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Post by FOTH on Oct 4, 2011 15:28:00 GMT -6
After packing a quantity of bear fat and jerky into the bottom of the first cache basket, Einar began looking over their supply of hides and furs, knowing that with winter coming, they needed to include some source of shelter and warmth in the cache should they find themselves at some point relying on its contents after a hasty departure from the cabin. Eying Liz’s woven rabbitskin blanket, soft and warm and incredibly light for its size he dismissed the idea; the thing was too bulky and besides, Liz had made it for the baby, wouldn’t much like the idea of adding it to a cache. Which left the deer hides, he supposed, and though he had hoped to use them as the base for snow pants and mittens for the two of them, the cache was appearing at the moment a higher priority. He began folding the larger of the two hides to fit the basket, but Liz saw what he was doing, hurried over to the corner of the cabin that held the bed.
“Wait, Einar. I’ve got an idea. Susan left this sleeping bag for us on her last visit…I showed it to you at the time, but don’t think you were really paying much attention because of your foot…”
“Sleeping bag?” He took the bag, a fairly lightweight device packed well into its compression sack and having remained quite clean and dry in the spot where Liz had stored it in the rafters, examining it with a bit of suspicion. “Sure don’t remember you showing this to me, ‘cause if you had I think I would’ve had to tear it all apart making sure there wasn’t some sort of transponder sewn into it. Which I guess there must not be, or they’d have followed its signal and had us by now…yep, this would make an awfully good addition to the cache, wouldn’t it?”
“I think so. I had it out of its bag once early on to test it out, and it’s warmer than the deer hides, but I don’t think we really need it here at the cabin, since the bear hides we’re using for bedding right now are so much warmer still. And they’re really too heavy for us to hope to pack along if we have to leave here in a hurry.”
“Yep. Mighty heavy. That yearling bear hide we carried around for a while last year was about the limit, I think, as far as bedding weight goes when a person’s trying to move quickly, and these are an awful lot heavier. Bag makes sense. And if the little one has come by the time we have to resort to using it…if we have to…well then we shouldn’t have much trouble getting all of us into the same bag, I wouldn’t think.”
“I certainly wouldn’t fit in there with you the way I am now, would I? We’d need our own bag for sure, little Hildegard and I.”
“Aw, well the two of you can just have the bag if we end up having to run before he comes. Which I’m gonna try real hard to prevent, but we do have to be ready.”
Liz nodded, pressed the sleeping bag into the nearly full basket and began preparing little packages of dried herbs--yarrow to halt bleeding, mullein for use as a tea should anyone be suffering from a respiratory infection that seemed unwilling to clear up on its own, Oregon grape root and hound’s tongue--to fill the remaining spaces. By the time they finished packing the cache, placing its lid and carefully sealing it in place with pitch, Einar and Liz were beginning to grow sleepy, the excitement of the day having taken its toll and stomachs full and satisfied with Einar’s special goat roast, and despite Einar’s desire to stay up and pack another cache, Liz talked him into calling it a day. Morning would be coming soon enough and would, with all they had planned, go a good bit better for them both after a good solid night’s rest.
Up before dawn and stretching to see out the crack above the door, Einar was glad to find the day another cloudless one, innumerable stars standing still and unblinking behind the spruces, casting a cold, clear light on the world below. Frozen. Everything had frozen in the night, ice on the water barrel and the remaining crust of snow hard as stone when he stepped out onto it, breath rising in great clouds to meet the morning. Einar shivered, stretched, thought of the tarn, trapline, both beckoning from beyond the cabin-clearing, calling, urging him to be away and doing before the day could advance any further but he waited, wary, something not quite right out there in the darkness. Muninn. The bird was not on his dead-branch perch high up in the spruce, shadow absent and though Einar squinted into the timber in search of him he found nothing, whistled softly as often he did when bringing the bird some scrap of meat or bone to pick, but his efforts met with no response.
