Chapter 25

With four women in the house, I was astounded at the noise. It seemed to me that all of them could, and did, talk at once. How they made sense out of what anyone said was beyond me. So, thinking to hide away until our evening meal was readied, I retreated to the back porch and began to separate the milk. I'd hardly gotten started when Lisa-Marie showed up with a grin on her face a mile wide.

"Let me do that, Tom. The herbalists and growers want to talk to you."

"Pardon me?" I frowned at her.

"Hey, Fran, Andy and Mai-Lin are asking questions I don't know answers to, or I'd handle it." She grinned. "Do we have water rights on the creek? Oh, and what about herbs that spread easily, what limitations do you want to put of planting those?"

"Jeez." I sighed. "What is going on?"

"Well, Fran has a seed catalogue with her and they say they need to know fairly quickly so they can get an order out for seeds that have to be started soon." She shrugged. "I think it could wait a while, but that's me, they seem to think it's important to know now."

"Okay. You can tell them that I need to check on water rights, but as far as I know, as long as we don't build a dam across the creek, we can draw from it for farming and gardening purposes. As far as easily spreading herbs is concerned, I don't think they should plant things they can't control." I answered with a sigh. "I'll check on the water rights, when I'm done here."

"That's about what I told them I thought, but I'll be honest, I didn't know where to check about water rights, so I thought I'd better ask." She nodded.

"That would be on the deed of ownership, which might very well be in the bank safety deposit box." I nodded. "I think Uncle Silas had a copy of it though. I know I received a copy of it from the lawyer when I inherited the place, and I know that's in the safety deposit box. Of course we can't get at that until the bank is open."

"Hah!" She grinned. "That will slow them down."

"As to the spreading plants and herbs, they might want to check the pernicious weed act." I sighed. "I'll bet some of their herbs will be mentioned there."

"Do we have a copy of that?" Lisa-Marie asked with a smirk.

"I think I do, but it's in the notes or one of my books from the College. I'll look later."

"Good enough." She nodded and spun away to leave me in peace for a few minutes.

Normally separating the milk seemed to take forever, that night it seemed to be done in the blink of an eye. As I walked back into the kitchen, I was met by questions from three of the four women. On top of everything else, Andy was trying to cook as well as try to keep up with the conversation between Fran and Mai-Lin while they poured over seed catalogues and made lists so she was adding extra questions.

I just held up a hand and said; "One question at a time; one woman at a time. Lets see if we can hold it down to a dull roar."

That brought a chuckle, but it did calm them down a bit. Lisa-Marie had dug into Uncle Silas's boxes of papers to see if she could find a copy of the deed to the farm. I walked over to my books from the college and flipped through the indexes of two or three of them, then handed a book to Fran.

"You'll find what you want in here." I handed her the book. "The pernicious weed act also covers the introduction of foreign nuisance plants. A foreign nuisance plant is one that wouldn't be easily controlled and that would include herbs. There's probably even a list of the ones they really don't want to see grown freely or allowed to spread."

Then I cleared a small area of the table of the seed catalogues and grabbed a sheet of paper and a ruler. Quickly I sketched in the area we were talking about, where the creek cut across the lower corner of the 'home' quarter section and Uncle Silas had left 'natural.' That was the area which Fran leased, but mostly I was drawing the sketch to show Mai-Lin the barrier strip that I would normally have farmed, but was now planning on renting to her. As I sketched, I was talking, mostly for Mai-Lin's benefit.

"You'll notice that it's fenced in all around and if you go down to look at it, you'll see that Uncle Silas tried to get the willows and snowberry bushes to grow along the fences. There's a reason. He didn't want the creek banks themselves to erode, so he stayed back from them a short distance and didn't disturb the natural growth. I plan on doing the same thing, in other words, no farming, or digging, or anything of that sort in that area."

"What about this fence line?" Mai-Lin pointed to the fence that separated the area I'd rent to her from the area leased to Fran.

"Same thing, I want to keep a barrier fence in place there. I'm trying to encourage a natural barrier hedge of sorts there as well. In that case though, it's like a living snow fence; it keeps the drifting on the road under control in the winter time. There is an access road of sorts along the back fence that comes in from the road and a gate in that fence; that has to remain for Fran to come and go from her lease. Then on the front side there's another fence, then the ditch and the grass-covered verge, of course the approach across the ditch that allows a vehicle or tractor onto the road has to remain. The section inside those boundaries is what you'll be renting or leasing from me."

"So, you said it's about five acres?"

"I'm guessing at that." I smiled. "It's more than four and less than ten, how's that? Until we take some measurements, even I'm not sure how big it is."

"It sounds wonderful. That is if I can bring in a mobile home and get water, power and telephone."

