Salt Creek Ranch

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Revision as of 23:31, 10 February 2025 by Pond (talk | contribs)

Salt Creek Ranch is located on West 4th Avenue in Nickerson Kansas. It had passed down through family from somewhere in the 21st century until Miguel Hartman died in 2363 at the age of 108 with no kids, no spouse, and none of his extended relations were interested in inheriting it. It passed to the Earth Heritage bureau to determine who would take over stewardship.

As it had been a working farm up until maybe a decade before Miguel's death, the Heritage bureau flagged it to be maintained as such and designated a heritage site. Most locations flagged to become heritage sites are quickly spoken for by people eager to become stewards, but something about this location meant that people passed it over repeatedly when they were offered it. In 2387, when the bureau was about to offer it up for redevelopment into something else because the resources needed for restoration of the decaying buildings and equipment was soon approaching more than the land was worth, Earth was hit with a flood of refugees out of Romulan space. Among them were Mktek and S'vekuk, who had been Ale brewers on Romulus until the nova forced evacuation.

Their case worker saw a potential for them to take over the ranch, and was aware of it because their spouse worked for the Heritage bureau. The two were so relieved to be offered land that appeared to be a step up from the small patch they'd had on Romulus, they quickly agreed to become its stewards. S'vekuk did suggest renaming it to Salt Creek Acres, as she liked the word acres better than ranch when she'd encountered both in her efforts to start learning Federation Standard when it became apparent Earth was to become their home, but Mktek talked her down due to the hurdles to rename the ranch as it was entered into the Heritage database as Salt Creek Ranch already due to its history under that name.

The heritage bureau sent a construction team to do the major repair work on all the buildings and existing equipment, getting the main farmhouse habitable within a month, and the rest of the buildings and equipment serviceable over the course of the next six months. From there Mktek and S'vekuk were largely left to their own devices with a set of guidelines and a promise that a case worker from the bureau would check in from time to time, and was available to field their questions during business hours in New York City.

The first new feature they added to the Ranch was a small greenhouse attached to the farm house, where they started their efforts to adapt the grains and other plants they'd brought seed for from Romulus to Earth growing conditions without losing what made them unique. This took them a few years before they were satisfied enough to attempt to expand to planting whole fields, but soon the Romulan plants filled the surrounding fields, and the Remans started on the next stage of their project — they built a new building for brewing ale and distilling spirits.

Their first successful bottle of Reman-style Ale, as they chose to call it, was bottled in 2393. It wasn't as potent as it's authentic Romulan cousin, but as that market was now limited to what had been produced before the nova and evacuated from the system, they quickly found a market for their ale. Whiskey came next, the first batches a little rough around the edges, but when allowed to age multiple years, soon settled into a reliable product as well.