Strange. Where can you have gone, you ornery old vulture? Hear something in the night and have to go check it out? Hopefully nothing we need to know about, since you’re out there somewhere and not back here trying to tell us about it as you seem in the habit of doing. Guess I won’t worry too much, see if you show up later in the day. Or tonight, after you’ve got through with your aerial wanderings. Can’t be going on a raven hunt right now, anyway. I’ve got a trapline to run, cache to place, and who knows? If the day ends up being as sunny as appears likely, maybe the roof’ll even finish drying enough that I can shingle it. Awful lot to do today. Looks like the trapline comes first, so I’d better hurry up and get out there. Make a quick stop at the tarn on my way back, and then… Stopped himself, shaking his head. Figured he’d better skip the tarn that morning, knowing that each visit, while surely advancing his personal preparations for the winter, tended in his current state to leave him all but immobilized for hours as his body struggled to rewarm itself, and though he had no doubt as to the efficacy and necessity of the training, the day demanded a somewhat abridged version. Whose specifics he had already worked out in his mind, quietly returning to the cabin and pressing the thin skin of barrel-ice until it sank, submerged, cracking softly beneath the water, filling one cookpot and then another with the achingly cold liquid.
Sleeping still and quiet beneath her blankets of bear hide Liz did not stir at his stealthy exit, Einar stalking around behind the cabin and choosing a still-snowy spot immediately beneath the slightly overhanging cliff of granite, shedding clothes and dumping first one pot of water over himself and then the other until he was thoroughly soaked, shivering in the wind that sighed up from the spruces, sharp and frigid in the hour just before dawn when temperatures are generally at their lowest. Seating himself against the rock wall he used a chunk of granite to pound at the drift of frozen, crusty snow beneath him, rubbing the resulting dust all over himself until it began to melt and stick. Good enough, and he sat there with hands tucked beneath his arms in an effort to spare the slightly frostbitten portions any further damage as he allowed the cold to sink into his bones, wind slowly drying the melted snow and leaving him numbed, trembling and satisfied that immersion in the tarn was not absolutely essential when it came to furthering his training. Could be done right there behind the cabin, when circumstances precluded the other. Enough, and he rose, flexing cold-stiff limbs and struggling back into his clothing, collecting the empty water pots and depositing them outside the cabin before leaving on his run of the trapline.
The day warmed quickly but Einar did not, freezing and shaking and completing his circuit of the trapline in near-record time as he struggled to warm himself, bringing back with him a marten and two good plump-looking rabbits, heavy pelts making up for what they lacked in meat. Liz was glad to see the creatures and even more glad to see Einar, appearing wide awake and moving fairly well, all things considered, hair dry in what she took to be reasonable proof that he had kept out of the water, that morning. Looked terribly cold though, rather more so than one might expect of even so scrawny a creature as himself after an hour’s walk on a brisk fall morning, and Liz shook her head as she took from him the morning’s catch, suddenly realizing the meaning of the two empty pots she’d found outside the door upon leaving the cabin that morning. You’re absolutely incorrigible, aren’t you? As if I didn’t already know that… But at least you’re back pretty early this morning, and didn’t leave me too much time to sit here wondering whether I might have to come looking for you out there…guess that’s progress!
“I’ll go clean the rabbits--and this fine-looking marten you’ve brought for us--and then are you ready to go do the cache? I’ve already eaten breakfast, and yours is waiting for you inside.”
“Yep, I’ll be ready. Figure we’ll put this one over beside the big gully where our first one was...and still is, what’s left of it. The one we ended up having to raid a while ago. Seems like a good location, a likely direction for us to head if we’ve got to clear out of here.”
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Post by cherig22 on Oct 4, 2011 17:10:07 GMT -6
Just looking at those aspen logs (right? aspen?) makes me envious. Such pretty wood and folks say it has a good smoke for meat. Is this right?
Showed hubby the pics, and he says that you have the same trailer as we do, and was reminded to get those brackets for the sides. Thanks!
Cheri Oh yeah, thanks for the great story, and keep those pics coming.
