Chapter 46

The snowflakes filled the air when John and Macy pulled up to the cabin. A light breeze was blowing the flakes toward the east as they fluttered down from the heavens. The sky was slate gray and threatening more snow while the air had a warmish dampness to it that promised that the snow would be heavy.

John got the backpacks out of the trunk of the car while Macy walked inside with a bag full of snacks and soda. “Toc toc! Bonjour! Is anybody here?” called Macy in a sing-song voice.

“Aunt Macy! We’re in the kitchen!” called Sandy.

“Help! This is hard work!” called Madeline, her voice had a tinge of desperation.

Macy stepped through the little hall into the kitchen to find Madeline and Sandy sitting on the kitchen counter with their feet in the empty sink. Each one had a small mason jar half full of heavy cream and they were vigorously shaking the jars. Yi stood nearby with a large mason jar with an antique butter churn lid and she was furiously cranking the handle of the churn mechanism. All three were wearing aprons and all three were decorated with flour. “Good morning, pastor,” said Yi as she checked her butter.

“I prefer you call me Macy,” smiled the ebony beauty as she started putting the soda cans in the fridge.

“Guess what we’re doing, Aunt Macy!” called Sandy.

“I know what you’re doing, mon petit angels. I did it many times when I was little, too.”

Madeline looked at her six-foot two-inch aunt in awe. “You were little?”

Yi whooped in laughter as Macy tried to compose her own laughter. “Oui, we all start out little. But I bet your uncle John does not know what you are doing.”

Yi looked at her watch. “One-minute left. Come on, girls! Shake, shake, shake!” The twins, as tired as they were of shaking their little jars, put in a renewed effort and shook as hard as they could. Just as Yi said “Time!” John stepped into the kitchen. The twins relaxed with a smile and inspected the contents of their jars.

“Making homemade butter?” asked John, “That’s awesome!”

“Awwww, he knew!” pouted Sandy.

Her reaction was not what John had expected. “What? Did I say something wrong?”

“You’re not supposed to know,” pouted Madeline.

John glanced over at Macy for support. She sidled up to him and whispered softly in his ear, “I told them you wouldn’t know what they were doing. I didn’t know you knew about...”

John stepped back and looked at Macy in shock. “They’re NOT making homemade butterscotch? I came in and saw them making homemade butterscotch, so I said, ‘You’re making homemade butterscotch? that’s awesome,’ isn’t that what I said?”

“That’s what I heard,” said Yi.

“So, you’re making homemade butterscotch, right?”

“Nooooo!” said Sandy, shaking her jar even harder.

“You are silly Uncle John!” said Madeline. “We’re making butter for our bread!” she nodded to a large bowl with a towel over it where the bread dough was rising.

“Time’s up, girls. Let’s see what we have,” called Yi, and the twins gratefully put their jars down on the counter while Yi unscrewed the churning mechanism from her jar. She poured the liquid from her jar into another mason jar and explained, “This is called buttermilk; it’s going to make our pancakes extra yummy tomorrow.”

Madeline examined her jar. “What’s this white stuff?” she asked as Yi opened her jar for her.

“That’s the butter you just made.” Yi took a slice of bread, buttered it, then cut it up into several pieces and gave a piece to everyone present. John and Macy both agreed that it was the best butter they ever had, and only then did the twins reluctantly try their bread and agreed with Uncle John and Aunt Macy.

“But it’s not yellow,” complained Madeline.

“And it’s not square,” said Sandy as she poured her buttermilk into the buttermilk jar.

“No, we’re going to make ours special.” Yi produced a large cookie cutter that the twins used last month to make gingerbread boys for Christmas. “We’re going to make a butter boy!”

Yi showed the twins how to rinse the remaining buttermilk from the butter that they spooned from their jars, then they combined their butter into one big ball of butter and with Yi guiding them, they pressed it into the cookie cutter Yi had placed on a plate. Then she eased the cutter up off the plate and there he was, their butter boy!

They placed their creation at the far end of the counter, away from the oven and other appliances, then covered it with a towel so it could cool and firm up, with the remaining butter, Yi made a stick of butter to John’s great amusement. “Yi honey,” said Macy as she tapped on Yi’s shoulder. “Do you know how to set up the curtains upstairs?”

“I didn’t notice curtains,” said Yi as she broke up a giggling flour fight between the twins.

“When you’re done here, let me know. I’ll show you how to get some privacy. Your bed is a little difficult to curtain off.”

“Thanks Pas ... I mean Macy.”

Yi and the twins got back to work on making bread and John and Macy returned to the main cabin. They kissed gently, then John said, “I’m going to put the car in the barn, then I’ll be back to take the bags upstairs.”

Macy’s shoulders slumped, and she rolled her eyes. “I’m not a cripple. I can carry the bags upstairs.” When John objected, Macy gently covered his mouth with her fingers. “Go! I’ll be fine. Go see what your brother and my sister are doing. Dépêchez-vous, away with you!”

John pulled his car into the side garage door of the enormous barn and made sure that the other vehicles were not blocked before shutting it off. He then poked around the lower section of the barn, the former milking stall area where the vehicles are parked, the former silage storage area, where the Kubota was parked, the former workshop, where Paul stores his sports equipment and has his HAM radios set up, but he didn’t find Paul or Andi. But he heard Andi giggling upstairs in the cavernous hayloft.

He climbed the stairs to the henhouse, which was only occupied by chickens, but the door into the hayloft had a new bright red sign on it that read “CAUTION: The firing range is HOT.” What is going on? He opened the door slowly and peeked out and saw that several hay bales had been stacked up so that he had to walk around them, and when he stepped around them he saw that there were a stack of hay bales at one end of the barn with targets mounted on them, and several high-intensity work lamps illuminating the targets. At the other end of the barn, several shooting stations were set up. The stations were made of 2x4 and 2x8 lumber with a couple of hay bales to sit on.