#not 100 acre ranches

[larrysblooming]

for those of you that live in small, rural areas like me, especially in the south, i just want to say please have hope and know that your surroundings are not indicative of the opinions and viewpoints of the majority of people ❤️

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Neat and different 1957 mid-century modern split level in Louisville, Kentucky has 3bds, 2.5ba, $244,900. You gotta see the kitchen.

A checkered floor in the open entrance protects the living room's wood floor from outside dirt.

Because it's a split level, the layout is different from the usual ranch style MDM. It has a sunny living room with a fireplace wall.

Enter the dining room thru the living room. It's not huge, but it's cute.

The kitchen is big enough to fit either a table or an island, but this kitchen is 100% original.

They painted the original cabinets to match the floor. But, look at that vintage pink oven.

This is incredible. How does it still work?

For its time, this was the height of modernism- a push-button electric cooktop. That panel is real chrome, you can see how it's pitted.

I guess you have the option of using the top or bottom buttons, but this was absolutely space age and high end.

Even the exhaust hood is original.

The blue fridge is vintage. I bet that little freezer has to be defrosted.

The bedrooms are upstairs. This must be the primary bd. b/c it's pretty big.

This bathroom was updated.

Bedroom #2 is a very good size, too.

This large room is being used as a home office, but it's a nice big 3rd bedroom, too.

This bath is original except for the new tub.

How this lasted, I don't know, but it's the original toothbrush/cup holder and when you push it, it turns and hides in the wall.

In the basement is a very large rec room or, as it used to be called, the rumpus room. (Let the wild rumpus begin!)

Since it's so big, it's really a flexible multi-purpose space.

The powder room is down here and it's been remodeled, but they kept the knotty pine paneling.

There's a modern porch in front of the house.

And, in the back, a screened patio with a deck.

The wooded lot is .29 acre.

https://my.flexmls.com/noahjemley/search/email_links/20240228192328918949000000/listings/20240228162144873629000000?fbclid=IwAR0nGUc_gL_AekQdpjJlnSvHB1VmVJzSmqUmtyUJHBKp4XPZIfGcZFyzveQ

[the-californicationist]

The Orchard

A gift for my sweet, darling @vampirekilmer...

Price has had enough of your bratty behavior, so he chases you through the woods to teach you a lesson.

Link to AO3

MDNI/18+

TW: Primal play, breeding kink, dubious consent

You scrolled back through all of your text messages with a nasty sort of pride. You’d gone above and beyond with just how sexually explicit and arousing your poses were, splurging on outfits and toys, really putting on a show. John had been on a job for the past two months, deep undercover, and he could receive your messages but he was not able to reply. So, you started off slow; a nip-slip here, a bare butt in a mirror there…but, you’d become almost feral as his leave drew nearer, and your slutty selfies reflected that. You knew you were in trouble, and honestly, you couldn’t wait. 

You got his first message in the middle of your bath, and when you checked your phone, your blood ran cold. 

I am going to ruin you. 

Then, the picture loaded. Price was still in his uniform, driving, holding up a fist full of paracord. He wore a wide, bone-chilling smile, and you knew deep down that he was ready to use his tools against you. 

You scrambled out of your bath and threw on your clothes. You opted for leggings and a tee shirt, grabbing your running shoes and a thick pair of socks. If he was on his way, you needed to get a head start. 

This wasn’t the first time you’d made him hunt for you. He had bought the giant 100 acre ranch for a reason. Price loved space, and he loved chasing you through it even more. 

You sprinted through the house, out of the back door, and into the wide clearing, heading straight for the treeline. The grass crunched beneath your feet. You found some sort of pace other than frantic, and you chose some of the trails less-traveled, hoping to give him a challenge. He found you every time, but you were getting better and better at finding little hiding places. 

This time, though, you were heading for the orange grove. Months ago, you and John had discovered a naturally occurring orchard on the property that you hadn’t seen on the map. The smell from the fallen, rotting fruit was heady and citrusy in the best way, and the ripe globes were full of sticky juice. It was an Eden. 

Now, though, it was the end of spring, and the blossoms on the trees were heavy and wilting. Thousands of petals had fallen to the ground, but thousands more still remained in the branches, white and pink, looking like perpetual snow. The petals made your footfalls soft and inaudible. You found a large tree to hide behind and waited. 

You didn’t have to wait long. 

You heard his boots on the path. He was running, full out, coming for you without hesitation. When the grove came into view, he stopped. You could hear his panting breaths. Even though you couldn’t see him from your hidden spot, you could tell he was still in his fatigues. The swish of the canvas gave him away. 

He didn’t care. John wanted you to hear him. He called to you from the edge of the orchard,

“I know you’re in here, sweet girl. I hope you’re ready.”

There had been times when he didn’t let you hear him coming. Once, you’d hidden in a small cave in the north quadrant of the ranch, thinking you’d finally outsmarted him, and just as you ventured out to check your surroundings, he had snatched you from above the cave like some sort of cryptid, silent and threatening. He dragged you up the rocky hill and ripped your clothes off at the seams. Your screams echoed through the woods, falling on deaf ears. He’d fucked you til you passed out, and he made you walk back with him, naked, his come dripping down your legs shamelessly. He didn’t let you sleep that night. 

This time, though, he was toying with you on purpose. You heard him whistling skillfully. It was one of his favorite folk songs to whistle, sometimes while he was cleaning his guns, or just puttering around the kitchen in the mornings. But now, in the dusky woods, it felt deeply ominous and threatening. His tone was so pure and low, and he held each note out, sending it toward you like a lance, hoping to land his strikes. 

“Come out, come out…” he called again, “Don’t make me wait, darling.”

There was a long, eerily silent pause, and then, not twenty feet behind you, you heard him growl through gritted teeth,

“I’m not a patient man.”

You turned your head to see him standing there in the trees, menacingly smiling at you. His grin was full of genuine joy. The lips were pulled wide, showing sharp white teeth, stretching his full beard, grown out from his time away, and the creases of his lids folded together, pulling tight around his bright blue eyes. His body was enormous. He always seemed bigger when he came home from his tours, as if the muscles had been overused, overworked, swollen from their stimulus. 

You could see how his huge shoulders made the fabric of his shirt ripple and tug across that wide, furry chest hidden beneath the soft cloth. His waist was thick and strong, built like the trunk of some great tree, and his legs looked like they were taken from some Greek statue, referenced in all of the prototypes of strength and speed. 

His gloves were gone, as was his hat; he was dressed for speed. You noticed, in these milliseconds you took to witness him, that he was clutching his paracord in his left hand. 

At that sight, you bolted. Much like a rabbit running from its wolf, you sprinted through the grove, weaving through the thin trunks. You heard him right behind you, his boots ruining the soil, ripping up roots and gaining on you. 

Finally, you felt him lunge for you, and you were caught around your waist, slamming to the ground, chest down. You reached for the roots of one of the trees, putting up a fight with your legs. You knew he liked to feel your fury, and you gave it to him. But, you were already tired, and he was so strong. His stamina allowed him to breathe normally after only a few seconds of having you pinned. You heard the sharp whine of the paracord being let out, length by length, just for you. 

