#( spilled it somewhere and now its contaminated the entire area )

[alicesaved]

whoops...

no yeah i got an idea for a matchy blog to this one, which like i am NOT making but its a cool idea so .... i am just going to work on stuff for this blog now

[thecoroutfitters]

Written by R. Ann Parris on The Prepper Journal.

Editor’s Note: As we prepare to celebrate our Republics 243rd birthday what could be more appropriate than a third installment of R. Ann Parris’s Minuteman series?

From the most localized and lowest-level threats like rioting and looting, to major upsets that see individuals band together to usurp a larger, well-organized threat, how we deploy and for how long in what types of environments affect the skills most useful for us. That includes the survivalist skills we see listed so often.

They’re great to have, but as with learning them for general preparedness, what gets top billing for our time and income is largely situationally dependent.

Continuing the framework of my skillsets articles, I’m not focusing on how-to or subsets of the skills listed here. Instead, I’m offering a yes-no-maybe answer to the question of whether these in particular apply to preppers who are thinking about preparing for a minuteman role.

Land Navigation

I hit orienteering and pace counts in a former article. It’s only a “maybe” for compass-map skills (based on location/terrain) and a definite “yes” for pace counts (across the board, everywhere). You can check out my reasoning’s here https://www.theprepperjournal.com/2019/05/31/modern-minuteman-yes-no-maybe-skillsets/.

Primitive Shelters

Maybe.

If our AO is somewhere with large tracts between friendly shelter, sure. A tarp isn’t always enough, even combined with the ability to get up off the ground.

If we can’t rest, and if we’re burning calories shivering, our bodies and minds wear down. If we’re not crossing those tracts, though, spend the time honing something more universally applicable.

Fires

Nah, not so much – particularly alternative and primitive fire starting.

Again, some scenarios and some personal situations form exceptions. As minutemen we’re probably going to be operating fairly close to home and for limited periods of time – hours on duty, days on post or in transit.

Yeah, there are times and certain climates where a fire is the only way to dry things or stay warm, but it’s far from universal, especially today, and it’s hugely dependent on our area of operations.

And, yeah, even today some militaries lean heavily on stoves and fuel tabs with rations.

Mostly, though, they can keep warm with gear and eat cold/dry chow. So can we.

If we do need flame, largely a pill bottle or coin purse kit holding matches and a lighter that’s kept inside the clothes on a lanyard and a couple of candles will do the job to keep us warm or get a fire going enough to dry each load of wood combined with a tarp or cave-like shelter.

They do it with less effort (calorie expenditure, sweat/dehydration) and less time than primitive fire-making methods, and lessen the risk of exposure from larger fires.

Foraging Wild Foods

Maybe, but mostly “nah”.

I’m a huge proponent of wild foods, and the ability to source and cultivate wild foods – now, as well as for emergency situations. Mostly, though, whether we want to include small game hunting and trapping, fishing and fish traps, or only plants, how often are we expecting to get cut off far enough, deep enough, that we can’t push through with whatever our everyday carry and patrol pack contains?

Particularly as minutemen?

And, particularly as minutemen, how is it we plan to accomplish this foraging?

Go ahead and picture any given scenario(s) you like.

We’re urban moseying through streets in Gray Man attire with nondescript bag, or leaving our rural homestead for the dunes/woods/slopes/fields.

We could even being going “Red Dawn” in our heads, living out there in the wilds with our bushcraft set and our insurgency kits.

We’re in full combat load out with our mask in place, weapon of choice slung or in hand, multi-day pack to settle in for sniping and harassment or just because we’re heading 6-8+ hours away (so no matter how quick our action, we’re on our own for a while), or just our day patrol pack.

And now we’re foraging.

We’re either balancing these bags and whatever else we have to stoop and snag some chow or set up for animal proteins, or we’re staging our gear – stripping to our musette back or day pack, with or without a primary weapon if it’s there, with or without a sidearm or slingshot.

We’re either not making much headway, or have halted completely – making none – and in some scenarios we ditched our bag or propped our rifle, cutting ourselves off from the gear we decided we had to have available when we packed that bag.

The further away from it we get, the more vulnerable we become to losing it entirely, while also doubling the chances that somebody sees signs of a person operating in this area (us+bag versus the combo).

If we’re setting snares or fishing yoyo’s instead of air gun hunting or plant foraging, we have to then go back through to collect them before we move on.

Sure, there are times it’s more than possible to easily balance the two directives – food and distance.

I can readily snag berries to drop in my canteen cup in its pouch or the open jar in my cargo pocket, munch as I go, or pull my pellet gun to pop a squirrel that waits in my drop pouch. Not a major delay, readily possible in even a full winter combat load and pack, and depending on my scenario, maybe some fresh foods are totally worth it.

If I have to forage for chow, though, it takes time.

Not only is there time spent collecting, I regularly have to process that chow, which may require more water than I have on me and-or a fire – which means I’m either toting my fire, or I have to stop earlier yet to make that fire.

We also have to weigh how many calories we’re burning fetching those foods and preparing them versus how many we consume.

There are scenarios where, yeah, being able to source some food is huge.

Particularly since so many of the applications for modern minuteman deployment have us in relatively normal situations with portable foods, and-or operating near home or work, it’s mostly just not necessary.

Unless your scenario has you way-way out akin to armies on the march and out of or tired of their basic rations, operating close to home means the ability to deploy with jerky, crackers, last night’s biscuits or bannock, a canning jar of stew, dried fruit, etc.

Augmenting as we’re stopped or passing anyway is great, but as far as necessary skill sets for minuteman service … nah.

What is valuable, though, today’s everyday localized disasters to major upsets and crises, is the ability to…

Source Safe Water

Especially in urban and suburban situations, not just trekking the woods and rural retreat properties, absolutely and emphatically, yes.

The rationale for doubling down on water skills is a nigh-on endless list.

Dehydration saps decision making and physical capabilities long before hunger, heat, or cold.

Utilities are enormously vulnerable to natural or man-made disasters that affect power or the infrastructure itself.

Utilities and specifically water systems (city water, wells, or springs) are vulnerable to all sorts of contamination’s – human and animal wastes from backups and floods, deliberate sabotage, chemical spills from factories and trains/ships/trailers.

While some pressure remains in systems initially, the longer a situation goes on, the more our pressure and-or residual contents decrease.

Wells can run low enough to suck air and springs can drop to trickles, even if we have all the parts and skills we need to keep pumps running indefinitely despite power disruptions.

Water distribution and supplies are quickly exhausted even in otherwise “normal, functioning” society right here in the U.S., without any other disruption in services besides water.

The denser the population and further downstream/downhill our location, the more contaminants and disasters that can affect our water supply.

Very few of us carry around enough water at all times to cover our needs and the needs of any partners with us at any given moment for 8-12 hours of exertion, let alone 2-3 days.

Roof type and bird presence greatly affect just how safe water catchment may be to drink, and how much filtration/treatment it requires.

With authorities focused on bigger fish to fry (or, the cause for us manning our positions in the first place), distribution of water supplies may take a low priority – or, be available only in limited areas and limited quantity, in some cases with reduced ability to send representative(s) without leaving our position(s) vulnerable.

In dry seasons, natural waterways can already be few and far between in backcountry … and in pastures/fields.

By disaster, and previous disaster, dams may fail or end up low, decreasing reservoir levels and the overflows/control flows that normally feed area creeks, canals, and spring lenses.

If we’re actively engaged in combat operations or hunkering in to avoid detection, we may not be able to detour to planned water sources.

Travel impediments can affect how much distance we’re making (total time expended) and the effort it’s taking, increasing our need for water and decreasing our ability to tap expected sources.

Absolutely embrace the potential that as modern minutemen we may “only” be defending our block of Baltimore or Koreatown, or may be well able to withstand life at our rural retreat. By all means, apply everyday operations by grunts afield.

However, also acknowledge that the very idea of a modern minuteman suggests life has hit a hitch, and that Uncle Murphy usually laughs last and longest. Those grunts have a big system moving bottles and buffaloes around, and a five-cent part can disrupt water from our faucets.

Take some time to learn the signs of water and how to access it when we can’t see it, how to make it safe, and how we’d transport it from one building or floor or rural/woods location to another if our partners are over there dehydrating.

Wilderness Survival for Minuteman Deployment

Because we’re all different, in very different areas with very different situations to consider, the ways we anticipate participating as a citizen soldier varies. That means the skills we need to be effective vary, too.

(Editor’s Note: A comment on “photojournalism – there were no “Koreatown, LA Riots in 1992”, there was the Rodney King Riot in 1992, where the business owners in the area of  Los Angeles known as “Koreatown” armed themselves to the teeth, barricaded their business and stood guard, ready to shoot any looters or people attempting to do damage to their businesses or hurt their families. As a result the area was untouched, passed by by the criminals who set fires and destroyed property throughout Watts and Los Angeles. A lesson still not learned by so many. In that same area today would they not all be arrested on one of the endless weapons charges that have popped up since?) 

Nowhere is that truer than the wilderness and survival skills we might require.

There’s too much to do to try and cover it all, particularly all at once while also balancing daily life and other preps. Think through specific situations, and current capabilities. Whittle the many lists that exist down to highest priority, and concentrate on the things that have the most application in the most scenarios.

Work what’s most likely to be needed and used first and foremost, for us specifically as individuals, and expand later on.

Be Safe out there and be sure to check out The Prepper Journal Store and follow The Prepper Journal on Facebook!

The post Modern Minuteman – Wilderness Skills appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

from The Prepper Journal Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

[maritimemanual]

Oil Spills And Their Impact

What is an oil spill?

The accidental disposal of oil into the water of oceans and seas due to careless handling or human error is called an oil spill. Oil spills cause widespread destruction of the aquatic ecosystem as well as huge economic loss. The indispensability of oil in our day to day lives is unquestionable. The number of industries that are heavily reliant on oil as its source of fuel is vast. But what comes as a blessing, if not appropriately handled this blessing can turn into a bane.

Over the years with its increased usage it has become a threat to the environment. This is especially due to the improper and careless handling of oil over waterways and accidental spillage. It causes severe distress to the marine life of the region and its nearby areas. It is important to know that every ecosystem is interconnected. So, when one is disturbed, consequentially the balance in the other ecosystems is disturbed too.

Reports say that an estimated 706 million gallons of waste oil get released into the oceans yearly. The majority of this waste oil comes from land drainage and waste disposal: e.g., the deposition of motor oil that has not been treated properly.

Contribution of Drilling and Transportation

There are various stages involved in drilling, and an accidental oil spill can occur at any of these stages. Leaks may happen while production, while handling, transporting and even while storing the oil. 2.1% of the 706 million gallons of waste oil is from drilling operations. Another 5.2 comes from the transportation processes. So, we see that the amount of oil spilled during the operations is not that much it adds up, nonetheless.

The question may arise that how exactly the offshore drilling operations cause oil spillage. These are generally caused by wastes from oil-based drilling mud, leakage of pipelines and flowlines, deck runoff water, or from well failures or blowouts. While transportation the tankers and ships can end up spilling their fuel or the oil they are carrying as cargo. These oils are of several types, including crude oil, fuel oil, heating oil, etc.

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

What happens when oil is spilled?

Initially, when oil comes in contact with the water, it spreads mostly over the surface. The layer of oil thus formed may remain cohesive or break up depending on how the rough the sea is. Due to the wind and current, this layer spreads to a larger area – in the open oceans, coastal regions depending on the direction of the flow of wind or current. It spreads even further into marine and terrestrial habitats.

Volatile oil loses somewhere between 20% to 40% of its mass due to evaporation. It leads to an increase in its viscosity and thickness. A small percentage of oil gets dissolved in water.

A frothy brown emulsion may also be formed on the surface of the water and get dispersed with it. Portions of the oil may sink along with some particulate matter while another portion of it may result in the formation of sticky tarballs. Over time, oil waste wears out and disintegrates by mainly two methods, photolysis and biodegradation.

Photolysis is the chemical reaction where a chemical compound gets broken down by photons or simply put by light. Biodegradation is the disintegration of materials by bacteria, fungi, or other biological means.

Since the latter process is carried out by microorganisms, it is dependent on the availability of nutrients, oxygen, and microorganisms, as well as temperature.

The oil that spreads to the shore due to water current, waves or wind causes contamination and erosion of the beach through its gravel, rocks, and boulders. It negatively impacts the lives of both humans and animals living in the vicinity.

The sticky residue that coats the rocks and boulders are toxic to coastal wildlife and also hampers the recreational activities that are usually carried out on the shores.  The coating also hinders its ability to provide nourishment to the vegetation.

Oil spills are fatal for the marine ecosystem. Fish and other aquatic creatures die due to the toxicity. This creates a chain reaction. The ecosystems of this planet are all inter-dependent. So, when one suffers, the effect can be felt in all the other ecosystems as well. The toxicity is not limited to flora and fauna present in the water only.

Some birds catch their food from the water. They no longer have access to that food. What is worse is the fact that when they come into contact with the water of the contaminated area, they get contaminated. The entire food chain is affected as a result.

There are people whose livelihood is reliant on fishing. When the fish die, there is nothing left for them to fish. It leads to a spike in the unemployment rate of the area and also the companies dealing with commercial fishing suffer.

Now let us take a look at the exact process of how the organisms are harmed. The oil spill poison not just the fish, but also sea creatures, including mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds that live in or near the ocean. When these creatures ingest the oil their digestive system and even their respiratory and reproductive systems get affected. Thus, their behavioral pattern changes. The oil also causes them to suffocate. The disruption caused in the ecosystems is almost irreversible.

Coastal regions are vital not just because of the fishing industries but also because of the recreational activities, like boating, snorkeling and scuba diving, swimming, etc.

Apart from these activities’ tourists are also attracted to nature parks and preserves, beaches, etc. These form some of the significant industries near the coast. All of these get hampered when such accidents happen. So many people that were recruited by these companies lose their job.

Investors refrain from investing money in these areas. Thus, the economy of this region takes a hit. Consequentially the overall value of this area deteriorates drastically.

What happens to the oil in the long run?

What happens to the oil, in the long run, is dependent on a large number of factors, e.g., the properties of the oil, its composition, how much oil is available on the shore, the type of beach, etc. It also depends on what kind of sediments and rocks the oil comes in contact. Different types of oil respond to the variations in seasonal and climatic conditions of a place in a different way.

Some oil creates a more significant impact on the habitats of the aquatic and marine animals while others not as much. The process of the evaporation, emulsification, and decomposition is also equally arbitrary.

Some types of oil form a tar-like substance that is extra difficult to remove and generally removal and cleaning the area contaminated by such oil can prove to be more harmful than useful.

Clean-up Process and Recovery

Most of the time the oil goes through a weathering process. But it takes time. To facilitate the process, several methods are used. They include natural and assisted biodegradation, containment and removal, and dispersion.

The last process can be achieved through skimming, filtering, or combustion. Which of these techniques would be the most appropriate to use depends on the characteristics of the environment?

The procedure used when the oil spill has occurred in an open ocean will differ from that in coastal regions and wetlands.

Wildlife species that are bigger are transported to a separate facility while the clean-up process is being carried out and when the process is complicated, they are returned to their natural habitats. The same procedure cannot be followed in the case of smaller species.

The process of choosing the correct countermeasure for an oil spill is not that easy because some things need to be kept in mind.

Care must be taken that the clean-up process and contingency plans do not create a negative impact on the socio-economy of the region. It should be made sure that while trying to remove the toxin from one place another place is not harmed.

Proper care should be taken while handling the equipment used in the process to be executed.

