Excavating Frozen Ground

Ever since the first snowfall, she had become very disappointed in the state of the garden the other healers maintained on Alias Island. For the longest time, she was convinced that there was nothing left to do for it until the snow melted in the spring. But the more she learned in her lessons, the more it became clear that it still had value. She just needed to pay attention as to what was going on beneath the surface. Luckily the garden had a very specific layout, so once she was able to orient herself, she believed that she shouldn't have a huge problem navigating it. But of course, she couldn't go out empty-handed. If she was going to make a mess digging, she didn't want to have to do it again for a while. Then after she got what she needed from the garden, if she had time, she would go foraging in the forest around the other side of the lake. So with that in mind, Mariah's first stop was the medical den. Inside, she hoped to find a bag of sorts to use to bring back her collection with ease. Luckily for her, it didn't take much of a search to locate what she was looking for.

Even covered in snow, she knew exactly the place she was looking for. She had spent enough time there before winter to be able to recognize it anywhere. Today's primary objective, Burdock Root and Dandelion Root. Thankfully they were relatively close to one another in the garden, so she didn't have to go around excavating the whole space. With specific instruction, she was able to find the particular plot with ease. The first step was to rake away the snow- which she imagined would be just as daunting as the dirt. But it actually wasn't too bad. Tossing it behind her while raking her claws against the ground proved to be relatively effective. But unfortunately, the garden soil was frozen- making it a lot more difficult than she had anticipated.

Once she was able to peel back the top layer, it was much smoother goings after that. The deeper she went in the ground, the more thawed-out things became- she supposed it was the reason why root herbs were still able to be harvested. The Burdock roots were massive, and had she tried to extract the whole thing, she would have been there all afternoon. But then again, had she removed the whole system, it wouldn't grow back in the spring either. So with careful paws, once she had gone reasonably deep, she began the task of severing the main root. It took some effort, but once it eventually broke away, she gently placed it in her borrowed pack. Feeling a newfound confidence at her achievement, she had a much easier time going back for more. And by the time she had harvested four more root systems, she was really beginning to feel the fatigue in her weakened frame. After some hesitation, she decided that she was satisfied with the five she managed to get. They were rather large clumps of roots after all, so hopefully, it would be sufficient enough to get them through for a while. And with that, began the burial process. Recovering the remaining plants, and packing down the soil on top as to protect them from winter's tooth.

Moving on to where the dandelions were nourished and attracted, she had a much easier time. Their roots were far more hardy and resilient, and they didn't need to go as deep into the ground to hibernate. She was told that while they were a herb that did grow pretty well all year round in places and especially on a warm year, the late season root harvest was a lot more impactful, as the root systems had extra time to age and become more potent. When she began digging, they also came up a lot easier than the Burdock- in that, she was grateful. Since they were smaller, and easily used up, she felt obligated to collect as much as she could. She was told they spread so quickly anyways, there wasn't a huge need to ensure enough was left to regrow. So, she began filling up the rest of her bag. It wasn't until it began getting hard to see that she realized the sun was setting and it was getting dark. It seemed that her garden tasks took longer than she had initially thought, so she would have to save the forest foraging for another day. Satisfied with her bounty, she began the process of recovering the ground with the soil that she had displaced. Once satisfied, she nosed her way through the strap of her borrowed bag and set out on her return trip to the infirmary. While she still had a little daylight left, she wanted to make sure she started the drying process so it would be left to do first thing in the morning.

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