Cautiously pressing on the ground with one foot, I systematically tested for a concealed hot spring but found nothing that could explain the heat. After an hour, I gave up trying and accepted the impossible with immense gratitude. I’m alive, and as long as this heat holds out, I won’t freeze. A weight lifted, and exhaustion overwhelmed me, dragging me under like an avalanche. My eyes fell on their own accord. I gave in to sleep, laid against the massive trunk, and quickly passed out.

Something woke me—a noise. My adrenaline surged, alerting me to danger. Behind me, I heard a twig snap in two. I slowly stood and peeked around the trunk. A wolf sniffed the ground, emitting a low growl. He could smell me, and by the looks of him, he hadn’t eaten for a long time. I gasped. Instantly, the beast looked up, and our eyes locked together. His growl intensified, and he cautiously approached.

I shook, frozen with fear, and my fingers dug into the soft bark of the tree. The wolf made a wide circle, never taking his eyes off me. I couldn’t move, paralyzed to the spot. Until now, I had always believed my ability to lead would take me through any situation, but I couldn’t negotiate or leverage my way out. He has no hidden motive. He has nothing to trade. He doesn’t hate me or like me. He’s just hungry.

He hesitated only a few feet from me. He looked up, sniffed, then trained his focus back to me. I’m not sure why he hesitated, but it appeared to me he made up his mind to kill me. My fight-or-flight instinct kicked in, and I ran—no fight in this girl. I heard the wolf bolt. His furious bark and growl got closer. I knew he would pounce soon, but I refused to give up. Your entire life is supposed to flash before your eyes right before death, but for me, it was a ridiculous joke. I came to this wilderness leadership retreat to find my “inner” wolf. Now, I was about to be “in” a wolf. I felt his hot breath and knew he was about to bite into my leg. Suddenly, I heard a loud crack. The rustling of leaves. A sickening thud. A canine whine. Then silence.

My momentum took me into the blizzard. The temperature change knocked the breath out of me. I stumbled and fell – the sub-zero air hurt. My hands lost feeling as soon as I dug them into the snow to get back on my feet. Every exposed part of me began to tingle. I would die in minutes if I didn’t get back under the tree. I turned towards the tree to see a large limb on top of the wolf. Blood oozed from his mouth.

I dashed back under the tree, immediately embraced by the tropical climate. I stayed on the opposite side of the dead wolf. However, somehow, I knew I needed to drag the body out into the snow, where he would freeze. If I didn’t, the carcass would decay, and carnivores of all types would smell him. I plucked up enough courage to face the beast. I poked around, attempting to find the best approach. Pulling on his hind legs, I surprisingly found him easy to move. I dragged him through a carpet of leaves that made the task manageable. Once out from under the tree, I dropped him and returned to safety.

I began studying the strange tree and noticed knobs spread around the trunk protruding enough to be used as footholds. I carefully climbed, finding it easy, like someone had arranged the knobs exactly where I needed them. I sat on the first limb I came to, which was so wide I could have rolled over in my sleep without fear of falling off. I saw hundreds of limbs above me, with only the smallest amount of light penetrating the canopy of leaves on top.

Further down the limb, I heard what sounded like running water. I walked to the sound. To my surprise, I found a tiny waterfall. Looking up, I saw the waterfall flowing from leaf to leaf from somewhere above. I guess the melting snow from the canopy fueled this fall. Cupping my hands, I drank. Water never tasted so good.

While I drank, a bird landed on a nearby branch and began singing. I’m no bird expert, but this one appeared ancient, like it belonged to another period. It tweeted the most beautiful song, unlike any I’ve heard in New York.

“Aren’t you a beautiful thing. How’d you get here?” I reached out, and it fluttered away, landing only a few branches from me. To my surprise, there were dozens of apples growing from that branch. I climbed to it and ate. Delicious! I picked as many as I could carry and went back to my limb.

Over the next couple of weeks, I converted my limb into a bedroom. The leaves made a soft place to sleep, the waterfall provided water, and in addition to apples, I found grapes, oranges, pears, bananas, and almonds.

I thought about this tree a great deal. How does it generate heat? How can it grow a variety of fruits? And almonds? Where did the birds come from? No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t explain it. It just was. And I’d be dead if it wasn’t.

