Story Up On Hartford Ridge
- Thread starter Kathy in FL
- Start date
sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Nice find this morning, thank you. Diapers, sheesh, I had 3 in diapers a couple of times. Just get one out of them and had another baby, back to 3 lol. That's what happens when several babies are 14 to 17 months apart.
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Griz3752
Retired, practising Curmudgeon
Yeah glad we're moving out of diaper country.
Next to a young child being sick but unable to communicate how/where it hurts, that's probably my very least favourite part of babies.
Thank you Ms Kathy.
BTW: Burt Jr is so right about the greening of food. Green napkins, party hats and wearing o' the green are all OK but food needs to look like food.
Don't even think of putting a pint of Green beer in front of me.
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Texican
Live Free & Die Free.... God Freedom Country....
I wonder if you have to take a test to prove you’re crazy before you get to go into politics?
Seems to be the standard around the earth in today's world.
____________________________________________
Chapter 93 has been posted. So now is it all new chapters, Kathy?
Thanks Kathy for all of the work you have done and will be doing to keep the moar hounds feed.
Texican....
Seems to be the standard around the earth in today's world.
____________________________________________
Chapter 93 has been posted. So now is it all new chapters, Kathy?
Thanks Kathy for all of the work you have done and will be doing to keep the moar hounds feed.
Texican....
Chapter 94
April showers bring May flowers. Well I sure hope so otherwise we are drowning in these doggone showers for no reason. Though they do keep the riots down to a minimum, or should I say they do around here. Other places aren’t so lucky, or the people are just so hacked off that they ignore the weather.
I haven’t had any real choice but to be out in this stuff and … I feel like I did last summer. And that makes me wonder if it is ramping up for worse this time around. I suspect it is. Everything we have to buy at the stores has gone sky-high and cash work is as scarce as hen’s teeth. So far we are keeping our heads above water, but only barely, and only cause we are treading so hard and getting so lucky. Or maybe blessed. Some might not see it that way but there have been things that definitely feel providentially timed.
People that knew Burt Sr., met Sawyer that way, will call out of the blue and ask if Sawyer will trade work and experience for whatever they are offering. It’s rarely cash but it isn’t always cash we need. For example where Sawyer is now. A woman said she prayed for some help, opened her husband’s address book, closed her eyes and then opened the one her finger fell on first. It was Burt Sr.’s business. We haven’t been able to unravel all of that stuff yet, so Sawyer fixed is so that Burt’s business phone number rolls over to his cell phone. After Sawyer explains the situation, the woman asks if he can refer her to someone. Seems her husband had a heart attack – a widow-maker – their kids had come after the funeral and taken what they wanted, but there was a lot of stuff left on their farm that she needed out from under before she turned the farm over to the bank, and it needed to happen sooner rather than later as she’d already gotten papers that stated the farm wasn’t covered by the foreclosure moratorium because it was a commercial venture and not just a residential location.
He went to the farm on the off-chance he could find a few spare parts for our tractor when she said, if he’d just clean things off, help her find a few buyers for the bigger equipment, and transport a few of the animals to the processing plant, he could take what was left and do with it what he would. She and the one child she still had at home, a disabled daughter, were moving back to her parents’ place so they could support each other but her parents no longer farmed so most of what she had left to deal with would be a burden. It was a deal too good to miss but was too big for him to handle alone. The place was a small working farm with some crops and some animals and the rest was a tree and plant nursery with all but the largest trees and shrubs as bareroot seedlings or in gallon buckets. When Sawyer took it to Uncle Mark it was decided that those cousins that were in a hole of some type be asked first to see if they wanted in and if any turned the work down then others could be asked.
As Sawyer put it, “I swear I understand what Uncle Mark is doing with them books of his, but it gives me a major headache. And a few of my cousins need to have their heads examined. I had no idea how far behind some of them were. Thank gawd none of them were stupid enough to turn this job down. Now let’s see if they stay smart or just keep digging the wrong direction.”
Even I got to go (it was on the first day) as Sawyer was intent on me getting a pick of the plants and such before any of the other wives … including the aunts. And it was a good thing we brought Burt Sr.’s old trailer as Sawyer had Burt Jr. helping by moving what I wanted. He almost squawked a bit when he caught me using the dolly he’d jury-rigged for me.
“Then why did you build it?” I asked.
He sighed. “For around-the-house work. This is … this is work work.”
“I just flat out love you to pieces Sawyer but that doesn’t make sense. Let me use what you fixed up for me. This way we get what we get faster, then I’ll stay at home like you’d prefer, and Burt and I are out from underfoot so that you and the others can get the big stuff done faster and sooner so that poor lady can stop worrying herself into her own heart attack.”
I admit some satisfaction in knowing that I’d won that round, but I also knew it would mean that I’d have to compromise on something else; though it wasn’t so much a compromise as just watching my comments such as when Uncle Mark was being himself, and thinking some of the cousins were getting things I wasn’t too sure they’d know how to make the best of. Most of them were putting the wants of their wives before the needs of their family. Uncle Mark saw the look on my face and said, “When Momma ain’t happy, nobody is happy.” Problem was he wasn’t funning and was just being terribly cynical.
“That’s just plain silly,” I groused when telling Sawyer about it an hour later. “Please tell me you don’t think like that.”
“Er … not really. But I tell you Babe some of the wives …” He shuddered. “You just don’t know how lucky I feel that you aren’t always asking for stuff or to do stuff.”
“I ask all the time. We have a list.”
“Yeah. ‘We’ have a list. Not a thing on that list on the frig is ever only ‘bout you.”
“And what are those pens and index cards?”
He snorted. “Things you will use to make my life better and easier. Things you use to make it so Burt can do his schoolwork at home without us having to cart him all the way to town to go to school since they closed the county school. Things that …”
“Okay, enough. My head is already big enough as it is,” I told him with a whap from the work rag I’d just wiped my hands with. We were inside the enclosed trailer so that Sawyer could “inspect” how Burt and I were loading it. Or so we let on. Mostly we were checking on each other. Uncle Mark was in a mood just ‘cause he was Uncle Mark and they hadn’t had any thick-sliced bologna at the butcher shop. And some of the cousins acted like their brains were leaking out their ears and couldn’t work without supervision.
“You sure Uncle Mark isn’t on your nerves?”
I answered, “Not really. He runs a little roughshod on Burt, but I think that is supposed to be a compliment to the boy or something because that’s how he is with Davis and you know he thinks Davis is the best of you lot.”
Sawyer snorted. “Try convincing Davis of that. But whatever, the motivation keeps him in line. He is only here to trade work for those two bull studs in the paddock. As for the rest of them, gawd bless it I wish a couple of them had turned me down.”
“They’re not working?”
“Oh they’re working, they just want to get what things for their brides before anything else and that’s not always the best use of our time.”
“Here’s an idea and don’t be afraid of telling me no, but Burt and I have got most of the trees and other plants you said I could have loaded. If you’ll have Tommy put Burt to loading the rest and then have Burt help Tommy load the trees for Linda and his Mom, and if there’s room whatever else Uncle Mark and Davis want … besides the two bulls … I’ll head to the kitchen, divide things up by lots so there’s some new, some useful, and some vintage for everyone. This way the guys can do the heavier lifting, won’t be so much mess, and …” Grinning a bit, “The guys will have someone else to blame if they come back with the wrong stuff.”
“And you know they’ll do it too,” he said with an eye roll that I hope he wouldn’t teach to Burt. He thought for a moment then said, “Let’s try it. I’ll tell everyone it’s for that last bit but that it better not get back to me or I’ll fry their …”
“Sawyer.”
“Fine. I won’t say it, but they’ll have a good understanding of what they risk if they do. Damn hard heads.”
It isn’t that Sawyer doesn’t like or want the job that Gramps and the Uncles have picked for him in the family. It’s just that job sometimes conflicts with the jobs he sets for himself and when that happens, he’s more easily irritated at his cousins than usual.
There was a little grumbling when Sawyer laid the new ground rules but oh well. I asked everyone for their lists … and to make sure their names were on them … and started to look them over. They weren’t near as bad as Sawyer made them out to be. Some of the “requests” were a little silly … like someone wanted a “cute toothbrush and toothpaste holder for the bathroom” or another that was asking for anything that had roosters on it which I guess meant décor. But not even that was horrible. As one of my foster sisters was fond of saying, “You don’t ask, you don’t get.”
I went one better and used the same size boxes for everyone (from some I had found in the barn that had held jugs of liquid fertilizer for the trees). I made sure that everyone got at least one thing on their want list and then started dividing up what I could that made sense. After that was done I started going through what remained. Then I made a phone call.
“Aunt Pearl?”
“Yeah Sugar?”
“Are you still going to have the thrift store kinda thing for the family?” I asked her trying to keep Princess Poot from starving beyond her endurance.
“Was. But going over the supplies there’s really not that much left that isn’t earmarked for someone already.”
“Rats,” I said both meaning Aunt Pearl’s answer and the fact that my nose told me that someone needed their diaper changed pronto.
“What has you upset?”
Juggling Jolene I explained about all the stuff that was left and what it was. There wasn’t enough to have an entire store like she’d originally talked about but it was more than just a closet full.
“And that woman just wants it gone?” she asked in amazement.
“Yes ma’am. Her kids have already gone through everything. She’s taken everything she is going to want – she really had to downsize and only wants to know that the stuff is going to a good home and not in the county landfill. I got everything … or reasonably so … all the lists the men had with them. Some of the bigger items and furniture and stuff I am leaving up to Sawyer and Uncle Mark to deal with. But there is still about a big yard sale of things to deal with and apparently I was crazy enough to volunteer for the job.”
She laughed having found herself on the wrong end of volunteering a few times herself.
“Well first off, see if you can save back a few odds and ends for Uncle Ned. A lot of his linens and his mattress mildewed. Looks like we can save most everything else but linens would be top of the list for him. Any men’s clothes?”
“A closet full, from church clothes to work clothes.”
“What size?”
Good thing I checked before I called her. “Most of them seem to be 36’s and 38’s longs.”
“Hmmm. Anything smaller? Uncle Forrester … er …”
“I’ll be on the lookout. He needs 34’s right?”
“Or even 32’s. I’m not sure which as he is just about the most uncooperative male on some subjects I’ve ever met.”
“What would you say to there being a collection of suspenders here that rival Mr. Turlington’s from church. If he loses any more weight at least he can keep them until we can put darts in his pants.”
She laughed and said, “So long as they don’t have anything risky on ‘em I’m sure they’ll work.”
“If they do, we can just throw them in a tub of dye or bleach, whichever works. So I’ll box up what I can and see if Tommy can drive it back tonight. Since he’s going by to pick up Linda. Any idea who could use the rest of this stuff if I sent you pictures by text?”
I heard her asking something in the background and then say, “Send them to Suzanne. Right now I’ve got my head in an oven cleaning it where I had a pie boil over.”
“Oh I’m so sorry. You shoulda said instead of letting me blather on.”
“Oh hush. You wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important. Just send them to Suzanne and she, Dump, and Nel will likely know if anyone needs anything.”
So that’s what I did and got about half of what was left allocated. Then I got a call from Linda asking if there were any women’s shirts … or men’s shirts that would pass as unisex … because she was busting out of what she had again.
“Kay-Lee! These stupid pills! I know that’s what it is. I’ll never go back to the way I was!”
“Tommy doesn’t seem to care.”
“Well he does. I mean … he notices some parts,” she said with a naughty giggle. “But I’m getting tired of looking like a pillow that has been tied off in the middle. I … I jiggle. I jiggle everywhere. I busted another zipper. And I bounce when I go up and down the stairs.” She’d gone from giggle to nearly tears. Linda was definitely stressed out and her emotions were whipsawing back and forth because of it.
“Hang on, let me look,” I told her trying to give her something, anything to stop the insipient spiral I sensed was about to happen.
I went to a back bedroom, to the one closet I hadn’t gone through yet and … bingo. “Okay, there’s a few things here I think I can work with.”
“You … you aren’t just telling me that?”
“Would I lie to you? You might wind up looking a little boho or retro but … we’ll just be careful not to set the other wives off and make ‘em jealous.”
“I don’t care. I need something. Tommy’s mother said …”
“Whoa. I love all the aunts but … sometimes some of them are … um …”
Sounding like she’d found a middle ground Linda said, “They sure are. I’ll owe you. Forever.”
“Are you kidding? After all the ways you’ve helped me for as long as we’ve known each other? Just keep the midol handy and we’ll call it even.”
She giggled something awful, and I nearly did too when I spotted the look on Sawyer’s face where he’d come looking for me.
April showers bring May flowers. Well I sure hope so otherwise we are drowning in these doggone showers for no reason. Though they do keep the riots down to a minimum, or should I say they do around here. Other places aren’t so lucky, or the people are just so hacked off that they ignore the weather.
I haven’t had any real choice but to be out in this stuff and … I feel like I did last summer. And that makes me wonder if it is ramping up for worse this time around. I suspect it is. Everything we have to buy at the stores has gone sky-high and cash work is as scarce as hen’s teeth. So far we are keeping our heads above water, but only barely, and only cause we are treading so hard and getting so lucky. Or maybe blessed. Some might not see it that way but there have been things that definitely feel providentially timed.
