what a garden to be made ( OPEN )

[ethnobotany]

WHO: Beverly Crusher
WHERE: Hospital, outside House #15
WHEN: Second week of May
OPEN TO: Anyone, with one closed for Wanda
WARNINGS: Nothing for now, will update if necessary
STATUS: OPEN

---

HOUSE #15

It was a strange box she'd found that morning. What was even more strange was what she had found inside the box. A bunch of seeds of all sizes and shapes stared up at her, glinting in the little bit of light filtering through. What startled her more than those were the gardening tools resting above the seeds. It was like someone knew she liked gardening, knew she would want to help out and wanted a garden of her own. Was this something those Observers she had heard so much about liked to do?

Pulling out the tools, she set them aside and began to sort through the seeds. There were so many, she barely even knew where to start. Two of most things, except one willow and four aloe. The willow made sense, though she hoped it was the seed for a smaller willow tree. The aloe plant also made sense. The more aloe they had, the better off everyone would be. Some of these would have to wait for a greenhouse or something of the sort. Otherwise, the climate here would kill them. But some she could go ahead and plant.

So for the rest of the week, she could be found outside when she wasn't on a shift at the hospital. With tools in hand, she's either working on getting some of the seeds into the ground or trying to remember how Annie and Finnick were doing their fence so she can make her own. The last thing she wants is to have her new garden get eaten or run over when it finally starts to grow. She makes a point of looking for anyone who might want to help on either one of these endeavors.


HOSPITAL

Her colleagues at the hospital are all very important here. Beverly doesn't know what each of them knows about herbal remedies, but she sees no reason not to offer what she does know to them. The more of a supply of those remedies they have and the more people who know what they are and how to use them, the better. So at some point during the day, she finds each of them, walking up to ask a few simple questions.

"I've just received a bunch of seeds for herbs and plants we can use for medicine and poultices when they finally grow. How much do you know about medicinal herbs?"


WANDA

Wanda is one of the people Beverly wants most to work on her garden with. Unfortunately, not knowing Wanda's schedule means she isn't familiar with the proper times and places to try to catch her. So Beverly sorts out a handful of the ones she wants to plant now, setting them aside so she can plant them with Wanda at a later date. It isn't until the end of the week that she finally happens to make it into the Inn at the right time to find Wanda. Making her way over, again being careful not to sneak up on her, she offers a small but very warm smile.

"I remember you being interested in gardening," she comments easily. "I've just discovered a whole bunch of seeds that I'd like to plant. If you're interested, maybe you could help me."

Comments

Hospital

[asklepian]

Julian has been meticulously going over every inch of the hospital to see if there's anything they've missed - tools or medicines that might have been left behind - between helping people and speaking to others wandering in.

It's been months, Nerys said, so he's not necessarily expecting to find anything. But it doesn't hurt to look, even if he's taken a break for the moment and is sitting with a cup of water somewhere out of the way when Doctor Crusher approaches him.

"Mostly what we were taught in survival courses, honestly. I've seen some plants from Bajor and various planets in the Gamma Quadrant to test their medicinal properties, but obviously we wouldn't have any of those around here."

[ethnobotany]

It's good to know what her fellow Starfleet officer is used to, given that they only get so much training in Starfleet. Usually, it's good training, but at this point in their lives, Beverly is fairly certain they could have used a few more years in ancient technology.

She nods at his answer. "Well, I don't have anything sprouting right now, but I thought that having a decent supply of medicinal plants and the like, Earth variety as far as I can tell, for our use here would be ideal. I'd be happy to teach you anything you don't already know about how to use everything."

[pretendtoneedme]

Beverly might have seen Clint coming and going from just a little further up the road than her own house sometimes. He tends not to spend a lot of time in House 20 during the day, definitely being the type of person that keeps busy without any prompting from anyone else, but of course he always comes back to the place he's currently living in at the end of the day, usually with a stack of wood strapped across his back or meat for the pot. Just through one thing or another they've never managed to run across each other before now, but this time as he goes home, with wood for the furnace, it's the right timing to spot the blonde woman about his age standing outside one of the houses down the lane from his and looking lost.

The reason for the lost look is fairly obvious; there's a stack of wood scraps nearby a section of the ground that looks like it's been turned over for planting, if his memory of what it looked like when Laura was starting their own little vegetable plot serves him. It's been a few years, but he's pretty sure it does. And if she's planting, she's probably wanting to protect those plants from the wildlife, which needs a fence, hence the wood - but if she's looking lost, she probably doesn't know what to do with that stuff.

Might as well offer. "Need some help?"

[ethnobotany]

Beverly is a doctor, a healer, an actor, a playwright, a cyberneticist, and an ethnobotanist. A carpenter she is not. It's so far out of her comfort zone that she's currently trying to figure out where to start. It probably has to do with getting the posts into the ground, turning the soil over like with plants. Finding a way to get them to stay.

