[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

Dragging three urns over to her house bit by bit was an exhausting task, and it seemed like a year had passed before she was dragging the third urn into the house, having to force the door closed against the howling wind. It shook the trees over by her fence so hard, she was convinced some of the branches would have fallen by morning.

[31]

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

She leaned against the door to catch her breath, feeling it rattle beneath her little fingers, but it held firm. She had done a good job of weather-proofing the doorframe over the summer, and her work was paying off - only the slightest of draughts came through under the door, hissing slightly and chilling her ankles.

[32]

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

She pulled herself off the door, and wandered over to the wall, dragging a large, heavy draught excluder in front of the door and sighing in relief as the hiss of wind dulled to the point where it was barely audible at all. She had sewn the draught excluder herself, and whilst it wasn't that pretty, it did its job well.

[33]

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

She shuffled over to where she had left her warm slippers, and pulled her little rubber boots off one by one, setting them neatly under the coat rack where she hung her scarf, wooly hat and jumper to dry. She shuffled over into her bedroom and undressed, hanging the clothes she had been wearing over the rack by the fireplace.

[34]

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

Shivering, she pulled a pair of soft woolen trousers out of her chest of drawers, and another woolen jumper, this one soft and very colourful. She pulled them on, and pulled the rack along behind her - putting it on wheels had been a very good idea, and she hardly had to pull at all before she was collecting her scarf, hat and jumper and hanging them on the rack as well.

[35]

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

She pulled the now-full rack into the living room, and positioned it near the fireplace, but not so near that any embers would reach it if they were able to escape the mesh screen she had installed. It hung in front of the fireplace on two hinges, neatly secured on the other side with a latch.

[36]

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

Honey began stoking the fire, and soon had it building until the room began to heat up. She adjusted the rack, and smiled as the warmth began to penetrate her chilled fingers and toes.

Returning to the hallway, she picked up the basket of eggs and carried them to the kitchen.

[37]

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

She placed the eggs on the rack in her larder, with the oldest eggs at the front - she made sure to rotate them, so she always knew whether they were new or were at risk of going bad, and she smiled at the sight of her pantry and larder shelves being nearly full.

[38]

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

Once again, she returned to the hallway, this time pulling a little cart behind her. Nothing more than a slab of wood on four wheels pulled by a string, she dragged it over to where the milk urns stood beside the door, and heaved the one she would keep onto the little cart.

[39]

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

The little cart was no use outside in the mud, snow or dirt that made up the roads around her farmland, but she often wished she had built one that could handle it - it made it so much easier to move the urns around, she thought, as she pulled the cart and urn back into her larder and stood the urn over by the one she had collected the day before.

[40]

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

She tilted the urn from the day before, pleased to find it was still more than half full, and set to gathering the things she would need to turn the milk into cheese. She pulled out her big mixing bowl, as well as her whisk and wooden spoon, and a bottle of vinegar.

[41]

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

Honey smiled, remembering the soft cheeses she had mad the year before. The vinegar made the cheeses much softer and spreadable, and she preferred that to the harder cheeses she had made before being told about using vinegar.

She licked her lips and pulled out her jug of sap, as well as a thin woven cloth to strain the curds with, and her largest saucepan.

[42]

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

Last but not least, she pulled out her copper ladle, and gave it a quick polish with her dishrag until it shone. She dipped the ladle into the urn, pulling out several scoops of milk and pouring each of them into her mixing bowl until it was about half-full, before she replaced the lid on the urn, the ladle hanging from the rim inside the urn, with the lid trapping it by the bend in the handle.

[43]

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

A short while later, six tiny cheese wheels sat drying in the larder, and Honey busied herself with cleaning what she had used meticulously and putting it all away where it belonged. She poured herself a glass of milk using the ladle she had hung on the urn, and sipped at it happily as she turned, wondering what to eat for lunch.

[44]

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

The ham on the platter caught her eye, and Honey smiled, busying herself with her loaf of bread and home-churned butter until three large sandwiches sat upon her plate. She carried the plate and the glass of milk over to the living room, and pulled the small table in front of her cosy armchair by the fire.

[45]