He reached for your hand, panting into your ear,

“C’mere, girl.”

John grabbed your wrist so hard it hurt, and he wrapped the paracord around it cruelly. When he grabbed your other wrist, you fought him, bucking him off of your back, trying to find your footing.

“You bloody little brat. Why are you pouring fucking kerosene on my fire, hmm? Don’t you know how much trouble you’re in?”

He put his hand over your mouth and pulled your head to his chest, forcing you to arch your back. He whispered to you now, dark and threatening,

“Sending me those fucking pictures, tempting me. Making me mad, had me wanting to fuck my hand until I was raw. I’m starving , and you’re the only thing I want to eat.”

With both hands bound behind your back, he let you collapse to the floor of the orchard, your chest and face thudding into the ground, knocking the breath out of you. He raked your shirt and bra up over your breasts roughly, letting your skin feel the cold grass and soil. 

“John, please,” you started to beg, “I promise I’ll be good. I didn’t -“

“Good? You’re gonna be so good for me. Fuck, you’re gonna feel so goddamn good,” he was almost talking more to himself than to you. He was reckless and frantic, pulling your pants down to your boots, letting them bind your ankles on their own. 

He’d left your panties in place, and he began to tug on them, gently at first and then not, letting the back of the thong dig into your flesh. Then, he pulled from the front, lifting your ass up towards him to do so, making the fabric tighten between your wet folds, framing your clit. John let go, but he didn’t bother to return the cloth to its normal position. He left it askew, knowing it would rub against you awkwardly. 

He grabbed the back of your head and pulled you over to him on the grass. The petals and dirt sticking to your skin. John was kneeling, and he let you fall back prone while he undid his belt. You listened to his metal buckles and zippers as he freed his fat, flaccid cock from his pants. 

Your furious lover grabbed your head again and held it up to his hairy base, his rod thicker than the tree roots around his feet. He smiled,

“Suck me hard, love. Won’t take much. Be a good girl, yeah?”

You nodded, but he wasn’t interested in your response. He was already lifting you up, one hand tangled in your sweaty hair and one beneath your chin, angling you to put his cock in your mouth. 

Without hands, you could only use your lips and tongue. You rubbed your cheek against him, trying to find the fleshy tip, trying to show him you could be so good. Eventually, you managed to line him up, and as you did, he pushed forward, filling your mouth with his wide girth. 

He left it there, letting you swallow around it. You couldn’t move your head; you had no leverage. So, once he knew you were good and settled, he moved it for you. He grabbed you by the hair at the base of your skull and pulled you on and off of his soft cock until it began to swell with his warm blood. When it was hard, you started to gag. It was filling up your throat, cutting off your air, puffing out your cheeks with its largeness. 

John began to fuck your throat in earnest. He pressed himself in and out of your mouth, growing harder and thicker with each thrust. He grunted as he fucked himself into you, vulgar and animalistic. Finally, he removed you from his shaft and looked at your fuck-drunk face. He laughed, pushing you back down again,

“You like that cock in your mouth, huh, sweet girl?”

You moaned around him, unable to speak. He continued to praise you,

“Such a perfect fucking throat. Swallow it down, love. Just like that, fuck…” 

He moved his hand from your chin to hold your neck in his warm palm, feeling his cock expanding your skin. With his thumb, he massaged long, soothing circles into your throat, almost like he was jacking himself off through your body. You felt tears run in hot rivulets down your cheeks, fighting your gag reflex to the point of pain, and your chin was coated with your drool. You were fully at his mercy. 

Just to reinforce your helplessness, he shoved your nose into the root of his cock, burying your face in his dense fur, and the soft hairs tickled your nose and lip. You started to panic, realizing you couldn’t inhale nor exhale. Your body turned and writhed, and you could hear the snapping of the leaves as you fought against his unbreakable grasp. He pet your cheek with the back of his hand, coaching you through it,

“Shh, sweet thing. You know better than that. Count to ten for me. I know you can do it. I won’t let anything happen to you. Relax - ungh! - yes, that’s it. Fuckin’ perfect, such a good girl…”

His praise made you melt, and he was right. You weren’t going to suffocate. You were just panicking and needy. You took a moment to calm down, and you began to count.

One… two… three…

His cock slipped further down your throat now that you had managed to relax your muscles, filling you up in a sinfully delicious way.

Four… five… six…

He began to let out a low-toned whine, reeling from the pleasure of feeling you swallow him over and over and over, clenching your throat in a predictable rhythm, slithering your tongue along his aching shaft.

Seven… eight… nine…

The captain was breathing through his teeth now, struggling to hang on. You decided to push his limits and nuzzled into the thick hair, trying to lick it, matting it down, wet and sticky. He moaned and shuddered when you did, much to your acute satisfaction.

“Goddamn, you got me close,” he moaned, but then he pulled himself from you, letting you breathe again, “But, I have other plans. Been thinking about tonight for a long, long time.”

John left you there on the wet ground, and you caught your breath amongst the fallen petals. When you coughed, you could smell and taste the rotten orange blossoms, sickly sweet in your nose and mouth, tinged with just the slightest hint of botanical decay. 

He was behind you now, spreading your legs as far as they’d go with your ankles still bound, and you felt the cool night air rush across your wet center. His fingers traced the outline of your pussy, touching all of its swollen parts except the middle where you needed him most. His big, strong fingers lingered there for too long, petting you softly like a child pets a bunny, the backs of his two fingers feeling your softness and playing around your edges. 

Then, he stopped, and you felt yourself clench around nothing, aching for release. 

“John?”

A loud slap rang out through the trees and you cried out from the pain, crawling away from him, your bare ass cheek burning like it was on fire. He hit you again, and left his hand there to dull the pain. Tears burned in your eyes as you wrenched them shut, feeling almost nauseous from the ache he had caused. 

“That’s for teasing me, you little brat, and this,” he slapped your other ass cheek just as hard, “is for making me chase you through the bloody woods.”

You sobbed out an apology, hoping it would be enough,

“Please, John, I won’t do it again…please…”

You bit your lip to keep from crying, feeling his fingertips graze over the stinging flesh, making it spark and glitter like electricity. 

“Naughty,” he rubbed his dripping cock over his handiwork, “You knew what you were doing. Beggin’ won’t help you now, hm?”

He positioned himself at your entrance and pressed his head to your hole, letting your body know he had arrived. Your pussy grabbed for him, clenching as he popped his flesh inside of yours, sinking into you with a long sigh of satisfaction. It had been so long since you had felt full, and with every agonizing inch of progress, he chased away the emptiness within you, making you whole again. 

It felt good. Too good…

Suddenly, you realized he was fucking you unprotected. You usually used condoms, and he was always so careful. You craned your head to look back at him. 

“John, do you have a condom?” You asked, your voice sounding meek and small, strained from your overwhelming pleasure. He knew you had a safeword, but you weren’t ready to use it. 

