Homesteading in a fantasy world

Today started with a surprise one of the cows almost didn’t produce any milk. I hope this means that she’s pregnant, but using the ability on her didn’t bring up anything new.

But I really hope it’s true getting more cows for milk is good. While making cheese is troublesome, its excellent long-term food and I think I actually might have an idea on how I can skip the everyday stinging nettle collection for rennet.

But for that I need to build a kiln and that’s a problem that I haven’t figured out yet. I will need some more thinking about how to make bricks that can withstand so much heat if I want to make more than one item per kiln built.

Today was also the day when finally, all four chickens started hatching eggs. Normal chicken eggs take about 20 days to hatch. I wonder if the hatching time is different here.

I didn’t think today’s excitement would start so early. I was expecting it to start when I made it to the grassland to start rabbit hunting and hopefully, bird hunting.

All chores done except cheese making that I am skipping. I started to craft some traps. I just needed a few pieces to help me set-up some more complex traps that are not as simple as a snare.

This trap design will make sure the noose tightens quickly and doesn't require the rabbit itself to pull the noose closed. Even if the grassland has most of the rabbits.

I think the best choice will be to set-up that traps inside the forest close to the grasslands. The trees make a good funnel like paths that forces rabbits to travel through certain locations.

Traps will be way too open in the grasslands, so I will probably never have any rabbits by the time I get to them the next morning and the birds will have an easy meal.

But I can still use the grassland for active hunting with my bow and if I find burrows I can set-up traps in front of them and try to scare them out. The last one will be the last resort when I truly need some food.

Finishing the trap parts needed, I get a level in basic wood crafting, bringing me to level 9 and I got basic trap making to level 2.

Bringing some more rope and the trap parts, I also brought a sickle for cutting grass to reveal clear some areas if needed.

I made my way by road mostly because the grassland nearest the farm didn’t have any rabbits. I’m guessing it will fill up if the rabbit population starts increasing.

Some birds flying over trying to hunt some rabbits similar to yesterday, but I currently ignore them and went into the forest to set-up some traps.

Because of the sparse trees, it was harder to find locations that the rabbits most walked through. Soon I figured out why there were so many rabbit prints everywhere. They were moving to different water sources.

Which made sense because in the grassland only after rain will there be water that is readily available. I was following the prints when I stumbled across a small stream, but even calling it that was giving it a bigger name than it deserved.

As I followed the flow back, it turned out to be a small water spring. The way there was full of rabbit prints and there were actually a few rabbits currently there drinking.

I won’t hunt them there because watering holes like this are safe zones for the animals. No prey animal will hunt anyone here, so I will not as well.

But I did watch and learned and thanks to this I also saw the second predator species. It was about twice the size of a regular house cat and with its fur being brownish green.

The rabbits become alert, but even when the cat came closer, they did not run. The way the rabbits reacted, I know that it was a hunter of rabbits.

This was the first time I have seen this type of predator and it was an exciting thing to see. To my surprise, it seemed to stick to the ground when it was moving away.

I wonder if it’s because of the sparse woods or because it was more of a on the ground hunter. I found one more of the same type of stream and when I followed it, I found a fairly similar sight.

This made me wonder how many similar places like this are in this forest and are there some in the grasslands.

As I walked back and went to see my traps and if I had got anything. Turned out I already had two rabbits captured.

First, I checked if they were females, but they were not, so I quickly killed them and attached them to my belt. I got one more rabbit like that, and I had to re-evaluate my plans again.

I thought that I will need to leave the traps here overnight, but that obviously wasn’t needed. So, I continued to set up traps, then turn around and check them.

Over time, I formed a route for catching them. When I killed the 4th one, I continued catching them until I got a female rabbit. It took 7 more male rabbits until that happened. I released all the male ones, no need to kill too many.

I hold it tight and headed out from that forest through the grassland back to the farm. When there I butchered all the rabbits, I got three workable hides from them.

But before I started to deal with the hides, I started to build another rabbit cage. I did the same design as before, but I was starting to run out of wood.

I really needed to get access to the forest again. If I can’t get it soon, I might have to start planning a way to bring wood from the grassland forest. No way I was going to try to cut down trees and bring them back from the hill forest, way too much work.

While the new rabbit was settling into her new cage, I started to deal with the hides. I left all the hairs on them because I might need warmer clothes during winter. At the same time, I also smoked three of the rabbits in the smoker.

One I left for cooking in the oven for today’s dinner. It was starting to move towards evening, but I still decided to go out one more time into the grasslands. This time intending to start learning to hunt rabbits.

At the start I didn’t even get a glimpse of rabbits, I barely saw any grass move. But overtime I started to be stealthier about my approach and that started to pay dividends.

Even then I need to strain and train my eyes to better see the irregularity in the grassland. With all that, most I could see were small slivers of rabbits. That disappeared as I tried to position myself for shooting them.

All my movements were too strange and noticeable that they always run away before I could do anything.

But I continued and for my efforts I got a new skill basic stealth and soon after that I started to use the grass to camouflage myself, getting myself another skill in that.

I continued and even got another skill level in stealth before I ended the hunting trip. I didn’t even get to shoot once.

But that didn’t matter. I was making progress and sooner or later I will get the shoot even then I will most likely miss. It will take a long time before I get a kill. But that’s what training is all about.

Thanks to this grassland solving my food problems for the time being, I will not have to go on expeditions for meat or anything else that isn't currently high priority.

So, I will move to my current highest priority, that is expanding my combat ability. That meant training and hunting in the grassland every day.

I got really lucky with having so much meat easily available for myself because sooner or later, the goblins will return, and I will need to be prepared.

That thought probably saved my life because I didn’t prepare any traps or alarms that will kill or notify me of any goblin that tries to cross the bridge using the main support.

And what if they somehow find another way across the river? It would be a good idea to place some kind of traps on this side of the river.

As I got back, the first thing I did was prepare the rabbit and put it in the oven with some onions and carrots. Unfortunately, they were starting to show their age.

The cellar seems to be good enough, but it wasn't the best place I can make a food preserving. That meant that I might need to make a better place for preserving food.

Most likely I will need to make it big enough so all the potatoes and other root vegetables that I harvest will be able to last as long as they need to. But if I can’t sell off any of my product to humans, the animals on my farm will eat really well.

Rabbits that can eat carrot daily is a funny sight to see but also a little bit sad. After placing the roast into the oven, I went for a swim during the sunset.

Now I was completely certain that days were getting longer. There was still some time left until the summer solstice. I really would like to get the sauna done by then.

I will need a lot of wood for a proper bonfire as well to celebrate the longest day of the year. They didn't seem to have a lot of holidays: the summer solstice, the winter solstice, their birthdays, and the harvest festival.

The parties will be a bit lame if I’m the only person with my animals celebrating, but it will still be a party. No world ending events or anything else can keep me from enjoying holidays.

The swim was nice. I still focused on energy training during it. It was kind of relaxing and I did focus more on training slowing energy movement, so when I need to train my body, it will not require lifting buildings.