Solo [ED] Seaweed & Sowing

[Miha]

Spring 17th 520 AV

Miha was sore. She had quite the workout the day before, plowing and tilling and hoeing and planting pot marigolds, whatever the hell that was. Today, she still had a lot of work to do, and Dawson was expecting her to bring in some seaweed. Now, the seal had never harvested seaweed before. She really didn't know much about seaweed at all, other than that it provided nice cover when she was swimming and that it was abundant in Mathew's Bay. The seaweed on the beach was always matted, smelly, and tangled up in debris, rocks, and driftwood, so she wanted to collect fresh seaweed, straight from the water. She even borrowed a big metal bucket to keep the seaweed in once she grabbed it.

The shore was high tide this morning, so the Kelvic stripped and shifted right in the sand. Her blobby but strongly muscled body flopped along the sand and into the water where she could get a better look at the seaweed and form a plan of attack. Miha swam to the bottom of the water and snooped around at the base of the seaweed plants. Hmm. She could see their roots wrapping around rocks at the bottom, and from those roots grew the long strips from which many smaller bits of the seaweed grew off of. They waved back and forth in the water from the movement of everything the ocean had to offer. Fish swam around the fronds, too, and carefully avoided the seal. But as yummy as they looked, Miha wasn't there to hunt.

The seal bit down on the strand of seaweed and started to pull. It was quite difficult - the seaweed wanted to stick to the rock, and her teeth weren't made for plants. Instead, she ended up tearing the stalk into shreds. It was still stuck, however. Staring at the plant attached to the seafloor, Miha realized that if she tore it up, it'd have to grow all over again. She wasn't a seaweed life cycle expert, but she knew growing took time, and that was only reaffirmed by her experience with Dawson the day before. She needed a better way to get the seaweed up, and she needed to figure out where to cut it from. The Kelvic pulled herself up to shore and flopped onto the sand next to her bucket, defeated by the plant for now. If she was going to collect a lot, she wanted to do it efficiently, and she wanted to keep the plant intact enough that it could keep growing and she could get more if she - or anyone else - needed it.

Miha shifted and pushed her silvery wet hair out of her face. She was so sore, and she figured she'd have better luck at low tide. A knife from the kitchen would work... game plan! Fortunately, it was a few hours until low tide, which meant she had plenty of time to go inside and take a nice nap and rest her sore body a little longer.

[Miha]

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Miha woke up and rolled out of bed. She was groggy, but she had work to do. She stopped in the kitchen to grab a nice, sharp knife, and then was back outside to start collecting the seaweed. She'd dreamt up a plan - she'd trudge out to where the seaweed floated at low tide, cut off the top half, and toss it all into the bucket once her arms were too full to cut anymore. Rinse and repeat. The sawing motion she had to make to cut the seaweed and the pointy rocks that prodded her feet did the seal no favors for her soreness. But she'd already told Dawson that she'd do it, so she wasn't going to back out now. Truth be told, she wasn't sure if she wanted to even plant seeds or not, she was so tired, but she wanted to learn about them so badly that she knew she could power through it. Saw, saw, toss into the bucket. The muscles in her arm ached, but she kept going. The pain was almost satisfactory in a way, like she knew she had been working hard and this was the result. Life in the Empyreal Demesne was hard! At least she had a safe place to practice her Auristics and even learn something more.

She had finally filled her bucket with slippery seaweed, and it was starting to heat up on the beach. She still had a long day ahead of her, so she didn't want to spend too much time collecting seaweed and get tired out even more. Miha waded out of the water and onto the beach. Her feet were a bit scratched up from the rocks, but at least she hadn't cut herself on anything or any creatures that made their home at the bottom. Another win! She grabbed the bucket and lugged it up the shore and all the way to the gardens. Dawson was watering the medicinal garden. She left the bucket by the garden and ran inside to grab her boots. She didn't want to get her boots sandy and full of water, but now she didn't want to accidentally cut her foot on something in the garden. Or get any cuts she hadn't noticed dirty and infected.

Miha came back and Dawson was still watering, using buckets to thoroughly wet the soil where the little sprouts were due to come up. He noticed her this time. "Miha, did you get seaweed?"

"Sure did, it's waiting in a bucket by the plot. What did you plant yesterday, anyway?" She asked, after she realized she didn't know. She didn't expect to really recognize any of the plants, but still, she was a curious seal.

He pointed towards where he'd just watered. "Here's purple cornflower... it's good for colds, according to Darcee. Then we have lavender over here, which is relaxing. It has a nice smell, too. Over here's sage, which she said she needed to treat sore throats." He walked a bit around the medicinal garden. And we have stinging nettles, toothache plant, and wild bergamot. Can't quite remember what they do...you should ask Darcee about it when they grow." Miha could barely keep track of their names!

[Miha]

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"We should probably use the seaweed before it starts heating up in the sun, huh?" She asked. The farmer nodded in agreement and she went to grab the seed dibbers as he finished up the last bits of watering. As she looked for them in the tool shed, he appeared in the doorway. "Have you washed the seaweed?" He asked, bucket in hand.

"No, was I supposed to?" She asked, clearly clueless. He laughed. "Yeah, we can wash it once you find the dibbers. They're right in front of you, by the way." Miha turned her head away from him and he was right - she'd looked everywhere but there. Of course. She grabbed two seed dibbers and wandered outside to find him. Closeby was a creek, and she could see Dawson walking right towards it with the bucket of seaweed. She dropped the seed dibbers by the vegetable plot and followed him. "So, how do we wash it?" She asked.

