It's pretty depressing, but the fact that soil and groundwater are almost certainly contaminated anywhere that humans have touched. I've seen all kinds of places from gas stations, to dry cleaners, to mines, to fire stations, to military bases, to schools, to hydroelectric plants, the list could go on, and every last one of them had poison in the ground.

Varies depending on the site, sometimes it's gasoline, or solvents, or heavy metals or PFAS. As for how it happens, accidental or deliberate releases. I've found military documents from the 50s that say the official place to dispose of used motor oil was a pit they'd dug in the ground.

They're also at the lowest drainage point for that whole valley. Plus, the properties of the lakebed make it so that water is very slow to soak into the ground, so it's going to take a while for things to dry out.

Promise?

Shaken, not purred.

Maybe some non food gift, like a bouquet of flowers? Or a gift card to a local movie theater or other non food activity?

Hah, the number on my bank account sometimes feels like it's just pixels.

But most valuable to me would be old irc chatlogs with people who've passed. It's been years since I've felt the need to pull them out and read them, but I'm happy to know they're there.

I curate the communities I follow to only be nice, hobby-related things, so when I've had enough of the all feed, there's plenty to see without the horror stories.

I'm a geologist, but not the fun kind that gets to look at actual rocks.

I do environmental and some geotechnical work, which pretty much boils down to "Is the dirt poisoned?" and "How hard do I have to squish the dirt to make the future building not fall down?" There's few things to get excited about, but it's steady work and pays the bills.

Trypophobia, something about those kinds of holes... *shudder*

Maybe go find some comments recommending Lemmy and gild them?

Greg Alder's Yard Posts is a guy who posts every Friday about growing food in southern California. His climate is pretty similar to mine and his advice was a huge help when I was figuring out the timing for growing a garden. He's also super knowledgeable when it comes to growing avocados, if that's your thing.

Yep, and he's probably the guy responsible for the nibbles higher up. They love my tomatoes, and become absolute terrors in my garden this time of year.

I've come to learn your brain is really good at subconscious processing of things that don't quite make it to conscious awareness. Some part of your brain saw the cop and the deer and was trying to alert the rest of you.

I had that happen once when I was out hiking alone doing geology research. I reached this area of the woods and was suddenly overwhelmed by this feeling of TIME TO LEAVE. I tried arguing with myself that there was still enough daylight to check out an outcrop I could see in the distance, but the feeling got so powerful, I finally gave in and called it quits for the day.

I realized while walking out, that with all the little noises of the quail and other animals I'd been hearing all day, that spot in the woods had been silent. The next time I visited the area (and not alone this time), I found a cave right behind where I'd been standing, with fresh mountain lion tracks. Who knows, some part of me might have seen a mountain lion in that cave and was doing everything it could to tell me to get the fuck away!

Hah, that sounds like me! I started a few communities in places where I knew I could supply some OC, and so far its been mostly just me posting my stuff, but I'm stoked whenever I get comments!

I agree! Do the different colors mean anything?

As someone trying to diet, 100% the calorie deficit 😖

I think it's a beautiful scene, but I know desert landscapes aren't everyone's cup of tea.

I completely agree. Every so often I get an itch to have a look at Reddit, and though the niche subs still seem alright, the comments of anything near the front page are beleaguered with low-quality jokes and karma grabs.

God forbid you're actually interested in discussing the subject, any comment that takes more than a few seconds to write or read gets buried under a thousand others like your first examples.

Maybe we need more Christmas songs that are suitable to gloom of Seasonal Effective Disorder.

Yes, 100%. I'd like to see more songs about the dark cold that sucks rather than pretend with "merry and bright."

Rosemary chips actually sound pretty good, never seen that in the US.

Yep, I bought the telescope for $70 and separate solar filter for $20. Can dm links if you're interested.

You're right, they're just making a joke, as till also refers to how farmers prepare soil for planting crops.

Oh definitely still glad we visited, the whole area was still breathtakingly beautiful. I really want to come back one summer and spend more time hiking, hopefully with more sun!

Oh cool, I'd love to see your photos.

I used to comment a lot more than I would post back on Reddit, but I've been putting in an effort to try to build up communities here, both my own and others. So I've been scraping all my old pictures to find useful content, and as a result, have more posts than comments.

You know I thought about deleting my account, but with a combination of nostalgia and the hope that some of my comments would still be useful led me to decide to just leave it in stasis.

So far, pretty much everything I've posted on Lemmy has been new OC, but I think I'll start scraping and reposting some of my old reddit posts eventually.

I'm subscribed to both! And I've tossed a couple butts your way already ^-^

Here's to getting all those achievable goals!

On the pill front, is it possible to crush them and mix with something more easily swallowable?

Not to make light of things, but the first thought that came to my head for counteracting bad tasting medicine is a spoonful of sugar.

I drove from southern California to Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico for it!

Maybe swimming for exercise? Not in a gator-pond, but are there local community pools nearby?

I'll confess I do this with some regularity. If I unwrap a piece of cheese and see it's moldy, well I'm not tossing a nice hunk of aged gouda in the trash! I'll slice the mold off, then do a sniff and nibble test. If it still tastes moldy, keep slicing until it doesn't.

I've done this since I was a kid, so who knows if it's actually safe, or if I've just spent decades rolling the dice and getting lucky.

As much as I'm biased towards pretty pictures, posts about life in the desert are also welcome.

I've got relatives in Phoenix, and I was alarmed to learn that checking your shoes for scorpions before putting them on is standard procedure for them!

So jealous you had good weather! I was just there at the tail end of May, and we had constant rain/snow/hail. The locals said it was really unseasonably cold weather.

Well there's the guy who didn't want to shit for three days...

Well you already did! There's different servers that host lemmy, each with their own admins and rules. You've signed up on lemmy.world, and you can use this one account to interact with other federated instances.