#crop compensation rates

[townpostin]

Birsa Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna Launched in Jamshedpur

DC Ananya Mittal flags off awareness campaign for farmer insurance scheme Jamshedpur launches crop insurance scheme to empower farmers economically, applications due by August 31. JAMSHEDPUR – The Birsa Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna was officially launched in Jamshedpur by Deputy Commissioner Ananya Mittal, who flagged off an awareness campaign vehicle. The awareness campaign vehicle will…

[latenightdaydreams]

Cowboy!König x Farmer (fem pov)

MDNI🔞

Master List ✍🏽

>cw: fem/afab, mention of death (widow), p in v, spanking, oral

2.3k word count

Set in 1890's America

🤠

.

.

It has been exactly four months and seventeen days since your husband, Henry, passed away. The two of you decided to leave your dull city life for the excitement of the untouched wilderness. Everything had been going perfectly. In only five years the both of you were able to build a beautiful home, a big barn with animals to fill it, and enough crops to feed yourselves and sell. Success to the point of needing to hire extra hands. It was the American dream.

It’s just you and a failing farm. The work just continues to pile up and you never seem to be able to catch a break. With no other options, you set off into town looking for help. You hang fliers in the local stores and on street posts, hoping someone reliable will respond. All you can do is wait.

Only just two days later while you’re outside feeding your chickens, you see a black draft horse approaching. You place the bucket of feed on the floor, wipe your hands off on your blue jeans, and adjust your cream-colored button-down shirt before walking towards him. As you approach you notice that underneath the cowboy hat is an odd t-shirt like mask covering his face.

“I hope you’re not here to cause trouble.” You rest your hand on the pistol resting on your hip as you continue to approach him.

“Nein, no trouble, Fräulein."

His thick Austrian accent takes you by surprise. Your eyes look over his body as he gets off of his horse, taking note of how massive this man is. He looks down at you with his pale blue eyes squinting from a smile.

“I’m König,” he holds his hand out to you, “I saw your fliers in town.”

“I’m, y/n. Have you worked on a farm before?” You weakly shake his hand, your body so exhausted from hours of work and no rest.

“I grew up on one in Austria.”

You cross your arms keeping your defenses up as you two speak. There are so many questions running through your mind about his mask, but you decide to not ask. Never in your life did you think a 6’10 giant would be the one to show up.

“Well, as the post states; I can’t pay much but I can offer food and a room to compensate.”

The fact that you can’t afford to pay the standard rate to a farm hand makes you feel ashamed. There used to be three workers and now it’s only you. You can feel the heat in your face begin to build as you wait for him to reject your offer. Without him, you might not be able to keep the farm past this coming harvesting season.

“That sounds like a good deal to me, Fräulein.”

A small smile cracks at the corner of your lips as he agrees. There is a wave of relief that washes over your body. The possibility of getting the farm back to its glory days lingers in the back of your mind.

“Come with me, I’ll give you a tour.”

You turn and start with showing him the farm land before walking inside the home. It’s a two-story farmhouse, well taken care of by your husband. On the walls there are two photos; one of you and your late husband and the other of your parents. You notice König eyeing them, but he doesn’t ask about it.

Up the stairs and around to the left is the spare room. It was supposed to be a nursery, but those hopes of a family died with your husband. In the corner is a single bed and a wardrobe on the wall. It’s not a must, but it’s all you could afford.

“Here is where you’ll be sleeping.” Your eyes follow König as he walks past. His muscles are so big the ripple though the tight blue shirt he’s wearing. His thighs would be so nice to sit on. Henry was a skinny little man. You didn’t know men could be this big. “There are some house rules. No parties, no drinking yourself dumb, and please clean up after yourself.”

König places his small bag on the bed; clearly, he travels light. He nods as he looks around and then his eyes land back on you. The beautiful shade of light blue is only accentuated by the black mask covering his face.

“Ja, I promise to follow the rules. When do I start?”

“You can help me now. All of the animals are fed, but the stalls need to be cleaned out.”

“I’m on it.” König says as he walks past you. You get a whiff of his musky smell from his travels. Deep inside you feel wrong but, on the surface, you can’t help but to be aroused by the man.

You wait a moment before going outside to tend to the crops. Right now, you just need to remain focused on the farm and Henry’s vision. There is no time for men in this life.

You march down the stairs and head to the barn to grab your tools. Once you enter the door you see König with the pitchfork shoveling the animal manure, just as you asked of him. Except his shirt is now off and resting over one of the hooks on the wall. His body is glistening with sweat as his muscles flex with each movement. Trying to not get caught staring, you turn and grab what you need quickly and leave. The sound of your heart beat echoes in your ears, what is wrong with you?

The day passes until the sun begins to set. You’ve noticed that König took the liberty to go around the barn and fix things that have been broken for a while. His work ethic only makes you feel even worse for not being able to pay him more.

A few days pass, the both of you have slowly begun to build a routine. It has been nice to have him around the house, the chores no longer seem unmanageable. There hasn’t been much conversation, but you steal glances of his body everyday when he’s outside.

Today as you’re bent over planting seeds, you feel a warm hand rest on your lower back. You can feel a tingle crash over your body as you stand and turn to him. Your bodies are so close that you can feel the heat radiating from him. All you want to do is rub your hand down his chest and feel his sweat on your body.

“I can finish up; you should go inside and rest.” His eyes flicker back and forth between yours causing your heart to flutter.

“No, it’s okay—”

“Bitte meine Liebe, let me finish.”

You nod slowly. His hand drifts from your back to the curve of your rear before dropping off. The look he gives you melts you completely. Thanking him once more, you walk forward and towards the house. You turn back to look at König and see his eyes following your hips before he continues working.

As you turn the corner, you realize that you forgot your jacket in the barn. You walk back and see it lying next to König’s shirt. With your jacket in hand, you look around before grabbing his shirt. Bringing it up to your face, you take a deep breath in, savoring his scent.

“Liebling, I thought I told you to get some rest.”

König’s voice causes you to jump, accidently dropping his shirt on the ground before turning around to face him. You can’t seem to find the right words to attempt to talk yourself out of this situation; it’s embarrassing.

“I’m so sorry, I know this must look—”

“Like you were smelling my shirt.” König says with a certain cheerful tone in his voice.

All you can do is nod, you’ve been caught; the thought of him quitting makes your heart drop. Words escape you; how does one apologize for this? You pick his shirt back up and hand it to him.

“I’m sorry.” You repeat in a meek tone.

König looks at you for a while before slowly approaching you. His massive hand ups the side of your face and tilts your head back for you to look directly into his eyes. A chill travels over your body.

“That’s…very naughty of you.” His voice is almost a whisper as his other arm wraps around the side of you, pressing you against his chest.

You look up with wide eyes at his response; it isn’t what you were expecting at all. Before you can say anything, his hand squeezes your soft plump ass through your jeans. He gently grinds his hips up against you, making sure you feel how aroused you make him.

“You are simply stunning, Liebling.” König growls in your ear, goosebumps travel all over.

Both of his hands move down to unbutton your shirt, every button felt like it was taking an eternity to undo. The way he looks at your bare breasts like a hungry beast causes your pussy to tingle, a rush of desire pulsing throughout your body. He gently pulls his cowboy hat off and places it on the wooden stable behind you, pulling off his mask as well.

You see a long and deep scar that travels down the right side of his face. It isn’t a turn off for you, he’s still a handsome man. With one hand you reach up and caress the right side of his face gently, König presses his face into your hand as he relishes your touch.

He leans down and wraps his lips around one of your nipples while he unbuttons your jeans. The feeling of his wet tongue swirling around your nipple causes you to let out a soft moan. Your fingers comb back his messy blonde hair as you watch him with closed eyes enjoy your body.

The fabric of your jeans brush along your legs as he pulls them down off of your body along with your underwear. His large hands caress your legs from your calves up to your thighs. He pulls away to look at your full body; your eyes drop to his hands to see his erection straining against his jeans. Your eyes follow as he stands up, towering over your much smaller frame as his hands undo his pants. In this moment you didn’t feel like a widower or even the stress of the farm. It’s just you and König.

A tiny yelp leaves you as he lifts you up and holds you in his arms. Your legs wrap around his waist while he walks with you to the barn wall. His lips crash into yours in a passionate kiss. You pull him to you, deepening the kiss. He tastes strongly of tobacco and smells like sweat from working in the hot sun all day.

König pulls away from the kiss, leaving your lips wet and craving more of him. His eyes look hazy, drunk at this moment. Then you see the head of his cock press against your sopping wet pussy. His once pale blue eyes are now blackened by his pupils.

With one harsh thrust, König shoves himself inside of you. A loud moan leaves your lips as your face scrunches with pleasure. König is such a strong man that he so effortlessly holds you and moves you down on to his cock to meet his thrust.

“Y/n.” He huffs your name.

No words can even be formed as your body experiences new heights of pleasure you’ve never felt before. His cock is monstrous, bullying itself inside of you. Your short finger nails dig into and drag across his pale skin, reddened from the blistering August sun.

Animalistic groans leave König as the most pathetic mewls leave yours. His body leans against yours as he presses you harder against the barn wall, his hips bucking up rapidly like a man in heat. You feel a way of electricity as his tongue licks across the side of your neck. He covers your pulse point with his lips and begins to lightly suck.

Beads of sweat begin to drip on your body, both of you growing increasingly slippery. He gently puts you down, but quickly grabs you by the back of your neck and walks you over to a stack of hay. Not being too rough, he bends you over the stack and presses your face into the hay.

You form goosebumps across your body as he gently caresses down to your hips, grasping them firmly. His pace continues, but you feel his heavy balls slapping against your swollen clit. Your eyes flutter back as one hand reaches behind you to push his chest.

“Too much.” You whimper.

König doesn’t listen, grabbing your arms and folding it behind your back instead. He reaches for your other arm to also hold it that way, one of his hands wrapping around both of your wrist to keep them together. Your ass ripples with every merciless thrust only bringing you closer to orgasm.

You can feel your pussy clenching around his cock, a low moan leaving him in response. This is just too much. The strong build up of ecstasy radiates from deep inside of your core throughout your whole body. In response to this sensation you tremble, König’s name being the only thing you can say as you cry for him over and over again.

“Can I—” König begins to ask, but before he finishes his sentence you can feel his cock begin to pulse deep inside. His heavy body leans forward and rest on you, pressing you more into the hay. He gives your marked neck soft kisses as your body takes every single drop of his cum.

[thebibliosphere]

ID: A cropped screenshot from Ingram Spark showing various distribution regions. The highlighted ones are the US and the UK. The price shows 17.99 with a red exclamation mark next to it.

The next drop-down box prompts the author to set the wholesale discount to 55% trade, noting that this is the "retailer preference."

The author compensation, aka the amount the author will get paid for their work after wholesale discount and printing costs have been taken out of the $17.99 price tag, is shown as 0.61 cents in the US and 0.04 pence in the UK.