People that knew Burt Sr., met Sawyer that way, will call out of the blue and ask if Sawyer will trade work and experience for whatever they are offering. It’s rarely cash but it isn’t always cash we need. For example where Sawyer is now. A woman said she prayed for some help, opened her husband’s address book, closed her eyes and then opened the one her finger fell on first. It was Burt Sr.’s business. We haven’t been able to unravel all of that stuff yet, so Sawyer fixed is so that Burt’s business phone number rolls over to his cell phone. After Sawyer explains the situation, the woman asks if he can refer her to someone. Seems her husband had a heart attack – a widow-maker – their kids had come after the funeral and taken what they wanted, but there was a lot of stuff left on their farm that she needed out from under before she turned the farm over to the bank, and it needed to happen sooner rather than later as she’d already gotten papers that stated the farm wasn’t covered by the foreclosure moratorium because it was a commercial venture and not just a residential location.
He went to the farm on the off-chance he could find a few spare parts for our tractor when she said, if he’d just clean things off, help her find a few buyers for the bigger equipment, and transport a few of the animals to the processing plant, he could take what was left and do with it what he would. She and the one child she still had at home, a disabled daughter, were moving back to her parents’ place so they could support each other but her parents no longer farmed so most of what she had left to deal with would be a burden. It was a deal too good to miss but was too big for him to handle alone. The place was a small working farm with some crops and some animals and the rest was a tree and plant nursery with all but the largest trees and shrubs as bareroot seedlings or in gallon buckets. When Sawyer took it to Uncle Mark it was decided that those cousins that were in a hole of some type be asked first to see if they wanted in and if any turned the work down then others could be asked.
As Sawyer put it, “I swear I understand what Uncle Mark is doing with them books of his, but it gives me a major headache. And a few of my cousins need to have their heads examined. I had no idea how far behind some of them were. Thank gawd none of them were stupid enough to turn this job down. Now let’s see if they stay smart or just keep digging the wrong direction.”
Even I got to go (it was on the first day) as Sawyer was intent on me getting a pick of the plants and such before any of the other wives … including the aunts. And it was a good thing we brought Burt Sr.’s old trailer as Sawyer had Burt Jr. helping by moving what I wanted. He almost squawked a bit when he caught me using the dolly he’d jury-rigged for me.
“Then why did you build it?” I asked.
He sighed. “For around-the-house work. This is … this is work work.”
“I just flat out love you to pieces Sawyer but that doesn’t make sense. Let me use what you fixed up for me. This way we get what we get faster, then I’ll stay at home like you’d prefer, and Burt and I are out from underfoot so that you and the others can get the big stuff done faster and sooner so that poor lady can stop worrying herself into her own heart attack.”
I admit some satisfaction in knowing that I’d won that round, but I also knew it would mean that I’d have to compromise on something else; though it wasn’t so much a compromise as just watching my comments such as when Uncle Mark was being himself, and thinking some of the cousins were getting things I wasn’t too sure they’d know how to make the best of. Most of them were putting the wants of their wives before the needs of their family. Uncle Mark saw the look on my face and said, “When Momma ain’t happy, nobody is happy.” Problem was he wasn’t funning and was just being terribly cynical.
“That’s just plain silly,” I groused when telling Sawyer about it an hour later. “Please tell me you don’t think like that.”
“Er … not really. But I tell you Babe some of the wives …” He shuddered. “You just don’t know how lucky I feel that you aren’t always asking for stuff or to do stuff.”
“I ask all the time. We have a list.”
“Yeah. ‘We’ have a list. Not a thing on that list on the frig is ever only ‘bout you.”
“And what are those pens and index cards?”
He snorted. “Things you will use to make my life better and easier. Things you use to make it so Burt can do his schoolwork at home without us having to cart him all the way to town to go to school since they closed the county school. Things that …”
“Okay, enough. My head is already big enough as it is,” I told him with a whap from the work rag I’d just wiped my hands with. We were inside the enclosed trailer so that Sawyer could “inspect” how Burt and I were loading it. Or so we let on. Mostly we were checking on each other. Uncle Mark was in a mood just ‘cause he was Uncle Mark and they hadn’t had any thick-sliced bologna at the butcher shop. And some of the cousins acted like their brains were leaking out their ears and couldn’t work without supervision.
“You sure Uncle Mark isn’t on your nerves?”
I answered, “Not really. He runs a little roughshod on Burt, but I think that is supposed to be a compliment to the boy or something because that’s how he is with Davis and you know he thinks Davis is the best of you lot.”
Sawyer snorted. “Try convincing Davis of that. But whatever, the motivation keeps him in line. He is only here to trade work for those two bull studs in the paddock. As for the rest of them, gawd bless it I wish a couple of them had turned me down.”
“They’re not working?”
“Oh they’re working, they just want to get what things for their brides before anything else and that’s not always the best use of our time.”
“Here’s an idea and don’t be afraid of telling me no, but Burt and I have got most of the trees and other plants you said I could have loaded. If you’ll have Tommy put Burt to loading the rest and then have Burt help Tommy load the trees for Linda and his Mom, and if there’s room whatever else Uncle Mark and Davis want … besides the two bulls … I’ll head to the kitchen, divide things up by lots so there’s some new, some useful, and some vintage for everyone. This way the guys can do the heavier lifting, won’t be so much mess, and …” Grinning a bit, “The guys will have someone else to blame if they come back with the wrong stuff.”
“And you know they’ll do it too,” he said with an eye roll that I hope he wouldn’t teach to Burt. He thought for a moment then said, “Let’s try it. I’ll tell everyone it’s for that last bit but that it better not get back to me or I’ll fry their …”
“Sawyer.”
“Fine. I won’t say it, but they’ll have a good understanding of what they risk if they do. Damn hard heads.”
It isn’t that Sawyer doesn’t like or want the job that Gramps and the Uncles have picked for him in the family. It’s just that job sometimes conflicts with the jobs he sets for himself and when that happens, he’s more easily irritated at his cousins than usual.
There was a little grumbling when Sawyer laid the new ground rules but oh well. I asked everyone for their lists … and to make sure their names were on them … and started to look them over. They weren’t near as bad as Sawyer made them out to be. Some of the “requests” were a little silly … like someone wanted a “cute toothbrush and toothpaste holder for the bathroom” or another that was asking for anything that had roosters on it which I guess meant décor. But not even that was horrible. As one of my foster sisters was fond of saying, “You don’t ask, you don’t get.”
I went one better and used the same size boxes for everyone (from some I had found in the barn that had held jugs of liquid fertilizer for the trees). I made sure that everyone got at least one thing on their want list and then started dividing up what I could that made sense. After that was done I started going through what remained. Then I made a phone call.
“Aunt Pearl?”
“Yeah Sugar?”
“Are you still going to have the thrift store kinda thing for the family?” I asked her trying to keep Princess Poot from starving beyond her endurance.
“Was. But going over the supplies there’s really not that much left that isn’t earmarked for someone already.”
“Rats,” I said both meaning Aunt Pearl’s answer and the fact that my nose told me that someone needed their diaper changed pronto.
“What has you upset?”
Juggling Jolene I explained about all the stuff that was left and what it was. There wasn’t enough to have an entire store like she’d originally talked about but it was more than just a closet full.
“And that woman just wants it gone?” she asked in amazement.
“Yes ma’am. Her kids have already gone through everything. She’s taken everything she is going to want – she really had to downsize and only wants to know that the stuff is going to a good home and not in the county landfill. I got everything … or reasonably so … all the lists the men had with them. Some of the bigger items and furniture and stuff I am leaving up to Sawyer and Uncle Mark to deal with. But there is still about a big yard sale of things to deal with and apparently I was crazy enough to volunteer for the job.”
She laughed having found herself on the wrong end of volunteering a few times herself.
“Well first off, see if you can save back a few odds and ends for Uncle Ned. A lot of his linens and his mattress mildewed. Looks like we can save most everything else but linens would be top of the list for him. Any men’s clothes?”
“A closet full, from church clothes to work clothes.”
“What size?”
Good thing I checked before I called her. “Most of them seem to be 36’s and 38’s longs.”
“Hmmm. Anything smaller? Uncle Forrester … er …”
“I’ll be on the lookout. He needs 34’s right?”
“Or even 32’s. I’m not sure which as he is just about the most uncooperative male on some subjects I’ve ever met.”
“What would you say to there being a collection of suspenders here that rival Mr. Turlington’s from church. If he loses any more weight at least he can keep them until we can put darts in his pants.”
She laughed and said, “So long as they don’t have anything risky on ‘em I’m sure they’ll work.”
“If they do, we can just throw them in a tub of dye or bleach, whichever works. So I’ll box up what I can and see if Tommy can drive it back tonight. Since he’s going by to pick up Linda. Any idea who could use the rest of this stuff if I sent you pictures by text?”
I heard her asking something in the background and then say, “Send them to Suzanne. Right now I’ve got my head in an oven cleaning it where I had a pie boil over.”
“Oh I’m so sorry. You shoulda said instead of letting me blather on.”
“Oh hush. You wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important. Just send them to Suzanne and she, Dump, and Nel will likely know if anyone needs anything.”
So that’s what I did and got about half of what was left allocated. Then I got a call from Linda asking if there were any women’s shirts … or men’s shirts that would pass as unisex … because she was busting out of what she had again.
“Kay-Lee! These stupid pills! I know that’s what it is. I’ll never go back to the way I was!”
“Tommy doesn’t seem to care.”
“Well he does. I mean … he notices some parts,” she said with a naughty giggle. “But I’m getting tired of looking like a pillow that has been tied off in the middle. I … I jiggle. I jiggle everywhere. I busted another zipper. And I bounce when I go up and down the stairs.” She’d gone from giggle to nearly tears. Linda was definitely stressed out and her emotions were whipsawing back and forth because of it.
“Hang on, let me look,” I told her trying to give her something, anything to stop the insipient spiral I sensed was about to happen.
I went to a back bedroom, to the one closet I hadn’t gone through yet and … bingo. “Okay, there’s a few things here I think I can work with.”
“You … you aren’t just telling me that?”
“Would I lie to you? You might wind up looking a little boho or retro but … we’ll just be careful not to set the other wives off and make ‘em jealous.”
“I don’t care. I need something. Tommy’s mother said …”
“Whoa. I love all the aunts but … sometimes some of them are … um …”
Sounding like she’d found a middle ground Linda said, “They sure are. I’ll owe you. Forever.”
“Are you kidding? After all the ways you’ve helped me for as long as we’ve known each other? Just keep the midol handy and we’ll call it even.”
She giggled something awful, and I nearly did too when I spotted the look on Sawyer’s face where he’d come looking for me.
Chapter 95
“No, you don’t want to know,” I told him when he looked like he was forcing himself to ask.
He looked at me relieved then looked around before saying, “I thought my calendar was off.”
I shook my head, “Linda.”
“Uh … okay?” He held tight to his man card and changed the subject. “Those your labels on those boxes? I want to make sure before I start telling the others to put them in their trucks.”
“Yep. And I made sure everyone got at least one thing on their list and a couple that weren’t. The remainder is Aunts to the rescue.”
He finished relaxing back to normal all the way. “You got any of this you want?”
“House goods? No. We’re overflowing. But … um, anyone else in the house?”
“Tommy.”
I bit the inside of my cheek but gave a silent request for him to follow me into a room that looked like it was used as an office. “Closet,” I whispered as I went to keep watch to make sure of no interruptions. He got the hint and went over to an open closet and I heard him stumble when he realized it was bigger than he thought and lots of what I’d wanted to show him stacked on the floor. I heard him close the closet door firmly and then pick up an empty bookcase that was there and move to hide the opening.
“I’ll take care of it,” he whispered when he came back my direction. “Assuming Uncle Mark hasn’t seen it.”
“Nope. He’s too busy grouching about no thick-sliced bologna and the mess your cousins made on the porch where he’d been organizing something. The only time he has even stepped inside he turned around and went back out and said something rude about messes made by other people and him not being a housekeeper. Plus, there was bedding where they’d been stripping beds and tossed it in there to get it out of the way. That’s why I didn’t come tell you earlier … I just found it.”
“Okay. But it is going to take a distraction to get this out without Uncle Mark seeing. The price of ammo is through the roof and so are reloads. We’ve got plenty of shotgun shells but the smaller caliber, not so much.” He gave me a kiss for finding boxes of ammo. The beds were stripped before we arrived so I’m wondering if someone forgot something or was hiding it for some reason.
Trying to think of a distraction for Sawyer I finally nodded. “Got one. There are some old milk pans and a couple of butter churns that I’ll ask him if Cindy will take since she is liable to be the one best suited for using them. Or if she won’t, can she use her best discretion and make sure they get where they need to go.”
He looked at me, snorted, and said, “You’re getting too good at this.”
“At what?” I asked giving him a wide-eyed innocent look.
Sawyer just shook his head and asked me to come out to one of the work sheds. “I can’t in good conscience take all of this for us,” he said while pointing to a bunch of garden amendments and chemicals. “Especially if I’m going to take the other. But I’m going to get you a good supply and then give the rest of it to Gramps for the family gardens. We’ll work for shares again this year anyway. I’m also going to split some of the remaining plants and then take the rest over to Gramps and whoever wants ‘em can come get ‘em. They’re ornamentals and I don’t know a thing to do with ‘em at this point. But we’ll have us some azaleas like we talked about, and it won’t be because we have to split off the ones we’ve already got and risk killing them. Uncle Mark is going to have Cindy come tomorrow to help with the cattle. She can just as easy deal with the rest of this stuff too while she’s taking care of the twins. We’ve got enough chickens, but do you maybe want ducks?”