She's just decided to dig in the dirt a little more to figure it out when someone calls out to her. Glancing up, she can't help the slightly relieved look on her face.

"If you don't mind," she replies. "I'm not exactly carpenter material. I was just trying to decide where to start."

[pretendtoneedme]

"So you are building a fence?" It's phrased as a question, but it's clear Clint's certain that's the answer, and that he's not surprised by her statement. He can help out with that, definitely, so he drops the load of wood against the side of the house as he makes his way over. He probably won't be doing any actual fence building right away, but he still wants his hands free in case it does turn out that way. "I did some of this work at home, so I can give you a hand if you want." It wouldn't even be nearly the first time he's put up a fence.

Glancing over the area that seems to be her work site, Clint sinks down so he's balanced on the balls of his feet, bracing his arms on his legs as he gets a better look. He's quiet for a minute, judging the area, before looking up at Beverly. "First thing you're gonna want to do is make some post holes, which isn't gonna be a lot of fun without a holer. Is this the whole space you want to fence?"

[ethnobotany]

Clint is right about what Beverly is trying to do and even though there's no need to respond, she nods anyway. "Honestly, I could use any help you're willing to give," she says genuinely. Really, she's happy for the offer. She has no idea what she's doing.

He'll be able to see where she's started turning over the ground to plant and where she's dug a shallow line to delineate the general idea of a fence. Her head tilts at the thought of a holer. She doesn't have one of those, but she does have something that might help. "Would a hand trowel or a hand hoe help at all? They're not very large, but they might be useful." At any rate, they're probably better than nothing.

[pretendtoneedme]

"Better than nothing," he responds, unconsciously imitating her thought, but it is true. Grabbing a nearby stick he's pretty sure she swept aside in clearing the space for her garden, Clint starts making rough circles along the line she's inscribed for the garden's perimeter. "You're mostly wanting to keep animals out, right? I wish we had some chicken wire, but we can work something out. We don't have a long of long pieces of wood, so your posts are gonna have to be closer together than I'd normally make 'em, and you need some kind of gate. At least there's hinges off the doors in the destroyed buildings."

His words are more or less half to Beverly and half stream-of-conscious. His face is set in a contemplative expression, clearly thinking things through and making rough plans as he moves along the line scratching in more circles. "Split rail's all we're gonna be able to do here, but that won't keep the smaller animals out- huh... maybe that'd do it..."

House 15!

[fishermansweater]

Finnick likes to vary his route when he's returning to the house he shares with Annie and the birds. Part of it is habit, obscuring where he's going though where they live and the fact that somebody is now living in their house are hardly secrets anymore. But there's another reason, too, and that is that it allows him to observe the village. He looks for changes in the houses, things that might suggest when someone has taken up a new residence somewhere. He listens for information.

And, today, he sees Beverly out the front of one of the houses, looking at the yard, where there are large patches of freshly dug earth. Usually he doesn't stop to talk when he's out scouting, but that's mostly because there still aren't many people here he feels the need to speak with whenever he sees them. (He's under no illusions that he's popular here, and he doesn't care. He's had enough of popularity.)

Beverly, though, has been kind, and she seems puzzled at something. Beside that, he's curious what she's been planting.

"You've been busy."

[ethnobotany]

She's still in the planning stages at the moment, mapping out where she might want the fence that she isn't sure how to build just yet. So when she hears Finnick's voice, she turns with a warm smile. He's been fairly kind so far and she likes him well enough. Besides, he and Annie taught her a bit about fencing earlier. Maybe they would be willing to do so again.

"Just the person I wanted to see," she comments easily. "I found a box of seeds and gardening tools today, so I thought I'd start that gardening project I wanted. But I would feel better about having a fence up. Any chance I could ask you to help with that?"

He's free to say no, of course, but she hopes he won't.

[fishermansweater]

People don't usually ask Finnick for help. Here, he's been suspicious and he's used sarcasm and the veneer of lazy playboy that keep him fairly well isolated in Panem, and he hasn't minded that. Better that people he doesn't trust don't like him. It saves him having to choose who he can and can't trust. Not that it's true of everyone, but it's true of enough of them to have worked fairly well so far.

He'd been ... well, he hadn't really been too standoffish with Beverly, falling a little into her warmth to give some of his self back in reflection. It hadn't happened on purpose, she'd just seemed to invite a little more honesty from him. Not honesty as in openness, but a certain sort of genuine reaction that not many people here have seen.

It helps that he likes her well enough, and it helps too that she's significantly older than him and seems to have paid very little attention to his looks. So he doesn't brush her off. Instead, he walks a little closer so he can see what she's looking at better.

"I could help," he agrees, then he gives a faint smile. "We mostly just worked it out ourselves from a few things we've seen, but it's holding up okay."

