The Ram Rebellion(15)

"We're doing all right. Got most of the stone up from the slot and the mason is cutting and finishing it. Everything is a bit crowded this winter but we'll have plenty of stone for our needs come spring. I understand the kids at the high school have some sort of concrete project going so it looks like there will be mortar, too. Talked to Mrs. O'Keefe and she figures she can fit us in once the ground thaws. So we should be putting in a bunch of septic systems come spring."





They discussed the village for some time. Eddie then went home to report to his father and escaped back to Jena as soon as he could.





Spring planting was a little different. Birdie had never really gotten to know Tom Stone. He hadn't really wanted to get to know him. There was a very basic difference between them: Birdie was a solid upstanding hillbilly and Stoner was a hippie freak. Now, Birdie was consulting with Tom Stone on the planting of a new crop.





"This is not a crop I'd ever have dreamed I'd be planting," Birdie remarked. "Never in a million years."





Stoner grinned. "Don't feel lonesome, man. It's the last thing I'd have dreamed of, too. Ten full acres of prime Colombian, and it's planted right out in the open. Man, what a sight that's going to be."





Stoner, in his laid-back way, explained the details of planting to get the best, meaning the most powerful, product. His knowledge of agriculture in general and marijuana in particular was pretty impressive. Aside from breeding for the active ingredient, you also had to plant the marijuana farther apart to get a potent plant. So the number of plants per acre went down when you were planting for dope instead of hemp.





"We're going to need it," Stoner explained. "It's the best locally grown painkiller we have. I'd grow it all, myself, if I could. Just so I could donate it to the hospital."





"Man's gotta make a living, Stoner. I'm growing it for the lowest price I can manage," Birdie explained. "Best I can do."





After much argument, the Sundremda Gemeinde had decided that most of this year's crop would be beans and wheat. It would be down-time beans and wheat, at that. Birdie had wanted to plant sweet corn but there wasn't enough seed to go around.





The population of Grantville was getting up to around fifteen thousand and Badenburg had over seven thousand. The population was going up. Consequently Sundremda was switching from growing flax to producing food.





Neither Birdie nor the other farmers in Sundremda were sure that this was the best plan. As the population increased, the need for both food and flax was going up. Flax might have brought in more profit.





"Ernst, the real problem with growing flax is the spinning," Birdie argued. "We can send wheat to Grantville, get it milled real quick, and then the flour can be made into bread when it's needed. Flax will have to be spun into thread and no one has come up with a spinning machine yet. That's the bottleneck."





The down-timers had spinning wheels, but even with spinning wheels, turning flax into thread was a lot of work. Birdie wasn't sure how long reinventing a spinning machine was going to take, but from what the newspapers said, it wasn't going to happen this year.





"The price for flax in the field is going to go down, I think," Birdie continued. "It will have to be shipped to towns and villages all over the place, spun into thread, and then the thread will have to be shipped somewhere else to be woven into cloth."





Spinning was the seventeenth-century version of flipping burgers at McDonald's, except it didn't pay as well, was harder work, and had less opportunity for advancement.





Grantville was the land of opportunity. The spinners would be looking for better ways to make a living and a lot of them would find those better ways. The way Birdie figured it, the increase in demand for cloth was not going to be reflected in an increased price of flax until the spinning bottleneck was fixed.





"Someone will build a spinning machine," Ernst disagreed. "So many people who can build so many things, surely someone will figure out a way to get more flax spun."





"Yep, but it ain't gonna happen soon. And until it does, all it means is more spinners. Spinners who are going to demand, and get, better pay. That's going to mean less money per acre for the raw flax."





Ah, the simple farmer's life. Birdie thought Predicting market trends a year in advance, and then hoping like hell the weather doesn't screw you over.





"LaDonna, have you finished all those tax assessments?" Deborah Trout asked, as she breezed into the office. "We need to get the notices sent, even though I dread the reactions we're going to get from the public."