Farming Trial

Farming. Not necessarily Augustine's favorite thing to do, but he feels it would be a useful skill to have. If he can farm, he can grow his own food for his companions, and possibly even some herbs for simple remedies. Farming is useful. So thus, Augustine decided to take on this trial for the good of his companions.

Before doing anything else, August checked out a few books on plants and farming, and read them when he had time to spare. He was pleasantly surprised to find a good portion of the information interesting, which was nice. It made reading them much less of a chore, and he could just sit down in a comfortable place and absorb the information. When he finished the books, however, it came time for the... less relaxing parts. Actually making a garden.

Augustine didn't quite hate this process, but he didn't enjoy it either. Clearing the land, hoeing the earth, mixing in some organic fertilizer for good measure, it was all a lot of physical exertion that exhausted him. He felt a bit accomplished by the end of it, but that didn't much improve his opinion of the process in the first place. Planting the seeds and young plants wasn't nearly as tiring, and was a bit of a faster task to get through. Afterwards he was just happy that the hard part seemed to be over. Now all he had to do was keep an eye on them and water them regularly. Everything should go smoothly at this point.

August was mistaken.

The first disaster that struck came in the form of a Manyhead Floop, tromping about the garden and nibbling on things in curiosity. Cerberus didn't mean to undo his hard work, the tri-headed Floop just didn't understand that his actions were undesirable. When August walked out to his garden that morning, intending to water it, he was horrified to see the carnage of foliage. Barely growing sprouts and freshly settled plants were broken and drooping, either trampled, chewed, or both. Augustine didn't know how - or even if - they could be salvaged. He took a slow, deep breath in through his nose and sighed it out through his mouth. It wouldn't do to get angry. He knew that Cerberus wasn't aware of what he'd done. The only thing he could do is try to save the plants and take steps to prevent this in the future.

Upon failing to find any books on "What to do when your Floop destroys your garden", he ends up asking someone more knowledgeable for advice. After a lengthy talk with a professional, he gets to work and manages to save a good portion of the plants, but does have to get new plants to replace some that were beyond saving. This time he puts a wooden fence around the garden to prevent anymore Floopy disasters. He gives Cerberus a light scolding while showing him the fence and telling him to leave it alone this time, but he also makes sure to give the Floop some good scratchies to show that all is forgiven, and he isn't mad.

Things were going great after that. His plants recovered and were healthy, and starting to bear the starts of their bounties. Strawberry bushes and tomato plants had little green fruits, lettuce was small, but a nice shade of green and doing well. He was happy with his mini farm and eager for the time when they were ready for harvesting. That is until one day he came out and noticed missing fruits and nibbled greens. He frowned as he inspected his assaulted plants, wondering what was stealing from his garden. The next week or so involved him frequently going out to check on his garden, hoping to catch the culprit in the act.

The thief was finally spotted flying out of the garden over the fence, a barely ripe strawberry in it's paws. He ran after it for a short ways before he lost sight of it, tail poof disappearing into some denser foliage.

Snych.

August sighed and went back to the library to do yet more research. He enjoyed research, sure, but he preferred researching creatures, not techniques for keeping pests out of a garden. In the end he decided on a method that would be a sure fix, hopefully for good. He added mesh fencing on top of the wood fence he already had, and put yet more mesh across the top of the garden as well. This, he decided, should keep out most unwanted creatures whether big, small, walking, or flying. It wouldn't prevent digging creatures, but in his searching he discovered that simply putting pinwheels in the garden can usually deter those. So aside from insects, his garden was sure to be safe from pests.

There were no more major catastrophes after that, and in the end he was happy with his harvest. He wasn't a professional, so he wouldn't say his garden was "thriving," but it was healthy and bore a decent amount of food. He celebrated his success with his companions, by enjoying some tasty home-grown strawberries.