Chapter 17: Reality Checkmate

The Reality Check set in immediately after Masque clean up was complete. Thirty days were given to wrap up, put away, and pack all things before portal closure. No monthly allowance was received for the final month; instead survival on what could be scavenged and what little there was in savings. Even though it felt unjust and at the moment like Theowyn was loosing part of her soul's playground; rather than get upset, violent, or angry, energy was shifted to focus on preparing the land for dormancy. Even though Britannia Faire technically no longer had a groundskeeper from reality check onward, it felt duty to the land to prepare it and all that dwelled on it for survival without a keeper. Aside from sorting my personal belongings out from the Faire's, the entire site needed a once over in attempt to limit how much dormancy damage the land would sustain in the absence game play. In addition, word from the Oil Foremen informed Theowyn that, if the Castle was left undefended to the crews of Big Oil, they had orders to run it over with their heavy machinery to get it out of their way. 

Not knowing what was to happen to the Faire in the future and not wanting to waste resources and other peoples efforts and time, the decision was made to take apart and move the pieces of Bounty's Keep out of harms way for potential reuse down the path. 

Woodfield locals Mike and Drakus found themselves back on Faire land to lend their hands and say goodbye to the Faire one last time.  

With their help, this became a half a days job.

 

Given that the grass had been left to grow wild in the field, the long stalks acted as a friction reducer, making transport much easier.  

A clippet of our resource harvesting adventure can be watched above.

  
By the end of the harvest, only the terraced land remained where Bounty's Keep once stood. 

Now that the Keep pieces were out of Big Oil's path of destruction, they needed a place to be stored. 

Even though the public would not be able to appreciate the addition, for the remainder of my stay at Britannia Faire, the painted walls were set up behind the tool shed to add to the medieval stage atmosphere. 

Appreciation Adventure

The purple plant pictured below is known as Dead Nettle (Lamium purpureum). During those closing days, Theowyn began to feel like that inside: Dead. Soon it would be time to put her character away, only to be taken out during special events. Forced to hide behind the the mundane shift, no longer to live a fantasy.     

When all the Faire's responsibilities were taken care of and all that was left to do was pack personal belongings into cars; part of the final days were spent enjoying the land without any responsibilities. The goal was to try to absorb and explore as much nature as possible before Theowyn was to return to the portal of petroleum products and concrete.  

The picture above is of the wildflower Smartweed. It is found woven into the tall grasses of the battlefield and alongside water ways. Herbal remedies have known Smartweed to possesses powerful nutritional properties that have been traditionally used for respiratory support, to relieve bloating, and for gastrointestinal distress. While never used for that purpose, it reminded me to think smart of my situation and to remember that there was a greater reason to why the portal was closing; one that I could not see. 

And so for the next few days, a land scouting adventure was documented. All photos that follow were taken on or within a walking distance of the Faire lands. The above of a geologic outcrop tucked between two hills. The below of a limestone structure with a collapsed roof. This would be part of the map following adventure mini game floating around the unfinished projects mindspace folder in Theowyn's head. She had fantasied about restoring the building and placing a "reward" or "clue" within its confines for other players to stumble upon. 

Continuing the adventure and closing documentation of the land, the party of two (Theowyn and Dragur, still here till the end) checked over the inner boarders of the land before venturing outside its surrounding boarders. 

The Teutoburg gate still stood proudly as the center focus near the river crossing.  

The road from the river crossing looked a bit worse for the wear. From this perspective one cannot see the extreme angle created from the ware and tear of additional traffic. This newly formed angle was too much for Moonshadow's low riding profile, and she bottomed out the last few times when returning from a town run.     

The creek itself was low and flowed at an easy rate. The day was cool, so we choose to follow the road a bit rather than explore the waterways this day.  

On the road outward, the presence of other wanders could be seen set along the muddied trail. 