I sighed. “It’s not that I don’t want to. But learning to keep a garden growing and ducks at the same time? I don’t know Sawyer.”
He surprised me by looking relieved. “I was hoping you’d see it that way. I don’t have time for them either. I’ll let Cindy deal with them and the Aunts who will want to have a say in it. Now you sure there’s nothing else?”
“Um … I saw this little seat on wheels on the porch. I think someone wants it for one of the aunts but … um … do you think you could take a picture and maybe make one like it?”
Scrunching his face up like he was trying to recall what I’d described he said, “Show me.”
When he saw what I was looking at he nodded. “Hang on Beautiful. I think they have a spare in the tool shed. Got time to go look at what is out there? It’s the next building I want to tackle after we go through those chemicals and such.”
Sure enough there was another one of those and he grabbed it for me. It is something called a rolling garden seat and I think I’m in love with the thing already. I can roll down the rows in the garden and pull weeds, or sit on it while I forage without having to sit in the mud, and I don’t feel like I’m about to break in two by the end of the day.
I picked up a few other things here and there as well like a rotary cultivator that I can manage between rows since there is no way I can manage the rototiller. I also asked for some hand tools to be duplicates of the ones we already have just in case something breaks. There were things like pea gravel and mulch that I wanted but told Sawyer to wait and see who actually needed it first. We found several barrels of dog kibble that we assume was stored that way to keep varmints out … and then we found Burt who had found some dog toys that looked like they might actually withstand Harvey and Davy playing with them.
“I thought I told you to help Tommy,” Sawyer said giving him the eye.
“I did. Then he and Uncle Mark told me to go in here and stay put until they called me. They’re looking around in that little house ‘cause Erik finally got the roll down door open.”
“Stay here with Aunt Kay-Lee,” he said before hurrying off, not liking the sound of what might have been found.
Looking for something to spend my worry energy on I asked, “Find anything else?”
“Books and junk. Bunch of boxes. And some African violets.”
“Some what?”
“Those flowers that Granny Penny likes and had in all her window sills. I wonder what happened to them. She’ll be upset if they just died.”
Burt so rarely mentioned that side of his family that I felt obligated to maybe give more information than he needed as I explained how the Aunts had taken the potted plants in the house and were keeping them nice, who had what as far as I could remember, and that they’d be there if Mrs. Penny ever got to living someplace she could have them around her.
Burt said, “She won’t. She can’t remember anything. She don’t even remember me when they let me see her. She just lays there.”
“She had a bad stroke Honey. The doctors say that she is still aware.”
“She ain’t aware of me.”
Then he abruptly changed the subject. “We should ask Uncle Sawyer if we can bring some of the flowers home. You like flowers. And there’s them things that Momma liked too. Called them a stupid name. Christmas cactus. I can help take care of them and like get Mr. Lackland off my case about having a nature hobby.”
“Burt Penny. Is that how we talk about our teachers?”
“You don’t understand. And … he talks about stuff I don’t wanna hear from no teacher.”
Oh, but I did understand. Disregarding the bad grammar he was using which I ignored I tried to distract him while I was thinking. There wasn’t a thing I could do about his problem however I turned it over and over as the public-school system said that at ten kids were old enough to hear about “normalizing” what they used to call alternative lifestyles. I’d sat in on one such “special class” and had just about dropped my teeth. As casual about that stuff as they were when I was in school … and that was only a little over a year ago … they hadn’t been that blatant and it hadn’t reached the elementary school yet, not even for fifth graders. All the SLD kids did have to go through the sex talk twice a year but that had more to do with making sure we didn’t get taken advantage of since some of us hadn’t had real clear boundaries. I was struggling with shock and trying not to make a mess of things but finally sent a message to the teacher and cc’d the guidance counselor and principal and said that there was a little too much personal information bleeding through from the teacher’s own life into the course and then I quoted the rules we’d always had at the high school about revealing that stuff online. I don’t know if anything will come of it, but I followed my conscience. I get kids needs sex education and too many of them don’t get enough facts at home from a responsible adult, but you should start with puberty and not how to put a condom on a banana and then what to do with it once you got it on right. That’s like starting a subject in the middle of the book instead of at the beginning.
Sawyer and Uncle Mark came over and sent Burt to help by wrapping some extension cords and similar. Basically busy work. When he took off at a run, eager to escape, I turned to look at them and they both lit up like their hair was on fire. I don’t think I’d ever seen their faces that red.
“What?” I asked already suspicious.
Uncle Mark looked at Sawyer and Sawyer at him. Already guessing I said, “Let’s play twenty questions and the first nineteen don’t count. You found some girly magazines.”
Davis walked in right behind them and said, “That ain’t the only thing. The husband must have had a few kinks the wife didn’t know about. Geez. Sawyer, what do you want done with that stuff?”
He grumbled, “Nuke the damn crap from space before it infects anyone. Damn some of the cousins were acting stupid over it and I know at least a couple had to have snagged one or two of the things in there. There was no stopping them.”
I got an evil look and pulled out my phone and got Jeannie and Sharon on a group chat. After a moment of acting horrified I said, “Oh my gawd, you should have seen it. Well I mean I didn’t see it but from the look on Sawyer’s and Uncle Mark’s faces it was nasty. But seriously, some of us are real lucky. Davis just walked away disgusted, Cindy doesn’t have a thing to worry about, he’s as faithful as that dog of hers that is so protective.” And I continued on in that vein then dropped this little bomb. “Yeah. Thanks for hearing me out. I’m just worried that the temptation of those magazines might be too much for some of the boys. I mean you remember what it was like in school. Even the straight arrows would get taken in by some of the skankiest girls. They just don’t have the personality to be proof against females.” Then Sharon and Jeannie basically said they might let the word get out just in case. Every wife could take care of their own husband though.
When I rung off I looked up to find the three of them were just staring at me. I shrugged. “I refuse to get in everyone’s sex life but geez, the wives deserve a little warning if this is going to be a problem.”
Uncle Mark just shook his head before suggesting, “Let’s drag over that burn barrel.”
Sawyer said, “Hell yes. Davis?”
But Davis was pulling out his phone and walking away. “Hey Hon. Just needed to hear your voice. I swear some of my cousins are acting like knotheads. And your brother is one of them. I don’t want to upset you but …”
I shrugged again and asked, “Sawyer, can I have a couple of the plants in the greenhouse?”
“Anything you want,” he said hopefully. “Just please don’t get any of my cousins dead. We need them in the fields this summer.”
“If they wind up dead it won’t be because of what I said, but what they did. So if they did do something, they need to make sure they un did it and start doing something else instead.”
Uncle Mark muttered, “Baffa.”
I said, “Hartford.”
And surprise, surprise didn’t I catch him almost twitching a laugh across his lips.
“No, you don’t want to know,” I told him when he looked like he was forcing himself to ask.
He looked at me relieved then looked around before saying, “I thought my calendar was off.”
I shook my head, “Linda.”
“Uh … okay?” He held tight to his man card and changed the subject. “Those your labels on those boxes? I want to make sure before I start telling the others to put them in their trucks.”
“Yep. And I made sure everyone got at least one thing on their list and a couple that weren’t. The remainder is Aunts to the rescue.”
He finished relaxing back to normal all the way. “You got any of this you want?”
“House goods? No. We’re overflowing. But … um, anyone else in the house?”
“Tommy.”
I bit the inside of my cheek but gave a silent request for him to follow me into a room that looked like it was used as an office. “Closet,” I whispered as I went to keep watch to make sure of no interruptions. He got the hint and went over to an open closet and I heard him stumble when he realized it was bigger than he thought and lots of what I’d wanted to show him stacked on the floor. I heard him close the closet door firmly and then pick up an empty bookcase that was there and move to hide the opening.
“I’ll take care of it,” he whispered when he came back my direction. “Assuming Uncle Mark hasn’t seen it.”
“Nope. He’s too busy grouching about no thick-sliced bologna and the mess your cousins made on the porch where he’d been organizing something. The only time he has even stepped inside he turned around and went back out and said something rude about messes made by other people and him not being a housekeeper. Plus, there was bedding where they’d been stripping beds and tossed it in there to get it out of the way. That’s why I didn’t come tell you earlier … I just found it.”
“Okay. But it is going to take a distraction to get this out without Uncle Mark seeing. The price of ammo is through the roof and so are reloads. We’ve got plenty of shotgun shells but the smaller caliber, not so much.” He gave me a kiss for finding boxes of ammo. The beds were stripped before we arrived so I’m wondering if someone forgot something or was hiding it for some reason.
Trying to think of a distraction for Sawyer I finally nodded. “Got one. There are some old milk pans and a couple of butter churns that I’ll ask him if Cindy will take since she is liable to be the one best suited for using them. Or if she won’t, can she use her best discretion and make sure they get where they need to go.”
He looked at me, snorted, and said, “You’re getting too good at this.”
“At what?” I asked giving him a wide-eyed innocent look.
Sawyer just shook his head and asked me to come out to one of the work sheds. “I can’t in good conscience take all of this for us,” he said while pointing to a bunch of garden amendments and chemicals. “Especially if I’m going to take the other. But I’m going to get you a good supply and then give the rest of it to Gramps for the family gardens. We’ll work for shares again this year anyway. I’m also going to split some of the remaining plants and then take the rest over to Gramps and whoever wants ‘em can come get ‘em. They’re ornamentals and I don’t know a thing to do with ‘em at this point. But we’ll have us some azaleas like we talked about, and it won’t be because we have to split off the ones we’ve already got and risk killing them. Uncle Mark is going to have Cindy come tomorrow to help with the cattle. She can just as easy deal with the rest of this stuff too while she’s taking care of the twins. We’ve got enough chickens, but do you maybe want ducks?”
I sighed. “It’s not that I don’t want to. But learning to keep a garden growing and ducks at the same time? I don’t know Sawyer.”
He surprised me by looking relieved. “I was hoping you’d see it that way. I don’t have time for them either. I’ll let Cindy deal with them and the Aunts who will want to have a say in it. Now you sure there’s nothing else?”
“Um … I saw this little seat on wheels on the porch. I think someone wants it for one of the aunts but … um … do you think you could take a picture and maybe make one like it?”
Scrunching his face up like he was trying to recall what I’d described he said, “Show me.”
When he saw what I was looking at he nodded. “Hang on Beautiful. I think they have a spare in the tool shed. Got time to go look at what is out there? It’s the next building I want to tackle after we go through those chemicals and such.”
Sure enough there was another one of those and he grabbed it for me. It is something called a rolling garden seat and I think I’m in love with the thing already. I can roll down the rows in the garden and pull weeds, or sit on it while I forage without having to sit in the mud, and I don’t feel like I’m about to break in two by the end of the day.
I picked up a few other things here and there as well like a rotary cultivator that I can manage between rows since there is no way I can manage the rototiller. I also asked for some hand tools to be duplicates of the ones we already have just in case something breaks. There were things like pea gravel and mulch that I wanted but told Sawyer to wait and see who actually needed it first. We found several barrels of dog kibble that we assume was stored that way to keep varmints out … and then we found Burt who had found some dog toys that looked like they might actually withstand Harvey and Davy playing with them.
“I thought I told you to help Tommy,” Sawyer said giving him the eye.
“I did. Then he and Uncle Mark told me to go in here and stay put until they called me. They’re looking around in that little house ‘cause Erik finally got the roll down door open.”
“Stay here with Aunt Kay-Lee,” he said before hurrying off, not liking the sound of what might have been found.
Looking for something to spend my worry energy on I asked, “Find anything else?”
“Books and junk. Bunch of boxes. And some African violets.”
“Some what?”
“Those flowers that Granny Penny likes and had in all her window sills. I wonder what happened to them. She’ll be upset if they just died.”
Burt so rarely mentioned that side of his family that I felt obligated to maybe give more information than he needed as I explained how the Aunts had taken the potted plants in the house and were keeping them nice, who had what as far as I could remember, and that they’d be there if Mrs. Penny ever got to living someplace she could have them around her.
Burt said, “She won’t. She can’t remember anything. She don’t even remember me when they let me see her. She just lays there.”
“She had a bad stroke Honey. The doctors say that she is still aware.”
“She ain’t aware of me.”
Then he abruptly changed the subject. “We should ask Uncle Sawyer if we can bring some of the flowers home. You like flowers. And there’s them things that Momma liked too. Called them a stupid name. Christmas cactus. I can help take care of them and like get Mr. Lackland off my case about having a nature hobby.”
“Burt Penny. Is that how we talk about our teachers?”
“You don’t understand. And … he talks about stuff I don’t wanna hear from no teacher.”