"Well, the hydro and phone lines run right by the front of it and a sweet water spring pours out of the bank of the creek about a hundred-yards upstream from that inner fence, it can be tapped for water. I think the inner corner, away from the creek would be the best place for a trailer to sit. You might want to think about getting a dog though, I mean part of your rent is going to be for chasing off teenagers who want to go for a midnight swim or have a drinking party on the creek banks. A dog would sure help you do that. Fran's sons raise the kind of dog you'd want, something big, but cooperative, at the same time as being a guard dog, he'd keep you company. Since you'd be helping her out by keeping her natural herbs safe, I'm sure she could talk them into finding you a dog to help you that isn't extremely expensive."

"We'd already talked a bit about that." Fran smiled, her finger holding her place open in the book she'd been consulting. "By the way, the boys might be around to see you and Lisa-Marie later this evening, since the two of you are going to be living on the farm full time now."

"Hmmph." I grunted, knowing that they wanted us to take one of their dogs, but also knowing that Lisa-Marie had her heart set on having a Border Collie.

"Hey, I saw one of that breed of horses that they claim to be dogs when I was staying in town." Lisa-Marie laughed. "I want a dog-sized dog that will be good around a farm, not a wooly mammoth sized dog that would eat half a horse for a meal."

"Oh, they don't eat that much more than a normal dog." Fran scoffed. "Besides, you should see what they do to coyotes. They just seem to hate those imitation wolves."

"It doesn't sound to me like you care much for coyotes yourself." Mai-Lin said quietly.

"I raise goats as well as herbs." Fran said quietly. "Coyotes seem to love goat flesh, especially young goat flesh, in other words the smallest of my goat's kids. One day after I'd been bellyaching to Silas about what the coyotes were doing to my goats he showed up with a dog for each of my boys. In six months those two dogs became terrors to the coyote pack that used to decimate my goat herd. Which means, Tom, you can blame my son's love for Bouviers on your uncle Silas's generous nature."

"I suppose they bred those two dogs to each other and sold the pups?" Mai-Lin smiled.

"Oh no, nothing that simple, he'd given the boys two purebred females with very good lineage. When they decided to have them bred, Silas arranged to have them bred to two exceptional dogs for 'pick of the litter' instead of a breeding charge. The boys ended up with eight pups of their own, but the two that the breeders chose were shown by them and did very well. Of course that made the boy's dogs quite saleable, but even then they kept the best females for themselves. Silas helped the boys decipher the genealogy charts for the next crosses and it seemed to me that in no time at all the boys were up to their ears in dogs that everyone was clamouring for." Fran explained. "So, although they seldom show the dogs themselves, they have no trouble selling most of them. Once in a while there's an accident though and the wrong bitch and sire manage to breed or a dog shows some character that the boys don't think is up to their standards. The dogs are still extremely good, but the boys refuse to sell them as breeding animals. Instead they have them neutered and either sell them off cheaply, or train them and give them away to friends."

"So, in all likelihood then, they would be allowing me the opportunity of getting one of those?" Mai-Lin smiled.

"Probably." Fran shrugged. "I think it would depend on what you wanted."

"I think I would want a big friendly dog to keep me company since I am friendly, but not very large myself." Mai-Lin laughed softly. "I would want a dog that was not too expensive as well, yet one that would answer to me when I needed it."

"I think the boys could probably do something for you." Fran smiled. "You'll have to talk to them though."

"Well, right now let's forget dogs and seeds and all that stuff. It's time to clear the table and set it, so we can eat." Andy announced.

I started to get up to help and got shoved back in my seat by Lisa-Marie.

"Sit!" She ordered and winked at me. "You and Mai-Lin did the chores and Mai-Lin served us lunch. We'll do this and return the favour."

"Oh my." Mai-Lin stared at her for a moment and then looked at me and broke into a giggle. "You do not argue, big Tom?"

"I don't argue." I grinned at her.

"And if you think Tom is big, wait until you meet Fran's sons. You'll see what I mean if they drop by later." Andy laughed.

"Yes." Lisa-Marie grinned. "Each one of them must weigh three or four times what you do. They're big."

"Oh, but I do know them." Mai-Lin laughed and to my surprise she blushed. "I went to school with David. We even dated a few times, but at that time my family was not very enthusiastic with my being around a white boy. Since my family now feels that I am an old maid who has turned down all of their prospects and want to be a gardener, I believe they would think differently, but I don't really care about their thoughts."

I glanced at Fran and saw her smile, then noticed the somewhat surprised look that smile brought to Andy's face. My eye caught Lisa-Marie watching as well, then saw her gaze shift toward me. I shrugged my shoulders and rolled my eyes when her brows lifted in question. There was too much going on under the surface for me to understand, but I knew that I was watching a developing situation of some sort. I almost seemed to me as if Andy was somewhat jealous of Mai-Lin, yet that didn't make sense, or did it?