One morning, I heard a helicopter. I quickly climbed down, threw on my coat, and ran out to the field, jumping and screaming my head off. Predictably, it didn’t see me. How could it?

The following day, I heard the helicopter again. I didn’t move. There was no need to freeze just to be overlooked. I closed my eyes, imagining my home and parents, regretting that I waited too late to make them grandparents. My career took first place. It’s a shame. They would have made awesome grandparents.

A familiar smell jolted me from my daydream. Smoke filled my nostrils. The tree was on fire. Enormous flames engulfed the treetop, dropping fiery leaves and branches around me. I grabbed my coat, climbed down, and ran out from under the tree.

The fire grew impossibly fast, engulfing the entire tree. I couldn’t believe what I saw. In minutes, the fire destroyed my source of warmth, food, and water. I sat in the snow crying, knowing I would die before this day ended.

Suddenly, from behind me, I heard a helicopter hovering low. I turned, and the pilot saluted me.

The next thing I know, I’m flying in a heated helicopter, drinking a thermos of hot chocolate. The rescue crew told how they searched for our team and found everyone but me. They would have never found me if it hadn’t been for the fire.

I looked out my window and saw the tree still blazing, sending black smoke high into the air. A helicopter miles away would have been able to see that smoke plume. My heart broke, and tears filled my eyes. I felt a significant loss – like I lost a loved one. I also felt ashamed. I never sacrificed for anyone. I only thought about myself. My career. My future.

I took one last look at my tree – the tree that saved me. I’m not going to live for myself anymore. I’ve seen a better way.

Well, the short version is I don’t know what is or isn’t going through Mr. Trump’s head at any given time. But I can tell you that the United States will never invade nor attack Canada. The very idea is obscene. But more than that, it’s utterly impossible.

The US Army has a formula for the size of force that would be required to occupy a country. The formula takes into account various factors (logistics, topography, population, area, and so on). For Iraq, a country of 20 million people the size of California the formula said it would take 300,000 soldiers. And Iraq’s terrain (almost entirely plains) made it easy to occupy. And, initially, in 2003 the population largely welcomed liberation from a nasty dictator.

Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ignored the formula, the occupation was always undermanned, and the result was a bloody insurrection that lasted almost a decade.

For Canada, the formula says a minimum of 800,000 troops. Given Canada’s immense size, varied geography, and challenging terrain, a more realistic estimate is twice that — over 1.5 M soldiers.

The US Army has 440,000 active-duty troops and another 490,000 reservists.

In other words, occupying Canada would take at least 80% of the entire US Army active and reserve force, and likely 150% of it. And the cost would be enormous; Iraq took somewhere between $760B and $1.1T, to support 150,000 deployed troops for seven years. That works out to something like $1M/deployed soldier/year, so occupying Canada would cost between $800B and $1.5T/year.

So it’s ridiculous. But more than that, it’s utterly obscene to even suggest it.

In all of history, powerful countries have never had good relations with their neighbors, and they don’t in the world today. And two powerful neighboring countries are always at each other’s throats.

Except Canada and the US — and Canada, make no mistake, is a very powerful country by world standards. These two countries have forged not just a friendship, but the greatest partnership in human history. It was put best over 85 years ago by FDR: “Americans know Canadians aren’t foreigners: they’re just Canadians. And, similarly, Canadians know Americans aren’t foreigners — they’re just Americans.” This is a partnership that is so close, so seamless, that we don’t notice it — until some clown threatens it.

Canadians have fought alongside Americans in every war since WW II. When Americans were stranded after air travel shut down after 9/11, Canadians took them into their homes. Canada and the US operate a joint military command — the North American Air Defense Command. We operate joint national parks. And the border between the two countries? It looks like this…

And this…

And this…

People can literally hold hands across the border:

800,000 Canadians live in the US. 970,000 Americans live in Canada.

We’re not foreigners. We’re family. And like all families, the actual ties between us aren’t the thousands of small agreements we make and live by daily, but an overarching consensus — we will treat each other with respect, love, and consideration, and the well-being of other members of the family is as important to each of us as our own well-being.

Family is precious, and between nations it is heartbreakingly rare. Alone among the nations, our two peoples have built a family. Above all else, let us keep it.