Oh, but I did understand. Disregarding the bad grammar he was using which I ignored I tried to distract him while I was thinking. There wasn’t a thing I could do about his problem however I turned it over and over as the public-school system said that at ten kids were old enough to hear about “normalizing” what they used to call alternative lifestyles. I’d sat in on one such “special class” and had just about dropped my teeth. As casual about that stuff as they were when I was in school … and that was only a little over a year ago … they hadn’t been that blatant and it hadn’t reached the elementary school yet, not even for fifth graders. All the SLD kids did have to go through the sex talk twice a year but that had more to do with making sure we didn’t get taken advantage of since some of us hadn’t had real clear boundaries. I was struggling with shock and trying not to make a mess of things but finally sent a message to the teacher and cc’d the guidance counselor and principal and said that there was a little too much personal information bleeding through from the teacher’s own life into the course and then I quoted the rules we’d always had at the high school about revealing that stuff online. I don’t know if anything will come of it, but I followed my conscience. I get kids needs sex education and too many of them don’t get enough facts at home from a responsible adult, but you should start with puberty and not how to put a condom on a banana and then what to do with it once you got it on right. That’s like starting a subject in the middle of the book instead of at the beginning.
Sawyer and Uncle Mark came over and sent Burt to help by wrapping some extension cords and similar. Basically busy work. When he took off at a run, eager to escape, I turned to look at them and they both lit up like their hair was on fire. I don’t think I’d ever seen their faces that red.
“What?” I asked already suspicious.
Uncle Mark looked at Sawyer and Sawyer at him. Already guessing I said, “Let’s play twenty questions and the first nineteen don’t count. You found some girly magazines.”
Davis walked in right behind them and said, “That ain’t the only thing. The husband must have had a few kinks the wife didn’t know about. Geez. Sawyer, what do you want done with that stuff?”
He grumbled, “Nuke the damn crap from space before it infects anyone. Damn some of the cousins were acting stupid over it and I know at least a couple had to have snagged one or two of the things in there. There was no stopping them.”
I got an evil look and pulled out my phone and got Jeannie and Sharon on a group chat. After a moment of acting horrified I said, “Oh my gawd, you should have seen it. Well I mean I didn’t see it but from the look on Sawyer’s and Uncle Mark’s faces it was nasty. But seriously, some of us are real lucky. Davis just walked away disgusted, Cindy doesn’t have a thing to worry about, he’s as faithful as that dog of hers that is so protective.” And I continued on in that vein then dropped this little bomb. “Yeah. Thanks for hearing me out. I’m just worried that the temptation of those magazines might be too much for some of the boys. I mean you remember what it was like in school. Even the straight arrows would get taken in by some of the skankiest girls. They just don’t have the personality to be proof against females.” Then Sharon and Jeannie basically said they might let the word get out just in case. Every wife could take care of their own husband though.
When I rung off I looked up to find the three of them were just staring at me. I shrugged. “I refuse to get in everyone’s sex life but geez, the wives deserve a little warning if this is going to be a problem.”
Uncle Mark just shook his head before suggesting, “Let’s drag over that burn barrel.”
Sawyer said, “Hell yes. Davis?”
But Davis was pulling out his phone and walking away. “Hey Hon. Just needed to hear your voice. I swear some of my cousins are acting like knotheads. And your brother is one of them. I don’t want to upset you but …”
I shrugged again and asked, “Sawyer, can I have a couple of the plants in the greenhouse?”
“Anything you want,” he said hopefully. “Just please don’t get any of my cousins dead. We need them in the fields this summer.”
“If they wind up dead it won’t be because of what I said, but what they did. So if they did do something, they need to make sure they un did it and start doing something else instead.”
Uncle Mark muttered, “Baffa.”
I said, “Hartford.”
And surprise, surprise didn’t I catch him almost twitching a laugh across his lips.
sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Great, thank you.
Sammy55
Veteran Member
I needed this, too. Too much to deal with lately - pain, things not getting done, things that need to be done. I just feel like I want to run away. But your chapters are giving me the courage(?) or something to stay and just deal with it as best I can. I needed these chapters, this book. Thanks, Kathy!
So...busy I will get and deal I will do. And I will paste Kay-Lee in my mind. If she can do and deal, then so can I.
So...busy I will get and deal I will do. And I will paste Kay-Lee in my mind. If she can do and deal, then so can I.
Chapter 96
I will be so happy to see the end of these ever-loving rain showers. They aren’t downpours anymore thank goodness, but it does more than just sprinkle on and off on most days so that nothing has a chance to dry up all the way. I’ve had to start running fans in the house to keep the damp under control and I’ve used the dryer way more than I want to just to keep up with Jolene’s diapers and all the muddy socks and stuff from the rest of us. I was hoping that with the regular brown outs that we’d save some on the electricity, but all we have running on the days we do have electric really eats up the “extra” we were trying to save. And having to be out in it is awful. Not even rubber boots help completely, it just keeps the worst of the mess out. Some still leaks and sneaks in.
The fields are muddy and Gramps and the Uncles are worried about getting crops in the ground on time. All the rivers and ponds are high though there hasn’t been any flooding up here on the Ridge. Has been some in town in the area they call The Bottoms, and closer to the big rivers that are all out of their banks. Nothing manmade had really done much to control the riots but I tell you right now, whoever is in control of Heaven’s waterworks has been making hay out of some people’s plans for mischief. I’m just worried that it is going to have to get really bad to completely snuff their nonsense out.
Of course, as a result groups are forced into rioting into smaller and smaller areas. I heard one man on the news say that should make it like shooting fish in a barrel if the government would just get up off their “cans” and give the anarchists some push back.
The newslady said, “But that could push those poor desperate people over the edge and then they would riot.” I mean what planet has that woman been living on? There has been plenty of rioting already.
As if she and those that thought like her were fools the man said, “Desperate? Desperate for what? Food? They have meals brought in by their people by the bus full paid for by rich white folks that just want a piece of the political pie. Housing? Most of them come from wealthy white families and claim they are protesting for colored folks like me, but I don’t see them giving their own stuff away, only wanting to use other people’s money. Clothing? You seen the labels on some of them t-shirts they wear?! I can’t afford that stuff for my kids as their good clothes and those folks are wearing them to riot in like some kind of fashion statement. Like it is something trending on social media and not the federal crime that it is. Them people are mostly from out of state stirring up things they don’t know nothin’ about and we’re all supposed to be grateful … yes massa, no massa, we be so grateful massa, just tell us which way to vote massa to get more of the same.” They were in a roaring tiff by the time I decided I was done listening to adults squabble like preschoolers. For sure the lady was on the losing end and getting fit to be tied about it and sounding like a cat who had its tail runover by a rocking chair. She was one of them that so long as she could talk louder and faster than you, it made her right whether she was or not.
It did give me something to think about though, like what we could be desperate for in short order. I ran over the lists in my head and realized nothing except maybe some peace and quiet and for the State to sign off on the papers to get out of our family business ‘cause Burt and Jolene were ours to care for permanently. Oh, and Jolene’s formula but I’m working on that for when it runs out. I realize now what Burt and Delly were doing with all of that powdered goat’s milk. I thought it had been a deal that he’d worked for some reason. Nope. I found it looking through Delly’s notebook, something she kept her and Sawyer’s mother’s favorite recipes in. She has … sorry had ‘cause they are now Sawyer’s … an index file box with more recipes but the most important ones are in that binder. There was a bunch of brand spanking new ones in the back in Delly’s handwriting and right there I found out that Delly was smarter than I ever gave her credit for being because I haven’t heard any of the wives mention this … homemade baby formula. None of the aunts brought it up either.
Delly had collected nearly a dozen different recipes but the main ingredient in half of them was goats milk, either powdered or canned. I’ve seen, and even used, canned goats milk but I’d never seen powdered goat milk. Learn something new every day. And trust me Burt had a lot of weird stuff stored. When I figured it out boy did Sawyer’s head come close to exploding. Apparently he hadn’t thought of any of that stuff either and we’d just been suffering and buying a can of formula here and there when we had enough ration points so we could try and get out ahead of Jolene running out. Jeannie is still able to feed Benny Robert half mother’s milk and half formula but only if she keeps up with pumping her milk real regular. Cindy is thus far, despite having twin girls, able to keep up with just breast feeding. Her mother reckons it is because of being around cows her whole life and thinking it just natural to feed her babies that way. Some of the other wives have been able to do it for a month or two and then are just give out. I heard Aunt Pearl and some of the others saying it is because of all the work and them being too worried to get back to pre-pregnancy weight instead of keeping the extra padding for the baby’s sake.
How do I feel about having a baby? I don’t know. For now, Jolene and Burt more than fill that space that everyone tells me should be there by now. But I’m not even nineteen yet and … well truth be told I’m not sorry that I’m not making a baby just yet. I still don’t know how it would affect my ability to get around and I’m kinda not ready to share my body with anyone but Sawyer. I told him that one night and he nearly chased me around the kitchen and got downright silly. And thanking me for being willing to wait.
“It isn’t a matter of being willing Sawyer,” I told him. “It may sound selfish, but the God’s honest truth is I … I’m not ready. We’ve got so many other things that are important … Jolene, Burt, trying to build up reserves for the next stage of whatever this is, dealing with the jobs Gramps and the Aunts expect us to fill in and for the family, and all the rest of it. I thought I was going to pass out when Dr. Carruthers sent another box of you know whats, especially after we weren’t able to find any but the kinky kind in the stores.”
“Er … I … um … called her.”
I wasn’t sure I’d heard what he’d just said and must have been looking at him funny. “Babe I know she is your doctor but that’s a good thing. All I asked her was if she knew who might be selling them and what they’d take for them. She said she’d get back with me and then that box showed up a couple of days later. I … er … just didn’t expect it to be a year’s supply.”
He looked all cross-eyed and I finally saw the humor and just about couldn’t stop giggling. Burt came in the kitchen wanting a cookie and asked what was so funny. I looked at him square in the eye and said, “Girl stuff.” Boy did he hightail it out of there.
Well, I suppose the rain hasn’t ruined everything. We still have a chance to choose to see the good in things, to have a good laugh often enough that it doesn’t seem strange when we do it. And I suppose that one of the good things about the rain, besides it running off the rioters, is that it has been good for mushrooms. Uncle Ned is teaching me all about them and says that God must be helping folks out because he hasn’t seen this many mushrooms in his life, not even when he was a boy which he makes sound like it must have been back in the Jurassic Age.
This month the two biggies are morels and oyster mushrooms. I make you don’t even want to know how many things with them and that doesn’t include drying and canning them for later. The two biggest hits of the recipes I’ve been experimenting with are Morel & Ramps Biscuits[1] and Mushroom & Ramps Pot Pie. Mushroom and Ramp Tart[2] was another one. After last year the wives were a little more cautious with serving their husbands ramps but they weren’t shy about it either. It is more about portion control this year but nearly everyone has served them at least once, some of us way more than once. The wives don’t look down on my “hobby” quite as much as they did last year. I know I’m going to have to work to get my share of the kudzu if what I’ve heard is true. Not just Hartford wives are aiming to harvest it, but a lot of other people are as well. You have to get your groceries where you can these days.
I will say that the men all like the biscuits, but they aren’t something I will fix with every meal. Sure, they save the flour by piecing it out, but they take a lot of butter and a lot of work because you have to fold them and fold them to get the flaky layers. I like the Mushroom and Ramp Pot Pie because it is just plain cooking though I don’t suppose most people would think it was. I’ve had a few comments on my “hobby” and they make it seem like it is very specialized and a little frou-frou … like French cooking.
Uncle Ned nearly laughed himself silly. “Wish my great granny coulda been around to hear that. Grew up eating that and for sure everyone thought it was poor man’s food back then, assuming they even thought of it as food at all and not just pig weeds. Now you listen here, don’t mind what the other children say. You just go right on ahead and do it. I pray they aren’t sorry they turn their nose up at good food, but if they are I’m wanting to leave behind at least one of you that can keep ‘em fed despite their sorries.”
I love Uncle Ned. Don’t get me wrong, I love Gramps too because he was the first to welcome me into the family but Uncle Ned and Uncle Forrester welcomed me for myself, not ‘cause of the Baffa land. That isn’t coming out exactly how I mean it but with Gramps family comes first over everything. I’m part of the family but Uncle Ned and Uncle Forrester make me feel like they’d love me even if I wasn’t part of the family and didn’t bring the land by marrying Sawyer. Oh pooh. That still seems wrong and not exactly what I mean but it’s all I’ve got the energy for right now. Foraging in the rain has given me a chill today. And the power was off when I came home which meant doing everything in the Canning Kitchen. Thankfully Jolene is content to sleep in her carrier in this rocker thing that Sawyer improvised while I deal with everything I brought in. The heat from the stove will also dry her sling. I lined it with an old rain jacket but the outside still got wet.
So today …. ramps in all the ways I did them last year was the top of the list to deal with. I have enough left over that I’m making something called Baked Sugar and Spice Ramps[3] to go with dinner. Even Burt will eat them without thinking about them being green. Fiddleheads[4] I’m canning as well. I’m cooking up a few for dinner but only because a handful wouldn’t fit in the jars I had prepared. I found some wild ginger and I brought it home to see if it will grow in pots near the house. I also use it to make a strong cider[5] that Sawyer and Burt like after dinner if it is damp or coolish. Burt says it is almost like drinking Red Hot candies. He’s not wrong.
