Chapter 19

After breakfast Dad, James and I spent a couple hours weeding the garden and planting another row of late sweet corn. Once the early corn was ready we could have fresh sweet corn until cold weather. I could freeze some and can some that way having some for all winter meals.

I asked Dad about cleaning out the garage and making some of it into a second pantry. He agreed that we should. He and James would start working on it in a day or two. I also asked about adding another freezer in it. If we had to many things in one freezer and it went bad without us knowing it we could lose a lot of food.

I went with them to look at the pigs and chicks. They weren’t little any more and were growing fast. The fine fuzz was turning into little feathers and they were eating feed like crazy. We filled the feeders for both the pigs and chicks We were going to have to make feed sometime this week.

I changed clothes and got ready to go with Linda and the kids as soon as they arrived. She arrived an hour early and needed to Skype with her office. It turned into a two hour session. Linda was angry when she came out. Muttering something about worthless assistants.

We all went to town in her SUV. She drove like we were in a city in other words like a maniac. Five miles from town the sheriff pulled us over- for speeding Linda was driving sixty four in a fifty.

I knew Deputy Clinton Harper. His Dad owned a farm about five miles from us. He was a Barney Fife clone and got flustered at anything that smile d and wore a skirt.

He rode horses with his girlfriend along the hedge row that separated many properties in the area. They often picnicked at the fresh water pond at the back of our property where we skinny dipped.

I unbuttoned the top three buttons on my blouse and adjusted it to show some cleavage I was sitting by the door so he would have a good view.

‘‘Hello Deputy Harper, how are you doing today?’’ I said.

He turned as I expected he would to respond as expected tunnel vision took over.

‘‘Hi Mary I’m surprised to see you riding in a vehicle like this I saw you driving a great looking farm truck,’’ he said.

‘‘Yes it is a nice truck. This SUV belongs to Mr. Jackson’s daughter. Her kids are staying at my house while Mr. Jackson gets treatments. We are on our way to school to get them enrolled in the video home schooling program so they can stay and help Mr. Jackson this fall and winter.’’ I said.

‘‘Miss. Linda is not use to country driving yet and under a lot of stress but were working on it so kind of go easy on her,’’ I said.

He had moved closer to the door to get a good look at the cleavage and the legs of Carol and Elsie.

He moved to the driver’s door,’’ I’m going to let you off with a verbal warning this time but If I clock you speeding again I will have to write you a two hundred dollar ticket with points,’’ he said.

‘‘May be you can meet Debbie and me back at the pond for a picnic sometime before summer is out,’’ he said.

‘‘I would like that,’’ I said.

We pulled off and headed on to town.

‘‘Speed limit please. He will follow back and clock you for a while,’’ I said.

‘‘Oh you have had run ins with him before?’’ Linda said.

‘‘No - he likes to brag to his girl friend and I eavesdrop when he talks about how he does things on the job,’’ I said.

‘‘OK and thanks,’’ Linda said.

We spent three hours at school in meetings with guidance counselors and principals. Lots of things had change since I had registered. Many more classes were going to be offered now than when I registered.

I was satisfied with what I had chosen so I was not going to change them.

Elsie, Carol and Bob chose the needed classes and with luck they were all in the morning. It would fit the needs of the Jackson’s to a tee and us.

Out in the SUV ‘‘ Linda turned and look at us all. I am happy that you are wanting to help and stay with Dad. I wish I could stay as well. I have a suspicion of why you are so happy and so interested in staying. You are old enough to make those decisions on your own,’’ Linda said.

‘‘You are still my children and still my responsibility until you are twenty one. If your GRADES DROP you will be back in the city so fast you will suffer whiplash,’’ Linda said.

‘‘We understand and our grades will not drop, you can bet on it,’’ Elsie said.

‘‘Good - we understand each other then. Let’s go get some lunch and then we can go home,’’ Linda said.

Lunch was good and whatever had torqued up Linda was gone as quickly as it had come on. We had a sit down meal in the restaurant that Dad and I went to a few weeks ago.

On the way home we drove through the manufacturing part of town basically because Linda made a wrong turn.

Our town had many small business and several large manufacurers that did contract work for the state and government. One of them was Seagraves Industries.

‘‘I know them, they do sub contract work for the company I work for and we do contract work and analysis for them. They must have two offices because this is not the address we communicate with,’’ Linda said out loud.

Out side there was a help wanted sign ‘‘We need good dedicated quality employees for all areas. Machinist, draftsmen, engineers, quality control,’’ the sign read. Linda stopped and read all the signs on the front of the building. She also commented on the fact that the employee parking lot was full of cars and trucks.

Linda dropped me off at the house. ‘‘Elsie, Carol and Bob will be over later after we clean up after the carpenters,’’ she said.

Dad and James were working in the shop. They were building more hay racks to put in the cow shed. It was an open shed with one side open to the pasture. It gave the herd someplace to get out of the weather in the winter.

There were hay racks that bales of hay were put in for them to eat and now Dad was adding a feed trough to put ground feed now that we had a way to make feed. Adding the ground feed should make for healthier fatter beef ready for the market earlier in the spring.

Weight gain stagnated in the cold winter months especially in snow when they really had to forage pasture grass. We always fed them hay so they would survive. Now the plan was push for them to continue to put on weight all winter.