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Post by FOTH on Oct 5, 2011 15:13:26 GMT -6
Einar and Liz need to get serious about choosing a name for the little one. If anyone has ideas, perhaps you'd like to post them here: freedomofthehills.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=story2&action=display&thread=39Just looking at those aspen logs (right? aspen?) makes me envious. Such pretty wood and folks say it has a good smoke for meat. Is this right? Showed hubby the pics, and he says that you have the same trailer as we do, and was reminded to get those brackets for the sides. Thanks! Cheri Oh yeah, thanks for the great story, and keep those pics coming. Yes, those are aspen logs. Some folks don't care for aspen because it burns so quickly, but it has always worked just fine for me. The smoke is pretty bland and doesn't give much flavor to meat the way apple or hickory would, but it does work for smoking. That's a handy little trailer. I just put the larger wheels on it so it can haul a heavier load without high centering on some of the rocks in the Forest Service road where I usually go to cut wood.
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Post by FOTH on Oct 5, 2011 15:14:15 GMT -6
Traveling carefully, keeping as much as they could to the timber to avoid leaving tracks in the occasional drifts and skiffs of mostly melted snow Einar and Liz worked their way over to their chosen cache location along one of the steep-sided gullies that cut the slope beyond the cabin, searching for the dead snag of a spruce that had marked their previous cache and finding it. Not much remained of that original emplacement after they’d used its food and fat while stranded nearby during that first early snowstorm of the season, but it still contained the atlatl and spear points which Einar had carefully wrapped and tucked inside, in addition to a few bits of yarrow, pitch and mullein. Not wanting to break the seal on the new cache to add those items, Einar instead carefully wrapped everything but the herbs in a scrap of hide and tied them to the top of the new cache basket. The old one would come back with them to be refilled and placed in a different location. Though he’d always known they needed more caches, the track scare--your own tracks, you big fool…can’t believe you let yourself get to the point where you couldn’t even recognize your own tracks. Got to do better than that--had returned the project to the top of the list, providing a forceful reminder of its urgency and of the trouble in which they’d find themselves if forced to abandon the cabin during the winter without adequate backup.
On the return trip Einar found himself having to wait more and more frequently for Liz, pausing to give her time to catch up and at first he attributed the change to the healing that was beginning to take place with his ribs, deep breaths coming a bit easier to him and with just a bit less cost in pain but he kept pulling further and further ahead, finally stopped and sat down to wait for her. Though doing better, he had certainly managed to wear himself out with the pace he’d set, was beginning to feel a bit light-headed, ribs aching terribly and a dry cough increasingly tormenting him, figured he could use a short break. Needed to figure out what was going on with Liz, besides. She was starting to worry him just a bit, seeing as she was normally able to move a good deal faster than himself, of late. By the time Liz caught up Einar had managed to stop coughing for the most part and get his breathing back to something like a normal rhythm, doubled over with one hand pressing the offending ribs and eyes staring straight ahead. Things weren’t, it appeared, quite as healed as he might have liked to believe, and the quick climb had taken its toll. Liz didn’t look so good either, sat down beside him without saying a word and just as wordlessly grabbed the water he offered her, drained the container. Hers had been empty for the past hour or more.
“You getting enough to drink?”
She shook her head. “No. Need more.”
“You alright, Liz?”
“Keep having…think I just need more water but keep having contractions and they’re kind of starting to…” She stopped, seemed to be concentrating hard on something for a few seconds before looking up at him again. “Starting to hurt. Feel stronger. It’s too early.”
“Aw, you probably just need more water, and maybe a little rest. Was a long way over to the cache, and we kept up a good pace. Come here and sit down, how about, here where the ground’s good and soft from the squirrels going at the cones and leaving piles to cushion us. I’m gonna make you a prop with our packs, and you lie down for a while, take a little rest, and I’ll go find us more water. Saw a seep back there behind us, and would have stopped if I’d known you were out. You and Hildegard just need more water.”
“I don’t want to call her Hildegard! And it’s too early, she can’t be coming yet…”
“Ok, alright, just settle down, now. Sit back down. We can call her whatever you like, anything at all, and hopefully we’re still gonna have a good long time to think about it, too. Now stay here, and I’ll be right back.”
