Chapter 31: Act 1: Chapter 25

Sixth day, Eleventh Moon, 240 AC

As I finished grinding the mixture, I inspected the finely grained powder in the mortar and noted the rich color. It had taken a lot of work to get the process right, since I only half-remembered it, but it appeared I had finally made a good, blue pigment for painting.

An old girlfriend of mine had been really into natural things, vegan diets and the like. One of the many things that she liked to do was make her own paint for her artwork. Some of it rubbed off on me because I did end up looking how to make my own outdoor paint, though I never did make any myself. It took a long time to get my materials, and more time still to get the process right, but it looked like I finally had it.

The process had been called smalt and getting the right portions and heating had been tricky, since I didn't actually remember any details. It was now the moment of truth. I mix a small portion of the pigment with my linseed oil and started to create a patch of paint. Once it was properly mixed and resembled paint, I applied it to a spare piece of lumber and set it aside to dry. I would have to wait until it dried for the final result, but the color looked good, the consistency of the paint looked professional, and it didn't appear to be flaking at all.

Happily, I began to clean up my workstation and put away the blue pigment in a clay jar next to my other pigments. I made the primary colors my goal, and if I succeeded with my blue pigment I would be able to make a wide range of paints.

Blue had been the hardest color to create, because is ordinarily it was an expensive color made from exotic plants and animals, or from precious gems. Green on the other hand was fairly easy; there was something called verdigris is a common by-product of winemaking, and the use of malachite, which is a semi-precious gem is also used. I had obtained both easily enough and making two different greens had been simple.

Red was also easy, just using red clay created that pigment easy enough; Brown was made from dirt, and black from charred bone. Hopefully, with this selection I could make any color I need. I know that a lot of these colors could be made fairly easily with different chemicals, and I even remember which chemicals, but the trouble was that I don't know how to get these chemicals. Sure, if I could walk down to the store and ask for some zinc oxide, then it would be super easy. Unfortunately, I have to work with what I've got. At least with the linseed oil that I had made over the years I was set for the future. Linseed oil itself was fairly easy to make, if time consuming, and I had been making it for years.

One of the next projects I had in mind, was purely vanity and nostalgia. I really wanted to paint some of my machines in the John Deere colors, to help me remember Earth. Even with some of the negative things they had started to do in recent years, the color scheme really brought back memories. I had already coated most of the parts of my machines in linseed oil, but some of the replacements I made lacked that oil, as well as the new larger machines I was building. So, I figured I would kill two birds with one stone. I was bound to get questions from the other farmers, but I figured it was worth the hassle. Nyra was just amused. Although, when I told her that when we next expanded the house I would do a complete refurbishment, she was much more impressed. I really wanted to paint the house and add some more color into our lives.

It wasn't the most important of tasks, but not everything can be about work.

My other projects were a mixture of success, failure, and somewhere in between.

I had started on shaping some oak, so that I could make some leaf springs as I had decided on my trip back from Deepwood not to bother with metal at first. I figured shaped oak planks might serve fine on a wagon like mine, and with smaller weights. No need to jump to expensive iron or steel right at the start when I might not need it anyways.

As I finished tidying up the paint, I looked over my work area at my other projects.

My paper making project was still ongoing, even after all these years, and I still didn't know how close I was to getting a good product. I had kept the paper-making project to myself mostly, since I knew it would work but I did not want everyone to laugh like they did with my sword-spear. I knew paper was a thing, but all I really remembered regarding how to make it was that: wood was pulped, then squeezed and then heated. It had taken many years, mainly because it wasn't even a minor priority, and the 'paper' I ended up with was still crumbly.

I sighed as I looked over my paper-making notes, idly wishing these notes were on actual paper instead of bark and noted the results of my last attempt. Maybe the next time I will lower the heat, and run it through the heating process twice? More of a slow cook?

I made a note of that for my future tests and moved on. I would get it eventually.