Success Rate

There is no guarantee as to how far the recovery process will be successful. Much of the success is dependent on nature and composition of the spilled oil, the characteristics of the area that has been affected.

Large scale recovery of the environment through decontamination and physical removal of oil waste can prove to be harmful to the substrate biomass. If the process decided upon is bioremediation then the addition of microorganisms, nutrients, and oxygen can speed up the process.

Some of the biggest oil spills in history

The world has seen a significant number of oil spills, some of which were nothing short of terribly disastrous.

The Kolva Rover Oil Spill of 1994 in the Russian Arctic ocean which was caused by a breach in a corroded pipeline is one of the most infamous oil spills. It led to a spill of nearly 84 million gallons of oil over an area of more than 180 sq. Km in the Kolva River. The cleaning process for this disaster was not an easy one.

BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill of 2010 is also in the list of some of the largest oil spills in history. It happened in the Gulf of Mexico on 20 April 2010 when a surge of natural gas blasted through a recently installed cement wall cap. This disaster led to the deaths of 11 workers, and nearly 17 were injured. About 134 million gallons of oil were spilled over an area of 2100 km. The cleanup and the compensation charges that the company had to pay were as high as 65 billion dollars.

Gulf War of 1991 in Kuwait marks one of the most massive oil spills in history where around 240 million to 336 million gallons of oil were spilled into the ocean out of which only about 59 million gallons could be recovered. This oil spill took place as a result of the Iraqi forces opening the oil valves of Kuwait. This is considered as the biggest oil spill in history.

Another major oil spill was the oil spill off the Atlantic Empress in Trinidad and Tobago in the year 1979. Nearly 88 million gallons of oil were spilled, and the disaster also led to the deaths of as many as 26 crew members.

Some more examples of significant oil spills are the Fergana Valley oil spill of 1992 in Uzbekistan, the Odyssey oil spill of 1988 off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989, etc.

Conclusion

An oil spill is a costly affair in more than one way. First of all, oil is wasted. But that is not the end of it because the company now needs to pay for the clean-up of the oil and these sums are no meager amount.

Several penalties also need to be paid if such an accident occurs. But that is always recoverable if the business continues to grow. However, in addition to this, there is a considerable cost associated with the loss of marine life and other ecosystems that are in close contact with it. Exposure to contaminated soil and water is detrimental to human health. Human beings are affected not only in terms of health, but their livelihoods are also at stake.

Nowadays with specific strict rules and regulations regarding the prevention of oil spill taking certain measures has become mandatory. The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 was enacted by the U.S. Congress to strengthen oil spill prevention, planning, response, and restoration efforts. The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund provides the clean-up funds for oil pollution incidents under the provision of the act.

The only way to prevent the oil spill is by being a little bit more careful and responsible. No one party can be blamed entirely for such an accident, be it the government, the industry or an individual, and thus it becomes the responsibility of everyone to make sure such mishaps do not happen in the future.

The post Oil Spills And Their Impact appeared first on Maritime Manual.

from WordPress https://www.maritimemanual.com/oil-spills-and-their-impact/

[josephkitchen0]

How to Keep Rats Away From Your Urban Chicken Coop

By Maureen Mackey, Oregon – Knowing how to keep rats away is a growing concern for some chicken owners. Keeping chickens provides so many benefits, it’s no wonder many city-dwellers have installed coops in their backyards. There is no need to live on a farm to enjoy the best chicken eggs, natural pest control, and the best soil quality.

But there’s a snake in this urban Garden of Eden, and in this case it’s a furry, four-legged rodent. Like uninvited houseguests that won’t leave, rats may help themselves to your poultry hospitality if you don’t take steps to stop them. And rats pose a definite threat to chickens and their owners.

Portland, Oregon, is just one of many cities across the country that has embraced the popular trend of backyard chicken coops. And Portland has a rat problem, which makes people wonder how to keep rats away and whether chicken coops are making the problem worse.

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  Christopher Roberts, Public Health Vector Specialist for Multnomah County Vector Control in Portland, has seen a rise in complaints on his job. His office gets about 1,000 rat-related complaints a year.

“The complaints we hear most often is that, ‘My neighbor has chickens and now we have rats.’”

Roberts is quick to point out that backyard chickens don’t create a rat problem; they just provide rats that are already in the area with another opportunity for food.

“Rats don’t appear out of nowhere. In any city, the older parts are more prone to rats. They can live in well-established vegetation or they can be in the sewer.”

Doug Bridge, owner of Portland Homestead Supply Company in Portland, Oregon, would agree. He keeps a flock of chickens both in his Southeast Portland home backyard and at his store.

Raising the coop will make it much more difficult for rodents to burrow in and make the coop their home.

“In any urban setting rats are a fact of life, so the question, ‘Do chickens attract rats?’ is somewhat misleading.” He believes, the construction work on the sewers in Portland is causing a bigger rat problem than chicken coops.

Roberts has also identified a culprit for Portland’s rat woes, and it’s not chickens.

“The number one source of any rat problem is hanging bird feeders.” The next major source, he added, is backyard compost. Along with those two sources, rats are attracted to pet food, including food left out for dogs and cats, and feed for chickens or goats.

“Any source of food runs the risk of attracting rats,” Roberts added. “They need a consistent food source to establish themselves.”

Another urban haven for backyard chicken enthusiasts is Berkeley, California. Derek DiMaggio, Berkeley vector control technician, agrees with Roberts that any food source will draw rats, including pet food and birdseed.

“Birds are messy eaters — they spill their seed on the ground, and this creates an accumulated buffet. If rats become used to this food source it can become an on-going problem.”

Feeding your flock inside the enclosed run, and not outside, can help prevent accidentally providing a food source for rodents, too. Photos courtesy of Multnomah County Vector Control, Portland, Oregon

DiMaggio says he’s seen rats that have easy access to a food source become acclimatized to their surroundings and as a result very relaxed — almost like domesticated pets. And chicken coops can provide a very convenient food source for rodents.

“A chicken coop can be a big problem depending on how it’s kept,” said DiMaggio. “If it’s not properly constructed and rodent-proof, it can actually cause rodent activity during the day.” Seeing rats during the day is unusual, he added, since these wary creatures are usually active only at night.

Typically, rodent invaders are either roof rats, or more commonly, their larger and more aggressive cousin the Norway rat. These rodents can enter a structure through a hole no bigger than a quarter. Norway rats, in particular, are likely to be present if there is a problem with the sewers, especially broken pipes, which is common in the sewer systems of older cities.

Evidence of a rat presence in your home includes scraping sounds in your walls, scratches and/or greasy rub marks (from a rat’s oily fur) on wood or painted surfaces, and burrows in the ground next to your coop or near a home’s foundation. Rats will often dig both an entry and exit hole and their holes are round and smooth. A burrow or hole adjacent to a sidewalk or in a front lawn or parking strip usually indicates a Norway rat that’s dug up to the surface from a cracked sewer line.

Chicken owners that don’t know how to keep rats away will know pretty quickly if they have a rodent problem if they observe rat droppings in their coops, particularly near the feeders. Worst-case scenario, they may see their birds attacked or eggs eaten.

While the idea of rats attacking chickens is upsetting, rodents aren’t the predators that city chicken owners like Bridge worry most about.

“Dogs have been our number one chicken predator by far, and we have lost chickens to hawks, raccoons, and opossums,” Bridge said. ”In our decade of having chickens at home and at our store, we’ve never had an issue with rats disturbing our chickens.”

Bridge’s chief method of dealing with any predator is a simple one. “We lock our chickens in every night. This is the most important predation control we do. We do let our chickens range in the yard and around our business during the daylight hours.”

But predation isn’t the only headache rats can create for urban chicken owners. Public health and safety are other concerns. Rats can cause expensive structural damage and contaminate food and areas where food is grown or prepared.

Rats who are filching food from your chickens could translate to rats seeking shelter in your home and that’s very bad news. Rodents have been known to cause house fires by gnawing on electrical wires and plugs, not to mention in-house flooding by biting through the flexible water pipes that connect to dishwashers and sinks.

Rats rarely go beyond 300 feet of their burrows or nests, making it convenient for them to take shelter in one place, such as a home’s basement or crawlspace, and get food somewhere else — like you or your neighbor’s adjacent chicken coop.

According to the University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management findings, Norway rats can cover a circular area of about 100 to 150 feet in diameter when they are on the prowl for food and water.

As Roberts put it, “Rats don’t care about property lines.”

Another reason to learn how to keep rats away is that they can carry serious diseases, including salmonella, leptospirosis and murine typhus. And then there’s that bane of the Middle Ages, the plague. Though the incidence is rare, humans can still contract this disease via the bite of a rat flea. The possibility of an outbreak exists if the rat population increases, warns Berkeley’s Environmental Health Division on its website.

The University of California’s research shows that just one well-fed female Norway rat can produce about four to six litters a year. Plus, she can wean 20 or more of those offspring every year, too. Multiply those numbers by the females in a large colony of rats and you can see the potential for explosive population growth.

So, what’s the best way to repel rats from your city chickens?

“In my experience, it all depends on your coop design,” said Bridge. A lot of chicken coop plans are made to keep chickens in, not rats and other predators out.

Roberts recommends enclosing your entire coop with ¼-inch steel hardware cloth, and sinking or burying that cloth into the ground one foot deep and another foot extending out from the structure. He cautioned against using traditional chicken wire because mice and small rats can fit through it and larger rats can dig under it.

Bridge learned how to keep rats away through hard experience.

“My first coop was on the ground, and I lined the bottom with chicken wire rather than hardware wire. Within a year, the rats had successfully tunneled through the flimsy chicken wire. I built my last coop two feet off the ground to make cleaning far easier via a drop floor, and have seen no evidence of rats in or around this coop.”

Another important step for how to keep rats away from your flock is cleaning up after feedings and controlling seed spillage. Putting birds on a feeding schedule helps, too.

Cities like Portland and Berkeley offer free rodent inspections and advice to coop owners. Part of DiMaggio’s job is to talk to backyard chicken owners about rodent harborage and the attendant health hazards, and to inform them about city statutes.

To avoid paying a fine or being required to relocate your coop or remove it altogether, it pays to research city code regulations and enforcement. For example, city laws may require a coop to be built anywhere from 15 to 40 feet or even farther from a neighboring structure. Codes also address the number and type of birds allowed.

Once you’re in compliance with your local municipal codes, here are a few additional tips to deal with a rat problem or prevent one from developing:

• Design a coop that rats can’t enter or tunnel under — or better yet, if possible, build one that’s free standing. • Store all food in gnaw-proof containers. •  Discontinue open feeding and put your birds on a feeding schedule. And if you do notice evidence of rats, put chicken feeders away every night.

These steps should help keep your coop rat-free and make sure you and your birds stay healthy and happy.

Now that you have some ideas on how to keep rats away from your coop, what changes will you have to make, if any?

  How to Keep Rats Away From Your Urban Chicken Coop was originally posted by All About Chickens

[stewardskiphire]

Acid drainage: the global environmental crisis you've never heard of

alredosaz / shutterstock

Romania's prime minister, Mihai Tudose, recently raised the prospect of reopening the country's huge Roia Montan goldfield. The area had been mined from Roman times until the last state-run operation closed in 2006. An application by a previous government to make the area a UNESCO world heritage site has now been withdrawn, paving the way for new development.

Roia Montan is nestled in the Carpathian mountains and, with 314 tonnes of gold, has Europe's largest known deposits. A short-term mining bonanza promises employment for thousands of labourers and hundreds of millions of Romanian Leu in investment in the EU's fastest-growing economy. But is the boom really worth it? After all, gold mining has historically resulted in long-term, chronic environmental problems. Roia Montan is big, but the threats posed by acid mine drainage are bigger.

The problem is, if completed, the so-called Roia Montan project would use cyanide amalgamation to extract the gold from its ore body. This is the same cyanide used to poison people, fish and elephants. It has a toxic past in Roia Montan, too: back in the 1970s, a copper mine in the area needed somewhere to store its cyanide-contaminated waste and the nearby village of Geamana was evacuated and flooded. It has been submerged under toxic waters ever since.

A single church spire pokes through the toxic waters: all that remains of Geamana. Calin Stan / shutterstock

Geamana is one of Romania's greatest ecological disasters, surpassed only in 2000 when a gold mine in Baia Mare in the north of the country spilled an estimated 100 tonnes of cyanide into a river. The latter incident was described as Europe's worst environmental disaster since Chernobyl. No wonder that when the government first mooted the resumption of mining in 2013, it led to weeks of protests protests which now threaten to erupt again.

Gold's dirty secret

Cyanidation was the breakthrough gold mining technology of the 1890s, when it enabled Anglo mining conglomerates to make colossal profits from low grade ores. Simply put: cyanidation involves mixing finely crushed ores (referred to as sands or, when water-based, slimes) in a weak cyanide solution (usually calcium cyanide). This solution is then mixed in large tanks and the gold separated from its ore body.

The process increases yields of gold but produces immense quantities of highly-toxic waste that releases acid and metals into the environment. Around 90% of all gold extracted worldwide uses this method.

Waste water from a gold mine flows into the forest. Guyana, South America. kakteen / shutterstock

The waste from cyanidation is a fine rock solution that is left in open air ponds while the concentration of acid is reduced to legal limits. The risk here is from dam failure or breakages in the lining of waste ponds, which can lead to catastrophic spills or leakage through the porous land surface into the water table.

In nearly all metal mines, and some coal mines, acid drainage occurs because of the oxidation of iron ore found alongside precious mineral deposits. Uncovered by the mining process, the iron reacts with the air and releases sulphuric acid into the water. This process can last centuries. Spills from cyanidation waste are more short-lived, but more highly toxic than acid mine drainage occurring through iron oxidation.

The ratio of waste to metal recovered in gold mining is vastly disproportionate: the Fimiston Super Pit, near the West Australian town of Kalgoorlie, and until recently the largest open cut mine in the world, has returned approximately 1,640 tonnes of gold since operations began there in 1989. But that's only a small portion of the 15m tonnes of rock extracted per year. On a more personal scale, a single gold wedding ring generates 20 tonnes of waste.

The river runs yellow

Cyanidation poses catastrophic ecological risks because cyanide leaks so easily into groundwater. Historical parallels suggest the Romanian proposal will most likely leave a toxic legacy.

In 2015, as the US Environmental Protection Agency attempted to drain polluted water from the Gold King Mine, Colorado, which was closed in 1920, more than 3m gallons were accidentally spilled into the Animas River. The polluted plume turned the entire river a deep mustard yellow. Water acidity levels increased 100-fold, and in some places a thousand times over levels considered safe for wildlife.

The spill only posed no threat to fish in the Animas because ongoing pollution had already killed them. But the plume drained into the San Juan, a larger and cleaner river that flows into the spectacular Glen Canyon and, eventually, the Grand Canyon. There, the pollution threatened rare birds and endangered fish like the Colorado pikeminnow and razorback sucker.

The Animas River as normal, on the day of the Gold King Mine spill (L), and a day later . Barbara K Powers / shutterstock

EPA chief Scott Pruitt returned to the site at the beginning of August this year vowing to complete the clean-up after the agency had walked away from the problem. At a water treatment plant installed on the site, 500 gallons of mercury and arsenic-laced water a minute flow from the Gold King Mine. The clean-up could take a decade and has already cost the EPA US$29m. The EPA has estimated that the cost of cleaning up just 156 mines in the US could be between US$7billion and US$24 billion. Clean-up on most sites will take decades those with acid drainage will require water treatment in perpetuity.