----

So this is a thing that I saw today when I logged into Ingram to confirm some metadata.

They used to list "retailer preference" at 40%, which is what they have made into their new wholesale distribution standard. You will not be able to distribute your books for global wholesale anymore after October 30th if you don't have your rates sent to 40%.

I don't doubt retailers would prefer if we sold to them at 55%. But considering myself and several others already have doubts over whether or not Ingram is actually showing our discounts to retailers (they've been caught showing mine as 5% even though they've been listed at 35% for three years), I'm just sort of sitting here, well, I can't accuse them of fraud, but let's just say I am not not thinking it.

Also, just a fun little tidbit, I tried to use my old ISBNs with d2d which legally I am allowed to do. They are mine. I own them. Anyway, d2d sent me a warning about how it would require me to work with them and Ingram Spark over several weeks to transfer the ISBN, and ahaha. Hahahahaha.

I'd say, "How do we think this is going to turn out?" But I think we all know.

We know.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Hi, what do you think about this news?

BBC News - Climate: NFU Cymru opts out of farming scheme over tree planting

Interesting, isn't it?

Here's the thing: it is a fact that we need more trees than we currently have, that Wales is under-forested, and that decades of inaction mean we now have to make big changes fast rather than incremental changes safely. Given that the Welsh Government is actively trying to base modern Welsh identity on environmentalism (we are the only country in the entire world with dedicated sustainability legislation in the form of the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act, and we're third in the world for recycling rates), it was inevitable that they were going to seize the bull by the horns, so to speak, and set a strict target.

In fact, they have past form for this - there's a reason we're third in the world for recycling. I am simplifying this massively and going to make any lawyers reading this wince, but the way EU legislation works is that the member states agree something should be legislated for, the EU makes a directive, and then the member states each interpret and apply that directive how they want into their own laws (sorry lawyers). In the case of recycling, the EU member states collectively decided we needed to get serious about diversion from landfill in 2008 with the Waste Framework Directive, and then the UK chose how to go about that.

But, waste management is a devolved area. So Wales, Scotland, NI and England all got to implement it themselves how they wanted to. England didn't set any specific targets; it was more like "endeavour to be recycling 50% of waste across the country by X year." But the Welsh Government went "Right, lads, here's the targets: 58% by 2015/16, 64% by 2020, and zero waste by 2050. We'll let you pick the recycling bag colours."

(In Swansea it's green for paper, cardboard, metal and glass, pink for plastic, white for garden waste, and you get a special dark green bin for food waste with a locking lid to keep the seagulls out.)

But that meant Welsh councils had to actually move on it, with the result that we smashed those targets. We're now aiming for 70% recycling by 2025, and zero waste might be brought forward to 2030, because the government likes the model of "Shoot for the moon and land among the stars."

So like. It has worked, in the past.

BUT, the problem with setting arbitrary targets like that is that it doesn't always work, and what happens to people who get caught in the gears, so to speak?

In this case, this is a subsidy scheme. It's still in consultation, but if it goes ahead, farmers get money from the public purse for doing something "for the public good" - they need to tree plant 10% of their land, and manage another 10% as wildlife habitat. Currently, this is true for every farm, regardless of its nature. 20% of productive land removed, and you'll be paid to do so.

But, will that work for every farm? No. No it won't. The smaller your set up, the more that 20% is going to bite into profits that the subsidies won't compensate; and what if you only have productive land? A flatish farm, somewhere in Powys, used for crops rather than livestock? 20% of that is very, very different to 20% of an upland sheep farm with sections that are almost impassable and very difficult to round up the sheep from anyway, where you can simply fence off and plant up the slopes to create ffridd and woodlands. It's a one size fits few policy. I fully believe the government saying plenty of farmers are all for it - this will work for many. But for many others, it's simply not financially viable.

But what I find REALLY interesting about that article, actually, is the way the farmers are framing their objections:

(NFU Cymru) president Aled Jones said farmers were prepared to integrate more trees into farming systems - from "shelterbelts, streamside corridors to field corners". "But we will not take our productive land out of food production for tree-planting," he said.

SHELTERBELTS. That is the Pontbren effect. Pontbren taught us that farmer-led environmental schemes work, and provide additional unexpected benefits including in revenue (it was designed to simply allow the sheep to stay out year round, but the flood control and soil conservation that came with it brought their own benefits - silvopasture, how I love thee.) Now it's there as proof-of-concept, farmers want a piece of that action. They want to be more environmentally sound. But, those trees have to serve an economic purpose, not a solely environmental one; otherwise, it's not going to work for farmers.

And it's very frustrating that the Welsh Government have forgotten that crucial lesson in trying to implement this. But then, as I say, it's true that we need big changes now, and are running out of time for the soft incremental changes. I just think the two could have been married better.

[tomorrowsgardennc]

market update // september 28th 2024

before market 👉 after market

another slow day. this time was because a lot of regular customers did come by to say hi, but that they were out of power after 2r hours from the hurricane so they were honest and said they just were there to get out of the house and not buying. when 3 different customers say that... then you know that's probably multiplied by at least 3. a lot of window shoppers overall at the market, not just me. about half the farmers didn't show up either because of storm damage. me myself and my hubs kitties and house are completely fine, but it was significantly worse south and west of us. and guess where most of the farmers are located 🫠

if there is ever any severe damage of any natural causes, they need your support then more than ever. they always need your support... but only the cash crop farmers are eligible for compensation loss from the USDA. the farmers at your local market are not eligible. support them.

look at me, right at the very end. all my neighbors still setting up. the main market is right around the corner to the right. this is considered the back entrance so there is still traffic, but nowhere near as much as the main entrance.

my sun tarp that kept attacking me when it was windy the other week didn't make it through the storm, so i spent about half the market taking refuge in the shade. i hung out with another plant vendor for a bit. i was telling her about my perennial flower garden, and i did already get spanish lavender from her. going to get more next time she's at market. she said spanish lavender is the easiest to grow - especially in these parts - but the flower heads don't look like the stereotypical lavender flower so a lot of people don't want it. i don't care, i want the bees to care! but she's wonderful, sells only herb transplants. she recommended a few more flower perennials for me... i forgot ehat they were but she said she got them so that's why i didn't bother remembering because i said SOLD and i'll get them from her later 😅 i'll tell y'all what they are when i get them.

my sun tarp didn't make it, but my seed banner only got slightly frayed! easily fixable, fix it later.

question of the day!! this applies to everyone, but this farmers market offers a special deal. if you have SNAPs, or food stamps...

seeds are covered by SNAPs!!

now, home depot or other large hardware stores won't accept SNAP cards because they don't sell food as their main source of income (well, customers aren't their main source of income but that's another post for another day). Those stores won't invest in accepting SNAPs to a "small" customer base. BUT!! Walmart, Target... other stores where they have groceries and a few seeds in the spring will accept SNAPs for vegetable and herb seeds. if it turns into something edible, it is covered by SNAPs:

✨️ the more you know ✨️ a couple of customers were surprised and got a lot of seeds after they learned that. me, personally, my goal is to eventually accept SNAPs on my website for selling seeds. it costs a lot of money to do so....... but it is still a high priority. for now, I can accept farmers' market tokens for the seeds.

close up of seeds. seeds. seed seed seed seeds. appreciate the seeds.

kid wave back count: 1 out of 1. not too many kids today, surprisingly, but the one i waved at waved back. 100% wave back rate, let's gooooo.

[aashiyancha]

The introduction of Earthmate dancers for Project Dragon has got me thinking again about the rf5 siblings and their abilities when it comes to being Earthmates.

I also realize that I haven't talked much about how their farms are going lately. So let's go into detail about our last pair of farming Earthmates before they all go extinct.

So we've got the main farm behind the Silo that both Alice and Ares tend to.

On the main farm Ares mostly helps by clearing and tilling the ground before the seeds go in.

Quiet often, Reinhard stops by and helps him out with the work. (He also helps out a lot at with one certain farm dragon but we'll address that later)

This happens much to Alice's dismay because she feels that she absolutely needs to pay him for his assistance but has to fight him to take the money when he tries to refuse.

His argument is that he just felt like helping his friend on a whim and doesn't want money to be involved but Alice doesn't budge. He worked and needs to be compensated for it.

When the land preparation is done Alice takes over the planting process. She harvests seeds to max level, has all the best fertilizers and keeps careful eye on them every day to produce the best crops!

She does all of the plant work either by herself or with Ares' help because their Earthmate touch is what makes the plants grow fast and in good quality.

They've tried having others help them with the planting part but results of an Earthmate's touch practically negate the second anyone else tends to a plant. It's like all the magic just vanishes.

On a different note, Cecil likes to come and help observe/take notes cuz he's really into earth and ocean sciences. So any learning opportunity is a good opportunity. Plus he has a good eye for detail and catches things that Alice should be weary of with her plants. She also gives him a salary for regularly assisting in plant inspection.

Last thing about the main farm. While it does make use of the shipping bins to wholesale the bulk of the produce to Misa's shop as well as other shops in nearby towns, Alice also has a farmer's market set up next to the Silo. Here is where she has the on-rotation Rangers take shifts selling the highest quality produce at her assigned rates.

Basically Alice is running a rather expansive farming business alongside her work as a Ranger.

I have a lot of concept art I wanna make for the dragon farms (especially the dark orchard) so I'm going to do another post later for Ares and the farm dragon friends that he's made.

[chaifootsteps]

"Under a pay per second system, the more an animator produces the more money they make. It's rather elegant as it rewards more skilled animators with better compensation and motivates them to work harder thus ensuring production moves at a steady pace. A salary system doesn't have that advantage. Regardless of output, everyone would be paid relatively the same which means there's less incentive to go above and beyond and instead do the bare minimum in terms of efficiency." [emphasis mine]

it's kind of disturbing to see someone make this argument. they're essentially admitting that they think animators do not deserve equal pay or a steady salary. Instead they need the fear of God about earning a living wage being put into them so that they will crunch - or rather, 'go above and beyond', there's a classic capitalist euphemism if ever I saw one - in order to put out as much as possible. (also it ignores that not all shots are the same - more complex shots take more time, but I don't see them suggesting more complex shots should be paid more per second completed?)

Does it not occur to these types that having a steady pay rate produces less stressed workers? And less stressed workers can be relied upon to (in their words) go above and beyond anyway, maybe because people also like fulfillment in their jobs?? That there's no reason to believe they'll do 'the bare minimum' because the employment process exists for the purposes of finding animators who will put their heart into their work?

Back on the pilot someone made a whole video about how they added in a little joke about Freckle being tired after dragging the coffin, because they trusted the studio to reward them for adding a little flavor to their shot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5ZDGNRDZN4

Do these people making 'animators need the whip cracking and only care about money' type arguments not realize that a lot of people actually care about their work, and a job well done? And having stable pay actually helps them do more of it, not less? And there are studies showing this exact phenomena across other disciplines??

