kaylee's Ranch
darthcourt10
Well worn.
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Snippet 115: S0ngD0g13
Kaylee anchored the Boston Whaler just off the coast of Spider Island and sailed ashore under her own power. She had work to do that day...
There hadn't been much luck finding a shrink for Shipgirls; the closest they had was Crowning out in Washington. So, Kaylee had decided to take a page out of her dad's book and find a hobby to distract herself. Hence her presence on the Isle of Spiders, continuing her improvements. The ironclad hung her coat up on a peg inside the one-room palm-log cabin she'd built on the edge of the forest and walked out and around the back. She checked on the status of her mash and smiled as she fired the still.
"The next task, now that my still's warming up, is getting that wood floor started in the cabin." Kaylee took an axe and a whetstone, and headed just down the coast to a swampy area where she'd seen cypress trees during her spider-hunt. "Swamp Cypress ought to make good water-resistant boards, and another I'll split for shingles to roof it." She found her first tree and began to cut, humming a song as she swung the axe.
After the first tree was felled, Kaylee got a rope around the trunk and tied it off to another tree onshore, then went back to the cabin and the corral nearby it. She walked into the corral and got the tack ready on the pair of creatures within.
"G'yup! Trek, Conn; Trek, Cullen!" she called, the pair of black Kuchinoshima steers pulling in their yoke. Kaylee stopped them by the water and connected the traces to the cypress log, then the oxen dragged it up onto level ground where Kaylee could cut away the branches. Ten minutes later Kaylee removed the last limb and hooked the log back up. "Trek, boys! G'yup!"
The oxen pulled the log up the beach to the cabin and Kaylee unyoked them, turning the pair out to graze while she set to work with sawbuck and bow-saw, maul and froe and hand-plane cutting the log into sections and then splitting those sections into boards she could plane smooth and use for flooring.
As she worked, Kaylee couldn't help but chuckle thinking about how she'd come to have the idea of building a homestead on the island; she'd come back to Spider Island just before her trip to Scotland with intent to build a still and found a wrecked ship on the north shore, likely Magical given the rarity of old-time sailing junks and the Potions and Care of Magical Creatures texts she found onboard.
The ship's cargo had been livestock, and while all but two sows of its dozen-strong cargo of swine had been drowned in the wreck, the eighteen head of cattle onboard had gotten free and made it to shore. Kaylee had decided that if there was stock, she might as well just set up a farm.
After catching the two steers she'd named Conn and Cullen, Kaylee had used a salvaged yoke and a flat-bottomed boat from the wreck to drag in wood and stone to build a hog-lot, and driven the sows inside. Next came the pole-corral and open-sided, canvas-roofed shed for the oxen; the other cows roamed free on the island.
Kaylee had ended up butchering both sows not long after getting them penned, since she wouldn't be able to feed them every day while in Scotland, and while she could turn the oxen loose to free-range, the teenage ironclad would be damned before she inflicted feral hogs on an island without any predators to keep them in check.
The cabin was the most-recent addition, built in the edge of the forest of notched palm logs pegged together, the roof ready for shingles; a door salvaged from the shipwreck after a long, rambling, and one-sided talk with the junk during Kaylee's post-wedding bender hung in the door frame.
Kaylee stacked the boards to dry and checked her still, then pulled out a chunk of beef jerky and a canteen of water for lunch as she sat with her back to her gatepost.
Overhead, the flags of Japan, the USA, and the CSA, the three nations she had served, snapped in the breeze over the carved sign that proclaimed...
Rocking-M Cattle Company and Finishing-School for Bullwhackers
Kaylee anchored the Boston Whaler just off the coast of Spider Island and sailed ashore under her own power. She had work to do that day...
There hadn't been much luck finding a shrink for Shipgirls; the closest they had was Crowning out in Washington. So, Kaylee had decided to take a page out of her dad's book and find a hobby to distract herself. Hence her presence on the Isle of Spiders, continuing her improvements. The ironclad hung her coat up on a peg inside the one-room palm-log cabin she'd built on the edge of the forest and walked out and around the back. She checked on the status of her mash and smiled as she fired the still.
"The next task, now that my still's warming up, is getting that wood floor started in the cabin." Kaylee took an axe and a whetstone, and headed just down the coast to a swampy area where she'd seen cypress trees during her spider-hunt. "Swamp Cypress ought to make good water-resistant boards, and another I'll split for shingles to roof it." She found her first tree and began to cut, humming a song as she swung the axe.
After the first tree was felled, Kaylee got a rope around the trunk and tied it off to another tree onshore, then went back to the cabin and the corral nearby it. She walked into the corral and got the tack ready on the pair of creatures within.
"G'yup! Trek, Conn; Trek, Cullen!" she called, the pair of black Kuchinoshima steers pulling in their yoke. Kaylee stopped them by the water and connected the traces to the cypress log, then the oxen dragged it up onto level ground where Kaylee could cut away the branches. Ten minutes later Kaylee removed the last limb and hooked the log back up. "Trek, boys! G'yup!"
The oxen pulled the log up the beach to the cabin and Kaylee unyoked them, turning the pair out to graze while she set to work with sawbuck and bow-saw, maul and froe and hand-plane cutting the log into sections and then splitting those sections into boards she could plane smooth and use for flooring.
As she worked, Kaylee couldn't help but chuckle thinking about how she'd come to have the idea of building a homestead on the island; she'd come back to Spider Island just before her trip to Scotland with intent to build a still and found a wrecked ship on the north shore, likely Magical given the rarity of old-time sailing junks and the Potions and Care of Magical Creatures texts she found onboard.
The ship's cargo had been livestock, and while all but two sows of its dozen-strong cargo of swine had been drowned in the wreck, the eighteen head of cattle onboard had gotten free and made it to shore. Kaylee had decided that if there was stock, she might as well just set up a farm.
After catching the two steers she'd named Conn and Cullen, Kaylee had used a salvaged yoke and a flat-bottomed boat from the wreck to drag in wood and stone to build a hog-lot, and driven the sows inside. Next came the pole-corral and open-sided, canvas-roofed shed for the oxen; the other cows roamed free on the island.
Kaylee had ended up butchering both sows not long after getting them penned, since she wouldn't be able to feed them every day while in Scotland, and while she could turn the oxen loose to free-range, the teenage ironclad would be damned before she inflicted feral hogs on an island without any predators to keep them in check.
The cabin was the most-recent addition, built in the edge of the forest of notched palm logs pegged together, the roof ready for shingles; a door salvaged from the shipwreck after a long, rambling, and one-sided talk with the junk during Kaylee's post-wedding bender hung in the door frame.
Kaylee stacked the boards to dry and checked her still, then pulled out a chunk of beef jerky and a canteen of water for lunch as she sat with her back to her gatepost.
Overhead, the flags of Japan, the USA, and the CSA, the three nations she had served, snapped in the breeze over the carved sign that proclaimed...
Rocking-M Cattle Company and Finishing-School for Bullwhackers