kirabug's idea files

Day 203:

Found a very small cache of emeralds, from which I was able to extract two fairly large green stones. They’re so easy to manufacture back on the rocky planets that they’re pretty much worthless — heck somebody figured out how to scoop up space junk and make them a few decades ago — but they’re better than rock rats, so I’m counting it as a win.

If this was the kind of job where jewelry wasn’t more health risk than anything else, I’d make jewelry out of them. Maybe some day, when I get off this rock, I’ll do something nice with them.

Day 202:

Hit a rock with a sledgehammer and a bunch of silvery grey things the size of rats poured out and started biting my ankles.

I would tell you more about how they look — spiky? angry — but I was so busy killing them I didn’t get a good look, and like most of the hostile critters on this planet as soon as they were dead they turned into dust.

That gets kind of old when trying to write up descriptions of things.

Anyway, I did learn that they squeak and squeal much like rats because there was another rock making similar noises that I chose *not* to crack open.

So that was today’s adventure. Let’s hope tomorrow is rat-free.

Day 201:

I’m fishing a lot, like I said yesterday, which also means I’m roasting fish for dinner a lot. It’s a nice break from the ducken I was eating pretty much all the time.

But I’m noticing that fish just isn’t very filling.

I mean, when I got here, it saved my life, so I’m not knocking fish. When it comes to “easy to catch, easy to cook” fish is the way to go.

But if I eat ducken, I seem to stay full for a lot longer, and get a lot more done before I get the shakes from not eating. (Hey, it’s easy to lose track of time in the caverns.)

And if I eat steak, which I don’t do very often because I don’t like killing my cows, I stay full for even longer than that. The meat holds pretty well down in the caverns, too. But then that could be the whole “lack of microorganisms” thing I mentioned yesterday, too.

Hard to tell without a microscope. Not sure I have the skill to make one, or the knowledge to know what I was looking at if I did.

Anyway, I’ve been eating a lot of roasted fish lately and it’s good, but not very filling. Goes well with mushrooms, makes a nice chowder with the potatoes, carrots really aren’t a good pairing for fish.  Got tired of fish sandwiches pretty quickly. If I’d found a source of oil for cooking (other than ducken fat, which makes the fish taste like ducken) I might’ve figured out fried fish sandwiches, which might be good. But plain fish sandwiches are really dry and stick in one’s craw.

That’s the dining report. Now to get some sleep.

Day 200:

Well, I can’t say I wanted to be here 200 days to begin with, but since I have been, yay me. I’ve survived 200 days in this hellscape.

I’m trying to stay off my feet as best I can. Made new boots and did that glowy thing with the weird blue rock to strengthen them. I’m also spending a lot of time fishing because I can soak my feet in the water while I sit on the bank. I’m not overly worried about my feet getting infected because it really does appear that the only microorganisms on this planet rode in with me. The water’s pure from all I can tell, none of the animals get sick… heck, I haven’t even really gotten sick since the first few weeks.

And maybe there is something special in the water, because my feet are healing much faster than they should.

Day 199:

By a very rough count (because they keep moving) I have at minimum 100 duckens in the yard and probably another hundred or more in the caverns below my dwelling.

They’re weird. I can’t figure out their flocking pattern. At one point I had about 40 in one cavern and they  refused to move from that spot. Then I dug into the cavern next door and they all scattered throughout the caves.  Now, no matter how many duckens I move into that cavern they refuse to stay in it.

If I could figure out what determines where they’ll stay, it would be easier to feed and care for them.

Then again, they seem to live for an extremely long time, so maybe I don’t need to worry about it.