Sorry to get heated, it just baffles me seeing this kind of pro-crunch pro-capitalist nonsense being peddled. Maybe they're young, maybe they're acting in bad faith. But anyone else who sees this kind of post should know that Lackadaisy fighting to make better standards for animators in indie studios is what we should expect everywhere, including production studios who already have the budget to do better. But it's so noticeable they're trying to staple onto Lackadaisy the attitude that, according to employees, ruined the indie atmosphere at Spindle - the underlying assumption and attitude of that post is that the art and end product matter more than the people

And that needs to change

No, no apologies for getting heated, that one gave me a bumper crop of the creeps. It's the kind of thing you'd expect to hear from a 19th century coal baron, or the manager of an Amazon fulfillment warehouse.

Kudos to Lackadaisy for being the change they want to see in the world.

[mixotrophics]

time layers

tree rings tree-time / dendrochronology. Look at a cut log, look at its rings. growth in trees occurs near the bark, while the deeper-in core layers are preserved rings of past growth.

The seasons / environment affect the growth rate of the tree , creating generally a visual difference between spring / summer+autumn ring growth in temperate regions, hence 1 ring = 1 seasonal cycle. Generally, spring is associated with less-dense, rapid growth, while summer (sometimes into autumn) growth is denser.

width of rings can also be used more finely, wider rings = more growth that year, so probably better conditions... overlapping ring-dates between trees can lead to a long, multi-tree chronology for the area.

.

ice cores layers are built by annual snow, compacted into ice underneath the layers forming above. Ice traps atmosphere , how we can know the rough % oxygen/carbon dioxide/etc of past atmosphere circumstances. Heat doesn't flow well through ice, so even past temperatures can be trapped in large sheets.

dust and marine salt-ions can be trapped within, giving further depth to past ecologies.

.

lake cores mud at the bottom of the lake builds up in undisturbed layers, trapping things that land in the lake and sink.

Trapped pollen can be observed under a microscope & can identify what plant it is from, helping the understanding of how plants spread ; such techniques have been used to find out when some crops were domesticated & cultivated (1).

.

sedimentary & metamorphic rocks an iconic time-layering. sediment builds up in layers, compresses under the weight of the layers above and becomes stone. Traps things in there, and they may become coal, fossils, etc. Other things are trapped: the ripples in sediment formed by waves, so that we may know past sand-beaches.

with enough time, these layers become distorted by geological processes, becoming Wiggly (should they move downwards), getting turned non-horizontal, getting weathered (should they be exposed to air/water/etc), so on.

.

scutes scutes: plates of a tortoise/turtle's carapace. They grow more quickly in warm seasons than cold ones, forming a ring much like a tree's, even mirroring that same seasonality. elderly animals may have worn-down scutes so particularly-old animals are difficult to age exactly (2).

.

otoliths inner-ear-bones. in fish, the large otoliths also form rings with age, so fish-ages can be counted. Again, they are seasonal, growing faster in the summer and slower in the winter.

.

stromatolites bacterial fossils / fortresses. on the sea-floor, bacteria can grow into a mat, which is sticky... sand and such gets stuck, forming a layer, and the bacteria then migrates to the top of that layer. repeat. sometimes, more than sediment is stuck : microfossils, for example (3).

stromatolites used to be commonplace, but they do not form without enough of a bacterial mat: in modern times, the mat struggles to form under grazing pressure from things such as snails, shrimp, and so on. Modern stromatolites -- their mats formed of different bacteria than the ancient ones -- can be found in places too harsh for their predators to inhabit.

.

baleen whale baleen, the filter-teeth they have, grows in a sturdy sheet. The filter-bristles are formed by the rubbing of baleen-on-baleen, breaking the sheet's ends apart. To compensate for continual wear, the baleen grows.

hormones, which can indicate stress, pregnancy, etc , and isotopes, which indicate different water conditions and therefore different locations / food, are stored in the baleen (4). while the growth/wearing means it is not a complete record of a whale's life, it is still an invaluable and rich slice.

.

sources:

Åkesson, C. M., McMichael, C. N. H., Bush, M. B., Late-Holocene maize cultivation, fire, and forest change at Lake Ayauch, Amazonian Ecuador, Sage Journal

Attenborough, D., Life in Cold Blood

Microbal Mats

Holland, J. S., A whale's baleen bristles reveal the story of its life, Smithsonian Magazine

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if you know others, feel free to add :]

[thoughtlessarse]

Because bats feed on crop pests, their disappearance led to a surge in pesticide use. Research found a rise in infant mortality in areas where the bats had been wiped out In 2006, a deadly fungus started killing bat colonies across the United States. Now, an environmental economist has linked their loss to the deaths of more than 1,300 children. The study, published in Science on Thursday, found that farmers dramatically increased pesticide use after the bat die-offs, which was in turn linked to an average infant mortality increase of nearly 8%. Unusually, the research suggests a causative link between human and bat wellbeing. “That’s just quite rare – to get good, empirical, grounded estimates of how much value the species is providing,” said environmental economist Charles Taylor from the Harvard Kennedy School, who was not involved in the study. “Putting actual numbers to it in a credible way is tough.” The crisis for bat colonies began in 2006, when a fungus called Pseudogymnoascus destructans hitchhiked from Europe to the US. P destructans grows on hibernating bats in winter, sprouting as white fuzz on their noses. It can extinguish a bat colony in as little as five years. When Eyal Frank, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, learned about the disease, called white-nose syndrome, he realised it provided a perfect natural experiment to demonstrate the value of a bat. Bats eat 40% or more of their bodyweight in insects every night, including many crop pests. What would their disappearance mean? In infected areas, he found, farmers compensated for the loss of bats by significantly increasing their use of insecticides – by 31.1% on average. Next, Frank looked at infant mortality – a metric commonly used to judge the impact of environmental toxins. Infected counties had an infant death rate 7.9% higher, on average, than counties with healthy bats, despite pesticide use being within regulatory limits. That equates to 1,334 extra infant deaths.

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[bluestar22x]

The Great Mountains

The Journey - The Great Mountains

Summary: For enough coin a mercenary will play guardian

Pairing: Pero Tovar x F!Reader

Rating: 18+ series

Warnings: Underage arranged marriage and infertility mentions. Mentions of rape. Murder. See the full warnings list for this series on the masterlist.

Word Count: 3,096

Author’s Note: The Great Mountains are the Alps. I’m sure they weren’t always called the Alps so I took a guess at what people in 1010 or whatever would call them. Also, wow, this chapter got dark for a split second. Sorry.

xxx

Another night. Another dim lit tavern in a small village. Pero Tovar was sipping on another drink, seated in the far back corner of the main room when a bag of coins was tossed in front of him, clinking heavily as it landed on the table.

His eyes shot up from his drink in the direction the bag had come from. There was a man in his early sixties standing at the end of the table, silver hair cropped short, beard well trimmed, one hand on a cane for support. He was well dressed, not a speck of dirt on his expensive shirt and pants. His stance was of someone who was important (or at least thought he was) and knew it. He was studying Pero, like he was trying to get a read on him.

“What’s this?” Pero inquired, tilting his head at the bag.

“Compensation,” the man answered plainly.

“For what?” Pero asked guardedly, an eyebrow cocked.

“I’m hiring you to bring my daughter through The Great Mountains,” the man informed him. “I have overheard that you’ve seen combat and know how to transverse the land. That you work for coin. You could get her to her destination safely.”

“That is true,” Pero confirmed. “But I am a mercenary. A hired swordsman. Not an escort or some kind of a nursemaid.”

“My daughter is far from a child,” the old man told him. “She is getting married to a man in Poland, but she cannot there travel alone, and I cannot go with her. Neither can her future husband pass this way safely, not anymore. With the ongoing war and the danger of bandits, I need someone like you to bring her on this journey. It shouldn’t take you more than a month and a half. You’ll be done with her before the leaves begin to change. I’ll make it worth your time.”

Pero huffed and folded his arms. He shouldn’t have even been entertaining the idea, but he was curious. “What’s the payment?”

The payment was pretty decent. More than Pero was normally paid for a single mission. It would keep him fed and sheltered for a full year if he was mindful of his spending, even if he didn’t do any other jobs. It was suddenly very tempting for him to accept. Even though he’d told the old man he wasn’t an escort, he could be one for that amount of coin.

It didn’t mean he was particularly happy about accepting it. He could only imagine what it would be like traveling through the wilderness and dozens of small villages for so long with a spoiled rich man’s daughter. He could already hear the whining.

But it was a lot of coin.

He sighed. “I’ll only do it if you pay me at least half upfront.”

“You’ll have that and more,” the old man promised. “I’ll be sending you on your way with extra coin so you do not have to spend your own to get her there.”

“And the back half?”

“It will be paid by her fiancé when you deliver her to him.”

Pero nodded. “Alright then. Show me a map of where we need to go and I will get her there.”

x

The rich man’s daughter was a lot older than Pero had expected, every inch of a mature woman, not the young maiden he’d imagined. Old for a bride-to-be by their century’s standards.

She was as pretty as he figured she’d be though. Definitely eye catching, especially in her dark green flowing dress that was highly inappropriate for traveling on horseback as they would be. She’d be riding sidesaddle, but the dress was long enough it hindered her from mounting and dismounting without assistance.

At least the horse that her father had bought for her to ride was solid. The dapple gray mare was as thick legged as Pero’s black stallion, and appeared to be of good health, her ribs not notable except upon palpation.

There was a quick exchange of greetings between the three of them when they met outside the tavern the morning after he’d agreed to the job, then the rich old man hugged his daughter goodbye, said a few words to her too lowly for Pero to hear, and nudged her towards her horse. The rich man had brought a stable hand with them, and the man helped her up into the saddle quickly, leaving her to adjust her dress and secure her delicate riding boots into the stirrups. After her father and the stable hand left she adjusted the reins in her hands and nodded at Pero without a word, signaling to him that she was ready.

He nodded back at her and started his horse into a fast walk. He could hear her kiss at her horse to get her moving, and after a couple seconds they stepped in stride with him and his horse, shoulder to shoulder.

They were out of the village in a few minutes, through a grassy field in ten, and beginning the climb through the first set of The Great Mountains in an hour.

In all that time, she remained silent, to Pero’s surprise. He was not used to a woman who was this quiet, especially a woman of her high status. Hell, he wasn’t used to riding with anyone that speechless. His last mercenary partner, a good friend, had spoken enough for the both of them. Not that Pero didn’t have his moments.

Usually Pero didn’t mind silence, it was much better than the bellyaching he’d expected, but the more they rode together, the more curious he got as to why she was acting like a mute. Surely she had something on her mind.

“Planning out your wedding?” he guessed out loud.

She craned her neck to put her eyes on him and her eyebrows knitted together, like it displeased her that he had asked, but she was polite when she answered. “No.”

