Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
The next few weeks pass in a blur of busyness that keeps me from dwelling too much on all the things I feel like I should worry about.
My dad’s date—he simply said he’d had a good time; as well as Bethany having moved out—Ben’s housewarming present was a framed photo of the two of them; and William’s college aspirations—he passed his GED and has been spending a lot of time online, researching various institutions.
I go online myself to look for a job, but it’s a halfhearted attempt at best. I simply don’t have the time or, frankly, the will. Who in their right mind is going to hire a woman who is coming onto five months pregnant?
So, I focus on the homestead, where there is always something to do.
My potatoes have started to chit, and in the next week, I plan to begin planting them out in the garden, which is freshly plowed and composted.
Josh has dredged and stocked the pond with largemouth bass.
He’s doing a pond-dipping project with Rose, where they chart the number of minnows they can see, as well as vegetation.
In the fall, he’ll add bluegill and channel catfish; apparently, together these three species of fish keep a pond healthy. Who knew?
Rose and I head to Buckholt to get her two new Plymouth Rocks, and there is something so very heartwarming about seeing how her face lights up as she holds them in a box on her lap on the way home. Moonbeam and Celestia are welcome additions to her brood.
I sow our cool-season crops—carrots, radishes, lettuce, and arugula, more than we’ve ever planted before—in our bid to become self-sufficient.
Our vegetable plot is nearly twice as big as it was last year, running all the way from the orchard to the barn and using every available inch. It’s going to take a lot of work.
I deep clean the chicken coop and animal pens with Jack and Rose’s help—a dirty job at the best of times—and William power-washes the chicken tractor in preparation for the arrival of our fifty meat chickens.
Mabel is producing even more milk, and while we feed leftovers to the piglets, there is still plenty for making butter, cheese, and yogurt, which feels like a full-time job in itself.
All in all, April passes in what feels like the blink of an eye, and I’m pretty sure May will be even busier as the garden really gets going.
Other things have been happening, too. Hooch has officially moved to Buckholt, and I’ve gone over to his place to check on it a couple of times, wondering when our new neighbor is going to move in. So far, there’s been no activity.
Bethany announces at dinner one night—she comes over most evenings, which soothes my battered soul—that she’s been accepted to the midwifery program at Shenandoah and plans to start in January, six months earlier than she expected, after completing the online modules.
She’s already applied for financial aid and received a scholarship grant, so we don’t, she informs us, have to worry about tuition.
Josh and I are both fairly flummoxed. Once again, not a single word to us.
Is this how kids usually behave? Maybe we’d just become used to the helicopter parenting of Princeton, New Jersey, where so many parents are intimately involved in every aspect of their kids’ lives.
I’m glad Bethany is taking control of her life and proud of her for managing it all.
But still… it would have been nice to have been a little more included.
And it’s not just Bethany who is making plans.
Rose has, all by herself, filled out an application to sell her eggs at the farmer’s market that runs all spring and summer in Buckholt, which required her to arrange for our well to be tested and our coop inspected so she can apply for a cottage industry certification.
Admittedly, William helped her with some of the online stuff, but I am very impressed by her enterprise.
She even insists on paying the seventy-five-dollar fee for the well testing out of her own earnings.
Clearly, this homesteading life is good for our kids’ independence, as well as resilience.
Jack, meanwhile, has continued to improve his carpentry skills as well as helping Josh outside.
He built a feeder for the piglets—they destroyed the cheap one Josh had gotten from the feed store—and a bookcase for his bedroom, which admittedly is more than a little wobbly, but it’s still a very good first effort.
William has been working all hours, but I’ve taken him driving several times, and on the first of May, he passes his driver’s test. We’re all thrilled until Josh informs me how much our insurance premium is going to go up, which makes me worry about money yet again, although I do my best not to.
If Josh can be laid-back about the very small amount in our checking, well then, so can I.
He still hasn’t shared with me what his business plan is, though.
And then there’s my dad, who seems to be very good friends with Jolene. He’s up and down to the community center for various social activities, and Jolene picks him up most Saturdays to go to bingo. There’s definitely a new spring in his step that I’m happy about… sort of.
“Are you jealous?” Josh asks bluntly one evening when my dad and Jolene have gone off together yet again.
“Jealous? No.” I semi-mock-glare at him. “That would be weird.”
“You know what I mean. It’s been just the two of you for a long time.”
“You might be forgetting my brother Ryan,” I point out, and Josh just shrugs.
Ryan lives a high-powered life in New York, and neither my dad nor I have seen him all that often.
“I guess,” I admit on a sigh. “It just feels strange. And Jolene seems nice, but also like… she’s not that interested in getting to know us.
” Every time she’s come to the door, it’s been no more than a few seconds of chitchat before she spirits my dad away.
At least, that’s what it has felt like, but I know I might be overreacting. I probably am.
