16. Gathering herbs is not that easy

He shrruged. "Our country has no rules of hunting as we have large forests and lots of animals. Actually if you kill rabbits and such things that could harm crops it's not a problem. Wild pigs destroyed two big plots of wheat this summer so we plan hunting them anyway. But you are too little to go into the forest."

Anna Gale shrruged. "I'm aware of my abilities. And as I'm not sure around these places, I have no intentions going inside and not being able to get out."

Even if she had map, she was aware that she won't be able to run fast enough from those things.

He nodded. "Good. By the way, the tax for this year and next year are not gonna be collected for certain reasons. About opening one more plot of land, I'll ask father. Now I have to go back."

But before he left he stopped and looked back. "In two weeks will be end of harvest celebration. Many villages will come together and will buy or sell their produce. If you want, I can keep a good spot for you in the city market."

Anna Gale was stunned. "Two weeks? What to sell there?"

He thought about it and glanced at the surrounding field. "Healing plants. Do you know anything about that? People always buy those before winter time."

Anna Gale happily clapped her hand. "Yes, we can do that. I will dry herbs and we can sell them. I know few herbs that we learned."

Actually, her sister had the skill, but she has no plan explaining in detail.

The three guards listened silently you their talk and waited until they were done.

Young Count Samo went elegantly onto the horse and rode off while clouds slowly again gathered and not long after it started pouring buckets.

Anna Gale closed door and started laughing. "Stupid. Now he will be wet like a mouse when he gets back home. Map."

She enlarged the picture and saw something that made her feel worried. The small brook near her house was now almost raging river that almost started swapping over and flooding fields in the village..

Few villagers saw the situation and gathered everyone after the burial to gather what's left of the food to save in case of flooding.

Anna Gale waved her hand and turned off the picture. "Let us make something nice. Alice, what do you think of me and you making normal bread finally."

Alice shook her head. "Sorry sister. But that will be impossible in current situation."

Anna saw her pointing at the fire. "Huh? Why?"

Then she realized. They had no oven.

Even though all three of them are smarter than other kids of their generation, they couldn't just produce oven out of nothing.

Anna Gale shrruged. " Mother said we can make steamed buns. We just make enough for us to eat today and tomorrow we can eat something in the store."

They can eat goulash with noodles tomorrow.

Alice saw can with that food in passing and already made a decision to get it.

She loved goulash more than anyone and couldn't wait to find way to cook that.

The three of them chose to actually just make fried dough and fried eggs with vegetables.

It was fatty, tasty and very heavy food, so all three chose to go out and walk a bit.

The rain was pouring over the castle and the village, but stopped falling near their house.

"It is anyway fall. Will we have sunny days or not, I questionable. Let's gather as many healing plants we can and bundle them. We can hang them on stairway or on ceiling on the string. The harvest celebration is on two weeks and looking at this rain, not many will want to go around and do such a thing. Good thing we have boots."

Anna Gale put her own boots on as they were dry, brought the wet jacket, that was now only moist, no more dropping wet into the room to dry and put another jacket.

The two girls had now rain boots as well and happily rushed to nearby bushes of herbs. Of course, they were not sure will it start raining again so they wanted to hurry and gather as many herbs they could before it starts pouring again.

But except chamomile, they didn't recognize any other. Even Michelle was flabergasted. "Sister, is this all?"

"Let's find many. And finding only one kind of herb will cause them to think we knew only this much. Less suspicious. We still don't know are they like our ancestors in Dark Ages." Anna calmly took scissors and cut the whole plant next to her.

The two girls had smaller scissors and carefully cut whole stems so they could dry it.

Just then Alice saw something. "Sister, isn't that rosehip?"

They had roses and their mother even managed to transport one wild rose root to have rose hips in their garden.

So they of course recognized it.

"Let's gather each ten bundles of camomile first and go to rest. The rosehip won't run away. We can gather it day or two before the celebration and bring it as fresh fruit to the market. Some might get buy it to make tea or even jam out of it." She saw bunch of bushes with rose hips and knew she wanted to keep some of it for themselves as rosehips were famously good in the winter time.

Those things they knew they will father, but they still had long way to know more.

She saw actually nettles in bushes as well, but diving into nettles, she isn't crazy. So she literally gave up and gathered carefully camomile.

"If there are few dry days, the camomile would be even better. Sister, gather only those that have still some flowers." Michelle reminded her and so they threw away some they harvested without.

But just as they gathered few dozen of bundles, the rain started slowly dropping and they gave up.

It makes no sense gathering herbs in mid of rainfall.

"Sister, this will be enough camomile for some time. Let's gather next the rosehips and dry them. The dried will be used for tea and the fleshy ones as fruits." Michelle luckily one basic herbs as base of her knowledge so they listened to her.

Actually, all three of them tried to share the knowledge in case of need as you never know what future might bring....