“Thinking of your family?”

She barked a laugh at that question. “I should not. They certainly will never think of me again.”

“Your father seemed to care,” Pero said pointedly.

She snorted, not very lady like. “Seemed. Trust me. He was the most anxious to be rid of me.”

“Last to leave the nest?” Pero inquired.

“How many twenty-nine year olds do you know who are maidens?” she asked.

He thought about it for a moment. “None that weren’t outcasts.”

Outcasts who were disfigured or otherwise deemed not fit for society for one reason or another. This woman was definitely not one of those women. 

“Exactly,” she said. “I’m not a maiden; I’m a widow.”

“Oh.” He instantly regretted digging. “Sorry.”

“I’m not,” she told him without hesitation. “It was an arranged marriage. My husband was nearly twice my age and a bastard through and through. I was overjoyed when he was killed in battle. Finally free of him after twelve ridiculously long years.”

Twelve years. That would’ve made her seventeen at the time she’d been forced to marry her first husband. Pero’s jaw twitched. He wasn’t the best example of a man, but he had never stooped to bedding down with a teenager. He knew it wasn’t an uncommon practice in many villages, but he’d grown up in one that detested older men preying on young ladies who were hardly mature yet. He couldn’t comprehend how any father would want that for his daughter. It was a good thing they were over an hour away from the tavern or he may have turned back to give her sorry excuse of a father a piece of his mind...or his fists.

“Is this marriage arranged too?” he questioned instead, not sure he wanted the answer, but wanting to know anyway for some reason.

“It is,” she replied. “I met him once. He’s more my age and seems nice enough, but we lied to him, so I have no idea if that will stick.”

“What do you mean, lied?”

“You sure are nosy for a mercenary,” she quipped. “But I suppose it would be somewhat of a relief to spill my transgression to someone.” She sighed heavily and stared at a snow-capped mountain in the distance. “The man I’m marrying wants children. He was concerned that I had never bore any for my first husband. My father lied to him and said that the three children we’d had all died from a tragic disease two years ago. He made me go along with it, saying my options were too limited not to and he wasn’t going to keep me through the winter. I’d have to lie or live on the streets, maybe work in a whore house. He said I’d be perfect for it.” She chewed her bottom lip, and Pero could see moisture filling her eyes.

“Your father is a bastard,” he declared firmly.

She turned her head to flash him a small smile. “That he is. But he was right. A barren lady is a whore house owner’s dream.”

She clucked at her horse so the mare broke out into a trot, clearly no longer wanting to take part in their conversation. Pero let her put distance between them, respecting that she wanted to be alone, but he made sure she was in sight at all times as he scanned for danger. Bandits, wolves, enemy soldiers. It was early morning, so man and animal alike weren’t likely to be traveling this particular path, but it didn’t hurt to keep an eye out.

It also kept him from thinking too much about his conversation with the woman in his charge. He’d barely known anything about her less than two hours ago and then the next thing he knew he’d known too much. It was his own fault.

Lesson learned.

x

Traversing The Great Mountains was tedious on the best days and a nightmare on the worst days. The weather always was the biggest factor. On the sunny, dry days, the worst thing that could happen was one of the horses could take a misstep and lose their footing for a split second on a narrow trail, pumping their rider with a shot of adrenaline, but usually not dooming them. The rainy or snowy days were much more frightening. Pero had seen some of the mountain paths give out under horse and rider before, plummeting them to their deaths. He’d also heard of avalanches burying them prematurely on occasion, those few riders who were reckless enough to traverse them in the winter and early spring.

Safe to say Pero avoided the narrow paths on the rainy days, even if they ended up covering less ground in a day because of it.

Outside of the weather, the beginning of Pero’s journey with the rich man’s daughter was surprising calm and predictable.

They spent their days on the trail in peace, nothing but the sound of birds and their horses’ hooves clopping along. Pero only spoke to her if he needed her to direct her horse to a specific spot and she only spoke to him if she needed a break to stretch her legs. Every time she did, he had to help her down, hands under her arms.

They were usually able to stop at a village to rest at night, either in an inn or a private home when someone offered their hospitality to them. It wasn’t common, not with the scar over Pero’s left eye and his grumpy demeanor. The times they were allowed beds in a private home his charge had turned up her charm to convince them.

She’d turned out to be a tough lady. Sitting hours side saddle without complaint, ignoring the flies, enduring the rain. She hadn’t even complained when they’d had to set up camp in the forest, those few nights they weren’t close to a village. Sleeping on the hard ground with nothing to cushion her body.

It was Pero who suggested a week into the trip for her to trade in her dresses to buy a set of feminine riding pants and a couple blouses with vests. He also suggested trading in the side saddle for a normal one, telling her it was better for her to sacrifice some of her femininity in the wilderness than her life. Riding side saddle was dangerous, especially in the mountains.

She did not hesitate, seemingly having thought about making the exchange from the start of her ride, but feeling the need to be proper. She’d needed to be given the okay. It was a strange realization for Pero. Everything about her otherwise screamed independent. She’d been forced into marriage and was about to be forced into a second, but he didn’t get the vibe that she usually was one to ask permission to do anything, which must’ve drove her late husband mad.

Maybe Pero was just making assumptions again, for the wrong reasons. He liked strong minded women, and the more days he spent at her side, the more he felt something for his charge. He was attracted to her. Not just to her beauty, but also her will, her inner strength, and her pose.

By their third week on the trail together, it was eating at him. Especially because she’d finally started talking to him again the last few days, telling him about her childhood with her eight other siblings and asking about his adventures as a mercenary. He answered all her questions as honestly as he could, avoiding any talk of the monsters he’d faced in China. The ones that still haunted his dreams some nights. She’d just think he was crazy.

It wasn’t until the fourth week that something happened to shake their world, to remind them both of the dangers of their reality.

He’d left her with the horses at a post in front of a village store, in the middle of broad daylight, to quickly buy a new girth to replace the worn one on his saddle.

When he’d returned, he was just in time to see his charge get pulled off her mount, kicking and screaming, by three very large men. He gritted his teeth at the sight and unsheathed his sword.

“Let her go!” he commanded.

The men had her on her knees in the mud. One was in the middle of trying to tie her hands behind her back. Fury flared in Pero’s chest at the sight. “Now!”

The men pulled their own swords. “This woman yours, mercenary?” one asked.

Pero shook his head. “No, but she’s under my watch. So back off.”

“We can’t offer you a better deal?” the second inquired. “Such a pretty little thing.” He caressed her right cheek and she flinched away. Pero hated seeing her so afraid.

“You’re quite brash, trying to steal a woman on main, and then making a counter offer when you are threatened for it,” he growled.

“This is our town,” the third, who’d finished binding her hands together, declared. “No one confronts us when we take a woman. We return them, after all. Well, most of them anyway. The ones worth returning.”

The implications of his words made Pero’s skin crawl. He thought the monsters in his dreams were bad. How could any village allow this? Why would anyone stay?

“I don’t make deals with rapists,” Pero told them.

“Too bad,” the second said.

The next thing he knew, the three men were upon him, swords flailing about. They were clearly inexperienced swordsman, and he had armor on, unlike them.

Catching their blades on his own, blocking them, Pero smirked and got to work.

If he ever told the story in the future, he’d play up the fight, make it tense, say that the three men nearly got him, they were that good, but the truth was he wiped the floor with them without a sweat because they were downright awful at it compared to him.

In less than a minute all three of their bodies were laying at his feet.

Without a second glance at them, Pero slid his bloodied sword back into its sheath and marched over to his charge’s side, kneeling at her back to untie her hands.

“Are you okay?” he inquired as she began rubbing her freed wrists.

She nodded at him quickly, and stood, tears of relief forming in her eyes. Without warning she threw herself at him, hugging him tightly. “You saved me.”

“Kind of part of my task,” he said, awkwardly patting her back. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

Like she hadn’t heard him, she pulled away, eyes studying his, then pitched forward to plant a kiss on his lips.

Her mouth was so warm and delicate and inviting that for a moment, he lost all sense, deepening the kiss with a groan.

How many times had he daydreamed about how it would be like to kiss her? Countless. But the real deal was even better.

It was only when they had to part for air that his senses returned to him. “We need to get out of here,” he repeated.

He boosted her up into her saddle and climbed into his own, encouraging his stallion into a canter. Her mare followed.

They were quiet for a while after, as they returned to the general safety of the forest on the bright, sunny day. Pero was ready to pretend like the kiss never happened, to just keep going, there was really no need to say anything about it, but his charge was not having it.

“I don’t regret it,” she told him. “You are the best man I’ve ever known.”

“You only feel that way cause I saved your life,” he refuted.

She scoffed. “I’ve liked you long before today. You’re a little rough on the edges, and you’re far from unfamiliar with violence, but you are a good man. You’ve been nothing but thoughtful and patient with me since this trip began.”

“Nothing can come of it,” Pero told her. “I am being paid to bring you to your future husband and I will not touch a woman promised to another man.”

It was a lame excuse, not the truth. He did not hold arranged marriages anywhere near the same standards as a genuine engagement. But she couldn’t be with him. He was a mercenary and she was too sweet for his lifestyle. He could not give her the life she deserved and she would not survive his world. She’d have a better chance with her new husband. She said he’d been nice.

She deserved a chance at nice.

xxx

Masterlist

[rjzimmerman]

Saving Endangered Animals Will Help Save Us, Too. (New York Times)

Excerpt from this Margaret Renkl Op-Ed from the New York Times:

We were living in a cataclysmic age of mass extinction and climate instability even before the election. Now the climate denier in chief is poised to gut the environmental protections that do exist. Even so, conservation nonprofits are struggling to raise the funds they need to challenge his wrecking-ball agenda in court. The people who care are feeling defeated, and the fight has not yet begun.

I was already grieving, and the approach of Remembrance Day for Lost Species, which falls each year on Nov. 30, didn’t help. Was this really the best time to pick up “Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures” by the dazzling British author and scholar Katherine Rundell? Did I really want to read another book about how so much of life on earth is close to ending?

As it turns out, this is the perfect book to read in the aftermath of a planet-threatening election. In times like these, terror and rage will carry us only so far. We will also need unstinting, unceasing love. For the hard work that lies ahead, Ms. Rundell writes, “Our competent and furious love will have to be what fuels us.” This is a book to help you fall in love.

Among the 23 endangered creatures she celebrates in “Vanishing Treasures,” the last on the list is humans. This is not a sly overstatement to make a point. How will we grow crops if we lose the pollinators? What medical advancements — like the GLP-1 drugs, derived from a study of Gila monsters, that now treat diabetes and obesity — will we miss if reptiles go extinct? Which diseases will run rampant in our communities if scavengers are poisoned out of existence?

