Matilda did indeed join us. But it wasn’t until early the next morning, and it didn’t include any sexcapades. She just wanted to snuggle and be held. I was happy to oblige her and we all spooned together in the cool morning air. The shower was nice, but I was wishing for a larger one that could be shared. That would be difficult to build right now, but I did decide that a public bath house would probably be a good idea. I had the beginnings of a workable plan in my head before I was dried off. It would have to be a project for a couple of years down the road, but it was a nice thought, nonetheless.

I spent the early part of the morning lazing about, enjoying breakfast, and spending time with my dogs. Both bitches were coming along well and we’d see puppies before too much longer. Those puppies would be trainable, come spring. Then my work with them would really start. Trained dogs were worth a lot of money, regardless of the era, and they would demand a premium out here on the frontier. I fully intended to profit from that premium. I wanted to add another bitch to the pack, but that was going to take a while. To find another bloodline, I would have to send away to the east coast, or even to Europe. I’d be lucky to pull that off by the end of the decade; it would probably involve some travel.

Our Morgan line presented the same problem. While our current herd of three mares and a stallion was good, I’d need to keep a view on the long-term issue of age. I hoped they stayed healthy. This was where our background story came in handy. In both cases, I knew that the blood lines we had were many, many generations separated. I could safely run these as a distinct bloodline from anything we could possibly come across.

All that aside, I wanted to take a look at my fields. Mouse wanted to go with me, so we went out to saddle up and take a ride. I saddled up Lunch and she took Abigail. Brin came along to keep us company on our slow inspection tour.

We started with the visitor’s village. While it wasn’t in too bad shape, it desperately needed a well. The folks would probably enjoy closer outhouses also, but I was loathe to put sewage upstream in our water table. I’d never been a big fan of cholera or any other sewage related diseases. The good news for the larger village was that I knew how to make a binjo ditch to run the sewage off. The bad news was that it would take a year to two to get to that stage of development. I wasn’t quite ready to set up a cement factory just yet. Another multi-year project to plan for.

I explained each of these things to Mouse as we inspected. She either asked questions or offered up the standard Pawnee solution. So far we hadn’t hit on anything the Pawnee had to offer that was an improvement over what I knew would need to be done.

We moved on to the corral next. Again, a well with a pump was going to be necessary. Winter itself would present an entirely new problem. We would also need a larger livestock shed, preferably with an attached hay barn to handle the milk cows, llamas, pigs, and working horses. Winter wasn’t far enough away for my taste; we’d have to hurry during this first year.

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The pasture looked to be able to hold the entire herd for two more weeks, at best, before we would need to move them to the pastures down on the prairie. If we moved them soon enough, the pasture would maintain the rest of our herd through the summer. Moving them down to the prairie pastures meant turning that trail into a road. That task would be the bulk of the coming week’s work.

The fence was another issue. The wire wasn’t going to hold. Mostly, it was only a single wire. A split rail fence was needed and that would take a significant investment of time. That might be best handled by splitting rails over the winter, if we could build a big enough workshop.

The crops were faring well and the peas were already fruiting. The womenfolk had been at them already. The tomatoes and corn were coming along nicely. The rest of the garden looked good, though I wasn’t in the mood to get down and walk, to get a take on each veggie. The right people were monitoring it and I simply left it to them.

That was enough for today and we headed back to put the horses up. I had a really pleasant time with Mouse and didn’t need to find a way to add stress. My ‘To do’ list had grown enough already.

We were back for dinner, which naturally consisted of leftovers from the previous night's gathering. They had put together some very nice fish tacos with either crawdads or fried trout. We had the best larder in the entire village and, while we shared a lot with the group overall, we still had the prime options when it came to spices and stored veggies. A lot of veggies for everyone else had gone in a tad bit late. There was nothing to really panic about; they were still eating better than most of them ever had in their lives.

After dinner was the afternoon nap, a rare Sunday luxury that I didn’t plan on giving up. I had hung my hammock in a shady area and spent a couple of hours dozing or just listening to the afternoon heat get started. I love those moments.

Then it was time to go fishing. I had all of the fly fishing gear. However, since I historically sucked at fishing anyway, I truly didn’t expect any sudden surge of talent or skill on my part. One time, Michelle tried hard to teach me. But even after three hours of practice, I had still shown very little improvement. Today, I decided to enjoy the outing anyway, and off we went with the huge set of gadgets that were supposedly required for the job.

I actually had a really nice time. I didn’t catch shit, while Michelle pulled in fish after fish. But on the other hand, this meant I had no cleaning to do when we finished. After about four hours down at the river, I was much more relaxed and more than ready to hand my fishing duties over to Amos. He seemed to excel at it. Me, I’d go back to hunting.

A good day, all in all, and after a nice supper I was ready to call it a night. Tomorrow would start another work week. Cutting roads wasn’t easy work, even if you were just running crews. I didn’t plan on getting fat and happy either, so I definitely wanted to spend a couple of hours swinging the ax.