The next morning, Maggie was at the salon cutting a woman’s hair. There was Trisha, Patty, Julia, and Danny too, all with their own clients in their chairs and a handful of people in the waiting area. Light music played over the speakers, a muted television was on with the weather channel. They kept the front door of the salon open to let a warm breeze in. They were talking the way they always did, about something or another, or somebody or somebody else.

“How people expect a young man to act anymore?” Maggie started. “What with social media, and ass and titties shoved in their faces”

“Not even real ass and titties neither,” Trisha said.

All the women let out an agreeable, “Mhm.”

Maggie continued, “The idea of a man has changed so much, how else a boy supposed to act? They don’t teach how to be a gentleman in school and there ain’t nobody around to teach them anything. I ain’t no man!” she said. “I’m only a woman.”

“Mmm, say it again, but like you mean it,” Julia said.

Trisha said, “Ain’t a woman in this world that needs a man. Every mother can be a father, but ain’t no father that can ever be a mother.”

They all laughed and smiled. Danny started washing a woman’s hair. She said, “Your boy gettin’ ‘round ain’t the biggest deal. ‘Least he comes home. Even if he does just sit on those games. You know where he is, don’tcha?”

Another woman from the waiting area said, “Those games is what’s rotting these young boys’ minds. What with the blood and violence ‘n all that.”

Danny said, “And the boys raised during wartime, those ones that had to go kill people when they wasn’t even yet twenty, fresh off their momma’s tit, had it any different? Men have always been violent things. That’s why fathers can’t be mothers, but mothers can be fathers. Us women, we got that violence in us, but we know how to control it. Them men don’t know nothin’ ‘bout that.”

All the women let out an agreeable, “Mhm.”

Maggie started again, “All I’m sayin’, is this boy hasn’t been the same since his daddy left us.”

“I’m sure you haven’t neither,” Danny said. “There’s nobody that blames you either. You can’t blame your son for that. He’s a good kid, Maggie. You raising him the only way you know how. He’ll be all right.”

All the women let out an, “Mhm.”

Maggie started to cry. “You all think so?”

“Sure as summer is hot,” Trisha laughed. “You want to teach that boy how to be a man without a man around. There’s some things that can’t be taught and you won’t learn ‘em ‘til you learn ‘em. Let that boy alone and be there for him when he learns what he needs to. That’s all you can do, that’s all I can do, that’s all any of us can do.”

The woman from the lobby let out an, “Amen! Let God do God’s work.”

All the women let out an agreeable, “Mhm.”

At the same time, when James had left to go to school, instead he went to Holly Brown’s house. It wasn’t the first time they had been together. Holly thought they might be in love and that one day they might run off and get married and have a few kids. That’s the way she looked at James; that’s the way she talked to him.

They were lying in bed, and James was deep in thought, far away from Holly Brown or his mother or school or even himself. His head was where those thoughts go that take you away from the world. Holly heard a car pull in. She jumped up and looked out the window.

“My dad,” she said. “James, my dad is home. You have to run. He’ll kill you. And I don’t mean that figuratively, I mean that literally. He will shoot you. Get up, get dressed. Run! Run!”

James jumped up out of the bed and struggled to throw his clothes on. He was just hopping to get his socks on when he heard the front door open in the other room. He heard shoes step inside. He heard the way they rushed into Holly’s room with the swiftness of a mother bear running toward her endangered cub.

“Hey, Mr. Brown,” James said, grabbing his shoes and opening the window.

“What the fuck is this, Holly?” Mr. Brown said. He leapt into the room and Holly tried to get between the two of them and gave James just enough time to hop out the window.

“Daddy, stop it. I love that boy, now you leave him alone.”

“I’ll be damned if I do. You stay here and don’t you leave. You’re grounded for the rest of the school year. I’ll deal with you when I get back.”

James was sprinting through yards, laughing the entire way. Mr. Brown had grabbed his shotgun and threw it in the front seat of his truck and sped off down the road.

James was back on the sidewalk, walking at a leisurely stroll. He looked around at the houses, at the sky, at the clouds and the sun. Then, he heard the roar of the truck. James turned, and there it was, the huge white Ford truck, barreling down the street. Before the thought to run reached his legs, the truck was there and Mr. Brown, a grizzly of a man, jumped out of his truck. He had his shotgun in one hand and grabbed James by the shirt collar with the other. His grip was stronger than a German Shepard’s jaws.

