Chapter 48
Mitch and I are done and done in but we’ve gotten a lot accomplished the last couple of weeks. And all but a small outpost of military personnel have been repositioned out of the area which is why we’ve been able to keep to our own work without tripping over a bunch of soldiers. Not a great reason they aren’t around, but I’m told it means good things in the big picture. I guess it depends on how you look at it.
The enemy tried to take down Cuba and took a bad hit. Cuba isn’t doing real good either but seems like whoever is now in charge down there wants to be friends with the USA since we basically kept their backsides from turning into crispy bacon.
Mitch has explained it to me, but we don’t have all the details so some of it is just a guess. Seems the enemy thought that taking over the Caribbean was going to be easy peezey lemon squeezy and they’d then take Florida and just roll up the East Coast. Nope. I guess they thought all our submarines were on the other side of the world. Again, nope. We had a bunch down there and knew how to use them. The enemy also dropped a bomb on Kennedy Space Center as a “statement.” Yeah, well we called their statement and raised them a freaking big dam in the middle of their home turf to give them something to chew on. Mitch thinks they might have been aiming at MacDill or Jacksonville but missed. Does it really matter? It was tit for tat when we retaliated and what we did had a much bigger effect than what they did. So far they’ve just gone back to doing what they were doing which is mostly a land grab … or attempt at land grab. Mitch said those people are known for playing the long game and they have enough troops that they aren’t as affected by attrition as we are. They have a siege mentality and are prepared to wait us out.
“I don’t get it. Why don’t we just nuke ‘em from space and be done with it?” I asked in aggravation. “What they did shows we can bomb them and we don’t even have to leave home. Just do it and be done with it. Send in our Unconditional Surrender troops, end the war, sign the peace treaty, and let everyone start licking their wounds and get to the healing already.”
“It’s a matter of escalation,” Mitch said, trying to explain what was going on. “One bomb from them, one from us. Now we both know what we can do if we didn’t already. The enemy is fighting a lot of fronts right now which is keeping their attacks here under control.”
“Suuure it is.”
“Nann, the enemy has nuclear capabilities, same as us. I know you didn’t literally mean nuke ‘em but those people are crazy and if the wrong general gets to be in charge, we really could wind up in a nuclear war and no one is going to win something like that.”
“I thought Russia was thinking about helping.”
He snorted. “Russia has their own hands full at their own borders, and from inside as well after that assassination attempt that got leaked to the media. It might be that the dam collapse could push the enemy out of crazy town and into completely don’t give a … er … crap town. This is a game of chess, not kickball.”
“It’s not a freaking game! I know the Florida coast and a lot of inland areas have been evacuated but there were still a lot of people there. And they’re dead Mitch. Thousands! From one stinking, stupid bomb.”
“And maybe tens of thousands died from the dam collapse with more on the way because that was a major part of their infrastructure,” he reminded me.
I slumped into the porch swing. “It’s awful Mitch. It’s … it’s awful. All those people dead, on both sides, because someone wants to be top of the garbage heap. And in the end, it won’t mean a hill of beans. We all get measured by the same yardstick and … and …”
Mitch sat down beside me, pulled me in close, and set the swing to rocking. Nothing else was said. What could be said when you knew what was happening was so wrong yet all you could do was try and hold out and survive the whims of the people directing the show but not letting you have a peek at the script.
That stuff just makes my head hurt. And my heart hurt. The enemies are a bunch of bullies. You stand up to bullies and when they push you down you get up and knock the snot out of them and give them a chance to turn human. They play stupid and push one more time and all bets are off and you just kick ‘em until they stop moving. If you don’t, they just come back and start up all over again. And I wonder if they think the same thing about us. But we didn’t start it. We just refused to bow to their demands, be pushed around. Then it went from squabbling to bullets flying and from there I get lost on how we got where we are right now.
