Goats are stubborn

After checking all the traps, even though some had failed, they had enough dried meat by the end of it and more. Marcus had officially ran out of salt though. Some traps had failed because they hadn't been set correctly so Marcus fixed a few and took the rest down safely so they could A, have a meal for tonight to celebrate their success and B not make the ENTIRE population of animals go extinct in the valley.

It wasn't like they could get close though. Centuries without humans allowed them to increase in such numbers that they were doing them a favour. It was still good to build sustainable habits however in case the destruction humans had wrought to the environment was responsible for the collapse.

It had been a month now since Marya died and everyone was finally starting to stop comparing things to her or saying, "she would know how."

Instead, everyone had pushed forward and learnt immensely from the bunker's library. They were just as good if not more accustomed to surviving than Marya had been. They still missed her though. That would never change.

So it was now that they'd all decided to start constructing a barn for the animals. After all, Autumn had fully set in now. All the trees had lost their leaves except for the evergreen ones. Squirrels were getting ready to hibernate.

Plants were becoming more dormant so Marcus had read up on drying herbs to preserve some of the more useful ones. His botanist skill had increased exponentially because of it. It was almost at level 25 which made him wonder how many skill points he could get once it surpassed that threshold.

The descriptions on plants became way more useful. Sometimes he'd even have to skip through information because of how much there was. Medicinal values, nutritional values, practical uses, growing conditions, it seemed that plants had more uses than any tool OR weapon.

One thing they couldn't just learn from reading was construction so things started off slow. To make the walls extra thick for keeping heat in, they decided to make an inside layer first. Using their hatchets, everyone chipped away at thick logs (each a metre long) to give them pointy ends.

These were then stuck in the ground vertically next to each other in pairs with a gap in between. This allowed more logs without ends chipped away to fit in between the gaps. They easily stacked to make walls. They weren't very tall but acted as useful foundations for the second layer.

The second or 'outer' layer was an adobe mixture with lots of mud. It stuck to the wooden walls quite well until they'd covered it completely. Kind of similar to stone age roundhouses. The structure was sought of roundish anyway so it made sense. It would be large enough for many chickens to roost on one end plus two goats on the opposite side.

Although no one tended to have left overs because food was so much more valuable in this world, we gave them to the chickens so nothing was wasted. Even if they had been just fine sleeping in the cold without us before, we wanted them to have the energy to keep warm AND lay more eggs. That's why we threw all our efforts into building the barn.

We could have probably kept going upward with the adobe mud mix but just to be safe, we cut down some bamboo to make a frame. It was easy to stick the bamboo poles into the mud walls and then add more around them to keep them in place. They weaved long, thin and twisty willow branches in between the upright bamboo poles too.

This made it even easier to apply more mud so they could fix more bamboo in place so they could weave more willow so they could apply more mud. It was very repetitive but at least everyone was more than used to getting their hands dirty by the end of it.

For the roof, they fixed two more bamboo poles on opposite side of the hut. Carving notches into the top of both made it easy to fix a straight stick accross to bridge the gap in between and it was easy to just lean other sticks against it and plant the ends into the mud walls.

It was exciting whenever someone came up with each idea. During the rye grass harvest, Marcus had made sure after removing the grain, the actual strands of grass would be put to good use too.

Bundles of it had been stored away for when the time arrived which was now. They were used as the thatch for the roof. Even for filling in the sides of the roof too where more vertical pieces of bamboo were fixed. It had taken them a week but now the barn was finally complete. On the outside.

Another week was spent filling the inside with branches for roosting, troths carved from logs or sculpted from clay, left over dry grass for bedding, and so much more. Marcus had added a sturdy wooden pole in the middle to help support the roof as well.

Instead of blocking the entrance with a half made door, they put together a fence around the entrance with a gate for them to go in and out. It was made just like the old chicken coup but more sturdy to contain the goats and of course had a roof to stop chickens from flying out.

They didn't cover it though so light could still shine through. That way they could shelter from the rain inside the barn and get some sun in the cage-like entrance. It didn't feel like a cage with the amount of space they were being given. Though they'd need to provide the goats with lots of food as the grass was sure to disappear after a day or two of them settling in.

Moving the chickens wasn't too hard as it was easy to pin them in their really small coup but the cockerel scratched James on his right cheek in a scrap. "Ah! Why is it always me?!" He yelped.

Sam cleaned the wound and used one of the many plasters to fix him up. James didn't complain. In fact, it was almost as though he enjoyed the attention from Sam. When she had to lean in close to stick the plaster on properly, Marcus saw James' cheeks flush a little.

The chickens definitely preferred the barn to their previous chicken coup as they had more space. Some of them began making nests in the straw under the roosts immediately while others began foraging in the new environment. It was much easier to feed them with the troths as well as give them fresh water.

The goats on the other hand caused trouble for everyone. They weren't planning on wrestling the mountain goats into the barn as that would be suicide but even the small, domestic looking ones weren't very cooperative.

Eventually, Marcus managed to wrestle a male to the ground. It was more obedient after that and let them take him to the barn along with one of the females. They wanted to rear their own goats like with the chickens so wild populations weren't affected. The chicks were nearly as big as their parents now and had established themselves in the pecking order.

Marcus let the goats get accustomed to the barn and their enclosure. They generally let the chickens be and slept on their side of the hut so all was well. It was a good thing too. As of now, the grass in the morning was coated with a white sheen of frost.