Hellenic Homestead Quest

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You descend to the house for the evening, walking in silence along the dirt path, your three sisters following in silence. Agatha is the oldest, and perhaps the wisest, though she is not much of a beauty, her frame worn by farm-work where her sisters are left uncalloused. Aristone is the second eldest sister of yours, though younger than you, unlike Agatha, and is perhaps the most beautiful. Her rich black hair sits in flowing ringlets, and her bright eyes show a keen, warm intellect. She is easily the most marriageable of your sisters, a year into her maturity, and eager to find a husband. Your youngest sister, Sophia, is but a child of ten, with the simple handsomeness of youth about her, and with a great appreciation for you. She has grown up to admire you, more friendly to her than your stern father, and it was you who arranged much of her upbringing, her tutors and such.

As a result of your tutelage, she is the most like you and follows you in all things, even in her lack of feminine delicacy. She is eager to live as you do, managing the affairs of the land, and you worry that she will be hard pressed to find a husband, no matter how much you care for her. The four of you walk through the small collection of worker's houses, just as the sun begins to fall below the horizon. Perhaps twenty men and women dwell on and work within the farm under your command. Five are house-slaves of your family, including Sophia's tutor, and a further five are indentured workers, one of the only real benefits gained by your father's work in settling legal disputes, since these men and women are now indebted to your Line. The remaining nine or ten men are seasonal workers, employed for the sowing season, and paid by the day of work. The weeks to come will require hard work, and if all goes well, you will make a comfortable profit, barring any tragedy.

As you return to the house, you realise, with some magnitude, that all the farm is yours now. Yours to manage, and yours to concern yourself with. You spend the night going over and over the supplies stored in the cellars of the house. Three Amphorae of Olive Oil, four of Wine, a fair amount of sheep's cheese, and perhaps six bushels of barley. Along with a few bags of seed-stock for barley, the tools owned by each of your farm workers, a plough, a heap of firewood, a few sheep's pelts and smoked half-lamb, there is almost nothing else to be found. By some stroke of luck, however, as you look through the mostly empty cellar, you notice something behind the piled up baskets.

>What do you see?
>An old fruit press, for the pressing of fruit, grapes or olives, for the production of olive oil, wine, or other drinks. A fine thing, to be rented out to other landholders or kept for use on any harvests of olives or fruit.
>A Hoplon shield and spear, along with a linothorax, a suit of lacquered cloth armour. With this on hand, you could more properly defend your farmstead, with help.
Cont.

> A full cheese-press and mixing vat. With this equipment, you could produce sheep's cheese far faster, preserving sheep's milk and adding some variety to your diet. Of course, you could also sell the cheese for an extra profit.
>A millstone, and the equipment to build a crank for it, to grind barley into flour without having to rent another farmer's mill.
> A few pickaxes and stone hammers. The equipment to begin work on masonry, and to begin quarrying stone, if you can find a mason with the right expertise.

>>1777153
A millstone and equipment to build the crank please
Any building that we can quickly convert into a mill?

>>1777154
A hand-cranked mill doesn't require much to set up, simply a track for the millstone to run over, and a worker to turn the crank mechanism. It could be done with clay easily enough. but it may be fragile to begin with, and stone would be preferable. You could probably convert one of the worker's houses for the purpose, lodging the crank mechanism in the chimney and placing a track on the inside of the building to be turned by workers to grind grain.

>>1777153
>Cheese press.

We don't have olives or grapes but we have sheep. We need to capitalize on what we have.

>>1777160
We can make cheese without the press and vat and we have barely and some seedstock for it and we can rent it out right away to others who have barley stocked too

>>1777153
>>A millstone, and the equipment to build a crank for it, to grind barley into flour without having to rent another farmer's mill.

>>1777153
>A Hoplon shield and spear, along with a linothorax, a suit of lacquered cloth armour. With this on hand, you could more properly defend your farmstead, with help.
Also, where are we? Hellas itself? Asia? Megale Hellas? Iberia? Perhaps even Bactria?

At first, you do not quite realise what it is you're looking at, but you come to comprehend what the millstone is, and thus what the crank mechanism is. You wonder if your father knew of this before his death, and if so, why he had not constructed a mill. It is no matter now, you suppose, but you are glad to know the mechanism is available for use. Late in the night, you have a slave come to extinguish the candles in the cellars, as you go to your bed, falling asleep with ideas for improvement and prosperity in your mind.