A global crisis

Acid drainage is a little-known global crisis. The UN has even labelled it the second biggest problem facing the world after global warming. In the US, an estimated 22,000km of streams and 180,000 acres of freshwater reservoirs are affected by acid mine drainage. Rivers and lakes in Arizona, Patagonia, Guangdong (China), Ontario, Papua New Guinea, and at Rio Tinto in Spain, to name just a few, have all been polluted by acid mine drainage. In South Africa, the problem is chronic.

These threats are prescient. Brazil recently announced a huge reserve in the Amazon rainforest has been earmarked for mining, including gold. In New Zealand, local activists fear the Karangahake Gorge is now under threat after a large, high-quality gold seam was found in the region. Around the Yellowstone National Park, mining companies are positively salivating at the possibility that Obama-era restrictions will be lifted, granting access to 3,000 tonnes of proven in-ground gold reserves. In Peru, marines have been dispatched to wage war against illegal mining on the River Santiago in the northern Amazon, which has done enormous damage to the region's bio-diversity and placed the livelihoods of 70,000 indigenous Awajns and Wamps at risk.

Multinationals hold out the promise of sustainable development through mining. But without careful forethought we'll find ourselves dealing with chronic pollution for centuries.

Stephen Tuffnell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

[nicksstoryvault]

{Across the Distant Shore--Part 2}

He couldn't remember how he had gotten here. Adrift and restrained, old familiar sensations that awoke a sense of impending doom within. Time stood still, the world was silent, and only he remained in a dim void that encapsulated him in darkness and water. Precious oxygen poured into his mouth and nose, their flow secured by a mask latched to his face. His arms and legs hung loosely, nearly lifeless as if they had not been utilized in so long. It was a disconcerting feeling that only heightened his confusion and fear of the unknown. As his thoughts and memories gathered, searching desperately in the span of seconds for answers to his dilemma, he latched onto the one truth that gave him strength. 'My name is Bucky…' A flash of images ran through his memory in an almost violent fashion; a recon mission at the docks in Hells Kitchen, a blinding light triggered by a flashbang grenade, a hail of gunfire and yells, the aggression pouring through his veins like fire, and the sudden explosion of pain as a rifle round pierced his thigh. The will to fight had begun to evaporate from him like water on a scorching surface. He began to lose all feeling in his muscles, his sight was a haze of fatigue that managed to glimpse the offending sight of a horse-tranquilizer imbedded in his thigh. Trembling at the onslaught of fatigue and disorientation, he succumbed to slumber. The last image he glimpsed was a familiar skull-shaped mask hovering over him, before he fell unconscious. Rumlow…Crossbones. Hydra. As if on cue, there was a dull clanging noise that shook the enclosure he floated in. Seconds passed before lights were turned on, and his world was filled with the disconcerting realization that he was being kept inside of what looked to be a miniature aquarium. The walls were metal and distant, the circular tank was as wide as a hundred feet. The ceiling itself was sealed off by airlock doors, a cable connected to an air-tank was used to feed the mask he wore. Lights installed into its surface shone into the greenish-blue waters, casting an eerie glow. Bucky swam and struggled, but kept his gaze focused on the blurry, yet alarming sight of over a dozen Hydra and AIM agents entering what looked to be an observation deck to the aquarium. Rumlow stood among them. A dormant fire waged within him, burning to escape and wreak havoc on his captors. His hands tightened into fists, but the effort to latch onto his strength felt as strenuous as lifting a ton of weight. His muscles were atrophied he knew, after so long of non-mobility in this submerged state. His body felt confined and restricted in his Winter Soldier uniform, but there was an odd throbbing in both his neck and arms, as if something had pierced them and left its mark. His stormy gaze glared and he winced with discomfort by the jolt of pain in his bones. He cursed beneath the mask, he jerked within the watery prison he lingered in. He was helpless and at the mercy of his most hated enemies in life, the constant that haunted his very existence, that made him wish for nothing more than their complete destruction. His baleful gaze finds Rumlow's again. The Hydra mercenary appears every bit as smug and mocking as he would without his mask. The scientists surrounding him carry out whatever instructions they had, clinical and detached of all humanity and morality in their souls. There was an alarm sounding out somewhere within the facility, that much was certain to Bucky as he sees the observation deck begin to flicker in blood-red lights.

James. "Come on handsome, don't be going back under," Selina whispered a timorous breath guised with cool indifference, she was being steered by the possessive impulse to save the Brooklyn boy she loved, no presence of restraint existed in her veins. Approaching the cauldron of the warehouse, her dark coffee eyes captured eerie glows incandescent light reflecting from the glass tanks that were filled by the gallons with odorous salt water. Her spiked chromed heels clicked in sync on the cement floor, avoiding ink spills that leaked from some of the multi-tentacled sea dwellers--squid and octopus--the entire area reeked of fish guts and rancid chemicals. Adjusting her domino mask, she felt a sudden coldness rake over the sleek neoprene of her cat-suit, a harbinger of death that she detected looming in the dense shadows. In a cautious measure of step, she slunk further down the isle of tanks, ignoring the incessant hums of water pumps and deadened, metallic glares of inert sharks chasing her poised heartbeat. She needed to remain undetected and sharp as a thrusting blade until she reached Bucky.

Someone had breached the aquarium. That much Bucky knew, but he couldn't see beyond the blur of the waters in front of him, and dulling sense of helplessness. The throbbing in his arms and neck had begun to feel much more restricting—strangling. Almost as if he were being drawn and quartered by an invisible force. It was harrowing as it was sickly. These sensations weren't borne out of his own perpetual anguish at being imprisoned. They had done something to him. As heinous if not worse than amputating his left arm, wiping his memories and turning him into a killing machine. For the first time in many years, terror gripped him and he could do nothing but struggle against his invisible wet shackles. As his efforts became desperate, the throbbing in his arms began to feel numbing as ice in his veins. He shuddered and spasmed, a voiceless gasp dying at the back of his throat. He couldn't breathe, even with the mask strapped to his face. The numbness had begun to turn his chest into an icy cold ache that he couldn't fathom. The storm in his eyes became as intense as a hurricane, and his body as trembling as a quake. What began as a dull throbbing had quickly spiraled into a cold tempest of change he could only watch with stricken eyes. His hands felt as if they were burning with irritation, but through the dim blur of water in front of him, he could see splotches of dark hair beginning to sprout all over, spreading like a bad infection across his flesh. 'What is happening to me?' he wondered, his limbs shaking, his mind racing while outside the tank, the observation deck is soon infiltrated.

Behind the haze of rapid gunfire blinking, he couldn't see what was causing the uproar. The tactical part of his mind told him this was an opportunity to liberate himself—to get payback on the b*** that sought to undo him from the inside out. But his body wouldn't obey his commands, it was thrashed and it trembled by what he knew to be a contaminant, a metamorphosis occurring by whatever they had injected him with. It was changing him from the inside out, turning him into whatever perverted creation these evil minds conjured for him. His thrashing had become so violent that the air-mask he wore suddenly tore from its straps and he was now nothing more than a husk floating in deep water, ready to be filled. A watery scream bellowed from his throat, raw and fierce, bubbles billowed out from him. He reeled with both fear and anticipation, at the thought of drowning inside this watery grave. Yet surprisingly, despite being deprived of his one source of precious oxygen, the water that entered his air passages didn't obstruct his breathing. The water flowed through him as if it were no different from the air itself. The oddity barely registered in his thoughts that were rampantly barreling through panic as he watched his flesh continue to sprout fur before his eyes. The waters pulsed with a red light, shimmering dread and anticipation while the noise of an alarm blaring in the distance. "Help!!" he screamed out, but the water deafened his tone with its mass, the sound barely reaching his own ears, and yet his vocal cords rumbled with the strength of a wild bark. He struggles and squirms to find control of his own body, it was as an invisible tug of war within himself. The confines of his uniform felt as restricting as a straight-jacket. It was as if he were tied down…or filling up. The thought increased his awareness of how tight his clothing had become, as if he had grown a size larger than his original shape. 'What are they turning me into…' He couldn't bring himself to contemplate further when all thought was ripped away by a shearing snap of his limbs and bones. The circulation to his brain became obstructed by his tight clothes, robbing him of the breath of life. Yet his body reflexively acted as he reached to the harness of his vest, and loosens the straps. Relief came to him by the decrease in pressure. His body mass, however, continued to expand, and his skin had now been completely encompassed in wet thick fur. He was increasingly aware of his arms being twisted and pulled, as if they were shrinking in length at his sides.

Despite the monumental sum of his anguish, Bucky's consciousness remained intact in the murky waters of the aquarium. His breathing flowed rapid like stream, his pulse thumped wildly in his ears, and there was the ever-increasing feeling of escalation. Daring to glimpse downward, his breath becomes clogged with both shock and mortification. His once perfect stature of manly athleticism had become a blubbering mass of fat and wet fur. The urge to scream out was hampered by the throbbing sensation of his jaw bone being stretched and his nose jutted with it. A cry within was his own measure of release. Relief tugged at his heart and soul as he thought he heard Selina's voice calling out to him.

Hot flashes of adrenaline seared through her pulsing veins, Selina only at a heartbeat of second to react, Rumlow’s combat knife was the breadth of an inch to ghost over her throat. His scarred -gloved hands seized her wrist, forcing her into submissive indefensible position on the steel catwalk above the tanks. His murderous eyes burned like black onyx, a devoid of mercy and infused with sadistic pleasure. She had sliced his marred cheek with her stiletto heel, during the interlude of their combative and unerring dance. Everything had blurred out, as she delivered a high crescent kick into his armored shoulder, but it wasn’t enough to ground him into effective submission. Now, she was under his ruthless, possessive grip, her long mahogany strands tousled and her pale, delicate cheeks bruised; she was aware of his tactic, he wouldn’t kill her--not when his carnal lust was on a high grid. 

She was nearly a little kitten within the clutches of rabid dogs--Rumlow carried a needle filled with  Rohypnol--a drug that would leave her immobilized to his mercy. She reached a hand out with a grappling thrust, her dark eyes fixed on a bucket with cold, dead fish...She needed a distraction. When Rumlow’s gloved hand stroked her jaw, she lifted the bucket up and swung it with ramming force into his skull. His grip eased off her forearm as he reeled back with a rupturing hiss--taking her opening, she vaulted quickly off the platform, and landed a level down with feline grace, standing above the massive tank. “Bucky...” she called out, desperately, her gaze searching rapidly over him.

The alarming thought of what the reason for the chaos occurring outside was about, heightened his anxiety and panic within. Had Selina found him? Was she safe? Bucky shuddered and squealed, the noise escaping his mouth was foreign to him, sounding nothing like that cries of a man, and more like the whine of an animal. The rampant flow of adrenaline in his tortured form finally triggered a sense of mobility and determination within him. Bucky suddenly found himself bolting at top speed, swimming without feeling his legs, and with only tiny arms to guide him, towards the edge of the tank he was being held in. Outside the glass-tank were the ominous flickers of flame and smoke corroding the area in chaos. Sparks of electricity dance and there was the increasing noise of an automated VI warning that the facility was reaching critical failure. Bucky's thoughts were only on the thought of Selina in danger; not the pulling and scratching in his body that signified a metamorphosis, nor the feeling of increased mass in his waist area. He reached the glass barrier of the tank just in time to see the alarming sight of Selina knocking Rumlow off of a flaming catwalk. "SELINA!!!" Bucky wailed, hoping somehow that she'd hear him.

The raucous noise was amplifying with deep barks of desperation; ingeniously, Selina roved a steeled glance at the direction of splashing water erupting from the tank. In a measure of caution, she daringly sauntered over the steel barriers, and crouched down with a hiss, feeling her tone muscles generating dull aches. In those second, her proximity was breached with a huge splash, her curious dark coffee eyes gazed at something very large--fat thrashing wildly in the tank. At first, her icy indifference etched disgust over her full crimson lips; but then she regarded a distinctive piece of strapped Kevlar hanging over the creature's expanding girth--it was Bucky's tactical vest, shredded to expose dark and silvery mounds of blubber. Her mouth hung agape with mounting shock, as her eyes connected instantly to a pair of beady orbs that reflected the glacial intensity of winter storm, and the glistening depth of steel-aquamarine. They were unmistakably Bucky's eyes. Oh no! She felt coldness pulsing in her blood as she reeled back, staring blankly at the fattening slug with clawed flippers. Swallowing down a stifled breath, her gloved hand shakily reached for him. "James, is that you, handsome?"

"Selina…" Her name fluttered past his lips as if it were the most precious word in existence. She appeared every bit as beautiful as well as dangerous in her Cat uniform. Behind her domino mask, he could see shock and confusion swirling in her coffee-brown orbs as she looked at him from behind the glass. His relief at her presence was tempered by his fear for her safety as he watched the destruction unfold around them. He knew why she was here, but his desire for freedom was diminished by the need to see her safe from here. "You gotta get out of here!" He yells against the glass, unable to pull himself towards her. He continued to float behind the glass, but he felt a pull by an unseen force that threatened to separate him from her. No, no no. What was happening now? Why was the water in the tank beginning to pull him away now? Desperation clawing at him, Bucky swims harder until he's reached the glass. "Run, Selina! You've got---" It was then, once he reached out his arm to touch her own against the reinforced glass, that cold reality struck him with the devastating blow that was equal to a hammer against his stomach. Instead of seeing the familiar visage of a hand with four digits pressed against the glass, instead there was the thin shape of an animal fin touching the surface. Whatever words he had left in his throat, perished by a wave of nausea and distress. So intense was his concern for Selina, his process had yet to fully grasp the harrowing image of a harp-seal reflecting back at him. His heart fell into the abyss that opened in his gut, and Bucky found himself paralyzed, unable to stop himself from falling. A voiceless gasp fell from his lips, his willpower and mobility gone as the suction of the water carried him further and further away from the glass. "Selina…" he somehow manages to say, caught in a whirlwind of shock and disbelief as the water in the tank began to drain through an opened tube that would carry him to safety. "I'm a seal…" His last thoughts before fading to unconsciousness where his own cries of anguish, while in the background, Selina cried out for him as he was carried away.

The memory was as fresh to Bucky as a horror movie that scarred his psyche, and haunted both his waking thoughts and dreams. A moment in his long unnatural life that would change him and his way of living forever, as well as that of the woman he loved. The woman who risked life and limb to pull him out of the fire, only for him to be forced to leave her side. The very thought of it made his stomach turn while his heart ached with hurt and remorse. An invisible weight crushed his chest, making him feel as hollow as the emptiness in his blue eyes that gazed listlessly into the icy waters swaddling in front of him. It had been weeks—months maybe—since he made the most soul-crushing decision of his life. Swimming away from the love of his life was like being carried into the next plane of existence without her touch to guide him further. He was lost and adrift, which made it easier to allow the tides to carry him away to wherever they would lead. He didn't have a home, nor a plan to find one. The life of a seal meant the sea was his field to plow through. Desolation waited at every barren rock and green shore he spotted on his trek across the seas. The warm temperatures unsettled him, making him feel as uncomfortable as wearing three layers of clothes in 90 degree weather. His journey led him south, through the Mediterranean, and past the tip of Southern Africa. The air felt cooler, welcoming as a safe-haven from the turbulent chaos unfolding in the world. It only took him weeks to find a suitable shore, devoid of any structures that made it seem habited by humans. What he did find, much to his surprise, were packs of harp seals just like him, swimming along the sandy shore. A small part of him felt a twinge of relief that he had found a sustainable placeddd to settle for awhile. The sea had begun to grow colder as beads of snow-flakes descended from the gray skies. It was nearing July, but near the Arctic, winter would always dwell. The other seals paid him no special attention that Bucky briefly wondered if they were once like him. A man turned into something only the sea would welcome. Despite being of their kind, he couldn't understand the exchanges shared between them from the insistent barks, to the whining whistles. He had identified a few of them as male while the majority were female and expectant mothers. Observing their daily life was as dull as watching paint dry. He wanted nothing to do with them. His loneliness couldn't be quelled by company that shared his form. So Bucky shuttered himself in the crook of a small rock planted near the shore, watching as the tides lapped waves against the shore, and snow continued to descend on the surface of the waters. Peace of mind only came whenever he saw her face in his dreams. Moving on wasn't ever meant to be easy, but for Bucky it only felt impossible. Life without Selina was meaningless, and on the gloomy shores, he could only count the days by the dim rays of twilight on the distant horizon—watching and dreaming of the next life they might find each other again. "I miss you, darlin'," he whispers softly into the breeze. "But I'm glad you're safe now." It was a mantra he told himself each night as his remorse threatened to claw a hole through him. No matter how unbearable his solitude and loneliness was, the relief he felt knowing that Selina was safe out there and not being hunted because of him made him feel much better. It would be enough. It had to be.