Only thing good for that kind of heartache and irritation is work. And Mitch and I have been going at it. He helped me clear off the mulberries first. After making everything I wanted from the mulberries, I juiced a bunch, and after that we dried a bunch. And the rest we’re leaving for the animals. Even Grammy’s strange Pakistani mulberries that are as long as you thumb. I just don’t have time to do more with them unless you count swiping a handful when I pass the push to eat on my way to my next chore.
Peaches are also cleared off. I made a bunch of peach nectar and then just dried the rest and said I’m done. There are a handful here and there that are still ripening on the trees and I told Mitch to eat ‘em if he needed a snack during the day. I’m still working on the nectarines but Uncle Hy only has a couple of trees so there aren’t as many bushels of them to deal with.
On one of his evening forays Mitch found some chicken-of-the-woods shrooms and I’ve been doing a lot with the ones I could find over this side of the Ridge. Mushroom sausage, mushroom burgers, mushroom jerky, fried mushrooms, baked mushrooms, sauteed mushrooms, mushroom soup, mushroom dip, mushroom meatloaf, and on and on. Mitch has turned it into a game. “Where did she hide the mushrooms tonight?” It was funny at first but I’m just trying to make what we have go further when I can, if I can. I mean we don’t absolutely have to eat like there’s nothing in the pantry but Mitch agrees that it is good practice because you never know from one day to the next whether it is going to be feast or famine. Plus, if we have people watching us, it is never a bad idea to have “camouflage.”
Elderflowers are blooming like crazy. If the medics comes back I need to add elderberries to the list of poisonous plants I gave them. Elderberries look tasty but they’ll kill you if you don’t cook them first and I can just see some of those city slickers doing that very thing. While everyone was gone I made some elderflower syrup but it was kinda selfish. I love elderflower fizz, it is about the only “soda” Mom won’t pop her cork about, mostly because Dad likes it as well. I had to use several slices of dried lemon to get it to taste right. That’s several slices of dried lemon I might need and not have down the road. I need to be careful. Needs before wants Nann. Needs before wants.
Strawberries are officially over with. Kinda sad. Last summer Grammy showed me how to save the seeds for the next season. First you pick your best looking strawberry plant, and the best looking of the berries from that plant. Then you thinly slice the skin off the strawberry(ies) and lay them on a layer of paper towel or cheesecloth. You take that and put it in a warm, dry place to dry out for about five days. But be careful of drawing flies or ants so you need to protect them someway while still getting good air circulation. When the strawberry skins are completely dry, you gently rub the seeds off.
Grammy stores … stored … her seeds in a lot of old plastic medicine bottles she saved over the years. She has them all labeled so that’s what I am going to use. She said you can use envelopes but with the chemicals they put in paper to whiten it you don’t know how that’ll affect your seeds, so it is safer to store them the other way. Plus mice and ants and silverfish can get into paper envelopes a whole lot easier than medicine bottles.
I’ve already told Mitch I don’t know that we can have as big a garden next year, and maybe shouldn’t if we aren’t going to trade. There’s lot of other stuff we could do with the time we are currently using for the garden.
“Such as?”
“Such as what?”
Mitch looked at me then shook his head. “You’re tired.”
“So are you.”
“Yeah, well you’re getting silly tired. I asked what you would do with your time if you aren’t in the garden.”
“Oh. Sorry. Trying to keep up with the house better for one. Laundry and mending for another. Maybe find some way to forage more stuff to replace the domesticated garden stuff. The bees.”
“Don’t worry about the bees.”
“I said I’d help.”
He looked at me then asked, “You sure? I know you don’t like ‘em.”
“It’s not that I don’t like ‘em, they just don’t like me and I hate getting stung.” I sighed. “Mitch there is no way for you to do 80 hives by yourself. You’ll wind up sick.”
“Might not have 80 hives if we don’t start getting some regular rain. Especially if that damn bear comes back. It knocked over an entire super before I could shoo it off. Woulda shot the damn thing but that idiot stopped me.”
