Apinsig
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Chapter 166 Homesteading in a fantasy world
🕑 Added 2023-02-15 18:57:17 +0000 UTCWhile working on my farm was satisfying, I had to think up a schedule as I needed to do quite a few things. For one I haven’t even given the books I have gotten to David. Neither have I done anything with the soul core.
Even if I wanted to do everything, I couldn’t do them all at once. There simply wasn't enough time even though I could now go without sleep for a lot longer and technically had more time. The weather was clearing out, but it was already getting dark, so I decided to take it easy and just stay indoors and perhaps do some reading.
I was able to read a few pages before I had to stop. I had forsaken my cleanliness in my mad rush to finish planting everything and the first moment I relaxed I could smell how dirty I was. The worst part was that I had used manure, so I was surprised I just now noticed this. I cringed a bit knowing what my bed must smell like. Why hadn’t I used my device to clean myself?
I quickly found the device which at least made me technically clean although I still wanted to go to the sauna today. The other problem was my bed. I didn’t have any clean stuff left to change this mess out. I will need to wash them all.
That idea made me pause. I looked at the device in my hand and thought it couldn't hurt to try. I picked up the bedsheet and everything else. Balancing them in one hand while activating the device. It took a bit more energy and time, but it cleaned up everything.
“This will save so much time.” No more washing next to the river for hours and hours. I believe this is actually better than anything back on earth. My mood was now back where it was before and with a smiling face, I walked to the sauna so I could relax. While sitting in the relaxing room and waiting for the furnaces to heat up the heating room I reminisced about the good old days.
It was so interesting how much of my happiest teenage memories revolved around saunas. The first birthday I drank was in a sauna. The first girl l kissed I did it in a sauna. I became friends with so many people around or in a sauna that it’s kind of ridiculous. Then everything was ruined by that stupid war.
It was sad that after the war the sauna wasn’t the same. While it was still relaxing to go, there wasn’t a spark of excitement that I remembered it had back then. A bit of the spark did come back after I had my first children but those days when I was still young and naive are precious.
While I periodically fed the fire I was not completely in this world and not completely in my memories as well I was somewhere in between. I choose to focus on the fun memories, and I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t feel the pain that usually comes with them. I guess time really heals everything. I just wish it did it faster.
I was sitting outside after my second visit to the heating room. The first time I jumped into the river and enjoyed the cold water but this time I just sat and enjoyed the moon and starlight while goose perched on the railing.
I would need to plant the saplings and then I will build the framework for the greenhouse. Hopefully, the glass will arrive soon, but I will not wait until it's finished. I will bring my apprentices back the day after tomorrow and have them start working on making everything they need to start their own homestead.
First, they will need to make their own tools which will take them some time and I will need to bring more iron so they can make everything needed. Then they can set up a proper building site and start making their homes.
While they might start at the same time the different footprints will mean that they will take different times to finish everything which will give me enough time to teach them individually which would be a good thing.
Francis will need to do a lot of work, but he will like that. It will probably take them a month or two to finish their first house and then they can use the rest of the year to build everything else needed so they can start the next year ready to be self-sufficient.
Every one of them will get chickens and I was glad to see that the chickens were already hatching a new generation. Even though it will take them the rest of the year to finish their homes they will no longer be my apprentices when they finish their first building and I think it would be a good idea to bring new people here and apprentice them.
If I made some new bunk beds and use the three rooms I have I will be able to fit 12 people. The real question becomes if I can teach them all the meaning of the homesteader class, hopefully, I can. I will probably have to go to the village more often than I currently have just so everyone can see me once in a while, and I’m up to date with everything going on there.
The newest problem that I hadn't accounted for, but I should have realized was the monsters that are challenging our borders. At first, I didn’t understand what was happening but now I’m quite certain that if not taken care of monsters can push back the nation’s borders and I do not think they would be so easily expanded.
I still don’t know what’s the conditions for this as I know many monsters running around the nation without doing this but one particular big and vicious boar towards the south at the western border there is threatening a large portion of land.
I thought about this problem for a few hours and my other responsibilities. I know I needed to start doing things today. The sun was slowly starting to peak over the horizon, so I woke Goose up as I needed him for a job.
He was still half asleep in my arms while I took him back to the house where I started to write two letters. One was for my apprentices telling them that they needed to come here the day after tomorrow. The other one was for the council telling them that I will take care of the monster boar problem.
When I finished with the letters, I tied them to Goose with a blue ribbon so no one would mistake him for a wild animal. “Find one of my apprentices and when you have delivered the letter come back here.” After saying that I gave Goose a little boost by extending my arm and he quickly took flight heading towards the village. I looked as he flew for a few moments before I went back inside picked up the backpack and headed towards the future forest that I was going to plant.
The planting itself was quite monotonous but thankfully every sapling was a bit different which made it somewhat interesting. I could deal with the evolutions at a later date for now I just focused on planting them in the correct positions. I moved fast even sometimes using my haste ability to speed up my movement but even then, I was extremely careful with every sapling. Like so the hours rolled by as I kept planting.
I didn’t know the exact time, but it was already the next day when I finished with almost all the saplings. If I had to guess it took about 28 hours. There were only 20 saplings left, but they were a bit special and needed extra work.
These saplings needed moving water around them otherwise they wouldn’t grow and would wither and die. The trees themselves will look like large Willow trees but with red bark and produce lots of fruits that will look like long sticks. I was told that the fruit is filled with sugar. The seller told me that this tree was one of the best ways to produce sugar as the tree would produce lots of produce every year.
For now, I just found a suitable location along the river and started to dig the waterway that I wanted. The bank here was close to the water line, so it wasn’t difficult to dig, and my abilities made it even faster. Still, I had to dig quite a lot as I wanted enough space between the trees so that they could fully grow and wouldn’t smother each other. I then dived into the river and pulled out some rocks so I could secure the sapling so they wouldn’t get swept away by the constant current.
This took over two hours which was quite a long time considering I only planted 20 saplings. But I was done for now. I will still need to go and collect some local saplings and plant them as well, but they could wait a few days. It was time to take care of that boar but for that, I will need the wolves. Goose had long ago returned to me, so I gave him another task of finding the wolves and bringing them to the farmhouse.
The wolves liked to roam around sometimes in packs sometimes alone, so it took Goose some time to bring everyone back. There was really no need for a mission statement or a rousing speech. The wolves could pick up on my nonverbal communication quite easily.
I could see the excitement and apprehension when they figured out we were moving to fight a strong enemy but that apprehension grew a lot when they understood that they were going to fight it on their own and I was there just in case something went wrong.
Comments
Apinsig
Eventually 😃
Fred Riley
Are you ever going to finish capturing those horses?
