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tyrannoninja · 4 years ago

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The Demon Beneath the Dome

A woman climbed onto the bough of a kapok tree, which twisted up from the treetop canopy. Her lissome umber-brown figure, clad with a barkcloth skirt and halter-top, sparkled with droplets of perspiration beneath the hot glow of the sun piercing through the overcast sky. She raised her hand over her eyes, surveying the green ocean of jungle as it rolled in choppy waves all around her high vantage.

To the east rose a jagged range of overgrown crags, which ran in a ring like a caldera. Covering the basin within was a vast, terraced dome glimmering of corroded gold, with a circular hole in its summit. Under the shadow cast by the crater walls, the green-stained spires and roofs of ruined masonry poked through the jungle, but there appeared no evidence of a living settlement in the proximity of these ruins.

The woman shuddered slightly as she tightened her grip on her perch. She had heard the legends, but never considered them anything more than village storytellers’ way of frightening children into good behavior. Neither had she imagined that she would ever venture within sight of a place like they had described.

Dinanga, huntress of the village of Mungu, had spent the better half of the past moon-cycle searching for her younger sister Kazadi. The memory of the girl’s abduction, with men in blood-red loincloths lunging out of the undergrowth to seize and drag her away, had haunted Dinanga’s every dream with a vivid clarity that never faded. She would have taken those men for common marauders had she not tracked them all the way to such mysterious ruins. If the old myths had spoken the truth all that time, an even more terrible fate would await Kazadi.

Within the jungle to the southwest, someone screamed.

It was not the shrieking cry of a woman, but the deeper holler of a man. Dinanga did not know whether she should investigate. If she did, it might take time away from her sister. Whatever lay in store for Kazadi, she did not want it to happen over the course of a distraction.

Again, the cry of terror burst through the leafy canopy.

Dinanga dove back into the tangled depths of the forest understory, leaping between the branches and lianas with flashing swiftness and agility. She landed on a bough overhanging a narrow game trail through the undergrowth, a cluster of foliage beside it shaking with movement.

A slim male figure tripped over a tree’s buttress root with a hoarse yelp as he emerged. Stomping behind him on muscular hind legs was a tyrannosaur. As the man struggled to get up, the reptilian brute parted its salivating, spike-fanged jaws over his back.

Dinanga took her hunting bow from her python-skin sash and sent an arrow into the tyrannosaur’s scaly green neck.

The beast’s roar and host gust of breath blew her off the branch. Rolling over the soft earth upon landing, she hopped to the man and pulled him away from the snapping jaws by the wrist. His eyes widened with shock as he shrank from her.

Dinanga shouted over the tyrannosaur’s growling. “Don’t worry, I’m here to save you!”

The world above her turned dark. The monster’s black open gullet, dripping scalding drool, filled her field of sight while the rancid stink of its breath flooded her nostrils. Sheer terror petrified every muscle within Dinanga’s cowering body.

Yet, the bone-crunching bite did not come. The tyrannosaur threw its head up with another roar, even more shrill, a bloody streak running across the side of its lower jaw. The strange man taunted it with foreign curses while brandishing a bloody-edged horn dagger.

Yanking him away from the predator’s next attack, Dinanga led him running to a tree coiled with the woody vines of a strangler fig. They climbed halfway up its height before the tyrannosaur rammed its snout into the trunk. The man slipped off and plummeted towards the beast’s gaping mouth. Dinanga seized his forearm, wrenched him up from the beast’s jaws, and tossed him onto one of the overhead branches. She jumped onto this same branch and clung to it with a tight embrace as the tree shook from the weight of the tyrannosaur smacking against it. Neither she nor the man fell off again. With a resigned snort, the dinosaur gave them one last glance with its fiery yellow eyes before lumbering off.

Dinanga, panting with exhaustion, muttered a prayer that it would find worthier prey elsewhere. The man that huddled next to her brushed leaves off his short, braided hair. Though his skin was the same brown shade as Dinanga’s, his tall, elongated stature and narrower facial features attested to an origin on the dry, open savannas that stretched beyond these jungles. The tattered loincloth wrapped around his narrow hips was cut from pebbled reptilian leather instead of the forest-dwellers’ barkcloth.

“Who are you?” she asked. “You don’t look like you’re from here.”

The man shook his head. “Call me Heri, of the clan of Deshen out on the savanna. I was barely of age when our enemies, the clan of Mendi, carried me off in a raid. I’ve been traded and dragged far across the land ever since.”

He pointed to the crisscrossing mess of welts that marred his back like a hideous, dark reddish-purple tumor. A foul taste swelled into Dinanga’s mouth. She had heard of people being captured and forced to work for others in some of the larger chiefdoms, but never had she considered the brutality forced upon many of them.

“By the spirits, you’ve been through so much,” she said. “Tell me you don’t have someone hunting you down!”

“I ran away from them many moons ago. In truth, I don’t even know where I am in this land. All I know is that I’m nowhere near my people. They must have forgotten me by now.”Heri wiped off the moisture that had welled up in his eyes.

Dinanga hugged him and smiled. “If only I knew how to bring you back to them. I have family of my own missing. Half a moon ago, a group of men in red carried my sister off. I’ve been hunting them down ever since.”

“Have you caught up with them yet?”

“Almost. My tracking has led me to this strange place with old buildings and a big dome of gold inside a crater. You heard of such a place?”

“No, but I think I know what those men want of your sister. Beg the spirits that they haven’t done it already.”

“Then I must go. You want to come along? I would like someone to fight beside me if they can.”

With a nod, Heri slipped his dagger out of its sheath and ran his finger along its bloodied edge. “You saved me from that monster. I owe you my life for it.”

A colossus of black stone leaned over a path of mossy flagstone as it loomed up through the mist and undergrowth. Though eroded by generations of rainfall and cloaked with overgrowth, Dinanga could make out the contour of a hunched, squatting creature with wings akin to those of a bat or pterosaur folded behind its corpulent gorilla-armed body. Six gemstones glinted as orange as fire within its long flat head, its wrinkled trunk-like snout curled between giant spider-like fangs.

It took a single glance at this megalithic monstrosity for Dinanga to step back, a cold shiver overtaking her body. The old stories had become even truer before she set foot within the ancient village this sculpture guarded.

Heri clenched harder on his dagger’s hilt. “What, by all the spirits, would that be?”

“Whatever it is, it isn’t of this earth,” Dinanga said.