A branch off a redbud tree broke off and I drug it home to make Pickled Red Buds[6]. The burdock roots I dug I’ve made into burdock root patties[7] for dinner. And I’ve made Dandelion Flower Pasta to round out the meal. Burt Jr. is supposed to be fishing for our dinner while the rest of them finish the clean out of that farm. If he catches something I will add that to our dinner, if not then I’ll open a jar of beef gravy and we can put that over the burdock patties and depending on how hungry they are, maybe we’ll roast marshmallows or pop popcorn in the fireplace. Or maybe we’ll just have cocoa. Depends whether I can kick this cold or only want to crawl in bed early tonight.
Tomorrow Uncle Ned was supposed to come by and he and I go pick all the oyster mushrooms we could find but Linda called me and said that both Uncle Ned and Uncle Forrester are down with colds. Not good. So not good. It is bad enough that Uncle Ned has agreed to stay over with Uncle Forrester. I’m sending over my Flu Kicker just in case it isn’t just the cold. I heard that there are a bunch of out-of-season cases of the Flu popping up. Basically you juice some fresh ginger. Add to it 1:1 lemon juice. Best batch size is the juice of 6 lemons, equal in ginger juice, then add 1/8 t. of cayenne pepper and 1 t. of honey. Stir it all together and then take it in a one ounce “shots.” You take a “shot” a day and it helps fight off the Flu … and hopefully colds as well.
I will still go forage for mushrooms tomorrow but I’m also going to gather knotweed[8][9][10]. They look a little bit like an alien, kind of like a thick asparagus with a little Triffid thrown in. That’s an old monster movie – Day of the Triffids – that I found at the library and eventually found a copy at a thrift store and purchased for us to keep. Sorry for getting off track, it has just been that kind of day and I think my chill may be turning into a full blown cold because my brain is on the fritz. I better make a list otherwise I may just be running around in circles tomorrow.
Let’s see, I need more knotweed syrup. You can turn it into a drink or drizzle it over a plain cake. I’m sure you can do other things with it, but I can’t think what at the moment. Something that was a hit last year with the little kids on canning days is when I made knotweed leather. It doesn’t look appetizing but it is, kind of like sour apple candy. Knotweed jelly makes a really pretty pinkish-peach colored jelly. You can use it similar to rhubarb as well. And probably the only other thing I am going to have time to make is a green broth from all the wild greens like dandelion, nettle, cress, etc. and a boatload of garlic. Depending on how much I get made I may can it or may just leave it to be drank at the start of every meal. Lord I’m sure I don’t want to hear what Burt is going to have to say about that. As much as that boy likes money, he hates the color green … or at least green food.
I think I’m done in. I hope Sawyer and Burt get home before it gets dark. I’m about to fall asleep standing up.
[1] Morels Recipe - Morels and Ramps Biscuits
[2] Ramp and Mushroom Tart
[3] Sugar-and-Spice-Baked Shrimp Recipe
[4] PRESERVING AND CANNING FIDDLEHEADS
[5] Recipe for Ginger Cider Drink
[6] Recipe: Pickled Redbud buds
[7] https://cookpad.com/us/search/Burdock Root
[8] https://www.cleangroundpartners.com/knotweed-recipies/
[9] https://www.finedininglovers.com/article/4-recipes-fall-love-japanese-knotweed
[10] https://sites.google.com/a/metropol...olution-begins/home/japanese-knotweed-recipes
I will be so happy to see the end of these ever-loving rain showers. They aren’t downpours anymore thank goodness, but it does more than just sprinkle on and off on most days so that nothing has a chance to dry up all the way. I’ve had to start running fans in the house to keep the damp under control and I’ve used the dryer way more than I want to just to keep up with Jolene’s diapers and all the muddy socks and stuff from the rest of us. I was hoping that with the regular brown outs that we’d save some on the electricity, but all we have running on the days we do have electric really eats up the “extra” we were trying to save. And having to be out in it is awful. Not even rubber boots help completely, it just keeps the worst of the mess out. Some still leaks and sneaks in.
The fields are muddy and Gramps and the Uncles are worried about getting crops in the ground on time. All the rivers and ponds are high though there hasn’t been any flooding up here on the Ridge. Has been some in town in the area they call The Bottoms, and closer to the big rivers that are all out of their banks. Nothing manmade had really done much to control the riots but I tell you right now, whoever is in control of Heaven’s waterworks has been making hay out of some people’s plans for mischief. I’m just worried that it is going to have to get really bad to completely snuff their nonsense out.
Of course, as a result groups are forced into rioting into smaller and smaller areas. I heard one man on the news say that should make it like shooting fish in a barrel if the government would just get up off their “cans” and give the anarchists some push back.
The newslady said, “But that could push those poor desperate people over the edge and then they would riot.” I mean what planet has that woman been living on? There has been plenty of rioting already.
As if she and those that thought like her were fools the man said, “Desperate? Desperate for what? Food? They have meals brought in by their people by the bus full paid for by rich white folks that just want a piece of the political pie. Housing? Most of them come from wealthy white families and claim they are protesting for colored folks like me, but I don’t see them giving their own stuff away, only wanting to use other people’s money. Clothing? You seen the labels on some of them t-shirts they wear?! I can’t afford that stuff for my kids as their good clothes and those folks are wearing them to riot in like some kind of fashion statement. Like it is something trending on social media and not the federal crime that it is. Them people are mostly from out of state stirring up things they don’t know nothin’ about and we’re all supposed to be grateful … yes massa, no massa, we be so grateful massa, just tell us which way to vote massa to get more of the same.” They were in a roaring tiff by the time I decided I was done listening to adults squabble like preschoolers. For sure the lady was on the losing end and getting fit to be tied about it and sounding like a cat who had its tail runover by a rocking chair. She was one of them that so long as she could talk louder and faster than you, it made her right whether she was or not.
It did give me something to think about though, like what we could be desperate for in short order. I ran over the lists in my head and realized nothing except maybe some peace and quiet and for the State to sign off on the papers to get out of our family business ‘cause Burt and Jolene were ours to care for permanently. Oh, and Jolene’s formula but I’m working on that for when it runs out. I realize now what Burt and Delly were doing with all of that powdered goat’s milk. I thought it had been a deal that he’d worked for some reason. Nope. I found it looking through Delly’s notebook, something she kept her and Sawyer’s mother’s favorite recipes in. She has … sorry had ‘cause they are now Sawyer’s … an index file box with more recipes but the most important ones are in that binder. There was a bunch of brand spanking new ones in the back in Delly’s handwriting and right there I found out that Delly was smarter than I ever gave her credit for being because I haven’t heard any of the wives mention this … homemade baby formula. None of the aunts brought it up either.
Delly had collected nearly a dozen different recipes but the main ingredient in half of them was goats milk, either powdered or canned. I’ve seen, and even used, canned goats milk but I’d never seen powdered goat milk. Learn something new every day. And trust me Burt had a lot of weird stuff stored. When I figured it out boy did Sawyer’s head come close to exploding. Apparently he hadn’t thought of any of that stuff either and we’d just been suffering and buying a can of formula here and there when we had enough ration points so we could try and get out ahead of Jolene running out. Jeannie is still able to feed Benny Robert half mother’s milk and half formula but only if she keeps up with pumping her milk real regular. Cindy is thus far, despite having twin girls, able to keep up with just breast feeding. Her mother reckons it is because of being around cows her whole life and thinking it just natural to feed her babies that way. Some of the other wives have been able to do it for a month or two and then are just give out. I heard Aunt Pearl and some of the others saying it is because of all the work and them being too worried to get back to pre-pregnancy weight instead of keeping the extra padding for the baby’s sake.
How do I feel about having a baby? I don’t know. For now, Jolene and Burt more than fill that space that everyone tells me should be there by now. But I’m not even nineteen yet and … well truth be told I’m not sorry that I’m not making a baby just yet. I still don’t know how it would affect my ability to get around and I’m kinda not ready to share my body with anyone but Sawyer. I told him that one night and he nearly chased me around the kitchen and got downright silly. And thanking me for being willing to wait.
“It isn’t a matter of being willing Sawyer,” I told him. “It may sound selfish, but the God’s honest truth is I … I’m not ready. We’ve got so many other things that are important … Jolene, Burt, trying to build up reserves for the next stage of whatever this is, dealing with the jobs Gramps and the Aunts expect us to fill in and for the family, and all the rest of it. I thought I was going to pass out when Dr. Carruthers sent another box of you know whats, especially after we weren’t able to find any but the kinky kind in the stores.”
“Er … I … um … called her.”
I wasn’t sure I’d heard what he’d just said and must have been looking at him funny. “Babe I know she is your doctor but that’s a good thing. All I asked her was if she knew who might be selling them and what they’d take for them. She said she’d get back with me and then that box showed up a couple of days later. I … er … just didn’t expect it to be a year’s supply.”
He looked all cross-eyed and I finally saw the humor and just about couldn’t stop giggling. Burt came in the kitchen wanting a cookie and asked what was so funny. I looked at him square in the eye and said, “Girl stuff.” Boy did he hightail it out of there.
Well, I suppose the rain hasn’t ruined everything. We still have a chance to choose to see the good in things, to have a good laugh often enough that it doesn’t seem strange when we do it. And I suppose that one of the good things about the rain, besides it running off the rioters, is that it has been good for mushrooms. Uncle Ned is teaching me all about them and says that God must be helping folks out because he hasn’t seen this many mushrooms in his life, not even when he was a boy which he makes sound like it must have been back in the Jurassic Age.
This month the two biggies are morels and oyster mushrooms. I make you don’t even want to know how many things with them and that doesn’t include drying and canning them for later. The two biggest hits of the recipes I’ve been experimenting with are Morel & Ramps Biscuits[1] and Mushroom & Ramps Pot Pie. Mushroom and Ramp Tart[2] was another one. After last year the wives were a little more cautious with serving their husbands ramps but they weren’t shy about it either. It is more about portion control this year but nearly everyone has served them at least once, some of us way more than once. The wives don’t look down on my “hobby” quite as much as they did last year. I know I’m going to have to work to get my share of the kudzu if what I’ve heard is true. Not just Hartford wives are aiming to harvest it, but a lot of other people are as well. You have to get your groceries where you can these days.
I will say that the men all like the biscuits, but they aren’t something I will fix with every meal. Sure, they save the flour by piecing it out, but they take a lot of butter and a lot of work because you have to fold them and fold them to get the flaky layers. I like the Mushroom and Ramp Pot Pie because it is just plain cooking though I don’t suppose most people would think it was. I’ve had a few comments on my “hobby” and they make it seem like it is very specialized and a little frou-frou … like French cooking.
Uncle Ned nearly laughed himself silly. “Wish my great granny coulda been around to hear that. Grew up eating that and for sure everyone thought it was poor man’s food back then, assuming they even thought of it as food at all and not just pig weeds. Now you listen here, don’t mind what the other children say. You just go right on ahead and do it. I pray they aren’t sorry they turn their nose up at good food, but if they are I’m wanting to leave behind at least one of you that can keep ‘em fed despite their sorries.”
I love Uncle Ned. Don’t get me wrong, I love Gramps too because he was the first to welcome me into the family but Uncle Ned and Uncle Forrester welcomed me for myself, not ‘cause of the Baffa land. That isn’t coming out exactly how I mean it but with Gramps family comes first over everything. I’m part of the family but Uncle Ned and Uncle Forrester make me feel like they’d love me even if I wasn’t part of the family and didn’t bring the land by marrying Sawyer. Oh pooh. That still seems wrong and not exactly what I mean but it’s all I’ve got the energy for right now. Foraging in the rain has given me a chill today. And the power was off when I came home which meant doing everything in the Canning Kitchen. Thankfully Jolene is content to sleep in her carrier in this rocker thing that Sawyer improvised while I deal with everything I brought in. The heat from the stove will also dry her sling. I lined it with an old rain jacket but the outside still got wet.
So today …. ramps in all the ways I did them last year was the top of the list to deal with. I have enough left over that I’m making something called Baked Sugar and Spice Ramps[3] to go with dinner. Even Burt will eat them without thinking about them being green. Fiddleheads[4] I’m canning as well. I’m cooking up a few for dinner but only because a handful wouldn’t fit in the jars I had prepared. I found some wild ginger and I brought it home to see if it will grow in pots near the house. I also use it to make a strong cider[5] that Sawyer and Burt like after dinner if it is damp or coolish. Burt says it is almost like drinking Red Hot candies. He’s not wrong.
A branch off a redbud tree broke off and I drug it home to make Pickled Red Buds[6]. The burdock roots I dug I’ve made into burdock root patties[7] for dinner. And I’ve made Dandelion Flower Pasta to round out the meal. Burt Jr. is supposed to be fishing for our dinner while the rest of them finish the clean out of that farm. If he catches something I will add that to our dinner, if not then I’ll open a jar of beef gravy and we can put that over the burdock patties and depending on how hungry they are, maybe we’ll roast marshmallows or pop popcorn in the fireplace. Or maybe we’ll just have cocoa. Depends whether I can kick this cold or only want to crawl in bed early tonight.
