Chapter 10 Chapter 10 Animal Husbandry Construction
The room was much warmer than the outside. Olivia knitted a sweater here. She was not very experienced, but she learned it bit by bit through trial and error.
Olivia was determined to start learning to sew and knit, not because she was particularly diligent.
But in this environment, if you don’t know how to do something and have to rely on others for help, it is really inconvenient.
In her previous life, she had fallen in love as a teenager and spent several weeks knitting a scarf for her boyfriend. It was a popular thing at that time, but they broke up after graduation, and she even forgot to get the scarf back.
However, knitting was more complicated now, but at least she remembered how to cast on.
When Lucy came up to the bedroom with lunch and opened the door, she saw her ladyship sitting by the window, knitting something with her needle flying. She had already knitted a large piece, but she couldn't make out what it was.
Although some people still knit yarn, they do not use the tools and methods of Mrs. Now the mainstream method is to knit wool with crochet.
Lucy was curious and walked over to take a look. At the same time, she cleared half of the table and put down the lunch that the lady had ordered.
It was a buttery vegetable soup with purple carrots, beetroots and pickled squash, a plate of onion minced meat pie, and preserved fruits mixed with yogurt. Lucy would go downstairs to get her some wine to go with the meal later.
As Olivia put away her craft supplies, she looked up and asked Lucy expectantly if she could tell what she was going to knit.
Lucy set the tableware and shook her head with a smile: "I can't guess."
"...It will be fine once we finish weaving."
Olivia said with a smile, after all, she was a novice, so it did look a bit clumsy, but it was not a big problem, as long as she could keep warm.
After putting away her needlework, she began to struggle with lunch again. These foods were the cook's own specialties and tasted relatively normal.
Olivia analyzed that the cook was better at making minced meat and soup.
It is also because the current smelting technology is not good, and there are only heavy cast iron pots, which are only convenient for cooking mixed stews.
However, the cook seemed to know that she didn't like meat with a strong smell, so she put pickled turnips and minced garlic in the pie to cover up the fishy smell. The taste was okay, but the crust was too thick and not chewy enough, and had a bit of a doughy smell.
Olivia thought that she would go to the kitchen to teach the cook how to make dumplings in the evening. If she stuffed this kind of filling into the dumpling skin, it would taste good.
As the saying goes, every monkey has its own way of tying it up, and the same applies to unpalatable food.
In the afternoon, the stonemasons and carpenters worked tirelessly to repair the damage in the main house. Olivia's ring also reminded her to collect the task reward and start a new task.
She put down the work in her hands, opened the system, and collected the reward for the task "Repair the Main House".
The pepper seeds have been released into this continent of twelve countries by the system.
The total experience value is now 31.
Olivia was very satisfied. She couldn't wait to click and receive the new task, which was just as she expected.
The new mission is: "Livestock Expansion"
Mission description: With a chicken in your left hand and a duck in your right hand, vigorously develop animal husbandry and build a farm that can accommodate hundreds of animals!
Mission Reward: +20 Experience Points, unlock the "Character Attributes" function.
You can actually unlock new game features!
The note said that after unlocking the character attributes, she would be able to check the personalities, talent points, and health points of those around her.
Olivia was very excited. This function seemed extremely powerful and invincible. At this moment, she felt a little bit of the golden finger of the built-in system.
She couldn't help but look up and smile, as if she had already imagined the wonderful scene in the future when she would be able to know how to use people and become a mentor to others.
However, then again, the task description says that the requirement is to build a livestock area that can accommodate hundreds of livestock, but it doesn't specify whether it can accommodate a hundred chickens or a hundred cows. The two are completely different.
Olivia immediately thought of the ugly projects she had built to increase stats when playing business games in her previous life.
However, she doesn't dare to play games like this now. She has to survive in this place, so she still has to make reasonable plans. She has to take care of cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks, and geese and develop them all together.
So, Olivia went out and called Lucy over.
"How many grass-eating animals can the manor feed at most with the current annual silage production?"
Olivia asked her.
Lucy takes care of these livestock. In the summer when the grass is abundant, she can start harvesting and store it in the silo. When the snow is thick in winter and there is no grass to eat, she feeds the livestock with the grass in the silo.
The pasture enclosed by the manor is only a dozen acres, but the pasture on the hillside behind it that connects to the forest is dozens of acres. The terrain is too steep to be used for farming.
If you work hard to collect fodder in the autumn, it will be enough to feed dozens of cows.
Lucy added, "Although we can feed so many animals with fodder, if we really want to feed so many cattle and sheep, we need at least seven or eight people to do this job full-time without doing anything else. Otherwise, we won't be able to keep up."
Olivia also knew this was the case. Taking too big a step would only lead to trouble. She was not the heroine of a romantic novel, so she had to be more practical.
"So if we only raise a dozen cows, a dozen sheep, and a few dozen chickens, how many people do we need?"
Lucy thought for a moment and said, "If I were to raise ten cows and ten sheep, and dozens of chickens and ducks, two helpers would be enough."
"When the steward comes back with the calves, have him come to me. I plan to expand the livestock farm. Once it's finished, I'll give it to you to look after."
"yes."
After listening to this, Lucy nodded and went downstairs.
Driving the ox cart from the town back to the manor was much slower than riding a horse, but it was very stable, and there was a cloth tent to block the wind and snow.
When the calf was bought, it was put into the cart. Adam sold the tanned deerskin and squeezed it in with the two calves, while the steward sat beside the cart, whipping the oxen.
It was still early when the butler returned to the manor. He locked the two little animals in the cowshed, letting them squeeze in with two cows and two sheep. When he returned to the kitchen to wash his hands, Lucy told him what her ladyship had instructed him.