We have hardly begun to understand how inextricably our health and safety are intertwined with those of our wild neighbors. Data is hard to come by, in part because controlling for variables is so difficult outside a lab. But when a fatal fungal disease called white-nose syndrome began to wipe out bat colonies in 2006, researchers realized it might offer a way to study the direct effect on humans of a population collapse in wildlife. In September, the journal Science published a study that linked the sudden loss of bat colonies to a spike in infant mortality.

Bats feed on many insects that would otherwise feed on crops. Researchers discovered that in counties where bat colonies were destroyed, farmers compensated by using more insecticides — on average 31 percent more — than they had used when bats were helping to keep insects in check. In those counties with higher levels of insecticide use, infant mortality was also 8 percent higher, on average, than in counties with healthy bat populations. A spike in environmental toxins explained the spike in infant mortality, but the real reason more than 1,300 babies died was the disappearance of bats.

Ms. Rundell calls bats “the under-sung ravishments of the night.” They deserve to exist because they are a treasure of the natural world, not because they help us grow food and keep our babies safe from neurotoxins. Nevertheless, to protect the bats is inevitably to protect ourselves.

Wildlife populations are disappearing at an unthinkable rate, but we are getting nowhere in the effort to curb emissions or to protect the habitats of the creatures who yet survive. In 2022, the world’s nations made a historic pledge to keep 30 percent of the earth wild. So far most of those countries have failed to produce a plan for doing so.

We can’t keep waiting for our leaders to save us. We need to wake up every morning looking for what we can do, collectively and individually, to buy enough time for our leaders to get this right. In a time of darkness, what light is left to us?

A highly incomplete list would start with eating less meat and dairy, a change that would reduce deforestation and climate-altering emissions. We could buy less stuff to reduce transportation emissions and raw-material extraction.

Poison harms not just babies, but every creature in the food chain. Instead of poisoning our way out of inconvenience, we can practice a policy of peaceful coexistence by avoiding insecticides and rodenticides. We can give the night-flying insects back to the bats. We can give the rodents back to the owls and the foxes. We can leave the leaves where they fall to foster habitat for overwintering insects. We can turn off outdoor lights at night to protect migrating birds and nocturnal animals.

When we must drive, we can drive slower, particularly on roads through wild areas. Last month a Yellowstone-area grizzly bear, beloved by the many people who knew her from social media and a PBS documentary, was hit by a car and killed. It was a tragic accident, nobody’s fault, but every year millions of non-famous animals — and some 200 people — are also killed in collisions between wildlife and cars. Wildlife crossings can significantly reduce these encounters. So can simply slowing down.

Such measures are small at best, but if we adopted them all and adopted them together — and especially if we used them as first steps toward growing awareness and greater change — we could make a measurable difference even without the help of feckless government officials.

[mercutiotakethewheel]

A Stone’s Throw From Glass Houses

For @femmefangirl​ who prompted: an exploration of how they are essentially the same person, while also highlighting how they are still very different.

Fandom: Grishaverse

Pairing: darkolai

Rating: T

Wordcount: 3619

Summary: It was supposed to be a one time thing.

It would be irresponsible, afterall, to keep someone sure to disappear out from lock and key, right under their nose, without even bothering to interrogate him for all he was worth while he was still there. Look for whatever unfinished business he’d brought back with him from the afterlife. Try to plot his course and prepare from there.

And a one-on-one visit seemed the most productive.

ao3 link

Nikolai’s friends would be angry if they knew. Then again, that was the thing about having all of his closest political advisors as friends. They got to be mad at him. Which, sometimes, often, made for some rocky political situations for the King of Ravka.

And in a country that was nothing but rocky political situations and what looked like rocks but were really minefields, maybe he couldn’t afford too many more of these. Maybe he had too many to juggle as it was. Maybe that’s why he needed this one, too. To alleviate the ones he already had.

That’s what this was, though, for sure. A political situation.

One he had to tell himself was necessary, for the sake of maintaining this country he was committed to. And one that demanded secrecy, too. For the sake of his friendship, which he was also rather attached to.

It was only that they didn’t understand.

And he understood far too well.

The Darkling was a man with infinite experience in managing what he’d only been at for a handful of years. And by all accounts, the most striking the sheer perseverance of it all, from the first of his line to his rambling, straying last steps of it, if saints and shadow cultists were to be believed, he was rather good at it. Or, at least he had been, before he was swept off the board by the civil war he’d started —or, he and she had started, if he asked the man in question—, landing him squarely on the throne.

He was also a man with a unique and often helpful perspective. Able to perceive every nook and cranny of a continents’ worth of forest without being seemingly aware of much of any trees. But then again, those were blind spots Nikolai felt confident enough about being able to compensate for.

So, logically, sometimes, in situations where he and his cabinet had reached an impasse, Nikolai sought him out.

It wasn’t too hard, as, by happy happenstance, the man seemed to remain in one place these days.

At least for now.

Saints’ knew one day, he’d sweep out to an audience of panicking Sun Summoners and a shattered glass house.

Until then, Nikolai had made something of a habit of sneaking off to the creepy prison-zoo.

Through plains of fattened, waxy, green to the point of fakeness grass and vibrant, blemishless ‘wildflowers’ —quote un quote from the rampant schools of Alkemi who claimed the palaces’ surroundings for their own—, to the more plain attired field. Past that, too, into the crop of towering, spindly, trees that perfectly cloaked all its keepsakes, left there to be forgotten by their palaces’ denizens.

Still manicured, if he were being honest, but more in an offhand, when someone remembered and got curious about it every few months, kind of way.

Perfect to hold their crown jewel and kept man. The most dangerous man in Ravka. Or some such.

~

It was supposed to be a one time thing.

It would be irresponsible, afterall, to keep someone sure to disappear out from lock and key, right under their nose, without even bothering to interrogate him for all he was worth while he was still there. Look for whatever unfinished business he’d brought back with him from the afterlife. Try to plot his course and prepare from there.

And a one-on-one visit seemed the most productive.

It was only when he got there, after he’d seen it, after he’d left with his breath caught and held in the other man’s fist, that he’d realized he was maybe out of his depth.

Not like that had ever stopped him.

He’d sat criss-cross-applesauce in the middle of his cell, seemingly so unlike the church-window image he’d always had of him. Maintained through a long childhood of gaping up at him and a longer war’s-worth of plotting against the same larger-than-life picture of a man.

The thick, furry cloak and kefta he’d traded in for a plain cotton shirt, stretched out around the neck so that it fell at about mid-pec. Tattered pants were slung across his hips. And then there was Yuri’s face twisted up into something not him. Into decidedly recognizable coldness. He seemed a blank, old slate of a man, worn down to bones on prominent display.

His mouth curled, not-grey eyes (and yet something seemed to loom behind Yuri’s brown) twinkling up at him. “Well,” he drawled, leaning back on one arm. His voice, shining through a borrowed mouth. “Nikolai Lantsov. To what do I, a lowly prisoner, owe the pleasure of a king’s visit?”

He snorted, pulling up a chair. “You tell me, Darkling.”

Collapsing into it, he crossed one booted foot over the other, painting on the confident privateer-prince-king he was supposed to be. Easy, unflappable, untouched. One arm he rested on the creaking, bound-to-break-soon or wear down straight as is, one piece, to nothing but splinters, wood. Just a hint of yellow paint remained, applied and forgotten years ago.

The other he propped up on his knee, leaning forward.

There. On a throne before a petitioning subject.

“Hmmm, I suppose I do have experience enough to guess at the average Lantsov whelp’s thoughts.” He cocked his head, prompting greasy strands of black hair to fall into his face. “Though, not much of a Lantsov, are you?”

“So,” he said, jaw clenching despite himself. “What are you up to these days?”

The Darkling raised a skeptical eyebrow, gesturing to the empty cell. “Not much to do here, I’m afraid.”

“Pity,” he clicked his tongue. “We’ll have to send some books. What’s on the agenda to be up to, then?”

“Hmmm,” he hummed, tapping his chin contemplatively. “Wringing your puffed up chicken neck?”

“Shouldn’t I be saying that?”

“I’m sorry, did I manage to screw over your entire country and life’s work in, what, two years?” He growled, expression twisting into a sneer. “Rather low-bar don’t you think, your family’s legacy, and you’ve managed to sink below even that. Another two front war? And jurda parem on top of that?

“My Grisha, thrown to the wolves, again, and you can’t be bothered to protect them? Too busy chasing down your own tail.”

“A tail you gave me.” He said, sniffing. “And besides, we almost have jurd—” He cut himself off. Sighed.

The Darkling half-smirked. A mocking thing, there and gone, where the sneer still remained around his eyes and nose. “Good. Not so easy, is it? Now that you’ve spilled so much blood to get here.”

“I think you’re talking about yourself.”

“Right,” he said, looking him over derisively. “Forgot you’re the good king here. I suppose your little ritual worked out, then?”

Nikolai snorted, twisting the rings around his fingers. His eyes he kept focused on the spreading endemic of orange rust splashed onto the iron bars. So hard his vision blurred, rearranging two-tone cylinders into swaying multi-color lines.

“Maybe for you,” he said.

Anything not to notice where the Darkling’s gaze struck him. Poking holes into his neck, down the gold tassels on his shoulder, the embellishments on his sleeve. Down to the bit of tanned wrist peeking out from his coat, resting lazily on his knees. The gleaming metal on his fidgeting fingers, long and thin. Pointed.

Could never sit long enough to learn an instrument, though. No matter what Dominik liked to joke about being formed for, dropping a kiss on his so-called musicians’ fingers.

“Pity.” He clicked his tongue. “Resurrected me, just to keep my old ball and chain around your leg.”

“Looks like it.”

“Hmmm.” He nodded, nodding with false pity. Sighing, he held out a porcelain white hand.

Nikolai blinked.

The Darkling waved his hand impatiently. “Well, come on then.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said, warily shifting back.

“I won’t bite,” he crooned, voice smooth as silk and deception.

He raised an eyebrow.

“What?” He rolled his eyes. “Think I’m going to maul you with your own demon?”

“Uh, yes.”

“Please. And have my darling band of traitors come running to put me back out of my misery?” He waved his hand again, imperiously summoning him forward.

“As if they’re not already advocating for it,” he said dryly. But temptation wore out. He scooted forward, eyes locked on his filthy fingers, dirt caked around his nails.

The Darkling snorted.

Nikolai slipped his hands between the bars, warm and rough to the touch. Slid into the softer, still warm, hand of the Darkling.

Something jolted at the touch. Perhaps not dissimilar to the rush of power his Grisha described, the live wire of an amplifier sinking from skin into his blood and bones.

He gasped. That pulled the Darkling’s half-smirk into a full one.

Sliding his touch from hand to wrist, grimy fingers brushing over his palm, he tugged a pull of his own. Hard. In answer, a thin wisp of a claw emerged.

Looking from there and up at him haughtily, his expression bespoke a clear See?