In addition to fauna prints many wildflowers were in full bloom and the Spring Ephemerals were out. Ephemeral meaning short-lived or lasting for a brief time. In the case of spring flowering Ephemerals, the latter definition is more appropriate, since the plants don't die, they just go dormant - quickly. Ephemeral sightings to be posted further down the story line.  

Alas we had concluded our documentation of the Faire lands having reached the Northern most border.  

 From here we decided to leave the known path to blaze our own trail.

The bridge marks the crossing of Baker's Fork: the county's name for the stream at the intersection of Grizzle Run Road and Township Highway 81.

 Following along the far side of Baker's Fork, our off-trail adventure began. 

There was much to see. Many downed trees covered in decay and a thicket of underbrush greeted us when we first entered.

One can still see the red bridge off in the background in addition to what looks like an aged deer rubbing in the foreground located on the front most pole.

The wander led us up to an exposed limestone wall dripping with groundwater and covered in moss.

My ranger class desired a few more nights in character to camp along this outcrop complete with a smoldering fire to get through the night. This would have been a great place to hold a vigil, wishing for my character's class to have a more realistic ranger experience.

All and all this area was found to be filled with plants and organisms that are drawn to shaded moist environments. 

Below, we had reached the first turning point in our meander. On one side there was a grassy island...

...the other, a pine covered rock next to an enclosed silt beach that fronted a deep pool. 

Looks as if the water hole had a recent Racoon visitor. You can tell by their tiny human like hand prints. 

We followed downstream for a bit and decided to explore a water runoff between two valley walls.

The path led us up a fair amount of elevation, and around a few turns. 

What waited just beyond the bend of the hill was another exposed limestone shelf. Given that the earth had eroded away what lay beneath, the outcrop formed a ledge for water to run over, producing a small waterfall when water runoff volume is high.  

Wishing to gain an elevated perspective of the feature, the right wall was traversed. On the way up, a black pipe was spotted protruding from the side of the hill. This could have been for someone's drainage or perhaps it used to be a natural spring runoff at some time.

The runoff was explored a bit more until we realized that the drainage path began in one of the surrounding farmer's yards. Upon discovery of that information, we turned around and followed some game trails back towards the general direction of Baker's Fork Creek. 

By the time we navigated to the creekside again, we were located at the top of the valley ridge. 

A bit more ridge running was done to find a "safer" path to descend once again the the valley floor. 

The way down required us to do a bit of backwards scrambling down some limestone using exposed tree roots as hand holds. 

 It wasn't too long before we found ourselves traversing the creek bed for a distance.

There were still some areas that contained leftover log jams from the latest flood that mounded along the creek's edge. 

Even out here along a path barely traveled, the mundane reality was witnessed contaminating the pristine view of nature. Whenever we ran across garbage that didn't belong, we placed the trash into our backpacks to be properly disposed of back at the Tavern. 

We would go on to follow the stream's side the rest of the way back to the Faire lands, resuming our exploration adventure the following day. 

The following day was a bit warmer so we decided to explore the waterways off towards the left of the Grizzle Ridge Run Bridge. 

We found a few man made structures left to their own devices along the way, including this patchwork of destroyed drainage block, for lack of better words to describe it.

 In addition to a few cool water features, we also found an additional entrance to an abandoned cave.

Under equipped, lacking headgear, knee pads, and head lamps, in addition to spotting what looked to be some sort of medium sized cat prints (no idea where the print image wandered off to) we decided it best to leave the unexplored cave a mystery.  

Additional Tree, Outcrop, Flora, and Fungi sightings captured on our adventures are listed and grouped below.
  

Cool Tree Captures

Outcrop Captures (Exposed Geology)

  
Flora Sightings

Scientifically speaking the flower below is known as Impatiens capensis. In common tongue it is known as Jewel-weed or Spotted Touch-Me-Not. The name Jewelweed comes from the leaves natural water-repelling qualities. When the leaves collect rainwater or moisture, the water-repelling texture / coating of its leaves forces the water into tiny spheres, which resemble natural jewels. For this reason, when the leaves are put underwater, they appear silver-like underneath. Jewelweed is best known for its skin healing properties. The leaves and the juice from the stem of Jewelweed are used by herbalists as a treatment for poison ivy, oak and other plant induced rashes, as well as many other types of dermatitis. Jewelweed works by counter-reacting with the chemicals in other plants that cause irritation. Poultices and salves from Jewelweed are known folk remedy for bruises, burns, cuts, eczema, insect bites, sores, sprains, warts, and ringworm. 