>Stats
>Workforce: 9 Hired Men, 3 Indentured Men, 2 Indentured Women, 3 Female House slaves, 1 Work Slave, 1 Simple Tutor.
>Lands: 6 Fields (2 Fallow, 2 Waste, 2 Fertile), 1 Fine Household and Hamlet, 2 Copses, one with a stream. One Clay pit.
>Raw Resources: Stack of Firewood, Six Bushels of Barley, Smoked Half-Lamb, Three Amphorae of Olive Oil, Three of Wine, 6 Pints of Sheep's Cheese. Barley Seedstock (2 Fields)
>Natural Resources Available: Rich Grasses, Stream, Forests (Oak, Willow), Clay, Fine Rock to be mined.
>Tools: Plough, Mill Mechanism, Common Agricultural Tools, Baskets, Porridge Churns, Kitchen Equipment.
>Livestock: Ajax the Ox, 12 Sheep, 10 Ewes (5 Dairy, 5 Wool), 2 Rams (1 Dairy, 1 Wool).
>Date: Early Spring.

>You awaken on the second morning of spring, and you see your work spread out before you. Your farmhands report for work, and you must begin the harvest soon enough. The barley crop will take around two months to grow fully, the sheep will be lambing in a few weeks, and are just about to enter the period of 180 days during which they can be milked easily (2 Pints a day, as you wish). Houses will need to be repaired, the fields will need to be ploughed, and the roughage will need to be cleared. There is work to be done.

>What do you set the workers at first?

>>1777184
We are a nebulously defined place. I've got a fair grounding in ancient Greek history, but I don't know some of the raw specifics required to accurately display the period. So, for now, assume we are in late Archaic Greece, in a small area of farmland in north-central Greece, perhaps near the borderlands of the plains of Thessaly. I can't promise to be perfect with historical accuracy, but I'll give it my finest attempt.

>>1777188
No, no, scratch that, I'll give you fine folks a choice.

>Black Sea Colony
>Central Greece
>Sicily

>>1777189
Sikelia, my nigga
Have the workers start on the fields. We've managed so far with the houses in their current shape, we can do without repairing them for another week or so.

>>1777193
You call for the day workers, feeling it best to make use of them for the purpose you hired them for. You have them carefully hitch up the jet black hulk of Ox that is Ajax to the plough, and set out for the nearest of your two ready fields. Seven of them in all go along to prepare the field, and another six, the remaining men, go out to prepare the further field, leaving you with your female workforce to give orders to. They are not suited for field work or hard labour, but domestic work suits them well, and they may shear sheep if needed. Fortunately, four of your woollen sheep sit in the sheepfold with full fleeces to be shorn and spun into thread.

You must also arrange the lessons to be taught to Sophia for the week. Cylon, the tutor slave who taught you your numbers and letters, meets with you in the courtyard along with the women reporting for work, requesting in his smooth, old voice, what you wish Sophia to be taught. She is literate enough, in that she can read and write without much difficulty in Ionian Greek, but she has not read many of the classics, and her manners are not at all refined. She is not prepared for fine society, or, really for the management of an estate.

>What work will the women of the farm go about? (They can do other jobs than shearing and weaving, including milking sheep, pressing milk into cheese, gathering clay for pottery and foraging for vegetables.

>What is Sophia taught for the week?
>Delicacy?
>The Classics (Homer, Hesiod)
>Poetry
>The mechanics of the barley harvest?

>>1777204
Have the women shear the sheep.
>The Classics (Homer, Hesiod)

>>1777204
have 3 of the women shear sheep and the remaining 2 gather vegetables. Sophia will learn the Classics. Also, what's the nearest settlement of note?

>>1777215
this sounds better

>>1777215

A few hours by horse, or perhaps half a day's walk there's a village of perhaps a hundred souls, while the city of Calacta is a few days by a horse out towards the coast. Your settlement is in east-central Sicily in a small area of rich farmland.

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You give your orders for the work of the day to commence, and Cylon retires with Sophia to begin relating to her the Classics of Homer. You remember him teaching you those same stories, reciting them in verse, and teaching you to recite key parts yourself. You almost remember a few now, but it is of little importance. The women of the farm set to work shearing the sheep, clipping the long, white wool into fleeces. By the end of the day, they have cleaned the sheep, sheared clean fleeces and prepared them for winding into a thread for use in repairing clothes, or for sale. The wool is of high quality, likely due to the richness of the grass in the sheep-pastures. Your father always argued for allowing them two fields of fallow, and he seems to have been right, though the milking and lambing will be the real test of that. You revel in the smell of warm fleece, before going out to inspect the doings of the plough-workers.

