| Details for Creature Camp, Day 2 - Chores |
| Summary: | The Fawley Farm is abustle with Campers pitching in with chores. |
| Date: | August 19th 1939 |
| Location: | Fawley Farm |
| Related: | Creature Camp, Day 1 - Tour |
| Characters |
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Ah life on a farm, waking up before the sun has even thought about rising, cramming a hearty breakfast down in you. Then comes chores! All of the animals need to be fed. A field of wild flowers needs harvesting for a later meal for the Granians. Tending to the owls that fill the attic of the massive barn also need tending to, which means dodging poop while poop is being scraped off the beams and perch nooks. The Horse AND winged horse stalls all 30 of them need to be mucked out and freshly bedded. Slop from the leftovers from breakfast need to be transported from the Dining Pavillion to the Pig pen. Not to mention all 40 cows need milking. Camilla and her hired hands work with the campers to teach them all of the tricks of the trade and most are patient and friendly. On of them though has a bit of a mouth on him and it a bit on the surly side. Many of the Quidditch Fan campers all tried to wedge in to the chore duty that's overseen by the recently retired Demetrius Bennett, beater for the Appleby Arrows.
Said chore duty overseen by Beater Bennet happens to be milking. Little Elise has picked a docile-looking red and brown cow with beautiful eyes to try her hand at it. Luckily for her the cow is very tolerant, because no matter how she tugs, no milk comes from the cow's udders. "Oh, drat!" Elise finally says in consternation. "I feel like I'm going to hurt her, but I'm not getting any milk out!" The cow turns her head slowly to look at Elise, regards the small girl for a second, and then gives her a kiss in the same way puppies do - by licking her. Cow tongues are, of course, significantly larger than most dog tongues, so the entire left side of Elise's face is slobbered on, and there's a great big cow-lick (hahahaha) of hair sticking straight up into the air. "Augh!" Elise shrieks, and tumbles backward off her stool.
Living on the farm, rather than being a camper, doesn't excuse Josie from chores. Quite the opposite, she likely has more as she has to help run the camp as well. She does have an advantage, however. She's been doing this all summer, and most of the summer before that. So, she knows what she's doing, and is having no problem at all getting milk from the cow she's milking. She turns, perhaps to give Elise tips, but burst into giggles at Elise's reaction to the lick.
Camilla is making the rounds checking on everyone and every thing. She presses her lips together hard to not crack too big of a smile at the camper's slobber-gelled hairstyle. "Buttercup fancies herself quite the stylist." A towel is offered over to Elise, her smile widening and sweet. A little wink is tossed over at Josie in her giggle fit. "Everything alright here?"
Brining the leftovers from the pavilion and then slopping the pigs was not one of the 'cool jobs' on the list, but Christmas decided to help with it. Everything was going smoothly until a younger camper opened the gate and one of the pigs, panicked. People might imagine that pigs are slow and ungainly, but shift them into panic mode, and they can fly on the four little hoover feet. The pig decided to bolt. Christmas made a lunge to grab her to stop her escape, but the pig charged forward, with Christmas holding onto the pig's neck. If surely has his wand with him, but if he tries to retrieve it, he might loose his grip, and the pig.
For a few seconds Elise just lays there in the clover. She glances over at Josie when the other girl starts giggling. She doesn't seem to know how to react, herself, until Camilla makes her little quip. She smiles, at first uncertainly, but then with more amusement, before she finally giggles, as well, and rights herself. "Perhaps in cow couture, Buttercup is the belle of the ball, but her deftness at human hairstyles leaves something to be desired." The squealing of a fleeing pig catches her ear, as well as Buttercup's and both she and the bovine swing their heads around to see what the fuss is about. Speechless, the girl points a finger, eyes wide.
Josie grins to Elise, "You get used to stuff like that here." Not that Josie has ever been one to really care how she looks. She, too, turns as she hears a squeal, eyes widening at the sight and she immediately calls, "Camilla!"
Camilla grins to the retort about Buttercup and then gives a little sigh at the pig making a dash for it. "Well…go on! Get her!" She waves for the girls to go chasing after the pig that managed to slip by a camper that forgot to close the gate into the pen for slop time. Now Cami, she could wave her wand and the pig would be back in it's been with little more fuss, but what would be the fun in that!?
Everything happened quickly, in a blur - the escape and then Christmas lunging instinctively after the pig. She is one of the larger sows, and now she is like a cursed runaway broom. Christmas looks around him and decides to risk falling and rolling to one side, hopefully out of the way of the huge red sow.
"Um, um, um!" Elise says, dithering for a few seconds before pulling out her wand and aiming it at the pig. "Petrifi— oh, darn it, the stupid rules!" she cries, aborting an attempt to cast a spell to stop the pig in its tracks. "Eeek!" she tries next, which includes quite a bit of running away from the crazed sow.