“I still can’t believe that a gang banger was a tree hugger.” I snorted in derision.
“Yeah … well … was kinda funny now that you mention it. Still, if he does that again he’s gonna get a face full of rifle stock.”
Having heard the story several times already I said, “I doubt it after the cooks whooped up on him when they found out he was the one feeding the bears out of the garbage.”
“Idiot,” Mitch snarled.
“And then some,” I agreed.
We’re going to need that honey. And with it being a dry year we may not get the full fifty pounds per hive per harvest that Mitch estimated. And what we didn’t really take into consideration was that with no field crops planted we were going to need to spread those hives out further. We’ve tucked hives in nearly every grove and orchard we know of. Most of them we are keeping as close to the farm as we can but there’s a grove of sourwood the Delrays used to put their honey makers in that I hope feeds those little striped buzzers so that they stay put and don’t swarm. Either way the first harvest won’t be until next month which is a good thing.
I was going to pick feral cherries but Mitch said to leave ‘em since we have so much domesticated stuff to deal with. Fine by me. They are a lot of work for only a little return by comparison.
Mitch and I are both all scratched up from picking blackberries. He eats as many fresh as goes in his bucket but that’s okay. He’s working hard and needs to eat like he is. I’ve got several trays of blackberries drying on screens to keep them from falling to the floor but I’d rather can them in some way because dried blackberries are almost nothing but seeds and they don’t plump up as well as other fruits do. From blackberries I’ve been making a crazy amount of juice, jelly, jam, sauce, conserve, syrup, blackberry catsup, pie filling, chutney, nonalcoholic blackberry cordial, blackberry BBQ sauce, and soda concentrate I can mix with that store-bought lemonade powder to make it palatable.
And for Mitch’s birthday I surprised him with a blackberry jam cake with caramel icing.
“Aw, you didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”
“Not everyday someone turns twenty-two. Just … let me spoil you my way.”
I turned away but not before he missed the tears in my eyes. “You’re missing Dale.”
“Don’t. This is for you. Not just because Dale isn’t here to share your birthday with.”
“Do I look crazy? You going to let me give you a kiss later on when I don’t stink from work to say thank you?”
“You don’t smell … that bad.”
He grinned and I give him the only other birthday gift I had to give. A willing kiss. I’d considered trying to give him a day off some way, the same as he had me, but there just wasn’t anyway to pull it off. The planes had been flying pretty regular and Mitch worried that either a larger contingent of soldiers would move into the valley and up into the Ridge, or it meant the enemy was preparing to make another push. This time it would be met with hard action and he was concerned it might run something or someone this direction so we were going as fast and as hard as we could.
I think the bees must be of the same sentiment somehow because we surely do need to have road signs so we stop running into them and them into us. The mimosas are in bloom and every one of those puffy pink things have at least a bee or three buzzing around and lighting on them. Lavendar is doing its best to color all the border edges. Whew, there’s some places it’s as strong as the first whiff of a spinster’s lingerie drawer. The wild daisies are going crazy too. Grammy’s Easter lilies didn’t bloom for some reason. Could be they sensed she wasn’t around and I’m stopping right there. It makes me too sad.
Everything around us seems to be going fast and furious. I swear even the June Bugs and Butterflies are getting into it. The other day I had a June Bug light on me and it must have t-boned a butterfly at an intersection ‘cause it was covered in yellow powder the same as those silly potato chip butterflies that act like they are kin to the three blind mice, they so get in everyone and everything’s way.
The hogs and goats can’t seem to stay calm except during the heat of the day. The hogs I can tell it is because we need to separate out the young males from their mommas who are getting tired of them, but I don’t know why the goats are being silly beyond the fact they’re goats and act a few peanuts shy of a circus on most days. Even the cows are acting cranky when they are normally sweet so long as my hands aren’t cold when I go to milk them.
Mitch says it is because we need rain. I hope that is all it is. I don’t need the animals turning strange on me. Some of the garden plants are making me look twice. The cayenne peppers are curling like the toes of a genie’s slippers and one of the chickens keeps laying eggs with double yolks.
