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Abandoned - Everglade in Summerset Swamp - Story 57

Started by Abandoned, July 07, 2020, 07:32:28 AM

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Abandoned

#15
Chapter 11


  By early spring of year 6, we had a records jetty built next to the trading post so our trader could better decide what needed items we could spare for trade goods.  Some stone, iron, fuel bricks, iron tools, and leather were moved to the trading post.  We all had our fill of mushrooms so our surplus was moved also.  When Patie, the seed merchant, arrived, she said she would take all those things in trade, just tell her what seed and seedling we wanted and she would get them for us.

  Moving items from storage to the trading post freed up storage space in town but jetty dwellers were not getting much variety especially from the market on the west jetty.  We assigned a vendor and in no time at all the market began filling up with a nice selection of goods.  Jetty dwellers on the east jetty thought they should have a market too so we decided to build a market there too.  It would be a few years before we needed more jetty houses but when we did there would be needed supplies nearby.

  We picked an area with few trees to clear for our first orchard.  The stone was used to extend the road past the farmyard and some stone went to the trading post.  The reed bundlers where happy to get more reeds for firebricks.  In late winter, Patie returned with grapefruit seedlings.

Abandoned

#16
Chapter 12


  The grapefruit seedlings were planted immediately and by spring of year 7 the small trees were green and healthy looking.  We were concerned we might be planting them too close to the salt water marsh. 

  A fishing jetty was built on the east jetty, because people on the west jetty had one.  Lusterlin could wave at his brother, Antos, as he checked his crab traps there in the mangrove swamp.  Tremain, the crab catcher who owned the other boat with crab traps still did not have a crab jetty workplace on the west jetty.  He often complained he had to bail water out of his unused rowboat.  We had plans to extend the jetty west towards the shore where Tremain thought the crab catching would be good, but Chestevan, the fisherman, complained that more jetties in his fishing radius would severely decrease the amount of fish he would catch.  We began extending the west jetty farther away from him and closer to the market instead.

  We had been considering the piece of land across from the west jetty as a possible location for a fruit orchard some time in the future.  That peninsula was a hardwood hammock by the river, fruit trees should grow well there on the higher ground.  First we would have to get over there to assess how many hardwood trees would be lost.  We wanted to preserve our swamp as much as possible.  We decided on the area just past the mushroom field for our next orchard.  There was little that needed clearing before the site was ready.  We just needed more seedlings.

Abandoned

#17
Chapter 13


  In early spring of year 8, the mushroom crop was still being harvested.  We were short of logs and reeds.  We realized that the workers in that area lived quite some distance away, it was a long walk in the rain.  We were happy when 6 more displaced swamp dwellers arrived and the family with 2 young children wanted to live as far from the frogs and crocs as they could get.  They were willing to give farming a try.  The other couple was more than happy to have a cabin built for them out on the west jetty.  The wooden jetties and our stone roads made it so much easier for a man with a wooden leg to walk.

  Several of the town's young adults wanted places of their own, Elia was the first to get a house and she chose a spot by the grapefruit orchard.  The house building again left us short of logs.  We didn't want to cut more of the hardwood trees but what choice did we have.  Mayne and I took a walk back into the trees and discovered many young saplings that could be transplanted to areas where stone and iron could be removed.  The transplants would grow bigger and stronger with more space and light.  A forester could plant the new trees and carefully select which of the old trees to cut.   We would be planting more trees than we cut.

  Mayne and I made another discovery at the edge of the hardwood hammock near the fresh water stream.  There were several families of ducks in and around a small fresh water pond.  I saw several nest with eggs in the reeds and rocks that circled the pond.  We would leave this area untouched for now but if we needed more food, we knew where we could find duck eggs and duck meat.

  By the end of year 8, Tremain finally got his jetty workplace close to the shore that he thought would be a good place to catch crabs.  Much to his surprise, he would not be bailing water out of his boat before going out to check the traps, he now had a new mooring place with a covering.