“Don’t you come around my house again. Do you hear me?” James didn’t answer him. He didn’t realize it, but he was terrified. Mr. Brown pushed James up against a nearby telephone pole and with one hand raised him up off the ground by his shirt. “I said do you hear me, boy?” James nodded. “What’s your name?”

“James,” he said.

“Well, listen to me, James. I am not a man to fuck with. Where’s your dad at? Didn’t he teach you anything?”

“Hell, Mr. Brown, I ain’t seen that man in years. But if by dad you mean mother, well she’s at work down at the salon on Main Street.”

He loosened the grip on James just enough that his feet touched the ground. “So your momma’s out working at a time you’re supposed to be in school, and instead you out shackin’ up with my daughter in my own house when I don’t even know what your name is?”

“That’s about the whole of it,” James said. “I’m real sorry, Mr. Brown.”

“Why ain’t you in school?”

“Didn’t feel like going today.”

Mr. Brown pulled James toward his truck and opened the door and threw him in. He threw the shotgun into the bed of the truck.

“Where you taking me?” James asked.

“Down to your mother.”

“Mr. Brown, please. Take me to school, take me out back and shoot me, just please take me anywhere but to my momma. We had a fight just last night and she’s already not happy with me.”

Mr. Brown didn’t answer and instead drove to the salon. When they pulled in, James stayed in the truck.

“Please don’t make me go in there,” James said. “Please, Mr. Brown, I’ll do just about anything you want. I’ll never even talk to Holly again. Please, Mr. Brown.”

“Get out,” he said. When James didn’t move, and he sat there staring like a statue out the windshield, Mr. Brown opened the passenger door, thrust himself in and unbuckled James’s seat belt. James was smacking and fighting trying to do anything to keep himself in that truck.

Mr. Brown hoisted James out of the car and grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into the salon. When the two walked in, all the women stopped what they were doing and looked at them. James was behind Mr. Brown, though he still had a tight grip of his wrist.

“Welcome in,” Patty said. “Something we can do for you today?”

Mr. Brown pulled James in front of him. “Which one of you does this one belong to?”

Maggie was trimming up a woman’s hair. She calmly put her scissors on the counter and told the woman she would only be a minute. She said, “Jameson Daniel Jones, what have you done?” Her voice was scornful and mean in a way that none of the women had ever heard before.

James looked at Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown said, “Found him at my house this morning. Ran off through the window putting his clothes on.”

“Boy, I told you. I told you just last night, didn’t I?” James didn’t answer. “Didn’t I?” James nodded. “You thank that man holding onto you for sparing your life. Go on, tell ‘im. And you better apologize like you never apologized to anybody in your life before.”

“I’m sorry,” James said.

“That ain’t no apology,” Maggie said. “You call him by his name and you tell him what you’re sorry for.”

Maggie grabbed her son and brought him in front of her. All the women and customers were watching.

“I’m sorry for having sex with your daughter this morning while you weren’t home, Mr. Brown. Thank you for not shooting me.”

At the sound of hearing daughter and sex in the same sentence, Mr. Brown’s blood began to boil.

“Thank you for bringing him, Mr. Brown,” Maggie said. “I’m sorry for any trouble he might have caused you and your family.” Her voice was soft and gentle and friendly. “Is there anything we can do?”

“No, ma’am,” he said. “Just don’t let him around my house again. You all take care now.”

That night, Maggie made pork chops for dinner. James came home from school and stayed in his room. He didn’t play video games, only laid in his bed. Maggie made no attempts to talk to him until dinner was ready.

“Food’s on the table,” she called to him.

His door opened and he came into the kitchen. Maggie was smoking a cigarette at the kitchen table. She hadn’t picked up a cigarette since she stopped when she got pregnant with James.

When James sat down with his plate, she looked at him and asked, “What’s the matter with you?” James didn’t answer. She took an inhale on her cigarette. “There ain’t much sense in yelling at you anymore,” she said softly. “It’s time we talked. What’s got you the way you been?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sure you do. I’m your momma, you can talk to me. So let it out. I’m not gonna say I’m not mad atchu, but I’m willing to listen and talk to you. Let me hear it. Go on, get you some cornbread over on the stove, too.”