They did not dare look back at the horrible statue as they tiptoed down the broad flagstone trail. On both sides of the avenue lay the crumbled, foliage-bedecked walls of stone huts amid piles of rubble, toppled columns, and potsherds. Interspersed between the buildings stood the pedestaled statues of men, women, and assorted creatures of the jungle—with none of these idols rivaling that of the alien giant in height or girth.

Every time her eyes met their unblinking gaze, Dinanga’s heartbeat paused. She murmured a prayer to her distant ancestors that they forgive her for trespassing through their former home.

As the road sloped up closer to the crater’s outer cliffs, the structures beside it reared higher than in the districts before, the columns inscribed with the faces of people and beasts supporting their upper stories. Mazes of cracked steps and raised pathways connected these former palaces and manors to one another like bridges, and to the main thoroughfare.

“Who built all this?” Heri asked. “It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before.”

Dinanga nodded. “They say that, many generations in the past, all the villages in the jungle answered to chieftains who lived here. That monster we saw back there was their god, a spirit they respected more than any other. Nobody knows for sure what happened to the people who lived here…or that ‘spirit’ of theirs.”

The avenue ended before a towering portal hewn into the rock of the crater’s side. Chiseled into both jambs along its entryway were reliefs that each depicted a sitting creature with six orange orbs for eyes, the same species as the colossus before. The perspiration on Dinanga’s brow turned cold. Her heart pulsed in a panicked frenzy.

Drums thumped from somewhere within. The ritual was already underway! Dinanga unslung her bow and ran through the portal, with Heri close behind.

It was not pitch dark inside the passageway, like she had expected. Rather, dim green light filled the passageway from the painted grooves of reliefs on the corridor walls, as did an unpleasant whiff of urine. The first of these images on both sides portrayed a storm of flaming balls showering down from the starry heavens upon the primordial earth. The next showed human figures prostrating before these spheres, in which were rendered some of the most frightful creatures Dinanga had ever seen represented in art of any form. Some beings had dozens or even hundreds of eyes, limbs, or maws lined with fangs or tentacles; others were pocked with warts, thorns, or bone-shaped protuberances. Among them was the same six-eyed, winged entity she and Heri had seen before.

Some of the later reliefs even showed people throwing young men and women to the horrors to be devoured like poultry. Were the beasts so terrible that they intimidated early humankind into placating their carnivorous appetites? Or did these otherworldly deities offer something in return for the sacrifices? If so, what on earth would it have been?

The echoing beat of the drums escalated, joined by a droning chant. Dinanga could not waste any more time gawking at the pictures on the walls. She and Heri had to get to her sister before the girl suffered the same fate as the victims of those ancient rites.

The passage did not run straight, but twisted in zigzags that sloped up and down through the rock. Only the faint green glow of the painted reliefs, and the increasing volume of the reverberant music, guided Dinanga and Heri through the subterranean labyrinth. Once brighter daylight beamed from the hallway’s end, they slowed their running down to a skulk and crouched behind the jambs on opposite sides of the exit.

A flat, narrow promontory of rock projected from the opening, fifty feet from the crater’s inner floor. From the central hole in the vaulted ceiling of gold, a shaft of sunlight ran straight down to a broader, circular space at the walkway’s end. Ringed by megalithic pillars at its edges, this balcony supported a disk-faced platform in its center, around which men and women in red-dyed clothing chanted in an unintelligible language while clapping and beating wooden drums. Behind the altar stood a woman mantled in a more brilliant shade of red than the rest, scarlet macaw feathers woven into her dreadlocks and blood-red paint zigzagging down her face and limbs. She beat the stone of the promontory with her crooked priestess’s staff, human skulls jangling from the top of it.

On the altar lay a motionless Kazadi.

The drums and chanting built into a frenetic storm of noise that resonated to a deafening extreme underneath the crater’s domed covering. Rising alongside was a putrid odor emanating from far below the promontory. The voices of the female worshipers heightened to yipping screeches while those of their male counterparts lowered into guttural croaking.

With one final, cracking bang of the drums, the music stopped. The priestess waved her staff of skulls and shouted coarse, unfamiliar words to the ceiling.

A vast, odoriferous mess of slimy dark gray mud, strewn with bones and streaks of luminous green fluid, churned and bubbled at the bottom of the crater basin. With a flatulent gurgle, the muck rose in a mound and cracked open to reveal six orange-red eyes on a flattened black head. Behind it emerged and unfolded a pair of leathery, yellow-veined wings tipped with claws like a bat’s. Droning like an overgrown mosquito underlain with a rumbling growl, the thing flapped itself out of the slime to the promontory’s terminus.

Dinanga wrapped her trembling arms tight around her bow. She could not deny the old stories any longer. The star-demons of yore were real.

The cultists in red retreated and knelt in unison as the hulking creature landed between the megaliths on four columnar limbs that glistened with wet black bristles. Advancing on its knuckles in an apelike manner to the altar, it unfurled a wrinkled proboscis between its mandibles and extended it to Kazadi. Tentacles at its end rubbed wet trails of saliva over her skin. The girl’s arms twitched, her eyes opened wide, and she screamed.

Dinanga shot an arrow at the star-demon, piercing the wing’s thick skin. The creature’s eyes blazed brighter than embers as an echoing metallic shriek escaped its trunk. The people in red turned to face Dinanga, their teeth bared in anger.

The priestess thrust the tip of her staff in the huntress’s direction. “How dare you attack our god!”

Dinanga drew another arrow, now pointed toward the priestess. “I’ve come for my sister, witch!”

“Then get her at your risk!”

Dinanga released the arrow. The priestess dodged it with a sidestep, then vaulted over her followers in a single jump and swung her staff at the huntress. The bundle of skulls slapped Dinanga aside, throwing her to the edge of the promontory. She grabbed the lip of the walkway before she could slip off, her feet dangling in the muggy air of the basin.

Her fingernails scratched over the stony surface. The priestess stood above her with a cruel smirk as she raised her staff again.

An arm shot out from behind the priestess and wrung her away by the neck. It was Heri. Shoving the red-mantled woman to the side, he snatched Dinanga’s wrist and pulled her back onto the promontory.

One of the male worshipers punched him on the cheek and off his footing. Dinanga whacked the assailant’s brow with her bow, grabbed him by the throat, and pushed him into a group of his allies. With slashing swipes of her bow and sweeps of her legs, she fended off the remaining cultists’ attacks.

