Chapter 37

I had been talking to the guys at the yard before they were to take off to get the ATVs from the cable company and some equipment from the dealer in Lexington. They were excited because the equipment would allow them to experiment with a product that might magically turn dirt and rock into almost highway conditions.

It seems that they could talk me into almost anything. I was going to look in the pole barn, but decided to go home and check to make sure the cattle were okay in their new orchard pastures. I had just started out of the road yard when a pickup truck full of beehives went by. That reminded me that I needed to have more hives for the other two orchards and vineyard, as well as expanding the one up by the house. The pickup full of hives had its directional light blinking to turn into the market area, so I drove that way and turned in. The truck parked up by the dairy barn, so I parked next to it and followed the farmer in.

The guy announced for everyone to hear, "Hey, everyone, I have three dozen good hives to sell today. If I don't sell them now, I'll try Saturday. Anyone interested?"

You could see several of the men in the building considering it, so I spoke up, "You want to sell them outright, or are you open to barter?"

"You're Grayson from Mystery Mountain, right?" The man stuck his hand out.

"That's me. So what's the deal with the hives?"

"I busted up the big hives over the winter and need to get these placed before the bees all wander off to pollinate everything in sight. Not a bad thing, but I'd like to give these hives a new home. I'm up to almost five hundred now and don't need more, so I'm building new shelves and letting them expand naturally and selling some throughout the year."

I asked again, "So what do you want? Cash or trade?"

The guy said, "I could use the cash, but if you have any hams, I could trade for a couple of those, and I would love to have some of the famous Grayson wine. How about fifty-fifty, you buy half of these and I'll trade you out the other half? Where do you want them?"

"Follow me and we'll drop them off where they need to be, then get you your ham, wine, and cash. I'm going to go toward Pine Ridge and into my secret back entrance. It looks rough, but it isn't."

We drove out the highway toward Pine Ridge, turned off the hard road next to the blackberry patch, and drove up to the lower orchard, vineyard, and small field. I wanted the bees to be between the field and the vineyard and orchard, so we put six shelves there.

The guy pulled the top open to show me the bees working on the hive. He slid a middle drawer out, and it was full of bees doing the same thing. He explained, "The strain of bees I have are very docile. They work like crazy pollinating everything in sight, then create enough honey to make you wonder how they do it. The queens in these hives are very prolific and lay a lot of worker eggs, and not many drones. That means you have a fast growing hive."

After placing those hives, we drove up to the Finnerty vineyard and orchard. We did the same thing and placed the hives between the two small fields, the vineyard, and the orchard.

From there we drove up to the big garden where the vineyard and orchard were. We put the new hive by the existing hives. The guy wanted to check the stock in the orchard out and commented, "You're getting double duty out of that orchard, aren't you? But why did you fence the vineyards?"

I smiled and said two words, "The bears."

"Oh yeah, you guys out this way do have a lot of bears, don't you? Glad you have them and not me. I saw a lot of blackberry patches, so you probably have a lot of them when the berries get ripe."

I nodded and motioned him to drive up to the parking area so I could get him his hams and wine.

Before going into the smoke house, we dickered a little while in order to come up with what was fair to both of us. We figured out a dollar amount for the hives, and I ended up paying cash for two dozen hives along with two big hams, a side of bacon, and two gallons of good wine. It took us a while to find the wine he liked best as we siphoned a taste from several barrels. He ended up with some Merlot that was what I considered ordinary.

The man was fascinated by the wine caves, the equipment, and the distillery. He asked, "Do you make any shine too?"

"Nope, no shine. I'm licensed to make grappa that also becomes cognac and brandy. This year we may make some apple and pear brandy if we have the time. We were still distilling the grappa while picking the apples and pears last year."

"You're a hell of lot more farmer than anyone around here realizes. I was up here ten or so years ago to bring Eliza a hive and honey, and this was not much of a working farm. It doesn't look like you've done much to the cabin, but I see the barn is bigger, the machine shed is bigger, and you added a bigger smoker. You're really making this place work, Mike. Glad to see it."

I needed to tell him, "Don't broadcast the back way in, okay? It's kind of my private road to get to the lower vineyard and orchards."

"No problem, I have my own private drives too. I like my privacy the same as you do, but I don't have ghosts to scare people off. I swear that I felt like we were being watched when were at that middle area."

I told him, "You were being watched. The steers were watching, as well as the rabbits and other animals. Maybe even a bear."

The guy chuckled. "I have to get. Give me a call if you want more hives. Here's my card if you need more honey. Bea buys honey from me almost every Saturday. Of course, we're usually trading for eggs and such. I'd like to get more of the jerky she was making. I love the spicy jerky she had. She said it was an experiment. It was good, a good experiment."

"I'll tell her and see you Saturday."