At least the herb garden is doing well enough that I’m not as worried about things running out right when I need them to. Dill, lemon balm and verbena, marjoram, all the mints I can make into teas, oregano, parsley, rosemary, sage, sorrel, tarragon, thyme, and nearly best of all the domestic garlic beds seems to be making a bumper crop. Grammy has a lot of salt and pepper but she always counted on the herb patches for her fresh, everyday flavorings.
‘Course I could just spit that I don’t get a chance to get out and forage as much. I was hoping with the soldiers gone Mitch wouldn’t get so stressed out about me doing it. He says he won’t ask me to stop but after finding them people camped out on the other side of the river … the town side … and using canoes and john boats and stuff to cross and then walk into the valley to hunt and salvage now that the town has been stripped clean, he’s worried that some of them may get bold enough to try and move their camp permanently.
“You carry that Glock everywhere, even here in the house. If you are up, I want you armed.”
“Even in the house?!” That gun is heavy and if you want to know the truth, I worry about shooting myself with it sometimes.
“Even in the house Nann. And I want the doors to stay locked whether we are inside or out.”
I tried not to sigh at yet one more thing but we were in the country, not the middle of town.
“You arent’ going to fight me on this?”
He had a bad habit of asking that question too often and I was getting to be done with it. “You want me to throw something at you Mitch Quitman Decker?”
“Huh?! What for?!”
“Give me credit for not wanting to make your job harder. I don’t like it, but I’ll do it because you think it is something that needs to be done.”
He sighed in relief then gave a little embarrassed grin. “If you make it something small and soft I’ll stand still for you. Promise.”
All that and the expression on his face did was make me want to laugh. “You Goof. You better hope I don’t take you up on it. I’m a good shot I’ll have you know.”
He grinned and nodded then snuck a surprise kiss before running off laughing like a boy that had snuck a cookie out of the cookie jar.
Mitch and I are done and done in but we’ve gotten a lot accomplished the last couple of weeks. And all but a small outpost of military personnel have been repositioned out of the area which is why we’ve been able to keep to our own work without tripping over a bunch of soldiers. Not a great reason they aren’t around, but I’m told it means good things in the big picture. I guess it depends on how you look at it.
The enemy tried to take down Cuba and took a bad hit. Cuba isn’t doing real good either but seems like whoever is now in charge down there wants to be friends with the USA since we basically kept their backsides from turning into crispy bacon.
Mitch has explained it to me, but we don’t have all the details so some of it is just a guess. Seems the enemy thought that taking over the Caribbean was going to be easy peezey lemon squeezy and they’d then take Florida and just roll up the East Coast. Nope. I guess they thought all our submarines were on the other side of the world. Again, nope. We had a bunch down there and knew how to use them. The enemy also dropped a bomb on Kennedy Space Center as a “statement.” Yeah, well we called their statement and raised them a freaking big dam in the middle of their home turf to give them something to chew on. Mitch thinks they might have been aiming at MacDill or Jacksonville but missed. Does it really matter? It was tit for tat when we retaliated and what we did had a much bigger effect than what they did. So far they’ve just gone back to doing what they were doing which is mostly a land grab … or attempt at land grab. Mitch said those people are known for playing the long game and they have enough troops that they aren’t as affected by attrition as we are. They have a siege mentality and are prepared to wait us out.
“I don’t get it. Why don’t we just nuke ‘em from space and be done with it?” I asked in aggravation. “What they did shows we can bomb them and we don’t even have to leave home. Just do it and be done with it. Send in our Unconditional Surrender troops, end the war, sign the peace treaty, and let everyone start licking their wounds and get to the healing already.”
“It’s a matter of escalation,” Mitch said, trying to explain what was going on. “One bomb from them, one from us. Now we both know what we can do if we didn’t already. The enemy is fighting a lot of fronts right now which is keeping their attacks here under control.”