“No, love,” he chuckled darkly, “I’m gonna breed you, right here in these bloody fucking woods, tied up like the naughty little brat that you are. Gonna fill you full of my come… all… fuckin’... night. Right here,” he shoved himself up against your womb, reaching it easily and pressing on it until it ached like a bruise, “Right here, deep, fuck…”

His hands were gripping your ass cheeks fiercely, pulling them apart so he could watch himself disappear into you. You felt your body working up an orgasm for him - not for you - he was coaxing it from you like a snake charmer, forcing it to build and build until it grew within you, hot and ready to burst. 

You whimpered under his heavy form, feeling the cold grass licking at your sensitive nipples, tickling your belly and mons, feeling how your walls were gaping open to accommodate John’s huge girth.

“That’s it. Be a good girl and come for me. Want you nice and ready,” he grunted, feeling your contractions as your pleasure mounted to a head, tightening in your core and making your legs shake against his thighs, “Mm, fuck, that’s it! Fuck!” 

“John, don’t come in me,” you whined, your voice slurred from your uncontrollable bliss, “I’ve been off the pill. You’ll get me pregnant if you…ungh…oh, my God…if you - shit!”

Another one, an aftershock, rocked your core. You heard it, wet and sticky, dripping down around his shaft. It made lurid, slick noises that made your cheeks flush with shame. The idea that he would willingly breed you out here in your forest made you unbelievably horny. It was so primal, so brutally feral, and with as much restraint as John usually used with you, his ruthless pounding was making you high on his affection. 

“Yeah, sweet thing. I fuckin’ know,” he bent himself over you to suck on your neck, “I’m gonna bloody well make sure you are,” his voice became a little sinister as he whispered in your ear, “I took a pill before I chased you out here. Won’t be soft for a good while. I’ll just come and come and come until it’s fuckin’ pourin’ out of you. Want you to be drownin’ in it, yeah? Gonna… make… damn… sure.”

Each thrust was an ordeal with how sensitive you were. You could feel his heat pooling inside of you from the incredible friction. You couldn’t help but bear down on him, and he cried out, unable to hold himself back for much longer. 

“John, please…” You weren’t sure what you were even begging for anymore. 

“Say it, love. Use the safeword. Say it, before it’s too late. C’mon…”

You turned your head and met his eyes. The blue of them pierced you like a knife, and the turmoil they displayed made you even hornier for his spilled seed. You managed a tired smile and shut your mouth, turning away from him, knowing you’d won. 

“Oh, fuck me,” he lamented, unable to keep himself contained.

You felt his hot, heavy ropes coat your insides for the first time, and it was everything you thought it would be. The gooey, warm sensation made your whole body tremble, and your pussy fluttered around him as if trying to stroke it all out of his shaft, hungry for more and more of his sweet, spun sugar. 

He buried himself to the hilt and took a few deep breaths. Then, John turned your body over and kept rutting into you, hoisting your ankles over one of his shoulders and grabbing your thighs for support. He was completely fuck-drunk, his pupils blown wide like he was high, and he laughed softly as he looked down at you,

“Look at you, dirty girl. The flowers… so fuckin’ pretty.”

Your hands were tied behind you, digging into your back, forcing you to arch up into him, and the position pushed your breasts up into the air, your nipples filthy with mud and soil, covered in white and pink petals from the orchard’s fallen blooms. He freed one of his hands to smear the vegetation all over your skin, pawing at your breasts and gathering up more petals from the ground to paint your body.

He rested his hand over your lower belly, right where he could feel himself spearing into you, his palm right over your womb. John pressed down with a closed fist right at the end of your hole, where your flesh stopped him, and he pushed his knuckles down, tightening your walls from above. It was a singular sensation, and your body decided it was a good one, sending all sorts of confusing, panicked signals to your brain. You screamed from it, and he chuckled, 

“Mm, yes… squirm for me, sweet thing. I love it when you try to get away. Can’t, can you?” 

“Fuck! John! Please! God!” You were trying anything and everything to keep from coming again. You wanted to fight, and you weren’t ready for him to have the satisfaction. 

But, you were helpless to him. He pounded into you hard and slow, vibrating your whole body every time he hit your wet, sticky end, and you fell into another wave of orgasms. They were difficult to pick apart. You weren’t sure where one ended and the next began. John did not seem concerned about over stimulating you, pinching and holding your clit between his finger and his thumb once he removed his fist from your womb. 

“Good girl… Gonna look so beautiful when you’re all swollen, hmm?” He pet your womb again, unable to stay away from pressing on it rhythmically, “Those breasts full and heavy. Needin’ me. Needin’ me like I fuckin’ need you.”

He thrust harder, pushing your legs down over your arched belly, slamming his length into your stickiness, chasing another orgasm. He found it in you, and you could feel his cockhead nuzzling your womb as it throbbed as if begging for entrance, painting your walls again. 

Then, swiftly, he pulled out of you, lifting your ass into the air, making you take your weight on your shoulders. He put his face between your legs and started to shove his tongue into your pussy, lapping at his own come as it mixed with yours. It was feral and grotesque, and you loved every soft lap of his tongue. He was shoving it inside of you, spitting himself into your swollen slit, using his clean hand to push his come deeper inside, curling his knuckles to rub you to another painful orgasm, watching you come undone. Then, he went back to licking you, gathering any lost spend from your folds and fucking it back inside you with his pink mouth. 

Satisfied with his efforts, he kept you vertical and began to eat your asshole, licking and licking and licking like a hound. He managed to squeeze his tongue inside it, writhing around, sticky and warm. His fingers joined in, pistoning in and out of you together in tandem, convincing your body to clench around him, desperate for more relief. 

He held you tight, digging around in his pocket for a moment before showing you his gift. It was a t-bar plug. You thought he’d slip it into your ass, but he managed to wedge it into your pussy, keeping his come inside of you, safe and sound. 

“Tha’s it. Sweet girl. Doin’ so good, hm? C’mon. Let’s get you inside. Got a long night ahead of us.”

He picked you up around your legs and hoisted you over his back like a sack of flour, marching you out of the orchard and towards home.

[longwindedbore]

Some of my fellow Progressives are generating slogans about the LA Fires that have the same kind of accuracy as we get from MAGAhats.

I spent six decades in So Cal. Here’s what I learned

FIRST, YES, there are big farms in California and some individual Owners “use more water than all of LA combined.”

That’s not hard because farming and ranching use two-thirds of all the available water in the State to…grow food. California grows 100% of certain foods eaten all over the US.

ALL the residences of ALL the cities and towns in California - all 39 million Californians - use a whopping 6% of the State’s water - half for watering lawns and the other half for cooking, washing, drinking.

The remaining portion is used by manufacturing and retail to provide jobs so food can be purchased and lawns watered.

[These statistics are publicly available because California is irrigated and supplied largely by measurable water flow in rivers and aqueducts rather than rainfall]

SECOND, the geography of Southern California is a series of valleys. On mountain ranges surrounding the large valleys the native vegetation called chaparral spends most of the year as dry tinder.

The mountain ranges all have series of twisty canyons. When the dreaded Santa Ana winds start to blow the narrow twisty canyons help accelerate the winds.

Once a fire starts (downed power line, spark from some cigarette or open fire, arsonist) then the accelerated winds act to increase the heat like a bellows in a blacksmith’s shop.