Things do not seem to be going well. Half way through ploughing the rich, dark earth of the field, Ajax' hoof struck a rock in the dirt, almost cracking it. For fear of rendering him lame, he has been set aside to be tended to, and the men of the farm have had to begin manual ploughing, a much slower process. The remainder of the field will require another day and a half of ploughing, while the second field will take another three days to be done entirely manually, unless Ajax is put back to work, risking rendering him lame. You sigh in dismay as an old work-slave describes the situation, and find it hard not to scowl at the bemused plough driver, who fears he will be punished for damaging Ajax and setting the work back.

You have Ajax, trust Ox that he is, rushed back to the stable for some rest among the hay, and realise you must also be running low on your supply of hay. Your father did not dedicate any one field for the growing of hay, and so you will likely be forced to cut and dry out what wild grasses you can, or you must allow Ajax to range the fields, risking his being attacked by wolves and the loss of your only work animal. You contemplate forcing the worker at fault to sign himself over as an indentured servant, though you risk disloyalty if you do, and the other day workers will dislike one of their own being forced into servitude for an accident.

>What do you do?
>Plough Manually, and sign the worker on as a servant.
>Plough manually and let the worker off with half rations and no pay.
>Plough Manually for the day, but put Ajax back to work tomorrow, signing the worker on as a servant.
>Plough Manually for the day, putting Ajax back to work tomorrow, only sign the worker on if Ajax is rendered lame.
>Plough Manually for the day, putting Ajax back to work tomorrow, and let the worker off with half rations.
>Something else? (Write in)

>>1777251
>Plough Manually, and sign the worker on as a servant.
An ox is too precious

>>1777251
>>Plough manually and let the worker off with half rations and no pay.

>>1777416
Fuck it do this

With Ajax carefully sent back to the stable, you order work to continue, but let the worker at fault off with halved rations and without pay, much better than he could have expected under most freeholders, but still a punishment for his foolishness. You lament the loss of Ajax's strength to pull the plough, now that you find yourself perhaps a week late to sow the Barley. You will have to stretch out the food you have now, especially with the Anthesterion coming up. Festivals are a constant interruption to farm work, and while many of your workers will have to put up with whatever celebration you throw for the festival of the first wines, any hired hands will be annoyed to miss out on the three days of merriment. You sigh under the burden, not only of having to stretch food but of having to pay the hired hands for almost a week longer than you would have done. A drachma a head, for nine men, along with a pint of barley and a wedge of cheese a head per night, it is an unfortunate burden, but there is no other way. They will have to work until the fields are ploughed and sown, and then they will have to come back for the harvest in two months time.

You return home to see three baskets of fruits and vegetables at your door, and you smile. At least one endeavour has gone well, and you can claim to have improved the farm's fortunes on the first day of spring, a good omen. Mostly root vegetables, with a few sweet berries and fruits, even a few tart wild grapes. One of the baskets will be added to the women's rations tonight, you decide, and you order your servants and slaves to work handing out the rations to one and all. The sun falls in the sky, and the people of your farmstead settle into comfortable normality. Barley is mashed and mixed with water, cheese is eaten crumbled into this warm gruel, and the few vegetables are roasted into a communal broth for the workers.

You sit on the terrace and spend the night in conversation with Agatha, Aristone, Sophia and Cylon, while Sophia occasionally regales you with bits and pieces of Homer. She tells, with particular interest, of the funeral games of Patroclus. You settle into bed as the sun falls below the horizon and the bugs in the oak copse begin to chirp.

>Choose One:

>Time passes until the ploughing is complete

>Or manage things more in depth for the week.

>>1777499
>>Time passes until the ploughing is complete

>>1777549
I'm going to go get tea, hopefully, there'll be more interest later this evening.

I'm still here. Is anyone else?

>>1777499
>>Time passes until the ploughing is complete
>>1778123
I am. Is incest possible?

>>1778154
Keep it in your pants dude, Incest is for the gods. Don't worry, there will come a time when our character gets married.

>>1777549
>>1778154
Also, good, this is what we're doing. Writing.