It was all Nikolai could do not to choke as he felt him pull the rest of it free, inch by inch. The sensation was one of relief, mixed with the sweet, angry pain that followed foreign things removing themselves from him against their will.

His bracing hand clamped down hard around the chair’s arm.

The space where they connected pooled, slowly but surely, with the ooze of chittering shadow, falling in and out of form. One moment the familiar creature, another it fell from their wrists to smack against the tile floor in the nastiest puddle he’d ever seen in his life.

“Can you remove it?” He whispered, eyes locked somewhere between the congealed mass and miles of pale skin.

“No,” he whispered back, voice equally breathy. Eyes laid over and over themselves, a thin skein of brown patched over slate patched over something else he wasn’t privy to, bored into him. Stubble slapped over a smooth and angular chin.

Nikolai blinked.

Abruptly, he dropped his wrist.

Liquid shadow raced back towards him, pooling back towards his feet as if pulled there by gravity. Sunk back into his skin easily, painlessly. So different than that day at the Spinning Wheel, the purposeful, furious, forceful intrusion. No, hadn’t they had practice to grow acquainted with one another?

Mingling into one creature.

Pulled free and returned home semi-regularly. Exercise and excursion.

Nikolai pulled his wrist back. Dropped his face into his hands. Breathing harshly, he took a moment. Even as he felt The Darkling watching him, knew he shouldn’t be showing him any of this.

Let the moment pass.

Scrubbing his face, he pulled the mask back on.

And waltzed from his chair and out of the room with the politest of goodbyes.

~

Things snowballed from there.

He went to see him again. Showed the same hand he wasn’t supposed to show anyone and certainly not to him. Over and over again.

And today, he was doing it again.

Flitting into the trees, he pulled his military jacket from his arms, slinging it over one shoulder.

Daylight here, formerly a full and heavy thing weighing on his back, thinned out into scattered, knife-like strips. They demarcated special bits of grass and leaves, pointing out a trail for him to follow.

Let it take him far enough and the sunlight began to move and he knew the will-o-wisps had done their part. Right on cue.

Where the trees ended and the glass started up. Always a sight.

Light bouncing against transparent panes made rainbow by the contact and turned around at a million different angles. Forming blinding white and yellow spikes around the building, warning off predators and friends like from their coveted prince in the middle. Summoners stood in a ring around the building, hands held out from them.

Their idle gossip mingled with the bird song.

Before they could notice him, he pivoted out of sight, making for the long way around instead.

Running a hand through his hair, he looked for the side entrance and the slight gap between the not-Alinas’ formation, which always seemed to form when the shift changed and Lev was, predictably, late. It was awful hot, afterall, and Raisa wasn’t known for her patience.

He tried. A king’s prerogative, to collect his subjects names and habits like the lint in his pocket.

Snorting to himself, he wondered how the Darkling did it, keeping them all straight over centuries of turn-over, long past when he should’ve gone senile in an endless haze of advisors and guards and grisha.

He slipped through. Also a king’s prerogative. To leverage whatever information he had for the desired end.

When the window-door shut behind him, he slipped between plaster and brick partial walls and awnings. Awful hot, afterall, in a giant magnifying glass. Can’t have the ants inside cooking. Tugging on his shirt, he resumed his air of dignity, marching to the Darkling’s cell.

Right in the center-most room of the building.

A spacious cell. He hoped he appreciated the gesture.

Sauntering into the receiving portion of his room, free of the solid iron door or its unfortunate meal slot, he dumped his coat on the tottering, circular table and coasted his hand through his hair again.

“Back again so soon?” His voice called out, smug amusement ringing out in the formerly silent space.

“As if you wouldn’t get terribly bored without any visitors,” he said, walking up to the portion of the bars the Darkling was leaning against, facing away. Wrapping his hand around a bar, he looked down to discover his gleaming black boots just scant inches away from the excess fabric of his shirt, sticking out from beneath the bars.

A security threat that they didn’t touch the ground. Or it might be at least, if they were in the habit of giving him silverware.

“I’ve outgrown such things as boredom.”

Nikolai rolled his eyes. “How dramatic.” But, as ritual had formed, begun to unbutton his shirt-sleeves.

Wordlessly, the Darkling extended his hand. Not even looking up. Moody ass man. As if none of this was worth a scrap of his attention.

Nikolai rolled up his sleeves, equally wordless.

He slid his hand into his.

This, at least, he had a convenient excuse for, if not the eagerness with which he carried it out. A theory, even, which he would hypothetically love David’s input on, if he was, y’know, sharing any of this with the class. Let the demon out here. Then, maybe, less likely to do so at home by accident.

Seemed to be working so far. So. Who knew?

The Darkling’s fingers curled around his wrist, his pinky pressed into the tender meat of his palm.

Nikolai shivered. He wondered if, underneath all the grime, his hands were soft or strong, caked over in callouses or smooth.

Clicking his tongue, his head finally tipped back, scrutiny lazily drifting over his head. “And here I thought those saints of yours had finally made you realize how to control this on your own.” He tightened his grip on his wrist, short, blunt nails digging into his skin.

“It’s not controllable,” he sniffed. “Wasn’t that the whole point?”

“Hmmm.” He raised a thin, black eyebrow.

“Best punishment you could think of, yeah? A man who values his mind above all else, suddenly,” he said bitterly, tacking on a whooshing gone noise.

He only hummed again, pulling skittering, formed-formless thing free.

Internally, he couldn’t help the poisonous jolt of satisfaction at the sight. At least the Saints or the making or the Saints’-cursed-only-knew had seen fit to pay him back with their own punishment. How it must bite at him that his was the only shadow he still had the ability to summon.

If he was as cruel as him, he might even say so out loud.

Darkness slunk out of him, dripping useless and malcontent besides them, collecting all over the Darkling’s other hand and his pant leg.

“And yet,” he said, “for all your cleverness, you’re still too childish to accept and adapt to the simple fact of what you are now. What a powerful gift I handed to my most hated enemy,” he tsked, chuckling to himself.

“What are you here for, then?” he said, making to let go of his wrist. Startled, not ready, Nikolai caught him before he could, clamping his own hand around his wrist. He looked up at him, amusement shining around his pink, chapped mouth. “Besides lying to yourself, that is.”

Nikolai huffed, but otherwise ignored the jab. “It’s Fjerda.”

“It’s always Fjerda,” he said, lifting his shoulder in a weary shrug. His fingers absentmindedly caressed his own. He did not return Nikolai’s clutch. “Did you think the whole country would disappear after your stunt with the Fold?”

“Apparently, even the Fold barely went away.” He said wryly. “No, it’s parem now, blowing the whole lot up in our face. As expected. They’re drugging Grisha. Our Grisha,” he emphasized, squeezing his wrist. “Using them up to build new war machines. Dumping their bodies when they’re done. And now they’re drugging pregnant ones, too, so the babies are born addicted.”

The Darkling played with a ring on his finger, the edges of a green gem set in the center. He saw his nostrils flare. He stayed silent.

“Your people are dying,” he tried again, pressing himself closer. “Both our people. They could use your help.”

He snorted. “My little Triumvirate gave up that quickly, already begging papa to come back home and pick up their messes for them?” Nikolai scowled, opening his mouth to interject, but he plowed on. “So much for peace and plenty. Fine, then. Release me from this joke of a cell and put me back on the killing field where I belong.”

“No,” Nikolai sighed, releasing his wrist, holding off his flinch at the returning assault of his shadows. “I’m just asking for advice,” he plastered on another charming smile, “from a man who's been at it so much longer than anyone else has.”

“You have your own cabinet full of advisors, just for that, your majesty.”

“Yes,” he said, gesturing out placatingly, black veins sticking out from them like angry sores. Closing his eyes for a pause, he reached into his pockets for his gloves. “And we are working very diligently on this. And we have our own tools for dealing with Fjerda. We have our spies and our own labs and we’re working on a parem cure.

“But. If you have any resources, old moles, information on the Ice Court, anything we could use, that could mean the difference between life and death for this country you claim to have done everything for. For the same Grisha whose blood you’ve sent pouring down the rocks of your own palace with their names on your mouth,” he was near shouting.

He turned around, shaking his head, staring out at the cluster of trees past the window. He needed to keep his cool here. He knew that. He tugged on his gloves.

“Claim,” The Darkling chuckled, shaking his head. “No, I’m done bailing out Lantsov brats. I decided that the moment you stole your own country’s very future from underneath my nose, after gleefully ignoring us at school and sea. While your brother drank away and your father partied away through war and famine, then turned to me and ordered blood and death on me and mine’s head.

“You cost me everything,” he spat, and he heard the clack of chains as he whipped around. “Everything. Doomed, and just because you preyed on the naivety of my Grisha and the ignobility of your family name. No.” He heard him stumble into a stand, clutching the bars. “You wanted this country. Learn what it costs. For once let his majesty the king sit with blood and blame on his hands.”

“Okay,” he said, throwing his hands up, “it’s on me. Then what? I fail and your country falls apart. Saints’ knows, it’s always falling apart, no matter who's in the chair. That’s the hole we’re in. So the drowning man drowns. Then what? You don’t have anywhere else to go and neither do the Grisha.”

Nikolai sighed, tugging on his hair. “This is my job. My country. I was born for this, whatever there is to be said for my older brother and my father. I’ve committed myself to this. I’ll save that drowning man, whatever it takes.” He nodded to himself, going for his coat on the table.

He was obviously getting nowhere here.

Foolish of him to bother, really. Was the whole time.

The man behind him chuckled mirthlessly. “Just like that the king gives up. Soon as times get tough,” he mocked. “You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here, Nikolai.”

He whirled around, sighing with spread arms. “Yes, I did.”

The Darling stood with crossed arms, leaning against the bars. His unshaven cheek was pressed against the t of two’s crossing. A red tongue dabbed at chapped lips.

“I remember when you were a school boy, always clutching at your mother’s skirt, giving your tutors hell. I remember how you used to watch me,” he smirked. “Those wide eyes. Same way you look at me with now. Guess some boys never outgrow their childhood idoliza—”

“Please,” Nikolai sneered, storming out.

From the other side of the banged door, he could hear him. Still going on with his awful, smooth, stained glass voice. He felt and ignored the panicked seizing of childhood longing fill his chest.

He kept walking.

“I can’t decide sometimes, whose shoes you think you’re trying to fill on that throne. Your father’s or mine.”

Nikolai kept walking.

[bharatvarsh22]

Organic Farming | Climate Change | Bharatvarsh Nature Farms

Effects of climate change on farming

Farmers have been adapting to the conditions imposed on them by their region’s climate since the inception of agriculture. Recent human-induced climate changes like Extreme heat, floods, droughts, hail and windstorms, are pushing them further to the corner. On top of that there are changes in weed species and distribution, pest and disease pressures, in addition to potentially depleted soils and increased pest pressure. Climate change affects farming in several ways by bringing the change in

average temperatures

rainfall

climate extremes (heat waves)

pests and diseases

atmospheric carbon dioxide and ground-level ozone concentrations

the nutritional quality of some foods.