She promised that nothing would steal him away; the phantom caress of his lips gracing her forehead before she fell into the thralls of sleep, were always reassurance that when she awoke to morning light, she would stare into his beatific steel-aquamarine eyes, the crystal radiance of winter's ice melting to warmth that curved the full shape of his soft lips into a boyish smile. How could she dare to reckon with that hope again? Her heart shredded each time she gazed into the emptiness of shadow, imagine him standing there, garbed in his tactical jacket with a rifle slung over his metallic shoulder--the cold edges of fierce determination etched over his hawkish, ruggedly chiseled features, the powerful storm that harbored within his depths. It was only a last glance of wrecked memory, still reachable, but slowly fading. How could she even breathe through the constant tempo of heartache? She wouldn't allow Bucky to become a ghost in her dreams--she needed him, even if he now existed as a 400lb harp seal, nothing would be complete without falling back into his solid warmth and listening to the richness of his graveled baritone soothe her. Her heart shredded each time she gazed into the emptiness of shadow, imagine him standing there, garbed in his tactical jacket with a rifle slung over his metallic shoulder--the cold edges of fierce determination etched over his hawkish, ruggedly chiseled features, the powerful storm that harbored within his depths. It was only a last glance of wrecked memory, still reachable, but slowly fading. How could she even breathe through the constant tempo of heartache? She wouldn't allow Bucky to become a ghost in her dreams--she needed him, even if he now existed as a 400lb harp seal, nothing would be complete without falling back into his solid warmth and listening to the richness of his graveled baritone soothe her. To love a man like James Barnes and the Winter Soldier was rare, much like catching a lightning strike in snowfall. If it took her a lifetime to find him, she would never stop looking. 'He's damn worth it, Lina...Don't run away from this fight...' Her nomadic soul echoed with painful knells, that vibrated bone deep. She braced her lithe weight against the cement ledge, her dark coffee eyes drifted over the dawning horizon, passed Brooklyn's harbor. For a moment time froze as errant tears dampened her pale cheeks, he wasn't there to wipe them away. Grief was mounting a tenfold. "Damn why does hurt so much," she hissed in a choking breath, clenching her gloved hand over his dog tags, squeezing the chain hard enough that it felt like blood seeped out of her veins. Right there, she wanted to collapse to her knees and scream out his name, the ache in her chest was unbearable to discard. Before she surrendered to that gravity, she pulled out the injector that held the serum--the essence that morphed Bucky into a fattening beach slug with flippers. Right there in that blood rushing moment, Selina wanted to collapse to her knees and scream out his name, the ache in her chest was unbearable to discard. Before she fully surrendered to that gravity, she pulled out the injector that held the serum--the essence that morphed Bucky into a fattening beach slug with flippers. She lifted it the to the horizon, capturing a reflection of the ocean and stared fiercely as heated tears blinded her vision. One choice to erase her beauty and humanity would define her unbreakable love to him. "Okay," she poised herself, leveling the injector to her thigh, countless memories flooded back, the melting heat of his lips, the snort that ghosted in his deep laugh, mostly the feel of his metallic hand tracing her jaw, as he guided her into a rooftop dance, matching the cadence of their steadied hearts. Closing her eyes, she whispered out a vow, with same devotion in her voice of a runaway bride, racing towards her true love waiting beyond the church. "I chose Bucky Barnes...." She proclaimed, breathlessly, jabbing the needle into her thigh without a pulse of resistance. "Now and forever..."

To Bucky, adapting to life as a seal was as difficult as learning a new language without a translator. Understanding the meanings and flow of their actions and attempting to mimic something so foreign was frustrating. He felt clumsy as well as confused as he watches a harp seal, male, dive into the waters while his mate looked on from the beach shore. Against her b*** was a small infant seal-pup, nuzzling her with adoring coos that were cute to Bucky. They appeared oddly domestic in their comfort, almost human, but the flow of their exchanges as well as their meanings were lost on him. Moments after, he sees the male harp remerge from the water, his jaw opened to reveal a trapped flounder he snatched up from the bottom of the cold water. The smaller creature struggled in the grip of the large mammal before it was snapped dead. Lunch for the harp and his mate. Bucky softly cringed at the sight, feeling a squirming in his gut that reminded him of his own empty stomach. He had to find himself some food. Hunting spots on this frozen shore were scarce due to the many harps that occupied the area. After weeks of sitting on his butt, sipping up small fish that came his way, he knew he needed to explore the area more. A sliver of dread crawled up his spine as he catches a glimpse of several female harps not too far away. It hadn't been long after his arrival, that he realized the male seals were fewer on this island than the females. He was like a golden egg the females would seek to gobble up due to being without a mate of his own. One in particular, a hideously obese seal with splotches of brownish raven fur, had become fixated on him since he arrived here. Getting away from her was enough reason to convince himself to find a new place to shelter himself on this island. Taking in a composed breath, Bucky waddles and slides out from his rocky shelter and makes his way towards the edge of the beach.

Oh, he's so hot...The massive raven-furred female harp felt her engorging belly drop, as a thrilling jolt searing through mounds of fat; her icy azure orbs roved a covetous glance at Bucky, in her venereal debased mind, the new male was a blubber dreamboat, frighteningly large in the girth, sleek dark brunette fur splotched with silver, youth was evident on his visage, when she caught a glimpse of his glacial steel-blue eyes, strikingly intense as cold smoke and the arched curve of his perfect whiskered mouth that pulled into a tight grimace as he determinedly waddled further away from her reach. She let this whopper of a devastatingly chubby seal get away...

Infused with a flame of lust, she jiggled her bloated rear and slid on her belly, that expanded outwards as she pushed her weight; she unmistakenly looked nothing more than an oversized slug, fueled by induced hunger to claim Bucky as her dormant mate. She wanted to feel his soft, possessive mouth to gorge over the swells of her plump girth, and get fattened with loads of whopper-sized pups. Releasing a jovial squeak, she wobbled closer to the edge of frosted rock where Bucky was currently resting, his cool aquamarine orbs gleamed listlessly as if he was trapped in a stasis of heartsickness; she daringly breached the impassive male harp's isolated space. "Um...hi," she squeaked excitedly, lifting her flipper out to her black muzzle, and wiped off lingering seaweed, aware that rancid stink of fish wafted over her blubber. She had to bite the bullet. "Ugh, you're new around here, aren't you?"

An exasperated sigh brushed past Bucky's mouth, though he was able to mask his surprise at being able to understand what the female harp was saying to him. He would've felt relief at the discovering that he'd be able to communicate with the other seals, but that this particular one had decided to approach him only filled him with mild annoyance. He was, by no means, a rude or unfriendly man…seal, by nature, but that he knew people, and he knew exactly what this massive female wanted from him since she'd been ogling him like a prized steak for over a week now. Her casual greeting made it hard for him to crudely dismiss her, so he settles instead of a shrug that he hoped was telling enough that he wanted to be left alone. Unfortunately, he was soon to discover that this female harp only appreciated him more as a challenge.

“Wow...You’re big.” The female harp squeaked, her blue orbs widening as she traced a glance over the masculine curves and mounds of sleek chestnut blubber of the newest male; he was a Greek warrior for harp seals, she relished all the layers of untouched fat that molded his massive body. “She squeaked out a snorting giggle. “Um...Okay, so how things work around here...” She intently watched his muzzle clench...urgh that jaw. Beautiful. “We become mates and I get beautifully fatter with your pups.”

"No. Not gonna happen!" Bucky had suddenly snapped at the shockingly direct female that seemed to assume that she could scoop him to be her baby-daddy, mate or whatever it was she had in mind. The very thought had snapped a fuse inside of him that was at risk of shorting out by the monumental sum of stress and vexation he'd carried since he left the woman he loved behind. Despite how much his options seemed to have narrowed down concerning his future, he was no way eager to simply throw himself into this new-found existence that felt as constricting as an invisible prison. That, and the female just plainly revolted him by her blatant approach. Maybe that worked with the likes of Stark, but not him. As he levels the raven-furred seal with a harsh look, he could see her slightly flinch in surprise by his bark of rejection. He was glad to have at least gotten her attention this way, so he eagerly continued, "I don't know who you are, or how things work on this island, but I'm not one of you. So, stay away from me!" Bucky nearly growls, snapping his gaze away and making to waddle away.

Despite Bucky’s vicious attempt to evade her beguiling nature; he wouldn’t get far. She was relentless, her black muzzle scrunched as the lingering scent of sandalwood, frosted mint ignited a super-charge of desires. The obese female was acting like a love sick puppy, grinning carnally, she wobbled her fattened rear closed to him, trying to flash with a kittenish smile. “Hey, listen I’m sorry,” she squeaked breathlessly, not getting an echo back from him. It was thrilling for an engaging challenge to claim him. “Um...We can start slow, before digging deep into the good stuff...”

"In your dreams, Ursula," Bucky grumbles beneath his breath, his posture as rigid as a board with loose screws that would puncture at further contact. He was filled with a mounting sum of frustration that would spill over at any moment if it were so much as poked. The anger he felt was a welcome distraction from the raw anguish he felt in his heart that came by thinking of an angelic smile, and passionate brown orbs so full of fire and love. His waddles increased in their fervor as he begins to move without direction—tireless as if he were a fleeing vehicle, rampant as if he were a storm seeking to wash away all in his path. At the back of his throat lingered a primal roar that demanded to be unleashed, but he couldn't find the will to unburden himself. His mass reaches the edge of the beach where the rippling tides brush against him. The chill of the water was now so much more potent as the gloom of nightfall descended along with the storm of flurries coating the surface. The realization brought on a feeling of helplessness he wasn't prepared for, reminding him of his painstaking form that could never hope to see the shores that he came from, and the woman he left behind. Nausea sped rapidly up his throat while his furry flesh tingled with anxiety. Weeks of repressed anguish had begun to climb and overwhelm him like a tidal-wave. He could do nothing but gaze hopelessly out towards the dark horizon, imagining a phantom to carry him back towards the life he was harshly ripped away from. "Selina…" he chokes out a sob, glacial orbs of blue watering with tears; the flow of which were so overwhelming he immediately closes his eyes and they spill down from his cheeks in rivulets. "Oh God, I miss you so much already, darlin'. What am I gonna do?" he sobs to himself, dropping his head until its buried in the crook of the wet sand and his small flipper. The pain his heart drained both his strength and spirit, robbing all sense of purpose in both life and action. He briefly wondered if the embrace of death would be a more merciful fate for himself now that the man he used to be was gone along with the life he lived. Living as a seal was an existence that held no meaning to him other than a life-time of imprisonment on a cold island. "I don't know what to do," he sobs for the umpteenth time, the grief pouring through him was fierce and showed no sign of slowing as he feels the watery streaks cascade down his face.

"Woah--gangway!!" Came a bellowing and hearty masculine baritone echoing from the icy depths, in seconds before Bucky could react a large flopping salmon that careened into the descent of snow flurries and landed with a soft glide in front of the ensorcelled and dumbfounded harp seal, who instantly receded back with a sluggish waddle as his steel- aquamarine orbs stared guardedly at a massive heap of silver and black splotched mounds of plump blubber edging to the shore. It was unquestionably another male harp. "That's good eatin' there, fella..." The enormous harp chuckled throatily, revealing to Bucky that not hostile bone existed in his tubby form. He gestured a flipper to his catch."You're welcome to have a bite, I sure don't need to, not with this big rear that I have to park around."

There was a shocking silence that passed in the seconds it took for Bucky to become hyper-aware of the massive seal that stood in front of him. Fat as a whale, but somehow as friendly as a human, or dolphin. The comparisons were fleeting against the biting cold of the water that was like a gnawing sensation at the back of his mind, while the flopping salmon was but a mouth-watering distraction. Since he'd come to the island, he had minimal contact with the other seals and animals that were here, the most unfavorable of which was the massive dark female that followed him around like an obsessive stalker. The others ignored him as if he were an outcast among their kind, a fact of which didn't so much as bother him. Until now, none of them had come to him with this level of openness and goodwill. The massive harp in front of him was remarkably easy to read judging from the slight pull of his mouth that indicated a smile. It was surprising as the sudden churning he felt in his stomach as he catches wind of the succulent scent of salmon. "Uh…M' not very hungry..." He manages to form words at last. Despite his refusal, his stomach soundly groans in protest. The weeks of travel and solitude had made him negligent towards his own appetite which he gave little attention to aside from the occasional small fish he picked out of the water. He wasn't sure who the male harp was, despite the air of friendliness he felt, he decided to tread with caution. "W-Who are you?" He couldn't help but ask.

“Well, my beauty of mate calls me Big Ass,  but you can me Goliath,” The larger male harp returned, with a genuine snort, his grayish orbs gleamed like quicksilver, holding the depth brotherly light and stout-hearted defiance of a soldier--a true “wrecker” on the battlefront. Hunger dominated his indolent life, giving him the freedom to feel the expansion of his girth swell outwards. He savored the peacefulness of the snow-capped island, it was harboring sanctuary for cast off and restless souls to find a new home without shackles of fear grounding them. He waddled closer to Bucky, pushing the stagnant fish closer to the other male’s plump belly. “I’ve noticed that you eat less than a pup, and I couldn’t watch you starve... You need to get bigger in the gut if you want to survive out here, fella.”

"I-I don't know, I…" Bucky still felt thrown by the massive seal's gesture that was both friendly and appealing. He chances a glance down at the fish that had now grown still after being so out of the water so long. The thought of its death didn't give him pause, it only edged him further towards acting on his hunger and indulging his appetite. A small stubborn part of himself told him to refuse again, to not give into the hunger that would only push him further into this existence that was forced onto him. But as he gazed up into the massive seal's sparkling orbs of lime-green, he could see nothing but generosity and kindness reflecting back at him. Refusing him would only make him feel worse than he already did about himself. "If you don't mind, I suppose I could use a bite," Bucky responds weakly with what he imagined to be a grimace rather than a smile. Dipping his mouth, he sniffs the salmon and nearly growls with mouth-watering approval before he gobbles the wet feast hungrily. "T-Thanks," he sputters through a mouthful.

