Spring was uneventful, except for the artifact gold anvil... (worth 103k)

Well, it's pretty... useless.  Much like 3/4 of the other artifacts.  It can, however be used to build a regular (not magma) forge.  So I will build that in the underground dining room down towards the magma workshops.

27th Hematite - Rovod Uzoltad gives birth to a boy.  Finally used up all of the leather in the fort, hopefully all of the 100-odd dwarves are now dressed or kitted out in leather armor.

28th Malachite - The Minotaur Imust Orsharsuton Liruktomus Nazom has come!  Probably not trap-avoid, so it will likely die on the weapon traps near our entrance...

1st Galena - The minotaur has run across a pack of hyena-people.  They spend a few days fighting from the entrance to the fort over to the eastern edge.

5th Galena - Somehow Stonecrafter Sibrek Kubukneb fell off the eastern tower of the fortress and landed in the dry moat (5-6 Z below).  Naturally, into the waiting arms of the minotaur.

My working theory here is that they were working on the upper walls and got scared by the minotaur.  Apparently, the dwarves don't pay too close attention when they flee, or they try and climb down the wall to escape?

This might be borne out by the death of peasant Litast Matdodok on the western wall on the 6th.

At least the dwarven child, Thikut Kosothborush did not suffer long.  This happened on the eastern wall.

At this point it is pretty apparent that unlike the giantess, minotaurs can climb.  They can definitely climb trees, as here is the minotaur perched a few levels up on the east side trees.

The wall at that point is 3Z tall and made out of gabbro stone block.

17th Galena - And now the 'Carpenter' Iden Domasatol has decided to jump off the wall and fall down into the dry moat.

Iden does at least have armor on and is part of the militia.

Perhaps not as well trained as I would have liked...

First move of the fight is that the minotaur loses hold and falls to the bottom of the dry moat.

The minotaur is running away, going east/north around the outer walls.  Time to order the bridge dropped and position marksdwarves along the north side.

19th Galena - Bolts are starting to fly from the walls.

The minotaur has climbed up another tree on the east wall and is trying to get in over the 3-4Z stone block wall.

This is not a very organized fight on the part of the militia, half of them are still running around getting dressed or deciding that they want to go claim a better weapon.

'Carpenter' Iden decides to jump down into the moat... again... and fight the minotaur directly.

The initial combat report looks semi-promising.

Unfortunately, even though the minotaur has a lot of red/yellow damage - Idem has passed out.  I really should have added metal helms to the uniform...

Still not quite dead, the minotaur is kicking and kicking.  The leather hood is doing a lot to prevent damage.

21st Galena - Squads have finally gotten to a firing location on the walls.

Iden falls asleep next to the unconscious minotaur (who is soon slain by bolts).  Iden heads off under his own power to go rest in the hospital.  Preliminary wound report is:

So we lost three dwarves to the minotaur, all because dwarves like to jump off of walls... the civilian militia is proving its worth, even if all they have is leather armor.

23rd Galena - Muthkat Ekirsazir has given birth to a girl.

1st Limestone - Autumn has arrived.  Inod is still hauling the minotaur's corpse to the refuse pile near the butcher's workshop.  The gate will remain down for the moment, as the dwarven caravan is expected soon.

There are a few unhappy campers in the fort.  (This is the DFHack Manage Labors screen under 'u' then 'l'.)

The baby Rigoth is unhappy due to losing a sibling.  Baby Alath is unhappy to have witnessed death.  Both are too small to throw tantrums and should improve by the time they hit toddler stage.  'Smith' Mafol is "content" from witnessing death and being caught in the rain, but her mood should come up quickly once she sees her bedroom and dines in a legendary dining hall.

The mood of the two were-dwarves - doesn't count for anything.  They are walled away.

Another DFHack plugin gives a little lower-right corner set of numbers showing how many dwarves are unhappy/happy.

11th Limestone - The dwarven caravan and liaison have arrived.  Time to unload more x(socks)x onto the trader.  Hoping to sell off a lot of diorite stone crafts, some wooden spiked balls, and all of the worn out clothing.

24th Limestone - About 90% of the stuff for trading has made it to the depot, time to wake up the broker and do the trading....

Taking a peek at the civilization screen, there is still a king living somewhere.  And it looks like Coppercounselled is still a viable site.

Trading started, I have 132k worth of goods.  Metal bars, lye and gypsum are priorities.  You can never have enough gypsum powder for casts (unless your embark has it in stone form).  That's only about 3900.  Buying all the "cloth bin" is another 18k.  All the "leather bin" is 7k.  All of the anvils is 9.2k.  All of the metal bolts is 12k.  That puts my total up at 49k.

