Chaper 9









  As you can see looking around Green Pastures, eager explorers, we've done okay with our pigs, goats, and sheep.  We're shephards, not farmers, so we could certainly use more grain as our town continues to grow.  Over the winter we built that workplace trading post we talked about, and we began stocking it with wool, fertilizer, meat, cheese, and ores.  We look forward to the arrival of the first riverboat trader.




  Now that spring is here, we know you are eager to be on your way.  We delivered a crate of cheese and dried and salted meats to each of your houseboats.   Fare thee well, eager explorers.  Safe journey.






The End

Chapter 8

  As we thought, our supply of fresh meat went down, and the amount of dried and salted meat went up.  Our supply of goat's milk was a bit of a problem; in summer our surplus spoiled and in winter it froze.  We built a cheese shed to use the surplus to make goat cheese.  Now you tell me that cheese would be a very good trade item because of its keeping quality, just like our dried and salted meat.  Well, we could certainly increase our cheese production. 



  We are most interested in this trade route you speak of, eager explorers; we've given a lot of thought to all that you've told us over the winter.  You said your town of Newburg has a tiny stone quarry and you have oats grown in greenhouses.  If you had more fertilizer, you could have more greenhouses and more oats.  You said the town of Rainbow Falls has apples, walnuts, and leather, but needs stone and wool.  We have plenty of fertilizer and wool, as well as our preserved meats and cheese.  We could use some of your oats.  If anyone needs logs or firewood, we have 2 large forests but only 2 foresters as of now; we could always increase our output of logs if needed.  We also have a lot of copper ore that could be collected, and there is a bit of gold and silver ore too if anyone has a use for them.  We think this trade route will help a lot of people, especially those here in the north.

Chapter 7




  We were concerned that a lot of the meat might spoil.  We thought to preserve it the old-fashioned way by curing it with salt.  There was a rocky clearing to the northeast of town that had stone, iron, and other ores; we thought it might also have a salt deposit.  We were correct.  We promptly built a salt mine there.  We built an Old Saltery shack across from the new barn and wove a road from there through the forest to the salt mine.  We would make salt meat from our mutton.
 






  Across from the pig pasture, behind the fishing pier, we built an Old Dry Shack.  We would start by drying some fish but would then switch over to drying pork.  Our fisherman would not catch any more fish until our supply of fresh meat and fish was reduced considerably. 

  The woodcutter at the lumber mill would also stop working.  That would give us 4 laborers and 2 builders.  We were still a relatively small settlement with only 28 adult workers.  We had 2 foresters and 2 woodcutters, 2 smiths and 2 tailors, and 4 herdsmen who took care of the sheep, pigs, and rabbits.  The goat shed, fertilizer cart, hedgerow, gatherer's hut, 2 farmyards, the salt mile, dryer, saltery, and school each had one worker.  It would be a few years before any of the 8 students finished school, and the same number of years before any young couple got together.  The rest of the population was made up of 14 young children.  Towards the end of year 6, Green Pasture's population was 50 citizens.

Chapter 6




  Those women knew what to do with cotton and flax, and suggested we build a tailor shop.  It would need lumber to build it, so we built a lumber mill, and then a tailor shop was built.  After taking the inventory we discovered we had a lot less cotton and flax then we had though.  We had plenty of wool but not enough leather.   The tailor made some cloth and linen from what little cotton and flax we had and could use those fabrics and our wool to make some warm coat without leather.  Our gatherer said the flax was just too pretty to pick.





  Our gatherer did supply us with a nice assortment of berries including blackberries, mulberries, raspberries, and strawberries, as well as mushrooms, oats, onions, roots, and firewood.   Our inventory showed we had an awfully lot of mutton and pork.

Chapter 5


  Winter came and went and then it was spring again.  With less sheep in the pastures the new grass had a chance to grow, and with more cleaning, the pastures were clean and green in spring.  The leaves on the birch trees were a bright spring green and the wild flax was blooming beautifully. 





  Six northerners with two children arrived that spring.  They were impressed with our pastures but saw we had a lot of fertilizer.  They had been through a town in the northwest that was using their fertilizer in greenhouses to grow grain and vegetable all year long.  They also saw our goats were in our small farmyard; they said the goats would eat less of our crops and give more milk if they were in a barn or animal shed.  They learned a lot about survival and town management in that northern town they came through; it had a survival school.  What?  Your town has greenhouses and a survival school?  Well, maybe it was your town then, eager explorers.  They told me the name, but I don't remember.  Newberg?  That sounds familiar.  You'll have to ask them; they live here in the houses by the hostel.



  They moved into the hostel and built the goat shed across from it.  They left 2 of the goats in the farmyard to keep it from getting overrun with thatch.  They built one house and then another by the new sheep pasture.  That left 2 young single males in the hostel where they could stay for a while.  They built a small storage barn by the stockpile next to the hostel. The women thought we must have a lot of wool from so many sheep.  We agree but didn't know exactly how much; we said we also had cotton and flax we gather from the wild, but we didn't know what to do with it. 



  They told us something important they learned at that school and that was to survive you should know exactly what you have and what you don't.  If you discover too late that you are short of tools, clothes, food, or firewood, you may not survive.  They suggested we build a town hall and keep an inventory of what we have.  We took their advice and built a town hall behind the main storage barn by the new sheep pasture.  They said we should give our town a name especially if we want to be on the trade route those northerners wanted to start, so we named our town Green Pastures.  You don't say?  Well then, it must have been your town those families came through if starting a trade route is what brought you here. 

Chapter 4


  As usual, we had a frost in autumn followed by snow shortly after.  We built a covering and 2 coops for the chickens.  We put out some thatch in the sheep pasture; with so many sheep there was less grass to graze and now it was covered with snow.  The pasture needed a good cleaning.  Folks were complaining that the animal fertilizer was being put in the storage barn with the food and other supplies. 





  The goats got a covering and a little thatch too.  They multiplied and we now had 5 goats.  The pigs were doing alright and were given potato peels and cabbage leaves to eat so there was less garden waste to deal with. 

  By spring of year 4, we had cleared land for another sheep pasture and moved half the sheep to it.  We fenced in that pasture so the sheep would not roam off into the forest.  We put a cart near the gate for the fertilizer that was cleaned from the pasture, and we moved the offending manure out of the storage barn and into that cart.  We would have to start a pile somewhere in the forest.




  While clearing the land for the new pasture, several rabbits were spotted.  A small hutch was built and with a little food, the rabbits were soon lured into the hutch.  Our food supply was good but we could certainly use more hides to make the warm coats with.  By the time the rabbits got in the hutch, it was autumn again and it would soon be winter.

They have good taste!

  Cute, two of them 

We all need a distraction from time to time otherwise life becomes to the same old same old. 

did they succeeded ?