The Santa Ana’s are a prevailing wind blowing west but twisty canyons act to shift directions unpredictably.

Unpredictable winds then supercharge the dry tinder on the hillsides. Most of the acreage destroyed inland tends to be empty of people. These acres are crisscrossed with firebreaks. Firestorms generated by high winds can blow embers too far for any break

Communities like Pacific Palisades, Altadena, Bell Canyon were built within or on the edge of twisty canyons. These areas are beautiful and fragrant even when they are brown. Palisades and frequent fire target Malibu are at the mouths of these canyons just before the Ocean.

THIRD, LA County has a sophisticated emergency system gratis bonds authorized by voters and repaid with taxes (I participated in constructing portions of it). This System allows resources to be shifted quickly from communities within the County without hiccups in communication between different fire and police departments.

So there’s no shortage of resources.

To fight firestorms, however, its essential to create wide firebreaks AHEAD of where they…guess…the fire is headed. Between the fire and the break it’s not feasible to try to save individual buildings. The death toll to firefighters would be catastrophic. Even with 100 times as many engine companies, there isn’t enough water in the pipes for all the buildings.

The rebuild will be an epic nightmare.

PSA: Conversely if you visit So Cal in one of those now infrequent wet winters DO NOT GO FOR A HIKE IN THE BEAUTIFUL MOUNTAINS to enjoy the light rainfall!!! Those narrow canyons funnel water into flash floods which will smash you against rocks before drowning you.

PSA: trying to save your home by wetting it down with a lawn hose during a firestorm is the equivalent of spitting into a blast furnace to extinguish it. Survivors who stayed to lawn hose are those lucky ones for whom the unpredictable winds shifted the fire away from them.

[koremorningstar]

In Northwestern Montana, Lost Creek Ranch is surrounded by the majestic Rocky Mountains and sprawling evergreen forests. Early in the morning, you can sit on the porch with a steaming cup of your favorite hot beverage and listen to the birds, the horses, or even the elk bugling in the distance under the cover of the pines. Approximately 100 acres make up the ranch; and it offers grazing pastures, dry lots, indoor and outdoor riding arenas, the main barns, the quarantine barn, and boarding facilities for the Morningstar family, guests and boarders.

[beardedmrbean]

"You know that the numbers should be equivocal to what an acre was back then. We were given 40, OK? We were given 40 acres. You know what that number is. You keep trying to talk about now, yet you research back to slavery and you say nothing about slavery, nothing," said Pierce. "So, the equivocal number from the 1860s for 40 acres to today is $200 million for each and every African-American."

Link

_____________________________________________

Not even close my guy, not unless you're buying land in Manhattan.

Skywalker Ranch is valued at around $100 million dollars and is close to 500 acres, and this is not cheap real estate either.

All you're going to get at this point is laughed at now.

[sweatervest-obsessed]

Kiss in the Kitchen, Like it's a Dance Floor

Pairing: Steve Harrington x gn!reader

WC: 1.7k (exactly, which is wild)

TW: Teasing, kissing, pg-13 make out, sexual innuendos, mentions of sex and orgasms, this is literally just the foreplay before kitchen sex without the actual must part, mentions of previous trauma, mention of blood, kitchen weaponry,

A/N: I just wanted to write some fluff, also Eddie survived because he is a plot device, no matter how small, and I need him to be alive for this. I really tried to keep it as ambiguous descriptions of the reader as possible, if something needs to be edited, lemme know and I'll 100% change it since I really want this to be actually gender neutral!

You loved to cook. It was one of your favorite things on the planet. You were one of those people that just tossed things into a bowl, and managed to make a perfect four course meal, including dessert. Which is why you adored your kitchen so much. Steve had let you take the head on designing the kitchen, since you were going to be in there more than him. Steve could cook, in fact, when Steve cooked, it was quite the welcome surprise for you. He had to learn since no one was home to make him dinner, or even teach him. To Steve, cooking was not enjoyable, it was survival only. But for you? It was an art form, it was a way of showing your love.

You and Steve had gotten lucky–as lucky as two people who survived the apocalypse, lost the tail end of their childhoods, fought monsters beyond their wildest nightmares, and have the scars and trauma to prove it all, can be. After the earth split, swallowing most of Hawkins whole, a lot of people fled the area, desperately trying to sell their homes. Once Vecna had been defeated, You and Steve took complete advantage of it, and bought a small ranch-like house about fifteen minutes outside of Hawkins. It was only one story, but it came with over three acres of land. You were able to get it even cheaper, saying that you would be doing all of  the renovations yourself, saving the previous owners a lot of money in the process. 

Truly, it was the definition of a fixer upper, barely inhabitable. 

There was a lot of work that needed to be done, so when Steve was away at work, you would fix the hinges on doors, figure out the electrical wiring for the plugs in the kitchen, reupholster furniture. And while you were away at classes, or at work, Steve would build your bed, or paint the walls, or have Eddie or Jonathan help him install new windows. But you both loved unpacking your things together, because it meant that the space was becoming your own. Slowly but surely, the house was coming together.

The kitchen was the second thing you two had finished, the bedroom being the first (obviously). The final touch were the cabinets. They were the absolutely perfect color, with a glass front to see the minimal dishes you and Steve actually owned, but they brought the room together perfectly. There were pictures of you both attached to the front of the fridge with magnets. There were a couple of small pots on the windowsill over the kitchen sink, holding a couple of herbs like basil and cilantro and mint. It was just perfect.

It was early in the morning, way earlier than you usually woke up, but you wanted to get a head start on breakfast, letting Steve wake up to some food before you both started painting the living room area today. 

After the night you had last night, you felt like Steve deserved to be spoiled. Especially since he completely spoiled you last night. Repeatedly. Repeatedly.

As you slowly  slipped out of bed, Steve groaned. His arms reached out to your side of the bed, confused as to why you weren’t there, but you quickly nudged your pillow into his arms. It seemed to do the trick as you slowly crept out of the room, your door closing with a soft click. As you walked towards the kitchen, you opened every single curtain, and every single window in the living room/dining room area, letting the cool, late summer, morning breeze sweep through the house, as you slowly padded into the kitchen. 

The first thing you and Steve had purchased was a cassette player. It sat proudly on the kitchen bar, music playing all the time, whenever you were home. So naturally, at 6 am, you had it playing softly, while you quietly shuffled around, looking for the one skillet you did have. 

Two weeks ago, you and Steve had a date night at the movies. Just like everyone else, you had gone to see Dirty Dancing, and you had found yourself obsessed with the soundtrack. After an intense bribing session involving a cake, a bottle of vodka, and three advanced promises of skipping a night class to go and watch Corroded Coffin at their shows, Eddie was willing/managed to set aside one of the copies for you. You had kissed him on the cheek making him turn bright red and Steve turn bright green. It was a miracle the tape wasn’t worn through since you haven’t stopped listening to it. 

Love is Strange by Mickey and Slvia was softly playing in the background, and instead of singing it, aware of your sleeping boyfriend, you were only humming it. 

