Chapter 48

The next morning after half the county ate supper with us, I wanted to take a walk around the side of the mountain and check out all the orchards, vineyards, and the blackberry patches. D had told me how well the vineyards were looking and he said that this year's apple and pear crops were going to be big enough that we should consider some hard cider. I'd let him convince me of that when the time came.

I gathered the kids and told them that we needed to take a long walk to look at the orchards. We walked around the side of the mountain and checked the old Finnerty orchard and vineyard. The grapes looked like they were going to be too thick and would have to be thinned so that bunches didn't break the vines. It looked as if D and the girls were retying the heavy vines so they wouldn't snap under the weight. When I asked him about it later, he told me that many vineyard owners went through their vines pruning out all but the richest looking grapes to make those that remained even more intense and strong in flavor and sugar. He told me that the combination of soil, light, air, water, and fertilizer – especially the chicken manure – made that unnecessary in our vineyards, so we grew a bigger crop of better grapes for less work, a real "trifecta".

The orchards were beautiful and it appeared that we would have another great harvest. The high blackberry patches were bear free and needed to be picked, so I made a mental note. After walking down to Millie's old place, we looked at that orchard and vineyard and found it in the same condition as the higher ones. We went into the orchard area and enjoyed a cool drink of water from the spring water piped into the flowing troughs. The huge blackberry patch near Millie's old home was also bear free, but I thought we should walk down the hill to look down into the patch by the highway. We were surprised to find that where the bear had been before was pretty much filled in now, so the bear wasn't living around here any more.

We made our way back up the mountain and scared up several rabbits, but didn't see any deer. As we neared the top of the hill, some of the men working on the tower and wind turbines came from the upper area through the high road in a four wheeler. They stopped to chat a minute, telling me that they were meeting a truck that was delivering materials and a large crane they were going to use. That was going to be interesting.

We made it home for lunch, and you could tell that the little ones were ready for a nap after they finished eating. Sissy and Shirley directed their four to do some reading and studying, as they usually did that during the morning.

I discussed how full the berry patches were with Mom. She immediately started organizing everyone to be ready to go berry picking in the morning. She said they would take lunch with them and have a picnic in the vineyard. Millie said she would use one of the carts so that she could go too, as she didn't want to miss out. She figured John would enjoy playing in the fenced in areas of the orchards, and she wouldn't have to worry about him that way.

Shortly after lunch, Pete, the farmer whose place was next to Bert's called and asked me when I was planning on looking at his place. I guessed he wasn't blowing smoke about selling his place, but I had no idea how I could work another farm. I was thinking that Bert's place was going to be all Esteban could handle, but I should get him and let him look at the place with me.

"Pete, I'll be over within the hour and you can show me around. I'm going to stop and pick up Esteban, the man working the dairy farm, so that he can give me his idea of what it might take to work yours, too."

Pete was happy to hear that I could come right away. He said, "I'll be watching for you. I bought me one of those carts that you can drive all over the place. It's nice to use to run out to look at your fields, as well as for hunting."

Esteban was coming from his house after he had finished lunch when I pulled up, so I was able to Shanghai him to look at Pete's place.

Pete was sitting in his four-person cart when I pulled up. He said, "Let's go look at the tillable fields before we look at the buildings and equipment. I want you to see how I'm set up." While we rode along, Pete explained that what he owned was three hundred and twenty acres, but had only cultivated two hundred seventy. The rest was some wooded area and a large pond or small lake that had been shaped from a big creek that flowed through the edge of his property. You could tell that the bottom land where the lake was didn't flood, and I wondered how that was possible. This area must be a lot higher than it seemed.

Something unusual that I saw was the quantity of white barnyard geese and ducks that were in and around the small lake. Pete told me, "You won't believe this, but those geese and ducks walk all the way down here from the house every day. They begin walking home about three, and stay inside my poultry houses. I have some strange fowl, I'll tell ya."

We rode to where he said the edge of his property was, and he advised me, "That there you see on the other side of this creek is Bert's. We've sort of been at odds over the years, since the deeds state that the river or creek is the boundary between the properties, but the river moved toward his land before either one of us bought our places. There are some survey posts, and if you use them, Bert's right; if you use the river, I'm right. That's why you need to buy me out. Then and only then will that dispute go away."