The priestess grappled her from behind and slammed her onto the rock. One kick rolled Dinanga back to the edge.

Over the clamor of the fight, Kazadi screamed again from the clutches of the star-demon’s talons. Its tentacled trunk engulfed her head, muffling her voice.

Stabbing the rock with the tip of her bow to still herself, Dinanga sprang to her feet and unleashed an arrow into one of the star-demon’s eyes. It spat Kazadi out with a screeching wail and staggered onto one of the megaliths at the terminus edge, toppling it over with a crash of its wings. The rock of the promontory quaked under the being’s confused stomping until it stumbled off the promontory and fell.

Dinanga started to run towards her sister, but the priestess leaped into her way with another swing of her staff. The huntress parried it with her bow, but the blow splintered her weapon apart.

The priestess cackled. “You’re outmatched. How will you save your sister now?”

“With my help,” Heri said.

He slashed his dagger across the priestess’s breast. She dropped her staff of skulls, which Dinanga seized and used to bat the woman off the promontory. The screams of the leader of the worshipers trailed away as she fell, finally ending with her faint splash into the muck below.

Dinanga hurried to Kazadi and embraced her. “Are you all right?”

Kazadi groaned and blinked as she wrung fetid drool out of her braids. “Where are we?”

“Wherever it is, we’re getting out as soon as we can.”

The star-demon’s surviving worshipers yelled a vengeful war cry and charged in a wall down the promontory’s remaining length. Dinanga, Kazadi, and Heri hopped onto the altar and launched themselves over the raging army. With a flurry of kicks, punches, and the slashing of Heri’s dagger, they sent the remainder of the cultists hurtling off to join their deity and priestess in the mud at the bottom of the crater.

Dinanga inhaled deeply and sighed with relief after they had run out of the portal on the outer side. Even the musty scent of the wild jungle was a relaxing fragrance compared to the infernal stench that had swamped the crater under the dome.

Kazadi blinked with a shake of her head. “How long has it been?”

“Why, it’s been over half a moon, sister,” Dinanga said. “Remember those old tales about the demons from beyond the stars? Those men and women in red meant to sacrifice you to one of them, like our ancient ancestors did.”

“By the spirits, you mean those stories were true all along? I can’t believe it. But at least that creature has plenty of dead to gorge upon now—if it even survived its fall.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Heri said. “Its landing would have been soft down there, and who knows how hungry those things get?”

“Even so, it’s trapped under that big dome behind us,” Dinanga said. “Let it feast and then starve to death.”

A banging, crumbling crash followed, as blocks of weathered gold flew off the summit of the dome. Up soared the star-demon with a terrible droning screech, dripping wet with the dark slime of its lair. Its five good eyes scintillated with fury as it swooped down.

The three raced down the avenue through the ruins. The creature accelerated its pursuit until it emerged in front of them. As it veered to face its prey, its beating wings stirred up a gust of wind that knocked down a chunk of stone overpass to block their way. It then grabbed Kazadi with a clawed hand and raised her towards its proboscis.

Dinanga chucked one of her last arrows like a javelin into its crotch. The star-demon did not even flinch. Heri flung his dagger at it, but the star-demon evaded it with a flap that lifted it overhead. It plucked him off the ground with its other hand while half-swallowing Kazadi.

Dinanga ran to one of the piles of rubble, hauled up a hunk of masonry, and hurtled it into the star-demon’s thigh. Fluttering in the air with anguished squeals, it released Heri and reflexively vomited out Kazadi. Dinanga caught her sister in her arms and fled from underneath the reeling monster, along with Heri. They reached the colossus at the ruins’ edge, but again, the star-demon caught up with them. It landed atop its own stone likeness and jumped onto the road before them. The earth under their feet shook them onto the flagstones under the otherworldly horror’s shadow.

A deep, explosive roar resounded. It was not the star-demon. The rage in the thing’s eyes dimmed as its bristles suddenly stood on end. Breaking out from the jungle and storming towards it was the tyrannosaur.

The two beasts faced each other with an exchange of threatening roars and screeches, the tyrannosaur thrashing its head about and snapping the air while the star-demon waved its arms with wings outspread.

“We should leave now,” Heri whispered from the corner of his mouth.

Dinanga shook her head. “We can’t let the star-demon win. It must die once and for all. No one should worship it anymore.”

The tyrannosaur chomped onto the star-demon’s arm with a crunch of chitinous skin beneath the bristles. The six-eyed monster freed itself by punching its attacker in the jaws, then hooked its other arm around the tyrannosaur’s neck while clawing at it with the first. It swatted its wings in a struggling effort to lift itself off the ground with the dinosaur in its hold. The tyrannosaur, slashing across its alien adversary’s breast with a short two-clawed arm, wriggled itself loose and beat the star-demon aside with its snout. The being from beyond the heavens collided into its own statue, turning it over and smashing it to pieces with a terrific tremor.

The tyrannosaur pressed a foot onto the fallen star-demon’s belly, cracking the skin underneath and spurting out viscous yellow-green blood. The demon slapped it away with flailing forelimbs. With a push and a sweep of its wings, the wounded being pounced onto the reptilian brute and shoved it into an obelisk on the other side of the old road. The star-demon then turned its attention to the three humans, the glow of its eyes flashing with a laughing growl as it captured Dinanga in its grip.

Kazadi pried out one of the orange gemstones from the statue’s fallen face and threw it onto the creature’s hand. The gem’s sharp edge buried itself into the monster’s knuckle, enabling Dinanga to slip down from its loosened grip. The demon withdrew its other forelimb for another slashing swipe until the tyrannosaur bit onto its biceps from behind. Between those saurian jaws and teeth, the demon’s upper arm crumpled into a pulp of alien blood and bristled chitin. A final wrenching motion of the dinosaur’s head ripped the star-demon’s arm out of its socket, then the tyrannosaur delivered a crushing bite to its extraterrestrial enemy’s throat. The star-demon’s high-pitched whine broke up into a buzzing rattle as it fell onto the shattered remains of its own idol.

The tyrannosaur threw its head upward, with droplets of yellowish blood cascading from its mouth. It let out its loudest roar of triumph to the heavens.

Dinanga, Kazadi, and Heri rushed into the jungle, out of the predator’s sight. Between the buttress roots of a kapok tree, they stopped to catch their breath, all racked with strain and sweating in rivulets.

Dinanga hugged her sister with all the exhausted strength she could muster. “Thank our ancestors that I found you before it was too late.”

