CHAPTER 7: MORNING 2

Skill acquired! [Fixer Upper]

You’re not a [Handyman] but you can still leave a place a little better than you found it.

Lexie’s eyes popped open. Bright squares of sunlight streamed through the sparkling window panes. A new skill! She stretched and yawned, breathing in the clean lemon tang of oil soap, and beneath that, the fresh sea air.

Two days scrubbing the cabin from top to bottom, cleaning the fireplace, and generally making the place livable had paid off.

Digging around under the blankets, Lexie found the thick wool socks she’d worn to bed. Her stomach rumbled. She sat up, pulled on her socks, and then padded over to the fireplace.

The firewood had dried overnight. A few crumpled pieces of paper from the stack by the typewriter served as tinder. Flame ran along the edges in a think red line, and then the wood caught.

Lexie watched the fire anxiously until she was sure the smoke was going up the chimney. The last thing she wanted was a repeat of the previous morning. Once she was sure all was working as intended, she grabbed the water bucket and the kettle and carried them out to the pump.

“Note to self. Fill the kettle the night before.”

After a quick visit to the outhouse, she washed her hands and face in cold water and brushed her teeth at the pump, and filled both the bucket and kettle before carrying them back inside.

“Man, I miss indoor plumbing.”

Unfortunately, the will had been clear. The estate covered the costs to transfer the cabin and land to Lexie, and the cabin, land, and all its contents, were hers now, free and clear, but there was no further provision. Whatever Lexie wanted to make of the cabin and the land, she was going to have to do it on her own. Which meant she was going to have to find a way to pay for that indoor plumbing herself. Hopefully before winter came.

While she waited for the kettle to boil, Lexie slathered jam on the scones left over from the breakfast [Mayor] Louise had brought the day before and spooned some instant coffee into the “World’s Best [Writer]” mug. Her great aunt had never started the day without at least three cups. It was was a habit she’d picked up as well.

TWEEEEEET

Lexie used a thick leather mitt she’d found among the old clothes in the trunk to lift the screaming kettle from the hook and poured boiling water into her mug. She returned the hot kettle to the stone hearth. There had been enough fire-related catastrophes.

As she ate, she opened her library copy of [Farmer] for n00bs.

INTRODUCTION: SO, YOU WANT TO BE A FARMER?

Not to question your life choices here, but are you sure this is what you want to do with your life?

Really, really sure?

Because, and you should know this up front, farming is a lot of grinding. Literally.

“Not super helpful,” Lexie remarked to the book. She wanted to get started, not be lectured about her life choices by a class guide with a questionable cover. She flipped ahead.

BABY’S FIRST FARM

[Farmer] is a Tier I class, so it doesn’t have a lot of complicated prereqs. You could even unlock the class with a kitchen window herb box in a pinch. But you’re not wasting a class slot on [Farmer] because you really love homemade pesto.

To get that first level, you’ll need to acquire:

* a skill related to land preparation; e.g. [Digging], [Potting], [Tilling], [Fencing]

* a skill related to cultivating a crop; e.g. [Planting], [Watering], [Feeding]

* a skill related to harvesting a crop; e.g. [Picking], [Threshing], [Gathering], [Milking], [Sheering]

(See: Appendix A, Farming Skill Trees for complete list of skills and descriptions)

You probably noticed some of those skills don’t pertain to growing plants. It’s possible to unlock [Farmer] by tending animals too, but for simplicity, we’re going to start plant cultivation.

People get a lot less upset if you forget to water your tomatoes and they all die.

If you’re coming into a farm that’s already set up and running, you can skip ahead to planting, but for the sake of this guide, we’ll assume it’s just you, our brand-new wannabe farmer, with some basic hand tools, some seeds, and an unworked patch of land. (See: Tools, Choosing Your Crops)

“That’s more like it.” Lexie had Martha’s old garden tools and the seeds she’d already bought. She turned the page and studied a diagram of a sample field. Skimming the basic instructions on suggested field size and how to prepare the soil, she drained the last of her coffee from the mug.

Breakfast was done, and she had enough information to get started. Lexie closed the book and left it on the table, pulled on the work clothes she’d worn the day before, picked up her tools, and headed outside.

“Where to plant?”

She stood on the porch and surveyed the clearing around the cabin.

Debris littered the meadow. Storms had snapped branches from the nearby trees and the strong sea winds had scattered them in the clearing.

“Close to the pump,” she decided. No need to tote water further than she had to.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

Lexie marked out her garden plot in the open area to the side of the cabin, placing a large rock in each corner of the three meter by three meter square. She’d could expand later, this was a good starter size. If she could get it planted today, she’d get two skills toward her class unlock.

And she’d used the last of her firewood boiling water for breakfast. If she wanted hot water tomorrow, she needed wood. Might as well kill two pigs with one bird.

She began by dragging the loose branches over to a pile near the porch. Anything small enough to burn as it was, or that she could break with her hands, went into one pile. In the other were the large branches, the ones she would have to chop.

“Okay, I get where the branches come from, but how are there. So. Many. Rocks?” she muttered as she lugged a football sized chunk of granite shot through with a quartz seam to a growing pile of rocks.

Lexie kept at it until she’d cleared the area.

She grabbed the pointy shovel from where it leaned against the porch. The spade?

Using the sharp edge of the tool, she cut through the layer of grass and roots, carving out 30 or 40 centimeter squares, like the book said. She picked them up, shook off as much loose dirt as she could, and piled the chunks of grass to the side.

After a while, she got into the rhythm of it. Stab. Stab. Stab. Saw. Saw. Lever.

The dirt sucked the moisture out of her skin, chapping her hands, and she dusted them off on her jeans before she mopped the sweat from her brow. “I need some gloves.” She looked over her progress. The garden patch was taking shape and it was time for a break.