You let out a little “aha!” when you found the skillet, crouching down and grabbing it from the cabinet. You both were still figuring out which things were going where, so it was a bit of a guessing game when it came to finding things in the kitchen. When you stood up, you twirled it in your hand, singing a little bit, adding in a dance. You gave it a little swing, hitting a home run across the room. As you twirled around, pan in air, your eyes went from playful to absolute terror. Steve was behind you. Luckily his reflexes were still working, despite the sleep coming off of him, because he ducked quickly while you let out a gasp. 

The last thing Steve Harrington needed was another concussion. 

“Oh my god Steve I’m so—“

“Didn’t know I was dating Babe Ruth.” He mumbled, joking, standing completely up again, yawning in the middle of his stance. His arms went over head as the sweats he was wearing sank a little bit lower on his hips. You should’ve eyed him up and down right then and there. You should’ve made a cheeky comment about the hickies you had left on his hips last night. But instead, you panicked.

“Are you okay?” You dropped the skillet on the counter, immediately placing your hands on his cheeks, tilting his head around, attempting to locate any sort of imperfection you just added to your boyfriend's skin. It was getting more and more difficult to breathe. All you could think about was how many people had hurt him, and now suddenly your name was lumped in with theirs. 

“Babe.” 

Your eyes were frantic, repeatedly scanning his face, his head, his hair. 

“Baby—hey.” He took your hands from his face and brought them to his lips. “I would be knocked out on the floor if you managed to get me. I forgot how good of a swing you have….” His usual humor to calm you down going right over your head.  He knew you heard him, but something wasn’t getting through. 

Your eyes squeezed shut, trying not to let past memories fill your mind. Steve knocked out on the floor, bruised. His face bloodied. Blood from his stomach across Lover’s Lake. Neck red and irritated. Bandages turned a deep red. Vines tightening around his skin. 

“Hey.” Steve kissed your hands again. “Where’d you go?” 

Your eyes opened and scanned over his face, quickly dashing from his eyes towards his neck, and then at his stomach, but back to his eyes. 

“Ah.” He whispered, placing your hands around his neck as he pulled you into a hug. He always managed to ground you, it felt like a sick joke sometimes. Steve being your person was one of the best things to happen to you, but watching him get beaten up over and over again was difficult. It took a toll on you too. Everytime, he would chance fate a little more than before, and some day the luck was going to run out, and you didn’t want to even entertain the idea of a next time.

Steve ran his hand along your back, smiling slightly at your choice of music, completely unsurprised. He had woken up as soon as the door clicked shut, not really understanding why you had been replaced by a pillow. Watching as you danced around the kitchen was a vision for him, and him only. So when you almost gave him another concussion, he felt kind of bad for sneaking up on you. 

“Why are you awake?” You asked after a minute or two of silence, enjoying the comfort of one another, basking in the morning glow of the sun shining through the windows. 

“You abandoned me.” 

“I know, I’m sorry.” You mumbled into his chest. Feeling slightly better, you teased him a bit. “Could you ever forgive me?” 

Steve pondered for a moment, twisting his face into faux consideration before smiling. “I think a good morning kiss would be an acceptable apology.” 

“Okay Lover Boy,” You laughed softly, pressing your lips to his, enjoying the feeling. It was a tender kiss, filled with love. Steve deepened the kiss slightly, but you had other things in mind, like making breakfast for the both of you. 

You bit his lip and tugged on it slightly before breaking off the kiss, not afraid to tease back. “I wanted to make you breakfast.” Providing the final piece of your explanation, moving to turn and grab the potential murder weapon off of the counter again.

But Steve wasn’t ready to let you move out of his arms quite yet. He groaned and pulled your back against his bare chest. Because Steve slept in a pair of sweatpants, and that was about it, he always made your morning views quite stunning–his freckles and moles were constellations across his skin, his summer tan bringing out more of them. 

He swayed back and forth with you, kissing your neck. “What did I do to deserve you?” He whispered into your neck. “Only wearing my shirt and shit, making me breakfast.” 

His hands slid downwards, thumbing with the edge of his crewneck, fingers brushing your bare skin. 

“Steve….” You hummed. 

“What baby.” He moved slowly, kissing your shoulders next, stretching out the neck of the crewneck you were wearing. 

Your breath hitched as he slid one of his hands downward, toying with the edge of your underwear. His other hand slid up, warm fingers gliding over your chest, your brain getting more and more fuzzy by the second. 

“I-I was—fuck Steve.” You mumbled, rolling your hips into his, craving more contact than he was giving. “I wanted to-to-to.” You let out a soft moan while Steve continues to tease you, love on you. “To cook and s-surprise y–” 

“Oh sweetheart.” He kissed the tender spot on your neck, causing you to moan again, this time louder, breathier—needier. “You can cook for me later, I already know what I’m having for breakfast.” 

[elisadaughtry]

Thought I should an ‘about me’ post, TW long post hahaha.

I am unfortunately only nineteen years old

I have an odd, weird shade of ginger hair, natural not dyed. Disgustingly blue eyes. My hair is curly/wavy but NOT the artsy café downtown girl way, the I can never brush my hair without crying way.

My favourite type of heels are Betsy Johnson though I don’t own a pair.

Too broke to have a claimed clothing style.

I have long crooked fingers, not interesting but I’d thought to add it anyways.

Extremely pale… ghastly even… I wear spf 100, yes, it exists. It’s in my wildest dreams to wear colourful and spontaneous clothes, but my paleness says no to said dreams.

Horrible grammar and do not care, never have never will. Let me place commas wherever I want.

I love writing poems. it’s my favourite stress reliever. If I could I would stay by the lake all day just writing.

No debate. Winter > Summer. I shrivel and dye in the heat.

Like most, I prefer old fashioned style and decor.

My favourite books are Dracula, the Mortal Instruments series, Mrs Dalloway, Despair and Interview with a Vampire, Normal People, Out of the Easy, All That Remains, Ethan Frome, The Breathing series and Death’s Acres. Don’t debate with me on these books. Don’t care xoxo.

Favorite films (I’m a cinephile): The Phantom of the Opera (2004), War Horse, Beautiful Creatures, Warm Bodies, Mao’s Last Dancer, Silver Skates, Contempt, Sabrina (1995), Henry and June, Camille Claudel, Star Wars franchise, Death Becomes Her, The Dreamers, and for some unprecedented reason, my absolute favourites of all time are Big Fish and The Nutcracker: The Untold Story.

Favourite shows: Criminal Minds (obvi), The Walking Dead, Buffy, Sons of Anarchy, New girl and Derry Girls. OH AND SUPERNATURAL

Favourite candy: anything sour and dark chocolate even though I don’t count chocolate as candy.

Favourite color: changes on the daily.

Favorite Foods: Gnocchi, chicken tenders, and pork fried rice. I eat a fair share of junk (fast food) but that will stay between us girlies, won’t it?

Hobbies: contemplating where it all went wrong and spending too much time in the shower.

Can I sleep? No I have insomnia and when I do sleep I get nightmares.

Trauma? Plenty

Sexuality? Don’t know, nobody stays long enough for me to find out.

Humor? Unparalleled, Unmatched, Unwavering. I’m the funniest person half alive. yes, half alive don’t ask. Half of this post is sarcasm.

