Free write 1-16-2013

Short Story Beginning: I woke before the first rays of the sun pushed up over the mountains, and the first crow of the rooster was heard. Rolling out of bed I went to the window and pulled back the oil cloth curtain and felt the fresh air blast me in the face. The Spine a range of imposing mountains that stretched across the western end of the Kingdom from the North to the South, soared above me so that the sun reached my little farm last. The Spine was so tall that there was always snow on tops of the mountains, and no one ever journeyed there because of the many dangers of ravines, dropping cliffs, and many wild animals that seem to grow larger in the Spine. This is my favorite type of day, everything is still right at the edge of dawn, the dew still clings to the grass and tree branches, and the night time animals are creeping back to their nests before the big folk, and the day animals stir. Everything is still at peace, and nothing seems disturbed. For only a few short minutes, and then, there it was the first roosters crow. I pulled on my over dress, and boots and grabbed my quiver full of fresh arrows and my bow. I go hunting every day now, winter is fast approaching and my mother and I are storing up on goods before the first snows set in. It is just my mother and I on our small farm at the base of the Spine. We only have a milking cow, a small handful of chickens, and a plow horse to plow our fields, but every year we seem able to make it through the year. My mother Grace is skilled at making the last bit of corn meal or dried squirrel to last. We get help from the town folk as well, they always make sure that we have enough grain or warm blankets, though my mother doesn't like to accept charity, unwilling to let the other townswomen to think her weak. Though it is hard for two women to make it by themselves in this fief, were the taxes are so high and where the people have so little. I can remember when the Ranger Will brought my father and younger brother to us in a wagon murdered by Wargals, who had come down for a early raid on the Kingdom. My father and brother had been coming home from the village