She fetched a drink of cold water and surveyed her progress.

So far she’d managed to cut through a third of the grass layer, exposing the dark soil underneath. She hoped she’d be able to plant today, but the soil was rocky and packed. She’d never had a garden before, but she was pretty sure that wasn’t optimal.

Two hours later…

The ugly blister on the soft flesh of her hand between her thumb and forefinger throbbed. The spade she was using to cut and lift the chunks of grass, rocks, and webbing of roots, was rubbing her hands raw.

She leaned the tool up against the side of the cabin and ran inside. The healing potion she’d bought the other day was in the trunk at the end of the bed, and she pulled it out. Carefully she applied a few drops to the blister. The angry red faded to pink, and the blister shrank, but didn’t disappear. She applied a few more drops and watched as the skin of her hand returned to normal.

Lexie resealed the potion bottle and set it back in the trunk. She had to be sparing, she couldn’t afford another. She turned to the field prep section in [Farmer] for n00bs to check what came next.

TILLING

Once you’ve got a bare patch of dirt, you need to till the soil before you plant. Basically, dig a trench along one edge, then dig another trench next to it, filling in the first trench with the loose soil from the second. Once you’ve tilled whole field, fill in the last trench with the soil from the first trench you dug.

Voila, tilled field! Now put some healing potion on your skin because your hands are a bloody mess of weeping blisters on top of blisters.

Great. Just great.

She definitely needed to get some work gloves. Much cheaper than potions.

More cold water and a slice of bread with some of the hazelnut spread she’d bought at Sprübeck’s, and Lexie got back to work. She stopped twice more to apply potion to her hands. Tilling was even harder than digging up the sod.

After a few more hours Lexie was exhausted, and her hands ached even after the potion soaked in. But the field was ready for planting.

She pulled the seed packets out of her pocket and shuffled through the envelopes. Reading the planting instructions on the backs, it seemed everything liked sun, so the spot she’d cleared would work fine. In retrospect, she probably should’ve checked that first.

They had slightly different spacing and sowing depths, but it didn’t sound too complicated. Lettuce and spinach sprouted in just a few days, and ripened in a couple weeks. Potatoes and carrots and pumpkins took longer.

Carrots and potatoes and pumpkin would be good for stew later.

Like everyone else, she’d unlocked [Cooking] in school, but Lexie never raised it beyond 3. Boiling water for pasta and reheating takeaway didn’t count for leveling. She barely managed to cook on a proper stove, an open fire would be a challenge.

She stuffed the rest of the seeds back in her pocket. “This garden isn’t gonna plant itself.”

After all the digging and moving rocks, planting was a pleasant change.

By the time she was done, her back ached from bending and her hands were chapped again and filthy too.

But she was done!

Almost. She just had to water.

She filled the bucket from the pump and began sloshing it as gently as she could over the newly planted field. She’d pick up a watering can from Sprübeck’s along with the work gloves.

Lexie couldn’t remember ever being this bone tired in her entire life. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed. Just sitting on the porch, she could feel her eyelids starting to sink. She looked at the dark patch of earth, her new garden. “I did that,” she said.

It was late afternoon and all she wanted to do was eat something and collapse into bed, but the town meeting was at 6PM, and she’d promised [Mayor] Louise she’d go.

Maybe there would be snacks?

She looked down at herself. No way she could go into town in the clothes she was wearing. At this point they could probably go walk around town by themselves.

“I need a bath.” She’d been working hard on the cabin since she arrived on the island, and last night she was so worn out, she’d barely put on her pajamas before falling into bed.

She lifted her arm and sniffed at herself. Yeah. That wasn’t just the work clothes.

The town meeting was the first impression she was going to make on most of her new neighbors! She remembered what [Captain] Ismaël said on the boat. It needed to be a good one.

With her new stock of firewood, Lexie boiled enough water to half fill her buckets, and carried them to the pump. She mixed cold water into the hot water until it was tolerable, and carried both behind the cabin for a bit of privacy.

She’d been working in her field all day and hadn’t seen a single soul pass by, but it would be just her luck.

Glancing around to be sure she was alone, and hidden from view from the road, she stripped off her dirty work clothes. She shook them out to get rid of the worst of the dirt and then dropped them on the grass in a pile beside the scratchy wool blanket she’d brought out to dry herself with. “I really need a towel.”

She added a bit of soap to the water in the cleaning bucket, then dunked a washcloth made from an old jersey top of Martha’s into the water and began to scrub her face.

The sun was bright but the breeze was chilly and Lexie hurried to finish her sponge bath. The water grew cloudy grey with her filth. Lexie considered washing her hair in the dirty water….

Not tonight.

She poured handfuls of clean water over herself from the other bucket, and when it was a third left, lifted the bucket and poured the rest over her head to finish her rinse.

“N-n-need a sh-shower.” Lexie’s teeth chattered as she wrapped herself in the blanket. She collected her dirty clothes, rag, and buckets and carried them back to the front of the cabin, where she hung the work clothes over the porch to air out and left the buckets beside the door.

The cabin was warm from the fire Lexie made when she boiled the water, and out of the breeze and wrapped in the warm blanket she stopped shivering.

She did her best to dry her hair with the blanket. The wool wasn’t super absorbent and the quick rinse had done little to clean it. She decided to pull it back in a braid and hope no one noticed how dirty it was.

That done, she dug through her duffle bag and came up with clean jeans and a knit turtleneck. She’d packed one real suit, her best, but outside of the lawyer’s office, the island didn’t seem like a suit kind of place.

gggrrummggle

Not only was she worn out, but she was starving. A good meal would fix both. She jingled the the shrinking bag of coins. There wasn’t a lot, but she could get a decent meal at the diner before the meeting.

A few minutes later she was on her way into the village.