“Thank you both for coming to my rescue,” Kazadi said. “Who may this strange man be, may I ask?”

“Call me Heri, of the clan of Deshen over on the open plains,” he said. “I’ll tell you all about my life over the night. All I can say now is that I’m happy that’s all over with. And I get to have two pretty young women walking by my side.”

Kazadi giggled while Dinanga groaned. “You men are all the same,” Dinanga said.

Heri winked at her. “And you women are not? Maybe you’ll change your mind after a few days.”

“If that’s what you want, maybe you could start changing my mind by fetching me some wood, flint, and twine. I need a new bow and more arrows.”

Together they laughed as they walked toward the distant village of Mungu, their backs turned to the great ruined village and the domed den of its slain god.

You can read this and several more short stories in my collection Beasts & Beauties, available for purchase on Amazon.com!

#short story #fiction #writing #dinosaur #tyrannosaurus rex #african #black woman #woc #poc #women of color #people of color #fantasy #prehistoric #monster #demon #lovecraft inspired

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brookstonalmanac · 3 years ago

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Events 1.18

474 – Seven-year-old Leo II succeeds his maternal grandfather Leo I as Byzantine emperor. He dies ten months later. 532 – Nika riots in Constantinople fail. 1126 – Emperor Huizong abdicates the Chinese throne in favour of his son Emperor Qinzong. 1486 – King Henry VII of England marries Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, uniting the House of Lancaster and the House of York. 1562 – Pope Pius IV reopens the Council of Trent for its third and final session. 1670 – Henry Morgan captures Panama. 1701 – Frederick I crowns himself King of Prussia in Königsberg. 1778 – James Cook is the first known European to discover the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the "Sandwich Islands". 1788 – The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from Great Britain to Australia arrive at Botany Bay. 1806 – Jan Willem Janssens surrenders the Dutch Cape Colony to the British. 1866 – Wesley College is established in Melbourne, Australia. 1871 – Wilhelm I of Germany is proclaimed Kaiser Wilhelm in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles (France) towards the end of the Franco-Prussian War. Wilhelm already had the title of German Emperor since the constitution of 1 January 1871, but he had hesitated to accept the title. 1886 – Modern field hockey is born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England. 1896 – An X-ray generating machine is exhibited for the first time by H. L. Smith. 1911 – Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay, the first time an aircraft landed on a ship. 1913 – First Balkan War: A Greek flotilla defeats the Ottoman Navy in the Naval Battle of Lemnos, securing the islands of the Northern Aegean Sea for Greece. 1915 – Japan issues the "Twenty-One Demands" to the Republic of China in a bid to increase its power in East Asia. 1919 – World War I: The Paris Peace Conference opens in Versailles, France. 1919 – Ignacy Jan Paderewski becomes Prime Minister of the newly independent Poland. 1941 – World War II: British troops launch a general counter-offensive against Italian East Africa. 1943 – Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: The first uprising of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. 1945 – World War II: Liberation of Kraków, Poland by the Red Army. 1958 – Willie O'Ree, the first Black Canadian National Hockey League player, makes his NHL debut with the Boston Bruins. 1960 – Capital Airlines Flight 20 crashes into a farm in Charles City County, Virginia, killing all 50 aboard, the third fatal Capital Airlines crash in as many years. 1967 – Albert DeSalvo, the "Boston Strangler", is convicted of numerous crimes and is sentenced to life imprisonment. 1969 – United Airlines Flight 266 crashes into Santa Monica Bay killing all 32 passengers and six crew members. 1972 – Members of the Mukti Bahini lay down their arms to the government of the newly independent Bangladesh, a month after winning the war against the occupying Pakistan Army. 1974 – A Disengagement of Forces agreement is signed between the Israeli and Egyptian governments, ending conflict on the Egyptian front of the Yom Kippur War. 1976 – Lebanese Christian militias kill at least 1,000 in Karantina, Beirut. 1977 – Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires' disease. 1977 – Australia's worst rail disaster occurs at Granville, Sydney, killing 83. 1977 – SFR Yugoslavia's Prime minister, Džemal Bijedić, his wife and six others are killed in a plane crash in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 1978 – The European Court of Human Rights finds the United Kingdom's government guilty of mistreating prisoners in Northern Ireland, but not guilty of torture. 1981 – Phil Smith and Phil Mayfield parachute off a Houston skyscraper, becoming the first two people to BASE jump from objects in all four categories: buildings, antennae, spans (bridges), and earth (cliffs). 1983 – The International Olympic Committee restores Jim Thorpe's Olympic medals to his family. 1988 – China Southwest Airlines Flight 4146 crashes near Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport, killing all 98 passengers and 10 crew members. 1990 – Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry is arrested for drug possession in an FBI sting. 1993 – Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is officially observed for the first time in all 50 US states. 2002 – The Sierra Leone Civil War is declared over. 2003 – A bushfire kills four people and destroys more than 500 homes in Canberra, Australia. 2005 – The Airbus A380, the world's largest commercial jet, is unveiled at a ceremony in Toulouse, France 2007 – The strongest storm in the United Kingdom in 17 years kills 14 people and Germany sees the worst storm since 1999 with 13 deaths. Cyclone Kyrill causes at least 44 deaths across 20 countries in Western Europe. 2008 – The Euphronios Krater is unveiled in Rome after being returned to Italy by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2018 – A bus catches fire on the Samara–Shymkent road in Yrgyz District, Aktobe, Kazakhstan. The fire kills 52 passengers, with three passengers and two drivers escaping.

