|
Post by Fiera Ferella on Mar 11, 2021 1:05:04 GMT -6
Not that Fiera kept any carnivorous plants in her garden. She would if offered of course- that sounded cool as hell, and she certainly wouldn’t mind the added security- but whiptail vine snatchers were pretty expensive, and she had had bad experiences with less “lab approved” strains of carnivorous plant before, she thought with a shudder. March’s quest had been unpleasant for her. And Donner too, of course- she was still picking thorns out of his fur. And she’d probably end up picking more out by the end of the day, she thought with a grown. The downsides of owning a long furred pet- at least Fiera had the good sense to hold her own tail above the ground to avoid messing up her own fur. Animals just couldn’t be bothered, she had found. It certainly wasn’t because they enjoyed the grooming, at any rate. Most of her pets tried to hit her when she pulled burrs out of their fur.
Fiera 4 Donner 21.4/10.9 9
|
|
|
Post by Fiera Ferella on Mar 11, 2021 1:05:34 GMT -6
Donner was especially aggressive in that regard, but with some decent padding and a face shield she could usually manage to give him a weekly brushing. At least right now he was being polite enough to stay on the path, keeping her from having to chase him through the gardens. She would have to find a place to stop and work soon enough however. She had seen a lot of the gardens by this point and sure enough, it seemed… pretty messy. Broken branches, dead plants, and blown in rocks and garbage were everywhere. She could get people to come pick up the garbage, but she’d need to get it all gathered up first, which was the hard part. And there were plenty of parts of the garden that needed it, unfortunately. And chances are, Donner was going to be of no help at all. Seekers were fun like that.
Fiera 5 Donner 22.0/11.0 10
|
|
|
Post by Fiera Ferella on Mar 11, 2021 1:05:53 GMT -6
So that meant that she’d have to try and find a place that needed to be cleaned, but was still open enough that she could keep an eye on her pet with little trouble. With that in mind, she turned down one of the narrower paths, a tributary off of the main river so to speak. A capillary off a vein. She knew a grove of young trees down here that, while blossoming with bright orange flowers in the summer, were usually bare, well spaced apart skeletons this time of year. There was no underbrush in that grove either and it was fenced off well enough, so she could probably afford to let Donner off his leash to run around for a bit. Or sniff around for a bit- whichever he was feeling at that time. Now all they had to do was get there- which hopefully shouldn’t take too long, Fiera thought as she glanced up at the path ahead of her.
Fiera 6 Donner 22.1/11.1 11
|
|
|
Post by Fiera Ferella on Mar 11, 2021 1:06:12 GMT -6
As they walked, Fiera glanced up at the sky again. It was bright and clear today, but that somehow made it feel even colder. Even though it was nearly halfway through March, the weather was still chilly and harsh. While that sucked, Fiera was at the very least pretty sure that they had finally seen the last snow of the year, which had thankfully melted away with the last few “warm” days. (By which she meant, still cold that she had to wear heavy jackets but at least above freezing for once.) When that snow left, that was the signal Fiera needed to let her know that it was safe to start gardening again. And if there was a late season snow? Well… she would just have to deal with that, wouldn’t she. Or maybe she would just whine about it to anyone who’d listen instead. That was what she usually did.
Fiera 7 Donner 22.2/11.2 12
|
|
|
Post by Fiera Ferella on Mar 11, 2021 1:06:32 GMT -6
Glancing back down at the path though, Fiera realized that they had arrived. She reached out and undid the latch on this part of the fence, swinging open the gate with a loud creak. She cringed slightly, her ears pressing back despite herself. It looked like that was another thing she needed to fix- it never ended, did it? There was always something more to fix. She sighed- at least life never got dull for her nowadays? ...No, she was pretty sure an ungreased gate in her garden was about as dull as it could get. Gods she missed the days when she could murder people for fun. Those were great. She let Donner into the grove first, keeping a tight grip on his leash, before closing the gate behind herself with another metal on metal screech. Ugh. That noise was enough to make someone skip their turn in battle, in an abstract sort of way.
