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#supplejack
stopandlook · 11 months
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Scientific Name: Berchemia scandens Common Name(s): Alabama supplejack, supplejack, rattan vine Family: Rhamnaceae (buckthorn) Life Cycle: Perennial Leaf Retention: Deciduous Habit: Vine USDA L48 Native Status: Native Location: Allen, Texas Season(s): Spring
It’s the red twisty vine.
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repairingangelsworld · 6 months
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Research
how much relationship do i want my world do i want with mine (using human made objects creates ideas in the viewers mind that this is a human apocolypse)
because my apocolypse is on earth i can start to relate my mutated dark nature forms to specific mutated plants and animals that exist on earth. eg some of the vine like things i have created can be mutated supplejack, this will help me visualise some of the mutated things i can make such as mutated kauri, pohutakawa, tui etc
having bones like femur ones, show the push pull effect between life and death
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bfa4ange · 2 years
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The first encounter between the first human settlers and kauri must have been a
remarkable experience. In their homeland of eastern Polynesia, there was nothing that
could have prepared the travellers for these immense cathedrals of timber.
In some northern traditions, kauri trees are thought to be the legs of Täne Mahuta
holding apart the sky and the earth and allowing light into the world. In another
traditional whakapapa, this giant rangatira of the forest had a connection with a giant of
the ocean, the sperm whale or parãoa. Kauri and sperm whales were seen as brothers,
children of Täne Mahuta born at the beginning of the forest. At the time of their
conception, the sperm whale had four legs and walked about on the land, feeding in
swamps and wetlands. However, he longed to enter the realm of Tangaroa and explore
the vast oceans, and asked Täne to place him there. After sailing around the sea for
many years he returned to the coast and called out to his brother Kauri, asking him to
join him swimming the ocean. But Kauri refused to leave his home in the forest. The
whale realised he could not change Kauri's mind, so he told him, If you will not join
me, let us swap skins. For a day will come when humans will cut you down and make you
into waka, and with my skin you will be able to withstand the salty seas.' For Maori, this
connection between the two brothers explains why the bark of kauri is thin and full of
resin like the oil of a whale, and why it oozes gum like the ambergris of sperm whales.
Kauri belongs to an incredibly ancient plant lineage that stretches back hundreds of
millions of years. The plant world has changed a lot since the first kauri trees evolved.
Slow-growing conifers have been replaced as the masters of the planet by faster-growing
flowering plants - angiosperms - which make up 80 per cent of all plants on carth.
However, kauri has an ingenious strategy that helps to level the playing field with
these young upstarts. It drops a layer of acidic leaf litter, which strips the soil of the
nutrients that many angiosperms need to fuel their rapid growth. Kauri can cope in
these awful conditions, as it has formed an alliance with mycorrhizal fungi in the soil
that are more efficient at extracting the remaining nutrients. The changes kauri makes
to the soil are so dramatic that it has led scientists to describe the tree as an ecosystem
engineer. It radically reshapes the environment around it to suit its needs, and in doing
so changes the structure of the forest. Plants such as mãhoe, supplejack and nikau are
driven out, while others such as mâpou, kauri grass and mingimingi, which can tolerate
poorer soil conditions, thrive.
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elizabeth-234 · 3 years
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The Supplejack
Previous Chapter Sixteen: Civil War 
Summary so far from previous chapter: Here's a summary of the previous chapter: Peter goes to upstate New York with his team plus Flash and Ned. They all have fun with some heart to heart conversations about the disaster that was the end of their project because of the trip to Oscorp. It's summer with two weeks back to school. Peter reflects on what happened with Mr. Stark with much angst and sadness. He's also working himself too hard with two jobs, one at a coffee shop and the other at a radio supply store called Barry's. It is there that Peter finds himself watching the news as Civil War happens. Close footage of the event is released and the world watches as two superheroes battle it out. Peter stumbles home and calls Mr. Stark to make sure he's okay only to get a voicemail. He doesn't leave a message. 
Chapter Seventeen: Reflection and Realizations 
Peter always felt at odds with the world. From his youth – the time waking up alone in the hospital and going through middle school with laughter following at his back – left the impression of permanent displacement. The uncomfortable foreignness he sometimes felt inside his own skin was nothing new. Peter’s preference for a quiet room over something loud was strange to people. Sam Carlson called him a freak and at the time Peter cried. When no one stood up for him he believed it was true. What else would explain the differences between him and everyone else?