With Liz resting Einar scrambled down the steep slope they had just ascended, aching burn of his ribs quite forgotten as he sought the little seep he remembered seeing, passing, mind racing despite the matter of fact calm with which he’d made Liz comfortable. It was too early, far too early for the baby to be coming up at that altitude--anywhere, really--and without any help, unless they’d seriously miscalculated the time but they couldn’t have, not by that much, it just wasn’t possible, and besides, Susan had confirmed it, their timing, had said… Slow down, Einar. You can’t breathe well enough yet to panic, even if you wanted to. Which you don’t. Won’t help a thing. Now you go on down there, get Lizzie some more water and in all likelihood she’ll be just fine, be able to finish the walk home in a while and keep the little one cooking for another good month or two before we have to worry about this again. Please Lord, let it be so… Moving at his top speed and finding himself a bit less than calm despite his efforts to remain so Einar very nearly scrambled right past the little seep, smelling it at the last moment--the good rich scent of damp earth and moss--and stopping, throwing himself down beside the little trickle of water and scooping at the soil with a hand, clearing it, deepening the depression created over time in the springy loam by the slow flowing of water. His own throat was terribly dry, was making him cough again which hurt his ribs so that it brought involuntary tears to his eyes and he paused, scooped up a double handful of water for himself and let it trickle cold and bracing down to his stomach. Good. Was able to quit coughing then, carefully lower first Liz’s water container and then his own into the scooped-out spot in the spruce needles, filling them. Back on his feet then and up the hill at a dead run, wanting to see Liz, to get his eyes on her and make sure nothing had changed in his absence and it didn’t appear to have when he got there except that she was eyeing him with obvious concern, rising to come to him and he didn’t know why until his legs gave out and he collapsed on the soft, springy ground there beneath the spruces. Up again in a hurry, Einar took the water to her, urged her to sit once again, drink. She put a steadying hand on his shoulder, dabbed a bit of water onto his face.
“Not until you have some. Looks like you need it worse than I do. Here, have a scoop of honey, too. I tried some and it really helped.”
“You’re alright? Any more contractions?”
“It seems I’m alright unless…” She stood, sat back down rather abruptly. “Unless I try to stand and go somewhere. Then everything tightens up pretty quickly again. Something about the way my weight shifts, I guess…” Which was exactly what Einar had been afraid of.
“Finish the water. One container at least. You may have let yourself get dehydrated without realizing it. Drink, sit a while, and then we’ll try again. Walking, I mean. We’re only about two miles from the cabin, but I don’t want you walking before you’re ready.”
“No.”
For a good half hour more Liz rested, drinking, taking an occasional taste of honey and trying a bit of the sheep jerky Einar offered her but finding it somehow difficult to stomach, setting it aside. Evening was coming, shadows lengthening and the last thing she wanted was to be stuck for the night out beneath a spruce with the possibility that--she had to say it, had to allow for it, even while hoping desperately for another outcome--the baby was coming, when home was so close. Time to be getting back. She rose, called for Einar, who had recently disappeared up the slope for the fourth time, seemed to be making one circuit and then another up and down the hill as if he simply wanted to keep himself moving. Quickly he came to her, offered more water but she didn’t need it.
“I’m ready to go home. Don’t know how fast I’ll be able to move, but I’m ready.”
“Good. We’re gonna take it real slow, just step by step and you let me know if you need to stop and rest, if anything changes…”
The day, though sunny, had turned cold sometime shortly after noon, wind rising and refusing to let up as they worked their way along the slope, traversing, gaining elevation slowly and Liz pausing whenever she felt the need. Einar stayed at her side, offering a hand or an arm whenever she began looking a bit unsteady but wishing there might be some way he could keep a bit more distance. He didn’t want her to know that a large part of his reason for moving so quickly prior to her difficulty had involved trying to keep his body warm enough to function at a useful level--a major struggle, he had been finding, and the reduced speed soon left him cold, trembling and striving his hardest to conceal the fact from Liz, knowing that she didn’t need any additional worry that day. Wasn’t working. He wished she’d quit looking at him, stopping to try and re-arrange the deer hide that was supposed to keep him warm, just focus on getting herself and the baby safely up that slope and back home. He could take care of the rest. And did. Got himself up that hill and into the cabin clearing, Liz beside him, still clearly struggling but doing what was necessary to get herself home.