Fiera 8 Donner 22.3/11.3 13
|
|
|
Post by Fiera Ferella on Mar 11, 2021 1:06:47 GMT -6
That reminded her again though- that was still something that she needed to train Donner for the tournament. That never ended either, huh? She shook her head though, trying to clear it of the stuff she needed to get done for the tournament. This was supposed to be her break time! Her bonding and getting to know Donner time. Her spring cleaning time- and oh man, was there a lot of spring cleaning to be done. Her seeker almost immediately pulled away from her toward a branch laying on the ground as she tried to survey the damage, snatching it up so he could gnaw on it, trying to sharpen his teeth and claws on it. Fiera sighed- that was one less branch she had to pick up, she supposed. And if it got Donner to be better behaved, she could allow it. With the seeker sorted, Fiera looked around.
Fiera 9 Donner 22.4/11.4 14
|
|
|
Post by Fiera Ferella on Mar 11, 2021 1:07:08 GMT -6
She glanced up at her surroundings, beholding the state of the grove. As expected, the short trees were near skeletal. They weren’t that tall, either- their crowns were only a few feet above her head, and if it weren’t for how easy everything was to see right now, she could easily take out an eye on a stray branch walking through the garden. Donner was pretty safe from them though, with his head sitting under the main mess of branches. Looking at a nearby tree more closely, she realized that she should probably trim them too before spring hit in full force. That would result in more branches to be cleaned, so she should probably do it now… not that she wanted to. Like, at all. Instead, she decided to look around at the rest of the grove instead. That was a lot more interesting and not at all procrastinating.
Fiera 10 Donner 23.0/11.5 15
|
|
|
Post by Fiera Ferella on Mar 11, 2021 1:07:26 GMT -6
The ground was completely dead- not an inch of greenery poked above it. That was a little bit surprising to Fiera, considering that she hadn’t mulched this area in forever. It was pretty much bare, revealing dirt right now, ripe for weeds to take advantage of, but it looked like the winter frost had killed them all off. Fine by her- she hated weeding. It murdered her back better than anything else. The ground was covered in a fine layer of twigs and branches however, broken off from the trees by the former heavy layers of snow that sat on them before she came in, along with several large rocks that had probably been carried there by snowmelt. She’d need to clear those out before putting more mulch down as well- she’d hate to trip over one on what she thought was otherwise even ground. Another item for her growing checklist.
Fiera 11 Donner 23.1/11.6 16
|
|
|
Post by Fiera Ferella on Mar 11, 2021 1:07:44 GMT -6
Well first things first. She had to get to trimming those branches. Fiera sighed dramatically as she dropped Donner’s leash, giving the seeker free reign… for now. If it turned out he couldn’t be trusted with his newfound freedom, she could quite easily tie the little bastard to a tree instead. He sat happily for the time being though, chewing on his branch, so Fiera simply shrugged and moved on. She set her bag down on the ground, opening it up to rummage through so she could find her trimmers. She dug through all the pockets, and… couldn’t find what she was looking for. “Aw, crap.” She said to herself, tracing back through all her steps. Now that she thought of it… yep, she definitely didn’t stop to grab her hedge clippers. They were all the way back where she started at the gardening shed near the front entrance of the garden.
Fiera 12 Donner 23.2/11.7 17
|
|
|
Post by Fiera Ferella on Mar 11, 2021 1:08:01 GMT -6
So that meant she could either go all the way back to the front of the garden, or not trim the branches. Darn, such a hard decision. Yeah, she wasn’t doing that. For one, she knew Donner couldn’t be left alone for a second or else he’d cause trouble, and for another, she… just didn’t want to. What could she say, it was cold out and she was lazy. That didn’t mean she couldn’t get stuff done here however. There were still plenty of pieces of junk all over the ground after all, just waiting for someone to clean them up. And unfortunately, that someone was going to be her. Fiera rolled up her sleeves (psychologically at least, it was way too cold to do that in real life) and decided to get to work on that. She noted a spot by the front gate where she could leave the branches.
