The Workings of Farm Life

In Prompt Writing ・ By critter_core

0 Favorites ・ 0 Comments

Cuddle looks at the Pacapillar named 'Darling', an interesting individual. They had long droopy rabbit ears with a cow marking, but a bushy, almost woolly body, with a green sprout for a tail. Definitely unique. Nonetheless, she seemed friendly, and Cuddleby was intending on learning how to garden a WHILE ago. What better excuse to lend a helping hand- er... Nub... And get taught by an expert?

"Sure! I'd love to help!" Cuddleby chirped with a grin as he followed Darling walking down a dirt path. The two continued on walking and talking, and Cuddleby took in the sights. There were fields upon fields full of all kinds of varying crops. The most common seemed to consist of either tomatoes, onions, potatoes, or carrots. "Got a lotttta fields out here, as you can see! It gets a bit daunting..."

Which is why I really appreciate the work, friend!" Darling added with a smile. Cuddleby gave a quick determined nod. "Of course! Helping's what I love to do! So uh... Where do we start?" Darling let out a hum, glancing around. "Let's start with them carrots. That's a good place, I'm thinkin..." With that, the two Pacapillars walked down the road, passing a few more fields until stood before THE field.

"Wait... Where are the carrots...?" Cuddleby wondered, raising a brow as he sat down on the grass in confusion. "There aren't any! That's the first part of plantin your own crops, silly! Here, take these," Darling responded, handing a brown bag to Cuddleby, who took it with intrigue. He opened the bag, and sure enough, inside of this bag were quite a LOT of small brown almond-like seeds. They had a rough texture as well, and there were little line marks on them. Yup, these had to be carrot seeds.

"Okay... So how do we plant em?" Cuddleby asked. "Well, there's a lotta ways to do things like that," Darling answered, tapping her chin in thought. "The most classic way is to dig a hole and drop a seed in. There's also things like shovels, which make your job much easier, and there's other, more advanced ways of automating things. That'll be more expensive though. You're best off with one of the first two," She confessed with a shrug. She pulled out a small garden shovel and handed it to Cuddleby. "Best to dig in rows, if ya get what I'm sayin," Darling added as she sat down and began to watch. Cuddleby gave a nod, adding a small 'thanks', before approaching the field.

Cuddleby looked along the field, and thankfully, there were already defined lines that identified each row in the field. Cuddleby tried his best to dig each hole in the middle and around the same size. He did this for hours and hours, till the whole field was filled. Thank goodness Darling started working on the opposite side of the field, otherwise this would take MUCH longer. "Well done, Cuddle!" She chirped as the two finally met in the middle. Cuddleby let out a sigh, flopping onto the ground.

"Farming is a LOT of work..." He muttered sleepily. Darling gave a nod and a chuckle. "Definitely can be. But you gotta have big fields for big produce if you're doing this as your living. I'll probably be giving you one of my smaller fields, since you really don't need THIS much space." Cuddleby gave a nod, relieved. "Yeah- yeah, I'll take a nice small field, thank you..." Darling let out another chuckle.

"Well don't forget you only get one if you survive the day, silly!" She chirped, poking Cuddleby very gently, but eventually, with a huff, he got back up onto his feet. "Alright, alright. What's next?" Darling nodded over to another field, and Cuddleby followed after. The next field they stopped at was a bit grown than the last one. At least there was SOMETHING there. "Tomatoes! They're on what many farmers consider the second stage," Darling explained. "Alright, so what do we do for these?"

"Well, another thing you can do for crops when you plant them, is use fertilizer! It speeds up the process and can even grant a better produce. But you wanna do it nice and early. Best as seeds, but you can do it by this point, since it's still pretty early," Darling informed, handing Cuddleby a new bag. It was a bag of fertilizer. Opening the bag, it looked like small pellets. "Just sprinkle some by the sprouts," Darling said, and Cuddleby nodded, pouring some of the fertilizer in his nub.

He approached the first tomato sprout, and sprinkled some of the pellets into the dirt. Like before, Darling started at one end, and Cuddleby started at the opposite. They kept working, until the two met. "Well there's fertilizing done! Good job, Cuddleby!" She chirped with a grin. Cuddleby smiled in response, nodding. "You too! You were super fast!" Darling let out an appreciative huff. "Yeah, you'll get better at it as you go. You ready for the next crop?" She asked. "You bet!" Cuddleby answered.