At home, his family knew and loved his differences. Ben wore his varsity jacket with pride. Peter would run up to him and beg to wear it, loving how the plush leather draped around his shoulders. Hoping one day he could wear his own like Ben. Peter could remember Ben’s excited ramblings. All the plans he made for Peter - with Peter. When he fell short of those dreams, Ben still loved him.
Ben took him to ice cream outings after spelling bees and pushing Peter to believe in himself no matter what. He showed Peter that sometimes, with special people, those differences weren’t considered bad but unique. Like his quirks were interesting instead of outlandish.
With the anniversary of Ben’s death approaching at the end of the week and now Germany, the differences felt like too much. His skin itched. He wanted to destroy his phone and hide under the blankets in his room. He also wanted to plop himself down in front of five monitors and make sure he didn’t miss anything.
It was a week since Germany. Seven days of news stations repeating words and phrases over and over again. Their pantomime words were pointless and flat but Peter couldn’t do anything but watch them. He had to make sure there wasn’t a speck of information missed. What if new injuries came to light? What if, after the bloody fight there was more violence and fear? The smallest word could incite the people of New York and the world to shift to a strange unease. To look at their heroes as lesser because of an in-house fight. Would they be wrong do so? So, hours of the tv he watched.
Today, though was different. He climbed out of bed to drag himself to the couch in their living room. It was still pushed to the side of the wall so May could roll her yoga mat out in the middle of the room so he had to sit at the end and crane his neck to see.
Peter yawned and stretched his back before turning on the tv. Both hope and dread tangled in his stomach as he waited to see if anything new happened while he was asleep. The first thing he noticed was the absence of colors. There was no red and gold; no red, white, and blue either. Instead a story played about a new workout fad on the morning show. Both hosts tried to squat in heels and a tight suit and all Peter could do was watch in disbelief.
He moved to the edge of the couch, digging his hands into the sides of the cushions. Peter switched the channels back and forth but …  there was nothing. Not a single story on the Avengers.
The day passed in a blur after that. Peter sat in the back of Barry’s listening to the radio as he worked. The Yaesu FT – 891 sat exposed in front of him on the table. Gears and widgets crowded the small paneling of the front.
Still no word about it on the radio. Iron Man, Captain America, The Avengers. Nothing.
It was incomprehensible. How had the world already moved on? The arguably largest powers of the world clashed in epic proportions and a week later no one cared. Everyone else was getting back to normal.
Peter’s whole world had changed. Maybe in minuscule terms but at a fundamental level. If this was what it meant to be at odds with the world then maybe it was a good thing. If he could remember, keep those relentless attacks and trembling fists in mind, then maybe it was worth it.
Before their upstate getaway. Peter scowled at the news. He hated how these strangers gossiped and mongered any information they had about Mr. Stark. Chest heaving from running. Peter watched from the side of the street as Iron Man was on the tv. Mr. Stark wearing his superhero persona complete with the large glasses and faux smile. When the woman who walked up beside him asked him who the man really was he was blindsided. Who else would he be besides Iron Man?
Peter didn’t understand at the time.
It was when he saw Mr. Stark, when Iron Man had fallen to the ground. Blood stained the red metal dripping onto the concrete underneath him. Peter realized he was as bad as the people in the hallway of the Tower like the man who spilled coffee on himself as their boss walked by all those months ago. He was the one staring at the man from behind glass – through a pair of Mr. Stark’s rose tinted glasses.
All those months he’d spent in knots because “it was Iron Man, after all.” Isn’t that what he thought before his presentation? All those dinners and movie nights with the man and Peter never viewed him as a person.
He was Iron Man.
But he was also Tony Stark.
Peter had never crossed that bridge or made the connection until now. His stomach churned at how long he’d willfully been ignorant.
Mr. Stark was a real human being made of flesh and blood. Not someone who didn’t care if their ‘past indiscretions’ were picked apart on the regular. Not a figurehead of a huge company or a symbol to the people. He was arrogant and flawed and … a kind person.
He was someone who fed Peter his favorite orders and watched boring school movies with him. He worried that Peter would get home safely ever time. He reached out to Peter, lifted him up, and all those months he worked with Peter. Mentored him as softly as he could when Peter was in no state to receive help.
It was like his eyes were opening after a long sleep.