>>1778123
Just caught up and will be following, the writing is top notch.

Days go by, and progress is slow but certain. After a week of backbreaking labour, the two fields have been ploughed into neat little furrows. Next, the seeds must be planted. In the time of the week, all the remaining sheep have been shorn, with three fleeces woven into rolls of thread. The sheep have all been milked, and, as you look out over the ploughed farmland on the last day of the week, you smile at the knowledge of the 4 Gallons of milk stored in your cellars. You must find a use for it fast, and you contemplate the dire situation of your cheesery. A small segment of a cellar has been set aside for years for the proper equipment, but for now, a pair of cauldrons and some bronze vessels will have to do to make cheese from the sheep's milk. Butter is a barbarian invention, and thus not suitable for true greeks.

Otherwise, the seeding of the fields will be a quick affair. You may, now, dismiss the hired workers to remove the strain on your treasury. Only a hundred and fourty Drachma remain, and with the labourers being paid one a day, you will run out in two weeks, and that will leave you hard pressed to maintain ownership of your land. Of course, many hands make quick work, and even women may seed a crop field, but you must consider that without a good store of coin, you will never be able to provide the dowry your sisters will need to marry good men. Dilemmas such as these face you daily now, and you worry for the lambing season when your work will only get more hectic. Only five of your six bushels of barley yet remain, and you are keenly aware that the sooner the harvest the better.

>What is the work to be today, and for the next few days? The Festival of Dionysius Approaches at the week's end. Ajax will need hay, or to be released, the milk will spoil quickly, you must decide whether or not to dismiss the labourers and when, and all the problems of preceding weeks still occur. Lambing will likely begin early next week, so it may be advisable to hire experienced shepherds.

>>1778123
Ready to go

>>1778321
Thank you. I'm doing a lot more farm research than I'd thought I would be doing today, along with researching Greek measurements, so I'm glad I'm getting things across properly.

>>1778325
Had to sleep but back!
Let's get rid of most of the hired farm hands let's keep 2 then have the men seed Fields and have the women continue milking and start making cheese and we can set up the mill and send someone out to let others know we are renting it out and let Ajax out to graze

>>1778154
A man of culture i see!
>>1778336
Sup op, saw this earlier but now i can actually join in

>>1778325
>Focus on seeding the fields and turning the milk into cheese. Milking comes after everything else.
>Keep the labourers untill the seeding is done
>release ajax for graze

>>1778469
I'd rather get the time important work done fast with more hands, and then we can set up the mill. We can rent it as you said and also sell cheese.

>>1778469
>>1778325
Sounds good, backing

>>1778493
>>1778469
>>1778325
Ill switch my vote to keeping farm hands around for seeding to spend things along but our mill'pitchman' should also look for someone to help with the lambing

>>1778529
I agree, we need professional help with lambing

After a hard day's work seeding the field, you stride out to join the men. 13 in all, nine of their number hired hands. You call them all together and announce that they are no longer needed. The young men nod, with the older men stroking their beards. You look into their eyes, and they seem satisfied with their work. You must say you agree. The land is ploughed, and the seeding is well underway. You have seen things far worse on the farm, and these men have worked hard. Three of the youngest workers are kept on, along with an older man, a much-reduced burden of payment, and they set back to work immediately, safe in the knowledge that their pay will continue. The others follow you back to the house, and you hand out their final payments, with a double ration of barley as thanks for their good service. They leave, cheered by the bonus, striking up a walking song, cheering for your name, as they collect their belongings and head out.

Your indentured servants scowl to watch them go, but the seeding continues and is finished earlier than scheduled, by the fourth day of the week. The fields will yield perhaps 32 bushels each, enough to last a full year split among the permanent farm staff without supplements of cheese, fruit and what you can purchase from others. You may even be able to sell a few bushels for a profit, along with the excess lambs, and the spare woollen thread of the fleeces. If all goes well, you'll likely make a fair profit over the years, though not a dramatically successful one.

The remaining four men are released on their fourth day of service, and you can retire to the daily work of the farm. Irrigation ditches must be maintained, firewood must be gathered, tools must be repaired, and the lambs must be attended to. 115 Drachmae remain in your possession, and though the work of subsistence has been half completed, work remains to be done. The milk of the week, several amphorae of it, is poured out into the cauldrons, and work begins on turning it to cheese.

