Chapter 3

Day 2 Continued

The following day when I woke up from my sleep, my mind had started thinking about the voice I thought I had heard. It continued bothering me. Did I really hear it, or was it something I had just dreamed about?

I was having dreams now. Some were strange, like your typical confusing dreams where things morph to something else. Some dreams had the feeling of being repeated. I think I had dreams from my past life.

The voice I think I had heard when I was coming out of my coma had said, “I hope you make better use of this lifetime.” What did that mean? Who said it? Was it real or imagined?

I heard a sound and turned to the door. I see Carrie standing there in her skimpy little nighty/slip thing.

“Hey, little brother, it’s time for chores. Would you go with me? You used to do them all. I’ve been doing them for you, and you need to at least learn what needs doing all over again for when you get better.”

“I can do that. Let me wash my face and pee, and we can go.”

“I’ll do the same.”

I got out of bed, fluffed my pillow, and straightened the sheets. I dressed in yesterday’s clothes. Don’t know how often people change clothes here. I had not seen a washing machine, which made me unsure of laundry and how often it was done. Being a teenage boy, I was given some leeway. My clothes didn’t smell too bad, so I went with it.

I guess I should mention my clothes as they were not ordinary. My underpants were off-white cotton with a waist tie. It goes from each side towards the middle. The tie straps are tied in front to hold the underpants on.

The shirt is a pullover. It is the same color as the underpants. It is made from a few parts and doesn’t quite fit like the shirts I am used to. Definitely not form-fitting. The cloth appears to be coarsely made, yet machine-made nonetheless. The stitches are hand-sewn.

My pants are new to me, and I’m not sure of the material, Linen maybe? There is a button-up opening. I just pull them up, and they are somewhat loose. They are held up by a belt or suspenders. I must have favored the belt.

To pee, you unbutton it like 501 jeans, but they are wood buttons and show on the outside. I have a belt, but it’s long. I suppose I am supposed to grow into it.

My pants are all in either butternut or brown color. My shirts are all unbleached cotton or linen pullovers with two buttons at the neck area of each shirt.

I was to learn later these pants are “town pants.” Most farmers wear something like overalls. They use various types of suspenders, of which there are many styles.

When I say farmers, for the most part, that meant women. There is nothing like seeing a farm woman in overalls with her tits enjoying the summer day. There did not seem to be any zippers or velcro anywhere.

Footwear is a pair of suede-looking moccasins. They are homemade and custom fit. I looked, but there were no socks in my room.

My older sister took my attention away from my ruminations.

She said, “We start at the feed barn. That’s the barn further out on the north side.” We walked up, and she opened the right door.

We walked in, and she showed me tall wood bins containing grain.

They are five-foot by five-foot by 15-foot in size. The bins are labeled oats, barley, corn, sorghum, wheat, and split peas. We poured some from each barrel into smaller barrels on a pull cart. There were several other supplies, she added.

“We’ll feed the horse later. Let’s get started. I’ll pull the cart for now. You can do that in a few weeks. Watch how much of each type of feed I put in each feeder.”

“We’ll start with chickens. We give more peas to chickens because they each lay eggs almost daily.”

We got there. “We throw the cracked corn around as a treat and get them to come out so we can collect eggs while they are busy pecking the corn. The thing is, once they are running loose, they raise such a racket. Then all the other critters will be hollering to be fed too, so chickens, ducks, and turkeys are last.”

As I half expected, that plan didn’t work well. After the chickens, we fed the Spanish nanny goats. We tried to sneak into the big goat yard and went to pour goat cubes into a wood feeder attached to the outside wall.

The sneaking didn’t work. Unfortunately, the males heard us and started bleating to be fed. This started waking all the other animals.

The goat fence was built high enough so they could not jump up. Plus, it had an overhang above it. We opened the door to the goat-house, and they came running out to the feeder. Two bales of hay went into feeders on the inside walls. We had to remove the strings from the bales and break the hay bales up to fit into the feeders.

“Goats don’t eat grass hay like horses or cows. The Spanish goats, in particular, are what’s called a browser. They eat hay only as a last resort. We give it in smaller amounts. Too much hay, and they get sick. They like to eat brush and trees, stuff that other animals won’t eat. The problem is, they keep the brush and trees picked pretty clean.”

“That’s why the Spanish goat pens have huge pens with all kinds of grasses, bushes, and oak trees. There are other small and medium trees. Many of them have nuts. Goats eat everything they can, then lay down in the shade to chew their cud.”

The hay we provide the Spanish goats is not grass hay. It’s primarily Sainfoin which is a type of legume hay from France. It’s very woody, and the goats love it. It has a natural mild anti-worm capability. It not only doesn’t cause bloating, it pretty much prevents it.

Sainfoin has lots of flowers and is bird and honeybee friendly. The family that provides us with the Sainfoin has a huge honey farm around the pasture land.

By now, the male goats are going nuts. They are in separate pens. Their goat cube feeders were over the fence because these guys were too rough for us to reach in. Their old hay was pulled out, and new was added as they squabbled over the goat cubes. This was done by Carrie reaching over the fence.

“What’s in the goat cubes?”

“It’s a general-purpose animal treat, alfalfa hay chopped fine. It also has molasses and salt and other things they need. Things not provided by pasture alone”.

“Our hay for the Nubians are a mix of grasses like orchard, alfalfa, clover, rye-grass, and a few other things. It’s suitable for milk goats and horses, but we have it here, so they have ready food. The milk goats thrive on quality mixed hay.”

I tried to listen to her as she went to each animal group. It was going to take a while to understand it all. There was a lot to learn.

“Goats are not like geese, and chickens are not like rabbits. Rabbit cubes are much smaller than the goat size and made from timothy hay for the most part. The dietary needs of each animal is unique.”