When Ben passed it tore something out of Peter. He closed himself off from people. The hurt of him leaving left a bitter knot in Peter. One he never wanted to feel again. A hurt he would do anything to make sure he didn’t feel it again. The pain in his chest, squeezing and weighing heavy until he couldn’t breathe followed him for months
In the anguish, the solution became about connection. It was his connection that hurt, their love that was leaving this pain in Peter long after Ben was gone. If it wasn’t for that, maybe he wouldn’t be hurting as much. If, Peter had kept a distance, maybe Ben would still be alive. So, he turned his life was on autopilot. Didn’t allow himself to get attached to anyone and he was alone. He was getting by. It was all the better for it, he told himself.
Then the S.T.A.R.K. posters took over Midtown and something changed. A small spark ignited, just barely smoldering, but aflame all the same. Peter wanted to participate. He wanted to win. For the first time in a long time, he battled his insecurities and wrote his name on the paper outside the school office. Fingers trembled against the concrete wall but looking back on it now, it was the first step to reaching out and making a new connection, though at the time he didn’t see it that way.
His back still hurt from the hours spent hunched over at his desk scribbling in notebooks and testing materials. The knot in his stomach urged him to find a better solution. The recipe needed tweaking and the equation needed changing to make it the best. If he could find the right formula then maybe he could help someone. Maybe, the words taunted him, he could’ve saved Ben.
It was a lifeline just out of his reach. Peter struggled and grappled to grab hold and pull himself up even after hearing Ms. Potts and Mr. Stark spoke about him as he hid behind the plants. Not after the tour and the internship began could he breath again.
Not until the lab. The quiet moments in lab two were like the first relief of that pressure. The first quiet after the storm. Working next to Mr. Stark he found the ability to breathe again. Just for a few hours he could be present in himself, not feel the uncomfortable itch of being in his own skin, and just be. Only now did he realize he was sitting in the eye of the storm while the winds raged around him, waiting to move away and sink him into their tempest clouds.  
Mr. Stark made effort after effort to reach him. He asked about May and with genuine interest asked about school and life. Peter’s face turned hot as he remembered the glass of water and medicine waiting for him on the nightstand when he insisted on going to the tower when he was ill.
Why hadn’t he realized before?
Maybe it was because of Ben and his parents. Maybe Peter was scared to lose someone again. He didn’t want to ever put on a black, ill-fitting suit and hear the flat, kind words that never really captured what was special about a person again.
The man tried to show him but Peter wasn’t in a place to receive.
And that made the ache in his chest throb all the more.
There was nothing more he wished than to be thrown that rope again but it was gone now, pulled back to the safety of the boat while Peter was just now realizing he was lost at sea.
The why wasn’t important. It didn’t matter what Mr. Stark was getting out of it. It didn’t matter why he picked Peter or that he used him in whatever was happening with Oscorp. All of that stung but it didn’t negate the real moments when Mr. Stark became someone he could look up to. Someone he could look to for help.
What mattered was he showed Peter who he was underneath the larger than life image. Mr. Stark was a man who hadn’t noticed the view from his obnoxiously large tower until Peter pointed it out. He was the one who burned frozen pizza but new how to build rockets and whatever else his imagination dreamed up.
He had faults but he was trying.
Mr. Stark was a man Peter would never know further.
Again, his world changed without really changing at all. The subtle self-awareness became sharper and he could see, could finally admit what he wanted.
He wanted to visit with Julia and collaborate again, study together like friends. He wanted to hang out with Ned and Flash and just laugh without feeling so damn guilty. Peter wanted to go back to the Tower and spend his afternoons working on projects. Watch movies and make frozen pizza, not burned preferably. He thought of his promise to May, the feel of her arms impossibly strong around him and their words whispered together. He had thought he’d meant it when he said he would try for himself and her.
Now, though, he knew it was more of a child’s promise. Something said without much thought to how to progress.
“I want you to start taking care of yourself and loving yourself. I know it’s not easy and it downright sucks most of the time but can you try to do that?” May had said.
Had he tried?  Did he make any progress this summer?
At first, he worked himself to the bone. Tired from waking up and going to bed from school, Barry’s, and The Bitter End. There was purposefully no room to think and reflect, which was how Peter wanted it. While self-reflection was one of his strong suits, it was also a downfall. He would get trapped in these endless cycles of overthinking and doubting himself.
But it wasn’t sustainable. He was only one, arguably asocial, individual. It was too much at all hours of the day. His time at The Bitter End came to just that with loud shouting from Cindy and a year ban from the store. Peter wasn’t sure if the latter was a joke or not.
