38 Saun 722, afternoon
The field work was still going on when Dan got back from the survey. Dan took the gatherings in to Agnes who accepted them with a grin.
"Baked turnips are already cooking," she said, and pulled on gloves to chop the nettles since they retained their stings until they were boiled, "but we can absolutely have nettle soup with them. It'll save finding something else."
Dan nodded his thanks and went back out, taking two of the barrels that had come (filled) in the supplies, but were now empty, with him. He set them at two corners of the Hall to catch the rain that streamed down off the roof, and then headed over to help with the fields.
There was a pile of odd rocks on one edge of the fields, too big to be mere pebbles but not big enough to be whole slabs or blocks of stone. "What are you doing?" he asked Jack, as the other man carried a bucket of rocks over and dumped them on the pile.
"Stone picking," Jack replied. "We have to get all the stones that we can out of the ground before we try to plough it, it's one of the regular farming tasks that precede planting a field."
"Can you use another pair of hands?" Dan held his up to demonstrate.
Jack grinned. "Always, for this."
"Ok." Dan followed Jack back across the field and tagged himself onto the end of the line, next to Linnet.
Linnet glanced at him, then at the ground. "Make sure that you either throw the stones all the way to pile on the edge," she told him, "or you put them in a pail and carry them there. If you throw and fell short, then you'll have to pick them a second time, and it's hard enough picking each one once." Farmers couldn't afford to have the stones left on the surface, she explained tersely, because if the plough hit one wrong, it either damaged the plough, or it flew out with the soil and hit the plough-oxen, or the farmer. If it hit the oxen, you had to stop and check them over. If it hit the farmer, she was likely to be bruised at best, or too hurt to continue at worst. "Saw it happen once," she added with a wince. "Farmer wasn't able to work for trials, we all had to rally round and keep an eye on them."
Dan absorbed the lesson with a nod and wince of his own.
"And if we put them all in one place," Raven chipped in from Linnet's other side, "then we know where they are if we want to use rocks for something, like boundary markers, or an extra fireplace or..." he shrugged, indicating that uses for rocks were as many as the person thinking them up.
Dan nodded again, spotted a stone in the dirt in front of him, and bent to pick it up. He hefted the palm sized rock for a moment, wondering if he could throw it far enough and accurately enough to make it hit the pile.
Linnet rattled her bucket at him and he gave up wondering and dropped it into the bucket instead.
The line moved slowly, scuffing its toes into the dirt as it moved, stopping and starting and stooping and straightening again. Dan stepped and bent and scrabbled for stones until Linnet's bucket was too heavy for her to carry, and then volunteered to carry it over to the pile.
It was heavy enough for him to feel the lopsided pull of the weight as he hauled it across the field. He reached the pile, and tipped it out carefully, not wanting any of the rocks to land on his feet, then started back across the hard, uneven, ground, pocked with small holes where other rocks had been pulled out. He had to move slower than usual in order not to trip on any of the holes. He didn't particularly want to measure his length on the ground, even if that would allow him to inspect it closely
"Skiving again?" someone grumbled, not quite out of sight.
For a breath, Dan was thrown back to his childhood, to the useless brat who could never do enough, understand enough, be enough, to appease those around him. He drew a slow breath, swallowed the memory down like a mouthful of bad food, and squared his shoulders. "If you have something to say, say it to my face."
The settler tried to stare him down. Dan, who had stood firm in the face of charging deer and lunging boar and attacking wolves simply stared back. Eventually, the settler scowled. "You ran off all morning while we were working, and now you're dragging your feet. Do you expect us to do everything while you laze around?"
"No. But we do need to get multiple things done and not much time." Dan eyed the group, all of whom had stopped working and gathered round to see what he would do. He wasn't used to having to explain everything he did - living alone there was no need, because the only one around was him and he knew already. "I was getting food for tonight's meal. Come on, back to work, let's get this done."
"Who made you the boss?"
Dan gritted his teeth and hung onto a mild expression. "You did, when you chose to come here."
"I thought it would be easy," the settler grumbled. "Exciting. Hunting and gathering - you just wake up in the morning, and pick your breakfast off a tree, like we did on the way here, right?"
Dan thought about the work and planning he had done to find and set up those overnight camps ready for the supply caravan to use them. He thought of trials spent preparing fruit to dry until his hands cramped, about going hungry until his belly cramped, about the arcs he had spent learning nature's rough lessons. "Not quite," he said, with a dry, wry, irony esconced in the crook of his mouth and in his hands and arms and stance. "Fulfilling, perhaps. Satisfying. But not always easy. Often, it's just a different kind of hard, boring, work, you just get 1% sheer terror to make up for it." The lacework of scars on his bare arms showed pale against his weathered brown skin, catching what there was of the sunlight as he signed.
