Chapter 24

The plan of the day was simple: go to The Cabin, check on the chickens, take eggs to Gerry and Irene Hirsh and exchange for milk. Take milk to Brad and Dianna Clemmons and exchange some for pork chops. Go back to the cabin, pick up Andi’s rental, go to Cheektowaga, drop off Andi’s rental and meet with Lucy Kocsis. Andi and her best friend would then go dress shopping for the wedding and maybe take the twins. Paul would return to “Madeline’s House” (Madeline had claimed the Springville Victorian as her own) and prepare the pork chops for dinner. If he had the twins, he would decorate the house some more for Christmas; if he didn’t, he would decorate the house for Christmas a lot more. It goes just a lot quicker without their “help.”

The drive to the cabin really isn’t very far from “Madeline’s House,” maybe 10 miles, and as expected, Trevette Road wasn’t plowed yet, but the path Paul plowed was still wide enough for the Ranger. “Why did you plow the entire road in front of the cabin?” Andi asked.

“So the county can’t block up my driveway. OUR driveway,” he corrected himself. “When the county plow comes along, if there’s no snow in the street in front of our driveway, there’s nothing to plow into our driveway.” They got out of the Ranger and the twins made a beeline for the barn.

“Chook, chook, chook!” they began calling out, and they smiled at each other in delight when the chickens squawked as they entered the barn. “Chook, chook, chook!”

“Ok girls, let’s do this fast so we can get in the snowmobile!”

They went from cage to cage as quickly as possible. Paul collected the eggs, pulled out the nastiest straw and replaced it with clean straw from a bale. He then refilled the feeder and the water bottle for each cage. Sandy held the big basket with the eggs, and Madeline held the water bottle. They were soon done, collecting well over a dozen eggs, and they headed down the big staircase to the lower level. Andi nervously at the ready to catch any falling twins. In a few moments, the Snowcoach was connected to the Yamaha.

Soon they were sailing across Tommy Steinbach’s property, weaving between patches of young aspen and pine. Like Paul, Tommy and his cousin Jeff Schaffer bought the property and were letting the cleared fields reforest naturally. Paul kept the speed below 25 MPH as required by Andi, but the twins demanded, “Faster! Faster!” Shortly they were on the field that was normally Gerry’s cornfield, and it was a straight shot to the farmhouse.

When they arrived there, Gerry and Irma came out each carrying two glass half-gallon jugs of milk, Paul stowed the milk in the Snowcoach and handed the Hirsh’s some empty glass jugs to be refilled, Meanwhile Andi gave Irma one dozen eggs, that Irma put in her own basket.