Working one job with school so far was working. Barry was a low maintenance boss and if he stayed on top of homework, school wasn’t too bad. Still, he missed going to the Tower after school. Working collaboratively with his team and spending time there after.
Peter sighed, rubbing his chest absentmindedly before shutting the radio off and leaning back in his chair.
How could the world move on so quick? How, after everything the Avengers did for them, could they just talk about workouts and other mundane things?
He took his cell phone out of his pocket and flipped it open. His thumb hovered over the enter button as he watched the blinking light highlight Mr. Stark’s number.
“Damn.” He said under his breath and closed the phone again. After that last time, he didn’t have the courage to call the number again or leave a voicemail.
Peter sank forward. His head rested into the curve of his elbows on the desk as he thought of what he should do next.
-
Despite his adversity to it, change came into his life whether he wanted it or not. Uncaring at the best of times and brutal at the worst.
Ned stood beside him and a glazed over Flash to the other side. The former was rambling on about a last-minute vacation he took with his parents to Toronto, while the latter didn’t even attempt to be impressed.  
“- and there’s this little town where they perform all these plays every year. We saw A Midsummer Night's Dream and boy was that way hornier than I thought.” 

“Well, if that isn’t fascinating but some of us have to get to class.”

“Don’t act all high and mighty, Flash. We’re in the same first period as you, dude.” Ned winked at Peter.
Flash was still Flash but he’d become less rough as time wore on. Ned seemed to have that effect on people, Julia too. Flash would gripe and grumble but to Peter, he seemed happier now than their freshman year. He wondered if maybe Flash had wanted a fresh start in high school as much as him. Peter grinned at him and rolled his eyes in good nature with Flash as Ned continued giving them a rundown of the play.
He looked around at the other students comparing schedules and groaning over their new teachers. A group of short students walked by them. Peter froze at their height difference. Was he that short last year? It felt weird but good to see how much he’d grown. They were no longer the small fish on campus. He grinned.
Peter followed Flash and Ned to their English first period. As luck, or not, would have it Mrs. Brzozowski was teaching their class again. Her scowl spoke volumes for how she felt about her schedule change.
He groaned along with the rest of the class when they received their assigned seating. Setting his backpack under his seat, Peter took a seat by the window and managed not to gloat at the good spot. Middle back and next to the window. Plenty of fodder for daydreams, though he suspects their novels will keep him engaged through the year. He missed Austen but was excited to read some American Literature this year.
By the time he made it home, Peter’s head was pounding. Lunch was thankfully quiet because he managed to find a spot in the library. Ned visited him before he was off to greet Midge and everyone. Peter sat in relative silence thinking over his peanut butter and jelly made from the heels of the bread (he’d have to get some more after work) about the school year ahead and the one he left behind last June. All the while he resisted the urge to look at his phone notifications.
Peter knew that he wouldn’t find anything there.
Tomorrow he could go and eat with everyone, Peter decided. By then the first day jitters would subside, at least a bit, and it would be nice to see Midge and Jaimik again. Not so much to hear about Mike’s latest antics.
As was his routine after work and homework, Peter climbed into bed adjusting his t-shirt from clinging to his back and curled up under the covers. After much tossing and turning and entirely too much thinking, he fell asleep.
Peter woke in a sweat clawing at his chest. The sweat soaked his shirt making it damp to the touch. His chest heaved from the great pressure threatening to explode out. His hands trembled and he threw them in front of him. There was no blood. He wasn’t bleeding. He wasn’t the rabbit or being torn apart as his subconscious wanted him to believe.
Peter couldn’t stop the ragged breathes. He tried to concentrate on his heart but it burned in his chest, the raging rhythm seemed to take over his body, pulsing in his head and stomach. Blindly, Peter reached out and pulled the notebook from the crevice of his bed and wall.  
Sometimes he would read through them but today he hugged them close to his chest. His fingers traced the indents and now fraying page ends until he could finally breath deep and steady.
It was only then in the still and dusk of not quite morning that Peter realized he was crying.
Thank you for reading.
Next Chapter Eighteen: Existing 
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captincaution · 7 years
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#supplejack #rolls with #wild mint and #lime #tea #kai #wildfoodfestival #Whangaripo #aotearoa #kiwilife #kiwi_pics @wild_delicious (at Whangaripo Valley)
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