[Chapter 49 New Neighbors]
The days gradually entered midsummer, and for the people of Winter Village, they could not feel the scorching heat of midsummer at all, but felt that the weather was cool and pleasant.
“Is the summer here so comfortable?” Will, who came from Royal Port, felt that the summer here was similar to the winter in Royal Port, warm and comfortable and not particularly humid. The wind blowing from the Winter River from time to time also made the whole village particularly cool. He liked it more and more now.
“Yes, it’s about this level when it’s hottest in summer.” According to David’s experience in the past two or three years, the hottest temperature in this place in summer is only about 27 or 28 degrees, and it only lasts for a few days. With the cool breeze blowing from the Winter River, it is still comfortable and pleasant when it is hottest: “But winter is more difficult to endure.”
The winter in Winter Village is not only cold, but also lasts for a long time. Every time he thinks back to the long and difficult winter of the past two years, he is surprised that he can actually hold on.
“How difficult is it?” Will, who grew up in Royal Port, lacks an intuitive understanding of the cold winter. Even if David tells him that the winter is cold, he can’t imagine what it is like.
“I can only remind you to build your house more solidly and prepare more firewood before winter.” Even though there is a forest to the north of Winter Village, it does not mean that they do not need to store a large amount of firewood. Winter Village often has heavy snow in winter. When the snow blocks the door, they can only rely on the firewood stored in advance to make a fire for heating. What’s more, it is best to dry the firewood after cutting it down for a while before using it.
However, the blacksmith shop should not lack things for making fire…
“I know.” Will wrote down David’s words, and then went to check his newly built blacksmith shop with David.
Will became the blacksmith of Winter Village. His house is not only a residence, but also the blacksmith shop of Winter Village. Therefore, Will’s house is relatively the most troublesome to build – it is the first house in Winter Village built with stone.
There are several strong laborers such as Fording, Steve, Peggy, Sharon and David. Although there is no stonemason, they have found stones that can be used and added cement to successfully build this house.
Will grew up in a blacksmith shop and knew how to design the layout of a blacksmith shop. Mark then made some “modern” improvements to Will’s design. Several strong laborers frantically moved suitable stones to build it. It took more than a month to complete the construction of the blacksmith shop.
The blacksmith shop that was finally built consists of two parts: the work area and the living area. The work area is the blacksmith shop. In addition to the storefront facing the “main street”, there is also a sales area for selling and displaying various products, a forging area for Will to work, and a warehouse for storing various works.
The living area is next to the blacksmith shop. It is not wrong to say that it is part of the entire building, because the residence is connected to the interior of the blacksmith shop, which is convenient for Will to go back to the room to rest directly.
Seeing such a good blacksmith shop and house, Will was very happy. More and more people chose to stay in Winter Village, and only ran back to Royal Port when he missed Elizabeth.
“Can I bring Elizabeth to the village?” When the blacksmith shop was completely completed, Will couldn’t wait to show off this blacksmith shop that belonged to him to his beloved.
To this question, David simply replied, “Of course.” Then he lowered his head and ticked the words “Blacksmith Shop” on his notebook.
“The Blacksmith Shop is there, and so are the tap water system and public toilets.”
Laura spent a lot of effort and time to deliver the various equipment parts that Mark needed, and then the village chief, led by David, put in 120% of his efforts to assemble the equipment, dig trenches and lay pipelines, and build pumping and water purification stations – a small machine room was built by the Winter River to ensure that there would be no accidents with the pumping and water purification equipment.
When the pipeline was finally connected to the assembled and installed water storage equipment, the tap water system planned by David was finally completed.
Now everyone in Winter Village can get clean water from the Winter River by the faucet installed next to the water storage equipment in the village.
In fact, when the village chief took the lead in digging trenches and laying pipelines, the farmers were wondering what the village chief was busy with? Even though all kinds of equipment were assembled and installed by the river and in the village, the villagers still didn’t know what this thing was used for? It wasn’t until the moment when clean water flowed out of the faucet that they understood.
“Why not just dig a well?”
Although the farmers did not ask directly, David could see similar thoughts from their expressions. David did not waste time explaining this situation. When various equipment was put into use one after another, they would understand it naturally after seeing the real objects.
In any case, Winter Village finally got running water. With the battery pack charged by wind and solar power, it should be no problem to maintain the operation of these equipment for a long time.