That was expensive, but with an additional three dozen hives, the mountain would easily be pollinated this year. I wondered if it would increase the harvest of grapes, apples, and pears.

This had been a busy day. It seemed as if I had been running since I got up. As I walked to the house, I wondered why I hadn't seen D, or any of the women, in any of the vineyards. I found out when I opened the door to the house, Raul had torn down the old outside wall in the dining room area and was finishing putting drywall up where the old wall had been. The only difference I could see was a heavy beam that protruded about two inches from the ceiling. Raul saw me looking at it and said, "The former partition or outside wall was load bearing, so I put the beam in to extend the room. Do you think this additional eighteen feet will be enough for your mom?"

I just stared at the expanded area. The first expansion was fifteen feet, and now it was eighteen feet longer. There was a door that was obviously a door into the master bedroom. It had been a sliding glass door, but was just a door now. The end of the room was the original glass wall, so you could see the distant mountains and the valley below. Men were building a deck out there, using long supports to go down to where they were embedded in a concrete foundation. The end of the deck was going to be dangerous for little ones, as this was the part of the mountain that went straight down for fifty to sixty feet. I would just screen it when the time came. Raul had put a roof over the deck so that it would be easy to screen in.

Mom, Millie, and Marita were putting together what looked like a table that matched the big one we already had. There were two stacks of chairs in the existing dining room, so they weren't in the way. Rosita, Carmen, Anita, D, and his six girls were painting. It looked like the only thing that wouldn't be painted or stained was going to be the area that Raul was putting drywall up on. Jose was standing there with a putty knife, spackle, and tape to finish it as soon as Raul was done. The odor of wet plaster filled the room.

Mom looked up. "You aren't supposed to be home yet. With all of the things you were going to do, I thought you were going to be gone until about six this evening."

Thinking back on my day, it had been busy, but not that bad. I said, "Maybe I didn't get to everything, but I think I did."

Millie, who was beginning to bulge in the middle, came to me and gave me a sweet kiss and hug. She said, "You're going to have to listen to your son. John is calling you, and he is going to walk any second. He pulls himself up and starts to walk, but still falls down. Mom says we need to get him shoes so it will be easier, but I didn't do that with Summer and she walked about this same age."

Oh my, a walking, talking kid. Now this is what's important. All of the bull that went on earlier was just that, bull. Nothing matters but what I have on the mountain right now. Millie told me, "Go help Mom with the table while I mess with supper and check on John."

I asked Mom, "What can I do to help?"

She smiled. "Lift one end, and Marita and I will lift the other. We'll flip it over and stand it up." We did that and Mom stood back and smiled. She looked around at all the people who were painting and quickly put a tablecloth on the pretty new wood table. "Mike, this will seat ten if it's closed, but it will hold fourteen if we put the leaf in, just like the other one. As a matter of fact, they are the same table. Just think, we can have twenty-eight people eating dinner with us at the same time. This is great."

One by one, the people were finished painting the areas they were working on. Also one by one, they were taking their brushes and paint trays outside to clean. As Rosita and Carmen came by, they said, "We are going to do chores early today. It is Anita's birthday and we want to take her to Lexington to see a movie."

I was about to ask her if it was a Star Wars movie when she told me, "This is Star Wars month at the mall theater and Anita wants to go. I know she has video of all of the series and watches them all the time, but she still wants to go see the movie on a big screen in 3D. The kids are very excited about going."

"Take off then. I'll do the chores tonight."

"Oh no, you can't. Bea told me we have to do them all tonight. You stay here. Let me get you a beer. Go into your office, because Bea will be angry if you go out to the barn."

You can't argue with a woman who is doing as instructed, even if it was a little heavy-handed of Mom.

Instead of a beer, I got a cup of old coffee, warmed it up, and took it to the office. I looked through the mail while the PC booted. I was in the habit of checking the price of gold at least once a week and went to the bookmarked site. Gold was up, so I thought I should check with the coin dealer to tease him a little.

"Hi, this is Mike Grayson."

"Ah, Mr. Grayson, do you have more coins for us?"

"That's what I was calling about. If I told you I had over a thousand coins to get rid of, could that be done?"

There was a long pause. "Are you being serious or just teasing?"

"Very serious, I'm not sure of the exact quantity, but I'm very serious. This should be the last that I personally have, and I know that because of the quantity, they will have to be handled differently. I was going to dribble them out a little at a time, but there are too many and I would feel better if they were gone and money was in the bank."

"Could you get me a more accurate count? If you have multiple types of coins, a count of each type and their dates would be good. How soon could you count them, and how soon do you want to dispose of them?"

"If I make a concentrated effort, I can get a count to you by tomorrow afternoon, and then you can give me your plan on whether or not you can handle them."