The settler looked from the scars, to the mild look on Dan's face, and back again, and went pale, subsiding.
Dan added, "If you decide living here, this way, isn't for you, I'll give you escort back to Rharne next time there's a supply run there. That goes for anyone. I'm not going to force anyone to stay. Fair?"
The settler nodded and stared at the muddy ground. Linnet grabbed the other settler's arm and pulled them away to the other end of the line.
As the whole line reformed, Dan tamped down on the shakiness inside, and found himself next to Jack, this time. It was easy to fall into a rhythm.
Bend. Pick up a stone. Drop the stone in a bucket. Move forward. Bend. Pick up a stone. Drop the stone in a bucket.
"So," Dan said, "tell me more about stone picking."
Jack nodded. "It's a standard task before ploughing a field."
Bend. Pick up a stone. Drop the stone in a bucket.
Jack continued between picking stones. "It isn't usually quite as major a process as this one, because in all the fields at home, well, they've never had this long for rocks and stones to build up in them."
Bend. Pick up a stone. Drop the stone in a bucket.
"So," Jack finished, "this time is going to be hard work and a lot of stones added to the pile. The next one, if this one works, will be easier, and the next easier again, but it never actually stops being necessary. Some people like to joke that rocks grow in fields just as much as crops do."
Bend. Pick up a stone. Drop the stone in a bucket.
Dan nodded, taking all of this in. It wasn't something he had ever had to consider when he was just harvesting food from the wild. "I suppose they must work their way up from lower down, if they keep reappearing after you've picked them. At least it will offer a constant supply of rocks for slings and other things."
Bend. Pick up a stone. Drop the stone in a bucket.
Jack shifted the increasingly heavy bucket from one hand to the other and flexed cramped fingers. "You're right about that. And if this test works out and we add more fields to the mix, we'll have to clear those out as well."
Bend. Pick up a stone. Drop the stone in a bucket.
Dan agreed. "This is - how many?"
"Five small fields. Beans, flax, turnips, buckwheat, mixed vegetables. The last one is Linnet's choices. She wanted a garden, I know, but it'll be easier to do irrigation if all the plants are in the same area."
Dan nodded again, and they fell back into a quiet rhythm, moving steadily across the ground.
Bend. Pick up a stone. Drop the stone in a bucket.
"Signed words" Spoken words
The field work was still going on when Dan got back from the survey. Dan took the gatherings in to Agnes who accepted them with a grin.
"Baked turnips are already cooking," she said, and pulled on gloves to chop the nettles since they retained their stings until they were boiled, "but we can absolutely have nettle soup with them. It'll save finding something else."
Dan nodded his thanks and went back out, taking two of the barrels that had come (filled) in the supplies, but were now empty, with him. He set them at two corners of the Hall to catch the rain that streamed down off the roof, and then headed over to help with the fields.
There was a pile of odd rocks on one edge of the fields, too big to be mere pebbles but not big enough to be whole slabs or blocks of stone. "What are you doing?" he asked Jack, as the other man carried a bucket of rocks over and dumped them on the pile.
"Stone picking," Jack replied. "We have to get all the stones that we can out of the ground before we try to plough it, it's one of the regular farming tasks that precede planting a field."
"Can you use another pair of hands?" Dan held his up to demonstrate.
Jack grinned. "Always, for this."
"Ok." Dan followed Jack back across the field and tagged himself onto the end of the line, next to Linnet.
Linnet glanced at him, then at the ground. "Make sure that you either throw the stones all the way to pile on the edge," she told him, "or you put them in a pail and carry them there. If you throw and fell short, then you'll have to pick them a second time, and it's hard enough picking each one once." Farmers couldn't afford to have the stones left on the surface, she explained tersely, because if the plough hit one wrong, it either damaged the plough, or it flew out with the soil and hit the plough-oxen, or the farmer. If it hit the oxen, you had to stop and check them over. If it hit the farmer, she was likely to be bruised at best, or too hurt to continue at worst. "Saw it happen once," she added with a wince. "Farmer wasn't able to work for trials, we all had to rally round and keep an eye on them."
Dan absorbed the lesson with a nod and wince of his own.
"And if we put them all in one place," Raven chipped in from Linnet's other side, "then we know where they are if we want to use rocks for something, like boundary markers, or an extra fireplace or..." he shrugged, indicating that uses for rocks were as many as the person thinking them up.
Dan nodded again, spotted a stone in the dirt in front of him, and bent to pick it up. He hefted the palm sized rock for a moment, wondering if he could throw it far enough and accurately enough to make it hit the pile.
Linnet rattled her bucket at him and he gave up wondering and dropped it into the bucket instead.