Fun Facts: I like using big words in the wrong context. It’s funny. I have an unwavering love for all things nutcrackers and penguins. :p

Murder? Only roaches

Fears? People who like Hidden Valley ranch, heights, large crowds and loud noises.

I love any and all animals but mainly dogs and cats like anyone else.

That’s all I think.

I’m so niche and cool it’s not niche and cool anymore.

[vintagelasvegas]

Hidden Well Ranch, Las Vegas, 1947

Photos (1-3) by Jon Brenneis, and postcards (4-5) by Burton Frasher Sr.

Hundreds of artesian wells were dug in the Las Vegas valley in the early years, becoming the foundation of ranches and farmland. Henry C. Nickerson, architect from Pasadena CA, purchased 100 acres of what had been called the Houseman ranch, relocated his family, and built Hidden Well Ranch. Part of Las Vegas’ nascent tourism industry would be rural guest ranches, or divorce ranches, for weeks-long stays. “This dude ranch,” said the local paper in a story about Hidden Well, “will be the first one to be opened in this section of the country and is expected to be the forerunner of other similar projects.”

Hidden Well ranch was located at the bottom of what is now the Pilot Rd loop south of the airport. Access to the ranch from Las Vegas was via Paradise Rd. It was a meeting place for the local Frontier Riders, and a secluded getaway for travelers. Liz Taylor stayed at Hidden Wells in ’59 prior to her marriage to Eddie Fisher who was performing at the Tropicana. Judy Garland stayed at the ranch during her divorce from Sidney Luft, all the while performing at the Sahara.

Alamo airport, basis of the future McCarran Airfield and Harry Reid International Airport, was founded nearby in the 40s. Alamo founder George Crockett married Nickerson’s daughter Peg who is seen on horseback in the first photo. The Nickerson’s sold the ranch in the early 50s. It changed hands over the years and appears to have closed in the early 60s. Clark County claimed former ranch property by eminent domain in ’90 and the construction of Pilot Rd and airport facilities soon began.

“First Dude Ranch in Las Vegas Area is Being Started.” Review-Journal, 5/19/39; Heidi Knapp Rinella. “From Sunset to Prosperity.” Review-Journal, 4/4/2000; F. Andrew Taylor. “Hidden Well Road a legacy of early 20th-century ranch.” Review-Journal, 1/14/2014

[warningsine]

Kenyan preacher Paul Nthenge Mackenzie has appeared in court following the discovery of scores of bodies in a remote forest. He is accused of encouraging followers to starve themselves to death - hundreds of relatives are now wondering what happened to their loved ones.

When the leader of the Good News International Church, Pastor Mackenzie, said the world would end in June 2023, Stephen Mwiti's wife believed him.

Now, he is certain that she starved to death along with their six children.

The 45-year-old, who makes his living selling mandazi, or fried bread, holds up a crumpled photograph of his wife and four of his children asking if anyone has seen them.

He has been doing this over and over again in the town of Malindi, south-east Kenya, since she disappeared from there last August.

Mr Mwiti has also been to look for them in the Shakahola forest, where members of Pastor Mackenzie's church had isolated themselves.

His wife, Bahati Joan, was pregnant when she left last year with their children: Hellen Karimi, nine years old, Samuel Kirimil, seven, Jacob Kimathi, three, Lillian Gatumbi, 18 months, and Angelina Gatumbi, seven months.

Mr Mwiti later found out that his wife had given birth to a son, who also died.

She had been an ardent follower of Pastor Mackenzie since 2015 and had first gone to Shakahola in 2021, and then kept coming and going.

After alerting the police numerous times and failed personal attempts to rescue them, he learned recently from other children who had escaped and were being held by Kenyan police, that his own children had died.

"They could identify them from the pictures. They knew their names and where Jacob and Lillian had been buried," he recounts, fighting back tears.

"I was told not to try to look for my children again. They were all dead. I was too late."

He believes they were buried in the forest but their bodies have not yet been identified.

Shakahola is a Swahili word that loosely translates as "a place where worries are lifted".

It is nestled in the expansive 50,000-acre (20,000-hectare) Chakama Ranch in the coastal county of Kilifi.

Pastor Mackenzie is reported to have owned 800 acres of the forest area.

The entrance to the forest, down a rough track off the main road, is a two-hour drive from Malindi, the nearest main town.

Thorn bushes and thickets dot the landscape and make the journey into Shakahola difficult. The heat swelters almost all year round and elephants occasionally roam the area.

The deeper inside, the more cut off it becomes. There is no mobile network, no internet connection.

But it was here that a new Holy Land was established.

The area had been partitioned into villages, each given biblical place names.

Some of Pastor Mackenzie's followers lived a life of deprivation in Judea. Others holed themselves up in Bethlehem. There was also Nazareth.

"I learned that my wife and children lived and died in Jerusalem," Mr Mwiti says. But he has not been there since officials began to exhume bodies from marked gravesites.

In the forest, detectives had initially mapped out 65 sites where people were buried. Each had several shallow graves with bodies huddled close to each other.

'Children were first to die'

Those who exhumed the corpses say the sight of people buried without dignity haunts them. So far 110 people have been confirmed dead, but there are fears the death toll could rise as more of the forest is searched.

Post-mortems still have to be carried out but police and state prosecutors say as well as dying from starvation, some members may have been strangled, suffocated or beaten to death with blunt objects.

Former members of the Good News International Church have said they were forced to starve as part of their adherence to its teachings.

Titus Katana, who managed to escape, says those who tried to leave the cult were branded as traitors and faced violent attacks.

He also suggested there was an order in which people were supposed to die ahead of the end of the world.

"The children were the first to die. Then after the children, they went for the unmarried. Then after, the mothers and the elderly were next in line."

The church leaders were supposed to be the last to die.

Explaining what drew him to the church, Mr Katana said he thought that Pastor Mackenzie was "charismatic and preached God's word well".

An additional attraction was that "Mackenzie was also selling land to his followers. That appealed to me. I bought 15 acres. But when I saw his preaching was odd, I chose to leave."

Mr Mwiti says he had heard accounts of how his infant son was breast-fed only once. Then he was suffocated to death.

"I heard that when my son was killed, instead of the cult members grieving, they clapped and rejoiced that he had ascended and met Jesus," he says.

A BBC analysis of Pastor Mackenzie's sermons on video do not show him directly ordering people to fast, but there are many references to followers sacrificing what they hold dear, including their lives.

At the end of last week, the Kenya Red Cross reported that 410 people, including 227 children, who were thought to have some connection to Pastor Mackenzie's church, were missing.

Their relatives are now milling around Malindi's hospital and police station, waiting for news of their loved ones.

Couldn't persuade mum to leave

Among them is Patrick Ngumbau.

His mother went missing two years ago and he went looking for her in Shakahola, but despite finding her he could not persuade her to leave.

"I asked her if she would accept to come home. She told me she was there for one mission, to find Jesus," Mr Ngumbau says as he lines up among hundreds waiting for information about their kin.

"I left Shakahola in 2021 very sad because I felt we had already lost our mum."