[ethnobotany]

Beverly appreciates Finnick's willingness to help. They haven't had too many opportunities to talk, but the one during the sparring day certainly helped her feel a little more as though she needed to keep an eye on him. Not because she doesn't trust him, but because he comes from a place that is entirely unimaginable to her. Part of her wants to give him someone nice to look up to, someone who will look after him for no other reason than because she can.

As far as she is concerned, he reminds her a lot of her son Wesley. If anything, she would think of him like that and nothing else.

"Well you did a better job than I could have," she says lightly, her smile warm. "Unfortunately, I don't think this is the sort of job I can do by myself." She might want to, but it's not her thing.

As Finnick moves closer, he'll see the ground she's turned over and primed for her garden and the general area she's marked off for the fence. She's got a little bit of wood already, but not too much just yet, not before she's really worked out where she wants it.

"I think this is the general area where I'd like it," she comments, drawing lines in the air in front of them to show him what she's thinking. "But I'm just not sure how to start it."

[fishermansweater]

As a victor, Finnick had been something of a special case in Panem. He'd been rich, famous, popular in his district and the Capitol, bringing something of the charm of the districts to the Capitol and the sophistication of the Capitol to his district. Or so they said; he hadn't thought there was anything charming about working yourself to death trying to meet a fishing quota, or anything sophisticated about exploiting the poor.

One thing he hadn't been was an expert. He could fish well enough, he could wield a trident to impress the Capitol, but nobody from District Four would have turned to him for help with something like this, because the life of a victor excused him from the lifetime's work that gave the old fisherfolk their expertise. So it's flattering, in a sincere way he's not used to, to be asked for help based purely on something he and Annie achieved.

Finnick stops just beside Beverly and watches as she points out what she's done and where she thinks the fence will go.

"We worked out it was best to start with the fence posts. Maybe three or four big ones over that area," he continues, gesturing to show her where he means, "then some smaller ones in between. The big ones sort of anchor it and you weave around the smaller ones."

He smiles. "Should keep any geese wandering by out of your garden."

Wanda in the house! Stll moody but less so

[scepterschild]

Wanda has had a hard time in the village over the last month or so. Only Clint knew the full extent of her heartache and she preferred to keep it that way. Even so, it wasn't hard to tell that she was on edge. Her shoulders were knotted and tense and her head turned with any sudden sound as if she had to know what was there.

When she spotted Beverly she thought about smiling but the gesture didn't reach her lips.

"Yes." Her brows knitted together. "What kind of Seeds?" She was definitely interesting, in fact, a distraction would be perfect. Wanda was sorting through her troubles but there was so little she could do about them. Focusing on something she could control would be a small relief.

♥! poor bb

[ethnobotany]

Wanda seems to still be in that same mindset of earlier, which just makes Beverly even more determined to help her somehow. The only way she knows how at the moment is through this project, so that's what she throws her energy into for now.

"Seeds for medicinal herbs, roots, and plants," she explains. "Mostly things I can use at the hospital to help treat patients." But there's also a blackberry bush, which could also double as a food source. "I've set aside a couple handfuls for us to do together whenever you have a moment or two free."

[scepterschild]

Wanda nodded her head briskly. "I'm free now." She replied, pushing her shoulders back while pointing her head forward. She welcomed the chance to do something productive. Try as she might, there were times during each day that she was left with her thoughts and the anger that swelled inside of her chest.

"Where do you want to plant them?"

She had planned to start her own garden but seeing how large the community one was, she had decided just to help there. It seemed simpler than starting over for only a small group of people.

[ethnobotany]

"I've got a little fenced-in plot by my house now," Beverly answers, stepping back and motioning for Wanda to follow her. "If you don't mind a short walk, we can head over there and take a look. Some of them I've already planted this week, but I set aside the rest for you. I thought you might want to have a chance, too."

It's the least she could do since Wanda expressed interest in learning how to garden a while back. It just took Beverly some time to actually find the young woman again since she opened the box.

"Most of them are labeled, so you'll be able to tell what they are as we go. If you have questions, you're free to ask me. Even if it's not related to gardening at all."

Mostly she's referring to what they'll be doing, but it's also an offer for Wanda to ask her questions any time, not just while they work. Beverly hasn't been here for long, but she's already sort of reaching to take Wanda under her wing, as she does, to help in any way that she can.

[scepterschild]

"I don't mind." Wanda shook her head as she spoke and then began to follow Beverly forward. She knew where the woman lived however Wanda continued to remain a few steps behind as if following anyway. "Thank you." She had no idea why Beverly thought to show her such kindness but she was happy to receive it.

Wanda warmly accepted any distraction from the empty pit that was writhing inside of her.

"I'll do that." There would be no point in trying to learn if she didn't ask questions along the way. "Is there a way that you want them planted?" She asked, turning to look at Beverly as they walked.

