Chương 145: Chapter 156 — The First Orchard

Mark looked over to where Malcolm was going through the bags and watched as he was pulling out rope, one of the large axes Mark had brought, and a small hatchet and setting them in a pile. Mark said, "Hey Malcolm, did you want to check out the school?" Malcolm said, "I am interested but not now. I found your axes when I was inventorying what you had, and they beat what I brought. I was thinking we need to build a few things.

Chairs and tables to start with, but soon, in the next day or two, start at least one cabin that we can share until we can get a second one built. Or maybe something smaller to start with." Mark said, "Sounds like a great plan." Malcolm said, "Anyway, my thoughts today were to take your horse and ride east and find another stand of trees, cut some down, and drag a few back to camp before dark. We will have lumber to build something and firewood for a fire tonight." Mark said, "Sounds good.

I need to get my saplings planted, so I'm going to do that first so they don't die. If you don't find anything east, I think I can see something southeast. The two stands just north of us I would like to keep as is." Malcolm picked up the pile of items he had separated, put them into his inventory, went and saddled the horse, and headed east. Mark turned back to Fiona, who seemed to be looking something over in her interface. Finally, she looked over to Mark, who was waiting.

Fiona said, "Sorry, I was distracted looking around at the choices in the school and at the lessons I had. Let's go get the saplings planted. I was reading through the notes sent with them, and they are written up like whoever sent them was a tree specialist." Mark said, "Most likely they were." Mark went over and picked up the instructions; they were very similar to the ones he read when planting Dale's orchard. He headed north from camp, just barely passing the stand of trees that was nearest to camp.

He then pointed at the field between the two stands of trees. Mark said, "I was thinking of putting them here. I have some stakes and twine. I will lay out what I think should be the south end of the orchard." He pulled some stakes and twine out of his bag. Using his hammer, he drove the stake in and tied the end of the twine to it. He then started walking east for a bit, then stopped, driving another stake into the ground and tying the twine to it.

Fiona looked at the line he made and the ground over toward the river, then back, and finally said it.

"That would work, but if it was me, I would move it about thirty feet north to start and about forty more feet east. If you look at the land, it's just a little slanted; we could build a ditch from the stream and use it to flood-water the orchard when needed. Then it could drain out the far end, and we could channel the excess back to the stream." Mark said, "I want a vegetable garden big enough to feed twenty to thirty people. Is west of the orchard good?"

Fiona looked at the ground and where he proposed and then said, "Yeah, I think that is a great spot. I would start a little smaller to start; we would produce too fast and have too much waste. We can plan for a bigger field and plant a smaller section for our immediate needs and leave room to expand later." The two of them each grabbed a couple of the saplings and walked up to the new orchard location. They started by first laying them out in their respective spots.

By his third trip carrying the saplings, Mark was regretting not bringing the wheelbarrow that he used at Dale's, but that would have to wait like all the other items on his list to build. Fiona and Mark made a good team. They took turns digging and filling in holes, packing soil, and moving materials. It took them about two-thirds of the afternoon to get the job done. Mark had gotten pretty fast near the end of Dale's orchard, but Fiona made Mark look plain slow.

When they were done with the saplings, they started on the vegetable patch. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. They again staked out the field and spent the rest of the sunlight they had turning over the dirt in their own version of plowing the field so that they could plant it another day. Malcolm saddled up Mark's horse and headed east.

There were no trees he could see in that direction, but he also wanted to scout the terrain near the river visible to the east. There were scattered trees here and there but no large stands. He stopped at the river, then followed it south downstream for a couple of miles before turning northwest. He finally reached the stand of trees Mark had pointed out, dismounted, and tied up the horse. He left the horse well outside the stand of trees to ensure that the falling trees could not hit it or spook it.

He was kicking himself for turning down the mount they had offered him in Beaver Crossing. He was not a huge horse guy and did not want to take care of it, but this sure beat walking the same distance that would have taken almost a full day. After walking through the stand of trees a few times, he identified six of the straightest trees he could find and marked each of them. He then started to chop them down.

He had just downed the third tree when he realized he had taken on more than he could do in the time he had, so leaving the other three marked trees, he started cutting limbs off. This part went quickly. He had felled the three trees so that the tops were facing in the direction of camp or at least in a semi-cleared path to the north side of the stand of trees. He then chopped the tops of the trees off and then started walking around the stand, gathering dead wood.

He left the limbs he had cut as they were not dry enough now for fires but would be in a few days to a week, and he gathered enough dry wood for a few days' worth of fires. With his gathering complete, he tied the rope to the top of the tree and then hooked the other end around the saddle horn of the horse and then, walking, urged the horse forward. It took him a while to convince it to move, as it was definitely a riding horse and not a workhorse.

He finally got the horse to move and slowly dragged the log back to camp. He left it on the south side of the camp looking over toward where Mark and Fiona were working on the orchard; they had not even noticed him. He disconnected the first tree and went for the second. He had just returned to camp with the third tree when the sun was finally setting. Mark and Fiona were working around camp; they looked to be preparing dinner of some type.

He disconnected the last of his trees and went to the river to water the horse. Then he took it to a nice area to graze for the night and went to join them at the fire pit. When Mark and Fiona finished turning dirt for the vegetable garden, they headed back to camp and started going through the food they had. Mark pulled out the last of the foodstuffs Dale had given him the day before and then pulled out his frying pan and, grabbing the cookbook, flipped through the items.

Finding nothing made in a frying pan that interested him, he went and exchanged it for the pot. Finally, he went down to the stream, filled the pot with water, brought it back, set it on the edge of the fire pit, and started a fire. Fiona finally started to laugh.

"You're not so good at this cooking, are you? You have all kinds of pots and pans and even a fancy cookbook and piles of food items but no clue what you're cooking, right?" Mark said, "It has been a while since I have cooked, and to be honest, I need more practice and maybe a few more skills. I can cut up veggies pretty well, though, so I think I will settle on a stew.

There are some directions here in the cookbook about what spices and veggies go together and that you just need to brown some meat and then set it aside and then get a pot of water, bring it to a boil, and add the listed spices that are said to be 'Mark Proof' and that are in quotes in my cookbook. Put the veggies in order with the meat already in there and how long to cook it, and presto, you have stew." Fiona said, "Well, you had the frying pan out.

Stared at it, then put it back and got the water and put it on to boil. Cut up the veggies, and you have been slowly adding them. Did I miss something? I did not see the meat." Mark said, "Oh, you caught that, did you?" Malcolm then walked into camp and sat down on the ground to watch Mark. Fiona just looked at Mark and the pot.

"I still don't get it; you skipped the meat." Mark turned to Malcolm and said, "Can I have the hare meat you cooked up this morning?" Malcolm pulled out the meat and handed it to him. Mark turned and dumped the meat into the boiling pot and looked back at Fiona with a smug look. Fiona just frowned; she was beginning to think she had missed some kind of story. The three of them chatted about their day, the new outpost, and the things that each of them thought were most important for next steps.

When the meal was done and the dishes were clean and put away, they all decided they would sleep on it and meet in the morning and come up with a priority list of what they wanted to get done first and assign the tasks. Mark at this point was exhausted and wished the two of them a good night and went off to bed.