The two men were obviously not too worried about the boundary, as they appeared to be close friends. The fields we were being shown were all in great shape. There was some corn, about fifty acres of wheat, another sixty of soy beans, sixty acres of oats, with the rest in alfalfa. Pete said he often sold corn to George, the dairy farmer, so his corn and soy beans were usually fertilized with nitrogen. He told me the oats and wheat were both organically pure, as was the hay.

Up at the house, he showed us through a nice barn that had a couple of milking stalls that were unused. The barn was fairly empty, except for a couple of bins with ground corn and oats for an old mule Pete had, and a couple of white face steers. The one thing Pete had was a lot of poultry. He had chickens running loose everywhere, along with regular and white turkeys. I wondered how he collected eggs as it looked like a lot of his chickens were sitting on nests in the high grass.

Pete walked us over to a large metal building that was really a pole barn. He slid one of the big doors to the side and waved his hand at his equipment. "I have everything you need to work the place, and it's all in perfect shape. I sort of play at keeping everything mechanically right, washed, and painted. I take some teasing from some of the other guys sometimes, but my equipment always treats me right."

Esteban looked over each piece of equipment, and commented that it all looked brand new. You could see how meticulous Pete was, as each piece of equipment sat centered within painted lines on the concrete floor.

We pushed the door shut and walked with Pete toward his house. He pointed to a picnic table under a walnut tree and said, "Let me get us some tea, and I'll be right back."

Esteban said, "I should be getting back. Can I take the Jeep to the new place and you can get Pete to take you there?"

"Go ahead, Esteban. What do you think of this place before you go?"

"It is a good farm. Pete has kept it nice and is proud of it. I'm not sure I could do it justice if you wanted me to work both places. A dairy farm is a busy place, and we are going to be busy. I have an idea, though. You know the boy who Carla picked out? He is a good farm boy and Carla came from a farm family. Granted that she comes from a Mexican farm, but farmers are farmers. I'd bet that boy would love to farm this ground and have a place for him and Carla to raise some kids."

That was food for thought. If we lost John to this farm, we would need another heavy equipment operator. John was just about as good as Jet with the bulldozer, and I'd heard he handled all of the big equipment very well. He might be able to work the farm and do some work on the roads.

Pete came out with only two glasses of tea. He said, "I saw your man leave in your Jeep. I'll run you over to Bert's when we're done dickerin'."

After taking a drink of his tea, Pete said, "You heard me tell you that I wanted the same deal as Bert. I want to live my life out right here on this property, and in that house. I might want to take a trip or two with Bert, but I would want to know the house would be here when I get back."

The old guy was smiling at me as he began again, "Now I have a better deal here than at Bert's. You don't have to build a place for another family to come live here and work the place. This here house is really two houses put together. It's almost what you call a duplex. I built the second half of this house for my wife's folks, but they never lived a day in it. It has been empty for over twenty years. My in-laws died in the same car wreck that my wife did up in Mount Sterling. I kept thinking I would rent it out, but never got around to buying furniture. But a man, or small family, can live in that half and have total privacy. There isn't even a door between the two sides. The only thing shared is the big porch."

Pete was looking at me, wanting me to say something. I had to be honest with him, "Pete, you know I'm getting stretched out buying Bert's place and working on all of the stuff at home. This year's harvest is going to be good and I should have more money then, but I'm going to be a little tight for a while. I'd bet what you should get for this place is lot more than I should commit to."

"I figured you would be talking like that. Bert said he almost had to whip you to get you to take what he wanted for his place. Here's the way it is, Mike. I want you to give me exactly what you gave Bert, with the same deal. He has more land than me, but mine is all crops and planted. My equipment is in better shape, and I can promise you I'll be puttering around with it the same as I do now, so it will stay in shape. The difference in how I want you to pay me, is to go in and make old man Toll give you a deal on one of them Explorers for me. You know, four-wheel drive like your mom has. I can't stand talking to that guy, because I always feel like he's looking into my wallet to see if he left anything in there."