Wanda didn't know what other questions she'd ask Beverly but she would keep the offer in mind.

Hospital

[zomboligist]

Ravi's still not sure how 'mysterious food illness' equaled 'cured by a magical touch', but then, people have had fire powers, a Sasquatch randomly ate its way through their animals, and sometimes, they get appearing food. So he'll take it in stride, which is about all he can do while going about his normal life.

He's doing some light cleaning at the hospital, mainly the rat cages that he'd assembled when Beverly announces that she has medicinal herbs. "I know that I have enough for at least two more good parties," he quips, which isn't a lie. The pot he'd received is good enough to get him through a few more gatherings, but he suspects he's going to keep it to himself.

After all, his stress levels are ridiculously high these days. "Sorry, I come from a time when I just get actual drugs to help," he admits, "my knowledge of medicinal herbs is roughly around the same place as my awareness of how to cook with tofu."

idefk where this notif went I AM SO SORRY

[ethnobotany]

It takes her a minute to put together where he came to the idea of a party, but then realization dawns on her face. Right. Medicinal opiates. Marijuana, if memory serves. Or at least if her medical classes at Starfleet Academy and Starfleet Medical were anything to go by. She knows what addiction looks like, so she dearly hopes she won't have to deal with that here.

"Well, if you're interested in learning, I've got knowledge to spare," she replies easily. "And hopefully a lot of soon-to-be hands-on experience to give out."

[zomboligist]

"I'd better learn," he admits, seeing as if he doesn't, he's not going to have the ability to treat anyone. Still, he'd like to learn if only to pass the time. What else is he going to do? Ravi learning to hunt is an elaborate joke in the process, so why not lean into the healer gig? He finishes with one of the cages, sliding the rat back in so that he can give Beverly his full attention.

"So? What amazing things can plants do?" he asks, only mildly wry and teasing, because he knows perfectly that they can be helpful. He just hasn't really been the one to learn about them.

[ethnobotany]

"Lots of things," Beverly replies, her lips twisting wryly. "They helped save an entire colony during a disaster." Arvada III will always stand out in her mind because that's when Nana had to learn. After that disaster was over, Nana taught Beverly everything she knew and Beverly has cherished the knowledge ever since.

"Let's see. Of the ones I received, we've got enough to staunch wounds, aid with natural healing, help heal burns, aid sleep, and boost physical and mental fortitude and health." There is more, of course, but this is definitely a good start. "Nothing will be quite as strong as what we're used to with our own medicine and equipment, but it's a lot better than nothing."

hospital

[notsocommon]

"Some, but not nearly enough." Helen had always relied heavily upon the cutting edge technology du jour and when she had been coming up and attending medical school, she'd discarded the old herb knowledge in favor of vaccines and surgeries. She wished she'd paid a bit more attention, though, because it was rapidly becoming relevant in this place.

"I've been using willow bark as an anti-inflammatory and aloe for burns but if you've got some other suggestions, I am quite happy to expand my knowledge base."

[ethnobotany]

"I received seeds for both of those and several others in a box," Beverly points out. "My grandmother learned how to use medicinal herbs during a crisis, when conventional medicines ran out. She taught me everything she knew. I'd be happy to pass it on. I think I even saw a few things we could use to help with mental and emotional help as well."

Lessons will be harder until they get either pictures of the plants or the real things sprout, but she figures it can't hurt to start. She's in the process of planting. Some will have to wait for the greenhouse and some she wants to plant with Wanda.

[notsocommon]

"I do have concerns about the emotional well-being of our population. This is an inherently stressful place," Helen said, tapping her mouth lightly as she thought about it.

"We have frequent natural disasters, there's the flux of arrivals and disappearances - there's also the fact that many people simply have important things to get back to in their own lives. They have families, children, important work. Something to ease that tension would be sorely warranted."

[ethnobotany]

"We'll have to wait until it's all grown," Beverly points out, "but I should have enough to work with that. It won't be the medicine I'm used to being able to hand out, but it should be better than what we have now." What they have now being next to nothing.

"Let's see, I found sage, lavender, aloe, willow -- I'm not sure which one, but it seems to be a willow tree of some sort -- echinacea, st john's wort, eucalyptus, hemp, lady ferns, california poppy, blood flower, tansy, alfalfa, tea tree, a blackberry bush, Wild Quinine, Navajo Tea, Red Clover, Sweet Marjoram, Burdock Herb, Feverfew, Sweet Violet, Winter Savory, yarrow, plantain -- though I hope it's not banana -- thyme, goldenseal, passionflower, valerian, skull cap, lemon balm, chammomile, ginger. Some of these we can turn into tea blends to help. I'm actually pleased with the variety. We'll have a good stock of medicine once it all blooms."

Whenever that is. Some of it should probably not be planted right away, given the preferred locations, but she can at least get started.