“Suuure it is.”
“Nann, the enemy has nuclear capabilities, same as us. I know you didn’t literally mean nuke ‘em but those people are crazy and if the wrong general gets to be in charge, we really could wind up in a nuclear war and no one is going to win something like that.”
“I thought Russia was thinking about helping.”
He snorted. “Russia has their own hands full at their own borders, and from inside as well after that assassination attempt that got leaked to the media. It might be that the dam collapse could push the enemy out of crazy town and into completely don’t give a … er … crap town. This is a game of chess, not kickball.”
“It’s not a freaking game! I know the Florida coast and a lot of inland areas have been evacuated but there were still a lot of people there. And they’re dead Mitch. Thousands! From one stinking, stupid bomb.”
“And maybe tens of thousands died from the dam collapse with more on the way because that was a major part of their infrastructure,” he reminded me.
I slumped into the porch swing. “It’s awful Mitch. It’s … it’s awful. All those people dead, on both sides, because someone wants to be top of the garbage heap. And in the end, it won’t mean a hill of beans. We all get measured by the same yardstick and … and …”
Mitch sat down beside me, pulled me in close, and set the swing to rocking. Nothing else was said. What could be said when you knew what was happening was so wrong yet all you could do was try and hold out and survive the whims of the people directing the show but not letting you have a peek at the script.
That stuff just makes my head hurt. And my heart hurt. The enemies are a bunch of bullies. You stand up to bullies and when they push you down you get up and knock the snot out of them and give them a chance to turn human. They play stupid and push one more time and all bets are off and you just kick ‘em until they stop moving. If you don’t, they just come back and start up all over again. And I wonder if they think the same thing about us. But we didn’t start it. We just refused to bow to their demands, be pushed around. Then it went from squabbling to bullets flying and from there I get lost on how we got where we are right now.
Only thing good for that kind of heartache and irritation is work. And Mitch and I have been going at it. He helped me clear off the mulberries first. After making everything I wanted from the mulberries, I juiced a bunch, and after that we dried a bunch. And the rest we’re leaving for the animals. Even Grammy’s strange Pakistani mulberries that are as long as you thumb. I just don’t have time to do more with them unless you count swiping a handful when I pass the push to eat on my way to my next chore.
Peaches are also cleared off. I made a bunch of peach nectar and then just dried the rest and said I’m done. There are a handful here and there that are still ripening on the trees and I told Mitch to eat ‘em if he needed a snack during the day. I’m still working on the nectarines but Uncle Hy only has a couple of trees so there aren’t as many bushels of them to deal with.
On one of his evening forays Mitch found some chicken-of-the-woods shrooms and I’ve been doing a lot with the ones I could find over this side of the Ridge. Mushroom sausage, mushroom burgers, mushroom jerky, fried mushrooms, baked mushrooms, sauteed mushrooms, mushroom soup, mushroom dip, mushroom meatloaf, and on and on. Mitch has turned it into a game. “Where did she hide the mushrooms tonight?” It was funny at first but I’m just trying to make what we have go further when I can, if I can. I mean we don’t absolutely have to eat like there’s nothing in the pantry but Mitch agrees that it is good practice because you never know from one day to the next whether it is going to be feast or famine. Plus, if we have people watching us, it is never a bad idea to have “camouflage.”
Elderflowers are blooming like crazy. If the medics comes back I need to add elderberries to the list of poisonous plants I gave them. Elderberries look tasty but they’ll kill you if you don’t cook them first and I can just see some of those city slickers doing that very thing. While everyone was gone I made some elderflower syrup but it was kinda selfish. I love elderflower fizz, it is about the only “soda” Mom won’t pop her cork about, mostly because Dad likes it as well. I had to use several slices of dried lemon to get it to taste right. That’s several slices of dried lemon I might need and not have down the road. I need to be careful. Needs before wants Nann. Needs before wants.
