"I said I want on that name plate! But a Clara doll would be cool too! But only I get to play with it." Clara tells.
"It is late. Let us pack up and go home. You need sleep. And our vegetable garden was left unsupervised too long. The carrots need guarding from the evil weeds. Work starts tomorrow again." Gertrud tells.
With a grim smile on her face Jewel follows Mrs. Johnson, "True. The Guardians or Erastil will need rest to fight the battle against the invading army of weeds!" She chuckles and takes her brother's hand. "I'm sure there'll be time for carving more dolls later too. We've got our lives ahead of us."
"Are you serious?" Clara says in shock. "You ruin everything, even being a guardian! Weeds!" she spits the last word out. Clara pounts and stomps away, to get out of talking range on her way home.
As Clara moves away Jewel starts chuckling and raises her voice. "You can pretend they're goblins, and the good plants are all defenseless bunnies that they're trying to steal! You can ask your weasel to bite them, as long as it doesn't bite the bunnies!!!"
Clara hears what Jewel tells and makes a plan. A plan worthy of a guardian! The time of annoying weeding is over!
After a long day and an excessive party for the successful atonement of Breathnacht and the final departure of him and Dawnbreeze, everyone is quick alseep. The night is short and with the first cockcrow everyone has to get up again.
A breakfast later, all the Johnson kids are sent out into the vegetable garden to weed the patch.
Clara takes her time with putting on the clothes, as she knows her work is done for the day.
Gertrud shouts as she sees the carrot patch. Everything is black and burnt to the ground. Even the dirt is charred here and there.
Jewel moves to the patch, seeing the destruction. She falls to her knees, "No! Taking the 'easy way' is exactly what led Breathnacht to the path that he followed, and the curse that was on him! We have to save this patch now!"
She starts carefully probing around one of the burnt carrot tops, hoping that the burn didn't penetrate the ground. "Maybe if we wash the tops and give it moist soil.... Maybe it isn't totally dead!"
"What? We only need the orange part that is underground. We throw away the green part anyway?" Clara explains with a shrug. "And I'm sure you put one on the path to evil by making them rip out weed with their hands."
Jewel shakes her head slowly in disbelief. "But Breathnacht explained about plants clearly. They need the tops, or the greens stalks and leaves, to absorb the sunlight, to grow! We only cut off the tops once they are harvested. And even then the tops can be fed to the animals. They eat the greens! By burning them you've destroyed what the carrots need to grow, AND food for the animals. Now it's going to take at least twice as much work to try and recover this carrot patch. You need to put Caspar away and don't use him for anything other than a weapon against evil creatures. Or maybe you should have your mother keep him until he's needed again!"
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Tarjun breathes a long, long sigh when he discovers the Clara-made disaster that used to be the carrots.
"This is goin' to take a long time to heal," he comments, wondering how they'll even get rid of all that charred earth. He tries to recall his meagre knowledge in botanic to know where to even being.
Clara turns away. Her perfect plan crumbles to dust as the weed did. She takes caspar out of her pocket clenches her little fist around it and then drops it to the ground. She runs away sobbing, back into the house.
Jewel hangs her head, plans for the day and who knows how much longer.... ruined. "It wasn't you. She's mad at me, and maybe herself. But I shouldn't have...."
"Let's just try and save anything that we can. I don't know if I'll ever want to eat a carrot again!"
"Just check how big the carrots already grew. They should have stayed in the earth for tow or three weeks longer, but maybe it's already worth to harvest them."
"I'll go check on Clara." Gertrud tells. She picks up Caspar and follows Clara inside.
The carrots are only half the weight they should have for harvesting, but they will still make a few good meals.
Jewel nods to Mrs. Johnson and starts digging up the carrots. They are small but maybe they'll be more tender than fully grown ones. She tries to focus on just the work, and maybe the possible 'silver lining'....
As she digs out the carrots and collects them into a basket, her gaze wanders over to the field of parsnips behind the Branston farm. Luckily an unburned field.
Jewel walks slowly over to the parsnips. "Sure. But I want to see if any of the parsnips are big enough first. We could make a stew. Maybe add an onion or two as well. Maybe if we can use these that were burnt, Clara won't be so upset with me."
She pokes at some of the parsnips in the row, looking for any that are large enough to harvest for this. Carefully pulling a couple loose to try and give room for the smaller ones left behind to grow. Then looks for a couple of onions.
"Can you create some water to wash these? I haven't adjusted my spells back to the regular day-to-day ones."
Once the vegetables are cleaned up she leads Tarjun to the Johnson's kitchen. "Clara? Can you hear me? We could use your help in here. The carrots are OK, just a little small. But we can make a big pot of stew with them. And We gathered a few of the parsnips that are big enough, and a couple of onions. Can you come help us? We need to chop them up for a stew pot."
"Why do you want me to help? Isn't it burned enough yet?" Clara gives back.
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"'Course, Jewie!" Tarjun enthusiastically replies, pouring water made out of thin air to clean the vegetables.
Once he's done, he accompanies his sister to talk to Clara, rolling his eyes when she keeps brooding.
"Don't be daft," he replies. "Just 'cause you made a mistake doesn't mean you ain't good for nothin'. Look, you ain't gonna do it again, that's all that matters."