Tomorrow Uncle Ned was supposed to come by and he and I go pick all the oyster mushrooms we could find but Linda called me and said that both Uncle Ned and Uncle Forrester are down with colds. Not good. So not good. It is bad enough that Uncle Ned has agreed to stay over with Uncle Forrester. I’m sending over my Flu Kicker just in case it isn’t just the cold. I heard that there are a bunch of out-of-season cases of the Flu popping up. Basically you juice some fresh ginger. Add to it 1:1 lemon juice. Best batch size is the juice of 6 lemons, equal in ginger juice, then add 1/8 t. of cayenne pepper and 1 t. of honey. Stir it all together and then take it in a one ounce “shots.” You take a “shot” a day and it helps fight off the Flu … and hopefully colds as well.
I will still go forage for mushrooms tomorrow but I’m also going to gather knotweed[8][9][10]. They look a little bit like an alien, kind of like a thick asparagus with a little Triffid thrown in. That’s an old monster movie – Day of the Triffids – that I found at the library and eventually found a copy at a thrift store and purchased for us to keep. Sorry for getting off track, it has just been that kind of day and I think my chill may be turning into a full blown cold because my brain is on the fritz. I better make a list otherwise I may just be running around in circles tomorrow.
Let’s see, I need more knotweed syrup. You can turn it into a drink or drizzle it over a plain cake. I’m sure you can do other things with it, but I can’t think what at the moment. Something that was a hit last year with the little kids on canning days is when I made knotweed leather. It doesn’t look appetizing but it is, kind of like sour apple candy. Knotweed jelly makes a really pretty pinkish-peach colored jelly. You can use it similar to rhubarb as well. And probably the only other thing I am going to have time to make is a green broth from all the wild greens like dandelion, nettle, cress, etc. and a boatload of garlic. Depending on how much I get made I may can it or may just leave it to be drank at the start of every meal. Lord I’m sure I don’t want to hear what Burt is going to have to say about that. As much as that boy likes money, he hates the color green … or at least green food.
I think I’m done in. I hope Sawyer and Burt get home before it gets dark. I’m about to fall asleep standing up.
[1] Morels Recipe - Morels and Ramps Biscuits
[2] Ramp and Mushroom Tart
[3] Sugar-and-Spice-Baked Shrimp Recipe
[4] PRESERVING AND CANNING FIDDLEHEADS
[5] Recipe for Ginger Cider Drink
[6] Recipe: Pickled Redbud buds
[7] https://cookpad.com/us/search/Burdock Root
[8] https://www.cleangroundpartners.com/knotweed-recipies/
[9] https://www.finedininglovers.com/article/4-recipes-fall-love-japanese-knotweed
[10] https://sites.google.com/a/metropol...olution-begins/home/japanese-knotweed-recipes
Chapter 97
“Woman you are going to stay in bed and that’s that,” Sawyer said trying to be playful because apparently he’s learned that growling at me doesn’t do much good. I’m proof against it.
“Thawyer, I can’th thay in bed. There isth thoo mush thoo do.”
He crossed his arms and just looked at me.
“Argh! Thine. Buth youth can’th …”
“Babe … I can barely understand you. I’m just going to be downstairs …”
“Waith! My nothes!”
He scratched his head with both hands. “Babe. Dr. Carruthers traipsed all the way out here to check on you. She left that medicine that you are supposed to take and then sleep off. I know they are as big as horse pills but …”
“Oh all righth. Buth if Jolene tharts …”
“Babe! Pills, sleep, now. Pleeease. Doc C said if you don’t kick this stuff you are going to wind up in the hospital like Uncle Forrester. That what you want?”
That was a low blow and if I hadn’t been so tired and felt so rotten, I might have just gotten up the nerve to throw something at him and he knew it too, which probably was at least a little part of why he left the room and clattered down the stairs as fast as he did.
Ugh. Just complete and total ugh! It is almost the beginning of May, the rain has finally let up, there is so much to do, and what happens?! I finally get the dingety dangety crud from hell that has been going around.
It started with a chill I got in early April. I suppose foraging in the rain is all I can think. But there was no choice. No, we weren’t in danger of starving right then but there wasn’t going to be anymore giant finds and grocery runs like last year. Inheriting the stuff from Delly and Burt and most of the stuff from the Penny and Carmichael places doesn’t count because that is what I’m using on behalf of Burt Jr. and Jolene. No matter what I threw at the blasted crud it would never completely go away. I didn’t get a whole lot worse for two weeks. Then boom, I did start getting worse, but I wasn’t worried about it. I’m a healthy young woman. I’m not pregnant. I make sure we get a lot of nutritious foods. And I was dosing myself with all the crud I could make up out of that book that Dr. Carruthers had given me when she sent me those special meds. Then Uncle Forrester and Uncle Ned both start sounding like their lungs are full of Pop Its … know those things you throw on the ground and they “pop” like mini fireworks only without the fire.
Gramps and the Aunts finally just packed them up and hauled them to the walk in clinic, whether they wanted to go or not, only to find out it is wall to wall people. All of them to a person say, or at least the people taking care of them do, that they seemed to be getting over the creeping crud and then boom, it hits like a parent on a tear for being three hours late for curfew.
Uncle Ned is not so bad and only needed a nebulizer kind of treatment and he’s coughing up the crud out of his lugs and feeling “fine as a frog hair” not thirty minutes later. Uncle Forrester though is toasted and gets admitted to the hospital for overnight observation because his blood pressure is bad. Overnight turns into four days but they needed the bed so they let him come home. He’s still weak but vastly improved from where he’d been. Instead of moving into Huely’s old place it looks like Uncle Ned is going to move in with Uncle Forrester so the two of them can “fend off all the feee-males and keep their independence.” You do not want to hear what the Aunts had to say to that. Even with congested ears I’m pretty sure I heard them at our place.
Of course I missed it all because with my “cold” and having Jolene, I was considered “at risk” and told to stay away from the hospital. Well when a troop of Hartfords all get together they are pretty hard to miss and Dr. Carruthers hears about it and goes to find out who is in trouble this time. She’s happy that it isn’t me but is concerned when Sawyer opens his mouth and asks if there is something in particular that I can’t take for my “cold.” He doesn’t want to buy me something that I’ll have a reaction to.
Well Dr. Carruthers says “hold that thought” and asks for directions to the house. I could have died, just died. There were dishes in the sink. It was a “no electricity” day and I was trying to save some aggravation and heat cleaning water and bathwater at the same time. I don’t even want to think about the dirty laundry that had piled up.
I will not describe Sawyer’s awe at how fast Dr. C had me back upstairs and examining me. Nor his face when he heard her say, “Under other circumstances I would have you in for chest x-rays Kay-Lee.”
“I don’t feel anything or hear anything,” I told her.
“No, but I do. Deep in your lungs. If I had to guess you have walking pneumonia.”
“What?!” I said which set me off coughing.
She just parks her eyebrow way up high daring me to pitch the fit I was thinking about. See, I’ve been in that position too often. Not the pneumonia stuff though I’ve had that more than a few times too. It’s the “for your own good” position that is almost impossible to get out of if you don’t move fast enough soon enough.
She’d come loaded for bear just in case apparently. I’m on my last pill from the second z-pak. I’ve also drank enough of that blasted expectorant from beezlebub’s backside to have coughed up the Dead Sea and those Scrolls right along with it.
A week later Dr. C comes back to check on me again and she’s so tired and discouraged that even Sawyer decided to take a hand even though the woman intimidates him a bit. He’s just grateful for her attention to me. Seems her son got a stray hair and moved to live with his wife’s family down in Costa Rica and took their two kids. Why he got the stray hair is because he’d taken an exception to her changed finances. He’d been used to her subsidizing his education she was no longer able to. She’d given him a year’s notice but he didn’t take her serious. She also found out that he’d been subsidizing in other ways … such as taking the stuff the drug salesmen left and using it for-profit with his friends. She has a daughter that is a teacher in the Midwest but that one leans more towards her father’s side of the family. They aren’t estranged, they just don’t have a lot of common ground. That daughter had decided not to marry or have kids and devote herself to her calling and that is where she spends all her time and emotions.
I’m not sure how Sawyer got that out of her. Maybe it was the right time, right place kinda thing. That’s bad enough but the other thing is that she is getting worried about her own job and security. You’d think the hospital would be making sure their staff people were taken care of, or at least had a safe place to stay at the hospital in the event of another riot but … nope. She’s thinking of retiring. Really. She’d love to have a private practice again, but nothing like she had before because the rules are crazy different than when she first started. She misses being able to have a personal connection to her patients. I’ve seen the wheels turning in Sawyer’s head and I suspect he has talked to some of the Uncles. She impressed them that time Uncle Forrester and I got caught betwixt and between at the flea market. She impressed them again by just up and coming to check on me this time. I don’t know what, if anything, will come of it but Sawyer asked me after the fact if I would mind letting us be her place to come if she gets run out of town.
I gave it a long thought. I’m pretty sure that I’m okay with that so long as there are ground rules. Not because I don’t like Dr. C but because we’ve always had ground rules of a sort. I don’t want people trying to turn our relationship into something its never been. Yes, I like her. I like her a lot. But she’s not my mother or auntie or anything like that. She’s just really good at what she does, and she was willing to work on me when a lot of other doctors were willing to give up and let me live with more deficits than she thought I should have to.
Found out something I didn’t know and not sure how to take. I’m one of only three people left from the explosion that took my parents from me. The other two no longer live in this area and took a lump sum pay out in the beginning. Everyone else that had been hanging on in the medical trust are gone. I was the youngest and will outlive the value of the trust barring something unexpected. Dr. C figures that about the time I turn thirty the last of the money will be gone unless there is another uptick in the economy and I don’t have to use anymore of the money for anything, but that isn’t logical since I figure I will try and have at least one kid at some point.
Bleck. How did I get off on that train of thought? Not good for my health and I’ve got no time for that sort of nonsense either. My life is so much better than it could have been that I have no room to complain or be morose or anything else but grateful and feeling as blessed as the preacher talks about every Sunday we are able to get to church.
How about instead of depressing things I think about everything I will be able to forage in May if I can ever get over this crud? Let’s see, the mushrooms will still be coming in hand over fist I hope. I’m told that some areas are getting foraged over but I’m going to use some common sense and just pray everyone else does as well. According to my notes from Uncle Ned there will be Dryad’s Saddle mushrooms, Yellow Morels, Stone Crop mushrooms, Reishi mushrooms, and Chicken of the Woods mushrooms that don’t really look like mushrooms but shelf fungus. The wild greens are kudzu, waterleaf, violet leaf, onion grass (use them like chives), ramps, fiddleheads, milkweed asparagus, chickweed, nettle, greenbriar tips, spruce and hemlock tree tips. These aren’t greens but I’m not sure how to categorize them otherwise; wild ginger, bamboo shoots, and money plant pods. I’m not above thinking that Uncle Ned was yanking my chain about them pods being edible but we’ll see. Hopefully he will be well enough by the time that I’m well enough that we can get some of this stuff done.
The flowers I’ll have to work with are wisteria, lilac, black locust, and elderberry flowers. I’ve heard trout is making a good showing on other people’s table but Sawyer hasn’t had time. Maybe I can trade someone for some but I’d prefer Sawyer to take Burt and go fishing. The boy is climbing the walls because he has had to stay at home and inside so much. He loves “working” with Uncle Sawyer and the other men, on some days it is the only thing I have to get him to finish his schoolwork. Good Lord they make it drier than when I was his age, which if you listen to Uncle Ned wasn’t but a week or two ago.
From the farm gardens I will get strawberries, onions, and zucchini. The strawberries and onions are going to be late according to what I’ve heard but once the zucchini I have in my own garden start making I won’t need to work in shares for anyone else’s.
What I’m really interested in trying is Cattail[1] fluff. You heard that right. I read up on it and now I’ve got Uncle Ned to show me how to do it right. I want to try cattail bread, cattail griddle cakes, and cattail and acorn bread. Anything that will help the flour go further. Then there are other recipes like cattail rice, cattail soup, cattail stirfry, Cattail and wildrice pilaf, and then the crazy things called cat-on-the-cob that Uncle Ned says comes with built-in cob holders. I can’t wait. On the other hand, I think that pill must be kicking in because my brain feels like it is in a blender and the only way it is going to climb out is to get some sleep. I hope I can sleep for more than an hour. I wind up drinking so much water with this medicine to keep myself from feeling like my tongue is part of the Sahara that I wind up getting up several times during the nights just to go to the bathroom. I’m so tired.
[1] Delicious Recipes Using Cattails - "The Supermarket of the Swamp" - The Lost Herbs
“Woman you are going to stay in bed and that’s that,” Sawyer said trying to be playful because apparently he’s learned that growling at me doesn’t do much good. I’m proof against it.
“Thawyer, I can’th thay in bed. There isth thoo mush thoo do.”
He crossed his arms and just looked at me.
“Argh! Thine. Buth youth can’th …”
“Babe … I can barely understand you. I’m just going to be downstairs …”
“Waith! My nothes!”
He scratched his head with both hands. “Babe. Dr. Carruthers traipsed all the way out here to check on you. She left that medicine that you are supposed to take and then sleep off. I know they are as big as horse pills but …”
“Oh all righth. Buth if Jolene tharts …”
“Babe! Pills, sleep, now. Pleeease. Doc C said if you don’t kick this stuff you are going to wind up in the hospital like Uncle Forrester. That what you want?”