When you are out in the field and find you have been exposed to poison ivy, oak, or stinging nettle you can reach for the Jewelweed plant and slice the stem, then rub its juicy inside on exposed parts. With enough plant liquid ideally, irritation should ease and additional breakouts are prevented. An infusion made from boiling leaves of Impatiens capensis may be frozen for later use. Brew chopped Jewelweed in boiling water until you get a dark orange liquid. Yellow Jewelweed will not yield orange color and may not be effective. Strain the liquid and pour into ice cube trays. When one has a skin rash, rub it with a Jewelweed cube and let the healing properties commence. It should will keep in the freezer for up to a year. One can also preserve the infusion by canning it in a pressure cooker.

 

The Trillium in most of it's hybrid color phases. This is actually New York (Theowyn's Home State) State's Flower. In NY it is illegal to harvest.

 

Some specialty grasses... 

 A few web captures from a moist morning in May.

Fungi

The bottom left image is of an orange strand of fungi that contaminates the wood in a biotrubated path through the heartwood of downed trees. The bottom right image is actually of an assumedly owl pellet that has been re-hydrated from the recent bought of rain.   

On our walks over the lands, again our eyes were honed to the ground looking for the Morel mushroom.

Yet another abandoned man made structure. What once resided here? The mind ponders.

Morels grow from as early as late April until about the middle of June. Black morels are likely to appear the earliest and are likely to be found under conifers, in the woods, or along woods edges. Late May is when yellow morels are likely to be found in numbers. Normal cap size is 1-2” wide and 1-4 tall. It looks a bit like honeycomb or sponge and is never wavy or brain-like.

Walking around looking for Morels.

Beware the False Morel that can have this brain-like appearance for they are poisonous. Normal height is 2-5” tall, but there are always exceptions. All true morels are completely hollow in the interior. These must be cooked thoroughly; make sure to never ever eat morels raw! They are good sautéed, deep fried, or dried and reconstituted. One of the best ways to eat them is by themselves to appreciate the subtle morel flavor. 

Draugr prepared our harvest in a soup and as a deep fried snack to celebrate our last few days. Remember, never harvest any mushroom unless you are completely positive it is safe to eat, as many can be deceivingly poisonous.

Saying Goodbye

During those final days, the land had begun to grow wild once more as the lawn was left to grow freely.

Only the immediate Tavern area was maintained for comfortable traversing. 

The final days trickled away at a faster pace than was desirable and before I knew it, the final evening was upon me.  

The next day dawned a beautiful warm and sunny morning. One last traverse along the inner property line was taken along with this short video capturing the wind dancing along with the grass. Sadly, the circumnavigation of the video was taken at too fast a pace to truly capture the beauty of the land. 

I made sure to take photos of how I left the Tavern, complete with time stamp in case any funny business happened in my absence, I wanted to be sure I had picture proof that I left the Tavern as clean as possible. In addition, knowing the Viking had plans on returning in the next couple of days, the Tavern was left put away, but livable. 

Mimicking the photo took the first day Theowyn arrived, a similar one was taken almost one full year later the day she would leave. The separation would be permanent, for Theowyn would never again be able to commit her time to be the groundskeeper, even during hypothetical future seasons, because Life just put me in reality checkmate.   

Life had stripped me bare of everything I had known for the past year. I was forced to say goodbye to a piece of heaven on earth I felt I had poured some of my soul into over that time. But that wasn't Life's final play. I kept it secret, informing only my closest friends and family, but earlier that month of May, I was diagnosed with Cancer, and my life was drastically changed that summer forever.