He had come from Makueni county - 270km (170 miles) away - to find out more. Relatives of the missing have gathered in Malindi from across the country and even further afield - neighbouring Tanzania and Uganda, as well as Nigeria on the other side of the continent.

Christine Nyanchama came to Malindi from Nyamira, almost 800km away, to look for her sister, her brother-in-law and six other relatives. Her sister's children - a nephew and niece have already been found dead, but Ms Nyanchama thinks others could still be alive.

"Wherever my sister is, she needs to be helped as fast as possible, before she dies. I understand that she has already fasted for 22 days," she says referring to the last text message she has received.

Pastor Mackenzie's teachings online and on TV appeared to touch a chord with some. Among other things, he preached against formal education and modern medicine.

He had said that he had closed down the Good News International Church four years ago after nearly two decades of operation, but his sermons, some still available online, appear to have been recorded after that date.

Some of his ardent followers tore up their education certificates, quit their jobs and refused to vaccinate their children.

Dr Susan Gitau, a counselling psychologist believes that most people who followed Pastor Mackenzie - including university graduates and an elite police officer - were seeking solace, hope, strength and support.

Pastor Mackenzie was arrested in March when two children were found dead in Shakahola. He and their parents were accused of starving and suffocating them before burying them in the forest.

However, he was released for lack of evidence.

He is now back in custody but has not commented on the charges of murder, radicalisation and threatening public safety that he faces.

President William Ruto has promised to set up a commission of inquiry into what happened but the authorities themselves face tough questions. Not least about what took them so long to figure out something was going on.

"There is no excuse for the authorities not to have noticed this," says Hussein Khalid, the executive director of Haki Africa, the group which raised the alarm about the deaths.

"We are determined and we want to make sure each and every victim gets justice."

Mr Mwiti blames the government, the police and the local authorities in Malindi for failing to act.

"I am already 45 years old. The minute I heard that they had died, I felt that I had died too."

He has now given the authorities a sample of his DNA in the hope that his children can be identified. Only then will he be able to mourn.

[movingtothefarm]

Taylor Sheridan Now Owns the Legendary Texas Ranch That Inspired 'Yellowstone' Spin-Off, '6666'

A historic west Texas ranch is providing more than inspiration for Taylor Sheridan's highly anticipated Yellowstone spin-off series 6666—it's rumored that it's being filmed there too.

Listing 142,372.00 ACRES 

“Samuel Burk Burnett was born in Bates County, Missouri in 1849. At the age of 19, Burk purchased 100 head of cattle which had been branded with the 6666’s brand. Soon thereafter, he started leasing and ultimately purchasing ranches and expanding his ranching operation. Around 1900, he purchased the 8 Ranch near Guthrie, Texas in King County. He soon purchased the Dixon Creek Ranch in the Texas Panhandle and also began to expand the 8 Ranch into what now is known as the 6666’s Ranch. In 1917 he decided to build “The finest ranch house in West Texas” at Guthrie. This stately home still stands as the main house at the 6666’s Ranch. It is told that the house cost $100,000, which was considered to be an enormous amount of money at that time. The house was constructed of stone quarried rock and other materials which were hauled by wagon to Guthrie. Early day visitors to the home included President Roosevelt, Will Rogers and the Indian Chief Quanah Parker. In 1921, oil was discovered on the Dixon Creek Ranch and in 1969, a major oil field was discovered on the 6666’s Ranch.”

[schrodingersgerbil]

The only thing that would change was the fact that I would buy a ranch out in the middle of nowhere and start raising moonspotted goats as a hobby, I’m not made for apartment life. Like, 50-100 acres with some woods, a pasture, and access to water is the dream

Oh, I’d also dress a lot weirder and keep my hair consistently dyed instead of letting it grow out for months at a time.

[jkdanu]

California's Own 'Yellowstone'? 2,000-Acre Napa Valley Ranch Is Listed for $100 Million After 87 Years of Family Ownership

http://dlvr.it/TH7jLm

[latestnews69]

'I drove as fast as I could': What happened to Malibu's horses when the fire hit

Wildfires are becoming more common in Southern California – where horse riding is a popular pastime. So what happens to horses when disaster hits?

The call came in the middle of the night. "There's a fire in Malibu, go check on your horse," Jocelyn Writer, a model living in Los Angeles, was told. "That was it," she says. "I wasn't sure where the fire was, or how big it was. And most of all I wasn't expecting to be driving through it."

But during Southern California's recent Franklin Fire, that's exactly what Writer had to do at 2am to rescue her horse Cashew, a caramel-coloured stallion who was boarding at Zad Ranch stables, a picturesque retreat for equines with ocean views. The blaze, which more than 1,300 firefighters have been battling since it started on 9 December, forced thousands to evacuate from the wealthy enclave. It burned more than 4,000 acres (16.2 sq km), but is now 100% contained as of 18 December. There were dramatic scenes over the mountains which border the Pacific Ocean as helicopters were deployed to drop water on the flames, which damaged 27 structures and destroyed 19 – although there were no human fatalities.

"I was worried Cashew would burn or be stuck in Read more...

[alcoraplant]

Fridays on the Farm: Grounded on the Ranch

This Friday meet Jim McClain, Marine Corps veteran and owner of Flying Leatherneck Ranch in North, South Carolina, where he grows hay and raises 100 head of beef cattle on 600 acres of beautiful, rolling hills. Jim decided to get back to his farming roots after years of serving in the Marine Corps as a flyer, infantry officer, and public affairs officer, as well as working as a senior vice…

[anonymusbosch]

so, @headspace-hotel and I agree on a lot of outcomes we'd like to see with respect to ecology, responsible agriculture, reforestation, etc, but this post rests on so many factual errors that it's completely backwards. The number one thing is that monoculture is so dominant because of animal agriculture and not vice versa.

In the United States, yes, we have monocrops! As of 2023, there are 94.9 million acres of corn and 83.6 million acres of soybeans in the US; the numbers change slightly year-to-year. And there's a ton of corn in the American diet, yes. But almost all corn production goes to animal feed and to ethanol production:

(graph source)

All of the corn for humans shares the gray bars in the chart with industrial alcohols.

And why has corn production been rising? According to the USDA (same source as graph above),

"Strong domestic demand for livestock feed and fuel ethanol coupled with growing exports has led to higher prices, providing incentives for farmers to increase corn acreage. In many cases, farmers have increased corn planted area by shifting acres away from less-profitable crops."

It's not that we have all this corn laying around and need to feed it to cattle or pigs or chickens to make something useful with it - it's that you can make more money farming feed corn for animal use than by growing another crop for human use, because animal feed is valuable, because people buy meat and eggs and dairy.

And soy? Worldwide, about 77% of soy grown goes to animal feed, mainly for chickens, pigs, and cattle. Only 19% goes to human food (of which 69% is as soybean oil and the rest generally as tofu or soymilk). In the US, 90% of soy grown is grown for animal feed. (Sidenote: Because of trophic effects, it would take about 30x less soy to feed humans directly than it takes to feed cattle to get the equivalent amount of calories.)