Hearing the younger harp's qualm chasing the grated timbre of his squeaky response, Goliath tottered an inch closer with a graceless slide of his engorging mass, still keeping distance, but his lime-green orb held unwavering stillness as he watched Bucky slowly chew the chunks of salmon. He detected a mounting sickness that could only be defined as heartache within the plump girth of his newest friend. Bucky stared listlessly at the leaden cloud banks, as if he was searching for something he lost in the snowy tempest that obscured the vastness of the ocean. He listened to a sniffling, as a piece of salmon fell out of Bucky's mouth, landing on the frozen ground. "Hey, you okay, fella," Goliath asked with a measure of tentativeness in his baritone. "You missin' someone out there?"

Goliath's well-meaning question had turned the hunger in his stomach into pangs of sorrow. The pieces of salmon stuck to the edge of his mouth trickled until they fell, soundless to the sandy ground. A disgruntled retort lingered at the edge of his tongue, reminding him of his encounter with the female harp that was determined to make him into a brood-mate. The weight of his loss was fresh as the snow flakes touching down on them, but the reminder of his friendly companion's generous approach softened his response into a soft shrug. "You could say something like that," he whines softly, his heart tugging in his chest almost painfully. He needed to talk about something else rather than be reminded of his sorrows. "Goliath, huh?" he asks with genuine surprise, sizing the harp up and down with intrigue. "How long you been here?"

The dismal question that voiced from the dark furred harp's mouth seemingly challenged the presence of their barred reality. Momentarily, Goliath was driven back into a vacuous moment of time that felt unreachable to his altruistic spirit. He didn't know if he was born on the island or some other inlet, but an uncanny infusion of cool sweetness and chocolate doused the fishy acid that lingered in his bloated throat. Ice cream. Unblinkingly, he stared at Bucky, deeply in the strikingly intense orbs of glistening steel-aquamarine that held unsettled apparitions of full-blown remorse-an ocean of emptiness that rippled with unshed tears of utter heartache. No harp seal on the island had reflections of humanity in their eyes. It was haunting and yet real at the equal measure of their subtle connection. Parting his muzzle, Goliath finally answered Bucky's invasive question.

"I really don't remember, fella, most of us big lugs keep swimming to different shores..." He tapped his flipper on the ground, as mounds of blubber jiggled. "This frozen rock here is a breeding spot, our seal dames to have baby pups," He chuckled heartily, watching Bucky's pudgy brow furrowing in disquiet."It's no wonder that you're being pursued by the biggest girl in our ranks...She'll stop at  She'll stop at nothin' until she gets what she wants, but I think you've got your heart set on another beauty of a  dame..."

The hurt that Bucky felt in his chest had eased only somewhat the more he brought himself to openly speak with the friendly seal. Compassion and understanding were rare gifts to be found in the modern world, and he was surprised to find that he was grateful to accept what was being given to him now, if only to unburden himself rather than wallow in his misery. Even still, the very act felt as a struggle as his aching heart refused the flow of words to escape him. He wondered evenly if Goliath would only be confused by his story if he wasn't originally a man like himself. Would love be as equally powerful to a seal as it would to a human? Bucky resigns himself to nodding his head mutely, the very act threatened to spill emotion from his glistening orbs of blue. "H-Her name is Selina…I had to leave her behind," he sniffs with a whine, feeling his stomach twist in on itself.

Goliath with his big 'dumb' heart, understood the gravity of true love, he tentatively placed his flipper over the layers of pudge that formed over Bucky's thickened back, holding a brotherly connection as he listened to the devastating whimpers of unassailed anguish emitting in low, quivering squeaks. Bucky was on the brink of falling into the void, his world begun to collapse and blubbered mass convulsed with throat retching cries. "Hey, let it all out, fella," Goliath urged smoothly, as errant, pained tears proceeded their heated trek over the darker harp's whiskered muzzle. It was evident that Bucky was a hostage of unrepentant grief. "Don't hold nothin' back, you gotta have a good cry, and my big ass isn't gonna to leave your side, okay?"

"T-Thanks, I appreciate that." Bucky says with a rough exhale, feeling as if he had just released a massive weight from his chest that now left him feeling empty and hollow within. It was a pleasant sensation compared to the burning heartache he felt only moments ago. The flow of wet emotion continued to stream from his eyes. Under normal circumstances he would've felt embarrassed and stubborn to allow himself to show this much emotion in front of someone, especially one he just met. Goliath was a seal he just met, but already seemed more compassionate and understanding than most humans Bucky knew. He wasn't sure what to think about that, but he couldn't deny that he felt glad to have someone listen to his turmoil. "Goliath…I-I'd tell you more, but you'll probably think I'm crazy." He tells the seal with something he hoped was a humorous pitch to his squeaky tone. Misery and sorrow were constant feelings that festered in him since the day his life changed forever. He'd do anything to help ease those feelings into something lighter.

"Well, my mate keeps on tellin' me that I'm already a crazy blubber ass, so you can hit me with anythin', but first let's have something bigger to eat..." He splayed his flipper over the bloated expanse of his silver furred and dark splotches girth, patting the plump rolls of blubbering fat, proudly, with a boarden grin stretching over his muzzle. "The main rule in this ranks is the bigger you are, the more fish you can shove down...It's our duty to get fatter, the dames love all the extra layers, keeps em' warm." He gazed into Bucky's teary steel-blue orbs, sensing that his newest friend was hesitant of embracing this existence. The darker harp was a mess of unrepressed emotions--who needed to see a glimpse of hope that he was endowed to behold every morning. "C'mon fella, my beautiful Marina is waiting for us to haul our wide rears to my slab of rock, and don't back down, we've got lots to share with ya..."

Bucky's first inclination was to politely refuse the offer. His social boundaries had always been erected, even as a human he only allowed himself the company of few people that he knew and trusted. That and the very thought of indulging Goliath's kind offer made him feel as if he were submitting to the existence he still couldn't bring himself to accept, despite his limited options. That feeling of being constrained continued to fester along with the warring emotion of remorse if he refused the one seal on this island who could help make his stay on this island much easier. Slowly, he could feel the stubborn part of himself begin to wane as he considered the positives of Goliath's offer. His groaning stomach had begun to voice its displeasure again at the lack of food he'd eaten. The thought of a nice full meal sounded appealing as well as comforting. "I'd like that," he says with a broken chuckle, bringing himself to wobble and follow his new friend across the sandy shore. At the back of his mind, Bucky felt a gnawing sensation that urged him to take things further and push past the assailing turmoil he felt inside. "You can call me Bucky, by the way," he says, falling into a slow step beside the massive harp whose size easily dwarfed his own.

A hearty smirk twitched Goliath’s pudgy muzzle, his lime-green orbs alighted with jovial spirit as the name of his newest friend seemed to inexorably gladden up his heart. They shared a opened fraction of trust, a connection of warmth that prevailed against the numbing lashes of cold. He bellowed out a throated laugh, conveying his genuine acceptance of the smaller--less fatter harp. “Bucky,” he chuckled wholeheartedly, “...now there’s a fun name that’s easy for the ears...”

Selina always chased the darkness. It was a cover from normalcy, an outlet from the haunting apparitions of her tragic childhood. To feel meant weakness, her heart was molded in granite and restless soul barred with cold indifference. She adapted to living in a thrill of a moment, high stakes and breathless dances in knife-edge combat with the graceful caliber of a lethal feline. Balancing the light and darkness was a challenge-she had accepted Bucky-the Winter Soldier eternity into her guarded heart; being his anchor when the barrage of PTSD onslaughts repossessed his hellbent defiance and benevolent spirit.

In a split fraction of time the man-Brooklyn kid- she loved had been viciously wrenched from her reach-HYDRA once again possessed Bucky, alternatively of utilizing him as a weaponized and ruthless executioner, Brock Rumlow's obscured superior seized Bucky to become a test subject for a new breed of evolution...They had inhumanly morphed him into a massive blubbering slug of fat with flipper-a harp seal.

Now Selina was on the verge of sharing that equal fate. Remaining unflappable and impassive, forcing herself to hold it together, the detachment from Bucky had seared her deep with a torturous wake that ravaged through her. Sitting rigidly in the co-pilot seat of the AvengeJet, strapped down with crisscross buckles of the harness over her ample breasts, Selina flashed her dark coffee down, fervently glance at the injector clutched tightly in her hand. One more jab of the serum and the alterations would fully devolve her humanity. It was a chance of surreal and beautiful freedom to finally embrace with Bucky, no more masquerades of the Cat and Winter Soldier or running in the shadows from HYDRA, just openly feeling the heated softness of his mouth ghosting soothingly over her enchantingly plump and curvaceous harp body.

"ETA in three minutes, Miss Kyle..." The deep and stern resonance of Steve Rogers breached her vigil, as she roved a vehement glance at the First Avenger steering the jet through the air currents and heavy banks of snow clouds.

Giving the adamant and valorous First Avenger a riled up look against ever-deepening levels of high octane adrenaline fuelled in her veins, as she listlessly gazed outward at the limitless ocean surrounding the icy formations of towering glaciers, her alabaster, and alluringly chubby features pinched, a pang of dread rippled through her. Every second felt reckless and impulsive, Selina was reaching the apex of her transformation, her lithesome tone and svelte figure had expanded in mass beautifully into a sleek roundness underneath layers of her black ski jacket.

Grimacing against the arching pudge increasingly growing on her trim stomach, she unfastened the straps of the harness, feeling unpractically sluggish in her feline graces. It was a damn killjoy. "Okay let's get this over with, soldier boy..." Selina purred out in a hushed and raspy voice, conscious of the extent of her definite choice. She froze in a drawn breath, looking back at Steve as he mirrored her with sincere light within the fierce intensity of his leveled azure eyes, giving her a sense of Brooklyn faith to harbor onto. She gazed down at the injector shadowing her shapely thigh.

"Look, I know that when I drop in the water, my life is going to change forever, but do you really think that Buck will remember me when I'm a fat seal ass like him," She released a nonchalant sigh, vainly brushing away tousled strands of mahogany off her thickened cheek, as her knuckles stroked over the increase of pudge. She was changing for Bucky, proving her ultimate devotion by the sacrifice of her beauty. "I don't know how far gone he'll be..."

A cautious breath blew past Steve's lips, the pinch of his eyebrows revealing a shred of deep thought while guiding the Quinjet on course. Since learning of Bucky's tragic fate almost six months ago, he felt as if he were caught in a tumultuous storm that had do direction. Grief and distress lasted mere moments before he had fallen back into his training and discipline to guide him on what he considered to be a new mission, despite his fugitive status in the world. Unfortunately, the lack of resources at his disposal because of his worldly status, limited his ability to search and find help for Bucky. Reaching out to a sorcerer in New York wasn't an option since his face was the most sought after in that city. Shieldless and incapable of being anything more than a pilot for Selina Kyle, Steve resolved himself to do whatever he could to help his friend, even if it meant reuniting him with the woman he loves in the most unexpected of ways. Drifting back to Selina's question, the now-bearded ex-captain sighs with a measure of wistful longing. "Bucky's had his ups and downs in ways we can't even imagine," he says with remorse, doing his utmost to think of the century of suffering his best friend endured…and was forced to unleash. "Each time he goes under…something else tries to take over. But if there's anything I know, Buck won't stop fighting to hold onto what's important to him—no matter how painful it is." He says shakily, his depths of azure glistening with a sheen of emotion at the same time a proud smirk tugs at the edge of his lips. "He'll keep fighting—he'll remember.

Feeling vertiginous effect of the serum, Selina swiftly thrusted a deforming hand up, reaching for a railing, as she felt the litheness of her thieving fingers curving into a flattened shape. Her time as being a human was ending...In a few extreme minutes, she would devolve into a female harp. There was no backing out now. She composed herself with determined poise, and took a step forward, driven by the gravity of her yielding choice. Her full crimson lips parted with a shaky exhale as she spared a gaze over her shoulder, looking genuinely back at Steve, while her body mass was increasingly expanding under her clothing. Her bones were melting into globs of fattening blubber, as she braced at tensing arm over her inflated girth. "I--I want you to know that Tasha loves to dance, but she needs the right partner to keep her steady on her feet," she gritted against rapid exhales of heavy groans. "She only trusts you to lead her..."

Steve steeled himself in his seat once he heard the soft noises of discomfort coming from the brunette in the hold. 'Okay, here we go,' he thinks to himself after risking a glance over his shoulder to see her beginning to fold in on herself, her slender athletic figure was beginning to thicken and enlarge in her seat. The empty vial of the serum clattered uselessly at her feet. It was loud and foreboding, Steve whips his focus back to the flight path, unwilling to become distracted, much less watch as she turned into the very thing Bucky did. It was a gnawing sensation both pained and intrigued him. He felt the urge to say something, but wasn't sure what felt appropriate in this situation. There were nights he wondered what he might've said to Bucky if he were there when he turned. His uncertainty on the matter had fled once he hears her knowing and impressionable advice that makes his stomach and heart flutter; both with nervousness and yearning. It appeared his budding relationship with Romanoff wasn't so subtle, and there were times he wondered if it would ever grow into something more, or remain dormant but strong in the bonds of friendship. There was no denying to himself, deep inside, that what he felt for her was more than the amiable trust established between friends and partner, but inactions and uncertainties of his own sense of direction led her into the arms of Banner, and himself into Sharon Carter's. Neither of those sudden relationships were meant to be, and even now in exile, Steve's heart yearned and ached to lay eyes on her again. He knew what it meant, and he knew that somewhere down there on the ice, Bucky was aching just as badly to see Selina again. "…There's nothing I'd want more. I just hope I don't step on her toes when if I do," He finds himself saying, his tone raw and heavy after finally admitting a latent desire he'd buried and denied for so long. His grip tightens on the controls of the jet, focusing his thoughts on the task at hand, though he felt much more relaxed than he did moments ago. He settles his gaze on the small island of rock, greenery, and ice where tiny dark dots line the beach side. "We're close the island, I'm bringing us in. Try and hang on!" He says urgently, steering the Quinjet towards a smaller chuck of ice nearer to the island where he could safely descend without startling the sea-creatures nearby.

As vestiges of resistance were careening, Selina felt the engorging mass of her body sliding gracelessly off the seat, she collapsed flat on the swell of her girth, emitting out a pitchy squeak against the agonizing onslaught besieging her, everything blurred into a nauseous haze as sickening acid bile rushed up to her bulging throat. Her limp hands widened and flattened as dewy claws retracted out until sleek flesh and dark fur merged into a shape of a flipper. She wanted to unleash a depthless scream at that disturbing and unnatural sight, then she remembered Bucky's silvery flipper reverently touching her hand before he grudgingly steered himself away from her loving reach. Closing her eyes, fiercely she measured out her laborious breaths, allowing the infinite succession of the serum components to fully converge with her fattening body. "S--Steve, lower the damn ramp..." she roared, tersely, slapping a flipper down. "I don't want you to see me change."

Wordlessly, Steve complies with Selina's demand and lowers the boarding ramp once they reach a safe altitude. As much as he'd seen in his unnatural life, there were some things he'd rather not if he could help it. He couldn't escape the shudder of unease that envelops him that had little to do with the arctic chill entering the cabin and more with the wail of discomfort ripping from Selina's throat. "Selina?" He couldn't help but call out, concern entering his voice and he suddenly couldn't bring himself to avoid looking towards her. "Selina?!" He calls out, alarmed as he watches her dim yet massive silhouette disappears off the edge of the ramp and down into the blowing wilderness of ice and flurries. He sets the jet into auto-pilot mode before he unbuckles his belt and rushes towards the ramp.