“You have to watch the animals, listen to them, and see if they have issues. It’s not like they can tell you if they have a problem. If they do anything odd, it has to be investigated.”

We returned to the feed barn and put two 10-gallon barrels on the back of the wagon. We took it to the pen that had the ducks and geese. Next to a medium pond is a pipe with a spigot that comes up to about 4 feet. The valve was beside the spigot, and the stem went down into the ground inside a second smaller pipe. A freeze-proof pipe and spigot of some sort? We filled the barrels with water.

The milk goats were in their own area with their own small barn. They lined up to be milked when we got near. These goats were quieter and better behaved than the other goats.

“These goats are tamer and more civilized. They eat more hay and don’t need brush-style browse like the Spanish goats. If we are low on them, the milking goats get goat cubes first.”

As twilight faded to sun up, I appreciated my sister’s outfit more and more. I was seeing lots of side-boob titty shots. Whenever she leaned over, I had an excellent look at her breasts, all the way out to the nips.

She didn’t mind my ogling. She grinned when she caught me with a dazed look on my face, staring. The skirt length was very short. She’s always squatted with her legs together, but plenty of long legs and bare butt shots were enjoyed by me.

If I thought that was something, as we headed back to the house, the view of a girl in the garden was a shock. I was introduced to Little Fawn, a Shawnee girl that lived on the farm. There’s another girl, Black Willow, but she’s visiting family today.

Carrie told me they have a wigwam back in the trees and, in winter, they live in a small room above the feed barn. She wore a leather skirt that barely covered her business and a top like a leather shawl.

The shawl covered her shoulders and the tops of her perky teen titties, but only just. Side boob and under boob abounded, including areolas and nipples as she moved.

I had a hard time associating the clothing styles. Are the clothing styles meant to cover and protect or draw a man’s interest in the woman? It’s simple, if you show it, I will enjoy looking at it.

Carrie said, “Little Fawn has been handling the animals the past two days. She also helps Mum with the gardening.”

We went inside and had breakfast. This morning I had scrambled eggs which must have milk in them with a generous daub of butter. There are stewed apples on the side. The tea was black and strong and honey-sweetened. I decided I needed to lie down. As soon as I stood up, I felt a tremor in my stomach and knew it was time to head for the outhouse.

Peeeyew. I had forgotten the smell of an outhouse. It had one door and two holes in the bench, sharing one oblong hole in the ground. There is a bucket of sawdust with a trowel for covering your poo. As for paper, there are a couple old catalogs. Evidently, you used as little of a piece as you could. There was not much of it.

Later I was resting in my bed, thinking about things and trying to put it all together. I was thinking about what Carrie had worn. She wore last night’s sleeping shift to feed, water, milk, and collect eggs.

So I guess she was doing chores in what, in effect, was her flimsy short, very revealing nightgown. As it got lighter outside, it had been increasingly challenging to keep my mind and eyes on the chores. Although it had not given me a raging hardon, it had firmed me up some.

I mean, Carrie is my sister, but she’s not MY sister, so to speak. I had no inclination towards her in those regards, but the view was incredible. Why not go with it?

So far, everything I have seen in this life is many years behind my own time except for clothing styles. They had branched into an ultra liberating style for women. It went beyond the miniskirts and flashy clothes from my own 70s and 80s. They had evolved to much more comfortable apparel for women, but not for men?

Maybe it had something to do with the work of washing and drying clothes. I had seen the clothesline outside. Perhaps having fewer layers of clothing and thin clothes uses fewer resources.

Were men here more modest than women? Maybe the reversal of roles caused the men to become conservative somehow. It seemed women were constantly pushing the boundaries of taste when it came to clothing back in my time.

Women outnumber men ten to one. This allows women to determine their own clothing standards and styles.

It would be much more challenging to maintain patriarchy with few stable men being around steadily. Since we have a queen, does this mean we are under a matriarchy? What about other countries?

Where does Christianity fit into all this? So far, I had not heard one “God!” or one “Jesus!” or one Jesus Christ!” let alone a “Have you been saved?” I had only heard in general terms that there had been changes. What were they, and how did they pertain to my proper behavior for my future?

I had also not heard the words America or the term state. I had heard New England and Ohio, and I had not heard the word Pennsylvania used but had heard German County. County? Did that mean the term colony is no more? Were the former colonies divided or renamed into Counties? That would be more in line with England’s home governing system.

Ohio had initially been a native term for this area. We were told in school it means a large river. Hmm ... Where do the natives belong in this? I’d seen several of them on my way to town and back wearing buckskins and sometimes the same clothes as us. How does the nearest town’s name “Michikinikwa” figure into it?

Then there is Little Fawn. We have a town with a native name and natives living or trading freely in that town. Little Fawn lives on our farm. We don’t appear to be a state, but this is the Ohio Valley.

I caught something out of the corner of my eyes and saw Bethy looking in on me.

“Are you awake, Donny? Can you read me the funnies again?

“Yes, sweetheart.”

“Be right back, Donny.”

She ran away and was back with the newspaper, and I went over the funnies again with her. There are occasional adult cartoons that were over her head. She didn’t understand those. There are multi-panel serial cartoons, and she loved them, even if they were repeats. Today she’s wearing a shift or miniature version of a house dress.

After she left, I went to the hall bathroom to pee. The house was quiet, so I took a few minutes to look at myself in the mirror. I looked about five-ten in height and still a thin youth.

My complexion is off-white or ivory. Square-ish jaws with almost a Kirk Douglass chin, but not quite. My jaw is prominent and looks solid with medium size mouth and lips. I have a strong nose that looks like it wants to develop a bump. Broad set eyes in brown. Ears are smallish, but that’s probably due to age. I had noticed in my previous life that men’s ears seemed to grow longer as you age.