I knew that Lisa-Marie was going to ask my opinion the next time we were safely alone, but at the moment I didn't have enough information to go on to offer any opinion at all. In fact Andy's look had astounded me as much as it seemed to have floored Lisa-Marie. Yet all we were going on was that one look which had fleetingly crossed Andy's face. Still, we had come to know her quite well in a very short period of time, at least I thought we had? Perhaps we didn't know Andy as well as we thought we did? Or were we putting too much emphasis on that one unguarded look of surprise?

I knew I was going to be paying close attention to the way Andy and Mai-Lin interacted in the next little while, particularly if David and Sampson dropped by that evening.

Nothing untoward happened during the meal and when we were done I was surprised that Andy accepted Mai-Lin's offer to help her wash and clean up the dishes after the meal. Fran, Lisa-Marie and I remained at the table, talking quietly about the happenings in our lives since we had talked last as we finished off our cups of herbal tea.

Of course Fran seemed to be quite interested in the way we both felt about our health and I knew part of that was brought on by her interest in the effects of the very tea we were drinking. Both of us told her that we thought things were stabilizing nicely which pleased her to no end. She did ask a few questions about Andy, but nothing that we hadn't expected her to ask.

I think she found the fact that her shipments of herbs were still sitting in my equipment shed somewhat humorous, especially since I told her that they weren't bothering me at all. I even laughed about it because the blizzard would have made it impossible for anyone to come and get those shipments. She agreed, acknowledging that I'd hit on the real reason that they were still there. Her customers still needed them, and she wondered If I'd mind if she hung around until Monday to make sure they came and got their supplies while the roads were open.

Neither Lisa-Marie nor I minded one bit, it meant there was one more person in the house, but both Lisa-Marie and I enjoyed her company so I knew it was no problem. I had a fleeting thought of teasing her and insisting on no more Midnight visits, but decided to leave that alone for now. I did resolve to let Lisa-Marie in on catching Fran's unwitting response to my earlier teasing words, but that would also have to be done when Lisa-Marie and I were alone.

Our tea cups were empty and the girls had even washed them when we heard someone drive into the yard. I got up and went to the front door to be met on the porch by Fran's sons.

"Hey guys, how are you doing?" I greeted them. "Your Mom warned us that you might be around this evening; are you on your way to another hockey game?"

"Hello Tom." One of the grizzled giants smiled. "Actually, we heard you and Lisa-Marie had come to your senses and were both going to be living on the farm permanently."

"So we come bearing presents." The other huge hulking giant grinned, offering me a box that I could see was perforated to let an animal breathe. "You should let Lisa-Marie open that inside the house."

"This isn't a pup is it?" I looked at the size of the box with doubtful eyes because it was certainly too small to hold one of their dogs, even a young pup.

"No, that's not a dog." Laughed one of the big pair.

"It's actually a cat." The other grinning partner in crime admitted. "Although we do have a couple of dogs that we'd like to have you and Lisa-Marie look at."

"I thought we'd agreed to hold off on that idea for a while?" I said quietly, still unsure which brother was which.

"Well, we did hold off." One of the pair looked at me almost in surprise.

"We said we'd wait until you two had decided to move to the farm permanently, so we did."

"What we have in the jeep is another cat, a barn cat. She's a really good mouser and used to live outside most of the year. However, the one you have in that box has always lived inside and was a lady's pet." The taller, slightly heavier fellow spoke again.

"They don't expect that Mrs. Granger will be able to care for herself any more. So Jean and her mother asked us if we'd rescue the old cats that the two old women had and offer them to you and Lisa-Marie. David and I had fun catching them without scaring them half to death since they smelled the dogs on us, but we managed." Samson grinned. "After the number of days they were alone in the house, they were hungry enough to go into a baited trap. We took them into town and the vet checked them over, but he said they're fine, just a bit hungry. After a full day of being fed right, they're even getting over that."

"We were by earlier, but you folks must have gone to town, I guess."

"I'll definitely take the mouser if she can live in the barn." I grinned. "I think when she knows where it came from, Lisa-Marie will be happy to have this one too, but why don't you carry it, Samson? By the way, just to warn you, Lisa-Marie repeated just tonight that she wants a Border Collie for a dog."

"Oh, we know that." He managed a smile. "But, would you mind carrying the cat? It makes me want to sneeze and it gets David even worse."

"Okay you two gentle giants, come on in and make yourselves at home." I invited with a grin.

The idea that a cat made these two huge men sneeze and feel uncomfortable seemed so incongruous to me that I was laughing when I stepped back inside.