#Events

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lnkhauler · 3 years ago

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virgil-at-hot-topic · 4 years ago

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Edward: Serial slaughtering stranglers Jugular juggling juggalos Folded, fat, floppy-tittied freaks! I C fuckin P's in the house Abracadabra boom shacka dae I'm Violent J, and I'm back like a vertebrae And I come with a hat full of tricks Trunk full of Faygo, car full of fat chicks! Ha hahaha ha hahaha, fuck you! Wicked clowns, we'd like to say what up to The Cobra's, X-men, and Counts And everybody with clown love, even sets I've never heard of Roll into town, and out with the big top Four cards down, and two more still to drop And when it does, I pack up and hit the road 'Cause I don't wanna see your head explode! Toss me an axe, and I'll toss you a dead chicken Add a buck, you get a two-liter with em And when the genie says on with the show It's hokus pokus, jokers, Great Milenko Once again, the psychotic carnival creatures in the house Hokus pokus, joker's ride, come take a spin on a carnie ride Southwest slithering snakes of darkness come Hokus pokus, joker's ride, come take a spin on a carnie ride Shazam bam, shocka locka lokey Shaggy the clown back like scoliosis Call me a psycho-schizo freak And I'll call you by your name (Dick-anus) 'Cause I can give two shits and a fuck I bounce down Verner in a popcorn clown truck I'm a circus ninja southwest voodoo wizard I grab your gizzard Jump on the carpet, let's take a spin Everybody's waiting for the show to begin Up to the top, by the neck, and let you go Try to land in a glass of Faygo Uh, you suck, you missed the fuckin' glass Broken neck, and busted your fuckin' ass But the genie says on with the show Hokus pokus, jokers, Great Milenko What awaits you after death, rub the lamp and explore Hokus pokus, joker's ride, come take a spin on a carnie ride Enter Milenko's Fun House, walk right through the wretched hall Hokus pokus, joker's ride, come take a spin on a carnie ride Fuck 'em all, fuck 'em all Fuck 'em all, fuck 'em all (C'mon!) Clown dawg, freak dawg Joker dawg, Milenko dawg Fidgets of joker's cards blasting in your mother's face Hokus pokus, joker's ride, come take a spin on a carnie ride Rude Boy and Chucky down with the clown First time we ever went to Mexican Town I remember, we couldn't pay the bill, they got hot And beat us down in the fuckin' parking lot Tall Jess, Jumpsteady, and Nate the Mack Tagged ICP by the train tracks And it was on, the dawn of a new day Magical carpets grippin' down the freeway Walked in a gypsy's tent with a food stamp And walked out with a magical lamp, yeah I met Milenko, he gave me 3 wishes That night, I fucked 3 fat bitches Can't get the fuck with it? Forget it I'll rip your face off, and wipe my ass wid' it When the genie says on with the show It's hokus pokus, jokers, Great Milenko Climb aboard our magic train and join us inside Hokus pokus, joker's ride, come take a spin on a carnie ride City to village, hamlet to town, the show must go on Hokus pokus, joker's ride, come take a spin on a carnie ride Giant ladies, bearded ladies, midget ladies, ladies? Hokus pokus, joker's ride, come take a spin on a carnie ride Clouds of darkness, then underneath them comes the clown Hokus pokus, joker's ride, come take a spin on a carnie ride (Fuck that!)

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littleatombomb · 5 years ago

Photo

Fallout 4/Fallout 76 Consumable: Hubflower/Soot Flower

Hubflower/soot flower is a consumable item in Fallout 4 and Fallout 76.

Characteristics

Ranunculacae serranus, commonly called hubflower or soot flower (Appalachia), is a mutated species of buttercups, a family with over 2,000 known species of flowering plants before the Great War. The flowers are violet in color.

In Fallout 76 during an intercontinental ballistic missile nuke event, harvested soot flower (geiger blossom) will yield raw yellowcake flux.

Value

Weight

0.1 (Fallout 4)

0.25 (Fallout 76)

Effects

Fallout 4

+10 Hit Points +2 Radiation Perks - Chemist: +50% Hit Points per rank

Fallout 76

+5 Radiation 1% Disease Chance 1% Food

Addiction

Crafting

Fallout 4

Component of:

Grape Mentats

Psycho

Fallout 76

Component of:

Granny's tea

Disease cure (Ash Heap)

Healing salve (The Forest)

Healing salve (Ash Heap)

Psycho

Simple soot flower tea

Infused soot flower tea

Soot flower herb paste

Steeped fever blossom tea

Steeped gourd blossom tea

Steeped strangler bloom tea

Variants

Toxic soot flower (Fallout 76)

Locations

Fallout 4

It is mostly found randomly in the forest areas of the map.

One can be found on the right side of the path leading back to Sanctuary Hills after emerging from Vault 111 shortly before reaching the bridge.

At the Wildwood Cemetery, north of Covenant, there are seven to ten bushes spread among the tombstones.

On the road heading east from Milton General Hospital and Fallon's department store, there are five bushes.

There are three bushes directly in front of the robotics disposal ground, as well as a number of additional bushes in the area between the robotics disposal ground and USAF Satellite Station Olivia (east of the road leading south from the disposal ground).

In front of Westing Estate.

Southeast of Covenant, around the boarded-up house.

At least seven can be found outside the Parsons State Insane Asylum.

Two bushes can be found in the fenced area next to the Museum of Witchcraft.

Several bushes along the western side of Abernathy farm, north to south along the crafting border.

Several bushes scattered around Somerville Place, located east of Vault 95.

Two can be found outside the Lonely Chapel.

Several can be found on the hill on which the entrance to Vault 111 is.

Several can be found in and around Jamaica Plain.

Several can be found along the banks of the Saugus River, the river behind Breakheart Banks.

Four can be found southwest of Covenant surrounding an abandoned two-story house.

Plenty can be found on the sides of the road northwest of Greentop Nursery. They continue to appear just outside of and leading to Recon bunker Theta all the way to the shed at Lake Quannapowitt, among the abundant bloodleaf plants, silt bean plants, and a handful of other types of blossoms. This makes it the best place to collect hubflowers as well as the other plants mentioned.

Fallout 76

There is a soot flower plant to the right of the Vault 76 entrance while facing the door.

Found around the Overseer's camp.

Commonly found in the Forest and the Mire.

Many can be found around the Flatwoods area.

Notes

In Fallout 4 Senior Scribe Neriah on the Botany terminal in The Prydwen describes the hubflower as “Large hanging purple flowers. Bitter, but appears to have some restorative benefits. Will continue to investigate”.

