I woke up to birdsong, which really beat yesterday’s cold raindrop. For a while, I stayed curled up there, not quite drifting back to sleep, but not really thinking either.

Numb. A different numb.

I wasn’t exhausted from a busy day, wasn’t drained from dealing with the kids. No, I just had nothing I needed to do, so I did nothing, not even think. Birds chirped and twittered, wind rustled the leaves, whistling through the gaps. Deep and slow breaths.

Only, I wasn’t good at doing nothing, soon growing anxious. Coming out of my trance, I sighed and rocked forward.

After finishing my morning routine, including some fruit for breakfast, I stood in the middle of my camp. Looking around, I wasn’t too sure what to do. As far as food went, I was in a decent place, could go up and harvest more wheat or pick more beans, maybe pull up more vegetables, find something other than those carrots.

Rather than that, my gaze settled on the woven door I’d made. It wasn’t comfortable in there; that hadn’t bothered me, but it wasn’t like I needed to sleep somewhere uncomfortable.

An idea coming together, I wandered into the forest. Until now, I had looked for low, dead branches and sticks and twigs by tree bases, the sorts of things that burned well. Today was different. Not every tree was alive and standing tall, some long fallen, rotting away. A few, though, were in the middle, recently dead.

It didn’t take too long to find the perfect tree. While I couldn’t say when, it hadn’t been dead for long, branches still supple and leaves still a deep teal. With the sharp rock I’d brought along for this, I started hacking branches off near the trunk. This did take a while, the branches not thin and wood resisting my rock, but, little by little, I cut through them, swinging down over and over, hands growing numb.

After the fifth, I sat down for a break. Didn’t take long for me to realise I was trembling. Sure, I was used to helping with washing, carrying the youngest girls around, that kind of everyday stuff, but not this kind of hammering. My hands shook, ached, no cuts, but swollen, arms heavy.

I had planned on stripping the branches too. Well, not everything could always go to plan.

Once I caught my breath, I started dragging the branches back, two at a time. They got stuck a lot, catching on roots and plants, but it wasn’t hard on my body like the hammering. Just a bit hard to keep my grip. By the third trip for the last branch, my hands felt much better. Still, back at camp, I let them soak in the stream for a while, down from the spring where the water felt cool.

For a break, I spent some time preparing sticks for making a fire later. Carved a small hole in a flat stick, whittled a thin stick to take off the bark, made sure it rolled nicely between my hands.

That done, I ate some fruit for lunch. A different one this time, it had a tear drop shape and a turquoise skin, the inside crunchier than the “apple”, sort of like cucumber, but with a taste like watered-down cola. Maybe it even had caffeine in it. I thought of it as a pear, the shape and texture close enough.

Then, for a while after, I just watched the spring. It had washed away the soil around it, making a small pool that drained through loose stones into the stream. A lot of water. I hadn’t really thought about it, but the stream wasn’t tiny.

Eventually, I couldn’t distract myself any more, getting back to work. My hands feeling better, I worked at stripping down the branches. Easier to cut these pieces off, I didn’t get myself into the same state, not to mention cool water at hand if I felt myself swelling up.

Once I was done with the five branches, they were about as tall as me and as thick as my arm. A sturdy base.

My plan was pretty simple. I picked two with some notches at one end where they’d branched out and took them over to the outcrop. After some measuring—and some carefully placed stones to stand on—I started hammering them into the ground, standing straight up. I dug a little too and surrounded the base with stones to help keep them upright, piling up dirt around each one and packing it down afterwards.

All of that left my hands aching again. I sighed, sitting by the stream with my hands soaking. It wasn’t like I expected this all to be easy, but I hated all these breaks, not that tired. Felt like a waste of daylight.

At the least, the rest of my plans weren’t intense. When the aching stopped, I searched for more vines and started assembling the frame for my room. The first step was putting one branch between the two I’d hammered down before, settling on the notches, held in place with vines. Next, the other two branches went across the top, one end on the outcrop and the other on the branches. I carved a notch into both to help keep them from slipping, vines doing the rest.

Taking a step back, I couldn’t help but smile at how it had turned out. Of course, it was just a frame, a lot more work still to do. However, it was a start. The start of something more than just surviving.

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While the frame needed to be sturdy, smaller branches and sticks would make do for the roof. So that was what I looked for. Some of the leftovers from preparing the frame were big enough to reach across, some of the firewood too. Little by little, covering more of the roof, using more vines to keep them in place and space them out a bit. Like the door, I would use leaves to cover it up at the end.

It was a shame there wasn’t much of the slate-like rock. If I had a bunch of a thin slabs, I could have made a real roof. Well, if I had a bunch of things, then I could do a bunch of things, I thought to myself, chuckling.

If I had a metal pot, if I had a hand-axe, if I had a piece of cloth….

Letting out a sigh, I sat down. The day’s efforts finally catching up to me, my stomach grumbled, hungry. At least I hadn’t reached the point it ached.