The line moved slowly, scuffing its toes into the dirt as it moved, stopping and starting and stooping and straightening again. Dan stepped and bent and scrabbled for stones until Linnet's bucket was too heavy for her to carry, and then volunteered to carry it over to the pile.
It was heavy enough for him to feel the lopsided pull of the weight as he hauled it across the field. He reached the pile, and tipped it out carefully, not wanting any of the rocks to land on his feet, then started back across the hard, uneven, ground, pocked with small holes where other rocks had been pulled out. He had to move slower than usual in order not to trip on any of the holes. He didn't particularly want to measure his length on the ground, even if that would allow him to inspect it closely
"Skiving again?" someone grumbled, not quite out of sight.
For a breath, Dan was thrown back to his childhood, to the useless brat who could never do enough, understand enough, be enough, to appease those around him. He drew a slow breath, swallowed the memory down like a mouthful of bad food, and squared his shoulders. "If you have something to say, say it to my face."
The settler tried to stare him down. Dan, who had stood firm in the face of charging deer and lunging boar and attacking wolves simply stared back. Eventually, the settler scowled. "You ran off all morning while we were working, and now you're dragging your feet. Do you expect us to do everything while you laze around?"
"No. But we do need to get multiple things done and not much time." Dan eyed the group, all of whom had stopped working and gathered round to see what he would do. He wasn't used to having to explain everything he did - living alone there was no need, because the only one around was him and he knew already. "I was getting food for tonight's meal. Come on, back to work, let's get this done."
"Who made you the boss?"
Dan gritted his teeth and hung onto a mild expression. "You did, when you chose to come here."
"I thought it would be easy," the settler grumbled. "Exciting. Hunting and gathering - you just wake up in the morning, and pick your breakfast off a tree, like we did on the way here, right?"
Dan thought about the work and planning he had done to find and set up those overnight camps ready for the supply caravan to use them. He thought of trials spent preparing fruit to dry until his hands cramped, about going hungry until his belly cramped, about the arcs he had spent learning nature's rough lessons. "Not quite," he said, with a dry, wry, irony esconced in the crook of his mouth and in his hands and arms and stance. "Fulfilling, perhaps. Satisfying. But not always easy. Often, it's just a different kind of hard, boring, work, you just get 1% sheer terror to make up for it." The lacework of scars on his bare arms showed pale against his weathered brown skin, catching what there was of the sunlight as he signed.
The settler looked from the scars, to the mild look on Dan's face, and back again, and went pale, subsiding.
Dan added, "If you decide living here, this way, isn't for you, I'll give you escort back to Rharne next time there's a supply run there. That goes for anyone. I'm not going to force anyone to stay. Fair?"
The settler nodded and stared at the muddy ground. Linnet grabbed the other settler's arm and pulled them away to the other end of the line.
As the whole line reformed, Dan tamped down on the shakiness inside, and found himself next to Jack, this time. It was easy to fall into a rhythm.
Bend. Pick up a stone. Drop the stone in a bucket. Move forward. Bend. Pick up a stone. Drop the stone in a bucket.
"So," Dan said, "tell me more about stone picking."
Jack nodded. "It's a standard task before ploughing a field."
Bend. Pick up a stone. Drop the stone in a bucket.
Jack continued between picking stones. "It isn't usually quite as major a process as this one, because in all the fields at home, well, they've never had this long for rocks and stones to build up in them."
Bend. Pick up a stone. Drop the stone in a bucket.
"So," Jack finished, "this time is going to be hard work and a lot of stones added to the pile. The next one, if this one works, will be easier, and the next easier again, but it never actually stops being necessary. Some people like to joke that rocks grow in fields just as much as crops do."
Bend. Pick up a stone. Drop the stone in a bucket.
Dan nodded, taking all of this in. It wasn't something he had ever had to consider when he was just harvesting food from the wild. "I suppose they must work their way up from lower down, if they keep reappearing after you've picked them. At least it will offer a constant supply of rocks for slings and other things."
Bend. Pick up a stone. Drop the stone in a bucket.
Jack shifted the increasingly heavy bucket from one hand to the other and flexed cramped fingers. "You're right about that. And if this test works out and we add more fields to the mix, we'll have to clear those out as well."
Bend. Pick up a stone. Drop the stone in a bucket.
Dan agreed. "This is - how many?"
"Five small fields. Beans, flax, turnips, buckwheat, mixed vegetables. The last one is Linnet's choices. She wanted a garden, I know, but it'll be easier to do irrigation if all the plants are in the same area."
Dan nodded again, and they fell back into a quiet rhythm, moving steadily across the ground.
Bend. Pick up a stone. Drop the stone in a bucket.
"Signed words" Spoken words