The two approached a field. This one, Cuddleby could tell were Onions, as they were very close to sprouting out of the ground. He had also seen the leaves before, since he had a friend who really liked making this Onion soup... "Now of course, something very important to farming is actually watering your plants! The other ones we were taking care of had their watering done, but I didn't get around to the Onion field yet," Darling started, grabbing for two watering cans and filling them.

"You want the soil to be moist and dark when you've watered a plant, but it shouldn't be flooding. Once you figure out the pacing, it'll click. But for now, try getting to that point." Cuddleby nodded as he took one of the watering cans. Just as the times before, Cuddleby started at one end, and Darling, the other. Cuddleby paid attention carefully, and made sure he wasn't pouring too much.

Eventually, Darling and Cuddleby had watered the field. "Looks good! Let's visit the final crop field for today!" Darling chirped, and Cuddleby let out another sigh as he nodded. "Thank goodness... My poor little nubs are starting to get sore..." Darling nudged him gently. "That's alright, Cuddle. You did great. The last job's an easy one. The more you farm though, the more your nubs will toughen up. This kind of work won't even tire you in the slightest, if you do it enough." Darling reassured.

"Thanks, Darling! You're probably right. I mean, you've been doing this for years, haven't you?" Cuddleby wondered as the two began to walk to the last field. Darling nodded. "Mhm! That's correct! Been my dream since I was a kid. Even now, with all these fields, I never really get sick of it."

The two approached the last field. "Potatoes? But they look done. What could we need to do now?" Cuddleby wondered with confusion. "That right there, Cuddle! Harvesting! Believe it or not, this stage is just as important as the other ones. Do it wrong, and you could ruin the soil, reduce crop yield, or even damage the plant and make things like diseases easier to catch! Not good!".

"So... How DO you correctly harvest crops?" Cuddleby asked, looking back at Darling, who gave a smile in response. "It's easy, really! Once you know how to do it, it becomes second nature- heh." She took out a small garden fork. "So once your crop's at full maturity, hold out whatever you're using to pick your crop. Some you can just pick off, others you'll have to cut off." She approached one of the plants. "Potatoes are a bit odd, since they're actually under the ground. For these guys, you simply dig em up- remembering to be gentle. Don't wanna cut the tubers," She began.

"If you're slow and careful, you'll be fine," She continued as she took the garden fork in her nub, and put it into the ground around the edge of the sprout. "You wanna dig em up by the edges, usually, since that's the best place to dig when you don't wanna damage the plant," She explained as she did so. "Since this is a delicate process, I wanna watch you do your first one, kay?" Cuddleby nodded, taking the garden fork she handed him. He approached the second potato crop, and was careful to follow as he was told and shown. "Good dig, junior farmer," Darling chirped with a chuckle.

Cuddleby couldn't help but smile. "Thanks! Learned from the best, of course!" Darling couldn't help but snicker as she pulled Cuddleby into a side hug, ruffling him on the head. Eventually, the two broke off and did their oposite sides of the field, like they had done before. When they met, Darling gave a proud huff, overlooking the work. "Great job, Cuddle! Let's gather these loose potatoes and call it a day, how's that sound?" Cuddleby gave a quick nod. "Wonderful-" He chirped just as quick.

The two did so, and as they were loading the potatoes into some baskets, Darling was rummaging in her bag. "You did a great job, Cuddleby! I can take it from here. Now it's just bringin these potatoes to the store and selling em off. You don't need to see that part. It's pretty boring. Here, though!" She handed Cuddleby a silver key and a few bags of seeds. "That'll get you started, and that's your key to your field. Make sure not to lose it," She warned with a grin. "Thanks, Darling! I won't!" Cuddle chirped back, smiling. "Pfft, I know you won't, Cuddle," She chirped, waving a last goodbye.

Cuddleby looked down at his key and his bags of seeds. He was pretty tired right now- but he was excited to finally start his own little garden of crops, and maybe even make a profit!

The Workings of Farm Life

0 ・ 0

In Prompt Writing ・ By critter_core

I actually did research for this lol

Sorry if the story's a bit more technical than the actual mechanics. Figured it'd make sense for Darling to teach Cuddleby, cause he would NOT know ANY of this stuff naturally.

Submitted By critter_core for Sowing Friendship
Submitted: 2 days ago ・ Last Updated: 2 days ago

Characters

NPC-0004: Darling

M-2315: Cuddleby

Mention This

In the rich text editor:

[thumb=2436]

In a comment:

[The Workings of Farm Life by critter_core (Literature)](https://play.pacapillars.com/gallery/view/2436)

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Authentication required

You must log in to post a comment.