghosts had tiny mouths that would never let them satisfy their bellies, she suggested milkshakes with straws. When told the etymology of “tantalizing,” she asked if someone couldn’t have simply hand-fed Tantalus the fruit that always slipped beyond his reach. If the metaphors and morals underpinning such legends were lost on her, she maintained that the collaborative remedies to suffering were equally lost on those around her.

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LL#1431

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Lake Lewisia #1430

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:58:56 GMT

Lewisia will be observing Mapless Mondays for August, a program brought to you by unknown forces and the survey corps. During this time, street names will be unknowable, building numbers will become invisible, and GPS will tonelessly inform you there is an unspecified road condition ahead. The library has set up informative displays on other methods of wayfinding, and local shops and restaurants are prepared for the increase in foot traffic from those hopelessly turned around in normally familiar spaces.

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LL#1430

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Done This Week

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 21:06:58 GMT

The weather is a nightmare. It is difficult to function when it’s like this. The last couple of days have been 110+.

My friend E is getting married in a few months. (On Halloween, because all my social events must somehow occur on the same day for maximum conflict.) Though it is not going to be an especially formal affair by any stretch of the imagination, I still feel that I need something slightly nicer than my usual workwear-style trousers plus flamboyant button-up combo. So I have gone down the rabbit hole of looking at menswear, particularly vintage or vintage-inspired clothing.

This has gone poorly for me on a number of levels. While vintage menswear does exist and often has thrilling color and pattern options, it suffers from a real lack of size ranges. (Not as badly as all women’s clothing does, but more than “modern” men’s clothing.) Meanwhile, modern men’s clothing is much more likely to include my size, with or without resorting to Big & Tall listings. However, it never met a color it didn’t hate, and so it is a sea of black and blue with a rare glimpse of khaki. And if you want patterns, even traditional and subtle ones, well, have you considered fucking yourself instead?

On the plus side, looking at clothing listings is about as deep a thought as my brain can currently handle. So I guess I don’t mind that being my current hyperfixation.

Lewisia: 0 new pieces written *claws face*

Day job: 42.5 hours

Cooking: pasta and beans in spicy tahini sauce

Cleaning: purchased a few clear plastic totes in which to stash bedroom things for better mouse-proofing

Gardening: received my (award-winning!!!) plant back from the person who had been babysitting it for me and hung up my fancy ribbon :DDD

Reading: Witch Hat Atelier, Volume 2 by Kamome Shirahama (oh yeah, this is going to be A Thing for me), The Adventure Zone graphic novel #2 by The McElroys and Carey Pietsch (yeah, so, I found this rather hard to follow when listening to these episodes originally, and while I got it better when reading, it still seems like one of the weaker storylines)

Watching: The Blair Witch Project (huh, that sure is a thing)

Listening: Coffee, Computers, and Song by Steve Savitzky (our very own mdlbear! *cackles* absolutely delightful)

Clock Mouse: still taking a break

Other: county fair with E, brunch with a friend

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Lake Lewisia #1429

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 02:25:25 GMT

The old world was littered with the uncomfortable, unyielding edges of glass slippers and glass caskets, always intended to preserve their user just as they were without room for growth or change. The glass throne, likewise, looked for a ruler who was light and still and careful enough not to shiver the delicate panes of the construction that both gave them power and rendered them powerless. But she thundered through her quest, big and loud and well-appointed with steel-toed boots that had been properly broken in before her journey ever started, and destroying it was as much about an errant kick as it was about a deliberate liberation of the kingdom.

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LL#1429

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Lake Lewisia #1428

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 01:48:03 GMT

Kim pulled up short as he walked into the candy kitchen, confronted with the image of his partner with the long gray beard of an ancient and venerable sort, and asked, “Was there another accident with the preservatives?” With a rueful smile half-covered by beard, Jamil pulled at the edges of the facial hair, revealing it was only a fake one hooked around his ears, as he said, “The candy beard is kind of a work in progress.” Then he took a large and fuzzy bite from the end of his beard, which did not so much dissolve like cotton candy as crackle apart like facial puff pastry threads, making a tremendous, if tasty, mess.

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LL#1428

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Lake Lewisia #1427

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 01:32:30 GMT

The Community Cryptid Count approaches, so make sure you are ready to help contribute to scientific research and learn about the environment around you while reporting through our easy-to-use app or website. There is still time to pick up a starter kit for first-time counters, which has information on how to spot cryptids in your environment, along with helpful tools like binoculars, lightweight camouflage hides, and night vision cameras. Remember, while feeding stations and water sources can be a great way to attract all kinds of wildlife to your backyard, do not use traps or lures that can harm cryptids or disrupt their normal habits and range.

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LL#1427

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Done This Week

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:37:36 GMT

Arglebargle... Okay, so, now I have my friend E in town, so it has been another weekend of busyness. Doing things like going out for dinner is lovely, but also fundamentally incompatible with my normal routines. I continue to not make any headway at all! Woo! *muffled sobbing*

Meanwhile, the mouse situation at my house has gotten dire because of the heat, as it often does in summer. I had to tear my room apart at bedtime after discovering they were attempting to colonize the area where I keep my various boots. That then rolled into spending a large portion of Saturday REALLY tearing my room apart to clean areas and remove as many hiding places and travel routes as I reasonably can. In a small, crowded house, that is not easy. And this is something perfectly calculated to make me completely insane, so just know that I am Extremely Normal to be around right now.

Lewisia: 6 new pieces written, all caught up again

Day job: 34.25 hours

Cleaning: bedroom, dvd stand area

Gardening: harvesting peaches (so many peaches)

Watching: X-Files season 2 episodes 17-19

Listening: If I Let It Quiet by Josaleigh Pollett (new album! new album! brand new album! In addition to the usual vocal style, it’s got this lovely glitchy vibe going on.)

Clock Mouse: still taking a break

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