Sources:

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Hubflower

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Soot_flower

#hubflower #soot flower #fallout 4 #fallout 76 #fallout #consumables #fallout 4 consumables #aid #items #flowers #plants #info #pic #My posts #video games #fallout 76 consumables

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wombledunkhambletruck · 8 years ago

Note

pee pee poo poo

"Serial slaughtering stranglers Jugging Juggling juggalos Folded, fat, floppy-tittied freaks I C fuckin P's in the haugh" [Violent J]Abracadabra boom shacka daeI'm Violent J, and I'm back like a vertebrae And I come with a hat full of tricks Trunk full of Faygo, car full of fat chicks Hahahahahahahaha, fuck you Wicked clowns, we'd like to say what up to The Cobra's, X-men, and Counts, and everybody with clown luv Even sets I've never heard of Roll into town, and out with the big top Four cards down, and two more still to dropAnd when it does, I pack up and hit the road Cuz I don't wanna see your head explode Toss me an axe, and I'll toss you a dead chicken Add a buck, you get a two-liter with em And when the genie says on with the showIt's hokus pokus jokers, Great Milenko.[Chorus (1x)]Once again, the psychotic carnival creatures in the haughHokus pokus, joker's ride, come take a spin on a carnie rideSouthwest slithering snakes of darkness comeHokus pokus, joker's ride, come take a spin on a carnie ride[Shaggy 2 Dope]Shazam BAM, shocka locka lokeyShaggy the clown back like scoliosis Call me a psycho-skitso freak And I'll call you by your name (dick-anus) Cuz I can give two shits and a fuck I bounce down Verner in a popcorn clown truck I'm a circus ninja southwest voodoo wizard.I grab your gizzard Jump on the carpet, let's take a spin Everybody's waitin for the show to begin Up to the top, by the neck, and let you go Try to land in a glass of Faygo Uh, you suck, you missed the fuckin glass Broken neck, and busted your fuckin ass But the genie says on with the show Hokus Pokus Jokers, Great Milenko. [Chorus (1x)]What awaits you after death, rub the lamp and exploreHokus pokus, joker's ride, come take a spin on a carnie rideEnter Milenko's Fun House, walk right through the wretched hallHokus pokus, joker's ride, come take a spin on a carnie ride"Fuck em all, fuck em allClown dawg, freak dawgJoker dawg, Milenko dawg"Fidgets of joker's cards blasting in your mother's faceHokus pokus, joker's ride, come take a spin on a carnie ride[Violent J]Rude Boy and Chucky down wit the clown First time we ever went to Mexican Town I remember, we couldn't pay the bill, they got hot And beat us down in the fuckin parking lot [Shaggy 2 Dope]Tall Jess, Jump Steady, and Nate the Mack Tagged ICP by the train tracks And it was on, the dawn of a new day Magical carpets screaming down the freeway [Violent J]Walked in a gypsy's tent with a food stamp And walked out with a magical lamp, yeah I met Milenko, he gave me 3 wishes That night, I fucked 3 fat bitches [Shaggy 2 Dope]Then get the fuck with it, forget it I'll rip your face off, and wipe my ass with itWhen the genie says on with the show Hokus pokus, jokers, Great Milenko[Chorus (x)]Climb aboard our magic train and join us insideHokus pokus, joker's ride, come take a spin on a carnie rideFifty-two villians, hammered town, the show must go onHokus pokus, joker's ride, come take a spin on a carnie rideGiant ladies, bearded ladies, midget ladies, ladies!Hokus pokus, joker's ride, come take a spin on a carnie rideClouds of darkness and underneath them comes the clownHokus pokus, joker's ride, come take a spin on a carnie ride"Fuck dat!"

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savetopnow · 7 years ago

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2018-03-17 10 VIDEO now

VIDEO

Bad Lip Reading

"IT'S NOT A MOON" — A Bad Lip Reading of Star Wars

"NFL 2018" — A Bad Lip Reading of the NFL

"TRUMP ANTHEM" — A Bad Lip Reading of Donald Trump

"[KARAOKE] Seagulls! (Stop It Now!)" — A Bad Lip Reading of The Empire Strikes Back

"CHRISTMAS IS HERE!" — A Bad Lip Reading of Donald Trump

Bill Wurtz

unboxing video

maybe i could eat blades of grass

La de da de da de da de day oh

soap tips

outside

Captain Disillusion

Chinese Invisibility Cloak Hoax DESTROYED!!!

TUTORIAL: Rigging the Ambiguous Cylinder for Animation

Quick D: Invisible Box Challenge

Gateway to Sedona DEBUNK

The Unbearable Loneliness of Being Right on the Internet - Live at Skepticon Australia 2017

CineFix

7 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Pan's Labyrinth

4 More of the Best Shots of All Time - Movie Lists

'The Shining' Meets 'Heathers' w/ Cory Finley, Director of 'Thoroughbreds'

Should 'Darkest Hour' Win Best Picture?

Will Phantom Thread Win Best Picture?

Exurb1a

A Dictionary for Your Twenties

Feelings, Pictures, and Ideas: A very simple theory of why good stories are good

Bear and Goose at the End of Everything

Problems With Mind Uploading

How Not to Do Brownies

Kurzgesagt

String Theory Explained – What is The True Nature of Reality?

Homeopathy Explained – Gentle Healing or Reckless Fraud?

Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

How to Make an Elephant Explode with Science – The Size of Life 2

Universal Basic Income Explained – Free Money for Everybody? UBI

Mealtime Videos

Abandoned - Southwest Detroit Hospital [11:28]

A retrospective on Clue: The Movie [23:47]

Simply Explained Bridge Collapse | Engineering and Construction (AvE) [11:59]

Captain D: Chinese Invisibility Cloak Hoax DESTROYED [13:36]

Operation Rheinübung: Battle of the Denmark Strait 1941 [15:17]

Nerdwriter1

The Most Disturbing Painting

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Mr. Bean Is A Master Of Physical Comedy

See With Your Ears: Spielberg And Sound Design

How Fleetwood Mac Makes A Song

Reddit Videos

Another angle of the Georgia ski lift failure

"Candid Camera" tries to play a prank on Mister Rogers, and it backfires.

FPV perspective of the Ski lift accident in Gudauri, Georgia - 11 with minor injuries, 0 deaths

Chinese Invisibility Cloak Hoax DESTROYED!!!

Today the official 'The Office' Youtube channel uploaded this video, possibly confirming the fan theory that Toby is the Scranton strangler.

TED Talks

You don't have to be an expert to solve big problems | Tapiwa Chiwewe

Refugees want empowerment, not handouts | Robert Hakiza

The genius of the London Tube Map | Michael Bierut on "Small Thing Big Idea"

How to have a healthier, positive relationship with sex | Tiffany Kagure Mugo and Siphumeze Khundayi

A life-saving invention that prevents human stampedes | Nilay Kulkarni

The New York Times

Scene From ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ | Anatomy of a Scene

Fighting Venezuela's Repression with My Violin | NYT - Opinion

Inside Aleppo, a City in Ruins | NYT

Students Walked Out. Here Are Their Videos. | NYT

Stephen Hawking, Pop Culture Icon | NYT

Unknown Videos

Sammich ALIENS parody [60 views]

Stupid Steamed Hams video but recreated with puppets [56 views]

people in an emergancy drill (103 views)

Behind The Scenes: One Door Closes [1 view]

Roller Coaster [18 views]

Vlog Brothers

The Most Popular Word in the World

Who Should We Root For?