Cages are next.  Turkeys, chickens, empty cages, etc.  Takes me to 52k.

Anything made out of steel that can be melted or used... I avoid anything that costs more then 1200-1500 for a single item.  Total is now up to 73k (59k profit).  Search for anything made out of iron, with a price limit of about 500.  That takes me up to 80.5k (51.6k profit).

A quick scan through the list reminds me to buy all thread/yarn.  That's about 2.6k worth of stuff.

Hmmm, I can probably pickup some cheap bronze items to be melted down.

92k of stuff, 40k profit - time to see if the merchant will accept.  Yep, Momuz was "very happy" about the trade.  Now I have lots of stuff to melt, cloth/leather to make more clothing, plus some odds and ends.

As soon as the caravan leaves, I should be able to close up the gates again for another 9-10 months.  'Broker' Rigoth Kacothiteb can go back to being a full-time butcher.

27th Limestone - Checking on the hospital, 'Carpenter' Iden has been discharged.  Looks like he will make a full recovery once that hand heals up.

Rovod Uzoltad, on the other hand, is still in the hospital with a fractured upper-right leg and a missing left leg.

Rovod is a bit of an unhappy camper at the moment.

3rd Sandstone - Her husband is not much happier.

7th Sandstone - The dwarven baby Rigoth Nilnitig is wandering around outside... I can't close the gates until he wanders back inside.

13th Sandstone - Wandering baby Rigoth is back inside, gates are sealed again.  His mother finally got more treatment (dressing on the right upper leg).  She still can't stand, so I expect she will be assigned a crutch.  I should take her out of the military squad as well.

I'm going to open up the fort to new migrants again in the summer.  I need more peons to haul stuff around.

17th Sandstone - Hmmm, I have just discovered a merchant and bodyguard who are still inside the fort.  Oh, I forgot to leave the drawbridge down long enough for them to depart.  They have only been stuck for four days, so they should be fine to make it to the map edge before going crazy.

24th Sandstone - Export item agreement (in order of priority):

1. Ammunition, Amulets, Large Gems
2. Crowns, Quivers
3. Musical Instruments, Scepters
4. Seeds, Handwear, Armor

Now I have to wait for the liaison to leave the fort so I can raise the drawbridge.

26th Sandstone - Pull the bridge lever!  Time to seal this back up until next autumn.

The inventory of metal bars is starting to look pretty good.  The magma smelters have been working pretty much non-stop.  I'm still trying to find the balance of how to get all of the bars out of the smelter and into the metal bar QSP (quantum stockpile).

Raw ore is also promising.  Still a lot of limestone, marble, limonite, and gold nuggets to be hauled to the smelter.

If I fire up Dwarf Therepist and sort by squad and look at the "Military" tab, I can see where I need more armor / weapons / ammo.

I need to switch the "Pillars of" squads over to melee weapons and better armor and put them on a heavier training schedule.

I also have (56) dwarves who have not been drafted, but 2 of those are were-dwarves, 8 are children and 4 are babies.

27th Sandstone - Rovod Uzoltad is out of the hospital and walking around (sort of).  She has no crutch and is hopping around on her right leg (which is in a cast).  Her job is currently "seeking infant".

Kicking the population cap up to 125.

Surface fort has very tall walls now, the towers have been mostly carved with fortifications (d-a) after the walls are constructed.

Lowest of the four bedroom layers (each has 48 beds).  The duchess quarters are on the west side (left side).  Each bedroom has a bed and either a coffer or cabinet.  In the upper part of the image you can see the 3-wide ramp (with 5x5 turning landings) that leads from the surface down to the trade depot.

Doors are in the corners between each 2x2 bedroom.  Everything has been engraved.

27th Moonstone - The "pillars" squads are now melee squads.  Still using leather armor but with metal high boots and metal helm along with metal warhammers.  All of the "silver" squads are converted over to using metal bolts full-time (both for combat and training).

Dwarves being dwarves, there is now old clothing and armor scattered everywhere and not enough dwarves to haul it fast enough for my taste (using DFHack "cleanowned scattered").

A second kitchen has been built.  There are 13,000 eggs, 3700 meat and 300 fish to be cooked into Lavish Meals and sold to the caravan in the autumn.

The autobutcher list is:

Rough estimate is that I have 125 nest boxes in use (which is why I have 13,000 eggs to deal with).