• Solo • [Warrick] The Growing Season

[Lazuli]

11 Cylus 716

Asher accepted the bit with some coaxing before Lazuli was able to fasten the leather strap of his bridle which reached up behind his ears before pointing down towards the animal’s jaw, where she had threaded the tongue through a silver buckle and made sure it was secure before fussing with the saddle. The horse sucked his belly in as the cold girth-strap tickled his underside and the young woman couldn’t help but smile. With her left foot hiked up to fit in one of the stirrups, she bounced herself up onto the saddle, throwing her right leg over just as her father had shown her countless times in the past.
The ride to the village of Warrick took just over half an hour and as the pair trotted into town, Lazuli pulled on the reins to first slow the horse and then bring him to a complete stop in order to get off. She led him over to the water trough and waited for the animal to take his fill before tying Asher to a nearby post so that she could disappear to the village library for a few minutes. Inside the library the girl knew exactly what she was looking for but not where to find it. The woman behind the desk didn’t look too busy, and so Lazuli approached slowly, folding her arms against the desk to peek over the edge.
“Good morning, I was wondering if you could help me find---“
The lady held up a finger to stop Lazuli and continued reading her book until the end of the sentence before she looked up, “Help you find what, dear?”
“A book on growing seasons?”
“Look under ‘g’ in section three,” the woman forced a smile before returning to her reading.

Perplexed, and seemingly miffed by the response, Lazuli crossed the room to read the overhead signage and rummage through the books, starting with the top shelf. Lazuli scanned the letters until she found a book that looked a lot like the one her parents had owned, and returned to the desk to see if she could take it out. Again the woman made her wait before taking a record of the title and date, only then was Lazuli free to return home.
Outside Asher shook his head and snorted, being a black horse he didn’t like to be left out in the sun, but Lazuli didn’t think a couple of minutes would hurt him. Atop the saddle, she slipped the toes of her boots into the stirrups, pulled on the right rein to turn her mount and gently nudged Asher in his side to get him moving in the right direction.

[Lazuli]

Lazuli sat down at the table with the book she had borrowed from the library and an old writing journal from her school days that was blank for the most part. Beside her on the table she had three different types of seeds and the eye of a potato. She had planned to find out the best growing seasons and conditions for the different plant types in order to better understand when she should sow the seeds and be able to expect a harvest.
The first seed was from a dried out corncob. Lazuli turned the small yellow seed over on her palm before turning to the index of the library book in order to find what information she could. The book had her turn to page twenty seven and quickly the young woman scanned the text, picking out key bits of information to jot down in her journal.

Corn needs sixty to one hundred days of frost free weather. It is best sown during Ashan and harvested in Ymiden. Corn will not germinate in wet soil.

After making the appropriate notes, Lazuli turned back to the index page and looked up the next seed type she was interested in. There were a lot more notes on wheat than there had been for corn, making it somewhat difficult to pinpoint what she needed. Lazuli sat twisting the end of the ink pen around a thin rope of her dark hair and continued reading until she found what she needed before making more notes.

Wheat likes warm, wet earth and should be planted and harvested in Vhalar, taking up to one hundred and twenty days before it is ready to harvest. Wheat takes five days to germinate and needs full sun in order to mature quickly.

Good, Lazuli thought, that means I'll have a crop for both the warm and cold seasons. Gathering information was slow, tedious work, but Lazuli persevered, flipping back to the index for anything she could find on soybeans, another useful crop her father had always intended to get around to planting, but never quite managed to find the time.

Soybeans should be planted in Cylus and harvested fifty to one hundred days later during the season of Ashan.

Perfect, Lazuli smiled to herself as if she had just solved a frustrating little riddle, "I can get them in the ground this season and have something to harvest during Ashan. More determined now that she had managed to get through most of her workload, the woman turned through the pages in the book until she found the heading for potatoes. Without delay, she put pen to paper so that she could be done for the morning and make a decision as to whether or not she should start preparing the ground for the soybeans to go in sometime within the next few days.

Potatoes do not like to grow in direct sunlight and should be planted four inches deep with the eye face up. They like fertilised earth and can be grown during the colder seasons in warm climates. New potatoes will then be ready to harvest seventy days later.[/align]

[Basilisk]

Grade Rewards

General Knowledge

[Warrick] Village Library Location
[Warrick Library] Growing Season Books are under "G"
[Agriculture] Corn needs sixty to one hundred days of frost free weather
[Agriculture] Corn will not germinate in wet soil
[Agriculture] Wheat likes warm, wet earth
[Agriculture] Wheat needs up to one hundred and twenty days to grow
[Agriculture] Wheat takes full sun to mature quickly
[Agriculture] Soybeans need fifty to one hundred days to grow
[Agriculture] Potatoes don't like sunlight
[Agriculture] Potatoes like fertilized earth
[Agriculture] Potatoes can grow in cold weather

Specialized Knowledge

Warrick Librarian: Rude, but helpful
[Agriculture] Corn is best sewn in Ashan
[Agriculture] Corn is best harvested in Ymiden
[Agriculture] Wheat is best sewn and harvested in Vhalar
[Agriculture] Wheat takes five days to germinate
[Agriculture] Soybeans should be planted in Cylus
[Agriculture] Soybeans should be harvested in Ashan
[Agriculture] Potatoes should be planted four inches deep
[Agriculture] Potatoes should be planted with the eye face up
[Agriculture] Potatoes take seventy days to grow

Skills

Mount: Horse - 1
Socialization - 1
Agriculture - 1
Research - 3

I really enjoyed this thread! No part of it dragged on for too long and what was researched was detailed and informative. I couldn't give many skills, but you definitely earned the knowledge gained.