7. January
Our little Rihann is already five years old. It's hard to believe how time flies! She is so curious and open-minded and whenever there is an opportunity, with greatest pleasure she want's to help me or the other adults . I always encourage Rihann to do this, because I think she learns a lot from it. I also want to start next year by slowly introducing them to the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.
7. February
This year it was Dandro who burned his hand on the stove. So we took a look at the clay bottles with the lavender oil. In fact, fresh lavender seems to have been the reason why the oil went rancid last year. This time I was actually able to use the oil. An oil obtained by steam distillation would be much more effective, but our oil should also help.
7. March
Once again we are reaching the limits of our storage capacity. We have therefore decided to only grow a little this year and to use up older stocks first. We really have more than enough at the moment. We plan to generally restructure our settlement. For this we want to move the fields and the smithy and build a new warehouse.
7. May
Spring was unusually hot and dry. It hardly rained at all, which is not good for field cultivation at all. The night Miliss gave birth to her daughter Thomasa, it suddenly started to rain wildly. Since then it has been raining almost continuously.
7. September
We have not really made good progress. It rained all summer. I have never experienced so much rain in the warm season. As a result, the level of the river rose ominously and our harvest was more than pitiful. It's a good thing we have so many stocks! The new warehouse will probably be ready this month, but we are far behind what we actually wanted to have done.
7. December
It stayed rainy until the end of October, when the rain suddenly stopped and it hasn't rained since. This winter seems to be very dry and mild. A strange year.
8. January
Since I explained to Rihann a few weeks ago that we wanted to teach her to read, write and do arithmetic, she has been very excited and cannot wait. Yesterday it was finally time. For her 6th birthday we gave her a book with blank pages, which Miliss and I had specially made, and a special charcoal pencil, which the men made from a particularly good piece of charcoal and provided with a paper sleeve, so that Rihann would not get her fingers dirty when writing. My darling was so proud and happy that she was now the "big one". None of the other children let her touch her presents. Just looking at! Not least because of these gifts, Rihann wanted to learn to write first.
8. Februar
We are planning to build the new smithy somewhat away from our settlement to minimize the risk of fire. The proximity of the old smithy to our huts had always worried me a little.
8. April
Together with the children, we have created a small field next to the saw pit and want to grow sunflowers there. Winstonewall built a small tool shed and Norwoodie made a few small garden tools. Our small gardener team should largely take care of this field alone. We want to keep the children busy with this small project and hope that they will learn a lot from it.
8. Juli
The smithy is finished. But unfortunately we hardly have any iron left. The next iron deposits are very far from our glade, according to Norwoodie. Mining it would be costly, because we don't even have cattle that we could harness in front of a cart for easy transport. However, I fear that we will soon have no other choice unless we want to work with primitive tools again.
8. August
Today we all harvested the children's sunflowers together. We'll leave the seeds that the children and we didn't eat immediately (I love fresh sunflower seeds) for a while and then roast them with honey in the pan. This way they stay durable and tasty.
8. Oktober
Now that the harvest has been brought in and has been preserved, the men want to work on two light but sturdy handcarts over the winter so that they can actually leave us for a week or two next year to mine iron. I don't like it, but we really need the iron.
8. December
Cough, runny nose, hoarseness. It hit us this winter. Everyone except the children, who seem to be in excellent health. But I prefer it that way than if I have to worry about one of my Sweethearts. We take turns. Every few hours one of us four adults looks after the children while the others try to sleep themselfs healthy. As all four of us are affected, our ribwort honey will soon run out and we urgently need to make new one in the new year.
9. Januar
We have all recovered. Since and Dandro are now officially among the big ones and take part in the lessons.
9. Mai
We actually wanted to fence in the fields this year to protect them against wildlife. However, since we have so little iron as I said and this is needed for nails and fittings, we are postponing this work for the time being.
Instead, Miliss and I diligently collected elderflower with the children and processed it with honey into delicious syrup. For Norwoodie I also baked some flowers with flour in hot oil. He loves that.
9. Juni
We said goodbye to Norwoodie and Winstonewall this morning. With two handcarts, two tents and enough supplies for a whole month (although of course I hope they won't need that long), they left us.
English is not my first language. So if you see any mistakes or nonsense, please feel free to correct me.