Clara comes over and takes a look. Seeing all those vegetables she wrinkles her nose. "I'll ask mom to get some meat to grill for the side dish you're preparing."
Clara didn't like vegetables too well to start with. But after they managed to make her look stupid, she likes them even less.
Jewel accepts Clara's words with a slight cringe. "I'm sorry I over reacted. The carrots weren't ruined, they just couldn't grow any more. They were partially cooked so we're going to try and make soup with them. We want you to help 'cause we're all friends."
"Maybe if we put the meat in the soup, and add some potatoes, it'll be a regular meat stew! But it might need some spices. ?? Maybe Mrs. Johnson would know which to add and how much? Like I know if you add too much salt it is bad for you and you shouldn't eat it."
"Do your vegetables like you planned. Clara makes every stew she 'helps' taste like smoked meat stew. I'll check if I have some meat that can handle a strong fire and still be tasty." Gertrud tells, sticking her tongue out at Clara.
"Fresh herbs are growing on the porch in the bucket. Rub a leaf between your fingers. If you'd like your stew to smell like that, you can add it. Not much you could do wrong here. Just be careful with the salt." Gertrud offers as advice. Then she grabs Clara and drags her to the meat cooler.
Jewel looks to Tarjun as he asks his question. "Ah, not really. But could it be harder than casting a spell? Mrs. Johnson seems to think I, uh, or that is, we, can do it. So lets clean the vegetables, cut them up.... like we've seen in stews that Mom fixed? I think we have to peel the onions. Just to get the layers off that were against the dirt, and maybe just look at them good and cut off any dark areas."
She carefully cuts the carrots and parsnips after they are cleaned. She doesn't remember her mother ever putting the parsnip tops in a stew so she sets them aside. Maybe they have some other use?
She examines the available herbs looking for parsley. Crushing a little with her fingers she smells it, then takes a little for the soup. "I hope this will do. And just a little salt and pepper."
Hearing Tarjun's comment about water.... "Of course we need water. But cast it in the bucket so I can take just what we need. Don't want to wash the soup out on the floor!"
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Clara follows her mother and takes gets some roughly cut pieces of meat that are left over from cutting the boar into neat steaks, roast and ham.
To not look like an idiot, she puts them into a frying pan and on the stove. But as there are no flames, it gets boring quick and her attention wanders somewhere else. Until the strong smell of burned food reminds her of the task at hand.
She kicks the stove, only to notice again, that the stove doesn't care, but her foot does. Cussing and cursing she puts the slightly burned meat on a plate. But she carries it to the dinner table, head high with a defiant attitude. "The meat is burned, we can eat." she proclaims.
Jewel looks around, confused but trying. ["Well. Once the vegetables are cleaned and cut up.... Not the green stalks or the tips for the parsnips or carrots. That goes in the pot. The water enough to just cover, and we.... rip up the parsley plants? Or crush the leaves? I'm not sure, but then that goes in too. And the pot goes over the heat. Wow! It's heavy!"
What Tarjun is good at is creating water, so there is no lack of that. Jewel is careful to not put too much herbs and salt into it so the result is a very thin soup. You can easily see past the vegetables to the ground of the cualdron.
All who are not into soup can fish out the chunks, but no matter what you choose, it tastes rather bland with all that water.
Casting purify food and drink does no visible change to the burnt meat, but removes the carcinogenic acrylamide that was created during the intense frying.
Once the meal is ready, Jewel sits and stares at it for a bit. She takes a good helping of the.... broth? and a small piece of the meat. After a sip of the soup she cringes and glances around. "I'm sorry.... I didn't know."
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Tarjun stares down at the burned steak and the stew, which hardly deserves its name. It's mostly just lukewarm water with a few, roughly cut pieces of vegetables floating in it like someone dropped them by mistake. It would have been entirely tasteless if it wasn't for the pepper most generously added to the mixture. It now tastes like fire.
He gives Gertrude pleading eyes:
"Er… Maybe there's some leftovers we could have instead?"
Gertrud laughs at the gloomy mood everyone seems to be in. "You cook it, you eat it!" Gertrud tells. "We are not that rich. We can't afford to throw away food. But you don't have to drink all the Water. We can take that later for another soup."
After enjoying the meal, not so much for the food, but for the faces of the kids while eating it Gertrud tells "You're in for some more training on the job. A proper guardian working along the teachings of Erastil has to know how to not waste food and how to feed a community. Training starts with the next meal."
Jewel chokes down the food, trying to smile between bites of tasteless broth, half raw vegetables, and burnt meat.
When Gertrud mentions training she brightens up. The food almost seems acceptable.... "Thank you. I know Mom has tried to teach me some about cooking in the past. But maybe now I can actually learn it. And feeding a community is something that Erastil's Guardians should know. I wonder why....." Her face lights up. "Oh! I bet neither of the ghosts thought of it because they don't eat anymore! Sometimes it must be hard to think of details that don't apply to your own life, or whatever it would be called for them! I wonder what else they missed telling us?"
Gertrud smiles.
"But no more vegetable cooking for today. Teach us to make saussages!" Clara demands.
"Sausages are easy. You just have to be careful that you don't add to the meat, by cutting your fingers into it." Gertrud tells. "But as we have a good share of carrots that could have stayed in the ground for a bit longer, I'll show you the basics about cooking with carrrots."