Setting the scene

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From: BEThexton (bethexton@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu 21 Feb 2002 - 00:07:05 EET


It so happens that my Finnish great-grandfather homesteaded in northern ontario (not far from Sudbury, for those who know Canadian Geography--not an area noted for its rich farm land).

They had two dry fields and one wet one for extra grazing and hay, as well as the big vegetable garden. They also had a lot of wooded rocky hills, one of which the pigs roamed, and all of which provided wood and a place to hunt grouse and snare rabbits and pick berries. Besides the house (and the addition which was put on for the next generation) there was a barn a wood shed, the summer kitchen, the sauna, and some root cellars.

After the initial subsistance period they mostly functioned as a dairy farm, and of course also had a few big draft horses. (The barn cats liked sleeping on the horses backs in the winter).

There was a track to the village which eventually became a road, but at first most travel was actually done in winter when you could travel on the frozen river easily.

I go into all this because this sounds like about the right setting for the sort of small stead that we are talking about, and it has the advantage of having worked in the real world. If people were interested I'm sure I could do a sketch of the area (an aunt of mine still lives in the original farm house and I've visited numerous times, so I can do it from memory.)

Would people be interested in this as a basis for the setting, to be tweaked as needed by later developments?

--Bryan

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