>Cont. (We're gonna learn about cheese-making, oh, and daily life for our character)

The cheese is poured out into the cauldrons, which are heated for a fair while, before being stirred with the long staves kept for this purpose. None quite know why, but cheese is at its best when these implements are used, from year to year, and when the scrapings of a lamb's stomach are emptied into the mixture as it cools, separating into more solid curds and liquid whey. A short while passes, before the cheese is deemed to be ready, and is wrapped up in a thin cloth to be drained of whey until all that remains are semi-solid bags of strong smelling sheep curd. Around half of the cheese is removed from the bags, shaped into small wheels of crumbly cheese, used in soups and gruels, while the remainder is dropped into burning hot cauldrons of water, scalding the cheese to render it hard, making it last much longer, for storage and eating later. By the time the seeds have been fully sown, not only do the cellars stink with the pungent scent of warm cheese, you have a great deal of fine, rich cheeses available, pressed into wheels.

The soft cheese is made from a family recipe of your mothers, who related it to Agatha before she died, and is a delicacy. It crumbles apart into a tart, half-sweet pile as you eat it, before melting away in your mouth. You rest on the terrace on a warm spring evening, enjoying the finest cheese of the week's work, tasting it crumble apart along with your sisters and Cylon. It is a simple pleasure, but it makes gruel much more bearable. The Hard Cheese, while not so delectable, is perfect for storage. The broad, deep wheels of the cheese sit piled up in the cellar, large and quickly covered by a thin mould, adding to the flavour. The cheese will not rot, and will only improve with time. It makes the field lunches of the workers much more pleasant, and much more can and will be made once the Lambs are old enough to not need their mother's milk. You spend your days hard at work now, planning out the construction of a mill track, managing Sophia's education, conversing with Agatha and Cylon, or, for the most part, working as an overseer.

Your orders keep the irrigation ditches restored, and you set to work soon enough on the project of your heart, setting up the hand-mill. Scattered stones are collected and mortar is crushed up. The stones and mortar are assembled into a column, with a pillar in the centre to bear and hold the mechanism. The long wooden crank sits on the opposite side of the mechanism from the millstone, which runs on a chiselled track in the construction, which sits a short way from your home. It takes a fair while to construct, but soon enough, it is done. A few days before it is complete, you dispatch your male house slave, Calliston, a swift young man who's father served the family, to the nearby village, and set Ajax to his pasture. You sit, one picturesque evening, once your work is done, with the great Ox, watching his heaving breaths against the rich spring grasses, and feel content.

Cont.

You do not live a complex life, but you enjoy the hard work of your days. You are a lean, strong bodied young man in perhaps his twentieth year, with a full black beard and hair to match, with rich olive complexion, as with your sisters. Your eyes shine as Sophias do, and you speak with the broad, polite delicacy that Agatha shares. You are not sure of it, your father not indulging in such things as whores, as many landowners do, but you suppose from the whisperings of the farm-women that you are an attractive young man, and you try your utmost to take care of yourself. You work on a comfortable ration but exercise daily, with a particular aptitude for an evening run or a short swim in the spring pond in the willow copse.

You are content, for now, to live with your friends and sisters. The slaves and servants are all those who have worked alongside you since your youth, and most respect you well enough or even like you. You hear whisperings that you should yet take a wife, but you've not yet much of an interest in such concerns. Besides, you could not decently quarter a wife in the household, and you do not know many outside of the farmstead.

Calliston returns within the day after a short run, his tunic frayed and covered in dust, but he tells you that a few of your neighbouring landowners would be glad to trade wine and olive oil for use of your mill when the harvest comes. Your nearest name, Athenodorus, an old Attic merchant who retired to the land to farm sheep and goats, and to contemplate the gods, has many shepherds and is willing to spare two on your behalf for a week, in exchange for one of your five wheels of hard cheese. They should be able to teach how to lamb in that time, and you will likely have the first few ewes done with soon enough.

>Do you take the offer? (3 days until the Lambing begins. You may milk the sheep during this time, but if you are not careful, you may malnourish the lambs.

>What do the other workers do during the lambing?

Oh, and there's a festival to Dionysius in two days, the day before lambing is supposed to begin.

>>1778808
We'll take the offer and milk the sheep for the next two days
If we mill our barley will the flour be a better food source?

