Creating something new, day 3

Exploring the second island, Big Ackerek. Decisions.

The big island is about 5km2, and about twice the area of Little Ackerek, maybe a little more as I only made a rough estimate. Guess the locals talked yesterday, and the masters of the households for the two bigger farms act as our guides, and seem to want to give a really good impression of themselfs, their farm and the land.

The northern part is again mostly spruce covered mountainous terrain with wetlands in the low laying areas, and bilberry shurbs everywhere. The middle and south are mostly oak forests, meddows and places where it is possible to have much more crop fields. There's quite a few crop fields, but the land isn't really efficiently used. Not much water, but there are a couple of ponds and a few streams. There are basically two farms on this island, with a couple of smaller longhouses spread out that belong to one of the two bigger farms, and they have scattered fields around them. One farm lies north of what my map call Flundrevik and is called the eastern farm, and the one that overlooks the strait is called the western farm. They have a serious lack of imagination, but then again, its leased land and farm so its practical and descriptive, and might not have been their choice.

Both farms have cows and horses in the fields closes to the farm and sheep, goats and pigs that more or less roam freely in other parts, combined with chickens and geese on the farm. More crop fields will work well here, and in ten years it will probably be a completely different distribution and with roads here, either in a large circle or a road meandering north to south with side branching roads. In the future I need to build dams to ensure fresh water supply in a draught and might use a few spots among the northern hills for that, and then make irrigation pipes to the fields. If I get a bit of water pressure its even better, as I can make mechanical nozzles that move and spray over a larger area.

There is a really good spot for a small harbor in the south, but if feels a little silly to have a harbor here if the Academy is on the other island, but here on the big island there is deeper and far more suitable waters on all other sides, and its only the strait between the islands thats a bit shallow along the sides. According to the hiking map, there should be a harbor or anchorage in the east part too.

As we eat our midday meal, we decide to use Little Ackerek to be the focus for knowledge and craftsmen, and Big Ackerek will be for farming and animals. Buildings for crafts will be built to minimize the impact on arable land, as it is idiotic to take productive arable land for buildings, which is a big problem in Midgard's modern world. For our mansion, I've sort of fixated on that place on the cliffs south of Iron mountain, and I like that that side of the island is pretty much empty, which feels good for privacy and not messing up someones farm. Yes, there are several places that can be good, or better, but well... I like that place, and my girlfriends seems to agree. That decision will surely come back to bite me hard in the ass, but later in the afternoon we return to Little Ackerek and choose a specific place for the the practise 6x4 houses and the mansion.

A road will start in the strait where a more suitable place for a harbor for building materials can be built. The the road will slowly climb up and round south of the iron mountain with its impressive rock wall which must be 30-40m high, more if you count the sloping ground underneath. The road follow around the cliff where I intend to build the mansion, up on the other side and follow the small stream toward the middle pond, turn northwest between the south side of the middle pond and the other peak, round and go southwest down to the lake and the crafts village and the meadows and fields in the valley, to turn straight north around the valley and to the islands farm there. On the east side of the valley will be the first 6x4 houses, and the start of the village.

Returning back to the cliff south of Iron mountain, where the road will turn off up towards the middle pond, an intersection will be made and the road follow the best and least steep path up on the cliff and to the mansion.

So we return up on the southern cliff of iron mountain, and really look thoroughly and discuss the plans. The trees are in the way to really see everything, but we just have to accept that. There will be some stone and bedrock that needs to be leveled, and we roughly step out the buildings and Master Builder Pedr and I discuss how I wish everything to be. The main building won't be exactly in east-west direction, and more 75 to 255 degrees. Would have prefered straight or slightly rotated the other way to use the sun more, but its quite unimportant and nitpicking. However, I need to mirror the mansion to fit well here, as the service wing need to be on the west side, so the cellar can use the cliffs shape to be more easily built, and accessed from the east side. The whole courtyard will be more convenient, but it means that I will get morning sun into the bedroom, and the bedroom balcony will be in the shade instead of the evening sun, but the view compensate and I've already accepted that I will have to become more of a morning person since there isn't any electric light.

