Farming

Apam went back, to take care of his own matters, while I went back to my room, in order to get some rest. The next day, I went back to the Atol named Ulon. When I knocked on the doors, Ulon opened them after a while, and seemed very tired. I said "You've stayed up late, right?". Ulon nodded his head, and said "I already got an idea, how to improve my medicine, but not to such extent. The person who taught you, was a real genius of medicine!".

I smiled, and said "Yea, he was quite good. Can you now show me, how to plant all the herbs, and how to care for them?". Ulon nodded his head, and replied "Follow me". We climbed down from the tree, and walked over to an empty field near his house. The field was rather big, at least a thousand herbs would fit in the space provided. There was a small hut in the middle, that had a stool, table and some tools inside. The field itself, had loads of weeds, and rocks scattered around it. Ulon said "You can use this field. I will provide all the seed variants that we have, and teach you how to plant them. I assume, you have no knowledge, about the herbs that we grow?". I shook my head in response. He continued "I will explain them, when we get to the planting part".

I nodded my head, and said "Let's start then". Ulon walked over to the hut, and took out a hoe. He then said "First, you need to loosen the soil. This field was not cultivated for a while now, therefore that is what you have to do", and passed me the hoe. I took it, and said "That is quite simple". He shook his head, and said "Don't simply strike the soil, and loosen it. This will make the herbs grow slower, and some may even die out. Let me show you, how to do it". He grabbed another hoe from the hut, and demonstrated the technique of loosening the soil. It didn't seem extraordinary at first, but then I noticed that he loosened the soil very finely. There were no clumps whatsoever. He said "This is how, it's supposed to be done. When you do that, you will have to take care of all the rocks, weeds and whatnot. Just tell me when you are done with ploughing, and I will show you the best method of cleaning up the field". I nodded my head, and went to work.

It was much harder, than simply swinging the hoe at the ground. I had to do it in a specific way. When I got used to it, the task became much easier. It took me a few good hours, just to plough through the whole field. 'Even though this hoe is very light, I'm still a bit tired from swinging it, for couple of hours' I thought.

I returned to Ulon, who was sleeping on the stool, and said "I'm done with the ploughing. Now you can show me, how to clean the field up". Ulon woke up, and said "Uh? Oh right! Let me have a look first". He stood up, looked at the whole field, and said "Not bad for your first time. There are some clumps still, but you should be able to grow the herbs here no problem". He then continued "Alright, follow me. I will show you, how to clean the field up". He grabbed a rake, and walked over to one area of the field.

He then said "You will need to rake the soil now. Again, any idiot can do it, but to do it right, you need a bit more knowledge. Let me show you how it's done". He started raking the soil, in a specific way. The amazing part, was that he didn't disturbed the soil whatsoever. He only removed the stones, weeds and so on. The area I ploughed through, stayed the same shape.

After his demonstration, Ulon said "If you do it this way, you will not disturb the soil, and clean it up at the same time. Go try it out". Ulon again went back to the stool, and fell asleep. I took the rake, and raked the field. It took me some time, to get adjusted to the method that Ulon showed me, but in the end, I managed to rake the whole field.

Ulon was awake this time, when I returned. He said "You did a pretty decent job. Now that the field is ploughed and cleaned up. We need to fertilise it. Follow me, I will show you where to get the fertiliser from". I walked with Ulon to a large building, that looked like a storage area. The place smelled badly for sure. Ulon said "This is where we store the fertiliser. Of course, it has been processed already". I asked "Where do you get this stuff from?". Ulon smiled, and said frankly "It's Tauros poop. That is the fertiliser". 'No wonder it smells so badly' I thought.

He then continued "We will need quite a lot for the field, so take that cart over there, and fill it up. When you are done, we will return to the field". On the side of the building, stood a few push carts. I grabbed one of them, and started shovelling the shit on top of it. 'I will stink like shit, for the rest of the day' I thought, after filling up the cart. We then headed back to the field, while Ulon said "Let me show you, how to fertilise the soil properly".

He filled a few buckets with the fertiliser, and took a small shovel. He then sprinkled it over the ploughed area, while pressing the fertiliser with his hands. 'Great' I thought, when I saw him do it. When he was done, showing me how I was supposed to fertilise the soil, he said "Now just repeat what I did, and cover the whole field with the fertiliser. Just remember to be gentle, when you press the fertiliser in. Make sure, you don't disturb the ploughed area". I nodded my head, while he went back to the stool.

'Well… time to shovel some more shit…' I thought, and went to work. It took me a while, to sprinkle the whole field with the fertiliser. When I was done, I was desperately looking for water. To my help, came Ulon. "I can see, that you fertilized the soil. There is one last thing, that we need to do, before we can plant anything" he said. I asked "What is that?". Ulon replied "We need to water the whole field, and leave it alone for a while. Follow me, I will take you to the water tank".

I followed after Ulon desperately. I wanted some water, and wash myself as soon as it was possible. We arrived at a large wooden… barrel? Maybe "large", was a wrong word to use. Huge defined that barrel much better. It was as tall, as some of the trees. Ulon said "There are few points where we can collect water. We will also use this, in order to transport it". He then pointed at smaller empty barrels, that were made from wood as well.

He laughed a bit, and said "Each barrel, when filled up, should weight around 100 kilograms. We will need around 50 barrels of water". I didn't listen to him much at this point, and went over to the huge barrel, and draw some water. When I washed myself a few times, I said "Alright, now I feel better. How many did you said we need?". Ulon repeated "50 barrels. Fill them up, and place them on one of the carts available. Only 20 will fit one cart, so you will have to do a few trips".

I nodded my head, and filled 20 empty barrels with water. With all that packed on top of the cart, we went back to the field. Ulon said "Watering is not that difficult, I will show you how to do it anyway, just to make sure you will do it correctly". He took out a wooden watering can from the hut, and started watering the soil. While he was at it, he said "Just make sure, you are watering the soil evenly. So that, no part of the soil has too much water, while the other too little. This will be very useful to you, when you finally plant your seeds". I nodded my head, and watched as he watered the soil.

After his demonstration, I finished the rest of the field, and came back to him. Ulon said "You are quite strong. After so many hours of working in such a field, you are still standing. Young people are really energetic". I replied "I'm doing my best". Ulon nodded, and said "That is all for now. Come back here every second or third day, and water it again. After about four or five waterings, the soil should be conditioned and weathered enough, to plant the seeds". I nodded my head, and replied "Will do".