That was a low blow and if I hadn’t been so tired and felt so rotten, I might have just gotten up the nerve to throw something at him and he knew it too, which probably was at least a little part of why he left the room and clattered down the stairs as fast as he did.
Ugh. Just complete and total ugh! It is almost the beginning of May, the rain has finally let up, there is so much to do, and what happens?! I finally get the dingety dangety crud from hell that has been going around.
It started with a chill I got in early April. I suppose foraging in the rain is all I can think. But there was no choice. No, we weren’t in danger of starving right then but there wasn’t going to be anymore giant finds and grocery runs like last year. Inheriting the stuff from Delly and Burt and most of the stuff from the Penny and Carmichael places doesn’t count because that is what I’m using on behalf of Burt Jr. and Jolene. No matter what I threw at the blasted crud it would never completely go away. I didn’t get a whole lot worse for two weeks. Then boom, I did start getting worse, but I wasn’t worried about it. I’m a healthy young woman. I’m not pregnant. I make sure we get a lot of nutritious foods. And I was dosing myself with all the crud I could make up out of that book that Dr. Carruthers had given me when she sent me those special meds. Then Uncle Forrester and Uncle Ned both start sounding like their lungs are full of Pop Its … know those things you throw on the ground and they “pop” like mini fireworks only without the fire.
Gramps and the Aunts finally just packed them up and hauled them to the walk in clinic, whether they wanted to go or not, only to find out it is wall to wall people. All of them to a person say, or at least the people taking care of them do, that they seemed to be getting over the creeping crud and then boom, it hits like a parent on a tear for being three hours late for curfew.
Uncle Ned is not so bad and only needed a nebulizer kind of treatment and he’s coughing up the crud out of his lugs and feeling “fine as a frog hair” not thirty minutes later. Uncle Forrester though is toasted and gets admitted to the hospital for overnight observation because his blood pressure is bad. Overnight turns into four days but they needed the bed so they let him come home. He’s still weak but vastly improved from where he’d been. Instead of moving into Huely’s old place it looks like Uncle Ned is going to move in with Uncle Forrester so the two of them can “fend off all the feee-males and keep their independence.” You do not want to hear what the Aunts had to say to that. Even with congested ears I’m pretty sure I heard them at our place.
Of course I missed it all because with my “cold” and having Jolene, I was considered “at risk” and told to stay away from the hospital. Well when a troop of Hartfords all get together they are pretty hard to miss and Dr. Carruthers hears about it and goes to find out who is in trouble this time. She’s happy that it isn’t me but is concerned when Sawyer opens his mouth and asks if there is something in particular that I can’t take for my “cold.” He doesn’t want to buy me something that I’ll have a reaction to.
Well Dr. Carruthers says “hold that thought” and asks for directions to the house. I could have died, just died. There were dishes in the sink. It was a “no electricity” day and I was trying to save some aggravation and heat cleaning water and bathwater at the same time. I don’t even want to think about the dirty laundry that had piled up.
I will not describe Sawyer’s awe at how fast Dr. C had me back upstairs and examining me. Nor his face when he heard her say, “Under other circumstances I would have you in for chest x-rays Kay-Lee.”
“I don’t feel anything or hear anything,” I told her.
“No, but I do. Deep in your lungs. If I had to guess you have walking pneumonia.”
“What?!” I said which set me off coughing.
She just parks her eyebrow way up high daring me to pitch the fit I was thinking about. See, I’ve been in that position too often. Not the pneumonia stuff though I’ve had that more than a few times too. It’s the “for your own good” position that is almost impossible to get out of if you don’t move fast enough soon enough.
She’d come loaded for bear just in case apparently. I’m on my last pill from the second z-pak. I’ve also drank enough of that blasted expectorant from beezlebub’s backside to have coughed up the Dead Sea and those Scrolls right along with it.
A week later Dr. C comes back to check on me again and she’s so tired and discouraged that even Sawyer decided to take a hand even though the woman intimidates him a bit. He’s just grateful for her attention to me. Seems her son got a stray hair and moved to live with his wife’s family down in Costa Rica and took their two kids. Why he got the stray hair is because he’d taken an exception to her changed finances. He’d been used to her subsidizing his education she was no longer able to. She’d given him a year’s notice but he didn’t take her serious. She also found out that he’d been subsidizing in other ways … such as taking the stuff the drug salesmen left and using it for-profit with his friends. She has a daughter that is a teacher in the Midwest but that one leans more towards her father’s side of the family. They aren’t estranged, they just don’t have a lot of common ground. That daughter had decided not to marry or have kids and devote herself to her calling and that is where she spends all her time and emotions.
I’m not sure how Sawyer got that out of her. Maybe it was the right time, right place kinda thing. That’s bad enough but the other thing is that she is getting worried about her own job and security. You’d think the hospital would be making sure their staff people were taken care of, or at least had a safe place to stay at the hospital in the event of another riot but … nope. She’s thinking of retiring. Really. She’d love to have a private practice again, but nothing like she had before because the rules are crazy different than when she first started. She misses being able to have a personal connection to her patients. I’ve seen the wheels turning in Sawyer’s head and I suspect he has talked to some of the Uncles. She impressed them that time Uncle Forrester and I got caught betwixt and between at the flea market. She impressed them again by just up and coming to check on me this time. I don’t know what, if anything, will come of it but Sawyer asked me after the fact if I would mind letting us be her place to come if she gets run out of town.
I gave it a long thought. I’m pretty sure that I’m okay with that so long as there are ground rules. Not because I don’t like Dr. C but because we’ve always had ground rules of a sort. I don’t want people trying to turn our relationship into something its never been. Yes, I like her. I like her a lot. But she’s not my mother or auntie or anything like that. She’s just really good at what she does, and she was willing to work on me when a lot of other doctors were willing to give up and let me live with more deficits than she thought I should have to.
Found out something I didn’t know and not sure how to take. I’m one of only three people left from the explosion that took my parents from me. The other two no longer live in this area and took a lump sum pay out in the beginning. Everyone else that had been hanging on in the medical trust are gone. I was the youngest and will outlive the value of the trust barring something unexpected. Dr. C figures that about the time I turn thirty the last of the money will be gone unless there is another uptick in the economy and I don’t have to use anymore of the money for anything, but that isn’t logical since I figure I will try and have at least one kid at some point.
Bleck. How did I get off on that train of thought? Not good for my health and I’ve got no time for that sort of nonsense either. My life is so much better than it could have been that I have no room to complain or be morose or anything else but grateful and feeling as blessed as the preacher talks about every Sunday we are able to get to church.
How about instead of depressing things I think about everything I will be able to forage in May if I can ever get over this crud? Let’s see, the mushrooms will still be coming in hand over fist I hope. I’m told that some areas are getting foraged over but I’m going to use some common sense and just pray everyone else does as well. According to my notes from Uncle Ned there will be Dryad’s Saddle mushrooms, Yellow Morels, Stone Crop mushrooms, Reishi mushrooms, and Chicken of the Woods mushrooms that don’t really look like mushrooms but shelf fungus. The wild greens are kudzu, waterleaf, violet leaf, onion grass (use them like chives), ramps, fiddleheads, milkweed asparagus, chickweed, nettle, greenbriar tips, spruce and hemlock tree tips. These aren’t greens but I’m not sure how to categorize them otherwise; wild ginger, bamboo shoots, and money plant pods. I’m not above thinking that Uncle Ned was yanking my chain about them pods being edible but we’ll see. Hopefully he will be well enough by the time that I’m well enough that we can get some of this stuff done.
The flowers I’ll have to work with are wisteria, lilac, black locust, and elderberry flowers. I’ve heard trout is making a good showing on other people’s table but Sawyer hasn’t had time. Maybe I can trade someone for some but I’d prefer Sawyer to take Burt and go fishing. The boy is climbing the walls because he has had to stay at home and inside so much. He loves “working” with Uncle Sawyer and the other men, on some days it is the only thing I have to get him to finish his schoolwork. Good Lord they make it drier than when I was his age, which if you listen to Uncle Ned wasn’t but a week or two ago.
From the farm gardens I will get strawberries, onions, and zucchini. The strawberries and onions are going to be late according to what I’ve heard but once the zucchini I have in my own garden start making I won’t need to work in shares for anyone else’s.
What I’m really interested in trying is Cattail[1] fluff. You heard that right. I read up on it and now I’ve got Uncle Ned to show me how to do it right. I want to try cattail bread, cattail griddle cakes, and cattail and acorn bread. Anything that will help the flour go further. Then there are other recipes like cattail rice, cattail soup, cattail stirfry, Cattail and wildrice pilaf, and then the crazy things called cat-on-the-cob that Uncle Ned says comes with built-in cob holders. I can’t wait. On the other hand, I think that pill must be kicking in because my brain feels like it is in a blender and the only way it is going to climb out is to get some sleep. I hope I can sleep for more than an hour. I wind up drinking so much water with this medicine to keep myself from feeling like my tongue is part of the Sahara that I wind up getting up several times during the nights just to go to the bathroom. I’m so tired.
[1] Delicious Recipes Using Cattails - "The Supermarket of the Swamp" - The Lost Herbs
sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Thank you cattails .
cattails .
Chapter 98
June. I felt like the world has passed me by while I’ve slept. At least I’m finally able to spell Sawyer. For most of May he has had everything on his shoulders. Okay, take that back. He had most of it on his shoulders. By the first week of May I was able to sit and do some of the piddly stuff you have to do to prep foods for canning. Which is mostly what got done during May … piddly stuff and drying. I don’t think half a gross of jars were used. I know it was different for the rest of the family, but such is life. On the other hand, it would have been nice to have help but Sawyer is only one person and the new rule in the family is if you don’t contribute you don’t share.
I understand why they had to do it, even agree with it, but that doesn’t change that I wish … oh pooh. Stop wishing, it won’t change a thing. Still, he does so much for the family, you would figure some of them would help out for that reason alone. I guess it shows just how out of sorts I was on the subject that it still bothers me even though I’ve moved on … or call myself doing it anyway.
I missed the kudzu in May. I’m trying to get some done now but my gitty up hasn’t come all the way back yet. I managed a few other things like ramps, mushrooms, and chickweed - mostly just because of Uncle Ned being himself and helping out as he could - but about all I could do of anything else was slap it in the dehydrator that Uncle Ned showed Sawyer how to make.
But here it is June and I feel like I am even more behind. It doesn’t help that today was the first canning day we’ve had this year … or let’s say it was the first canning day that we’ve had as an entire group here at the house.
“Babe, you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine Sawyer.” When he gave me a more penetrating look I said, “Really. I’m fine. Yes, I’m tired. Yes, some of them managed to irritate me. But …”
“Barbara?” he asked in a growly voice.
“Actually no. It was … weird. She brought a huge batch of chicken of the woods mushrooms and offered to split it with me if I’d share my recipes like mushroom sausage and mushroom broth and the like. She’s … not so bad when you get beyond those thick walls she has. Everyone, including Linda and Jeannie, seemed to expect us to come to logger heads. I mean I’m not going to start anything with her as long as she doesn’t start anything with us. Why anyone would think otherwise I don’t know. It really bothers me that the aunts kept waiting for me to make a scene.”
Sawyer snorted while he was going over the evening’s notes; ours and those for the family. “They don’t know you very well apparently. You want me to feel things out and have a talk with who might need talking to?”
“No,” I told him a little sharply. “Sorry. Oh Sawyer I didn’t mean to snap like that.”
“Babe if I can’t stand a little heat, I’ve been out of the kitchen too much. You’re just tired.”
“That’s no excuse. And I mean it Sawyer, don’t treat me like I’m a bomb about to go off. I had no right to …”
He surprised me by getting up and pulling me into his arms. “I don’t have to say nothing ‘cause you are always harder on yourself than I’d ever think of being. Wish you wouldn’t though. Sure you don’t want me to say something? Seems to be bothering you more than normal.”
I sighed but when I said no, he understood that I meant it. “I’m out of practice dealing with all the aunts and wives as a big group and … dealing with the feelings about the ones that won’t be there anymore just piled onto that.” He gave a slow nod and drew me over to the table and we sat down together.
“Know what you mean. Burt Sr never came out with the men but … he was still a presence and he still helped in his own way. Probably at least that bad with … with …” I hugged him as Delly’s loss still hit him sideways and maybe always would. We all missed Mrs. Penny and Mrs. Carmichael as well. But he added another wrinkle. “I still can’t believe that Garrett up and left to join Bud in the oilfields. He’s the last of Uncle Forrester’s line that was staying on the ridge. Don’t say anything to the others but Uncle Mark told me that Uncle Forrester is changing his will. Francine following that guy to Upstate New York really soured Garrett. I know he’s hurting but he didn’t need to leave things the way he did. And blaming Uncle Forrester and Gramps created pain that didn’t need creating as there was already enough to go around.”
After momentary struggle I told him, “This is nothing but gossip, and I don’t know why it wouldn’t have gotten back to you but … from what I heard today on the subject Francine wasn’t the first to … um … break their wedding vows.”
“What?” he asked, after what I said sunk in.
That sort of stuff is distasteful at the best of times but having it be about family compounds that for me. “I tried not to listen to the gossip, didn’t want to listen to all the gory details, but apparently it was almost common knowledge, at least with the wives and some of the aunts, that he was seeing some woman in the dispatch office where he was working.”