Discarding shreds of her ski jacket into the fathomless abyss of the ocean, and a fervent waddle and a heaving breath, Selina had plunged into the frigid surf, her momentum was pistoning for full throttle as the new heaviness of her morphic-bloated form bobbed against the icy waves. Thrashing her flippers, the enchantingly plump and decadent furred harp arched her large and mahogany furred up, her dark coffee orbs ardently gazed up alighted at Steve garbed in his leather jacket, standing with sentinel poise of command on the edge of the Quinjet's descended ramp, his hawkish azure eyes intensity searching for her through the encompass of airy flurries that sifted over his sheared golden-blond locks. "I'm down here, soldier boy," Selina echoed out as a current surged underneath the shrinking mass of her pale legs that fused into a tail fin.

Hearing the familiar tone of ivory and silk, Steve focuses his stare on the bewildering sight of a female harp emerging from the edge of the icy edge of the small shore. He ignored the shuddering sensation of arctic cold creeping through the fabric of his clothes. The super-soldier serum in his body kept his temperature high, and it was a testament to its strength that he hadn't frozen to an icicle as soon as he stepped down the ramp. "Well…look at you," Steve says, surprise and positive energy in his voice as he looks down at the mass of mahogany fur and swirling pools of coffee brown; filled with a unique blend of whit and brazen defiance despite the change she had just undergone. "It's really you…" There was no mistaking the spirit and identity of Selina Marie Kyle. For a moment, Steve stood still, gazing down at her while feeling both amazed and a loss for words. He knew that love could transcend many boundaries, and what he was witnessing now was one for the books—a tale that could only be found in legends. Unbreakable and true. A warm smile touches his lips as he sits on his calves and watches her, "do you, uh…feel all right?" He wasn't sure what to say, the words merely escaping his lips to break the ice.

Feeling the gelid water penetrate through layers of her sleek blubber, Selina tightened her whiskered muzzle and resolved daringly cast a gaze down at the appalling expanse of an enormously plump girth that shaped her body. She felt weighed down by the gravity of uncertainty that Bucky wouldn't recognize her; that he might even think she's a repulsive and undeserving bloated slug.

She wouldn't accede that reality of cold detachment from his thermal warmth-his defiant and tortured heart. She did the unimaginable for him, went beyond her insurmountable limits of utmost devotion, surrendering her brazen and fiery spirit into a fattened vessel...She voluntarily gave up her humanity to share a glimpse of eternity with him. 'Love makes you do crazy things...' she thought dazedly, feeling the width of her black furred muzzle curve into a nonchalant smirk. Her dark orbs fixed tantalizingly back onto Steve's crestfallen demeanor that etched over his bewhiskered, chiseled features, before conveying her inevitable answer with a humorous glint in her dark orbs."Well, other than feeling like a damn beach ball," she coolly snarked back, smoothing a flipper over her engorging belly.

"I feel close to Buck again..." Her lyrical, soft voice hitched out achingly with a ghost of unbidden remorse as the assailing-damnable- memory of Bucky as 400-pound harp seal edging to the Brooklyn shoreline in reluctant waddles devasted her depths like a searing knife viciously lancing through her heart. She would never let Bucky become wrenched away from her reach-never again. Daring that inexplicable fate against a throb of elation, she drove a blazing glance at the glacial passageway of the shore, looking at massively fat harps resting contently on their sides, nursing infant pups that were nestled against rolls of thickened blubber. She was ready to enter Bucky's new world, to embrace a new-unshackled existence with him. "So I guess being a chubby seal won't be all that bad if I find a home out there."

"Something tells me that won't be a problem for you," he says, sparing a glance at the small icy paradise that was only a few clicks south of the small icy reef he landed on. A tight smile etched across Steve's features, the energy in his demeanor seemed positive though he couldn't help but feel a twinge of sorrow over the circumstances leading to this unusual situation. It was a burden he was used to carrying whenever something foul befell the innocents and those he cared about. He couldn't do anything to change what happened to Bucky just as he couldn't do anything to convince Selina to help him find another way to save him. But he supposed that deep down, Bucky needed a different kind of saving than just having his humanity restored to him. "I can't say I'm happy about all of this, but I know that if I were in your shoes, I'd be doing the same thing for the one I loved."

His heartfelt words elicited a wage of  emotions that were threatening to derail her decision to swim towards the frozen inlet, being a 300-pound harp seal wasn't going to easy for her tactics adaptation, but her love for Bucky was more than flesh and blood --it was an everlasting promise of immeasurable devotion and freedom was no longer a unreachable illusion reflecting off the vacant shoreline. It was real. Her restless and malevolent spirit was reborn by the soul-driven choice she made on the rooftop when she first injected the serum into her veins. This was a new beginning with him--a new dance, and she knew no matter what happened from the moment she'd turned her back to the horizon, the heartbeat of James Buchanan Barnes would anchor her back home. "Okay," she released a tremulous breath, the piercing dark blaze of her irises stared unwaveringly at the group of obese seals. She felt a grimace of disgust pull tight on her muzzle. After repressing a shudder, she composed herself. "Just tell me that I don't look a lot like those fat lazy asses .."

Steve couldn't help but chuckle softly at that as he rises back up to his full height. "You'll have all the guys turning their heads, and all the dames jealous, Selina. You have nothing to worry about." He tells her matter-of-factly, managing to placate her worries judging by how relaxed her shoulders were. The differences between her and the others were noticeable. While being large in size, she had a unique shape that made her appear more symmetrical and stocky rather than the massive blubbery creatures that waited across the shore. He briefly wonders what Bucky looks like right now, if he was as large as the other seals, or unique proportioned and "fit" as Selina. He supposed one day he would find out, on a day where he hoped to find them both with a way to restore what their humanity. "Will you be all right from here?" He asks her, somewhat worried as he sensed she was preparing herself to withdraw and finally reunite with the man she loved across the icy waters.

Filled by the emergence of impactful hope anew, Selina brazenly challenged the inevitable that waited for her on the occupied shoreline. Despite the gross heaviness that encased over her curvaceous furred body, she felt a unquenchable thirst for retribution. Memories of Rumlow standing on the aquarium's catwalk wickedly flashed in her mind like lightning until she became jolted by the feverish intensity of her hot-blooded fury. A braced flipper instinctively splayed over the metallic dog tags that were hanging around the layers of blubber that formed her neck. "I can't still believe those HYDRA bastards did this to Buck," she squeaked out with frothing breaths, gritting her tiny fanged teeth. Molten heat radiated from her coffee orbs, as she felt a sting of unshed tears botching her steeled vision. Her devious nature wanted to see Rumlow's spilled blood coloring the water as sharks devoured his scarred corpse."When you get back, Rogers, make sure Rumlow pays for this, no matter how high the extremes...Throw more than your damn shield at him."

"I'll find him, and I'll make sure he gets what's comin' to him," Steve says, giving her a nod of assurance that at the very least, he'll make sure that their fates would be avenged. Throwing Rumlow into a dark cell was just the kicker, he'd make sure that he'd tell him how to reverse the transformation serum, or else Steve would happily hand him off to a certain Wakandan King that would make the mercenary sing. Gazing listlessly at the horizon of gray clouds surrounding the arctic island, Steve releases a soft sigh, wishing he could see Bucky himself to offer these words, but knew that there would come a day when he wouldn't have to. "Take care of yourself, Selina…Take care of him. Let him know that I won't quit until I bring you both back, walking on two limbs again." He promises her, feeling an ache in his chest as he knew it was time for him to make his departure.

The fierceness in his azure eyes held promising glints of his unshaken resolve, Selina knew that he wouldn't quit fighting for their humanity, the virtuous and defiant heart of Steve Rogers was an unyielding force of nature not to be reckoned when it came to defending his best friend's freedom; she believed that his infinite promise would deliver them."I don't usually do this, but thank you, Steve for helping find Bucky," she uttered in a melodious tone, holding a pure regard of untainted dependence to him, while she banished all vestiges of doubt. "I'll make sure Buck remembers you, soldier boy, you're damn worth it..."

A genuine warm smile stretches across Steve's lips, feeling a prickle of wetness around his lips as his beard became coated with white flurries descending on him. He wouldn't say goodbye. Whatever guiding force played with the fate of events in the world, he believed that their paths would one-day cross again. "Until next time," he says, the strength and conviction in his tone unshakable as he offered both his word and a wish of good fortune upon the female harp wearing his best friend's dogtags. It was time for them to leave. To take the next step in their unusual life-journeys and hope for the best. Nodding, Steve briskly turns and makes his way back up the ramp of the quinjet, prepared to take off and undertake his next mission.

Taking a moment to capture the scenic view of her domain, aware of the emptiness of the icy devoid, Selina tilted her pudgy muzzle up towards the glimmers of fuschia and pale rose streaks of the twilight sky, clouds are forming as the sense of an encroaching winter tempest vibrated through her chubby layers of blubber. She listened to the incessant cadence of bellowing squeaks and barks that wavered from the group of harps, they didn't detect her presence as she prepared to launch her momentum to safe harbor. "Okay Lina, this is your moment to take..." she whispered tersely, casting a painstaking glance at the ice beds, the distance would be laboring to obtain, given that she wasn't in peak-conditioned form of feline grace, just the feeling of extra flab sagging over her body made her evoke a manifestation of repugnance inside. She needed to stabilize herself on the knife-edge, rein up her defiance and steer herself away from the dark betrayals of her damned heart. With a measure of determination, she desperately wiggled out of her last remnant of clothing and smiled beautifully into the direction of the icy shore. "I hope you remember how to dance, Barnes," she heaved out breathlessly, dunking her plump mass into the currents and dashed with the relentless precision of speeding bullet towards her new home....To Bucky.

He lost count of the number of times he scratched a line in the jagged rock at the tip of the shore. Bucky carried a listless expression as his sharpened nail hovered above the snow-coated surface, realizing he'd run out of space on the small boulder not long ago. It was the only way of reminding himself how much time had passed since he'd arrived on this icy wasteland that meant paradise to the other sea-creatures that inhabited it. Day and night were indistinguishable by the darkened storm clouds that hovered endlessly above the arctic region. The presence of sunshine was as rare as the feeling of joy inside of him. A terrible cliched he never imagined he'd use, but his life had been anything but predictable since he'd become a blob of wet fur. The struggle of adaptation had come much harder for him than he could've imagined, the times which he had hit his lowest he was filled with dark and destructive thoughts that made him feel hollow within. Humanity was as distant to him as a dream he could not recall. His daily routine consisted of trying to avoid harassing female harps, hunting for an easy meal, and watching the horizon far beyond. Were it not for the warm company of a friendly seal-family, Bucky felt he wouldn't have survived the first week of his arrival. Each day was a struggle to keep himself distracted in this dull and dreary existence that carried no drive or purpose. Life never felt so meaningless…so futile. Dark thoughts returned to his mind, along with the pang of sorrow within. For a greater portion of his life, he'd known only pain and suffering. But the good memories he clung to were what pained him most in that he could not create any newer ones. Sacrifice was the way of the hero, and happy endings seemed eternally beyond reach. Looking up from the ice, the dirt and the sloth, he looked to the horizon. A stubborn part of himself had not given up searching, hoping, that a miracle would descend from the heavens—delivering him from what felt like an icy perdition and carrying him to a true paradise where he could be reunited with those he loved. Mom, Dad, Becca, Steve…Selina. The pain in his chest increased ten-fold, a ragged squeak tore through his muzzle. His world was filled with an overwhelming surge of agony that caused a rush of tears to spill from his closed lids. His flipper slashes against the icy rock, his pain and anger seeking an outlet which to release the negative energy within. It wasn't enough, he wanted to scream, to find a more permanent way to end the suffering he felt inside that seemed to grow only more intense with each day. His pulse-pounding in his ears drowned out the distant noise of an engine flying away in the distance. He wished for life—he wished for death. Anything was better than the purgatory he'd found and struggled inside of. When the sorrow within became too much, the seal lowers his head and quietly sobs into the crook of his flipper. "Help…please…" he whispers, praying to anyone that might listen. His prickled hearing registers the faint sound of rustling snow and a presence coming towards him. He inwardly sighs, knowing he was about to be disturbed again by unwanted company…or so he thought.

Selina couldn't gain traction against the density of the snow bank obstructing her path, dragging hefty weight on two flippers was intolerable, in the water she felt sleek with the precision of a thrusting blade, cutting through the icy currents, but she reached the shoreline, the influx gravity relented to a sluggish heaviness that made her feel utterly paralyzed. In seconds as she infiltrated the nursing grounds, she was ambushed by a horde of enraged female harps, thrashing their massive, revolting weight against her, snarling aggressively with unwelcomed hostility. She didn't allow their grunts of unison to arrest her determined waddles. Snubbing off their feral chirps, She thrusted onward, sliding on the roundness of her girth, flopping with all vestiges of strength until she had burgeoned into a mound of silvery blubber molding over a goliath size male harp who graciously led her towards an insular piece of the shore, where snowy haze unfurled. She waddled with a measure of caution, her muzzle wrinkled at the district, masculine scent of frosted mint and sandalwood that wafted off a blubbering dark mass of indolent fat. She froze in a stalled heartbeat, the awareness of her inkling seized her in a modicum of assailing dread."No," she whispered breathlessly, an onset of heated tears edged in her coffee orbs as she unwaveringly stared intently at the enormously chubby harp seal emitting out throated sobs under a curved flipper of silver-metallic fur. That disgustingly pathetic blob couldn't be Bucky...It just couldn't. 

"Whoever you are…go away," Bucky squeaks out with a strained voice that tried to convey a measure of strength and insistence. His emotions swirled inside, their intensity close to becoming an unstoppable tornado he feared would overwhelm both him and his actions. Last thing he wanted was to lash out at anyone, even if it was another bothersome female harp trying to sweep him off his blubbery stomach and into her den. To his dismay, he can sense that the presence remained firmly rooted like a stubborn tree. A gnawing irritation scratched away at him, challenging his sense of restraint and patience. Was peace and solitude too much to ask for on this icy rock? Were Goliath and his wife the only seals that respected his boundaries where he placed them? "I said LEAVE." He yells in a more forceful tone, sniffing softly.

"Well, maybe that line works with the other big girls around here, Barnes," Selina purred with a smoky undertone, defying pulses of resistance thrumming under fleshly layers of blubber. She knew that the obese, irritable harp was truly her ensorcelled and stubborn-hearted, tenacious Brooklyn--Siberian soldier and nothing would deter their caged souls from reuniting. She advanced closer in brazen and elegant waddles, keeping her dark orbs locked onto his pudgy furred muzzle scrunching up into a fanged sneer as a devoid of acceptance gleamed in the tempestuous depth of vapid blackness, only a faint ring of steel-blue resided in his deadened gaze. He was fading into the gluttonous and listless instincts of a latent harp. Panic began to induce a spike of anguish through her, as the extent of unwarranted heartache clashed fiercely like hammer-blows against her soul. She didn't give up on him. Curving her tiny mouth into a deviant smirk, she unabashedly dipped a lithe flipper into an icy pool of water, splashed it effectively into his tensing, adorably chubby face. "Wake up, handsome..."