Abandoned

#18
Chapter 14


  Surprise was not the word to describe what we all felt at the beginning of year 9 when Kassah went missing and was found dead in that hardwood hammock across from the new crab jetty.  We don't know what happened, she was a swamp dweller, she survived the frog invasion. We quickly extended the west jetty to the hardwood shore so the searcher could return quickly and safely.    Harmand and their 2 children were devastated.  When the shock wore off we realized we never assigned a worker to the mini forester that was built the previous autumn.  We were again low on logs. 

  We still did not have seeds for the new orchard.  The only riverboat we saw recently past by without stopping.  We didn't know if he had nothing to trade or simply didn't see our trading post back in the reeds. We built a new trading post on the west jetty.  When Eric, the general goods merchant, arrived he said he saw the new jetty trading post but there was no sign of life, he'd been to our old trading post before so he knew it was here.  He thought the trader that past us by may have been one of the survivors and was scared off by the sight of the mother frogs on the shore across the river.  Before Eric went on his way, we traded for some linen clothes and ordered flax.

  We didn't know if that passing trader didn't see us or he saw the frogs, but we knew that Antos the crabber on the east jetty saw the boat covering that Tremain, the west jetty crabber, had, because now Antos wanted one too.  Even with a new fisherman on the east jetty, the competition between the east and west fisherman did not end.   They weren't even catching the same type of fish.  Freshwater bass, perch, bluegill, and trout were caught from the west jetty.  Saltwater cod, mackerel, and flat fish were caught from the east jetty.  Cray fish and catfish were caught from the fishing jetty in town. 

  Despite getting a late start, Elia planted quite a few hardwood seedling and gathered reeds, iron, stone, and logs.  The small orchard in front of her house also did well producing the first harvest of grapefruits.  The pig wallow and farmyard also did well.  Hopefully by the following spring we would have more fruit tree seeds.

Abandoned

#19
Chapter 15


Our seeds did not arrive, but in spring of year 10, a houseboat of Outlanders did.  There were 2 related families, 4 adults, 2 young adult girls, and an infant.  They were migrating from the cold north where it seemed to get colder every year.  Like us they turned into the swamp to avoid pirates and became lost.  Swamp rivers were very slow, they'd been in the swamp a long time.  In that time, they grew to like the swamp and the swamp's climate with no snow.  They would stay with us if we were willing to teach them about living in the swamp.

  We immediately began building houses.   One of the adult girls wanted to stay on the houseboat, the other wanted a small jetty house of her own.  She wanted to learn how to catch crabs.  One set of parents wanted a house on solid ground, or as solid as swamp ground can be, they moved into a house next to Elia.  The other set of parents with the infant chose to have a  house on the east jetty.

  In late autumn a seed merchant came to the west jetty trading post but only had grapefruit seeds which we already had.  We again ordered orange, lemon, and lime seeds.  The houseboat moored there was drawing attention, it was very colorful.  The jetty residents wanted more color.  We decided to build an arbor where they could enjoy the view and watch for approaching riverboats.  They did more than that, they began feeding the ducks and attracting more ducks.  We feared the ducks would attract hungry crocs. The arbor and the ducks also attracted residents from the east jetty, and of course, they wanted an arbor too.

Abandoned

#20
Chapter 16


  Thorntonia, a general goods merchant, had no trouble getting to the west jetty trading post despite all the extra croc nets that were put up.  Thorntonia had oranges but no seeds.  We traded for some of the oranges and ordered orange, lemon, and lime seeds.  We had orders placed with 4 different merchants.

  Construction work had begun on the east jetty to provide access to their arbor, just like the one the west jetty had.  Folks on the west jetty wanted to know why they didn't have a school closer to them like the east jetty had.  We were again short of logs by the time work begun on the new school.  We would need room for more students in a year or two anyways.  Many of the newly planted trees were coming up and doing well but there was a lot more stone iron and reeds to be cleared away.