My next project was something I was calling 'maple sugar'. I wasn't sure if it was an actual thing back on Earth, but I figured it must have been at some point. I discovered it accidentally a few winters back, when I was making syrup from the sap, and I accidentally overcooked a batch. It turned into a mostly burnt mess, but a small portion of it looked like a sugar. I had experimented a bit with some of my existing syrup and refined the process until I had a somewhat reliable method for creating the maple sugar.

Unfortunately, we had run out of syrup a while back, so I was unable to continue trying to make any. I had the idea of the process down, but I needed to refine it and get some more practice before I could make it without burning it. The syrup needed to be carefully heated, and then once it started to bubble it needed to be cooled down, all the while stirring and making sure nothing burned.

I had talked with Koryn and Zane, and we would increase our production this upcoming spring. With our families growing, and able to take more responsibility, we decided to make a bigger operation and collect more maple syrup. This summer we had built up a little cabin for us to use near a large maple orchard to the south-east of us and started making more tools so that we could harvest it all.

I was looking forward to getting my hands on the maple sugar, as I knew it would be great for cooking, and I was interested to see what it's other properties were. I figured it would work for creating jams, which would save me a lot of money on buying white sugar. I was also interested in seeing if I could use it instead of white sugar in my rubbing alcohol. I didn't know if they were chemically similar, and I didn't really know how to check other than by trying to see if it would still create the alcohol.

Speaking of alcohol, my other project was to make some whiskey. Back on Earth, I was never a huge whiskey drinker, and I never thought to make it here. But after talking with Koryn a few moons back, I decided to expand my drink cabinet a bit. It would be a fun little project, and I already had most of the equipment I needed so it should be fairly straightforward.

My final major project was the semi-dwarf wheat. That was the wheat that pretty much everyone grew back on Earth, which was created in the 1940s. It was a crop that had a much shorter stalk, so it was lower to the ground, which meant that it was more resistant to wind and could support more grain per head. The grain I currently had was much taller, and much riskier. The past harvest showed that rain and wind could severely damage the crop, and that I really needed a solution.

Unfortunately, my current efforts were miniscule as I was selecting seed from the best plants I could. Picking for traits like height, quality, yield per head, and other things like that. There was only so much variation per strain, so eventually I would have a different strain of wheat, I wouldn't be alive to see the change. It typically took 12 years to create a new strain, and I had not yet been at it that long, so I still wasn't finished this first round of changes. I needed a new strain to cross-breed.

The North, as much as I had seen at least, all had the same strain which did not help me. The Crownlands if my memory was correct had something like this. I never paid attention to it as a child, and my memory while I was a child was shoddy at best. So, while it might help, I still would not see a semi-dwarf strain as a result of my work. I didn't know what the other regions had, but I can't imagine it would be that different from the Crownlands.

The migration of wheat strains followed human populations and differed over time. The First Men who came to Westeros first, likely had the precursor of the strain of wheat that I had now. They would have spread it all over Westeros and farmed it. When the Andals came, they would have brought their own, and probably replaced the First Men's wheat with their own. The question really, is how different the strains were before they moved from Essos to Westeros, and the time difference between movements.

History in Westeros was spotty as far as I was aware and were pretty vague on when the First Men came and how long after the Andals invaded. Also, no one knew where the First Men came from. Andals came from Andalos, so I could probably ignore wheat from there. On Earth, a Japanese breed was needed, but if there was a place like that here, the distance would be too far. Long sea voyages didn't become common until after the medieval ages, and while I wasn't at all knowledgeable on boats, I didn't think Westerosi ships would be able to manage.

My merchant contacts were limited and trying to convey what I was looking for would be difficult, especially for a non-farmer to understand. Especially, if the merchants kept passing along the information to another merchant. The next time Rodrick came by, I would talk to him and try anyways, but I was not hopeful.

A cry from Ryden shouted from outside accompanied by arguing from Violet and Eve. With a sigh, I pushed all my notes back onto the shelf and went outside to see what set off the newest round of fighting.

At least it was a beautiful day outside.