Friday, September 26, 2025

This is the ninety-first installment of West Wind, your weekly drop of thoughts, ideas, and info for this Season.

Today is the last Friday of September! And you know what that means, right? It’s Frontier Friday! Didn’t think I forgot about it, did you? Nope, in fact the past two Fridays were dedicated to featuring a story rather than an individual Florabeast, so there was definitely some alt-wild west fun going on regardless.

For this week, I wanted to pick a Florabeast that was very Autumn-y, but the best one that I could find was the Mapelynx, which has already been featured before. So, I went a little contra-positive instead, and decided to feature a beast that won’t be fazed by the change in the seasons at all. And, it’s really useful in a pinch. Or perhaps a poke!

That’s not all, though! The past two weeks have been spent promoting stories that I’ve already written and finished, but there are so many more stories that haven’t seen the light of day quite yet. It’s kind of overwhelming at times, to the point that I’m not sure I will actually live long enough to write or create all of them. But, I’ll deal with that later.

For now, I’m coming to the realization that some stories are so simple and straightforward, and have such a clear purpose, that they’re really more of elaborate jokes than something that requires a full tapestry of setting, plot, characters (with names), and so on. By just explaining the point of the story, I’ve essentially told it, so everyone can benefit.

One of these story fragments is one I like to call War of the Meals. It’s set in an alternate 1800’s America, but not that alternate 1800’s America, a different one. That’s why I wanted to feature it today, since it has some similarities to Frontier Flora, but isn’t set in the same world. The main theme is the conflict between the schools of Sylvester Graham and James Salisbury.

You’re probably familiar with Graham’s work by the cracker that shares his name. His idea was that eating grains and plant-based foods were beneficial to people’s health. Salisbury, inventor of the Salisbury steak, held the opposite thought that people should eat more meat. The Grahamites use Science! to develop a fast-growing and high-producing strain of wheat to further their goals, with the unfortunate side effect that it chokes out other plants growing in the area and is rather noxious. At the same time, the Salisburians have bred a highly robust breed of cattle, which is so vigorous that it’s destructively aggressive. Tensions escalate, fanned by the existing conflict between the North and the South, until an enterprising and plucky scientist discovers that the Salisbury cow loves the Graham wheat, becoming docile and safe, and the manure it generates after eating it seems to pacify the crop also, slowing its rampant spread and reducing toxicity. Peace comes through cooperation!

And that’s it. I’ve told the joke, you’ve heard the punchline, and there isn’t much need to develop it into a full story. Not saying I never will, but the need to do so is lessened now. And the need for you all to enjoy the weekend increases sharply!