At present, the public facilities being built in the village are the canteen, and the bathroom will be next. These two facilities will be completed before autumn, and then the villagers should prepare for winter.
No one in Winter Village knows, but David knows that the autumn in this place is very short, or the temperature in this place will drop very quickly, and when it enters late autumn, it will be no different from winter elsewhere. If the villagers prepare for winter according to their previous life experience, they will definitely be in trouble.
He will remind everyone to make various preparations when autumn comes, including stockpiling firewood, making smoked meat, smoked fish, and making jam, to ensure that everyone in the village can spend the winter safely.
After thinking for a while, David felt that he should not have missed anything. He wrote down what he was going to do next in his notebook and flipped through it several times.
“Next, should we upgrade the houses of the villagers? Or should we pave the road and build a drainage system?”
He did not hesitate for too long. He felt that given the current situation in Winter Village, even paving a stone road would be too extravagant, let alone building an asphalt road.
Similarly, in the current situation, there is no need to consider the drainage system. It is better to wait until the village is further upgraded before tinkering with it.
“So, it’s time to consider upgrading everyone’s houses.”
Now in the entire Winter Village, only Will Turner lives in a stone house, which was built considering the special nature of the blacksmith’s work.
For example, David, the village chief, still lives in a small wooden house with only one room. Judging from the layout and size of the house, it is even worse than the houses of the later farmers.
“After a few rounds of planting, we can harvest a lot of food in the fall, right?”
He flipped out another document, which contained information about the villagers and land of Winter Village. It was an official document certified by the Kingdom of Tilan.
At present, there are a total of eight farmers in the village, not counting a group of alien visitors. Five of them are contract farmers under David’s name. At present, more than half of the farmland reclaimed around the village belongs to David personally.
The remaining fields, which account for nearly half of the total, mostly belong to Samantha and Conn, mother and son, accounting for more than 30% of the total. The other three self-cultivating farmers had already become contract farmers for the mother and son before reclaiming the fields.
The last part belongs to Mark, Fording, Peggy, Sharon, Steve and Laura, but these people have no idea of becoming big landlords. For example, after Laura found time to reclaim a piece of land, she just planted some things casually, and was more helping Mark test whether various crops can survive.
Fording, who has been living in seclusion in Winter Village for a long time, and Peggy and Sharon, who can’t go back and can only live here, still planted some potatoes. After all , they are not the kind of people who can feel at ease and eat for free.
Therefore, in the “official records” of Winter Village, these people are self-employed farmers, and each of them has their own farmland.
As for Will? He worked hard for the blacksmith and had no mind or energy to do reclamation work.
The last ones left were the old hunter Addis and his nominal adopted son Alfie. Like Will, this father and son had no idea of reclaiming the land and continued to focus on their original career as a hunter.
“David.”
Just as David was sorting out the information of the villagers, Addis suddenly came over.
“Something?” David noticed that Addis looked very serious, and that he didn’t have Alfie with him wherever he went. This meant that Addis had something to discuss with him alone: “Sit down and talk slowly.”
After pouring Addis a glass of water, David closed the documents and notebook in front of him, and waited for Addis to speak.
“Today I will take Alfie along the edge of the forest to the northeast, hoping to find any large prey.” Addis, as an experienced hunter, knew that it was time to prepare for winter, and a medium or large prey could not only provide enough meat, but also be used to trade for other necessities.
In order to ensure that he could find prey better and transport it back more conveniently, he went out on horseback this time.
“What did you find?”
Addis ran to find prey, but came back to find him. From his expression, it didn’t seem like he had any good gains, but more like he had discovered something unexpected.
“I saw some people.”
“Oh?”
“It’s located in the northeast of Winter Village, about a day’s walk away.” As an experienced hunter, Addis can accurately judge the distance between the two places: “I observed secretly, those people are cutting down trees and reclaiming land, and building many wooden houses. I think they are building a new village.”
“New village?” David was a little surprised. He didn’t expect that there would be people coming to the northern plains to build a village, and even running further north than himself: “Iron Tree Castle has sent out another pioneering team?”
Is it because of the establishment of Winter Village that Iron Tree Castle thinks it is not difficult to build a village here? So a new pioneering team was formed?
“I don’t think so.” Addis denied David’s guess: “I saw fully armed knights and soldiers among those people.”
(End of this chapter)