As Tuukka starts to split wood for charcoal once again an ancient voice speaks to him, “Build the axe first.”
He has enough ores now to use the remaining last year charcoal to make a splitting axe. Its always amazing how the weight of bog ores quickly reduces to just a few pounds of metal. Of there will be enough for the new axe. It will take more bogging and laking to have a surplus. He could get to so many more projects too.
Unfortunately the charcoal supply isnt enough to finish the needed tasks to make the splitting axe head. Charcoaling will take several days. Tuukka realizes that it would be good to check the fields and their traps first. Relka is brought along for hauling any hides or materials.
At the nearby Deathtop fields a small bull elk is roaming the edge of field. Knowing were the pit traps are Tuukka ties Relka to a tree in the center. Then he slips off the side to circle round. His goal is both to get into an archery position and to “drive hunt” the elk into a pit trap. Alas the drive fails. Still the elk has found the fields and will surely come back. It may soon step into a pit. The north fields and badger landing are fine. All crops are growing well though of course the risk of animal feeding is there.
A little work at the cabin with a good’s rest. A return to the Deathtop fields find the pit traps have done the job. The small bull elk has gone in after a tasty turnip. It wasn’t even roasted! Tuukka laughs. He’d love to eat roasted turnips. Its the uncooked one that he finds somehow just demeaning. The advantage of field traps is that the smoker cabin is quite close. The meat is soon smoking and the hide tanning. This does mean sixteen days of stocking the smoker. Well staying here for charcoaling is looking like a matching task.
Day 3 of the 5th week before midsummer, Fallow month
After being exhausted making a second charcoal mound Tuukka takes an easy day. Time is taken to wander around his fields reseting traps. As these are guard traps he hasn’t been doing daily resets. Its still good to tidy them up. His heart is pleased seeing the crops coming up. These fields will be good for a few years. Hearth, milkweeds and crowberries grow naturally on the Deathtop heathland. All of them a nice addition of edibles.
Tuukka does carve out stakes for fencing. These to better aim large game into the scattered pit traps. The time he can put in will divert in a few places. Really though the perimeter to be complete is huge.
Day 5 of the 5th week before midsummer, Fallow month
The first charcoal mound has finished its burn. The controlled burn has driven out the wood the moisture and a share of the non-combustibles risen away in smoke. Though there is less of it the remaining, the charcoal, has a higher energy density. More fire per unit of volume. This combined with bellows blown air creates the intense heat for iron working.
Tuukka has also been diligent in burning a block of wood or more in the smoker. The meat smoking should come out nicely.
Another two nights pass before he finishes fitting the head on his self made splitting axe. This completes his set of three long handled axes. The woodsman’s axe with its cleaving blade, the fine broad axe for long length for straight cutting and the splitting axe with its widening head force wood fibers apart. Tuukka gleefully spends the rest of they day sundering a tree trunk down into firewood for another charcoal mound.
Day 1 of the 3rd week before midsummer, Late Fallow month
The days speed by. Without the desperation of risky survival these are pleasant days. Today 150 smoked elk cuts completed their preservation. Placed into the cellar they continue to ensure a great surplus of food. Three large mounds worth of charcoal was added to workshop stocks. A new plot of ash turned land was made Deathtop. When cooled it will allow a midseason planting of turnips.
Small game and birds continue to be found in the field guard traps. Tuukka regrets the few that are rotted before he notices them but this is a hazard with having other jobs. In one case a rotted fox is burned into the ash and turned into the soil for a field. Its life energy reunited to the forest that way.
For future work quarter logs from three trees are now drying. These will become longbows for trade and arming the communities.
<Tuukka added turnip plot>>>