“Maybe she thinks you’re not interested in getting to know her,” Josh points out all too reasonably. “You know the solution to that?”
I eye him suspiciously. “What?”
“Invite her to dinner.”
He makes it sound easy, but I already know I do not want to invite Jolene to dinner, and that is very clearly on me.
I sigh. “Fine, I will,” I tell him, and Josh laughs, shaking his head.
Even I can hear that I sound like a sulky teenager rather than a middle-aged mom.
But I really don’t want to have Jolene over for dinner… even if I know I should want to.
The first week of May, Mike comes over to help Josh build the root cellar.
As soon as they’re finished, Josh and Jack are going to help Mike build his barn.
Now that co-op and Bible study are ending for the summer, Jack’s life has freed right up.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so happy to put away the books.
Homeschooling this year has definitely been hit or miss, and next year probably won’t be much better with a baby in tow, but I tell myself that Jack is reading at a ninth-grade level, has legible—if only just—handwriting, and has mastered algebra.
For a thirteen-year-old, that’s pretty good, right?
Plus, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of guns, something I’m less thrilled about, but at least he’s reading.
It’s barely past dawn, and I’ve just finished the milking when Mike strolls through the woods to our backyard.
He raises one hand in a wave while I smile and wave back before scurrying inside to change out of my bathrobe.
I had no idea he’d come so early, but knowing Mike and his can-do attitude, I suppose I should have expected it.
“Hey, Mike,” I greet him once I’ve gone inside to pull on jeans and a fleece and yank a brush through my hair. “Good to see you. How are things?” I haven’t been over to his homestead since we first said hello, but I imagine it’s coming along nicely.
“Oh, good, good,” he assures me. “Got the well built, the solar panels up, and most of the garden in. Built a greenhouse too, and my tomatoes and peppers are coming along real nice.”
Mine have barely sprouted yet, but I don’t let my smile falter. Of course, Mike the Prepper’s peppers are doing better than mine. Not that it’s a competition.
“Have you had breakfast?” I ask. “I was just about to start.”
“Had a bowl of wild rice porridge early this morning,” he informs me cheerfully, “but I wouldn’t say no to a little something.”
“Wild rice porridge?” I repeat. I’ve never heard of it.
Mike practically does a double-take of surprise.
“Have you never made it? The native Americans call it mahnomin. Creamy and delicious… better than oats, I’d say.
You normally harvest it in August, but I had some stocked up from last summer.
Have it just about every morning, with a little birch sap and dandelion syrup. ”
I manage not to make a face. We are never, ever going to win the self-sufficiency contest, I acknowledge ruefully. I don’t even want to.
“Wow,” I say instead. “Well, I hope you’re not opposed to good old bacon and eggs.”
“Is it your bacon?” he asks seriously.
I feel a flicker of shame as I have to admit, “No, from Kroger.”
“But the eggs are yours?” he presses.
I nod.
“Well, then I’ll just have a plate of eggs,” he tells me cheerfully.
“I don’t hold with all the nitrates and preservatives found in store-bought bacon.
But Josh told me you’ve got your own piglets now?
You’ll be deep in bacon and sausage this time next year!
” He smiles, seeming so genuinely pleased for us, I find I don’t have it in me to be offended he’s passing up on my supermarket bacon.
“Coming right up,” I tell him, just as Josh comes into the kitchen, dressed but clearly not having brushed his hair and definitely needing coffee.
“Mike!” he greets him, sounding surprised. “You’re here nice and early. Coffee?”
Mike holds up the thermos he’s brought along. “Made my own chicory coffee, and I’m on my second cup. Those coffee beans come from too far away for my liking. I try only to eat what’s been sourced within a hundred miles.”
“A worthy aspiration,” Josh replies easily. Mike’s attitude once might have annoyed him, but he’s learned to take it in his stride. “Well, I’m afraid I need my java,” he says jovially, and heads to the kettle.
“To each his own,” Mike replies.
Josh’s smile slips, just a little. I have a feeling it might be a long few days, working on these projects together.
I don’t have too much time to think about it, though, because I’m taking my dad to PT, doing a grocery shop, then taking Rose and Jack to dentist appointments, something we’ve let fall by the wayside. Hopefully, they don’t have a mouthful of cavities.
As I clear up the breakfast dishes, Mike and Josh head outside to get started. I stand by the kitchen sink, watching out the window as they approach the potential site; Josh wants to build the root cellar into the hillside by the pond.
Within thirty seconds, Mike is scratching and shaking his head at the same time. “Really?” he says in a tone laden with skepticism. “You want to do it that way?”
I can practically hear Josh gritting his teeth all the way from inside. “What would you suggest, Mike?” he asks solicitously.
“Well…” Mike begins, then launches into his plan to tackle the root cellar. He’s still talking as I leave for Buckholt with my dad and the kids.