While Liz rested inside Einar used the remaining daylight to shingle the roof, hauling load after load of the pitch coated aspen bark squares up and cementing them in place with more pitch, working fast to keep himself warm. He did not know what the next few days might bring or when next snow would be coming, but wanted to be ready. Still Muninn the raven had not returned, and Einar watched for him as he worked, wondering what could have become of the bird.
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AlaskaSue
Member
One of the Frozen Chosen
Posts: 64
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Post by AlaskaSue on Oct 5, 2011 18:32:26 GMT -6
Sure hope Liz and Einar both get a breather and that she's out of danger for early labor! And where is that bird!!!? Thank you for another great read today!
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Post by FOTH on Oct 6, 2011 13:23:35 GMT -6
Sure hope Liz and Einar both get a breather and that she's out of danger for early labor! And where is that bird!!!? Thank you for another great read today! They really do need the baby to wait a while, if it's at all possible! Won't be around at the usual posting time, so here's today's chapter...
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Post by FOTH on Oct 6, 2011 13:24:39 GMT -6
Muninn showed up a few hours after dark that evening, beating on the door with his wings and making such a fuss that finally Einar crept out of bed--Liz had been asleep since shortly after they returned, and Einar, finished with the roofing and finding himself entirely unable to get warm after his long period of near-stillness out in the wind, had joined her, too weary to even give his supper, still warm on the stove, a second look--and let him in just to bring an end to the ruckus. Shaking his feathers and letting out a series of loud, indignant croaks in protest of being left so long outside, the bird hopped over to the spot where Einar crouched beside the cooling stove, depositing something at his feet before flapping up to his shoulder, taking a bit of hair in his beak and twisting hard. The clump of hair came out, and Einar jumped.
“Alright, you big vulture, you’ve got my attention now! Quit it or before long here you’re gonna make me bald. Hair comes out way too easy. I need that stuff to insulate what’s left of my brain. And settle down with the squawking and screeching and rasping, too, why don’t you? Gonna wake Liz. Now what’s this you’ve brought me?” He picked the item up, inspecting it in the dim light of the open stove door, squinting, turning, sniffing it and finally tossing a handful of sticks into the stove in hopes of shedding more light on the matter. Wouldn’t keep it going for long, but all he needed was a bit of light. Definitely some sort of cloth--he’d mistaken it at first for a scrap of animal hide--and when he shook the crusted dirt from it, Einar saw that it was printed in a camouflage pattern. And a button. Appeared to be the top part of a pocket ripped from a camouflage jacket, its pattern something he might expect to see on a hunter, and he tilted his head at the raven, wondering.
“Where’d you get this, fella? And was there more where it came from? Was it attached to a human critter, or just sitting there all by itself in the dirt, I wonder? Kinda looks like it’s been out here a while, which I certainly hope it has. Don’t like to think anyone might be that close. Not that you stick close to the basin when you go on your wandering flights. I suspect you cover a good number of miles, actually, and with your ability to sail over ridges and valleys and peaks in seconds rather than take hours to climb them like I’d have to do, who knows where this might have come from. Other question though is why’d you bring it to me? Trying to warn me? Tell me something?”
If the raven had some message other than the scrap of cloth he was keeping it to himself for the moment, twisting his head this way and that as he listened to Einar, but making no attempt at an answer. Seeing that Einar’s interrogation appeared to be over, the bird hopped heavily up onto one of the warming shelves above the stove, apparently intent on securing for himself some of Einar’s untouched supper stew, but being somewhat unsure how to do so without scorching his feet on the stove. Einar saw, set the pot on the floor to begin cooling, scooping some of its contents--a stew made with chunks of leftover goat roast--out onto a rock for the bird to pick at.
“Hungry, are you? Bet you are, cold as this weather’s getting lately. I’d sure like to know where you go on your flights during the day. Like to come along just once and see this world from up there, skim over the treetops and…”
Liz was awake, sitting up in bed, sight of the bird blocked by Einar’s bent form where he crouched shivering in front of the barely glowing stove. “Einar! What’s wrong? Couldn’t you get warm enough in bed? Are you talking to yourself, over there?”
“Nope. Just debriefing the raven. He finally showed back up a little bit ago.”
“Oh, good! I thought he might have left us for good, when he wasn’t here this evening. What are you doing, though? Feeding him your dinner? Don’t tell me you’re feeding that bird your dinner!”
