Editing The Journal of Veksvale (section)

=='''Home'''==

Its been a few years since I wrote on the first page of this journal.  I have two of course.  One is for day to day things that I assure you would bore you to tears.  My mind is that of a sorcerer but still, notes are a good thing.   

For example:

''Month 1, Day 3, in Veksvale.
20 trees down, drawn, trimmed.    Enough for the frame. Dressed two deer.  One good set of antlers for toggles.  Brew vats working, nothing ready.  Conjured a keg of rum.
Paka has been gone for three days.''

''Month 1, Day 3, in Veksvle.
Woke up beside the empty keg and the smoldering fire.  Swam to clean up.
Paka not back.
Spent the Day working food, setting drying out. Did trim on the wood, chopped firewood for drying. Made trump for Veksvale.  
May visit Ang Ri for companionship and some gardening supplies.  
Tomorrow, I start the frame no matter where Paka is.''

''Month 1 day 6
No Paka.  The bitch.  I'm sleeping in a tent instead of a comfy cabin because she wanted to wander.
Chose the spot for the water pond.  Moved 12,198 rocks. Too lazy to move two more.  Will start readying the foundation of the house later but lining the pool comes first.   Rows of rocks, fitted.  Smooth stone spells to lock them in place.  This pond is the hot pool, at the low end of my stretch of river. 30'x 30' x 6'. I'll put a couple hot stones in it to keep it in the mid 100s.   Another up stream will be the fish pond. '' 

''Month 1, day 7
Since im staying awhile i laid out the garden.  Not too much sun.  Planted staples. 
Tempted to ''Summon'' Paka but that just tends to piss her off.''

''Month 1, day 12
Foundation set and dry.  Laid the first row around the three room.    With all the wood cut and ready for stacking.  
Paka came back just in time to not do any of the stone work. She looked pretty smug.  ''

''Month 1 day 23
Cabin mostly done.  Finishing touches. 3 rooms, not counting a closet privy.  Porches all around and a deep thirty foot front porch to work on during the winter.  I'm air drying several kills till the smoke house and the drying shed get done. ''

[[Veksvale Daily Journal]] 

I think I've made the point for the Second Journal?

Over the first two winter Veksvale grew from a camp fire to a community.   It hadn't been my intention.  

I had finished my work. Mostly, such things are never really done.  I had a three room cabin calked against the weather.  I'd imported special unbreakable weather-proof windows and covered the installations so as to not look too otherworldly.  I had a hot pool at the south end of my land and a fish pond at the north.  A smoke house and a distilling barn and a long low storage barn.  A animal barn for goats, a few milk cows, a couple horses and a couple mules.  A few cats had shown up, in some kind of state of worship for Paka.  That was fine with me.  Cats eat rats and I really don't.

By this time I had met a lot of the locals, such as the mountains had.  Loners for the most parts.  Small families.  I've got to to know the races, nations and peoples of the planet by hearing what happened “Downhill” that drove people “Uphill”.

Call it 300 people withing 30 miles of my little place.

I started running an informal tavern at first. Open air, fireside, mainly trading what they made for booze.  As much a weekly campfire with booze and wilderness survival talks.   

Soon a trader came up and asked if he could build at the edge of my vale, across the stream, downhill from my side.  I didn't have anything built on that side but he had manners.  So I helped him build a trading post.  He left and I thought I'd never see him again.   

'''Grikoo''' brought up a mule train of dozen of the most complacent mules I ever saw packed to the brim with buckets and traps and knives and kegs.. 
I had started making kegs early on and now making them was just an ongoing process. 

Every so often someone else would show up, set up a mile away.  Half mile.   Quarter mile.  Over two summers Veksvale became something of a destination place.  A sort of first lay over for those new to the rigors of mountain life.  
 
There is something about the people who come up hill.  Resilient, self-reliant.  Friendly when they need to be.   Most had left the downhill world for good reasons.   Its impolite to ask.   Because its impoite to ask what drove them to the mountains, they never asked me where I came from and what brought  me here.  That kind of anonymity is a blessing to one like me.