The Sims Of The New World part 3

     "Father!" Jazz called as he and Greenley came across the field to where the men were stooped over the dying 
vegetables.  "Father, we must get our good crops out of the ground, and we must do it now before it's too late!"

Greer never really understood why his son was different from the rest  of their extended family, but he learned very 
early to listen to anything Jazz had to say.

     "Why Jazz? What's happening?"

     "It's the cold weather, it's killing our crops. And it will get colder. If we don't save what we have now, and store 
it for later, we soon won't have any food to eat."

The men stood looking at Jazz and Greenley. They also knew to listen to Jazz, but now even Greenley looked 
very serious, and they became even more concerned.

     "Store our food? We've never done that. But if you say 
we must, we will. I just don't know…" Greer's voice trailed 
away as he began to think.

     "In the ground!" Jazz said quickly. "Like the wild 
animals! They know what is happening, I'm  sure of it, 
and they have already begun to gather food to store 
away in their  burrows so that they will have food 
during the great cold that is surely coming.  If they 
can do that, why can't we?"

     "Yes, Jazz exactly!"  Jalen said with much excitement. 
"We can dig a large pit, build walls  inside. And we will 
need to build wooden containers to keep the fruit and 
vegetables  in. That should protect our crops and keep 
them fresh very nicely."

Greer looked in the direction where the colder wind 
had come and also noted the birds flying southward. 

     "We need to get started right away, " he said, 
secretly worried. "Jazz,  you and Greenley must go 
warn our friends. Tell them what you've learned from 
the wild animals and what they should do."

Jazz nodded, running off immediately with out a word. 
But Greenley still frightened, hesitated. She looked 
back  and forth between the direction Jazz was running 
and her father. She looked up into the sky, and she 
shivered again at the thought of it getting colder then 
it was already. Then, she hugged her father with all 
her might before she ran after Jazz.

     "Jalen," Greer continued, "you begin on the 
containers. You're so much better with that sort of  
thing than Gren and I, and the women can begin 
harvesting the good crops when you have a few
 ready. We'll begin on the pit, " he said to Gren, who 
nodded agreeing. "We want everything to be
 ready before it's too cold  to save any of our food."

     "Yeah, I really like this idea," Jalen was saying to 
himself as he headed to his woodpile and tools.   
"A pit with walls, like a cell, especially for 
storage." He continued thinking of the possibilities, 
when he suddenly stopped.

     "Hey, Greer," he called  back to the two men 
walking in the opposite direction. "Let's call our 
storage pit a cellar, okay?"

Another strong wind came up from  the north, and all 
three men looked up to notice the sky getting darker, 
even though it was still three hours before 
the sun has set for all these years.

And as the NeoFae took shifts to work on the cellar, building fires around their crops to keep them warm so that they
would not die as it became colder, the Orange Fae and their families stayed in their nest.  They went out very little, 
actually too afraid to venture very far from the warmth of the nest, and only to get food when it became necessary.  
But, food was becoming harder to find as the wind became colder and the sun shone less and less.

Then, it started to rain.

First it drizzled and the light cool water that fell from the sky gently kissing their cheeks amazed all the Children of 
JyM. The little Fae loved running around in it, fluttering their wings to remove it, opening their mouths to taste it.

But then, the wind became stronger and the drops became larger, and the Orange Fae remembered the storm 
brought on by the anger of The Supreme Being many  years ago. Afraid that they had done something to once 
again bring on his  wrath, each mother called out to her child to hurry inside. Each family huddled together in the 
safety of their nest as the rain fell harder and harder.

And just when it seemed safe to go outside, as the rain fell less and the trees branches once again settled in the 
light breeze, a sudden crack of lightening lit the sky to announce the second storm horrendous arrival.

Yet, because of Jade, the NeoFae had more than enough to eat as the days past. It was Jade that baked up all the 
wheat so that they had loaves upon loaves of bread. It was  Jade who took the Cowgirl's milk and agitated it 
creating a delicious spread  for the bread. It was Jade who placed bags of pressed milk curds into the cellar to be 
stored for later. And it was also Jade who had taken some of their fruits and vegetables, cooked them, spiced them 
and put them into jars, drying others in the mid-day sun, even before the men began to dig the cellar.

Jade never said one word while she labored at each task, humming her happy tunes, but, it's quite obvious that 
Jazz was NOT the only one who had a sense of what was to come. But, what  no one yet knew, not Jalen nor Jade 
herself, the cold was instinctively bringing  on her own "nesting" behavior because she was expecting their first      
child.