50 Ashan 721
Dan hauled the deer skin out of the dehairing solution and ended up staggering several steps under the weight of it before he found a way to shift his stance and angle his body to counter balance the uneven load. He slung it over a fallen log for easier access to work it, and straightened it out so that it hung flat against the wood, without creases or wrinkles. He reached into his leather working kit, and pulled out a long scraper. He stretched, and shoved his sleeves further up his arms out of the way, then leaned over the hide and pushed the scraper down it, away from his body. The hairs slid off the hide without much effort needed from him, and he grinned at this evidence that the dehairing solution actually worked. It stank, of course, but he was downwind of his actual camp, and he could scrub the smell off once he was done with the stinky but essential parts of the task. Nobody ever made leather without stinks being involved, that was why tanneries always existed on the edge of towns at best. Nobody else wanted to be near them.
The scraper, even as long as it was, wasn't long enough to do an entire deer hide in one stroke. It might have done a rabbit hide, if he had wanted to cure one of those as a piece of leather rather than as a fur, but deer were, he acknowledged with a wry grin at the mental understatement, just that little bit larger. He went back to work, running the scraper systematically across the hide, and making sure not to leave any hairs behind, because any that were left when he started the actual tanning would be tanned right along with it and much harder to remove afterward.
He finished, cleaned the scraper, and double checked his work for hairs he might have missed. Finding none, he then grabbed hold of one edge and pulled it back over itself, and kept going until the entire hide had been flipped over and he could scrape the other side of it clean. This side was harder to do, being a mix of grease and membranes that clung to the hide and clogged up the scraper blade, forcing him to wipe it clean at frequent intervals, and use more strength in his scraping. It also smeared across his fingers and wrists (another reason why he had pushed his sleeves up before he started) and of course, the moment Dan's hands were coated in filth, his nose began to itch.
He wasn't, he told himself, going to bring his stinking hands anywhere near his nose. That was a surefire way to make everything worse, because his nose would start streaming, not just itching. He wrinkled it and blew a hard breath out through it, and then just gritted his teeth and worked faster, pushing himself as fast as he could go without risking damaging the skin. His arms ached under the strain, but he finally got the skin clean, and the scraper wiped off, and bolted for the stream with his hands stretched out in front of him, keeping the smell, literally, at arm's length. Even then, he made sure to hit the water well downstream of his fish trap and his watering spot, so that neither would be contaminated by the rancid grease he had to scrub off.
He found a patch of soapwort and crushed two of the leaves, dipping them in the water to create a soapy lather, and mixing them with a crushed mint leaf to cover any remaining smell, then with a wince, shoved his arms into the chilly water and used the soapwort to scrub the filth from his hands and arms. The fact that it was grease made it harder to remove using the cold water, but he wasn't about to take the smell back to his main campsite just so that he could heat water to wash in. Elbow grease served to remove real grease, if you used enough of it, after all.
He barely got the worst off before his nose itched so much that he instinctively rubbed at it with his hand. Urgh! He shoved the hand back in the water and scrubbed harder. When he was finally done with his hands, he washed his face too, where he had rubbed it, and sat back on his heels to consider the next stage.
At the moment, the hide was still wet from the dehairing solution, which meant it was still flexible, but if he didn't get it properly cured and stretched, it would dry stiff and brittle and horribly hard to work later. The town tanners used big immovable vats of tanning solutions, but the way he lived and moved around meant that that wasn't really an option for him.
There was a patch of wild carrots near his foot, and he pulled a few almost absently as he thought. He would cure it with the brain - every animal had just enough brains to preserve its hide - and lash it to a portable wooden frame that would stretch the hide out as it dried. He could give it some extra stretching and working whenever he had a moment to do so. He nodded in satisfaction to himself, straightened, and headed back to work, taking the carrots with him.
He hauled the cleaned up hide off the log and wrung out as much of the liquid as he could, before laying it down in the grass. He emptied the dehairing solution out of its container, replaced it with the brains mixed with water, and dumped the skin back into it. This time, he plunged his hands in as well, rubbing the tanning solution into every inch of hide with his fingers. Once that was done, he worked it back and forth over the log to soften it and leave it more supple, and then lashed it to the wooden frame to dry properly.