>>1778845
Flour has numerous benefits. First, it keeps longer, second, it produces bread, which is both higher quality and, I believe, more nutritious than crushed barley. People will enjoy bread more, and it will be easier to produce in bulk, and certainly more suitable for proper meals. You can even supplement flour with wild grains or seeds, to make more out of less in a way you can't with raw barley. Also, it's better for sale, and makes a finer gruel, while being less labour intensive overall.

Sorry folks, I need sleep. I'll be back tomorrow. I hope everyone's enjoyed this so far.

>>1778921
Rest well, OP.

I've just been reading through your posts but I can tell you've put some effort into this; nice job.

>>1778921
Just woke up from a nap myself
Take care op!

>>1778808
Take the offer and begin grinding barley into flour

What if we go full chief tier and start inventing new foods(maybe we can make the proto pizza) while getting sophia into cooking and all that shit so she has a way to impress hot young men and get married while getting a good reputation and make some money along the way

>>1779505
Where would the inspiration come from tho?
We can't just invent it out of nowhere

>>1779505
We can't just make things out of the blue mate

>>1779505
I'm just waiting for the point where our homestead ends up becoming a major city and Hellenic Homestead Quest evolves into Hellenic Polis Quest, complete with a rivalry with Syracuse

>>1779580
>>1779560
I mean inventing """""""""""new foods"""""""""""
I don't mean doing more modern things, i more mean experimenting with flour and cheese and shit
Fundamentaly pizza is just bread with sauce and cheese
We don't have ingridents like tomatoes and garlic but we can make do with alfredo sauce or simply no sauce

I'll be back within the hour

>>1778808
>accept the offer
>start turning barley into flour
>sent some women to gather clay for pottery, if they are not needed with milling

We probally could head out and take part to the festival

>>1778808
>>1778845
>>1781490
And I'll back women collecting clay

Folks, the offer was to mill barley after the harvest. They've just planted their own Barley, and want to mill it in two months.

>>1779601
Maybe someday, my friend, but we've got a long way to go.

With the fact that the barley milling offer is two months away, what do you want to do in the meantime? To store flour, you will need sacks and such, and the lambing does still begin in three days, with the Anthesteria, the festival of Dionysius, beginning in just two days. You can either throw a party yourself or go to the village, contribute resources and join the party. The festival, in cities, consists of three days of drinking, but in a rural setting is usually just a half day off work with freedom to get roaringly drunk.

>Stats
>Workforce:3 Indentured Men, 2 Indentured Women, 3 Female House slaves, 1 Work Slave (Calliston), 1 Simple Tutor (Cylon).
>Lands: 6 Fields (2 Fallow, 2 Waste, 2 Sown with Barley (2 Months remaining)), 1 Fine Household and Hamlet, 2 Copses, one with a stream. One Clay pit. One functional hand-mill
>Raw Resources: Stack of Firewood, Five Bushels of Barley, Smoked Half-Lamb, Three Amphorae of Olive Oil, Three of Wine, 16 Pints of Soft Sheep's Cheese, 32 Pints of Hard Sheep's Cheese.
>Natural Resources Available: Rich Grasses, Stream, Forests (Oak, Willow), Clay, Fine Rock to be mined.
>Tools: Plough, Common Agricultural Tools, Baskets, Porridge Churns, Kitchen Equipment.
>Livestock: Ajax the Ox (Injured), 12 Sheep, 10 Pregnant Ewes (5 Dairy, 5 Wool), 2 Rams (1 Dairy, 1 Wool).
>Livestock Information: Ajax can pull a plough, dramatically increasing the rate of ploughing the fields. Dairy ewes can be milked for three pints a day, excepting during the time of feeding their young, when it is wise only to take one pint if only one lamb is born to the ewe, but these dairy sheep grow thinner, less usable wool. By contrast, Wool Sheep grow longer, hardier wool, but produce only two pints of milk, meaning that they cannot be milked during the early months of their lamb's lives.
>Date: Half way through the first month of spring.

>You awaken on the fifth day of the second week of spring, with two days before the Anthesteria, and three days before the lambing season begins, lasting around a month and a half at longest. Each ewe may expect at least one lamb, though the dairy ewes commonly produce twins, or even, very rarely, triplets. It is considered a good omen to sacrifice a third-born lamb to Demeter for good harvests. All ewes will need to be brought into the sheepfold to give birth safely, and you will have to work day and night. Hopefully, by the year's end, you will have up to 20 more lambs, though fifteen is more likely, not to consider the lambs that will be slaughtered, sold or will die in infancy. The Anthesteria is also vital in the coming weeks, as a time to arrange the marriages of young women, and you will likely be approached about making matches for Agatha or Aristone.

