4 Glade 4622,
The beginning of the new year was a busy time for many in the rural portions of Amoren. Samoset was no exception to the hustle and bustle around the town. Farmers were getting ready to seed their land with the warming weather and fairer rains coming. He and Swift had a busy week ahead, meeting back up with farmers from last year and checking in on them, scouting their fields, and scoping out new potential partners.
Samoset has had a lot of the same farmers on his rotation for as long as he has been in Amoren. Most of them were all within the same area so Sam and Swift could patrol them all at once. Today he was going to talk to a collection of farmers. The Sutherlands and Winsors were large families where a few children acquired leases or their own land next to their parents.
He started the day with the older Sutherlands. They were nice people, grandparents by now, who had been in Amoren much longer than Sam. Sam stooped down and knocked on the door to the modest homestead, Swift perched on his antlers. Seeing the door open, he took a step back to not be stooped over. Old man Sutherland answered the door. Phil was a good man, raised a good family, and worked hard all his life on this land. One of his sons acquired land next door, the other son took up a trade but now assisted his father working the family land. Grandkids filled in the extra labor shortages.
“Well look who is here at the beginning of the year! Sam how are you?” Phil asked with his usual bright smile. He extended a hand to the large elk rathor.
Shaking the human’s hand, Sam smiled and gently nodded, “Hello Phil. I am doing well and Swift is eager for the year to start. How is your family doing? All ready for the year ahead?”
“The family is doing fine. Caleb is having another baby he tells me.” Phil steps outside and heads towards the field, waving Sam along. “Yes we are getting ready for another go this year. I’ll be planting a couple of crops and Caleb I know will be sticking with cotton this year.”
The pair walked out to the field not far away and looked over the bare earth. A small fence separating the fields in the warm, Glade morning. The cool air of Frost quickly giving way to the onset of the new year.
Pointing out to the fields in succession, Phil started going over the plans for planting, watering and harvesting for the year. The whole of the years’ plan was pretty standard. The tour ended around half way across the field where Sam offered another handshake, “I am looking forward to the year ahead, Phil. I’ll go touch bases with Caleb real quick then take Swift around to scout out the fields.”
They shook hands and Sam was off to Caleb Sutherland’s house. Unlike Phil Sutherland’s house, Caleb had children running around everywhere ranging in ages from young adults to small toddlers. Sam smiled and waved as he approached, many of the children knowing and remember him. Caleb waved back to the rathor, the man was chopping wood and keeping an eye on the kids running around the front garden and fields.
Putting the axe away Caleb approached, having to wade through the gathering of children around the rathor. Swift took flight when Sam knelt down to say hello to all the children. Sam didn’t mind children in small doses, but Caleb’s kids were very hands on. He had watched a fair few of these kids grow up over the years so he was part of their family, or they would like him to be at least.
Sam stood up and reached a hand out as Caleb waded through his children with a smile. Caleb and Sam didn’t have as good of a relationship as his father and Sam did. Caleb was initially skeptical of having a falconer patrol around and keep rabbits and rats out, and was off and on skeptical to this day.
“Samoset, good to see you.” Caleb greeted, shaking hands with the rathor. “Would you care to come inside and talk?”
Sam shook his head and chuckled, “I won’t keep you too long, Caleb. I also don’t do so well inside human homes. I got stuck in Miss Winsor’s doorway once when she insisted. I already talked with your father about your plans for this year.”
Caleb nodded and smiled again, “Well that’s good, I don’t have too much different this year. I was thinking about planting a little earlier this year. Going to get the fields plowed and prepped by the end of the week if it doesn’t rain too much. We should be putting seed out here in a couple of weeks I hope.”
Sam nodded and looked out over the fields, “I’ll plan on having my pre-planting hunting and scouting done in time them. Do you mind if I take a lap around the fields today? I’d like to check and see where the rabbit colony ended up at the end of last year. I remember they were spilling out of the irrigation ditch between you and Winsor’s land. I would like to encourage them to back out of their and off to somewhere else this year.” Sam turned to look back at Caleb.
The man nodded and looked out in the direction of the ditch in question, “Yeah, they were all over last year. I know that you and your bird kept them pretty well corralled but it would be nice to have them removed once and for all.”
Sam nodded and stepped away towards the fields, firstly he liked to walk the perimeter of the Sutherlands land in total. The irrigation ditch that supplied the fields with water ended at the edge of the Sutherlands northernmost field which opened up into a small meadow surrounded by a thicket that backed into the wooded hills. He decided to inspect the ditch a little further. He walked the length, keeping an eye out for rabbit burrows and sure enough, he would find several concentrated areas. The large rathor kneels down and investigates each burrow collection. Most look abandoned still as after the crops were harvested last year, the rabbits moved off to somewhere. He worked his way along until he got close to the end of the irrigation ditch where he started to see signs of recent disturbance.
Samoset knelt down again and let out a quick elk chuckle call. The high-pitched double call echoed a little on the wind. Each part of his chuckle started high pitched and had a low bump between each call to make it sound like a chuckle. He used the sound waves and concentrated on the lower pitch in his call. Lower pitches were more reliable as higher pitches could be drowned out or mimicked by squeaking machinery. He felt his resonance mark ripple as he focused on Sonar. The sound waves beating back to him and painting a blurry picture of what was in the tunnels immediately around him. He focused for a few minutes before opening his eyes and taking another look at the burrows and surrounding area. Few rabbits had been through this area it seemed as there were no new game trails and much of the ground remained undisturbed. His sonar told him that the burrows were likely empty or caving in. It was hard to tell as the magic only really told him that there were mostly clear tunnels up to the ends or up to bumps that were either rocks, definitely cave ins, or potentially hiding rabbits.
He could feel Swift alight onto his antlers once more after his call and offer a soft chirp to him. “Hello pretty girl, I noticed you left me with all the kids earlier.” He tightened his left glove, held it up in front of him and tapped it. “Swift, glove.” She made a short hop onto the glove and turned around slowly. Grasping the leather straps to the jesses on her ankles to steady her, Sam focused on her eyes and leaned in, “What did you see while you were gone? Swift, heads.” He commanded.
She lowered her beak and leaned into his head with her forehead, the connection of commune coming into focus for both of them. Sam asks “Where did you go?” to which Swift imparts a sense of all the surrounding area for a mile or so. Sam asks his second question, “Did you see a rabbit colony?” The reply comes as a yes, she had encountered a few. Sam dug a little and kept commune up for one more question, “Did you see any other big animal that didn’t belong?” He hoped she would know what he wanted with this question and her response took a minute. An image popped into his head; a fox came into focus in the fuzzy areas of Sam’s vision within the spell. He leaned back and she stood tall, a proud look in her posture as she fluffed up her feathers. He blinked and smiled, “Yes you are a pretty and good girl and you know it! Thank you so very much.” He opened his satchel bag and produced her favorite treat, brain matter! He held up the rat skull she had opened earlier in the morning and she took a few bites. He let her eat for a moment while he considered the new information.