Fiera 13 Donner 23.3/11.8 18
|
|
|
Post by Fiera Ferella on Mar 11, 2021 1:08:27 GMT -6
Getting started, Fiera picked up a small branch, walked over to the fence and dumped it off the side. Easy. If she just kept off to the side so she could get out easily and kept it all in one pile, it would be no trouble at all to get all these sticks picked up by a garbage service. Now that she had marked that spot, all she had to do was… grab all the sticks. Should be easy, right? She turned and looked around at the grove and the hundreds of branches she’d have to grab… well, no time like the present! She strolled over to the far side of the grove and began picking up sticks, stacking them up in one arm. Nothing was too big for her to pick up, thankfully. These trees were all pretty skinny so the branches they dropped were more sharp than they were heavy.
Fiera 14 Donner 23.4/11.9 19
|
|
|
Post by Fiera Ferella on Mar 11, 2021 1:08:47 GMT -6
This let Fiera get a pretty good armful of them, and even though she had to bend over a lot to grab them (which she was sure her back would love the following morning), and they didn’t weight very much even after clearing a significant area. Soon she had cleared out the bases of at least five trees and only had a single armful of sticks to show for it, though it was admittedly a pretty unwieldy armful that was difficult to see through. She waddled back to the gate with it, with Donner giving her an odd look as she passed by. “Hey, don’t give me that.” She said flatly as she dumped the sticks over the side of the fence. “I don’t see you helping to clean up, after all!” She continued, clapping her hands off. Donner gave no response except to chew on the stick some more.
Fiera 15 Donner 24.0/12.0 20
|
|
|
Post by Fiera Ferella on Mar 11, 2021 1:09:06 GMT -6
The humanish kept working after that, despite her snowtrack seeker’s silent derision. Picking up the branches was a lot easier than she thought now that she knew she could get a decent amount of them together without much effort, and soon she had cleared nearly a fourth of the grove. She had managed to find a couple of neat plants here and there as well. Most were weeds, if she was being honest, but she could still respect their ability to grow in these harsh conditions. Winter was pleasant for no plant, but if something could learn to grow, well, good for it. A couple were herbs and flowers that she could make some use of however, and she plucked them as quickly as possible. At the very least, she could turn them in at Curious Collections, or turn them in for a free pachee that she could add to her collection at the Pachee Pollen Project.
Fiera 16 Donner 24.1/12.1 21
|
|
|
Post by Fiera Ferella on Mar 11, 2021 1:09:27 GMT -6
She quickly stuffed the plants in her bag before Donner could see them. Even though he was a strict carnivore in terms of what he NEEDED to eat, she knew he loved chewing on things. And if those dead leaves from earlier were any indicator, he was not limited to animal protein in his dietary preferences. Not to mention she was pretty sure he’d try to eat them just to spite her- that was just the kind of thing he did. Still, she needed these herbs for various things around the city, so it was in Fiera’s best interest to hide them as quickly as possible. It didn’t take too long to hide them however and soon she was back to work collecting sticks while musing over the use of those plants she had just collected. She wasn’t much of an herbalist herself, if she was being strictly honest- not that she’d admit that to others.
Fiera 17 Donner 24.2/12.2 22
|
|
|
Post by Fiera Ferella on Mar 11, 2021 1:09:45 GMT -6
No, she would let the blending and use of these plants go to someone else. Instead, she much preferred to trade them in for something she could use at Curious Collections (even though that meant that she had to deal with that overwhelmingly creepy shopkeeper there- he was really the worst.) She had especially been eyeing that place for fossils for the past several months, but nothing good had come up… yet. She still had her fingers crossed, and with that guy she knew it was only a matter of time. She didn’t know where he got his stock as there was usually too much of it to have all come from people trading in their own goods, but as someone who had worked under the table for a number of years, she knew better than to question these sorts of things. If it came down to it, she would just look the other way.
Fiera 18 Donner 24.3/12.3 23
|
|