He did so, and he came back and sat down. Maggie finished her cigarette and lit another one. “Go on,” she said. “Talk a bit.”

James took a few bites of food and they sat in silence in the kitchen.

He started, “Why did he leave? Didn’t he love you? Didn’t he love me? I loved him. Hell, momma, part of me still does. Doesn’t he want to be here and watch me grow up? Teach me things? Mr. Brown had a shotgun with him today and when I saw it I wanted to learn how to shoot it, and I almost asked Mr. Brown right then and there with his big hand wrapped ‘round my shirt if he’d take me out to the range and show me how to shoot that thing. Why doesn’t he even call me? The phone’s right there, he knows the number. I don’t even know where he is or nothing. Just left and disappeared one day. Why don’t he love me enough for even a phone call, momma? What I do? Was I a bad kid or something?”

Maggie put her cigarette out and walked over to him and hugged him and kissed him over and over. He began to cry. She said, “You’re the best kid a person could ask for. Don’t you go blaming yourself for you father’s sins and shortcomings. You didn’t do a thing wrong, not a single damn thing. Your father leaving was him. Had nothing to do with you or with me. The wind blows where it will and it has nothing to do with you or me.”

“I don’t know what to do, mom. I feel like I don’t know what I’m supposed to be or anything. I’m lost and confused. I want a daddy, I do. I love you and you can’t do more than you do, but I miss having a dad, momma. Maybe it’d be better if I never had one to begin with, but I had one for eleven years. What do I do now?”

“We’ll figure it out. Don’t you ever let no man, or lack of a man, define you or make you feel less than. You are beautiful, sweet, and perfect.”

James started crying more. He pushed his head into his mother’s arms and wept.

“We’ll start right here, right where we are,” Maggie said. “Sometimes that’s all you can do. I won’t ask no more of you than that.”

Interesting opinion. He believes that just because HE has never heard of it being invented and used, that (of course) it doesn't exist. Nope. The world does not work that way.-MM

But teleportation does exist. It’s just not in the way people imagine.

In 2009, an important step was taken. That year, an experiment by researchers at the Universities of Maryland and Michigan in the United States managed to “teleport” an atom of ytterbium (a little-known element on the periodic table, with 70 protons in its nucleus) to a distance of 1 meter.

“Teleport” is in quotation marks because it wasn’t exactly matter that was teleported.

What they managed to do was transfer the properties of one of the atoms, that is, quantum characteristics such as rotation, to another similar atom a meter away, which, in practice, is equivalent to teleporting it. In reality, none of the atoms moved.

This experiment proved that it is possible to copy the characteristics of entire atoms composed of multiple particles. Studies on quantum teleportation have been carried out since 1997 and, until then, experiments were carried out with simpler particles, such as photons or protons.

These researches, in fact, are not being done to try, someday, to teleport more complex matter (like a human being), but have helped to develop the principles of quantum computers.

In 2020, for example, in another study, scientists at the University of Rochester in the United States promoted the first transfer of information through quantum teleportation between particles of matter. Research into these near-instantaneous information transfers is advancing to create extremely powerful computers in the future.

Teleportation, this way, is unlikely to happen

Shorpy

As Good as Donuts, as Sweet
as Donuts — Just Easier

Kitchen tools, gourmet foods, baking mixes, and hard-to-find baking ingredients mentioned in this article are available at The Prepared Pantry.

by Dennis Weaver

We moved from Minnesota to Idaho. On our way out of town—not knowing what we would find in Idaho—we stopped at a Krispie Kreme donut store to stock up. I would like to say that it was the kids that needed the donuts in order to cross the Dakotas but the adults were driving the car. Since then, our kids have grown up and our tastes have changed. Sure, we occasionally make donuts but we make aebleskivers more often.

Aebleskiver are Danish puff pastries. They’re as versatile as donuts; they can be as sweet as donuts but you make them on the stovetop rather than deep frying them or baking them as you do donuts.