Einar shrugged, raised his hands, gave her a bit of an apologetic grin. “He was hungry. Been flying all day and half the night. And anyhow he earned it. Look what he brought me.”
“No matter what he brought you, I want to see you eating at least some of that stew! Come on, scoop it up before he finishes it all off.”
Which Einar did, snatching three or four chunks of meat before the bird could gobble everything and returning them to the bit of broth that remained in the pot, sipping at it as he handed Liz the cloth fragment. She wasn’t satisfied, but fortunately was too preoccupied with studying the scrap to bring the rabbit stick to bear, as she might otherwise have been highly tempted to do. “This cloth looks old. Where do you suppose he found it?”
“Don’t know. And I don’t think it’s as old as it looks, really. It’s dirty, but not hardly faded at all. You leave that sort of stuff out here in the weather for a season or two and it nearly loses its color. This is just dirty, I think. Looks pretty fresh, to me. And I don’t know that Muninn would have gone to the trouble to bring back just any old scrap he found lying around in the woods. Think there’s some significance to this…or at least he thought so. Wouldn’t be surprised if he took it right off the shirt of someone who he saw as an intruder around here.
“Do you really think he’d be able to tear a piece of cloth like that? I figured he must have found it in this condition.”
“Are you kidding? You ever had him rip a plug of hair clean out of your head? Critter’s got a mighty strong grip!”
“No, he never does that to me, only to you. But I’ve seen it. I guess that means we have to be worrying about the possibility that people are in the area, or have been very recently…”
“Yeah, but not tonight. Don’t have to worry about it tonight. And as far as a raven’ll fly in a day sometimes, he might have got this from a hunters’ camp down in the valley thirty miles from here. But we will have to be careful, keep out eye out and I may have to go do some recon tomorrow on the ridges around here. By the way, how’re you doing with the…troubles you were having earlier?”
“No troubles at all, so long as I’m in this position. Things seem to start trying to progress again when I shift my weight and go to stand up, but settle down when I get horizontal.”
“Huh. Well in that case, looks like you may be getting a lot better acquainted with that bed over the next few weeks.”
“Oh, I don’t want to stay in bed! I’m sure in a day or so this will pass.”
“Hope so. We’ll see. For tonight, guess we’d better try and get some more sleep, now that this big scoundrel of a molt-feathered vulture seems to have settled in for the night and quit causing his mischief…”
“He certainly ought to be ready to settle in for the night, with his belly all full of your supper stew! Not sure how you’re going to sleep after only a few bites of it, but don’t suppose there’s much point in my making you another batch at this hour, is there?”
“Nope. I’ll sleep.” Liz held the bear hide blankets open and Einar rejoined her in the bed, gradually warming as he listened to the rhythm of her breathing change, deepen with sleep, but for several hours more his mind was busy with the needs of the coming day, the preparations that must still be made before the coming of winter, of the baby.
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Post by FOTH on Oct 7, 2011 15:19:56 GMT -6
Once again in the morning Einar ran the trapline, finding nothing--one can’t always expect to find something--but pleased at the greater speed of which he was seeming capable each day, ribs apparently continuing slowly to heal and allow him more normal breathing. Every little bit made a difference, and though the found himself still dealing with a constant and fairly significant ache around the injured area and pain that could at times become rather sharp and intense depending on how he moved--or how much weight he was attempting to carry--the fact that his breathing had returned nearly to normal at least while at rest allowed him to realistically hope for the first time that he might be able to get through the healing stage without acquiring pneumonia from all the restricted and shallow breathing. That was the thing he’d really been afraid of, that, and having his lung punctured by a loose fragment of bone--perhaps he ought to have been more concerned still about what mistakes he might make while in the oxygen-deprived half-stupor that marked his existence during the first weeks after the injury, but of course he had been unable at the time to realize the potential seriousness of the situation--but no such had happened, and now it appeared he was on the mend. Good. Somewhat surprising, but good.
