Day 563: Going overboard, as usual

Day 563:

Well it took all day but I got the convenient ore out of the mine and left the inconvenient stuff behind. I’ll come back for it some other day.

My legs ache and my skin is really wrinkled from all the water I’ve been in and out of. I’m hydrated — the little lake is pretty pristine and definitely seems drinkable– but very cold. I don’t really want to get hypothermia, so I think it’s time to melt some rock or something in the furnace just to ensure that the rest of the chambers in my cave house get warm enough.

Very glad I made that ducken-skin mattress and cow leather blanket now.

Day 562: Underwater mining

Day 562:

It is much harder to do just about anything in water than it is to do the same thing without water, except possibly swim.

I spent most of the day mining out that lake only to discover it open into another underground chamber.

So I’m scouting around a bit but trying not to get too involved. I’m over here to free the lake, not mine out yet another chunk of land.

(Yes I am making more pickaxes for tomorrow. Why do you ask?)

Day 561: taking a moment

Day 561:

Dug a bunch of ore out of the underground lake I found. Now it’s a deeper underground lake.

Still no fossils. Since I realized this, I’m checking what I dig up regularly. Not sure how we get coal with no fossils.

Beautiful red sunset tonight, which I watched from a mostly secure location while I tried to use the sun to dry. Some days it’s hard to choose between a hot fire, a mediocre sun, and a hot bath on how to warm up, but the show was so beautiful tonight I opted for the sunlight.

I wish I knew how to predict the weather so I could make sure to see more of the beautiful sunsets.

Day 560: Nope nope nope

Day 560:

Thing the first: don’t worry everyone, I found the monsters. The new arrow hole in my best leather shirt can attest to it. Fortunately, it only scraped my shoulder. But in the meantime OW I WAS SHOT.

Thing the second: found another underground lake. They sure have a lot of them here.

But no fossils. I mean like none. Even if I account for the fact that most animal or creature remains appear to automatically disintegrate with the touch of the sun, I should be finding skeleton bones or fish bones or something in the soil.

Which points back to either terraformed planetesimal or fever dream. But definitely not some weird vid show where you knock someone unconscious and drop them in Old Earth’s Hawaii (or even New Earth’s Hawaii) and see how long it takes them to realized they’re not stranded in space. Definitely not a place with active evolution.

I think. I mean, I’m not a paleontologist.

I might not even be a miner.

The day I’m having, I wouldn’t be shocked to learn I’m a dandelion.

Day 559: giant mushrooms again

Day 559:

One of the things definitely pushing my whole idea of where I am into the “fever dream” category are the six-meter-tall brown or red mushrooms.

They don’t appear poisonous. (A smile with a disappearing cat told me they weren’t anyway.) (That’s a joke — I haven’t hallucinated to my knowledge yet, and I haven’t found any cats.)

They do appear to like skeletons, because every time I knock one down (they do, after all, store well, being mushrooms) I find a thigh bone or something where the roots should be.

I’m wondering if I could grow my own with a skeleton bone.