Homesteading in a fantasy world

A few hours later I let them take a break as I serviced the scythes. Thanks to today's sun the cut grass can be turned in a few hours so it can dry from the other side as well.

During the downtime, they will be building hay drying racks. I showed them where to get the right types of dry logs and how to build them into a triangular prism shape that has three supports on its sides. Those keep the hay off the ground so the wind can keep drying the hay.

I could have probably built them all a lot quicker, but practice will be good for them. George seemed to be the fastest to pick up woodworking getting the beginner wood crafter after he finished the first hay drying rack that he built.

After checking both Emma and Arthur's first tries, I gave them all some explanations on how to do things better. I left them to make enough to cover the acre they had managed to cut.

I went back to digging and by evening I had managed to dig out enough to understand how I wanted to build it. The two chambers will be side by side with a small area between them that will be refilled. Meaning that only one hill will cover the structures, not two.

I also finished digging the doorways. It will be a hallway with two doors. One that will open to the outside that will have a stair that will take you to the root cellars floor depth. From there the second door will open into the root cellars chamber. I will need to make some steel hinges and some support for the door as well.

It will make a huge root cellar even if you only account for one chamber and I hope that will not cause any problems. The main chambers are still not dug out and it will be a huge job to get it done. Both chambers together will be 100 square meters. Although the support pillars that hold up the roof will take up some of the area.

If I didn’t have my abilities, I would never want to build it this big especially because of how much stone I would need to cut. But now I think this is quite doable and it won't take too long.

By the evening my workers however were quite tired even though they had a chance to rest. I got them back up and working. It was time to put the hay onto the drying racks and to help them finish it before the temperature dropped and the ground became wet.

The next day went the same as yesterday this time they were able to do a bit more than one acre and I was able to dig out from the doorways a bit further to the correct depth for the chambers. With today’s haymaking, we reached the amount needed for the winter and a bit extra as well.

I had to wake them up the next morning because they wanted to sleep in. It was not by choice, they were just tired of the constant work. I gave them the good news that they will be doing digging today and every day until the root cellar is dug out.

For some reason, they did not seem to enjoy that piece of news, but I left them there anyways after I showed them exactly where to dig and how deep.

Francis did an excellent job during the last two days. The road felt solid. I loaded the cart with all the tools, needed supplies and some wood to make a tool shed and a work shack.

The wall thickness for the root cellar will be about 40 cm consisting of three pieces, two 15 cm pieces that sandwich a 10 cm piece and will be joined together.

All the blocks that I will be cutting out will be 1 meter by 1 meter and 15 cm thick so about 40x40x6 inches. One of those will be cut down to 10 cm and have 2.5 cm tongues left out three on both sides.

The other two 15 cm pieces will have grooves cut on one side. That way I can overlap them to make it a solid piece, but some corners will also need to be cut out to fit the middle tongues. Like that, I will be making all the walls, floor and ceiling.

For the entryway, some pieces will need more specialized cuts as well as the stairs. Of course, for some of the blocks holes will need to be made so the ventilation shafts will have some way to connect.

They will also be made out of rock, will it be the leftover cuttings or freshly cut all will depend on how cleanly I can cut the middle piece into shape.

The pillars that will support the ceiling will be made of half-meter cubes that will be stacked up on each other. To connect them I will also use merging joints with a slot-type joint at the centre of the cube's outer sides. Using different colour rocks will make them look nicer and hold them in place while there's no load on the pillar from the roof.

When the rock structure is done it will be time to start covering it with loose rocks and dirt making a small hill. It would need to be covered by quite a large layer of dirt to help keep the minus 35°C weather from damaging anything inside.

The pillars will be quite numerous to help support all the weight and the huge piles of snow we might get. All the walls, floor and ceiling will be overlapping which makes sure rodents can't get through them and for the air vents I will have to make steel mesh to keep them out.

When Francis and I make it to the quarry site I quickly set up everything I need and built the things I wanted. After that, it was time to start.

It took me quite a while to get everything the way I liked it. To not use too much energy during cutting finding the best ways to use the new tools and test fit the blocks.

During my lunch break, I was quite happy that I was able to eat tomatoes and cucumbers with smoked meat. They were so flavourful, and it was quite pleasant to taste the fruits of my labour.

Talking about labour, it was time to go and see the workers that think they can slack off because I wasn’t there. They did not know I could see what they were doing. I am probably the worst nightmare for any construction crew.

During the downhill part the brakes held up excellently and the next time I can test them with an even bigger load. I think Francis would have liked it to be a bit tougher to pull but I think he enjoyed the company as well, so it balanced it out a bit.

I gave them a talking to about working properly, especially Arthur who was the first to take a break and took them most often.

Seeing the improvements of Emma and George, them being able to get their digging into the basic tier while he was still at beginner level 3 lit a fire in him. Eventually, I will train out the need for him to have a competition to accomplish things faster. I was able to get basic level 4 during my time digging.

I unloaded the blocks from the cart and tested their fit but I didn’t place them permanently yet because the ground was yet to be pounded down to be a solid base. That I was going to have to do myself because I would be able to do it a lot better thanks to my abilities.

It took them a week to finish digging and I rewarded them with a visit to the sauna. I had to help them once because of a big rock that needed to be broken down but after that, they finished the job themselves.

I was able to make all the rock blocks I needed during that time and bring them all here, this helped me level my new skill quarrying to 8.

During this time our food table expanded a lot thanks to the vegetables starting to get ready and the potatoes we started harvesting when we wanted some. I did go out and hunt some rabbits to get more meat.