Muninn joined Einar on his circuit of the trapline, skimming timber tops and swooping down here and there to take a closer look at a bit of fur or feather--bait for the traps, usually--or a wind-blown leaf that caught his attention, and Einar watched him carefully, alert for any unusual behavior on the bird’s part that might indicate the proximity of danger, the source, perhaps, of the cloth scrap that had been brought--message, warning, or simply a curiosity on the part of a very curious creature?--the night before. Muninn seemed undisturbed, though, carrying out his daily activities in what appeared to Einar a fairly normal manner, and search as Einar might, scanning the skyline, tilting his head and cupping hands around ears for any distant sound, testing the morning breezes for smoke, he could find no evidence of a human presence other than their own. Perhaps the bird had, indeed, taken the scrap of cloth from some hunter’s camp many miles distant. Made sense, but still the incident bothered Einar, left him on edge and in a hurry to return to the cabin, and Liz. Needed to check on her, anyway, see if she was awake and how she might be feeling, Stable, he hoped, with no further sign of the baby’s attempting to put in an early appearance. While he was--and always had been-fairly confident in the ability of the three of them to handle the challenges of a “normal” birth up there in the basin, the prospect of the child coming into the world with badly under-developed lungs and other potential problems gave him pause. Well. Shook his head, started walking again, heading for the next trap in the circuit, the last one before returning home. All we can do is try our best to be ready, try and see to it that Liz doesn’t have to do things that seem to threaten to bring on early labor…gonna have to watch real carefully for a few days and see what that may involve, but she’s pretty aware of what’s going on with her situation and so am I, I think, so between us we ought to be able to get it figured out.
Empty. That last trap, a deadfall, was empty too, and Einar turned to head up the slope, glad of the climb ahead of him, as he badly needed to warm up a bit. Guessed he probably ought to have borrowed Liz’s parka for the morning, which seemed to him the coldest yet by far, but he had wanted it there for her should she decide to venture out while he was away. Time to make another, then, so you don’t have to go through the entire winter freezing and barely able to use your hands, which is definitely what you’ve got going on right now. Gonna end up with frostbite again if you do that, and besides, there’s just no sense in going through your day as clumsy and slow as you are right now, if there’s a choice. With which he doubled the pace of his climbing, making it to the cabin clearing in well under the ten minutes it had for the past several days been taking him to cover that distance. Liz was up, had a fire going and the smell of breakfast was finding its way most insistently out through the cracks around the door, filling the clearing and leaving Einar somewhat surprised that half a dozen hungry creatures, martens, ermines, foxes, perhaps even a late-hibernating bear or two, had not already congregated in front of the cabin, awaiting their share. Announcing his presence to Liz so as not to catch her unawares Einar eased open the door and was met by a wave of warmth that set his body to tingling as he began to thaw. Liz handed him a pot of something hot, and he drank.
“Nothing in the traps today?”
“Nope. Guess everything must have spent the night all holed up and cozy, from the looks of it. Better tomorrow I expect. We know the traps produce, in those locations. Got an entire two days’ precedent!”
“Yes, we do! I’m sure they’ll be back to producing soon. And in the meantime, we’ve still got a fresh rabbit and two martens to be thinking about, and some of that leftover goat roast you made. That was pretty incredible stuff.”
While Liz worked on breakfast Einar got more water heating in the pot he’d just finished draining of tea, adding dried nettles and stirring them until they began warming, cooking slightly and turning the water a bright, lively green. Adding a bit of honey to improve the taste--not that it tasted bad; the nettles had a wonderful “alive” flavor to them as far as he was concerned, even dried--he took the concoction off the heat, satisfied that it was finished and not wanting to over-heat it, as too much heat would begin to reduce the chlorophyll content. High concentrations of both chlorophyll and iron were his aims in making the broth; that past night as he’d lain in the bed too cold to sleep with his mind working too fast to have allowed for such, anyway, the thought had come to him that they’d better be taking appropriate steps in the very near future, should Liz’s apparently false labor pains turn out not to have been so false. Broth ready, he handed her the pot.
“Here. Figured it was time to start doing this, just in case. Lots of iron and vitamin K to build up your blood, help get you ready.”
