Page 44 of Sugarplum Dreams
“It’s okay. I’m glad you thought of it. Otherwise, we’d be moving all of this stuff tomorrow. Or we’d be here at your house with nothing to eat.”
“I’m not sure what could be worse than having five children and no food.”
“Having five children and a husband with no food?” she asked, gently teasing him for the amount of food he ate.
She thought his cheeks were getting red, but it was hard to tell since he let his beard grow out in the cooler weather. She liked it, quite a lot. She’d always loved a neatly trimmed beard, and his was just ragged enough to give him a rough-and-tumble look without making him look like the beard had taken over everything.
“I think the lady thinks I eat too much.”
“The lady does not think you eat too much at all. The lady is happy to cook for people who like to eat.” And that was the truth.
They gathered up bags and walked in together, with him opening the door and holding it with his foot so she could walk in first.
“There is a freezer downstairs that’s mostly empty right now, but if we need any extra room, or if we’d like to butcher a half a beef, there’s room to put it down there.”
“Oh, that’s nice. Do you eat your own?”
“I often do. If someone orders a half, and there’s no one beating the door down for the other half, I might keep that for myself. Or split it out between my family members and others.”
It was interesting the way he said others. Like who else would he share with, other than his family?
She didn’t dwell on that long but walked beside him back out to the trunk to get more.
“I talked to your mom, and she gave me the recipes of the food that she thought you like the best. So, I bought all the ingredients for them. I considered that you might have your own meat, but you hadn’t said, so I bought that too.”
“I’m pretty much out right now. I think there are a few packages of hamburger in the freezer above the refrigerator, but I’m going to have a steer ready to take in another few weeks, and then we’ll have all we can use.”
“No chicken?”
“No. I buy that.” He looked over at her. “You like chickens?”
“I guess I’ve always dreamed about having my own hens. It just seems so…fun.”
“It’s work too, but it probably would be good work for the kids. Although, obviously someone has to supervise.”
“I’m not sure I’d want to let the kids do it. I’m pretty sure that’s something I would like to do by myself for a while, unless I’m too tired.”
He laughed, like the idea of her wanting to take care of her chickens rather than letting her kids do it was funny.
“We live on a farm now, so chickens are fine, and you have your own beef, and I suppose if you’re really excited about it, you could get a milk cow. But that’s even more work, because you have to milk her morning and night, so you really can’t leave to go anywhere.”
“I guess it would tie you down, but that would be so much fun.” She wasn’t being naïve. She knew it would be a lot of work.But the idea of having her own cow, her own chickens, meat they’d raised on the farm, were things that she’d just dreamed about before, and here he was casually making all of her dreams come true. Without even realizing it.
“The thing with cows versus chickens, if you go somewhere, it’s not too hard to find someone who will at least make sure your chickens have water. You leave enough feed for them for a couple days, and they’ll be fine. But a cow, on the other hand, if you’re milking, it’s kind of tough to find someone who is willing, and knows how, to milk a cow.”
“I would have loved to have had someone ask me to milk their cow while they went on vacation. Of course, since I’ve never done it before, I might not have been able to. Is it hard?”
He laughed. “Not once you get the hang of it. I’ve seen people struggle with it for a while, just trying to get milk out. It takes a bit of a knack. For some cows too, it also takes hand strength. My grandma used to say that it was good for playing the piano, because it strengthened your hands. I don’t know how true that is, because I don’t think playing the piano really takes a lot of hand strength.”
“Looks like it would be more arm strength and finger dexterity, but I don’t know. I never had the opportunity to take lessons.”
“My grandma wanted to give me lessons, and the rest of my family, but most of us didn’t want to put the work into it. Because that’s what it was, time away from playing with our friends, while we sat down on the piano bench and practiced because that’s the only way she would give us lessons. Was if we spent half an hour every day practicing.”
“Wow. I guess that’s one way to learn, if you’re forced to practice.”
“Yeah, and who wants to do that rather than play?”
“Some kids don’t have a choice. They just have to do it, like school.”