John's Best Gift to Me

The Broccoli Tree: A Parable

The Best (Recent) Book Covers Including MINE!

Vox

VOX showreel våren 2015

Gordon Ramsay: The F word - promo

Hannibal sesong 2 - teaser

The Following sesong 2 - premierepromo

The Following sesong 2 - teaser

Wendover Productions

The Logistics of Living in Antarctica

How Overnight Shipping Works

Why Cities Exist

How Airlines Price Flights

The Gene Patent Question

Wisecrack

The Loneliest Anime – The Philosophy of Neon Genesis Evangelion – Wisecrack Edition

The Philosophy of Jigsaw – Wisecrack Edition

The Hidden Meaning in The Truman Show – Earthling Cinema

Is Black Panther's Killmonger the Best Villain Since the Joker? – Wisecrack Quick Take

The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan (Part 3) feat. Interstellar & Dunkirk – Wisecrack Edition

#video

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lnkjunkremoval-blog · 5 years ago

Video

youtube

Leaf Removal Leaf Cleanup Yard Debris Removal Fall Leaf Removal Service and Cost in Omaha Lincoln NE Council Bluffs IA | LNK Junk Removal 402 590 8090 More information at: http://www.lnkjunkremoval.com/leaf-re... Need leaf removal services in Lincoln? If left unmanaged, leaves can suffocate your lawn and prevent photosynthesis. Leaf removal or clean-up is your only hope. Don't be a lawn strangler; call LNK Junk Removal for free estimates and pricing. Our fast and affordable leaf clean-up service will have your yard clear of leaves and sticks in no time. Cost of Leaf Removal? Free estimates! Call today or book online Leaf Removal fast! REQUEST A QUOTE TODAY LEAF REMOVAL SERVICE LINCOLN LEAF REMOVAL AND YARD CLEANUP SERVICES For several weeks every year the trees on your property shed their leaves like an Alaskan Husky does fur. If left unmanaged, leaves can suffocate your lawn and prevent photosynthesis. Leaf removal or clean-up is your only hope. Don't be a lawn strangler; call LNK Junk Removal for free estimates and pricing. Our fast and affordable leaf clean-up service will have your yard clear of leaves and sticks in no time. We'll quote you right over the phone or online. Before you know it, LNK Junk Removal will have your leaf issue under control. So give us a shout at , or get a free quote online. LEAF DISPOSAL INFORMATION If you do not live in an area that receives organics collections, then you must dispose of your leaves with your garbage. You can place leaves, grass clippings, and small twigs (less than 1/2 inch in diameter) curbside for collection on your regularly scheduled trash collection days into: Black bags Unlined trash containers Twigs and branches greater than 1/2 inch in diameter cannot be thrown out with leaves and grass clippings; you must follow wood disposal guidelines. There is no limit to the amount of clippings that can be put out for collection as long as they were produced by residents and not landscapers. It is illegal for commercial landscapers to dispose of yard waste by placing it at the curb for collection. Leaves may also be composted in the backyard, left on the lawn, or taken to a neighborhood-based leaf and yard waste composting site. YARD DEBRIS, WEEDS, TREES, BRANCHES, & LEAF REMOVAL AND CLEANOUT LNK Junk Removal Cleanouts can clear out and remove any and all the different types of it, anywhere in Omaha Lincoln NE Council Bluffs IA. We provide a full line of spring cleanups, from gutter cleaning to power washing to lot clearing, we can handle any size job. A rash from poison ivy, or poison oak is caused by an oil found in these plants called Urushiol, it often can cause an itchy, blistering rash for up too weeks, when the oil comes in contact with your skin. Even by just touching a garden tool, sport equipment, or just a pet's fur you cause an allergic reaction. Urushiol can remain ACTIVE for years even after the plant is dead !!!! • Leaf Removal Lincoln • Leaf Cleaning Lincoln • Leaf Back Yard Clean Up • Leaf Removal Company • Leaf Removal Service Lincoln • Leaf Cleaning Bellevue • Leaf Removal Elkhorn • Leaf Cleaning Lincoln IA • Leaf Removal Papillion NE • Leaf Removal Ralston NE • Leaf Removal Omaha NE BEST LEAF REMOVAL COMPANY IN OMAHA LINCOLN NE COUNCIL BLUFFS IA LNK JUNK REMOVAL REQUEST MORE INFORMATION. CLICK HERE http://www.lnkjunkremoval.com/leaf-re... CONTACT: LNK Junk Removal Best Junk Removal Company in Lincoln Omaha NE Council Bluffs IA CALL (402) 590 8090 JUNK REMOVAL LINCOLN: http://www.lnkjunkremoval.com/ CALL (402) 590 8092 JUNK REMOVAL OMAHA: http://www.omahajunkdisposal.com/ CALL (402) 810-6325 JUNK REMOVAL OMAHA: http://www.junkremovalomahane.com/ CALL (402) 486 3717 MOVING & MOVERS OMAHA: http://www.moversinomaha.com/ CALL (402) 881 3135 CLEANING SERVICES: http://www.servicelincoln.com/ CALL (402) 875 7305 HANYDMAN: http://www.handymanlincolne.com/ CALL (402) 590 8095 MOVING Open Monday to Sunday 6:00 am to 11:30 pm WEB: www.lnkjunkremoval.com EMAIL: [email protected] http://www.lnkjunkremoval.com SERVICE AREA: Lincoln Nebraska Metro Area: Bennet Ne, Firth Ne, Hallam Ne, Hickman Ne, Lancaster County, Lincoln Nebraska, Malcolm Ne, Milford Ne, Panama Ne, Seward County, Seward Ne, Staplehurst Ne, Utica Ne, Walton Ne, WAVERLY NE, Lincoln NE | Omaha NE | Lancaster County NE | Seward County NE | Milford NE | 68501, 68510, 68512, 68514, 68516, 68517, 68520, 68524, 68526, 68529, 68531, 68532, 68542, 68544, 68583, 68588 Downtown Omaha, Central Omaha, Southwest Omaha and Sarpy County, including the communities of Bellevue, Blair, Carter Lake, Elkhorn, Fort Calhoun, Gretna, La Vista, Millard, Omaha, Papillion, Ralston, Springfield and Waterloo, NE, and Council Bluffs, IA. Zip codes: 68007, 68010, 68022, 68102, 68104, 68105, 68106, 68107, 68108, 68110, 68111, 68112, 68114, 68116, 68117, 68118, 68122, 68124, 68127, 68130, 68131, 68132, 68134, 68135, 68137, 68142, 68144, 68147, 68152, 68154, 68157, 68164, 68178.