Impact of climate change on smallholder farmers

The impact of climate change is devastating for smallholder farmers. With rising global temperatures, rainfall has become more erratic, with longer dry spells (droughts) and shorter periods of more intense rainfall (floods). The rising carbon dioxide levels also bring down crops’ nutritive value.

Unpredictable rainfall patterns mean crops have less time to grow, producing less. Farmers resort to higher use of fertilizer and water to compensate, degrading the soil quality and lowering groundwater levels while spending much more to grow the same amount or less on the same acreage. This directly impacts overall productivity and there is no surety whether a crop planted by a farmer month in advance will hit the market during a shortage or a glut.

The climate crisis is forcing a rise in input costs to the point where farming is no longer profitable for many smallholder farmers.

How can farmers adapt to climate change?

Climate change poses a real threat to farmers around the world. Agriculture depends on good weather, including high and low temperatures, rainfall, wind intensity and many other variables. Only the sustainable agriculture practices can help increase the resilience of the agricultural system to the climate change impact:

Diversifying crop rotations

Integrating livestock with crop production systems

Improving soil quality

Minimizing off-farm flows of nutrients and pesticides

Implementing more efficient irrigation practices.

Agricultural adaptation examples:

Several adaptation strategies, such as crop and livestock mix shifts, altered planting/harvesting dates, altered livestock rates, and increased pesticide use, have been implemented by farmers mostly acting in their own best interests. Some other examples include proactive measures such as crop and livelihood diversification, seasonal climate forecasting, community-based disaster risk reduction, famine early warning systems, insurance, water, storage, additional irritation and so on.

Do Visit: https://bharatvarshnaturefarms.com/how-does-organic-farming-assist-farmers-in-adapting-to-climate-change/

[drades-lair]

Drama at Ozzie’s

Fandom: Helluva Boss

Pairings: Striker/OC

Rating: T

Ozzie’s was completely empty except for a lone bartender who was preparing for the night to come while happily serving a couple whisky’s to Striker and Calus. The place was a little odd with the lights on however that was neither her nor there at the moment.

“I hate this place,” Striker groused taking a swig of his whiskey

“I know, so do I but once we get the money we can leave,” Calus assured Striker

“How long do we need to fuckin’ wait?” Striker continued to complain irritably.

“It’s always like this when I have to collect, apparently Asmodeus is ‘busy’,” Calus retorted.

“Yet like most blue bloods he sends his minion instead of comin’ ta see us himself,” Striker pointed out in annoyance.

“Trust me, Fizz isn’t my favorite person either,” Calus assured Striker again with a long swig of his whiskey

As if on cue Fizzarolli came strolling out of a back area although he looked far different then normal, sporting a cherry red short sleeved crop top with a pair of denim short shorts and knee high black stiletto boots. Fizz’s filed down horns weren’t covered by his usual jester hat leaving them on display although he didn’t appear bothered by this fact as the imp confidently strode up to Calus making a point to completely ignore Striker’s presence.

“Hey big fella, Asmodeus is just about ready for you,” Fizz cooed in a flirtatious manner earning a side eyed snarl from Striker.

“It’s about fucking time. We’ve been waiting for 45 minutes,” Calus irritably stated.

“Asmodeus is super busy; you know because he’s a prince of hell. Although we’d be more then willing to compensate you…” Fizz trailed off, seductively biting his lower lip while looking Calus from head to toe.

“Pass. Can I go see him?” Calus bluntly asked.

“Humph, yeah, he should be ready for you,” Fizz huffed in disappointed

“Great,” Calus simply stated standing from the bar, downing what was left of his whiskey before setting the tumbler back on the bar top. Heading through a back area beside the stage to a private staircase.

Fizzarolli watched Calus walk away specifically watching his ass with a raised eyebrow while still biting his lower lip. Striker gave a slight eyeroll with a small huff as he turned back to the bar to finish his whiskey while Calus was off talking to Asmodeus about payment for the job they just completed for him. Fizz must have noticed Striker’s reaction because he turned, facial expression turning to one of disgust while his hands went to his hips in a display of arrogant confidence.

“What’s your problem?” Fizz asked arrogantly.

“Humph, nothin’ but Yer tryin’ to hard,” Striker scoffed with a huffed laugh and a smirk

“Am I? Let me guess, you don’t want me hitting on him because you’re trying to get with him,” Fizz guessed

“Nah, that suns already set,” Striker retorted.

“What?” Fizz questioned wrinkling his nose and furrowing his brow in confusion.

“Get a little closer and take a good look, kid,” Striker suggested pulling down his red bandanna to reveal the clear bite mark located there. Fizz quickly turned 4 shades of red making Striker chuckle as he released his bandanna then returned to his drink.

“There’s no way! Why in the nine hells would that hunk of a Dracony be with a back water hick like you?” Fizz barked angrily.

“Don’t know, guess I just got lucky,” Striker smugly smirked.

 Meanwhile…

 Calus pushed aside a royal purple velvet curtain to enter a lavish private room, a vanity sat on the left hand side of the room while a mini bar was straight across and off to the right Asmodeus lay on a shay. Calus moved closer to the prince wrinkling his nose at the smell coming from this room, a sickening combination of substances, liquor and bodily fluids.

“I’m here to collect my money,” Calus bluntly informed Asmodeus

“Yes, yes, it’s there,” Asmodeus stated gesturing to the vanity where on the corner an envelope sat clearly bulging with cash. Calus turned around moving to the vanity, scooping up the envelope then opening it to briefly count what was inside. While counting Calus suddenly felt a body press behind him specifically the feeling of someone’s crotch pressing to his ass while two hands gripped his hips eliciting a slight snarl from the Dracony.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Calus growled lightly as a warning.

“How’s about you stay for a little while? I’ll throw in some extra money for you,” Asmodeus seductively suggested, caressing a hand from Calus’s hip up to his abdomen.

“Not interested!” Calus firmly denied shoving Asmodeus off him using both his one arm as well as his tail. Asmodeus wasn’t happy about being pushed off however he did back off.  

“Come on Calus, I’ve been with so many hell species but a Dracony is one I’ve never had the pleasure,” Asmodeus complained crossing his arms over his chest.

“And never will unless you find another besides me. I’m not interested in being a checkmark on your ‘to fuck’ list,” Calus scowled as he tucked the envelope into a pocket on the inside of his brown duster.

“It’s more then that, you could work for me. Stop putting your life on the line for this assassin shit and become a dancer here. I believe you’d be perfect,” Asmodeus punctuated his sentence by swiftly closing the gap between them and grabbing Calus’s crotch. Calus growled fiercely with teeth bared as he shoved Asmodeus off.

“Get off!” Calus barked taking a stance that clearly stated that he wasn’t playing.

“Ugh, fine. Go on.” Asmodeus irritably waved Calus off

Calus happily took that moment to leave heading back down to Ozzie’s main area where Striker was still sat at the bar with Fizz fuming towards him. Striker looked up at hearing Calus approach immediately furrowing his brow with a frown at seeing Calus’s displeased expression, downing the last of his drink the imp stood up. Fizz also turned his attention to Calus ready to start flirting again until the Dracony pushed right past him to stand with Striker.

“Good ta go?” Striker inquired.

“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” Calus confirmed with an irritated undertone to his voice.

Striker gave a confirming nod then followed Calus out of the club while smirking over his shoulder at Fizzarolli and flipping the other imp off. Calus’s mood didn’t improve much on the ride home, Asmodeus always pulled shit like that when they met and every time it proved to sour Calus’s mood. Striker rode next to Calus’s hell steed aurora on Bombproof keeping silent for most of the ride till his curiosity as well as perhaps a modicum of concern won out.

“So, what did that overgrown blue blood do this time?” Striker wondered.

“Same shit he always does, pushing boundaries that shouldn’t be pressed,” Calus responded still carrying that irritated undertone to his voice.

“Why do Ya bother wit him?” Striker asked curiously.

“Mainly because he pays well and he pays every time,” Calus answered.

“Is it worth it?” Striker wondered.

“Probably not,” Calus shortly answered.

“Ya don’t think he’d actually force Ya ta do somethin’?” Striker asked with a deep furrow on his brow.

“I’m not sure. Asmodeus preaches lust and just because succubus and incubus have a code of conduct doesn’t mean he does. I’m nothing but a check mark on a list to him after all.” Calus explained keeping his sight straight ahead.

“Well, I’d like ta see him try. Ya know I’ll be there, right?” Striker reminded Calus finally earning a look from the Dracony.

“Appreciate that,” Calus retorted with a small smile.

[woefully-undercaffeinated]

A few more for Labor Day:

“If you aren’t fully prepared for work when you clock in, you’ll be disciplined/fired” you need to be dressed before you walk in, and that can include work gear that can be worn as regular clothing such as steel-toe boots (usually you need to be at least partially compensated for buying these) or a work uniform that can be worn in public. However, donning PPE, logging into a computer, retrieving tools, undergoing a security search, and other things that are required specifically for you to be able to work are covered under the umbrella of “donning and doffing period” and must be paid.

“We offered you the chance to take a break, so we get to deduct it from your pay even if you didn’t take it.” If you were working as an hourly employee, you must be paid for the time. Unless they actively tried to stop you from working and you overcame their efforts (please don’t do this), they must pay you for all time you worked even if you had the option not to. Also, if you “took a break” but were carrying out work duties during that time (i.e. eating lunch in front of the computer while attending a meeting, getting a coffee while reviewing email, etc) you weren't actually on break and you need to be paid for that time. And any break in which you did not have at least a twenty-minute period in which you did no work must be paid.

“If you quit, your final two weeks will be retroactively made minimum wage”. This one’s been cropping up a lot recently; while employers can usually change your wage going forward if said wage isn’t governed by contract, reducing an employee’s pay for hours already worked is always illegal in the US. Before you let your boss know you’re quitting, quietly grab copies of your hours worked and pay rate; if they decide to pull this stunt, contact the department of labor for your state and report wage theft.

“The law says we only need to give you minimum wage/15 minutes’ break every eight hours/etc, if I hear you complain about missing pay/talking to each other about working conditions/talking to regulators I’ll do that” Reducing an employee’s compensation or worsening their working conditions in retaliation for a complaint about wage theft or working conditions is illegal, even if the compensation or working condition is by itself legal.

“The employee handbook is what sets your wages, so if you say something in the handbook is illegal then I only need to pay you minimum wage for the hours you’ve worked.” This is another one I’ve been seeing crop up recently, and it’s complete nonsense. You can’t retroactively reduce an employee’s pay even if the document that originally set that pay is invalidated due to illegal provisions; the only thing that an employer can do is give notice to the employee that future wages will be reduced.