Strawberries are officially over with. Kinda sad. Last summer Grammy showed me how to save the seeds for the next season. First you pick your best looking strawberry plant, and the best looking of the berries from that plant. Then you thinly slice the skin off the strawberry(ies) and lay them on a layer of paper towel or cheesecloth. You take that and put it in a warm, dry place to dry out for about five days. But be careful of drawing flies or ants so you need to protect them someway while still getting good air circulation. When the strawberry skins are completely dry, you gently rub the seeds off.
Grammy stores … stored … her seeds in a lot of old plastic medicine bottles she saved over the years. She has them all labeled so that’s what I am going to use. She said you can use envelopes but with the chemicals they put in paper to whiten it you don’t know how that’ll affect your seeds, so it is safer to store them the other way. Plus mice and ants and silverfish can get into paper envelopes a whole lot easier than medicine bottles.
I’ve already told Mitch I don’t know that we can have as big a garden next year, and maybe shouldn’t if we aren’t going to trade. There’s lot of other stuff we could do with the time we are currently using for the garden.
“Such as?”
“Such as what?”
Mitch looked at me then shook his head. “You’re tired.”
“So are you.”
“Yeah, well you’re getting silly tired. I asked what you would do with your time if you aren’t in the garden.”
“Oh. Sorry. Trying to keep up with the house better for one. Laundry and mending for another. Maybe find some way to forage more stuff to replace the domesticated garden stuff. The bees.”
“Don’t worry about the bees.”
“I said I’d help.”
He looked at me then asked, “You sure? I know you don’t like ‘em.”
“It’s not that I don’t like ‘em, they just don’t like me and I hate getting stung.” I sighed. “Mitch there is no way for you to do 80 hives by yourself. You’ll wind up sick.”
“Might not have 80 hives if we don’t start getting some regular rain. Especially if that damn bear comes back. It knocked over an entire super before I could shoo it off. Woulda shot the damn thing but that idiot stopped me.”
“I still can’t believe that a gang banger was a tree hugger.” I snorted in derision.
“Yeah … well … was kinda funny now that you mention it. Still, if he does that again he’s gonna get a face full of rifle stock.”
Having heard the story several times already I said, “I doubt it after the cooks whooped up on him when they found out he was the one feeding the bears out of the garbage.”
“Idiot,” Mitch snarled.
“And then some,” I agreed.
We’re going to need that honey. And with it being a dry year we may not get the full fifty pounds per hive per harvest that Mitch estimated. And what we didn’t really take into consideration was that with no field crops planted we were going to need to spread those hives out further. We’ve tucked hives in nearly every grove and orchard we know of. Most of them we are keeping as close to the farm as we can but there’s a grove of sourwood the Delrays used to put their honey makers in that I hope feeds those little striped buzzers so that they stay put and don’t swarm. Either way the first harvest won’t be until next month which is a good thing.
I was going to pick feral cherries but Mitch said to leave ‘em since we have so much domesticated stuff to deal with. Fine by me. They are a lot of work for only a little return by comparison.
Mitch and I are both all scratched up from picking blackberries. He eats as many fresh as goes in his bucket but that’s okay. He’s working hard and needs to eat like he is. I’ve got several trays of blackberries drying on screens to keep them from falling to the floor but I’d rather can them in some way because dried blackberries are almost nothing but seeds and they don’t plump up as well as other fruits do. From blackberries I’ve been making a crazy amount of juice, jelly, jam, sauce, conserve, syrup, blackberry catsup, pie filling, chutney, nonalcoholic blackberry cordial, blackberry BBQ sauce, and soda concentrate I can mix with that store-bought lemonade powder to make it palatable.
And for Mitch’s birthday I surprised him with a blackberry jam cake with caramel icing.
“Aw, you didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”
“Not everyday someone turns twenty-two. Just … let me spoil you my way.”
I turned away but not before he missed the tears in my eyes. “You’re missing Dale.”
