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rjzimmerman · 7 months ago

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For several years, I was the President of the Mojave Desert Land Trust, the organization described in this story. The story describes the work of Madena Asbell, who started up, organized and manages the seed bank. Madena is an amazing person. Low key but intensely brilliant and practical.

Excerpt from this story from CNN/Call to Earth:

Inside a Mojave aster flower, a tiny bee is fast asleep. At night, the pale lavender petals close, providing a safe resting place. In the morning, as birdsong rings out across the desert, the flower opens, revealing its tenant.

Here in southern California, in the middle of the Mojave Desert’s vast and arid landscape, it’s just one of many natural treasures hidden from view.

In long sleeves, pants, and wide-brimmed hats to guard against a harsh sun in a cloudless blue sky, a team of four led by Madena Asbell crouches in the dirt, looking for another treasure.

They are searching for a plant called erodium texanum, (common names Texas stork’s bill or heronbill), a type of herb native to California. More specifically, they are looking for its seeds.

“There’s so much life here,” Asbell says, “but it’s easy to not realize that when you’re in the desert.”

Asbell is the director of plant conservation for the Mojave Desert Land Trust (MDLT), a non-profit land conservancy that works to preserve and protect the Mojave and Colorado desert landscapes of California.

A quarter of the state is desert, home to roughly 2,400 plant species, according to MDLT. Eight years ago, Asbell had an idea. What if there was a way to preserve the ecosystem, centered around the seeds that facilitate all the life here? The result was the Mojave Desert Land Trust seed bank.

“The goal is to preserve this amazing genetic diversity that we have and make it available for restoration or reintroduction of species, should there be a disaster that wipes out a population,” Asbell says. “Plants are the foundation of most ecosystems, so when we protect these plants, we’re protecting everything that depends on them, like desert tortoise, burrowing owls and pollinators.”

In an ever-changing climate, the seed bank was just the type of “proactive” idea the organization was looking for, says Kelly Herbinson, executive director of MDLT.

“As a land trust, we’re realizing that just protecting land or buying land to protect it wasn’t going to be enough – that we had to take extra steps to really invest in that land,” Herbinson says.

In 2016, Mojave Desert Land Trust officially launched the seed bank project, which has since been described as a “Noah’s Ark” for southern California.

Three white refrigerators at MDLT headquarters in Joshua Tree, California, house the collection. There are over 5 million seeds from nearly 250 species and counting, according to the land trust.

Seeds come in from the field teams and undergo a “cut test” to determine viability – confirming the seed pods are full, and that there hasn’t been too much damage from insects or mold, making the seeds worth saving.

#Mojave Desert #seed banks

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black-aengel-07 · 8 months ago

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Vestigial Memories (Skyrim Fanfic)

Chapter 1

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“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Look at me and tell me that I will be able to survive till the twenty-first of First Seed.”

“…I can’t.”

“Then you know what to do, Falion. Thank you for everything.”

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---Dawnstar---

Cold….

“Hey! He’s waking up!” I heard the voice of a man loudly state, much to the irritation of my throbbing head… not that the bone-deep cold I felt could be made any worse by it. Fuck me… why is it so cold!? And wet?

“Please give us some space!” This time was a woman’s voice. Softer, but stern. And quickly after I felt a wave of warmth wash over me and cast aside the horrid cold that permeated me and eased my head’s agony.

I groan, softly, not out of discomfort, but more out of a sense of habit. Then, I opened my eyes to see several people in… rather olden-day clothing looking down at me. “Fuck me… Sweet Jesus, what happened?”

I heard someone mutter ‘Sweet Jesus’ in a confused tone. However, the woman was more than kind enough to enlighten me as to my current state. “You were found by a fisherman floating in the ocean waters. It was a miracle you were alive at all. People in your state would have drowned, or frozen to death at the very least.”

I blink and try to get up. “Wait… what?” Floating on the ocean? I should be far as hell from the ocean. I was in a swamp and…. And…. Uh… “Where… how did I get here?” I ask and look around and to my mounting befuddlement, I notice that I am not in any place I should know of. Everything was covered in snow, and I was on the cold hard dirt, shirtless and with several people looking over me. “Who are you people?!” I asked, a sense of fear rising in my breast.

“Peace. My name is Madena, I am here to help you. Do you have a name?” She asks as she gives me a handful of thankfully dry clothes. I was about to answer her question when a sudden realization struck me the moment I was unable to answer her.

I… I don’t… remember my name…

I don’t know my own name.

I don’t know who am I!

Who am I?!

“Are you alright?” I hear her ask, and I look up at her, seeing her expression one of worry. It seems that my internal horror was visible for all to see.

“I… I don’t know my own name…” I mutter.