For a second Bucky thought he'd imagined something that was equally hopeful as well as cruel. Selina's voice was distorted by a high-pitched noise, one that he unfamiliar with but at the same time, it resonated within him. That was until the splash of icy cold water over against his face jarred him from his momentary distraction and back into the harsh reality that surrounded him. Who the hell did that? Did they have a death wish? The vengeful thoughts barreled through his mind at an alarming rate as he was still immersed in a sea of distress. "That's it!" If he were a human, or even a wolf, his tone would've ended with a snarl as deep as an abyss. Whipping around, he directs his harsh stare on what looked to be another female harp, as he suspected, had come to harass him. "Who do you think—" His words had become lodged in his throat the moment he laid eyes on an unfamiliar, and oddly entrancing harp-seal with mahogany colored fur with a scent that reminded him vividly of the woman who haunted his dreams. "…are?" His voice had become much softer, yet the confusion laced in it was evident by his frozen posture. He'd never seen this female harp before, who was she? Why was she disturbing him? More importantly…why did she smell like Selina?

"The woman who loves you, James Buchanan Barnes," Selina breathlessly declared, her unfaltering voice held a measure of truth, straying tears left a damp trek over her furred muzzle, as she did her damnedest to hold back a pained sniffle threatening to vent. Her coffee orbs were blazingly alight with unshakeable-everlasting love, holding a soul deep promise that had always been meant for him. She lifted up her flipper to the level of her plump underbelly and possessively stroked her claws over his dog tags that glinted in his fierce, dumbfounded stare of wide-blown aquamarine, as his pudgy brow pinched, disarmingly.

Whatever the mysterious harp was about to say to him, Bucky certainly hadn't been expecting that. The initial storm of emotion consisted of confusion and anger. How did this harp know his name? Did she overhear a conversation between him and Goliath? The tension of the moment seemed to only grow more strenuous, that was until he set his sights on the clattering pieces of metal that hung from a chain around the harp's neck. The sound was as familiar to him as the familiar voice that wore them. Stricken in a state of perpetual disbelief, Bucky sat and stared at the dogtags, wondering not for the first time if he was dreaming—or worst, if this was all some kind of elaborate joke behind played on him. For a moment, his thoughts ran rampant struggling against a wind of denial blowing at him full force that the harp in front of him wasn't who he thought she was. It couldn't be. "W-Where did you get those?" He found himself squeaking in a feverish pitch, denial thick in his tone. He remembered clear as day that Selina had held onto his dogtags, the only remnant of his true identity, and there was no other explanation for them to find their way here, unless… No! She couldn't be here, she was back home…safe…living her life. The pang of that mixed feeling hit him hard, he resisted the urge to dwell on it longer as he confronted the female in front of him. "Y-You can't be her. She's back home…"

At this very tantalizing moment, listening to the brokenness of his sluggish timbre, Selina needed to define the unfathomable truth to Bucky as he became on the verge of expelling fresh tears. She exceedingly watched him clench his eyes shut, sealing away the unbidden heartache that he stowed; his numbing -soul-wrenching rejection towards her felt like a harsh slap in the face, regardless of the submission to primal instincts.

Tilting her head down, Selina couldn't relent against a raw throb generating in her fattening girth. She wanted to steal him away from this frozen purgatory, hide where tentacles of HYDRA would never find them ever again-she wouldn't endure a damn life being adhered in the crosshairs. With her rampant emotions infinitely reaching the apex, she kept herself firmly poised like a rod of steel in the snow, harboring a measure of utmost control against the void of cold, unforgiving detachment.

"Stop being a stubborn jerk and take a good look at me, handsome," she implored heatedly, and resolved to push her heavyset weight close to a shaft of cool, vaporous light of the aurora that enchantingly caressed gleaming spectrums over a decadent pelt of rich mahogany, and the voluptuous curves that shaped her plump visage beautifully, as her large irises nakedly reflected a softened tint of liquid bronze piercingly merging with depths of ardent coffee.

Right there in that equal moment of unbearable silence, Bucky stared blankly into her jeweled orbs, as his shaky mouth went agape as erratic pants were heaving out of the swells of his bloated throat. He reeled back at a breakneck speed, the widened intensity of his steel-blue orbs shockingly released a rush of uncontrolled, blinding tears as he swayed his head, viciously blasting out choked sobs of innate, graveled Russian.

"S-Selina?" There was hope in his voice where there was once only pain at the mention of her name. The shroud of darkness that hung over him felt as if it were being pulled to allow a ray of light to shine through. The glacial depths of his steel blue orbs gleamed with a flow of emotion as he finally brings himself to study the female harp in front of him. She was thinner than the other bloated females that roamed the shores, her fur a deep colored mahogany that even carried the familiar scent of lavender. He was tempted to bring his nose close and breathe in the soothing scent. Doubt gnawed at the back of his mind, telling him not to hope for something so precious that could only shatter him in its falsehood. There was only one way to know for sure. Waddling himself closer to the harp, Bucky comes to stand face to face with her, his blue eyes peering into the glistening swirls of coffee colored eyes that revealed a familiar pain, one used to thrive against the world's storms of injustice and inequalities. There was also that spark of life that reveled in mischief, freedom and fun; found in the eyes of a feline who hunted at night. At last, there was that smoldering look of strength that came from an empowering love and desire she allowed only one man to see. It was the most humbling feeling in the world, and brought his spirit to soar to unimaginable heights. It was her. His Selina. "It's you…" he breathes, voice so soft and breathless, he couldn't fathom what else to say, only allowing his actions to speak for him as he rushes forward and rubs the side of his face against hers, gesture that would resemble a loving embrace. "You're here…."

“Yes, moy dorogoy,” Selina breathed in hushed, tearful pitch, with her fattened girth throbbing; she felt the irresistible heat of his whiskered muzzle lovingly nuzzle over the sleek pudge of her rounded head. It was a feeling of restored-- an eternal connection that she would never abandon--evade, freely compelling her to lift up her flipper with painstaking ease over the humped expanse of his shoulder, holding him to a steady ground as their obesely chubby bodies harmonized the natural cadence of their adjoining hearts.

“I couldn’t let you go, life isn’t thrilling without you, handsome,” she confessed with the utmost of her unbreakable measure of devotion, soothingly gracing her muzzle under the swell of his bloated throat as time became still while the aching surge of blurring tears became unleashed. She deftly smoothed the furred expanse of his massive belly, feeling folds of blubber flex against the wake of her reverent glide. “This was my choice, Buck," she gritted out a breath, gazing into the intense glacial depths of his steel-blue irises that glistened with a rampant quell of unshed emotions. The extent of soul-torn heartache was visibly naked in his mirroring stare. "Look, after you slipped away, I jabbed myself with the serum that changed you, there was no going back for me, and now I'm here, even though I'm not a beautiful kitten to dance with anymore...."

Bucky was filled with questions that came as rampant as a storm, but they were halted only the harp’s baffling comment of self-depreciation that had him squeaking in befuddlement. Measuring the harp from head to belly, he was aghast at how remarkably unique she was from the others, as if a part of her human identity had carried over into her new form, it made her exotic as well as captivating. “Are you kiddin’, you’re the most beautiful furry dame on this island…” He nuzzles her cheek once more, reverently and affectionately; it was the next best thing to taking her into his arms and crushing her with a loving embrace as he’d done every night in his dreams.

“And there’s no one I’d ever want to dance with than you, darlin’,” he licks the edge of her jaw lovingly, the action somehow feeling as natural as saying the words. “I’ve missed you so much.” He sniffs. His heart felt heavier, but the weight that burdened him wasn’t filled with pain. Instead, he felt only joy, one so fragile he was afraid of anything so small that could endanger it. How he had dreamed of this moment for what felt like an eternity. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

Being painfully aware of his masked dejection, Selina caught a glimpse of a stray tear running along the furred pudge of his large muzzle as she became lost in the softness of icy light captured in his aqueous bluish gray depths, her flipper stroked a delicate caress possessively over the mass of his blubbered girth, watching his tiny mouth part shakily into a breathless smile, evident to a faint wistful snort.

A duel of emotions ravaged through her, Selina craved to feel his shielding thermal heat, to hear the quirkiness of his boyish laugh or how he sulked grumpily when he tried to conceal his pain. That was her James 'Bucky’ Barnes. Nothing would ever come between them again. Pushing the heaviness of her curvaceous plump body intimately against his, her clawed flipper graced over the pudginess of his grayish, metallic splotched belly, as she wantonly gazed into his soulful cerulean orbs, achingly finding lucid gleams of everlasting love mirroring back, of course, she used snark to effortlessly derail the mewling sob threatening to surface. “I can’t believe you’ve really packed on the pounds, Barnes” she whispered out a deviously, and playfully wrinkled her nozzle, watching him unabashedly furrow his brow. “I guess you really missed me, huh?”

Her quip brought a sheepish smile to his mouth where they would once make him exhaled with exasperation. He never thought he’d miss her witty retorts as much as he did since they’d separated, but now he couldn’t help but chuckle and squeak at her. “Careful, darlin’. They don’t exactly serve ceasar salads here. The weight packs on quick,” he says brightly, his playful side had eagerly resurfaced after being buried for so long. “But something tells me, you’ll find a way to keep in shape.” He chuckles while caressing her side with his flipper. It was true he was fat and heavy, but strangely enough he’d never felt so light since arriving here.

“Well, a girl’s gotta eat,” Selina purred lowly, the slyness of her voice held a smoky edge, as she irately drove a glance back at the disgustingly obese female harps laying on their backs, languidly rubbing their enormously bloated girths while thrusting their tail fins into an erogenous rhythm; trying to obtain Bucky’s attention like fertile, overweight cheerleaders on the sidelines of their playing field. “Urgh…” she grimaced sourly, twitching her delicate furred muzzle as vexatious clamor rose in her veins, reaching a dangerous apex. She had entered a battleground of ravenous lust. She already detected a rival amidst the overbearing harps, raven -furred slug with steely blue orbs who hungrily eyed Bucky like he was an erotic fantasy brought to life. The claws would come out if that invasive fat harp dared to cross her path. “This is what you deal with around here every day, handsome?”  she asked, splaying her flipper over the curved shape of his back. "Doesn't sound very fun..."

A disgruntled sigh comes from his nozzle as he spares an incensed glance at the overweight seals that were lounging near the shore, the female harps, of course, were making a dramatic effort of trying to capture his attention. “You have no idea, darlin’. To them I’m like free pizza at a convention. A few of them are too stubborn to take no for an answer,” he says ruefully. He wasn’t sure what would happen now that he had Selina here with him. He hoped the other female harps would take it as a sign that he was no longer up for grabs, but he wouldn’t count out a few of them being directly confrontational about this. “I think you’re gonna cause a stir,” he says worriedly.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Selina shrugged indifferently, crinkling her muzzle against the rancid odor that wafted off the avaricious beach slugs emitting out imploring chirps, beckoning for Bucky to waddle his 400-pound mass over to their nursing pools. She inwardly cursed, feeling disarmed without her Glock, at least firepower would effectively dominate over their lewd cravings. She had only been a female harp for nearly two hours, evolving with her tactics of adaption wouldn’t be easy, she needed to harness the instincts of her cursive, fattening existence. She felt utterly naked and out of depth, clawed flippers, and a bloated out stomach, that’s all she had to defend herself against the barking harpies. “Yeah, this is gonna be quite a ride, Buck,” she rasped heatedly and impassively downcasted her dark orbs at the bulk of her inhuman shadow. She hadn’t really taken in the inexorable reality of being devolved into a tubby harp seal, everything barraged at full soul whacking force. Hissing out a low squeak, she clenched her eyes shut and buried her muzzle into mounds of his sleek dark blubber. "Can’t we get out their sight for awhile?”

Yeah, this is gonna be quite a ride, Buck,” Selina rasped heatedly and impassively downcasted her dark coffee orbs at the bulk of her inhuman shadow. She hadn’t really taken in the inexorable reality of being devolved into a tubby harp seal, everything barraged at full soul whacking force. Hissing out a low squeak, she clenched her eyes shut and buried her muzzle into mounds of his sleek dark blubber. "Can’t we get out their sight for awhile?”

“Gladly,” Bucky would’ve yelled his approval if he weren’t eager to keep things quiet. His excitement over her arrival was still fresh, but there were still a lot of questions that hung over them and he wouldn’t be content until they were answered. Like how she got here, and knew where to find him. But as much as he wanted to ask the obvious questions, he knew they could wait. He’d missed her for too long, wishing to see her again that he wouldn’t ruin their first night together with questions. Squeaking, he waddles on his belly after nuzzling her face one more time. “I should warn you though, where we’ll be staying it’s not ideal, but it’s the best place for privacy on this frozen rock,” he feels a slight bounce as he lays his weight against the snowy surface and starts to waddle his way towards a small outcropping in the rocks. He looks beside himself and sees Selina eagerly following, her momentum surprisingly swift compared to his own.

“Well, I hope your fat ass can keep up, soldier boy,” Selina dared coolly, flashing him with a deviant smirk, making Bucky halt inadvertently in his determined, rapid waddles. For a tantalizing moment, his steel-blue eyes held the knife-edge intensity of his sniper sight, the lethal aura of the Winter Soldier still existed in that chubby hunk of a male harp, despite that he couldn’t perform his murder strut, he was still devastatingly intimating nonetheless.

Against the warring thoughts that clashed inside her, Selina felt the inevitable sense of home returning to her thieving reach again, the infinite thralls of heartache assailed; they were finally together in both body and spirit. Everything would be different in these icy borders of a new life, but she was a survivor against the storms. Now, instead of chasing the darkness, she would capture the light–the cold vacuum of detachment receded and a thrumming blaze of warmth tore into her layers of blubber, cementing her back to safe harbor. What happened to them wouldn’t break their devotion, she was ready to fight for him every day until a gale of freedom steered them back to Brooklyn. “So what happens when we get inside, Barnes?" she asked tersely, waddling casually to his side, and gazed at his muzzle curving boyishly, as his steel-aquamarine eyes crinkled deeply with carefree radiance. Right there, Selina knew that her choice to share this fattened existence with him was damn worth it.

Her simple question he knew had a more profound meaning than any expedient answer that can be given. There were days he wondered the same thing of himself. As a fat and wayward creature of the sea, he knew not to expect much from life than the simple daily routine he experienced here on this frozen island. Everything seemed so dull and lifeless, he wondered blearily if he’d find more excitement trying to elude seaman on their ships. It would be a reckless endangerment of his life for the sake of fun, but at least he would feel alive if only for a brief moment. He knew it in his heart what he was missing, and how much he needed that special someone back into his life to make the days feel less obsolete, and his humanity still intact. Now that he had her back, the possibilities towards tomorrow, towards now, felt immeasurably thrilling. “Why don’t we find out, darlin?” He says to her, his whiskers wrinkling as his attempted to forge a boyish smile while leading her to his cave—towards their new home.

[thecoroutfitters]

Written by R. Ann Parris on The Prepper Journal.

Editors Note: Another article from R. Ann Parris to The Prepper Journal. Admit it, when you saw the title you thought this was about one of the Internets search engines. Alas, and thankfully, it is about something so much more important. If you have information for Preppers that you would like to share then enter into the Prepper Writing Contest with a chance to win one of three Amazon Gift Cards with the top prize being a $300 card to purchase your own prepping supplies!

Search and Rescue codes largely entered mainstream American awareness in the U.S. courtesy of massive hurricane disaster areas. We saw them before Katrina, although she brought them into American homes and still bears their scars, and sadly, we’ve seen them since and will likely continue to see them.

For preppers, there are two main reasons to understand the most common codes used to mark structures by teams in a disaster area.

One, there’s the counter-intel aspect. They can be used as camouflage, misleading others about our home or the entire area around our home – which can keep others from even getting close to us if applied properly.

*Be able to cover or remove markings especially if applied to a whole neighborhood in case a real disaster occurs and somebody is able to respond. If it looks like another unit checked the area or has done follow-up recently, they may assume SNAFU is in full effect and hop the block/road to work an area that hasn’t been covered yet.

