1 Sandstone, 1051
You know, sometimes Miners' Guild regulations can be a bit aggravating. Now, don't get me wrong, I know why they're there, and I would never try to get around them. They've kept more dwarves safe, whether it be from an ignominious death by drowning when a careless miner lets the sea in, or a horrible fiery doom when the entire fortress is flooded with burning magma. But sometimes, just sometimes, they seem really bloody stupid.
Like when there's only a dozen of us out here in the middle of nowhere, and Indirik and I keep having to stop work to check with each other as to whether we should really mine out this section of damp stone? When we know, perfectly well, that it's damp because there's a bloody pond up above, and we are fully capable of shoring up the ceiling to make sure not a single drop will leak down through the ceiling...
Of course, it's a good thing there are two of us miners. When there's only one miner present, the regulations get much more convoluted. I think there are about four whole pages dedicated solely to determining who a poor hapless miner should check with to confirm that he really should dig here, where it's warm because of the magma channels below, but shouldn't dig there, because that bit of damp stone is really an aquifer, and he'll flood the whole fortress if he breaches it...
We mostly finished digging out the workshop level, despite the delays caused by our adherence to protocol. (I haven't included sketches because it's not particularly different from the storage level.) I've ordered our first magma forge to be built, but no one has had time to start work on it yet.
I have also given orders for more of the edible plants near the entrance to be gathered up for brewing, eating, and whatever else we can figure out to do with them. Telrunya was hunting a moose, but she ran out of ammunition, and it got away. Pity.
Our smelting operation has been producing good results. Thanks to Medtob's good work, we have a dozen bars of iron, as well as seven of copper, and even a couple silver. We'll need to set up a wood-burning furnace to make charcoal, as I don't think there's much coal around (at least, we haven't seen any, and there doesn't appear to be the sedimentary layer we'd expect to find it in). Once we've got that, though, we should be set to start making steel. More than enough trees to feed our furnaces.