Yesterday I tried to boil some rain water with hot rocks I gathered. I also started the fire in my tipi, an experiment gone wrong in the past. The following explains the results.

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If you’ve traveled to another country or gone anywhere in the outdoors, you’ve probably heard of giardia. Supposedly Civilizations settlers brought this crap over from Europe or somewhere, since giardia seems to foster best in densely populated areas of domestic cows. Thanks to these assholes (the settlers, not the cows) this flagellated protozoan parasite known as Giardia lamblia, (AKA “the runs,” “the shits,” and my favorite; “Beaver Fever“), lives in almost every water source in the United States. It generally spreads by tricking someone into eating the poop of another infected creature… which leads me to think that giardia sounds like Mother Nature telling civilization to, and not in the figurative sense, “eat shit and die.”

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Late last summer I ran a post-apocalyptic skills summer camp. We traveled to Laurelhurst Park for Calens grappling hook climbing lesson. Calen began his lesson at the west end of the park. Having a shoulder injury I could not partake in the climbing so I began to wander the park in search of food. When I reached the pond I saw that it was almost glowing neon green in color. It looked radioactive. Around the pond was a strip of yellow caution tape and posted every so often were signs that read, “TOXIC ALGAE BLOOM: Microcystis. Please keep away from water.” I thought, isn’t it odd for a pond in a city park to have a toxic algae bloom? Apparently it isn’t as rare as I thought.

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