She was silent for a moment, stunned. I heard a few murmurs from some of the people around me, but I paid them no mind. I was having a sudden internal crisis as I was unable to recollect my own identity. The woman, Madena, then decided to test the waters with a few more questions. “Do you know why you were floating in the middle of the sea?”

“No…” Why was I in the middle of the ocean?

“Do you know from where you are?”

A shake of my head.

“Your family?” She tries.

My reply to her is another slower shake of the head with a more haunted look in my eyes.

“Anything?” Almost as if pleading for my sake.

But my answer is silence…

Who… who am I? Who was I? Fuck me… what the hell happened to me? Why am I even here… where is here?

Who the hell was I? Where is my home? What was my past? Who was in it?! Who?!

However, before I fall deeper into my existential crisis a pair of hands grab me by my shoulders and shake me out of my descent into madness. “Hey, listen to me. You are fine now. Maybe your memories will return to you in time.” She said in a warm and comforting voice… yet nothing of what she told me I believed…

I had a sinking feeling that my memory would not return to me anytime soon. Perhaps never.

And from the looks of the woman, Madena, she thought so too.

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7th First Seed E4 198

Madena POV

Madena wanted to take a break from dealing with Jarl Skald and his pressuring demands. She sometimes wondered why she even came here to Dawnstar, as becoming the court mage of the Jarl had done little more than increase the amount of stress she felt in her daily life. The sense of a build-up for a coming conflict did her little to ease her nerves. She knew the signs for the prelude to a war, and she deeply hoped that it would not come to pass. The deaths of so many would make what little she could bear of Skald run thin, as she no doubt would be increasingly more demanding of her, perhaps to the point of drafting her for the potential war.

He would not succeed. She made an oath never to use her magic to kill again.

However, that had yet to happen, and she could take breaks from her role as Court Wizard. Thankfully Skald is not one for magic much and Dawnstar is not a hub of magical powers like Winterhold is, so her tasks are thankfully limited to the rare few times Skald wants something ridiculous, or her own interests in helping the people of Dawnstar.

Speaking of such, she reminded herself as she walked through a snow-covered path of rock and dirt, there was someone she wanted to personally see to.

It has been three days since the nameless man that she saved had been living in Dawnstar, and she wanted to see how he was handling life here.

A minor use of Clairvoyance and she simply needed to follow the path of light that only she could see, and before long she found the man, resting upon a wall beside one of the houses near Rustleif’s smithy home, looking up over the house and over to the frozen hills beyond. A pensive look in his deep green eyes.

“How are you?” She asked him and he turned back, meeting her gaze with his own.

He hummed and turned to look back to the mountain. “Could be better.”

She sighed sympathetically. “Your name has not returned to you?”

A shake of his head.

“Have you thought of taking one for yourself?”

He inhales before letting out a long sigh. “I will be honest… I hadn’t. Just… my mind its been on a lot of things lately.”

“Such as?” She could guess. Being without a name or memories of your past… she understood how dreadful a fate that could be for any person. She had an inkling of what being, or rather, type of beings, could have done this to him, stolen his memories.

“I… can’t quite say… I just know that whatever I need to do is out there, beyond Dawnstar… but I am not ready.”

That… was not what she was expecting the nameless man to say. “Could it lead you to your past? A hint of a memory of who you were?”

“….Maybe… But regardless, I know it, in the depths of my bones, that I must make the journey out of Dawnstar and into the wilderness of Skyrim.” He looks at the palm of his hand and with the spreading of his fingers, she sees a small blue light come into existence, one that led off into the distance. Clairvoyance, her own arcane perceptions told her. “But I am not ready…” He turned to her fully. “I need to learn more magic… I need to know how to fight… how to survive out there against anything that may come my way.”

“What are you hoping to find out there?”

He does not answer immediately, fist discarding the illusionary spell and returns looking beyond, back into the mountains. “…My fate…. my Destiny, whatever it may be.”

She hummed thoughtfully. Clairvoyance was a special kind of spell in many regards, one that drew from your own memory, even those that even you do not realize, to guide you towards a location or an object. This man’s memories may not be lost, not fully, because if they were, then the power of Clairvoyance would lead nowhere. There is a path he subconsciously knows he has to take, wherever that may be and wherever it may lead.

Madena found that most interesting, and on another level, deeply saddening.

A man with nothing, not even his own name, guided by nothing but the buried embers of his own mind’s past to a fate he does not know. She could see it in him, an untethered person, with no past to hold him back, no history to have him find peace, the only direction he can turn to is to keep moving forwards.

Into a future uncertain.

It tore at her such a sight.

“When do you intend on leaving?” She had to wonder. If he did not consider himself ready, would he still attempt to make his journey?

“I don’t know… when I think I am capable of surviving on my own.”