“Don’t. This is for you. Not just because Dale isn’t here to share your birthday with.”
“Do I look crazy? You going to let me give you a kiss later on when I don’t stink from work to say thank you?”
“You don’t smell … that bad.”
He grinned and I give him the only other birthday gift I had to give. A willing kiss. I’d considered trying to give him a day off some way, the same as he had me, but there just wasn’t anyway to pull it off. The planes had been flying pretty regular and Mitch worried that either a larger contingent of soldiers would move into the valley and up into the Ridge, or it meant the enemy was preparing to make another push. This time it would be met with hard action and he was concerned it might run something or someone this direction so we were going as fast and as hard as we could.
I think the bees must be of the same sentiment somehow because we surely do need to have road signs so we stop running into them and them into us. The mimosas are in bloom and every one of those puffy pink things have at least a bee or three buzzing around and lighting on them. Lavendar is doing its best to color all the border edges. Whew, there’s some places it’s as strong as the first whiff of a spinster’s lingerie drawer. The wild daisies are going crazy too. Grammy’s Easter lilies didn’t bloom for some reason. Could be they sensed she wasn’t around and I’m stopping right there. It makes me too sad.
Everything around us seems to be going fast and furious. I swear even the June Bugs and Butterflies are getting into it. The other day I had a June Bug light on me and it must have t-boned a butterfly at an intersection ‘cause it was covered in yellow powder the same as those silly potato chip butterflies that act like they are kin to the three blind mice, they so get in everyone and everything’s way.
The hogs and goats can’t seem to stay calm except during the heat of the day. The hogs I can tell it is because we need to separate out the young males from their mommas who are getting tired of them, but I don’t know why the goats are being silly beyond the fact they’re goats and act a few peanuts shy of a circus on most days. Even the cows are acting cranky when they are normally sweet so long as my hands aren’t cold when I go to milk them.
Mitch says it is because we need rain. I hope that is all it is. I don’t need the animals turning strange on me. Some of the garden plants are making me look twice. The cayenne peppers are curling like the toes of a genie’s slippers and one of the chickens keeps laying eggs with double yolks.
At least the herb garden is doing well enough that I’m not as worried about things running out right when I need them to. Dill, lemon balm and verbena, marjoram, all the mints I can make into teas, oregano, parsley, rosemary, sage, sorrel, tarragon, thyme, and nearly best of all the domestic garlic beds seems to be making a bumper crop. Grammy has a lot of salt and pepper but she always counted on the herb patches for her fresh, everyday flavorings.
‘Course I could just spit that I don’t get a chance to get out and forage as much. I was hoping with the soldiers gone Mitch wouldn’t get so stressed out about me doing it. He says he won’t ask me to stop but after finding them people camped out on the other side of the river … the town side … and using canoes and john boats and stuff to cross and then walk into the valley to hunt and salvage now that the town has been stripped clean, he’s worried that some of them may get bold enough to try and move their camp permanently.
“You carry that Glock everywhere, even here in the house. If you are up, I want you armed.”
“Even in the house?!” That gun is heavy and if you want to know the truth, I worry about shooting myself with it sometimes.
“Even in the house Nann. And I want the doors to stay locked whether we are inside or out.”
I tried not to sigh at yet one more thing but we were in the country, not the middle of town.
“You arent’ going to fight me on this?”
He had a bad habit of asking that question too often and I was getting to be done with it. “You want me to throw something at you Mitch Quitman Decker?”
“Huh?! What for?!”
“Give me credit for not wanting to make your job harder. I don’t like it, but I’ll do it because you think it is something that needs to be done.”
He sighed in relief then gave a little embarrassed grin. “If you make it something small and soft I’ll stand still for you. Promise.”
All that and the expression on his face did was make me want to laugh. “You Goof. You better hope I don’t take you up on it. I’m a good shot I’ll have you know.”
He grinned and nodded then snuck a surprise kiss before running off laughing like a boy that had snuck a cookie out of the cookie jar.