He cleaned himself up a second time, then began the process of bringing everything back to his camp. It was, he acknowledged with a resigned mental shrug, going to take more than one trip. It had taken that many to haul things down to this workspace, he could hardly expect it to take fewer trips going the other way. He carried his first armful home, then took the time to fill his cooking pot with clean water and toss in a handful of beans to cook slowly while he worked. He trimmed the feathery green leaves off the carrots he had picked and set them aside to eat as a sort of salad, then chopped the carrots themselves into roughly even pieces, along with a stored wild onion, and added them to the pot to simmer and flavour the soup he was making. Slinging his gathering bag across his back, he headed back along the stream for his next load.
After his second load, he stopped on his way for a third and final load to check his fish trap. He hauled it up out of the water by the rope that tethered it in place and prevented it from being swept downstream by the current and the thrashing of the fish and peered inside. The trap held two plump fish and he grinned at the sight. Pulling them out, he killed them with brisk blows to the head, cleaned and gutted them, and then put the guts back in the trap to serve as bait, and the trap itself back in the stream. He wrapped the fish in a bit of cloth, and picked young nettle leaves and young dandelions to add to his green salad, stowing it all in his bag and shunting the bag around his body to sit against his back, out of the way.
When he had at last brought everything back to camp and stowed away, he tore all the greens to pieces with his hands, mixed them together, and piled them into a bowl, leaving a hollow in the middle to scoop the beans and vegetables into, once they were cooked.
Then, as he still had a while to wait for that, he stretched his body, aching from all the type of work it wasn't used to doing, and stiff from having to move and haul with an unbalanced load, out on the ground and let the general support ease the aches and pains while his meal finished cooking. He would save the fish for tomorrow morning, to start the day well, and let him work on the leather some more, but it was, as far as he could tell, going to be good leather. At the very least, that much was worth the effort he had put into it.
"Signed words" Spoken words
Dan hauled the deer skin out of the dehairing solution and ended up staggering several steps under the weight of it before he found a way to shift his stance and angle his body to counter balance the uneven load. He slung it over a fallen log for easier access to work it, and straightened it out so that it hung flat against the wood, without creases or wrinkles. He reached into his leather working kit, and pulled out a long scraper. He stretched, and shoved his sleeves further up his arms out of the way, then leaned over the hide and pushed the scraper down it, away from his body. The hairs slid off the hide without much effort needed from him, and he grinned at this evidence that the dehairing solution actually worked. It stank, of course, but he was downwind of his actual camp, and he could scrub the smell off once he was done with the stinky but essential parts of the task. Nobody ever made leather without stinks being involved, that was why tanneries always existed on the edge of towns at best. Nobody else wanted to be near them.
The scraper, even as long as it was, wasn't long enough to do an entire deer hide in one stroke. It might have done a rabbit hide, if he had wanted to cure one of those as a piece of leather rather than as a fur, but deer were, he acknowledged with a wry grin at the mental understatement, just that little bit larger. He went back to work, running the scraper systematically across the hide, and making sure not to leave any hairs behind, because any that were left when he started the actual tanning would be tanned right along with it and much harder to remove afterward.
He finished, cleaned the scraper, and double checked his work for hairs he might have missed. Finding none, he then grabbed hold of one edge and pulled it back over itself, and kept going until the entire hide had been flipped over and he could scrape the other side of it clean. This side was harder to do, being a mix of grease and membranes that clung to the hide and clogged up the scraper blade, forcing him to wipe it clean at frequent intervals, and use more strength in his scraping. It also smeared across his fingers and wrists (another reason why he had pushed his sleeves up before he started) and of course, the moment Dan's hands were coated in filth, his nose began to itch.