It takes a special pan, an aebleskiver pan to make these puffed pastries. A Danish Aebleskiver (Ebleskiver) Pancake Puff Cast Iron Pan is a heavy pan, usually cast iron, with a set of rounded cavities larger than a golf ball but smaller than a tennis ball. The pan is heated on the stovetop and each cavity is filled with batter. They cook as pancakes do but when they cook on one side, instead of flipping them with spatula as you would pancakes, you poke them with a skewer and roll them onto the other side. (My neighbor uses a hairpin.) It’s simple but it’s easier to show than to explain. Catch the link below to the video.

They are nearly always filled. Traditionally, they were filled with applesauce or sliced, sautéed apples. They are often filled with jam. We most often fill them with pastry filling and sometimes chocolate. One of our favorites is chocolate aebleskiver filled with chocolate + cherry jam. But you can fill them with anything, even savory fillings. We make corn aebleskivers—like cornbread—with cheese in the center.

There are two basic ways to fill them:

1. Fill the cavities two-thirds full with batter, add the filling—jam, chocolate, or whatever—and then add the rest of the batter. They are cooked with the filling inside. This is the traditional way of making them.

2. The other way is to cook them and then add the filling. You can use a pastry bag or decorator and a narrow tip. Insert the tip into each pastry and squeeze and fill as you would jelly donuts. A quick and easy way is to use a tube of Professional Chocolate Bavarian Cream Pastry and Dessert Filling, clip the tip of the pointed end, insert the end of the bag and squeeze. (Once you see the pastry bag and envision it, it’s easy. It’s the same method we use to fill cupcakes.

What About the Batter?

You can make your batter from scratch but most folks use either a pancake mix or an aebleskiver mix. If you use a pancake mix, add a little extra sugar to sweeten the batter and whip one or two egg whites as if you were making meringue and fold them into the finished batter. The egg whites will make the aebleskiver lighter and crispier.

With aebleskiver mixes, you won’t need to add the whipped egg whites. We produce and sell three different aebleskiver mixes: Classic aebleskiver, Chocolate Aebleskiver Mix – Puff Pancake (2 pound mix), and Jalapeno Corn Aebleskiver Mix–Puff Pancake (2 pound mix). Don’t overlook the jalapeño corn aebleskiver.

These are more of our favorite aebleskivers:

Chocolate aebleskiver with cherry jam or seedless raspberry jam and a chocolate wafer or kiss
Chocolate aebleskiver with peanut butter centers
Jalapeno corn aebleskiver with cheddar cheese centers
Jalapeno corn aebleskiver with cream cheese centers
Jalapeno corn aebleskiver with bacon and cheese centers
Aebleskiver with blueberry and/or lemon pastry filling
Aebleskiver or chocolate aebleskiver with Bavarian cream pastry filling
Aebleskiver with orange marmalade filling and orange cloud whipped cream
Aebleskiver or chocolate aebleskiver with commercial or homemade vanilla marshmallow cream

We thought we knew aebleskiver—till we bought this book by Kevin Crafts. He’s taken aebleskiver to a whole new level with recipes like pumpkin pie aebleskivers, strawberry shortcake aebleskivers, and molten chocolate lava aebleskivers.

What You’ll Need

• You’ll need a Danish Aebleskiver (Ebleskiver) Pancake Puff Cast Iron Pan + a FREE Classic mix. You can purchase pans in cast iron or nonstick. We prefer the cast iron because of the heat dispersion and retention qualities.

• You’ll probably want either Smart Buy! Buttermilk Pancake Mix (large 2 pound mix) or Classic Aebleskiver Mix – Puff Pancake (2 pound mix) to make your batter. With pancake mixes, you will want to fold in whipped egg whites. With aebleskiver mixes, you won’t need to.

• You’ll probably want Professional Chocolate Bavarian Cream Pastry and Dessert Filling. We sell pastry fillings in eight varieties. Bavarian cream is the most popular but don’t overlook the fruit fillings.

• You may want a decorator set or pastry bags. You’ll find those in the cake decorating section at The Prepared Pantry.

• You may want Imported Dark Chocolate Wafers – -Large 30 ounce package for drizzling or filling.

Dennis Weaver is the founder of The Prepared Pantry, a full line kitchen store in Rigby, Idaho. The Prepared Pantry sells kitchen tools, gourmet foods, and baking ingredients including hundreds of hard-to-find ingredients.