Again, it's not that we've got all these soybeans lying around and we feed them to animals because we don't know what else to do with them - soybean production increases to meet the demand for protein-rich animal feed. It's not 100% because of the use of soybeans as feed, since the oil and cake of processed soybeans are sold separately, and getting value out of the oil makes it more attractive to farm soybeans, but -

"In line with the uses of soy globally (Figure 3), the greatest driver underlying the production increase in South America is most likely the pig and poultry industry’s demand for soy cake, although it is given additional impetus by concurrent increases in the demand for soy oil by the food manufacturing and biofuel industries."

And -

"In a direct sense, soy expansion in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay is responsible for only a part of the total loss of native vegetation6 ,43 ,44 ,45 . A common pattern, however, is that land is first cleared for cattle ranching and shortly afterwards sold or rented out at a higher price for more lucrative soy production6 ,43 ,44 ,45 ,46 . Soy expansion, accordingly, may indirectly bring about land use change by ‘pushing’ cattle ranching into frontier areas6 ,47 ,48 ,49 . The arrival of a high-value crop such as soy can also drive up local land prices and thereby incentivise the clearing of surrounding land."

(section 4.1, 4.2 here)

The combined effects of cattle ranching and soy farming to feed cattle make an immense impact on conversion of land in the Amazon to pasture and monoculture fields.

So - WE DO NOT HAVE CATTLE TO EAT CORN. WE HAVE CORN TO FEED CATTLE. Yes, cattle and sheep and goats and chickens are able to eat plant and insect matter than humans can't and that's a good portion of why they were domesticated. But especially in America, industrial animal agriculture does not reflect an abundance of land unsuitable for anything but grazing - it reflects croplands intensively and industrially farmed specifically to feed animals.

There are other parts of this post that I find generally true (the less desirable parts of the animal are cheaper and thus more often eaten by poorer people, which is, like, so true it's almost tautological - except while poorer people may eat more cheap meat, consumption of e.g. dinner sausage is fairly uniform across income levels) and some that are missing major context (migrant laborers - the majority of farmworkers are family members; of hired laborers on farms, 85% are not migrants; the animal agriculture industry is rife with exploitation of undocumented immigrants, underpaid workers, and serious physical injuries at rates three times higher than other industries); and some that don't follow (yes, reducing demand for specific cuts of meat doesn't go 1:1 with reducing meat, but it's not useful to imagine a single animal being divided, here - the model is more like "if nationwide demand for x drops by 3% we should reduce production for next year" or "if revenue from all products from a given animal source drops by 5%, then we should reduce production by 2% because those marginal cases will no longer be profitable." And, like, a lot of the least valuable pieces of meat and meat byproducts do just get wasted because they're not worth the price to handle? Capital's goal is not to maximize usefulness of the whole individual animal but profit overall.)

My general perspective is that for environmental reasons - land use, methane emissions, water use, etc - it would be much better for the ecology of the Americas if we consumed less meat. I do think that it's more useful to frame it as "reducing consumption", because I agree with @headspace-hotel that there's little additional value in not using, say, chicken broth or animal fat or other byproducts. And of course not everyone can cut meat or eggs or dairy out of their diets, for health or allergy or cost reasons. Abstaining completely from animal products isn't a useful goal for most people! Abstaining largely would have a massive impact. But even switching one or two meals a week, for those who are able, from meat to legume-based proteins would have a direct effect on reducing the incentives to grow massive amounts of monoculture crops to use as livestock feed.

I will write this thought about Veganism and Classism in the USA in another post so as to not derail the other thread:

There are comments in the notes that say meat is only cheaper than plant based foods because of subsidies artificially lowering the price of meat in the United States. This is...part of the story but not all of it.

For my animal agriculture lab we went to a butcher shop and watched the butcher cut up a pig into various cuts of meat. I have had to study quite a bit about the meat industry in that class. This has been the first time I fully realized how strongly the meat on a single animal is divided up by socioeconomic class.

Like yes, meat cumulatively takes more natural resources to create and thus should be more expensive, but once that animal is cut apart, it is divided up between rich and poor based on how good to eat the parts are. I was really shocked at watching this process and seeing just how clean and crisp an indicator of class this is.

Specifically, the types of meat I'm most familiar with are traditionally "waste" parts left over once the desirable parts are gone. For example, beef brisket is the dangly, floppy bit on the front of a cow's neck. Pork spareribs are the part of the ribcage that's barely got anything on it.

And that stuff is a tier above the "meat" that is most of what poor people eat: sausage, hot dogs, bologna, other heavily processed meat products that are essentially made up of all the scraps from the carcass that can't go into the "cuts" of meat. Where my mom comes from in North Carolina, you can buy "livermush" which is a processed meat product made up of a mixture of liver and a bunch of random body parts ground up and congealed together. There's also "head cheese" (made of parts of the pig's head) and pickled pigs' feet and chitlin's (that's made of intestines iirc) and cracklin's (basically crispy fried pig skin) and probably a bunch of stuff i'm forgetting. A lot of traditional Southern cooking uses basically scraps of animal ingredients to stretch across multiple meals, like putting pork fat in beans or saving bacon grease for gravy or the like.

So another dysfunctional thing about our food system, is that instead of people of each socioeconomic class eating a certain number of animals, every individual animal is basically divided up along class lines, with the poorest people eating the scraps no one else will eat (oftentimes heavily processed in a way that makes it incredibly unhealthy).

Even the 70% lean ground beef is made by injecting extra leftover fat back into the ground-up meat because the extra fat is undesirable on the "better" cuts. (Gross!)

I've made, or eaten, many a recipe where the only thing that makes it non-vegan is the chicken broth. Chicken broth, just leftover chicken bones and cartilage rendered and boiled down in water? How much is that "driving demand" for meat, when it's basically a byproduct?

That class really made me twist my brain around about the idea of abstaining from animal products as a way to deprive the industry of profits. Nobody eats "X number of cows, pigs, chickens in a lifetime" because depending on the socioeconomic class, they're eating different parts of the animal, splitting it with someone richer or poorer than they are. If a bunch of people who only ate processed meats anyway abstained, that wouldn't equal "saving" X number of animals, it would just mean the scraps and byproducts from a bunch of people's steaks or pork chops would have something different happen to them.

The other major relevant conclusion I got from that class, was that animal agriculture is so dominant because of monoculture. People think it's animal agriculture vs. plant agriculture (or plants used for human consumption vs. using them to feed livestock), but from capitalism's point of view, feeding animals corn is just another way to use corn to generate profits.

People think we could feed the world by using the grain fed to animals to feed humans, but...the grain fed to animals, is not actually a viable diet for the human population, because it's literally just corn and soybean. Like animal agriculture is used to give some semblance of variety to the consumer's diet in a system that is almost totally dominated by like 3 monocrops.

Do y'all have any idea how much of the American diet is just corn?!?! Corn starch, corn syrup, corn this, corn that, processed into the appearance of variety. And chickens and pigs are just another way to process corn. That's basically why we have them, because they can eat our corn. It's a total disaster.

And it's even worse because almost all the USA's plant foods that aren't the giant industrial monocrops maintained by pesticides and machines, are harvested and cared for by undocumented migrant workers that get abused and mistreated and can't say anything because their boss will tattle on them to ICE.