“Such a thing is extremely difficult. Travelling alone is a dangerous prospect. On top of the unforgiving elements, there is the dangerous wildlife like wolves, bears, trolls and more. And the most dangerous beast of them all, men and mer alike who have turned to banditry.”

He sighs, then shrugs as he turns to her smiling. “Well… I am fucked either way aren’t I?”

Fucked? She had not heard that word before.

Not from High Rock in the slightest, nor Cyrodiil.

Curious, she thought. She had pegged the man of Breton stock, but his accent did not match any she had personally heard. Perhaps he is of the Reachmen? Or from another, less commonly seen place. Tamriel was a big place after all, so he may come from somewhere more isolated.

Regardless, she understood the word from its context… or at least one of its uses.

“Perhaps you are.” Madena said, giving him a soft smile. Well, if there is no other way… “I could teach you some magic.” She was loathed to fight herself, but she would not be against teaching another some spells, especially for self-defence. Gods know, the Nords had a very clear distrust for magic. She was disheartened to know that only one in every twenty Nord even knew how to channel their magicka into the flimsiest of fiery embers. Barely enough to light a torch.

Back in High Rock, it was almost expected of everyone to at least know one spell, minor as they may be. Around one in every third person knew the basics of a Flame spell.

She saw the nameless man grin at her and procure from his pocket a small purse that he presented to her before shaking it slightly, emphasizing the clear sounds of coins clinking inside. “On the process of that actually, Miss Madena.” He said. “Though I still need to have enough to pay up the inn and get food into my stomach. May take me a while to scrunch up enough coin to purchase a book for conjuring up a Flame Atronach, or a Bound Weapon or what have you.”

Conjuring a Flame Atronach? Not a particularly difficult spell to cast, though she did not know how skilled he was at conjuration magic yet to dare attempt it. Summoning Daedra of any kind had many risks. A bound weapon however, that is much safer in many regards, as withdrawing Daedric Energies and shaping them into a tool is hardly a challenge.

“I am curious, where have you earned that?”

“Working for Frida. Said that I would do her any errands she wanted me to in exchange for enough coin to survive and a handful of alchemy lessons. Thankfully I already knew the very basics…” He frowns. “No idea from where though…”

Madena was a bit curious.

“Interesting. What spells do you know?”

He lifts his hand and within his palm, magicka fluctuates and takes shape.

“Flames.” His palm carries a small steady flame, before changing into a cold blue hiss. “Frostbite.” The cold mist turns to crackling lightning. “Sparks.” It then turns into a shimmering turquoise. “Telekinesis.” It becomes a small beacon of light. “Magelight.” The light turns soft and blue. “Clairvoyance.” It then grows warm and golden. “Healing.” Then the light turns a purple hue before shimmering and following his fingers as he waves it around and before long a floating ethereal fish comes into existence next to him drawing a number of stares from the passersby. “And this is Summon Familiar.”

Madena was… genuinely surprised with the shape of his familiar.

A strange one indeed. In Skyrim, most Nords she had seen were capable of calling forth a familiar in the form of a wolf. Sometimes she has seen a hawk and one instance had a man who could conjure a bear familiar. In Cyrodiil other animals are more common, though wolves and felines are by far the most prominent, and High Rock tends to have more avian invocations overall, but still were less in general than wolves.

But a floating fish? This was a first.

“You know quite a bit of spells.” Indeed, when considering the common folk, he was already a fine novice mage. However, he was still far from a distinguished mage. Quite far.

“Not enough in my opinion.” Then he dispels his fish familiar. “I also happen to know another spell. Bit more complicated than the rest, but I have some practice with it”

“What spell?”

He grabs a piece of stone and begins channelling magicka into it, before slowly, Madena sees, changes shape into a small stone cube. “Material Shaping.”

Madena blinked.

That spell was interesting. It reminded her of the few druidic magics she had heard about from back home. But usually, those who practiced such arts were witches or had some relations with the Reachmen.

“Are you perhaps a Reachman by any chance?”

He tilts his head. “Uh… no… at least I don’t think so…..”

Madena simply sighed to herself. Well, it was worth a try. However, his knowledge of such magics presented an opportunity for her, one she may not get again. “Would you mind teaching me that spell?”

And at that, much to her delight and scholarly curiosity, the man smiled and happily nodded. “On one condition.”

“And that is?”

“Teach me a spell I don’t know.” He said readily.

And to that offer, she herself smiled. “Tell you what? I’ll teach you two if you help me out with a few jobs.”

His smile grew into a full-blown grin.

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To Be Continued

#writing #writers on tumblr #fanfic #fan fiction #self insert #elder scrolls #tes #the elder scrolls #skyrim #elder scrolls skyrim #tes fanfic #fanfic writing #fanfiction #skyrim fanfiction #Youtube

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