C. Sempronius Gracchus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ad_dicendum) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sixthiterationlogs2017-10-18 10:18 pm
ad_dicendum) wrote in sixthiterationlogs2017-10-18 10:18 pm
† tamen defendebat aerarium | OPEN
WHO: Gaius Gracchus
WHERE: The fields, the storehouse in 6I, around the village, and the Inn
WHEN: October 8-31
OPEN TO: All!!
WARNINGS: Brief mentions of slavery
The seasons are turning. It starts with a chill in the air, nights that are deeper and days when the sun feels a little less bold. Then, of course, the trees start to turn, green shading into gold and through to reds, oranges, browns, so that the woods start to be mottled with autumnal shades. It's Gracchus' first autumn here, but he knows how to read the world around him and see the way this place is rolling towards winter.
He may be a city man, born and raised in and for Rome, but he's also the owner of farmlands, and the patron of Italian farmers. He'd worked for small farmers for years on his agrarian commission, and he'd gotten to know some of them over that time. The patterns of the harvest impacted on his and his brother's support, and he knows them well enough to recognise that the changing leaves and falling temperatures mean that the crops the village has planted will soon need to be stored against the winter.
He spends some time working in the cleared area where the crops have been planted. Some mornings he'll be there, either watching the people at work to learn more about what they're doing, or helping out himself.
He spends more time in the village storehouse with his tablets and stylus, or the set of tools he'd claimed. It's still run-down, like many of the buildings in the village and almost all of them in the village beyond the edge of the canyon. There are holes in the roof and some run-down and damaged parts of the interior he thinks must have been damaged in the recent earthquakes.
The first thing he does is stocktake the storehouse, going from area to area with his tablet and noting down what is where. He still remembers the conversation he'd had with Kate Kelly months ago about planning and organising what they have in storage and what they need. But the most important task, and the one he turns to later in the month, is fixing the damage and cleaning the storehouse. He brings rags and supplies from the Inn for the cleaning, and collects wood from the forest and what's left of the damaged abandoned buildings for repairs. There's not much left to salvage, but he takes what he can find. Some days he's inside working on the walls, and sometimes he's on the roof, and other days he's cleaning, the sort of work he'd once have gotten a slave to do. Whenever anyone comes by, he's glad to accept any help.
He returns to the Inn each night tired from exertion, but pleased with his work, and each evening after the small group that lives there finishes their evening meal, he remains downstairs, planning his next day's work.
[ all locations are open, feel free to catch him in the fields, storehouse, scavenging around the village, or in the Inn]
WHERE: The fields, the storehouse in 6I, around the village, and the Inn
WHEN: October 8-31
OPEN TO: All!!
WARNINGS: Brief mentions of slavery
The seasons are turning. It starts with a chill in the air, nights that are deeper and days when the sun feels a little less bold. Then, of course, the trees start to turn, green shading into gold and through to reds, oranges, browns, so that the woods start to be mottled with autumnal shades. It's Gracchus' first autumn here, but he knows how to read the world around him and see the way this place is rolling towards winter.
He may be a city man, born and raised in and for Rome, but he's also the owner of farmlands, and the patron of Italian farmers. He'd worked for small farmers for years on his agrarian commission, and he'd gotten to know some of them over that time. The patterns of the harvest impacted on his and his brother's support, and he knows them well enough to recognise that the changing leaves and falling temperatures mean that the crops the village has planted will soon need to be stored against the winter.
He spends some time working in the cleared area where the crops have been planted. Some mornings he'll be there, either watching the people at work to learn more about what they're doing, or helping out himself.
He spends more time in the village storehouse with his tablets and stylus, or the set of tools he'd claimed. It's still run-down, like many of the buildings in the village and almost all of them in the village beyond the edge of the canyon. There are holes in the roof and some run-down and damaged parts of the interior he thinks must have been damaged in the recent earthquakes.
The first thing he does is stocktake the storehouse, going from area to area with his tablet and noting down what is where. He still remembers the conversation he'd had with Kate Kelly months ago about planning and organising what they have in storage and what they need. But the most important task, and the one he turns to later in the month, is fixing the damage and cleaning the storehouse. He brings rags and supplies from the Inn for the cleaning, and collects wood from the forest and what's left of the damaged abandoned buildings for repairs. There's not much left to salvage, but he takes what he can find. Some days he's inside working on the walls, and sometimes he's on the roof, and other days he's cleaning, the sort of work he'd once have gotten a slave to do. Whenever anyone comes by, he's glad to accept any help.
He returns to the Inn each night tired from exertion, but pleased with his work, and each evening after the small group that lives there finishes their evening meal, he remains downstairs, planning his next day's work.
[ all locations are open, feel free to catch him in the fields, storehouse, scavenging around the village, or in the Inn]
no subject
They've been talking of many things today that don't often get mentioned in daily conversation here. A cart is a commonplace of everyday life in Rome, presumably in Kate Kelly's world, too, but with no horses here, and few large animals at all, carts aren't mentioned. And for the same reason, they don't need to be considered.
"They damage roads," he continues. "Over time, they wear lines into the stone."
He pauses again, looking ahead to the road that runs in front of the storehouse. "It would be hard to make it very even, and it would take time. It could be possible. We would need to see if we have enough of the right materials."
no subject
"Well, so do feet after long enough time. My grandmama, um, my mother's mother, she told me of churches in the old country, all the steps worn from all the thousands of people walking over them for centuries. Which I hope we don't have to worry about here."
That's a thought, if they do, and not a pleasant one.
"Aye, of course. Although I'm thinkin' that anythin' might be better than just the mud we had last winter. Even if just in front of the Inn and the hall, and this building. We've trees enough, and I saw some sharp lookin' blades from last year. We might have somethin'."
no subject
"Stone would be better, if we can find enough material to put under it."
The roads here haven't been built like Roman ones. They're not paved, and they don't have the sturdy construction and the bedding of gravel that provides the stone with its support. Wood would be less durable, and to repair the road properly would still need the same sort of bedding.
"Although I think If you just want to stop it becoming too muddy, not build a road to last for years, then wood would work."
no subject
But... you're right I think. Stone would be better. We're surrounded by cliffs, we should have loose stones around for cobbles. Or at least, use them to line the roads to keep 'em neat?"
Then she smiles. Charming, sparkling, a little teasing, but in the manner of socially acceptable flirting rather than anything serious or more intentional.
"If that is approved by your Roman standards, anyway."
no subject
"It is not the way we would do it, but this is not Roma." It's not Rome, and it could never hope to be, for all he longs to be in the city he'd been raised to serve.
He pauses, staring into the distance as he considers the roads he'd been involved in building, and the things that the men who'd built them said. "Even a layer of very small stones would make it more stable, if we could not find material for ... did you say 'cobbles'? The large stones on a road surface?"
It is a word he has not heard before, and he would like to be sure he is using it correctly.