Freya was doing her own hunting now. During the small breaks that I took, I also started to teach her and the puppies some basic commands to start their training journey.

After days of digging the trio was quite relieved that they didn’t have to do it anymore. I happily announced that they can start cutting the flax thanks to it being ready for harvest.

For some reason they did not seem to like it and when I asked them why they were not happy about this wonderful piece of news I only got silence in return.

The brothers actually knew better how to handle the flax or how it’s really called celn. They even showed me what pieces of equipment will be needed to make the celn into workable bundles to spin together later.

This time I didn't have to start thinking about how to make such things as we already had them. The same with everything needed to process the wheat and rye.

The two brothers were quite excited because they were quite close to tier up their basic farming. Emma was not quite that excited because she didn’t even have her farming skill yet.

Unfortunately, none of them had any abilities so teaching them energy control was a lot harder, but I did teach them to circulate it. They were all failing at it quite miserably, but I hoped when they get their first abilities, I can help them more.

It took me a week to finish everything but the ceiling and another four days to finish the ceiling. I had to use wood supports to help hold up the unsupported ceiling as I was building and merging them.

It was quite satisfying to be able to remove all the wood supports and see the ceiling held up by the rock pillars. The chambers were quite spacious as I made them 2.5 meters tall so I will not have to duck while walking.

I built with wood some areas for different vegetables and potatoes as well as the grain root cellar to separate rye and wheat. Eventually, I will make shelves as well but there was no need to build those out just yet.

Of course, it was extremely dark inside and I would need to figure out a better way to light it than to bring a live fire down here. But for myself, I only needed candlelight to see quite well in the darkness. So, it would not be that big of a problem.

The doors were quite thick with the middle left open to insulate them better and the sides packed full of fabric to make a tight seal. One thing I didn’t do was make a lock for the doors but honestly, I don’t think that I will need it thanks to my owners land.

The celn field was cleared and they were currently processing the last of it, but it will probably take them a few more days and by that time I will finish the root cellar. Both the brothers got their farming to tier up getting abilities. George took disease purification and Arthur took extended blade. Emma got her farming to basic 3 and I got my masonry to level 6, basic architecture to level 7 and basic engineering to level 5.

It took me 2 days to cover the root cellar with more stone pieces and then the rest was filled up with dirt. On top of that, I carefully put cut out grass mats so it will quickly grow into a thick grass covering for the next year.

To help keep the grain root cellar at a higher temperature I made places so I could easily place straw onto the walls in a thick mat to help bring up the temperature. There was stronger air circulation to keep everything drier. Hopefully, it will work the way I want it.

It was now time to start harvesting the grain fields and I couldn’t even imagine if I had to do this all by myself. It would have taken so much longer, and I would have had to battle the incoming rain that the fall would bring. But now we had plenty of time and didn’t have to rush it.

The harvest was excellent; after processing we dried the grains in the sun before taking them into the root cellar. Some of the straw went into storage, some to cover the grain root cellar walls and the rest went into piles beside the fields. Perhaps I can use it for compost making in the future.

Composting would be quite a good way to get some more fertility for the fields. With the clear grain field parts, I concentrated on them and it seemed that they were still quite good for the next year, I could probably get a few more years before the yield started to diminish too much but I had a plan to fix that.

It took us two weeks to clear the grain fields and get the grain dried and stored. We had more grain than we knew what to do with. What we didn’t have was a big millstone to make flour.

I could make a small one that can be used by hand, and it was an easy build to finish it. Just two round stones where you rotate the top one so the grain between the stones will be ground into flour.

Next came the vegetables. We started with the carrots and then the onions; they needed to be dried well before going into the root cellar. All that could be put into root cellars were and the rest were either dried and kept in the main house or eaten fresh.

To sort out all the vegetables only took a few days, discounting the ones that were still drying and it was now time for the potatoes.

First, all the plants stocks above ground were cut and brought to the side of the field. Then I had to make some more and better hand tools to help harvest the potatoes.

It took us five days to get everything out of the ground and into the root cellar. The potato did really well with huge clumps of them under every plant and they were quite big as well. One potato planted produced 8 to 15 times as many new potatoes. It was an incredible harvest, and I was quite pleased.

Potatoes are my favourite food, and you can make so many different things from them. My workforce was also quite surprised at how good of a harvest I got as potatoes were used less for food.

They were seen as a lower form of food for poorer people. I educated the kids on how wrong they were. I think they got quite tired of me talking about all the ways potatoes can be made while we were harvesting them.

It was a nice harvest, and our food supplies were definitely secured as the root cellar seem to be working as intended. Emma also got a tier up in her farming skill and she took the farmer’s hand. This ability protects one’s hands allowing you to work without gloves so you can do more delicate but tougher jobs and not damage your hand.

They were surprised at how quickly they got XP as they all were level 7 now in their class, but I explained to them that as they were my apprentices, I could take the XP they were gaining but was doing it as minimally as possible. There was some cursing when they realised how much XP was lost to them over the years.

I got a lot from the harvest, farming to level 18, sharp blade to level 10 and homesteader to level 5 getting me some stat points. This got my endurance past 40, getting me the trait fortified stamina. What that did I had no idea, but it was absorbed by a giant among men.

We celebrated with another sauna session and before we went to sleep, I happily gave them the news that now that the harvesting is done the real training can begin. The sound of dismay and growling as they went into their bedrooms to sleep was quite satisfying.