Becoming the Storm
5 Additions
LARRY, THERESA, AND I continued our ride, cutting back through the woods and crossing over onto Del and Maribelle’s property. We’d only ever ridden on the main trail through this property because it was so overgrown.
“You set all that meeting up, didn’t you,” I accused when we were out of earshot. Larry laughed.
“Well, I met Del and Maribelle a couple weeks ago. I held them off until after you were done taping your summer shows. One of the things he wants to do is start managing his own forest here. On the four properties, we have nearly 300 acres of woodlot. The group that owns the property on the other side of us clear-cut the woods there as soon as they bought the place. Del says the understory through the whole 300 acres is a fire hazard and needs to be thinned out. He’s thinking that goats may be needed, but there is a lot of downed firewood back here, too,” Larry said.
“It will take more than carting firewood, though,” Theresa said. “The slash that is left over will have to be removed. It used to be that they’d just haul that stuff into a field and burn it. But we’re looking at getting a wood chipper and turning it into bedding for animals.”
“That’s one thing you need to understand about Del and Maribelle,” Larry said. “When they move into Marshall’s place, they’ll be keeping animals. And Maribelle is a fanatic gardener and can’t wait to add to the ranch gardens. They were pretty much self-sufficient when they lived in the mountains.”
“What happened to the house? I assume they lived here, didn’t they?” I said.
“Del says his dad let the place get run down after Junior died. Apparently, it was pretty much a junk yard. When his folks passed away, the County condemned the buildings and had them torn down. Of course, that was when it looked like the land would go for back taxes. Del found out about it and mortgaged pretty much everything they owned to save the property. He had to pay for the demolition, too,” Theresa said. “They’re good people, Brian. We’d be doing ourselves a favor to help them get reestablished here.”
I had so much to do to get the ranch and the community pulled together. Even as I headed to my first classes on Monday, I was caught up in thinking about the future. Maybe grad school wasn’t such a good idea for me. The clan needed me. Especially if we were going to try to pull twenty more families into our community who were unrelated and had no history with us. That scared me, frankly.
We were all buzzing Monday night with new work from our classes. It was fun to have the casa gather together at dinner and share the excitement. Elaine, Nikki, Liz, and Hannah were taking the rest of August off before they started looking at their next season. Nikki and Liz planned to take a week on their motorcycles and go to the Great Smoky Mountains. We had enough Chick Chat taped for the coming season and Elaine’s distribution had increased. Her show would be shown five days a week in most markets. Hannah was maintaining tighter control over the shipping schedules and contracts this year so we didn’t get caught by stations just running the shows before their release dates.
Sarah had started grad school at IU, so she joined us as a Hoosier. There was a field of anthropology that dealt with public opinion and she was very excited that it would even be possible to help with the television shows. Apparently, some of the big networks and survey companies used anthropologists to determine everything from the ratings of our shows to who was ahead in the presidential race. She was working on a research team that would chart how demographics played a role in the election this fall.
Five of us were officially seniors, headed for graduation in the spring. Well, make that seven. Even though they were sleeping in the dorm, Dolly and Debbie were spending most of their evenings with the casa now. The three girls had gone home to Louisville after I finished taping on Tuesday to visit their parents. Sunday, they’d informed us that their parents wanted to visit the ranch this fall. Maybe over Labor Day.
After dinner was cleaned up and we all kissed the cooks, led by Elaine for today’s meal, we settled into the family room for study time. It was really great that we all studied together. Of course, the family room wasn’t the only place we studied. Courtney and three others were already in the computer/study room. Sam curled up in my lap for a while in the big chair as we each read our textbooks. After about half an hour, she moved and Whitney cuddled up. I glanced over and discovered that everyone in the room seemed to be shifting about every thirty minutes or so. I was surprised to find Dani cuddled up against Josh with Jennifer leaning on his other arm as they studied. Hannah and Elaine were helping Rose explain something to Dolly and Debbie. After half an hour, Sora and Cassie both squeezed into the big chair with me.
Of course, there were little kisses and some fondling that went along with all of us being naked together as we studied, but mostly we stayed focused on our work.
About nine o’clock, Hannah and Dani crawled into my lap with Matthew. That was my cue to stop studying. Dani held the book while I read to Matthew, and Hannah encouraged him to “Pat the Bunny.” It’s funny how reading time with the baby sort of evolved into a whole family affair. By the time I’d finished telling the story of “Good Dog Carl” and Matthew tried to eat the book, everyone was sitting around us, textbooks laid aside.
“Now it’s time for baby to go back to Mommy and get all milky and go to sleep,” Hannah said as she took Matthew from my arms. “Dor wants special time with you tomorrow night, if it’s okay, love. She needed to be with her other hearthmates tonight, so don’t even think about coming with me now.” I kissed my love and kissed my baby. Dolly and Debbie joined Hannah to walk over to the dorms. Eventually, we all made our way to bed. I slept in the big room with all my lovers and family as they came to bed between ten and midnight.
It’s going to be a good year.
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