Two, we can use them to gather intel should we find ourselves moving through a disaster area.

Let’s hit that “moving through” aspect, because there’s usually a lot of resistance there.

There are all kinds of reasons we might be out and about after a disaster, whether that disaster is what drove us out or we wander into the aftermath of a disaster while passing through.

Straight from the news: air, surface, and ground water contaminated by chemical spills from trains, factories, mines, and ships; housefires, wildfires, and droughts, which then exacerbate rain into floods and mudslides; upstream dams and levees failing; natural disasters kicking off fires, releasing previously contained toxins, cracking wells, tumbling houses, and wrecking cellars.

That’s not the what-if of a paranoid prepper.

That’s straight from the news.

Fires occur and spread daily – it’s why you have a fire department. Annually, monthly, weekly, we get things beyond our individual control, already causing people to relocate or find alternate resources even with all our technical advances in our nice, modernized nations.

That’s not the WROL (Without Rule of Law)/pandemic human-contact concerns, or the cooling tanks in nuclear plants steaming off over days or 2-20 years. It’s not droughts lowering water tables, animal plagues, or woods too emptied of trees or animal/plant foods to sustain another winter and spring. It’s not somebody traveling even “just” 30-100 miles from home before a disaster strikes.

Using just things that happen, pretty regularly, portions of the population are forced from homes that had seemed like perfect locations.

There are all kinds of reasons to include a Plan B (or C,D,E…) that involves traveling, and not always in nice, empty backcountry.

Being able to recognize what we’re seeing from either the “safe” resource site or avoidance perspectives while passing through is huge.

We can also plan to learn the CDC and HazMat codes that may become applicable even in our local neighborhoods.

Recognizing where we don’t want to be is one of the biggies for gaining International Search and Rescue Group – INSARAG literacy.

Lots of bodies, no marks for reclaiming them, disease is hella prevalent, pretty much guaranteed. I would rather not pick through a building that was already so questionable a search team opted not to press a full search. If it was already overrun by rats “then”, unless I’m desperate enough to eat them, I’d really rather hop well out of that neighborhood before we find a bed-down pocket.

We can learn lots of things when we know how to read INSARAG. The dates and updates alone can give us information about the area, human climate, and resource potentials.

Disaster Search Codes

In the U.S. we mostly use and see FEMA “X” codes – a circle divided into quadrants. Other NATO nations use a circled box.

There’s also a separate box that’s part of a three-tier structural integrity rating.

Take that with a grain of salt, because it’s “significant” hazards. Lesser risks that were no big deal in a mostly functional world can deliver a world of hurt if we’re already working with limited resources.

It’s also being assessed by teachers, lawyers, random National Guard types, clerks, landscapers, and cops, as opposed to firefighters, who develop a good eye for these things, or qualified civil engineers.

Those X’s that denote a big issue are worth paying attention to, period. Something stuck out at them to be marked. If that box is empty or “just” a slash … again, it was probably not cleared by professional housing inspectors. Be super-duper leery anyway.

There’s also a victim-location code based around a V. It’s sometimes used on its own, but it’s most commonly seen as an add-on.

All three contribute to streamlining both initial searches and follow-ups or retrieval operations. They convey basic information like the date, status of the structure, victim information, and risks.

There’s some personal twists added sometimes, some specific-unit tweaks and shorthand, and in some cases, simplification and deviations that develop in really widespread disasters.

The variations can help us if we’re using them along with noise and light discipline to discourage incursions during excessive loss of rule of law or by looters/survivors after a disaster.

Anyone familiar enough with the codes to accurately read what we’re saying will expect to see some of those deviations. However, if you put information in the wrong place or use some random combination, you may actually attract attention.

X codes are most common in the U.S. but it’s worth learning what you’re seeing in NATO INSARAG boxes and reading-writing victim V-codes, too.

FEMA “X” Search Codes

Top goes the date (and rarely the time). Left goes the unit that’s searching (and sometimes the time). Hazards, actions we took, and special notes go to the right.

Everybody knows a flood means human waste, wood rotting as it goes, and mold developing, but if the floor’s crumbling already, that gets put there with “hamster removed” and “GL” (gas or fuel leak visualized or smelled).

That’s also where a no-go, break-off, or exterior-only survey is noted, with or without a secondary structure box.

In the bottom, a zero or empty quadrant means nobody’s home, dead or alive. Victim counts are listed live to dead, top and bottom or left to right separated by a dash, dot or slash.

FEMA now advises to mark search results on windows and doors, and use their big stickers when available, instead of wrecking house paint and siding. If local teams are doing it and you’re aiming for camo, mimic them.

*If you’re marking for an animal rescue that’s coming through after you, make it Big and Bold, and note if it’s going to require saws/jacks to get them out.

Top Three Super-Duper Big-time Warning Signs

One, there’s that “no go” structural safety box with the X. If professionals with healthcare did not want anybody else to poke inside, that’s a real good one to skip.

Two, we want to be hyper-vigilant for the word “dog(s)” somewhere.

Now, I like dogs. I like my dogs a lot. But, my dogs make me very, very aware of other dogs. Especially my current girls, because they – Lab-terrier mixes, never strays, never starved, never abused, with no training for it – will separate, hug verges all nonchalant, easy-going postures, and then launch for takedown from multiple angles like a pack of lionesses.

So I watch for whether dogs are happy to see people, period, or happy and excited about chasing something that’s not as athletic as a squirrel. And I watch my flanks for others.

Three, we want to be very leery if we ever see a single diagonal slash with or without a date.

See, we’re trained to mark a slash – and, unit by unit, the date-time – before we enter a building or floor/area/apartment in large buildings. If we abandon a search before we finish, we are supposed to paint a dot/circle in the middle of it.  (Completed searches get the X, even if it’s “did not enter/exterior survey only – hazards”.)

Even if we’re leaving in a hurry, we’re supposed to put that dot on there.

That way if we don’t make our rally or contact, people know right exactly where we are. No question of did we get snatched off the porch, have an accident after leaving the building, or which building, floor, or compartment we bounced to next. If we drew that single slash and there is no other marking (+/- the date), we are still within that threshold.

This applies to preppers as “oh my my” because if there is only that slash, we have two conditions.

One, there is still a team inside. Maybe good, if we’re seeking other intelligent life. Maybe cause to fade away if we want to go unnoticed.

Two, the searcher(s) went in and either did not come out or something so bad happened inside that they un-A’d the AO in such a rush they didn’t even take time for another slash and an X-box.

That suggests, right up there with dogs, bodies, and compromised structures, that we do not want to go through that door.

*If you’re aiming for camo in EROL conditions, don’t use that one. SAR, first responders, and military will go in after each other almost as fast as if we heard a crying baby.

Now, shorthand/personalization that develops in widespread disasters means some never even drew a slash. But if we see just that slash, that is a warning sign.

Applying INSARAG Markings

INSARAG can provide intel on local conditions just by the quickie versions that suggest more need than available CERT/SAR teams could handle, and give us the number and types of teams working an area.

We can also use clues from how they’re marked. For instance, any time markings seem really high up on a building, or have serious up-down wavering of lines, circles undulating like scalloped pattypan squash, or oval “tornado spirals” instead of circles, it indicates a flood high enough that it was easier/safer to stand in a boat to paint than be in the water. Heights and dates of marks can tell us if water was rising or receding.

On the counter-intel front, we can use things like follow-ups and some of those super-duper bigtime warning signs to disseminate false information, projecting that fires gutted flats or stores, or there’s heavy mold and decaying bodies, etc.

They’re worth being familiar enough with to plan our actions to mitigate likely risks, choose avoidance of an area, or pick locations that may still have useful resources with the safest access, even if we’re not planning a bugout, ever. Too much goes wrong even right now to steadfastly insist we’ll never be away from home and traveling, or ever be forced out of our homes.

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[josephkitchen0]

Keep Rats Out of Your Urban Chicken Coop

By Maureen Mackey, Oregon

Keeping chickens provides so many benefits, it’s no wonder many city-dwellers have in-stalled coops in their backyards. There is no need to live on a farm to enjoy having fresh, wholesome eggs to eat, improved soil quality and natural pest control.

But there’s a snake in this urban Garden of Eden, and in this case it’s a furry, four-legged rodent. Like uninvited houseguests that won’t leave, rats may help themselves to your poultry hospitality if you don’t take steps to stop them. And rats pose a definite threat to chickens and their owners.

Portland, Oregon, is just one of many cities across the country that has embraced the popular trend of backyard chicken coops. And Portland has a rat problem, which makes people wonder whether chicken coops are making the problem worse.

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Christopher Roberts, Public Health Vector Specialist for Multnomah County Vector Control in Portland, has seen a rise in complaints on his job. His office gets about 1,000 rat-related complaints a year.

“The complaints we hear most often is that, ‘My neighbor has chickens and now we have rats.’”

Roberts is quick to point out that backyard chickens don’t create a rat problem; they just provide rats that are already in the area with another opportunity for food.

“Rats don’t appear out of nowhere. In any city the older parts are more prone to rats. They can live in well-established vegetation or they can be in the sewer.”

Doug Bridge, owner of Portland Homestead Supply Company in Portland, Oregon, would agree. He keeps a flock of chickens both in his Southeast Portland home backyard and at his store.

Raising the coop will make it much more difficult for rodents to burrow in and make the coop their home.

“In any urban setting rats are a fact of life, so the question, ‘Do chickens attract rats?’ is somewhat misleading.” He believes, the construction work on the sewers in Portland is causing a bigger rat problem than chicken coops.

Roberts has also identified a culprit for Portland’s rat woes, and it’s not chickens.

“The number one source of any rat problem is hanging bird feeders.” The next major source, he added, is backyard compost. Along with those two sources, rats are attracted to pet food, including food left out for dogs and cats, and feed for chickens or goats.

“Any source of food runs the risk of attracting rats,” Roberts added. “They need a consistent food source to establish themselves.”

Another urban haven for backyard chicken enthusiasts is Berkeley, California. Derek DiMaggio, Berkeley vector control technician, agrees with Roberts that any food source will draw rats, including pet food and birdseed.

“Birds are messy eaters — they spill their seed on the ground, and this creates an accumulated buffet. If rats become used to this food source it can become an on-going problem.”

Feeding your flock inside the enclosed run, and not outside, can help prevent accidentally providing a food source for rodents, too. Photos courtesy of Multnomah County Vector Control, Portland, Oregon

DiMaggio says he’s seen rats that have easy access to a food source become acclimatized to their surroundings and as a result very relaxed — almost like domesticated pets. And chicken coops can pro-vide a very convenient food source for rodents.

“A chicken coop can be a big problem depending on how it’s kept,” said DiMaggio. “If it’s not properly constructed and rodent-proof, it can actually cause rodent activity during the day.” Seeing rats during the day is unusual, he added, since these wary creatures are usually active only at night.

Typically, rodent invaders are either roof rats, or more commonly, their larger and more aggressive cousin the Norway rat. These rodents can enter a structure through a hole no bigger than a quarter. Norway rats, in particular, are likely to be present if there is a problem with the sewers, especially broken pipes, which is common in the sewer systems of older cities.

Evidence of a rat presence in your home includes scraping sounds in your walls, scratches and/or greasy rub marks (from a rat’s oily fur) on wood or painted surfaces, and burrows in the ground next to your coop or near a home’s foundation. Rats will often dig both an entry and exit hole and their holes are round and smooth. A burrow or hole adjacent to a sidewalk or in a front lawn or parking strip usually indicates a Norway rat that’s dug up to the surface from a cracked sewer line.

Chicken owners will know pretty quickly if they have a rodent problem if they observe rat droppings in their coops, particularly near the feeders. Worst-case scenario, they may see their birds attacked or eggs eaten.

While the idea of rats attacking chickens is upsetting, rodents aren’t the predators that city chicken owners like Bridge worry most about.

“Dogs have been our number one predator by far, and we have lost chickens to hawks, raccoons, and a possum,” Bridge said. ”In our decade of having chickens at home and at our store, we’ve never had an issue with rats disturbing our chickens.”

Bridge’s chief method of dealing with any predator is a simple one. “We lock our chickens in every night. This is the most important predation control we do. We do let our chickens range in the yard and around our business during the daylight hours.”

But predation isn’t the only headache rats can create for urban chicken owners. Public health and safety are other concerns. Rats can cause expensive structural damage and contaminate food and areas where food is grown or prepared.

Rats who are filching food from your chickens could translate to rats seeking shelter in your home and that’s very bad news. Rodents have been known to cause house fires by gnawing on electrical wires and plugs, not to mention in-house flooding by biting through the flexible water pipes that connect to dishwashers and sinks.

Rats rarely go beyond 300 feet of their burrows or nests, making it convenient for them to take shelter in one place, such as a home’s basement or crawlspace, and get food somewhere else — like you or your neighbor’s adjacent chicken coop.

According to the University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management findings, Norway rats can cover a circular area of about 100 to 150 feet in diameter when they are on the prowl for food and water.

As Roberts put it, “Rats don’t care about property lines.”

Rats can also carry serious diseases, including salmonella, leptospirosis and murine typhus. And then there’s that bane of the Middle Ages, the plague. Though the incidence is rare, humans can still contract this disease via the bite of a rat flea. The possibility of an outbreak exists if the rat population increases, warns Berkeley’s Environmental Health Division on its website.

The University of California’s research shows that just one well-fed female Norway rat can produce about four to six litters a year. Plus, she can wean 20 or more of those offspring every year, too. Multiply those numbers by the females in a large colony of rats and you can see the potential for explosive population growth.

So, what’s the best way to keep big city rats away from your city chickens?

“In my experience, it all depends on your coop design,” said Bridge. A lot of chicken coops are made to keep chickens in, not rats and other predators out.

Roberts recommends enclosing your entire coop with ¼-inch steel hardware cloth, and sinking or burying that cloth into the ground one foot deep and another foot extending out from the structure. He cautioned against using traditional chicken wire, because mice and small rats can fit through it and larger rats can dig under it.

Bridge learned this lesson through hard experience.

“My first coop was on the ground, and I lined the bottom with chicken wire rather than hardware wire. Within a year, the rats had successfully tunneled through the flimsy chicken wire. I built my last coop two feet off the ground to make cleaning far easier via a drop floor, and have seen no evidence of rats in or around this coop.”

Another important step in keeping rats away from your flock is cleaning up after feedings and controlling seed spill-age. Putting birds on a feeding schedule helps, too.

Cities like Portland and Berkeley offer free rodent inspections and advice to coop owners. Part of DiMaggio’s job is to talk to backyard chicken owners about rodent harborage and the attendant health hazards, and to inform them about city statutes.

To avoid paying a fine or being required to relocate your coop or remove it altogether, it pays to research city code regulations and enforcement. For example, city laws may require a coop to be built anywhere from 15 to 40 feet or even farther from a neighboring structure. Codes also address the number and type of birds allowed.

Once you’re in compliance with your local municipal codes, here are a few additional tips to deal with a rat problem or prevent one from developing:

• Design a coop that rats can’t enter or tunnel under — or better yet, if possible, build one that’s free standing. • Store all food in gnaw-proof containers. •  Discontinue open feeding and put your birds on a feeding schedule. And if you do notice evidence of rats, put chicken feeders away every night.

These steps should help keep your coop rat-free and make sure you and your birds stay healthy and happy.

Maureen Mackey writes from  Beaverton, Oregon.

Keep Rats Out of Your Urban Chicken Coop was originally posted by All About Chickens