“Yes. That’s a good idea, and I’ll start doing this every day, since we’ve got so many nettle greens dried and set aside. But you need to have some, too. I know you’re not about to have a baby or anything, but you are anemic, I can see it, and there’s no way you’re going to be able to keep warm this winter if you don’t do something about that.”
“Aw,“ he dismissed her concern with a shrug and a shake of his head, “I’m pretty warm so long as I don’t sit still. I’ll just keep moving vall winter. Get more done that way, anyhow. And if I do happen to sit still by accident, the shivering will take care of things for me.”
Liz rolled her eyes at him, said something about that certainly not sounding like the best plan she’d ever heard, but as he seemed entirely serious she let the matter drop for the moment, sipping at the brilliantly green beverage he’d made for her. Though apparently unable to see his own needs at times he was correct about hers, she knew. The stronger and more iron-rich her blood prior to the birth, the better she’d do recovering from any bleeding that might take place after, and the nettles were rich vitamin K-containing chlorophyll, too, which would increase her blood’s readiness to clot and perhaps prevent serious bleeding. Not that she wanted to have to worry about such matters, not just yet. For the time, things seemed to have calmed down and she hoped and prayed they might stay that way. Wished Einar would calm down, too, but he appeared busy as ever, determined to go out by himself and place at least one more cache that day, and as both of them had agreed on the urgency of the project, she could hardly make any attempt to dissuade him.
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Post by thefishinmagician on Oct 7, 2011 17:41:23 GMT -6
Hmmm...Is this the calm before the storm? FOTH never seems to give our couple much "breathing room" between all the challenges that come up. Will Muninn bring Einar to where he (she?) found that cloth while he's out placing the cache? What's new with the search? We haven't heard any updates with that, lately. Is Kilgore still hanging around Susan's (I think that was her name) place? Any plans in the works, there? Staying tuned to find out the answers to all these questions and more! :-)
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EdD270
Full Member
deceased
Posts: 201
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Post by EdD270 on Oct 7, 2011 20:47:26 GMT -6
Whoa, Liz had better take it really easy for a few weeks. With her being under-nourished and over-stressed both from their situation and just having to live with EA, she's at a precarious point in her pregnancy. Sure don't want the little one to come two months early. Even a couple weeks early would be bad, but two months, that would be disastrous. As for a name, I suggest they name him after Liz's or EA's Dad or Grandad; Or name her after one of their Mothers or Grandmothers. Given their circumstances and likely future, it would be good to do all they can to give the young 'un a sense of belonging to a heritage, a family lineage. It would also, if in the future the young 'un is left an orphan, serve to help identify his relatives, and let them know he is their kin, who might take him in and care for him.
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Post by FOTH on Oct 8, 2011 16:48:04 GMT -6
No chapter today, back with another tomorrow. Hope everyone is having a good and productive weekend.
Thank you all for reading!
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Post by FOTH on Oct 9, 2011 16:43:02 GMT -6
Hmmm...Is this the calm before the storm? FOTH never seems to give our couple much "breathing room" between all the challenges that come up. Will Muninn bring Einar to where he (she?) found that cloth while he's out placing the cache? What's new with the search? We haven't heard any updates with that, lately. Is Kilgore still hanging around Susan's (I think that was her name) place? Any plans in the works, there? Yes, we'll definitely be hearing more about Kilgore, Susan and the search. Perhaps sooner than later... Whoa, Liz had better take it really easy for a few weeks. With her being under-nourished and over-stressed both from their situation and just having to live with EA, she's at a precarious point in her pregnancy. Sure don't want the little one to come two months early. Even a couple weeks early would be bad, but two months, that would be disastrous. In their situation and up so high, yes, disastrous. She has been eating reasonably well especially in recent months, but may still be deficient in some things, and no, I don't suppose it can be at all easy living with Einar... As for a name, I suggest they name him after Liz's or EA's Dad or Grandad; Or name her after one of their Mothers or Grandmothers. Given their circumstances and likely future, it would be good to do all they can to give the young 'un a sense of belonging to a heritage, a family lineage. It would also, if in the future the young 'un is left an orphan, serve to help identify his relatives, and let them know he is their kin, who might take him in and care for him. Good thought, naming him after someone from one of the families. (And it's fine that you posted this here--either this or the other thread is fine. )
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