Sawyer looked really angry and it bothered me carrying tales. Sawyer growled, “That damn fool. If it is who I am thinking she’s married with a kid. They dated in high school but broke it off not long after graduation when her mother let it be known she didn’t want a connection to the white trash Hartfords.”
Disregarding his sarcasm I said, “Then maybe it was just the wives gossiping and trying to find reason for it to have happened.”
“I don’t know,” he said scrubbing his face. “There’s enough trouble as it is, we don’t need a surprise of that sort upsetting the apple cart. Frankly I’m just glad, if Garrett and Francine were going to split, that they left and are as far away as they are going to be. It is still a worry but not an immediate one.” Looking at my face he realized I didn’t understand. He explained, “After all the trouble Jamison caused … and Mason … Uncle Mark and I have been worried we could run into something similar with some of the others.”
“Not Gramps? He’s not worried?”
The subject obviously stressed him out, but he still shared his thoughts on the subject with me. “Babe, as much as I love Gramps and all the other uncles, I’ve come to understand some of them seem to live in a sort of bubble where the family is concerned. They now spend all their time worrying about crops and how to keep everyone fed. All the other stuff gets ignored for what Uncle Mark calls a Cacoon of Normalcy Bias.”
“A what?”
“He means that they continue to think only the best of the family, that none of them would intentionally betray the rest of us. They think that Jamison was just stupid and bragging but didn’t really know what would come of it. That the thing when he came over here about the propane was just a one off. To a large extent they think the same of Mason. The fact Mason has had a breakdown and got moved to the psych ward at the State Hospital …”
He was rubbing his neck like it was sore and I pushed his hands away as I stood up to massage his neck and shoulders. “You don’t need to do that,” he said.
“And you don’t need to help me try and keep up with my stretches and exercises and all the rest you have on these shoulders. Have I told you lately how proud I am to be Mrs. Sawyer Hartford?”
He smiled and patted my hand and pulled me back around to sit down. “Daily if not more than that. Keeps me from coming off the rails, I just hope to prove I’m worth that pride and confidence you put in me.” Sighing again he said, “We’ve been feeling out my cousins, trying to see if there are any more weak links … and there are but don’t look like any quite like Jamison and Garrett though there are more knotheads than necessary … and we are quietly trying to reinforce how important it is for no one to bump their gums about what the different families groups have. Maybe even watch talking to each other though we framed that as a way to avoid any jealousy in the family. Didn’t think I’d have to deal with the family females over this though. Can’t believe the aunts didn’t put a stop to it. They’ve claimed to have more sense the few times it has come up.”
I shrugged and though I hated the feeling of tattling I said, “They seemed to be part of the conversation, adding their own bits of knowledge. Gramps may need to have a word with Aunt Pearl. I don’t know.”
A little suspiciously he asked, “Was Barbara part of it?”
“No. Just the opposite, enough to annoy some of the others. Her mother … well it was kinda an insult but also a warning. I couldn’t decide if she was lecturing about the gossiping or lecturing about causing the others to be irritated with her. I know her parents are … harsh and not just strict these days … but I’ve never seen them be like this. I caught Barbara outside … not crying exactly … but definitely weepy. She asked me not to say anything. She was … I think she was afraid for anyone to know. Sawyer … where did Huely get the black eye?”
“Said the barn door blew into him while he had an armful and couldn’t stop it in time. Why?”
“’Cause Barbara had bruises on her upper arm. She tried to hide it, but a seam came loose when she caught it on a bush. She put a sweater on afterwards despite how warm it was. That clued me in. I saw those types of bruises on kids that would get grabbed. I’ve met her parents lots of times and I’d swear they weren’t the type.”
“What type?”
It sometimes still amazed me that despite all the things that Sawyer has gone through in his life he can still be a little blind about things on occasion. “Hitters.”
“What?! Huely would never hit Barbara.”
“I didn’t say Huely was doing the hitting. Besides Huely is the one with the black eye. And I don’t think Barbara hit him either. She all but ran to him when he showed up late, like she was worried about something.”
I could see him turning things over in his mind and then grimace. “Oh Lord. You’re right. Something is going on. Huely has been asking me for any extra work I can find for him. And today …”
“Today what?”
“He asked maybe if Barbara can leave some of her canning here, even if it is just in the barn. Just a jar here and there. And maybe on those days her … aw hell … on those days her mother doesn’t show up with her. Dammit, dammit, dammit,” he said quietly. “We don’t need another mystery.” He shook his head. "Let me go call Uncle Mark. This can’t wait.”
June. I felt like the world has passed me by while I’ve slept. At least I’m finally able to spell Sawyer. For most of May he has had everything on his shoulders. Okay, take that back. He had most of it on his shoulders. By the first week of May I was able to sit and do some of the piddly stuff you have to do to prep foods for canning. Which is mostly what got done during May … piddly stuff and drying. I don’t think half a gross of jars were used. I know it was different for the rest of the family, but such is life. On the other hand, it would have been nice to have help but Sawyer is only one person and the new rule in the family is if you don’t contribute you don’t share.
I understand why they had to do it, even agree with it, but that doesn’t change that I wish … oh pooh. Stop wishing, it won’t change a thing. Still, he does so much for the family, you would figure some of them would help out for that reason alone. I guess it shows just how out of sorts I was on the subject that it still bothers me even though I’ve moved on … or call myself doing it anyway.
I missed the kudzu in May. I’m trying to get some done now but my gitty up hasn’t come all the way back yet. I managed a few other things like ramps, mushrooms, and chickweed - mostly just because of Uncle Ned being himself and helping out as he could - but about all I could do of anything else was slap it in the dehydrator that Uncle Ned showed Sawyer how to make.
But here it is June and I feel like I am even more behind. It doesn’t help that today was the first canning day we’ve had this year … or let’s say it was the first canning day that we’ve had as an entire group here at the house.
“Babe, you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine Sawyer.” When he gave me a more penetrating look I said, “Really. I’m fine. Yes, I’m tired. Yes, some of them managed to irritate me. But …”
“Barbara?” he asked in a growly voice.
“Actually no. It was … weird. She brought a huge batch of chicken of the woods mushrooms and offered to split it with me if I’d share my recipes like mushroom sausage and mushroom broth and the like. She’s … not so bad when you get beyond those thick walls she has. Everyone, including Linda and Jeannie, seemed to expect us to come to logger heads. I mean I’m not going to start anything with her as long as she doesn’t start anything with us. Why anyone would think otherwise I don’t know. It really bothers me that the aunts kept waiting for me to make a scene.”
Sawyer snorted while he was going over the evening’s notes; ours and those for the family. “They don’t know you very well apparently. You want me to feel things out and have a talk with who might need talking to?”
“No,” I told him a little sharply. “Sorry. Oh Sawyer I didn’t mean to snap like that.”
“Babe if I can’t stand a little heat, I’ve been out of the kitchen too much. You’re just tired.”
“That’s no excuse. And I mean it Sawyer, don’t treat me like I’m a bomb about to go off. I had no right to …”
He surprised me by getting up and pulling me into his arms. “I don’t have to say nothing ‘cause you are always harder on yourself than I’d ever think of being. Wish you wouldn’t though. Sure you don’t want me to say something? Seems to be bothering you more than normal.”
I sighed but when I said no, he understood that I meant it. “I’m out of practice dealing with all the aunts and wives as a big group and … dealing with the feelings about the ones that won’t be there anymore just piled onto that.” He gave a slow nod and drew me over to the table and we sat down together.
“Know what you mean. Burt Sr never came out with the men but … he was still a presence and he still helped in his own way. Probably at least that bad with … with …” I hugged him as Delly’s loss still hit him sideways and maybe always would. We all missed Mrs. Penny and Mrs. Carmichael as well. But he added another wrinkle. “I still can’t believe that Garrett up and left to join Bud in the oilfields. He’s the last of Uncle Forrester’s line that was staying on the ridge. Don’t say anything to the others but Uncle Mark told me that Uncle Forrester is changing his will. Francine following that guy to Upstate New York really soured Garrett. I know he’s hurting but he didn’t need to leave things the way he did. And blaming Uncle Forrester and Gramps created pain that didn’t need creating as there was already enough to go around.”
After momentary struggle I told him, “This is nothing but gossip, and I don’t know why it wouldn’t have gotten back to you but … from what I heard today on the subject Francine wasn’t the first to … um … break their wedding vows.”
“What?” he asked, after what I said sunk in.
That sort of stuff is distasteful at the best of times but having it be about family compounds that for me. “I tried not to listen to the gossip, didn’t want to listen to all the gory details, but apparently it was almost common knowledge, at least with the wives and some of the aunts, that he was seeing some woman in the dispatch office where he was working.”
Sawyer looked really angry and it bothered me carrying tales. Sawyer growled, “That damn fool. If it is who I am thinking she’s married with a kid. They dated in high school but broke it off not long after graduation when her mother let it be known she didn’t want a connection to the white trash Hartfords.”
Disregarding his sarcasm I said, “Then maybe it was just the wives gossiping and trying to find reason for it to have happened.”
“I don’t know,” he said scrubbing his face. “There’s enough trouble as it is, we don’t need a surprise of that sort upsetting the apple cart. Frankly I’m just glad, if Garrett and Francine were going to split, that they left and are as far away as they are going to be. It is still a worry but not an immediate one.” Looking at my face he realized I didn’t understand. He explained, “After all the trouble Jamison caused … and Mason … Uncle Mark and I have been worried we could run into something similar with some of the others.”
“Not Gramps? He’s not worried?”
The subject obviously stressed him out, but he still shared his thoughts on the subject with me. “Babe, as much as I love Gramps and all the other uncles, I’ve come to understand some of them seem to live in a sort of bubble where the family is concerned. They now spend all their time worrying about crops and how to keep everyone fed. All the other stuff gets ignored for what Uncle Mark calls a Cacoon of Normalcy Bias.”
“A what?”
“He means that they continue to think only the best of the family, that none of them would intentionally betray the rest of us. They think that Jamison was just stupid and bragging but didn’t really know what would come of it. That the thing when he came over here about the propane was just a one off. To a large extent they think the same of Mason. The fact Mason has had a breakdown and got moved to the psych ward at the State Hospital …”
He was rubbing his neck like it was sore and I pushed his hands away as I stood up to massage his neck and shoulders. “You don’t need to do that,” he said.
“And you don’t need to help me try and keep up with my stretches and exercises and all the rest you have on these shoulders. Have I told you lately how proud I am to be Mrs. Sawyer Hartford?”
He smiled and patted my hand and pulled me back around to sit down. “Daily if not more than that. Keeps me from coming off the rails, I just hope to prove I’m worth that pride and confidence you put in me.” Sighing again he said, “We’ve been feeling out my cousins, trying to see if there are any more weak links … and there are but don’t look like any quite like Jamison and Garrett though there are more knotheads than necessary … and we are quietly trying to reinforce how important it is for no one to bump their gums about what the different families groups have. Maybe even watch talking to each other though we framed that as a way to avoid any jealousy in the family. Didn’t think I’d have to deal with the family females over this though. Can’t believe the aunts didn’t put a stop to it. They’ve claimed to have more sense the few times it has come up.”
I shrugged and though I hated the feeling of tattling I said, “They seemed to be part of the conversation, adding their own bits of knowledge. Gramps may need to have a word with Aunt Pearl. I don’t know.”
A little suspiciously he asked, “Was Barbara part of it?”
“No. Just the opposite, enough to annoy some of the others. Her mother … well it was kinda an insult but also a warning. I couldn’t decide if she was lecturing about the gossiping or lecturing about causing the others to be irritated with her. I know her parents are … harsh and not just strict these days … but I’ve never seen them be like this. I caught Barbara outside … not crying exactly … but definitely weepy. She asked me not to say anything. She was … I think she was afraid for anyone to know. Sawyer … where did Huely get the black eye?”
“Said the barn door blew into him while he had an armful and couldn’t stop it in time. Why?”
“’Cause Barbara had bruises on her upper arm. She tried to hide it, but a seam came loose when she caught it on a bush. She put a sweater on afterwards despite how warm it was. That clued me in. I saw those types of bruises on kids that would get grabbed. I’ve met her parents lots of times and I’d swear they weren’t the type.”
“What type?”
It sometimes still amazed me that despite all the things that Sawyer has gone through in his life he can still be a little blind about things on occasion. “Hitters.”
“What?! Huely would never hit Barbara.”
“I didn’t say Huely was doing the hitting. Besides Huely is the one with the black eye. And I don’t think Barbara hit him either. She all but ran to him when he showed up late, like she was worried about something.”
I could see him turning things over in his mind and then grimace. “Oh Lord. You’re right. Something is going on. Huely has been asking me for any extra work I can find for him. And today …”
“Today what?”
“He asked maybe if Barbara can leave some of her canning here, even if it is just in the barn. Just a jar here and there. And maybe on those days her … aw hell … on those days her mother doesn’t show up with her. Dammit, dammit, dammit,” he said quietly. “We don’t need another mystery.” He shook his head. "Let me go call Uncle Mark. This can’t wait.”
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Jeepcats27
Senior Member
very nice chapter! thanks!
I will try. FP is giving me fits for the last month. Their platform has something shaky in it on the author side. I hope they fix it asap.
sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Great chapter, thank you.