Although the sun wasn’t setting yet, I eventually got up and started on starting a fire. It took longer, one day not enough to dry out the leaves after yesterday’s rain, but I cobbled together enough to get a fire going. Without the charcoal, it took longer to build up too, but, again, I managed.

Planning on a smaller fire for longer, I didn’t rush with the carrots, passing the time by snacking on the sprouts and fruit. A little here, a little there, watching the flames dance, listening to it crackle while the stream trickled, wind whistling as it picked up, insects chirping.

A nice end to the day.

The next morning, I woke up only to wonder if it was early, so dark. It took a while to remember I was working on the new room. Giggling to myself, I shuffled out the crevice. The sun low above the trees, the roof didn’t really keep out much sunshine, but it did cast a shadow on the top half of the crevice. Just enough to not shine on my sleeping face.

Honestly, that was kind of a shame, but would only be while I holed up in the crevice. Once the room was done, it would be be bright at dawn again. As if I needed more motivation to work.

So off I went.

I gathered the longest sticks I could find—and some more peas. Unlike the first day, I wasn’t rushed, so I took my time to find the best sticks for the job. Long and thin, supple. The room wouldn’t really be any use until it was finished, so I didn’t worry with weaving the sticks together yet. That’d be a good task for the evening.

By lunchtime, I had a whole mound of both sticks. After eating, I took some time to empty some of the pea pods I’d found, wanting to make more sprouts in case frying the whole pod didn’t work out well. Even if it did work, lunch felt kind of empty with just fruit.

When I put the soaking peas in the larder, I checked on the wheat. It certainly had dried out a bit, even with the rain, going more golden-brown. I wasn’t sure if the fast budding meant fast drying too. The stalk, at least, felt fairly brittle.

I mean, what was the worst that could happen?

But that would have to wait for later.

Back to gathering sticks, I didn’t think about whether I had enough; any extra could dry out into firewood. Venturing a little farther, I looked out for more carrots too. When I found some, though, I hesitated to pick them. Thinking about the wheat and peas, I didn’t know how to grow more carrots. It wasn’t something I’d ever even thought about.

Well, I was pretty sure carrots grew from seeds…. Maybe….

If they didn’t, then what? Did the carrot split in half underground? Did it send out a tendril and start another root from that? I hadn’t noticed anything like that in the patches I’d found so far, though.

Thinking really wasn’t my strong suit. I mean, school had been more about remembering.

Feeling like I was going mad, I looked around the patch. They did grow in patches, so however they grew, it happened close by. After going around it a few times, I finally noticed something.

“Are these,” I mumbled, reaching out.

Another kind of plant seemed to grow perfectly around the patch, outlining it. Except that, when I pulled it up, a carrot came out. Thinner, colour a bit off, but definitely a carrot.

So then those weren’t leaves, but flowers? I had thought it was a different plant because the top looked so different, flowers like broccoli florets and a pale purple. Looking closer, I found one that looked browner and, brushing it, a few seeds dropped down. Like sunflower seeds, but smaller and wrinkled.

Excited, I dropped the sticks I carried and instead carefully pulled out this carrot, trying not to lose seeds.

Back at the camp, I went to where I’d first found the carrots. The rain had settled the dirt, so I awkwardly hoed it with a rock in one hand, then shook the seeds out over the patch. Knowing what to look for, I checked the edge of the empty patch for more flowering carrots and found a couple more with seeds.

After giving the patch a good watering, I went back for the sticks I’d left behind, that still an important task. Bringing those back—and some more sticks I found on the way—I sat down, taking in some deep breaths.

Didn’t want to get carried away. Maybe I wouldn’t be here when the carrots grew. Maybe I would, though.

Not wanting to think any more, I started on the fire. Charcoal left over from yesterday, leaves drier, it was easy to get it going and get cooking. Carrots roasted, bean pods fried, coming out a little charred, but sweeter, peas apparently steamed with how the pods swelled and whistled.

Full of optimism, I took out the wheat. Easy enough to start with, I pulled off the kernels and sort of ground them between two rocks, not trying to make flour, but breaking up the outer husk. There wasn’t much, so I then sifted through it by hand for the seedy bits.

And I realised I had no clue how to cook it.

In my head, I’d been thinking of making porridge, but that obviously wasn’t going to work. How else? If I made it into a paste, it would just burn onto the slab. What if I just put them straight on? That could work, I thought, but they were pretty small and might just end up falling off; the peas were fairly flat, so hadn’t rolled around much.

Nothing else for it, I put some rocks on top of the slab to make a little enclosure, then poured the kernels into it. Sure enough, despite bringing as much back as I could, there wasn’t much actual food to it all. Maybe half a bowl.

I kept stirring until they really browned, a nutty smell in the air, then carefully guided them off the slab, onto a rock “plate”.

For all the headache they’d caused me, the taste was okay. I had eaten bread with seeds in it before and these roasted kernels reminded me of that, a sort of waxy texture and nutty taste, a bit burnt, but mostly just bland. Oh well, another thing to eat.

Although that was a let down, I didn’t let it keep me down for long. The fire burned, I wove sticks, working towards my more spacious room.

So another day came to an end.