  That summer of year 11 a food merchant came to both trading posts.  This prompted a comparison of which jetty had more of this or less of that, who had eggs and who didn't.  And then the west jetty folks discovered that the east jetty had a storage unit and a market, they only had a market.  We built a small swamp storage unit across from the new school.  A worker was assigned to the duck pond to gather eggs.

  In autumn, Patie, the seed merchant,  brought the orange seeds we ordered 4 times.  We were happy to finally get them.  Two farmers began to plant immediately.

  Merle was not happy tending the ducks.  The duck pond was a long way from her house and the weather was again very cool and damp with frequent heavy rain.  She said she would scream if one more person said "it was good weather for ducks".  Well, that was just ducky!

Abandoned

#21
Chapter 17


  The extremely rainy weather continued into early spring of year 12.  The supply of logs and firewood was very low.  We extended the east jetty to the shore hoping to make walking easier for the laborers gathering resources there.  On the west jetty we began building a jetty storage unit closer to the west shore where branches and wild food could be gathered.  Because of the rain and humidity, visibility was so bad we did not see the newcomers wading across the river.

  There were 9 migrants, 8 adults and 1 young child, who came from the south.  They were unaware of the frog invasion at the time, only that they had less frogs and more bugs as a result.  More heat and rain made it impossible to stay where they were, others were sure to follow. They saw no frog ponds or crocs directly across the river from where they crossed but there were many trees.

  Elissac & Partha's oldest daughter immediately moved in with the single male migrant when his cabin was built on the west jetty near the new storage unit.  A couple with their 2 children moved into another cabin nearby.  Two young adults moved into the cabin and house built on the east jetty, and the last couple occupied the house that was built on the west jetty.  The families had potatoes with them and the last ones were cut into pieces to be planted on the west shore, along with some of our corn seeds.  They transplanted a few wild berry bushes to the small farmyard and they would cut their own firewood.  Some chickens were brought over from the coop in town.  Eric the general goods merchant brought lemon seeds and flax.  A small lemon orchard was planted near that farmyard, and we would all have more cool linen clothes.  Or so we hoped, there was again more debate over which side had more of this or less of that.

  To get more wood and help future immigrants from the south, we built a foot bride across the river.  It had to be built a bit higher than the other jetties to allow enough clearance for the riverboats to pass under.  One of the young adult males wanted a house built out far enough where he could watch that the boats did not run into trouble navigating under our bridge.  The bridge and other spots along the jetties needed rope railings. 

Abandoned

#22
Chapter 18


  Once everyone was settled and our supplies had stabilized, it was time for a special project, a town swamp chapel where we could gather and read stories from the Holy Book that Mayne and I salvaged from our overturned sailboat.  The Holy Books were the reason we ended up here in the swamp to begin with. 

  The open-air chapel was built right in the center of town near the swamp hall where the Holy Book was kept stored.   I spread word around, especially to those living on the east and west jetties, inviting everyone to the first chapel meeting on the first day of summer. 

  I began the meeting by saying that Everglades population after 13 years was now 107 citizens, 65 adults, 19 students, and 23 young children.  Like us they came here to Everglade in Summerset Swamp with little or nothing more than the clothes on their backs.  Then I read the inventory records of how much we had now, saying it didn't matter that those living in the north part of town had a few more grapefruit and oranges than the rest of us, or that those on the east and west jetties had more crab than those of us living in town.  We all had so much and we obtained it while still preserving the balance of nature in the swamp around us.  We would continue to work at having the supplies more evenly produced on all sides of town.  In the mean time, everyone, east, west, north, and south were welcome to read the Holy Book.  It tells the history of the world and has really good stories for every one of us weary travelers, no matter where we come from or where we may roam. 


The End

kid1293


Abandoned

 :) Thank you, Kid  :)  Well done update to Fish n Ships.

I should mention there will be a small jetty-building tutorial on release thread, and there will be another test story for items that were added to the mod while this test story and map were in progress. 

Abandoned

The link to Fish n Ship download plus a Jetty-building tutorial can be found here:

http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=3070.0