Josie, on the other hand, immediately starts running for the runaway pig. She may not be sure how to stop it when she gets there, given it's big enough to drag Christmas along, but it doesn't stop her from doing everything she can to try to catch up to it.
Graham has connected.
Christmas rolls out of Berserker Sow's way, although he now has a souvenir layer of barnyard dirt and grass stains to show for his effort. At least his hands are free, and he retrieves his wand. In a case like this, Elise's choice of spells was obvious. Taking careful aim, he shouts, "Petrificus Totalus!"
"Pig on the loose!" Elise cries, her voice high and thin, but managing to carry. Meanwhile her dairy cow, Buttercup, starts ambling very nonchalantly toward a succulent patch of dandelions.
It's with crack through the air though still at the edge of the farm land only that Graham appears. It's hard to tell if he's here to watch or help chaperon or what but he begins to make his way up the lane and towards the grouping of students and maybe some adults for that matter. The young man moves off to the side not wanting to be in the way, for the moment he'll just stay here and observe so he can get a better idea of what's going on.
Josie hadn't expected the spell, and she almost runs into the pig as it suddenly stops dead. Luckily, she's agile enough to stop, blinking as she looks at the pig, then around. "How do we get it back inside its pen now?"
Camilla leans on the barn wall with her wand hand up draped casually over her mouth, hand and wand doing their best to hide the silent chuckle and grin as she watches the sow wrasslin. She will of course step in if things go south, but this is one of her favorite things, watching the city folk scramble! Highly, highly amused but hiding it well to not insult the Campers.
Graham stands watching mostly but takes a few more steps to be closer to where the group is before pausing, it seems he's able to catch on with the unconscious pig and the students standing about it trying to decide what to do. He'll look up finding the ranger whom he recognizes from work. The young man offers a nod and a small wave in greeting though he also will remain silently watching not wishing to disturb the exercise as it were.
Already on-edge, the crack of Graham Apparating in startles Elise so that she jumps a bit. Seeing who it is, some of her apprehension eases. "A pig got out," she tells the Auror. A broad swathe of hair on the left side of her is sticking up crazily, like she was licked by a cow, or something. She turns to Jose and considers the question for a moment. "A levitation spell," she suggests. "Mobilicorpus or something?"
When he sees that the pig is immobile, Christmas shakes his head, looks to Camilla, and smiles apologetically. Then he looks at Josie. "It will take some concentration," he answers, "but …" He lifts his wand again and points it at the pig. "Levioso!" he commands, aiming at the pig to try to lift it into the air. "It's probably my fault," he guesses. "I'll take her to her pen."
The heavy jowls of the large sow jiggle and lift, but that's about all that rises up.
Josie grins as she watches Christmas levitate the pig. "I can't wait until I'm old enough to use spells in summer." Then, after a moment, she says, "Make sure to tell the pig sorry, they're really smart." She glances up curiously to Graham as he walks by, but having never visited her father at work, she doesn't recognize him to greet him other than a quick, friendly, smile.
The young man nods to the student as he's spoken to, and a small chuckle escapes him after a moment. "I see that Miss Harper, though i'm afraid it's broken no laws." Graham says with a grin looking to the others offering a bit a of a wave in greeting to the others though he's just watching the proceedings for the moment.
Christmas smirks when his spell manages only to cause a comical giggling to the sow's jaws. "I'll give it another shot, but I have a feeling that we might need to do this without spells. He looks around and wonders, "Where's a hand-truck when you need one?" Christmas lifts his wand again, aims at the pig, and commands, "Levioso!" The pig rises, but only by a few inches before it drops to the ground.
Josie had expected Christmas to be able to do this, and taken a few steps back towards the cows. Instead, she stops and looks back as he has little luck. "Oh, wow, he must be really heavy."
"Ye know…ye could just help the porky piggie an' apologize and ask iffen ye can ride it…back home, I mean…its a beautiful critter and all, the jumpin' practice might get 'im a wee bit…cross." Cillian drawls softly as he approaches the area, one hand tucked into a pocket.
Graham watches as they continue to try to get the pig back into it's pen. The large pig though seems a bit resistant to the idea of being lifted though and it is still not moving. The young man still stands back to watch for now "It looked like you nearly had it that time." he encourages not wishing to ruin the accomplishment.
Christmas moves close to the Gargantuan sow and aims his wand for a third time. Without raising his voice, he orders, "Fih-nee-tay!" to release the pig from its temporary paralysis.
The auror's not sure what the other plans to do this time as he seems to work on the problem for himself. The call of the spell gets a raised eyebrow but perhaps their other has a plan as the pig seems to stir at first shaking off the long stillness and being dropped, it takes a moment to try to roll back on it's feet before accomplishing the feet. Graham only now reaches in his sleeve where his wand is held but it's not drawn while he waits.