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wendyimmiller · 6 years ago

Text

Ruffled Feathers and the Corkscrew Swamp

Lillian Russell. Photo credit: Pittsburgh City Paper

Feathers might not have been ruffled if actress Lillian Russell, and other early 20thcentury fashonistas, had not sashayed around in hats with colorful plumes, plucked from wading birds. And, if there had not been a fight to save the birds, there might not be a Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in southwest Florida today.

The feathers of Florida wading birds at that time fetched as much as $30 an ounce, twice the value of gold. The Florida legislature was pressured to ban the hunting of wading birds. That was insufficient, so activists held a fundraiser to hire wardens, three of whom were killed in the line of duty. Other wardens disappeared. Nobody knows what happened to them. Peer group pressure proved more effective, and safer, in the fight against plumed couture.

Great egrets. Depositphotos.

Here’s a link to a story about women who saved birds:

2.5 million wading birds once lived in Florida wetlands.

Today loss of shallow wetland habitat is the primary threat. An estimated 100,00 wading birds now live in Florida. In the early hours they forage for food in the swamp and the shallow wetlands, and then the birds return to the swamp to roost late in the day.

To reach the Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, on the northeast fringe of Naples Florida, you drive past cookie-cutter suburban developments with clipped hedges and man-made lakes with their gushing fountains. (The Corkscrew River got its name because of its twists and turns, but Florida developers didn’t think it sounded romantic, so changed it to the Imperial River.)

This was once part of a natural landscape of bald cypresses that spread over 50,000 acres. Bald cypresses were extensively cut for saw timber during World War II. The logging expanded during the post-war U.S Marshall Plan. Rot-resistant cypress timber was shipped to Europe. Business was good.

Beginning in 1954, 2,880 acres, including 768 acres of old-growth cypresses, were deeded from two local lumber companies to the National Audubon Society. Nearly 14,000 acres of the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is protected today. There are 500-year-old-growth bald cypresses that reach over 100’ tall. The largest bald cypress has a circumference of 28’.

Rose Cooper and a big, bald cypress.

Keith Johnson guided our morning tour a few weeks ago. The former energy executive from Columbus, Ohio, has been guiding groups for ten years. Keith has absorbed a staggering amount of the sanctuary’s natural history. I needed his tour more than I had imagined. My senses had been deadened by months of Kentucky’s winter of cold and rain.

At the outset of our tour, my state of mind made me recall a Mark Twain quote: “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” When I first arrived, I could barely see the swamp for the bald cypresses. A dose of Florida wilderness slowly brought me back around.

Keith Johnson loves the Corkscrew Swamp. His tour was more informative than a “pun-lobbing, pistol-wielding” Skipper on a Disney World Jungle Cruise. Keith’s walk, along a winding, elevated walkway, followed a tiny portion of the sheet flow of seasonal water that begins in Lake Trafford, before it reaches the Corkscrew Sanctuary and descends indecipherably downhill into pine flatwoods of slash pines and sabal palms, dotted with yellow-flowering tickseed Coreopsis leavenworthii. The water proceeds through wet prairies of sand cordgrass and buttonbush until it reaches swamps filled with massive bald cypresses, air plants, Spanish moss and Florida strangler figs.

Keith Johnson

There was so much I didn’t know about the bald cypress.

Bald cypress (Taxodium distichum)is a predominantly Eastern North American species of the coastal plains from Cape May, New Jersey, to East Texas. But the monoecious tree (the male flowers occur higher in the tree and rain down pollen on the females for fertilization) also grows in wetlands, north to Kentucky and southern Illinois. Bald cypresses, for landscapes, are very versatile conifers capable of growing in sun or partial shade, in wetlands or dry soils that are either acidic or alkaline. I have seen trees growing in the Miami tropics, and they are cold hardy (Zone 4) to Toronto. According to Mike Dirr’s Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs, “The rich, green foliage appears on feather-like branches and turns rusty orange to brown in autumn.”

Bald cypress foliage. Depositphotos.

I had previously thought the knobby “knees,” that grow around the periphery of bald cypresses, allowed the trees to breathe. But the knees play no role in oxygenation. Keith explained that these buttressed trees, together with the knees and roots of nearby trees, when woven among one another, support the trees from hurricane-strength winds. Though treetops can be blown out, few trees are toppled in hurricanes.

Knobby knees in the Corkscrew Swamp.

Toward the end of the tour, we saw what I thought was a big alligator sunning herself on a dry hummock. She was eight feet long. Not so big, we were told. Keith said the world-record alligator sighting was 19 feet long. This scared the wits out of us.

The tour group soon dispersed. Rose and I followed our tour guide. I wanted to learn more; Keith was ready for lunch. He told us how an Anhinga can fly into the swamp’s water, dip just below the surface and pierce fish with its “stiletto” bill.

A pig frog grunted near a clump of inland leather ferns with ten-foot-long fronds. Keith pointed to a dahoon holly and two birds—an American limpkin and a bittern—and then we said goodbye. We’d only walked one-half mile in two and a half hours.

This unique, remnant ecosystem, once so threatened, and now so carefully loved and preserved, might not exist if activists had not stood up for conservation and fought popular fashion.

Bald cypress knees in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky on March 7th.

Over the past few weeks, since our visit, I can’t stop thinking about the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. Inside it, Keith Johnson helped me set aside thoughts of the outside world for a few hours.

I realize, now, how lucky I have been for blessings I have found—outdoors—in public parks, gardens and natural areas. These random epiphanies pass in the blink of an eye but always stay with me.

I will remember Keith’s tour whenever I see a bald cypress.

Ruffled Feathers and the Corkscrew Swamp originally appeared on GardenRant on March 13, 2019.

from Gardening https://www.gardenrant.com/2019/03/ruffled-feathers-and-the-corkscrew-swamp.html via http://www.rssmix.com/

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