"Mr. Grayson, let me assure you I will gladly take all that you have, but the quantity you are talking about is extraordinary and must be cautiously handled to keep the values up. My partners and sponsors will possibly need to spread them out all over the world, although the last large quantity your trust brought to us was very easy to resell at the prices we thought we would get. Let me make sure of what you said. You desire a bank transfer instead of cash, is that correct?"

"Right, the money is actually going to be deposited into that trust and another one in order to use it for various projects."

The man's voice indicated a smile, "Count them quickly, Mr. Grayson, and I'll get my end ready. I'm pretty sure they will be able to have the kind of capital needed to buy that many more coins. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

I suppose Mom and I are going to be busy. I think I can use Millie and Marita for this too. This isn't for us, it's for the community.

When I walked out of the office with my coffee cup, all of the workmen, as well as D and the girls, were gone. Mom and Marita were hanging the drapes on the sliding rod that covered the end of the room by the deck. I went to look out at the deck that looked finished except for staining. Mom said, "When I want something finished, it gets finished. There's only that little strip on both walls that still needs to be painted, but it's done. The new bedrooms are done, the beds are in them, and now I have a big enough dining room to have a big Sunday dinner. I hope I can cook enough food for that many."

I had to laugh. "Mom, you're nuts. Why would you want to try to feed twenty-eight or more people?"

"We've already had more than that a couple of times, Mike. Just think about tonight. D and his six will be here. There will be ten guys from the road crew, including Bernie. Ezra will be here along with Sheryl. Harold and Martha are coming, and Benson, his wife, and his four kids, Summer and Bradley, plus us. Let's see that is sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, twenty, twenty-six, twenty-eight and five of us. That's thirty-three, oops, not enough room. I'll have to call Raul to add another eighteen feet."

Now I was laughing. "Call Benson and tell him to stay home."

Mom put her hands on her hips. "I will not. The kids can sit at the little table and that will take five of them away. Everyone I invited needs to be here. We all have to watch John take his first steps."

I was rolling my eyes and thinking, 'Yeah sure, ' but I knew I'd best keep the mouth shut.

Mom pulled a beer from the fridge and handed it to me. "Sit, relax, all of us are going to clean up a little and don't worry about supper, it's made and is being made."

I flipped the TV on and watched a news channel to get an idea of how the world was getting along. Oil was up a little, so that meant another ten cents to the price of gas and diesel. The Middle East was still arguing over who was going to nuke who first. I wish they would just push the buttons and leave everyone else alone. That would be horrible, but it would solve a lot of problems. The Americas would be the new oil capital of the world, and everyone would kiss our ass for oil. Build several huge refineries and we could ship gas to the rest of the world at our prices. Hey, China; you want us to buy your plastic junk? Here, buy our oil for this ridiculously inflated price. We could tell the rest of the world that if you want our fuel, buy our exports. This was really some off the wall wishful thinking.

Someone knocked on the door. No one knocks on my door. They just open it, come in, take off their shoes, and demand coffee or wine. I smiled as I went to the door and, "Hey, Rodrigo, what are you doing out in the country? Good to see you. Were you afraid I wouldn't bring your wine?"

After a good handshake and man hug, he was going to come in, but I said, "Take a walk with me and let me show you the wines and vineyard."

"Ah, Mike, is Bea here? I need to talk to her first."

"Wait here, Rod, I'll get her."

I went to Mom's door and knocked. "It's me, Mom; Rodrigo is here and wants to talk to you."

The door opened and Mom came out dressed up for hanging out with friends, hair fixed, a little makeup with smell goods and everything. "Wow, Mom, you look great."

She winked at me and kissed my cheek. She was walking into the big room where Rodrigo was as she said to me, "The man is early."

I hung back; since she was fixed up like that, she might be trying to make time with the Italian. I laughed at myself thinking of him as the more mature Italian stallion. Mom and Rodrigo had a few words before Mom said, "Take him to see the vineyard area. Too bad D isn't here; he would love to give a tour."

The door opened and D with six well-dressed young ladies stepped into the room. Rodrigo and Doroteo happily embraced in a traditional continental fashion. D immediately said, "Let me show you where we make our special wines. You won't believe the natural wine cellars we have."

I had to hustle while slipping my boots on as Mom shooed us out the door. As I walked out, I saw Millie and Marita coming from the bedroom with John. Millie waved and gave me an air kiss. She was dressed up too. My goodness, what's the occasion?

D took Rodrigo through the vineyard and showed him the great condition the vines were in and the early leaves. We went into the wine pressing cave with the old and new equipment and also still a couple of vats of fermenting pomace that D had been nurturing before distilling. The wine storage caves were impressive with barrels stacked three high on both sides of the cave. It took a little longer as D pulled three wine glasses from the holder near the door and siphoned wine from a barrel marked special.