He wasn't, he told himself, going to bring his stinking hands anywhere near his nose. That was a surefire way to make everything worse, because his nose would start streaming, not just itching. He wrinkled it and blew a hard breath out through it, and then just gritted his teeth and worked faster, pushing himself as fast as he could go without risking damaging the skin. His arms ached under the strain, but he finally got the skin clean, and the scraper wiped off, and bolted for the stream with his hands stretched out in front of him, keeping the smell, literally, at arm's length. Even then, he made sure to hit the water well downstream of his fish trap and his watering spot, so that neither would be contaminated by the rancid grease he had to scrub off.
He found a patch of soapwort and crushed two of the leaves, dipping them in the water to create a soapy lather, and mixing them with a crushed mint leaf to cover any remaining smell, then with a wince, shoved his arms into the chilly water and used the soapwort to scrub the filth from his hands and arms. The fact that it was grease made it harder to remove using the cold water, but he wasn't about to take the smell back to his main campsite just so that he could heat water to wash in. Elbow grease served to remove real grease, if you used enough of it, after all.
He barely got the worst off before his nose itched so much that he instinctively rubbed at it with his hand. Urgh! He shoved the hand back in the water and scrubbed harder. When he was finally done with his hands, he washed his face too, where he had rubbed it, and sat back on his heels to consider the next stage.
At the moment, the hide was still wet from the dehairing solution, which meant it was still flexible, but if he didn't get it properly cured and stretched, it would dry stiff and brittle and horribly hard to work later. The town tanners used big immovable vats of tanning solutions, but the way he lived and moved around meant that that wasn't really an option for him.
There was a patch of wild carrots near his foot, and he pulled a few almost absently as he thought. He would cure it with the brain - every animal had just enough brains to preserve its hide - and lash it to a portable wooden frame that would stretch the hide out as it dried. He could give it some extra stretching and working whenever he had a moment to do so. He nodded in satisfaction to himself, straightened, and headed back to work, taking the carrots with him.
He hauled the cleaned up hide off the log and wrung out as much of the liquid as he could, before laying it down in the grass. He emptied the dehairing solution out of its container, replaced it with the brains mixed with water, and dumped the skin back into it. This time, he plunged his hands in as well, rubbing the tanning solution into every inch of hide with his fingers. Once that was done, he worked it back and forth over the log to soften it and leave it more supple, and then lashed it to the wooden frame to dry properly.
He cleaned himself up a second time, then began the process of bringing everything back to his camp. It was, he acknowledged with a resigned mental shrug, going to take more than one trip. It had taken that many to haul things down to this workspace, he could hardly expect it to take fewer trips going the other way. He carried his first armful home, then took the time to fill his cooking pot with clean water and toss in a handful of beans to cook slowly while he worked. He trimmed the feathery green leaves off the carrots he had picked and set them aside to eat as a sort of salad, then chopped the carrots themselves into roughly even pieces, along with a stored wild onion, and added them to the pot to simmer and flavour the soup he was making. Slinging his gathering bag across his back, he headed back along the stream for his next load.
After his second load, he stopped on his way for a third and final load to check his fish trap. He hauled it up out of the water by the rope that tethered it in place and prevented it from being swept downstream by the current and the thrashing of the fish and peered inside. The trap held two plump fish and he grinned at the sight. Pulling them out, he killed them with brisk blows to the head, cleaned and gutted them, and then put the guts back in the trap to serve as bait, and the trap itself back in the stream. He wrapped the fish in a bit of cloth, and picked young nettle leaves and young dandelions to add to his green salad, stowing it all in his bag and shunting the bag around his body to sit against his back, out of the way.
When he had at last brought everything back to camp and stowed away, he tore all the greens to pieces with his hands, mixed them together, and piled them into a bowl, leaving a hollow in the middle to scoop the beans and vegetables into, once they were cooked.
Then, as he still had a while to wait for that, he stretched his body, aching from all the type of work it wasn't used to doing, and stiff from having to move and haul with an unbalanced load, out on the ground and let the general support ease the aches and pains while his meal finished cooking. He would save the fish for tomorrow morning, to start the day well, and let him work on the leather some more, but it was, as far as he could tell, going to be good leather. At the very least, that much was worth the effort he had put into it.
"Signed words" Spoken words
