The process wasn't particularly difficult. Just find wood that's strong enough to hold weight to form a frame. Also, cut some smaller bits of wood for stakes, and set aside some cord for them. I made an executive decison, and decided to raise it a bit, so we could string up the hammocks, and maybe even stand up in there. It's a little more complicated, but less crap to live in, and I didn't know precisely how long we'd be in the tent. If it was just me, I'd go simpler, but Val wasn't used to this kind of living, so I didn't want to go too rough on her.

Departing with tools and one of the emptied container shells, I went to find wood. As with the fish, I took my bow and arrow, deciding to practice with it a bit before I got to work. I picked out a decent-sized tree for archery testing. At first, I was just testing the draw weight by anchoring, until I felt I had the right weight of it. It was less technical, and more a matter of feel and rhythm of firing. Then I fired my first arrow, putting it into the tree trunk, then dropping a second, third, and fourth in succession. The trick was just that I needed to get used to the thing, but it was a solid recurve, and didn't give me much problem. Satisfied for now, at least, I got back to work, but I would need to teach Val her way around it, in case something came up.

In the woods, I start looking around, booklet in hand. For trees, it had basic information on whether it was hardwood or softwood, and if it bore fruit, those sorts of things, but the descriptions weren't exactly imaginaitve. As Val had said, it wasn't deep information. It clearly hadn't been written by humans, who would have added a bunch of extra information to give ideas for uses and such.

The Everreds were my first stop, being coniferous, and thus, softwood. Most homes are built with softwood, and honestly, with lower weight and density, they'd be easier to manage for the time being. Hardwood is great for things like flooring, or if I were building a cabin, but here, it would just be more difficult to work with and heavier to haul. The Everreds were easy to spot as well, and I had another item to check. They had a birch-like bark, and it got me thinkin' if the roots were like birches as well, we might have an extra little surprise for camp.

I found my my targets fairly easily. They were pretty straight, but hadn't gotten incredibly tall yet, around the edge of the glade Val was looking to turn into farmland. The trees in question also weren't so thick yet, probably around a foot thick at most amongst the ones I was looking at right now, "Alright y'all, welcome back t'Uncle Keith's Survival Hour. What I'm fixin' t'do right here is chop us down some lumber. Some'll be gettin' for firewood, but it'll also give us the framin' for the tent an' some other stuff. Now I know there're some folks at home going, 'But Keith, why aren't headin' on after some o' that mahogany or oak?'.

"Answer's pretty simple- Cause that stuff's hard t'take down, and I don't need t'be doin' that right now. Now, if I were buildin' a proper house back on Earth, sure, I'd love t'get some better quality lumber, but on out here? Y'take what y'can get, and softwoods are what're predominantly used to build homes back on Earth. There's also other stuff with this here Everred, and that's sap. I'll be checkin' to see if it's like birch sap back on Earth, and if'n it is, then I got a whole list o' things we can use it for."

Show elements taken care of, I grabbed hold of my hatchet, rechecked my ties, and went to work, cutting out a section on the side I wanted it to fall on, then going to the other side, and getting to felling it proper. The whole time, I was still chattering away to my invisible friends, explaining each step in the process. I'll also be perfectly honest here, getting to just wail away at something for a while was... pretty therapeutic. It'd been a long, rough day already, and the ability to just blow off steam against a tree was about the best I could get right now.