Except the courtyard to the north, there will be 3-10m drops around the sides of the mansion, although its more in stages from the south. It feels quite nice and awesome. Not the top of a mountain or a hill - but close. The large roofed outdoor area, the terrace, only has about 40-70 degrees of sloping rock faces to a probably around 2-4m vertical mortared side so that the terrace floor will be flat, but it is unpleasantly steep and difficult to get a foothold on these cliffs. Part of the west and south side will also be hard to avoid slipping on most places, but the east side of the courtyard will be a shear drop of about 6m. There is a funny looking rock extension with a small gnarly tree in the corner of the Terrace, so we have to see what the exact floor plan will be when the rock has been cleared of trees, although Pedr promises to leave that tree for now. I don't care about lawns or gardens, its just something that need work, but there is space to the south on top or below the cliff, especially on the east side, for a garden, but that will need to be terracing.

South of the cliff beyond the future road, is mostly meadows and young deciduous forest, mixed with grass-covered cliffs with mostly oak all the way down to the southern end of the island. The long sweeping waterfront is mostly grass down to the waters edge, but its too shallow to swim, and the residents warned to avoid all the shallow muddy places around the islands. Its far better and safer to anchor or bathe from the cliffs.

There should be a really nice view from the windows on the second floor, especially my bedroom balcony which is now facing southeast, although its a corner balcony and will have 270 degree views. Should be high enough to get a nice view over the treetops of the strait and the mountains on the southern part of the other island.

Ask Pedr what is most suitable to do first and he will have them dig a really deep well on the west side higher up in the ravine where the small stream flows, to check that there is good water supply and that the water is good quality. Wells are apparently unusual, and most farms are placed beside running fresh water and fetch water in buckets directly from a stream, river or lake, which is probably one reason why there are so few farms and cattle fields on the islands. The grazing animals also need fresh water.

They will start clearing the ground too, and leveling the ground and the cellar. The cellar will be larger than expected due to the rock shape and nature. The whole wing will probably have a cellar, although some of the inner parts towards the courtyard will probably have to be cut down a bit into the rock, but that parts intended to be the cellars vaulted storage rooms, and its better to have more space for the future and its stupid to not use it. Better to have and not need, than the other way around. Could get a pretty good size cellar on the southeast side under the main building, especially if the building is moved south a few meters. Less ground to build up and more space is just nice, although the building with all its floors should be around 650m2 - cellar not included. I still have to redo the drawings as everything is mirrored, and it is quite easy to edit so there will be a cellar under the front of the main building, although with different floor levels to adapt to the cliff, where the middle will be higher, and a longer room to the east and a corridor to main cellar that will have even more space in the corner between the main building and the wing.

Hmm... I can make the eastern cellar as a secret room with access from the library and my bedroom if I add an extra wall in the combined meeting room / dining room. A little difficult route down from my room, probably have to climb a ladder on the back of the fireplace, but the secret cellar room can also be reached from the library on the first floor, or the dining room if I make a door in the extra wall, and they can use a steeper staircase. Might be practical with a secret room for valuables.

Yeah, right! Truthfully I'm going to have that simply because I want a secret room and a secret hallway in my house. It's just cool.

Feels like it's a better idea to separate the cellar into two cellars, where everything under the main building is more or less secret. It appeals to me to make a hidden door under the stairs in the great hall into a secret cellar room, which has a hidden door to the west that goes to a secret cellar vault via a longer corridor, and a hidden door to the east to another larger secret cellar room that will probably be split in two due to the load-bearing wall and the stairs from a hidden path up to the library above. But in the hidden path there is a hidden section that leads down from my bedroom's screened walk in closet. The parted cellar room can then be separated by a hidden door to an extra secret room. Secret Room Inception!

That will be added to my mansion plan, because I'll regret it if I don't. It's not difficult to wall up the hallway behind the secret door if I should regret it adding these cellar rooms - it's far easier than regretting and try building it afterwards. Also easier to hide during the first construction. There is also a fireplace above in the meeting/dining room so that must be extended down anyway, and I can add a small fireplace down in the cellar. The back will warm the eastern most part, and it should ensue a better ventilation too.

The only real problems is - as usual - light into the extra cellar rooms, because I havn't planned to have windows there, and if it is to be secret, the cellar rooms can't have large windows visible either. There can't even be small windows. I can tunnel in some light quite easily, but it will be dark, and I can't count on electric light. The only idea I can come up with is to discreetly lead down some light into the secret passages and rooms from the windows on the second floor and camouflage it - slightly taller windows on the outside than the inside - and the rather absurdly thick outer walls enable a flatter but wide light tunnel in part of the space for the extra insulation outside the log walls. It will be dark in the secret cellar rooms, but a little light is better than no light. If I divide the absolute easternmost part into its own secret room, it will basically be completely dark in there as there isn't any good windows to use since it will be more noticable from the outside, even if the ventilation might be okay. The only possible light is through two small ventilation ducts with nets in front to keep out mice and rats. I could add two or three more 'ventilation ducts' without attracting attention to them, and those receive a small window a bit inside the net keeping vermin out. I should also add a drainage channel as this room will be the lowest point, and it's practical if you have to sweep the floor or clean. It will be quite cool in those cellars, and I won't be able to use the normal planned heating without getting really creative, and forcing warm air down from above is hard without electric fans.