>What do you set the workers at first?

>>1781563
Begin making sacks for storage of flour and prepare for the feast in 2 days. Plan to go to the city to find a match for your sisters and maybe yourself.

I'm going to need some more people to actually run this, so we're on hold for a while.

>>1781715

I'm here, just lurking
Just saiyan

>>1781645
Supporting

>>1781645
Supporting this as well.

Bump?

>>1779505
>>1779560
proto pizza existed in Italy at the time of the Iliad if Virgil is to believed. The survivors of troy where told that they'd "eat their tables before they get to Italy" when they enter Italy they eat flatbread with toppings and think that they look like tables.

>>1781563
>2 Rams (1 Dairy, 1 Wool).
Are we milking a ram?

>>1781861
No, it's the species.

>>1781645
I'll write this up shortly.

>>1781645

It is steady work for the women in your employ to weave sheep's fleeces into long threads. Their spindles whirl until late in the evening most nights, repairing clothing, and winding the thread onto racks for use and sale. Even Agatha and Aristone like to use the wool in the crafting and maintenance of their own clothes. Agatha recently began work producing woollen sacks for the storage of flour, an initiative taken up by the other women as lighter work than could otherwise be expected of them. For two days, simple work goes on, as the wool is woven and formed into sacking, piled up in the cellar, along with the cheese making equipment, and the mounting piles of cheese wheels. You have done well for yourself, and fast, and you often have time to rest from your labours.

Agatha is glad of the work you give her and seems as quiet, hardworking and simply wise as usual, her stoic frame sitting for hours on end at work. You come to appreciate her more and more, in knowing how much she works to keep the house in order, and to ensure you are provided with your breakfasts and evening meals. You do not know what you would do without her intelligent eyes and her wise words to guide you in domestic matters, but you know she must soon be married. She is in her twenty-fifth year and must find a husband soon. She is at such an age unmarried due to a tragedy you barely remember in your youth. She had been promised to a young homesteader with a mason's shop in Calacta, who she had fallen for as he travelled past the farmstead on the way to his new lodgings, but the youth had been unfaithful, and your father had been forced to break the engagement. You remember none of these events, only hearing the rumbling bellow of your father through the walls of the house, and the sobs of the younger Agatha.

You must pity her, but more, you must find her a husband. Aristone too seems desperate to marry. She holds none of the comfortable domesticity of Agatha, her fiery temperament matched by her intense good looks. Even you must admit she is intensely beautiful, and any man would be glad to have her, with a good dowry or no. She is adventurous and energetic, and you can tell she has come to despise her life on the farmstead. You are keenly aware that she must be married soon, or she will take matters into her own hands, and bring great shame to her family.

You plan on heading to Perion, the nearby village, to join the festivities there. You must, however, take some supplies with you.

>You must take a sacrifice or offering to Dionysius for the Anthesteria, and it is considered in poor faith not to bring wine.

>What will you do?

>>1782007
lets bring one agora of wine and an old sheep that isn't breading.

>>1782007
Two jugs of wine and a healthy sheep

>>1782131
seconding

Don't forget to bring some of the older cheese

>>1782131
now that I think about it, lets also bring one wheel of soft cheese and some hard cheese, and use the soft one to get connections with people.

>>1782222
this plus keep on the lookout for respectable looking mates for ourselves and our sisters

Hmmm
I kinda don't wanna get rid of Agatha so soon, she seems to do pretty well in the farm
Maybe convince her future partner to come live with us?

>>1779505
Proto pizza existed a long time among the Greeks and Romans. It was very popular among soldiers who would use their shields to cook the flatbread with some toppings on it.


>>1779560
So long as we could theoretically notice certain things. Like say how dead things when buried near plants results in better plant growth. This is something we could notice and think on IC.

From there with a bit of work we figure out fertilizer.

Rotation farming meanwhile we can figure out simply that when using the same field over and over again. The crops don't grow so well and are much more liable to pests if its always the same kind of crop.

>>1781549
Some kind of project would be good but I really don't know what.

>>1782355
I'll back this. That soft cheese should hopefully prove popular.

>>1782424
We want her husband to be someone with a home, not a tramp.