The first tree, pretty much everything went as planned. I cut it close enough to the cut-out, then just yelled Timber, and pushed it over. I went straight to work on the next one, which is also went well. However, on the third one, I guess I forgot to check my ties properly, and it came crashing down in my direction. Even something as simple as a sprained ankle could set us back weeks, or it could put me out of the game entirely if it were bad enough. I got out of the way in time, but it was too close. Once I got the trees, I started stripping branches off, cut down the tree into section lengths, and loaded everything into the container shell. Then, took my rope, and made a harness for myself, then went the long way to get up the bluff. The container plus me wouldn't get up the switchback trail well... which brought up another issue. The switchback wasn't precisely safe, and if we wanted to use it for anything more regularly, it would need to be built up. One more thing for the Quest Log.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

That's just kind of the way it went, I would see one thing I needed to work on, see something else, and realize other things that needed to happen. Ah well, focus on task. The extra walk did afford me a chance to look around a little bit more. I think that's the focus for tomorrow, is just learning the land around camp better. Maybe I'd even get to see some of the other things out here. No chance of that now, though. The sound of chopping would've run off anything in the area, even the larger predators.

That said, I took a break from pulling my sled, and sat down, to just look over the glade for a bit. I'd pretty much been full steam since the beach, and now felt as good a time as any to just take a moment. The grass was a lavender color, with white, teal, and pink buds where there would soon be flowers. Various little bugs were flying about, and there was a nice breeze coming out of the south. I just sat there on a world only one other human had seen in the flesh, and smiled, "Y'know, all things considered, I'd have wanted to see this anyway."

I idled for a little longer, then, stretching, got back to my work. By now, it was late afternoon, and I needed enough time to get the tent up. As I arrived back at camp, I could see that the fire was going in full now, and Val was sorting through her own forage. At some point, she must've done a run down to the falls, cause she was washing all of the vegetables in the other shell of a container, and now, there was a small pot boiling atop a second fire. It was hard not to hear my approach, and Val broke off of her work to help me haul in, "I could've come to help you!"

"Nah... got to... work out... a... lot... of... temper. Just... need... a small coma... and I'll be alright," I said, finishing the push into camp.

She brought me some water, and made me sit down to drink it. It was warm, obviously from the boiling, but it didn't really matter. I sucked it down all the same. When I tried to question Val, I got shushed, while she went back to work. Pulling out the gathered wood, I just sat there on a rock, with my knife, skinning the wood, so we'd have some extra kindling, and setting about work on the tent poles. Checking the sap, it conformed to what I had hoped, it was like birch on Earth, and that gave us some things we could use it for, "Alright, and as we see here, the sap is pretty similar to what we got back on Earth in our birch trees. So what's that gonna give us out here? Well, it's got a bunch o' uses, as do most things. For one, folks on Earth might not realize that birch syrup is used in stuff like wintergreen-flavored gum, also used in stuff like beer, wine, moonshine, and we can even use it in place o' sugar. It's also got uses in skincare, and got vitamin C in it. Ton of pluses, but I'll have to act as guinea pig to confirm on this stuff, but it tastes 'bout right.

"Better is it's early spring, an' that means the sap's flowing freely. We'll need to get as much as we can now, an' work out somethin' for preservin' it. Then we can go on ahead and collect just before winter, and we'll have us a regular supply. That, however, can wait 'til after I get the tent finished up."

Getting up from my little skit, I set to work on the tent. The slope of the bluff was a bit of an issue, but that's something I could work on for the more permanent dwelling. Here, what I needed was functional, not pretty. I still wasn't sure of the depth of the ground, nor was I willing to dig down to find it right this moment, so tripods secured with rocks and dirt would have to do. I got the tripods assembled, and was checking them, when Val interrupted, passing me a bowl of food, two portions of Floater, a boiled yam-like thing, and what looked kind of like spinach, "Before you finish killing yourself from work, let's eat."

I swear to you, I meant to savor it. My first meal on an alien world, made entirely from ingredients of that world... I horked it all down like I was back in Boot, "That wasn't bad at all, better, given the lack of spices or salt."

Val was maybe a quarter of the way through her plate, and giving me a look, "You're certain you actually tasted the food?"

"Yeah, sorry, meant to take m'time, but in the end, just ended up wolfin' it down. Old Army instinct took over. Eat it now, taste it later'n all that. I can hang while y'finish, then I'll need help gettin' the shelter built. Might as well chat a bit."