The Master builder is instructed to make two cellar vaults for safekeeping, the secret basement vault to the west of the new secret corridor, and the smallest of the cellar vaults in the wing cellar. They share a wall, but there isn't a door connecting them. A locked cellar vault in the wing that has the vault divided in half by a strong iron bar grid with a strong lock on both the vault door and iron bar door seems like a good idea. Layer on layer security, and makes it possible to more easily make an alarm system and react if a possible thief has to get through two doors, which will involve some delays.

At the same time as the work on the foundation, they will start building a road across the island, which rounds south of the mansion's cliff and winds its way between and over the mountains via the pond in the middle down to the lake and craft village which will be between the lake and the valley. Considering that I want a good longlasting road, and that the bedrock is probably close to the surface, they will make a road in Roman style by digging down to the bedrock, laying coarse stone, followed by finer stone on top and then a cemented stone surface thats slightly angled outwards with drainage or ditches on the sides. Drainage pipes under the road will be where it seems to be needed so that water won't accumulate. An anchorage and harbor will be in the strait between the islands about three hundred meters away from the mansion. Its mainly for all the building materials for the mansion and village houses if they can't make a good jetty closer. It seems to be very shallow water with unpleasant muddy bottom around much of the island, not even suitable for Knarrs or Longships, which is saying something. They will try the cliffs in the southwest, but they're sceptical.

In the meantime, the house builders will be trained by building three 6x4 residential houses on the east side of the valley. Four to six slaves will help each building team of two to four craftsmen, as they simply can't be too many on each house. The animal part of the mansion will be between the harbor and the farm, where there is suitable meddows and open forest. They will have to create a small vegetable garden and there is a streach of already quite open land to about 100 meters east of the cliff so the garden will get a lot of sunlight, and they will plant some winter hardy vegetables so we have some vegetables the comming winter, and they will also need to build a couple of pastures and fenced areas for pigs, sheep, cows and horses. In the future, they will also have to build a barn with stables, hayloft etc. Honestly, they can start planting a larger orchard in the ravine beside the road as well. There are already a couple of apple trees here, and more on the big island where there's pear trees too, but it's a good idea to have more, and the tree's will take years to grow, so they will plant more here, and protect the plants from rabbits with simple covers form braided branches.

I ask Pedr if more slaves will help and apparently not so much. The first week will mostly be spent getting the workers, equipment, food, tents for accommodation etc, so no point in being back until two weeks from now when they've manage to do some work, and I can then give him the updated drawings for the mansion. I give Pedr an initial budget of 30 ounces of gold, and I expect to see a book what it was spent on afterwards, which Pedr says will suffice for everything we talked about with a wide margin. Apparently I don't have to think about timber, stone, cement, tools, workers food etc, because the kingdom will supply that, but windows, copper pipes etc, I have to pay for myself, and have to get it. But it doesn't seem that I need to sell things to keep the construction alive. So with all these decisions made, we return to the boat. Everyone is quite tired after two days and many, many kilometers in quite difficult terrain, and I collect the women where they've been relaxing and sunbathing on the rocks.

I probably should buy a propper ship as soon as possible. Partly for my trips here and partly because the Academy is on an island in an archipelago. We will need a larger ship with cabins sooner or later, so I might as well buy one and hire a crew. My girlfriends agree completely. Wonder what a ship costs, and how easy is it to buy one?

Iselin and Kari inform me that they have made a small agreement. As my fiancée, Iselin will spend 2-3 nights in my bed, before Kari gets one night - but it's not a hard schedule, and they understand if I want nights alone. Ciara wants nights as well and will probably have the same amount as Kari, but didn't want it scheduled unless she could get every night, which the others funnily enough didn't agree to. They've really started to stake out and claim their parts of me, and I shouldn't be surprised. As long as they agree on something I like, I'll avoid to interfer, but there will be nights when I just want to be alone in my bed.

When we get a bigger bed, I will sometimes have company of two, but I won't expect that it will involve a threesome. Iselin might be game, but I don't think Kari or Ciara is, and to be honest I kind of prefer to focus on them individually. Easier to make them feel special, and they deserve to feel special.