"Just take the seaweed and rinse it in the water. All you really need to do is wash away the salt and sand from the fronds. He gestured to a cloth sheet that he'd laid out next to the creek. "Afterwards, put the seaweed there so it doesn't get slimy. When we're all done we'll rinse out the bucket and put the seaweed back in." She nodded. The portion of the creek they were at was nice and shaded by trees, a respite from the sun bearing down on her at the shore and around the cleared out land for the plots and gardens. The water looked clean and clear, and it was deep enough that they could swish the fronds around with little trouble. There were bugs, along with frogs and birds to eat the bugs, all over the place. Miha swatted away a fly and got to work. She took a big, long strand of seaweed and just held it under the water. After she swished it around a few times she called it good and got up to place it on the sheet. It smelled like the ocean and a river had a baby, with the smell of the trees, the salty wind, and the wet seaweed.

They got through washing the seaweed quickly. It didn't take long to just take some plants and swish 'em around in water, after all. Miha picked up the seaweed by the armful and plopped it back into the bucket. Seaweed was washed and ready to go, and all she had to do now was plant up the garden and then spread it around. She felt like she'd spent all day working and it was only a bit past noon. The Kelvic carried the bucket back to the gardens. Dawson disappeared into the tool shed and came back out with a long thread-looking thing. It reminded her of a clothesline. When he started tying it to a nail sticking out of the tool shed's wall, and to a post near the castle, she got a closer look. It was a clothesline! "Can you start hanging up the seaweed? It's gotta dry before we can use it."

Simply hanging up the seaweed on the line was easy enough. Miha started hanging up the plants from the middle of the strands and let them dangle in the breeze. If one of them was a bit too long, she would lift up the loose end and toss it over. In the end, it looked a bit messy, but the farmer seemed satisfied with it. Didn't need to look good to dry out, anyway.

[Miha]

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After that, it was time to water the empty plot. The farmer and the seal filled up buckets of water and drenched the soil together, turn after turn. Apparently they'd have to do it all over again once the seeds were planted. It seemed easier to dig into the wet soil, anyway, because otherwise it seemed to just crumble away. The full, heavy buckets were a strain on her arms that was much different than the "rest" she'd given her body with washing and hanging up the seaweed. Dawson knew a whole lot about farming, and Miha was very impressed. What she thought was going to be something straightforward was far more complex than just dropping seeds on the ground.

"So, Dawson, how long have you been farming?" She asked as they walked back to the well to get more water for the garden.

"Just about my whole life."

"What made you come to the Empyreal Demesne? Was it being able to start gardening from scratch?"

"It certainly provides a challenge, and I was looking for a challenge." He replied. Miha could certainly understand that. They dumped more water around that. A good amount more bucketfuls and the field was finally watered. There were still slight rows from the directions they plowed the field the day before, just enough that Dawson was ready to start planting. He left again, only to come back with big pouches of seeds. They all had written labels and she could see a few - squash, pole snap beans, corn, and lettuce. There were more bags that she couldn't read, but the names she saw definitely tracked with what he'd told her the day before. Miha was excited for the harvest that was in store for them whenever these things grew. He handed her a bag of lettuce seeds. "These are the easiest to plant. Just go to the far corner and plant one seed in each hole about...half an inch deep, at most, with half a foot between each one. Do every third row for a few rows. In about 10 days I'm going to go through and plant some of the other rows, and then 10 days after that I'm going to do it again. When you plant the lettuce like that, you'll be able to harvest it all summer."

Miha nodded, took the bag, and picked up the seed dibber she'd left near the plot before they washed the seaweed. She walked over to the corner and got down on her knees. She barely had to apply pressure before the hole was deep enough. The lettuce seeds were a bit oval shaped but with pointy ends, and one half was a tiny bit thicker than the other. They were bottom heavy, but not so small that she couldn't pick out one at a time and drop it in. Miha tried her best to keep from drifting off into daydream at the repetitive task, despite how it much it appealed to her. She was bored, but she knew she had to pay attention so she didn't mess it all up. This was their food, after all.

[Miha]

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Miha finished the first row slowly, but her second row - albeit a few rows off from the first - went a lot faster. She looked over to see what Dawson was doing. The farmer juggled three different bags, planting one, then the other, and then the third. He repeated this all the way down the row. She wondered what exactly he was growing that let them all be jumbled together like that. Miha took her time, finished up her row, and then got up.

"What are you growing here?" She asked after she walked up behind the farmer and watched over his shoulder for a while. The seal figured he had a good, or at least an interesting reason for his method.

"Planting corn, beans, and squash all together. This way the beans have something to grow up on - they're pole beans, so normally you'd need to put in stakes or a trellis for the vines to crawl up on. But the corn grows tall and provides a natural stalk. The squash grows on the ground. With less ground open, there's less ground able to support weeds. They all work together - and they grow better this way, too." Dawson took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow. Miha was satisfied with his explanation.

"Huh, it's interesting how things work out that way." She added. Dawson smiled, nodded, and went immediately back to work. The seal took that as her cue to get back to work, too. She was almost done with the first set of lettuces for the time being. When Miha finished up, she got up and brushed herself off. She had been working hard all morning and she wanted to go have some lunch and take a nice, long nap. She'd have to take it easy for the next few days - she was used to working hard, but not this hard. She was very happy that she'd learned a new skill, though, and even though she'd been on the property for only a few days, she was glad that she'd already helped out.

[Alric Lysane]

Hi Hi! When you return please update your ledger and I will post up your grade ~ No Worries