The housekeeper was a little puzzled. He couldn't figure out what his wife's intention was. In fact, the current livestock pen could accommodate all the animals if they were crowded together. In winter, they would huddle together to keep warm anyway.
If the plan is to raise more livestock, wouldn't it be a good idea to wait until spring to build it? The purpose of expanding the livestock pen at this time is a bit confusing.
However, the housekeeper was not in a hurry to go upstairs. He filled a basin with hot water in the kitchen, looked up and saw his youngest son Adam, who was smelling like a calf and was about to run out, so he hurriedly called him.
"dad?"
Adam looked confused. He turned around and walked to the basin, taking the towel handed to him by the housekeeper, not knowing what it meant.
The housekeeper took a piece of sheep-fat soap, made a little foam in the basin, and said:
"Wash your face and hands, then change your clothes. If you are dirty, Madam will not let you serve her. Bring me a clean robe too."
Adam said "Oh" suspiciously, washed his face and the mud under his nails honestly, went to the bedroom to change his clothes, and came out again to give his father an outer robe.
The housekeeper also cleaned up. He wore a small felt cap covering his gray hair. He cleaned up in high spirits and asked the impatient cook to check him from head to toe to make sure there was no dirt before he walked towards the main house.
Back in the main house, Olivia was tired of knitting and wandered downstairs to the dining room, where she idly counted the tree rings on the dining table and examined the empty cat bowl under it.
The new kitten is still very afraid of people. It has been very secretive these past two days, hiding during the day and coming out at night. She has never seen its body once. If the food under the table had not been eaten, she would not have felt that she had a cat at all.
When she turned around and saw the housekeeper coming, Olivia put away her itchy thoughts.
The butler was very respectful and reported the details of the purchase of calves and the sale of animal skins.
Olivia didn't have any problem with what she heard, but she was very curious about the town's merchant guild and livestock trading market.
The official name of this place is Lavosen Town. According to the housekeeper, today's Lavosen market is crowded with hundreds of merchants from several surrounding towns.
"It's so cold, what kind of livestock is selling the most at the market right now?"
"Madam, most merchants sell horses, followed by sheep. Horses are expensive these days. A top-quality horse costs five gold coins."
The housekeeper said that although it was cold now, the town's merchant guild would still hold the market as scheduled.
They drove a herd of cattle, sheep, pigs and horses into the market to trade on the spot, and even the road was blocked tightly. If it weren't for this, the father and son would have been back at noon.
Fortunately, the main organizer of this guild is the Baron's Mansion. They have made rules that allow the market to be held only once every two weeks.
All goods traded in the town are subject to the supervision of the guild. You cannot sell sick animals or ask for exorbitant prices. Prices are all controlled by the guild, and there are regulations for different levels.
However, both buyers and sellers had to pay the guild a tax of one-twelfth of the goods themselves.
Even a mature and cautious man like the butler said with some pride:
"Among the four or five surrounding towns, our market in Lavossen is the largest."
Olivia also knew the reason. The barons in the surrounding towns were probably those who liked to collect taxes under various pretexts. If the taxes were too high, naturally no merchants would be willing to trade.
Baron Berggru was also born a knight and was made a baron more than ten years ago for his military achievements.
There was nothing special about him, except that he had a good wife, a cousin of the Countess of this county.
It was one of the wealthiest families in the southern part of the county, and both the Baroness and the Countess were educated and knew how to govern.
The baroness handled the internal affairs of the fiefdom and usually implemented a policy of light taxation, which attracted a large number of merchants.
She thought that if she wanted to develop chicken farming in the future and trade chicks and eggs, she would have to deal with the guild.
This is also a good thing.
Speaking of this, Olivia took the opportunity to bring up the matter of expanding the livestock farmhouse.
The housekeeper thought about this matter silently for a long time, because he was not sure whether the lady's purpose was to make money or to facilitate access, so he did not dare to interrupt.
"I want to build three more long houses on both sides and behind the kitchen, connecting them together to form a courtyard."
The building she described to the housekeeper was similar to a courtyard house, with doors opening into the courtyard, which could serve as a defense against looting.
After hearing this, the housekeeper felt that it was not so unreliable. He thought that this was not a difficult task. It just required a lot of manpower and some labor.
It turns out that when the old knight was alive, he used the fields to grow wheat just to make a glass of wine. Which lord wouldn't do something like this?
He understood it roughly and repeated the building size again to make sure there were no ambiguities or other requirements.
"Yes, I'll arrange for some manpower right away. We'll go into the mountains tomorrow morning to cut down trees and lay the foundation."
Olivia nodded, and seeing that it was almost done, she continued:
"It's winter, and cutting trees is a tough job. We only need the trunks to build our house. As for the branches, let them cut them right there in the woods, divide them among themselves, and take them home for burning.
However, this house isn't built for people to live in. It just needs to be strong enough to shelter from the wind and rain, not exquisite. I'll wait a week at most, so hurry up, okay?"
After hearing the lady's generous words, the butler began to understand a little.
In this cold winter weather, the people in the mountains have to scrape away a thick layer of snow before they can pick up some fallen branches to make a fire. But now that they want to build three long houses, they have to cut down hundreds of trees.
There are many mountains and forests in the fiefdom, so cutting down these hundreds of trees is not a big deal. It’s just that seven days is a bit tight. Since time is tight, we can only make up for it with manpower.
This requires all the self-cultivating farmers and tenant farmers in the territory, regardless of gender, to come out in full force, so that every household can get a share of the pie.
After removing the main trunk, the remaining branches and bark, even if distributed to each household, would be enough to burn for two winters. If not used up, they could be taken to the town of Lavossen and sold in exchange for food.
This is not building a house.
Butler Jock understood what was going on and his expression immediately became serious.
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