“You think the law will protect you? I’ve got enough money for an army of lawyers, and you’re broke; you’ll never win against me!” Labor attorneys usually work on commission, meaning rather than charging you an up-front fee or billing you for their services, they take a portion of the settlement that they get you or are paid by the opposing side as a condition of a judgment. Your boss’ deep pockets makes them a more attractive target for labor attorneys, especially since it’s likely that they’ll be able to find other mistreated employees to join the suit and turn it into a class action. On the other hand, corporate counsel bills by the hour and is very expensive, so your boss won’t save any money by dragging out the proceedings.

“It doesn’t matter what actually happened, I control the records and I can make them say whatever I want!”  Your boss has far less control of internal records than they think; most businesses today use a third-party service like Workday to track employee records, and those services use change-tracking storage that makes it impossible to doctor those records without being flagrantly obvious about it. Even employers who don’t use that software still use email and office applications to manage their business, and unless they own every single piece of silicon in those systems it’s going to be impossible to effectively doctor those records without leaving a trail. And, even if your boss uses nothing but paper records that they’re able to change at will, they still can’t stop witnesses from testifying, or prevent you from using your own records (such as cell location records, email, pay stubs, social media posts about work, etc) against them.

And, a special one that you can witness happening right here on the Tumblr Dot Com:

“I’m an employee like you, and it’s hopeless -- they have too much power, and they’ll win every time, so don’t get your hopes up.” I see this one cropping up a lot on pro-labor online groups; they claim to be another abused worker, complain about how terrible everything is, but they’ll constantly try to steer people away from using the legal protections available by cynically commenting about how impossible it is to get legal representation, or how the burden of proof will be on you, or that the company’s money means they’re untouchable. Often times they’ll add how their spouse/parent/friend/etc went through Exactly This Situation and was thoroughly humbled after seeking legal help. Yeah, the US labor protections are crap compared to other countries, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist or don’t work. Someone who tries to convince you that everything is hopeless and there’s nothing to be done about it isn’t your friend or your ally, they’re a company man doing the company’s bidding.

An incomplete list of things that employers commonly threaten that are 100% illegal in the United States

"We'll fire you if you tell others how much you're making" The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 specifically protects employees who discuss their own wages with each other (you can't reveal someone else's wages if you were given that information in the course of work, but you can always discuss your own or any that were revealed to you outside of work duties)

"If we can't fire you for [discussing wages/seeking reasonable accommodation/filing a discrimination complaint/etc], we'll just fire you for something else the next day." This is called pretextual termination, and it offers your employer almost no protection; if you are terminated shortly after taking a protected action such as wage discussion, complaints to regulatory agencies, or seeking a reasonable accommodation, you can force the burden onto your employer to prove that the termination wasn't retaliatory.

"Disparaging the company on social media is grounds for termination" Your right to discuss workplace conditions, compensation, and collective action carries over to online spaces, even public ones. If your employer says you aren't allowed to disparage the company online or discuss it at all, their social media policy is illegal. However, they can forbid releasing information that they're obligated to keep confidential such as personnel records, business plans, and customer information, so exercise care.

"If you unionize, we'll just shut this branch down and lay everyone off" Threatening to take action against a group that unionizes is illegal, full stop. If a company were to actually shut down a branch for unionizing, they would be fined very heavily by the NLRB and be opening themselves up to a class-action lawsuit by the former employees.

"We can have any rule we want, it's only illegal if we actually enforce it" Any workplace policy or rule that has a "chilling effect" on employees' willingness to exercise their rights is illegal, even if the employer never follows through on any of their threats.

"If you [protected action], we'll make sure you never work in this industry/city/etc again." Blacklisting of any kind is illegal in half the states in the US, and deliberately sabotaging someone's job search in retaliation for a protected action is illegal everywhere in the US.

"Step out of line and you can kiss your retirement fund/last paycheck goodbye." Your employer can never refuse to give you your paycheck, even if you've been fired. Nor can they keep money that you invested in a retirement savings account, and they can only claw back the money they invested in the retirement account under very specific circumstances.

"We'll deny that you ever worked here" not actually possible unless they haven't been paying their share of employment taxes or forwarding your withheld tax to the government (in which case they're guilty of far more serious crimes, and you might stand to gain something by turning them in to the IRS.) The records of your employment exist in state and federal tax data, and short of a heist that would put Oceans 11 to shame, there's nothing they can do about that.

[fpotci01]

The Farmer Producer Organization Ecosystem in India: Strengthening the Future of Indian Agriculture

Agriculture is the backbone of India's economy, with millions of farmers depending on it for their livelihood. However, small and marginal farmers, who make up a significant portion of India's farming community, often face challenges in accessing markets, securing fair prices, and adopting modern agricultural techniques. This is where Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) come into play, revolutionizing the agricultural landscape by empowering farmers and fostering collective growth.

FPOs provide a platform for farmers to unite, enabling them to pool resources, share knowledge, and access markets more effectively. As this movement grows, it holds the potential to transform India’s agriculture sector, enhancing the livelihoods of farmers and contributing to national food security.

What is an FPO?

A Farmer Producer Organization (FPO) is essentially a collective of farmers, structured as a legal entity that helps small and marginal farmers come together to address common challenges. FPOs are typically registered under the Companies Act or Cooperative Societies Act, and they aim to improve the income and quality of life for their members.

By joining an FPO, farmers are empowered with a platform that allows them to negotiate better prices for inputs like seeds, fertilizers, and machinery, as well as ensuring fair prices for their produce. FPOs also provide access to financial services, technology, and information, helping farmers make informed decisions that lead to better productivity and profitability.

How FPOs Are Reshaping Agriculture in India

Collective Bargaining Power: One of the biggest challenges faced by small and marginal farmers is their limited bargaining power in the market. With fragmented land holdings and small-scale production, individual farmers struggle to secure fair prices for both inputs and their harvest. Through FPOs, farmers can buy inputs in bulk, reducing costs significantly. When it comes to selling their produce, FPOs enable farmers to aggregate their crops and negotiate better prices with buyers.

Access to Modern Technologies: Many farmers in India rely on traditional farming methods, which can limit productivity and profitability. FPOs play a critical role in introducing farmers to modern technologies, best practices, and innovations in agriculture. From high-yield seed varieties to sustainable farming practices, FPOs help farmers stay competitive in the global market. By leveraging FPO Platforms, members have access to a wealth of resources, data, and tools that improve crop management and productivity.

Market Linkages: In addition to empowering farmers with better inputs and technology, FPOs also connect them to markets. Many FPOs in India establish direct links with buyers, processors, and exporters, allowing farmers to bypass middlemen and secure higher prices for their produce. This direct access to markets ensures that farmers receive fair compensation for their hard work, contributing to improved income and stability.

Financial Inclusion: Farmers often face challenges when it comes to securing credit from formal financial institutions. Many small farmers are either unbanked or lack collateral, making it difficult to obtain loans. FPOs, especially those supported by NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development) through the NABARD FPO portal, play a vital role in providing access to credit and other financial services. By pooling resources and building a collective credit history, FPO members are better positioned to secure loans at lower interest rates, allowing them to invest in their farms and adopt better practices.

Capacity Building: Education and training are integral to the success of FPOs. These organizations often provide training programs that help farmers develop skills in areas such as financial management, market analysis, and sustainable farming practices. By empowering farmers with knowledge, FPOs ensure that they are better equipped to navigate the complexities of modern agriculture and succeed in a competitive market.

Support for Women Farmers: FPOs also play a significant role in empowering women farmers, who often face additional challenges in accessing resources and markets. Many FPOs in India have initiatives specifically designed to support women, offering them opportunities to participate in decision-making processes and take on leadership roles within the organization. This inclusivity strengthens the overall community and promotes gender equality in agriculture.

The Role of Technology in FPOs: Interactive Data Platforms

Technology is increasingly becoming a key player in the growth and success of FPOs in India. With the rise of interactive data platforms, FPOs can harness the power of data to make informed decisions about crop management, market trends, and resource allocation. These platforms provide real-time insights, helping FPO members track weather patterns, monitor soil health, and optimize irrigation.

The FPO Platform for India offers a centralized hub where farmers can access a range of services, from financial assistance to market intelligence. By utilizing such platforms, FPOs are able to operate more efficiently and stay connected with the latest advancements in agricultural technology. This not only improves productivity but also reduces the risks associated with farming, such as crop failures due to unpredictable weather or pests.

The Benefits of FPOs for Farmers and the Indian Economy

The rise of Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) and FPOs in India offers numerous benefits, both for individual farmers and for the broader economy.

Increased Income: By reducing input costs and securing better prices for their produce, FPO members typically experience a significant increase in their income. This increase in income allows farmers to reinvest in their land, adopt new technologies, and improve their standard of living.

Food Security: FPOs contribute to national food security by improving agricultural productivity. By introducing modern farming techniques and ensuring better access to inputs, FPOs help farmers increase their yields, which in turn boosts the country’s food supply.

Sustainable Agriculture: Many FPOs are at the forefront of promoting sustainable farming practices. Through training and access to modern technologies, FPO members are encouraged to adopt eco-friendly practices such as organic farming, water conservation, and crop rotation. These practices not only benefit the environment but also ensure the long-term viability of farming in India.

Rural Development: FPOs are instrumental in fostering rural development by creating jobs and supporting local economies. As FPOs grow and thrive, they create opportunities for value-added services such as processing, packaging, and transportation, which in turn generate employment in rural areas.

The Challenges Facing FPOs

Despite the many benefits of FPOs, there are still challenges that need to be addressed to ensure their long-term success.

Access to Capital: While FPOs help farmers access credit, securing adequate funding remains a challenge for many organizations. Without sufficient capital, it can be difficult for FPOs to invest in infrastructure, technology, and other resources needed for growth.

Capacity Building: Although many FPOs offer training and capacity-building programs, there is still a need for more widespread education and skill development. Ensuring that all members have access to the knowledge and tools they need to succeed is essential for the sustainability of FPOs.

Market Volatility: Fluctuations in market prices can pose a significant risk for FPOs. While these organizations help farmers secure better prices, they are still vulnerable to the broader economic forces that affect the agriculture sector.

Conclusion: The Future of FPOs in India

The Farmer Producer Organization ecosystem in India is a powerful tool for transforming the agricultural sector and improving the lives of small and marginal farmers. By providing access to resources, technology, and markets, FPOs are helping farmers overcome the challenges they face and secure a better future for themselves and their communities.

As FPOs continue to grow and evolve, they will play an increasingly important role in strengthening India’s agricultural economy. With the right support, these organizations can drive sustainable growth, empower farmers, and contribute to the country’s food security.

The future of Indian agriculture lies in collaboration, innovation, and the empowerment of farmers through FPOs. By embracing the FPO Platform and leveraging the benefits it offers, India’s farmers are paving the way for a brighter, more prosperous future. For more information, visit: https://fpo.tci.cornell.edu/