Pete sat there staring at me as I sipped my tea. I knew he wanted an instant answer, but how was I supposed to go to Benson and Maude and tell them I wanted to borrow more money for another farm. I told Pete, "Go see Benson, explain the deal to him, so that he can look up all of the property stuff at the court house. Meanwhile, I'll go see about a man that might want to work your farm. Are you in a hurry to make this deal?"

The man looked down and around a little bit before saying, "I am, actually, Mike. I want this done and finished right away so that Bert and I can take a vacation. You know, two old guys going through their bucket list. We been friends for a long time, and it's time that we do something like that."

"Come on," Pete said as he stood, "Let me take you back to Bert's. I really want you to buy me out, Mike. This is a good deal for you and I know you and your man, whoever he is, will take care of it."

That's just what I need, another farm to try to work. I can't take care of what I have at home, much less two farms away from the mountain. They are only about twenty minutes or so from the house, but still away from where I am...

Pete waved goodbye as soon as we arrived and went to find his old friend, Bert. Raul was standing outside the milk house holding my keys up. When I went to get them, he asked, "Do I need to find another house for that place?"

I laughed, "No, Raul, it has what is really a brand new addition that Pete built and has never been lived in. I didn't look at it, but I saw the way he keeps his out buildings and equipment, so I know it's in good condition."

Raul tugged my sleeve toward the door and said, "Come inside and see the finished product first. Everything is ready for the cows to be brought over. Esteban's wife is with Bea and one of your sisters getting furniture as we speak. They took some trucks so that they could bring most of it home with them. They were going to the Goodwill store up in Mount Sterling first, then on to a retail store."

After a tour of the milking area and barn, without pausing, Raul motioned for me to follow him back toward his work table, "Come look at what the men and I put together last night. Gene is supposed to have some good drawings to use this evening."

I looked through Raul's notebook and saw several drawings and sketches of what was going to be the new apartment building. "That looks good, Raul. What do we have to do to get permits?"

"Because your land is already zoned as multi-unit residential or light industrial, all I have to do is to drop our plans off and schedule some inspections. The County men here like me and will come when I call them."

"Good deal, Raul. When do you think we should start?"

"Jet and the cutting crew are clearing the land right now. Jimmy said he would have a couple of men begin putting in sewer, water, and underground utilities. He called to have construction power installed today."

"Holy smokes, Raul, how did you get the land ready to grade?"

"Easy, Mike; Gene has his survey equipment and Jimmy helped him stake it out this morning. You know that your guys don't mess around. All you have to do is ask when you want something done, and we all jump right on it."

I was smiling as I told Raul, "At least I won't have to have you build anything on the new place if I get it."

"You will, Mike. You'll think of something."

I got into my Jeep, but before starting it, I used my cell phone to call Benson. Denise answered and told me that her dad was with a couple of men. She said she thought that she could interrupt, so she put me on hold.

Benson picked up a minute later and asked, "What can I do for you, Mike?"

I took a deep breath and told him, "I was talking to Pete about his place today and thought you might give me some insight as to whether I should work something out with him."

Benson sounded cagey when he asked, "And what do you think, Mike?"

"The deal's almost too good to be true, just like Bert's place is, but I'm going to be stretching really far to do something like this. You know farming isn't the most lucrative business around."

"I see, Mike. So you're saying that you might need some assistance to make another deal of a lifetime?"

"Huh?" I asked, "How do you know what kind of deal I can make?"

"Pete and Bert are sitting in front of me, enjoying some coffee. Pete said he wants the exact same deal Bert got, but he wants you to use some of the money and buy him an Explorer. My instructions to you are to come to my office and take Pete to pick out a truck. Buy it for him, and I'll make sure that Maude has your bank account covered."

"How did they get there? Pete's cart is still setting right here in front of me."

"Just come in and get Pete. Come back by when you two finish at Toll Ford. I'll have the papers ready, since Pete had already talked to me about this before he called you, and he had me get all of the information together for him. See you in fifteen."

The man hung up on me. I was a little nuts, because this was not only too fast, but I didn't have a commitment for anyone to start working the property. Benson didn't even tell me how I was going to finance the place.

Instead of only taking Pete to the Ford dealership, I had both Pete and Bert. The two men poked around the Explorers for a while, but Pete kept going over to look at a big four-door four-wheel drive pickup. The truck was painted in a bright metallic blue. He came back to me and said, "I want that one. I'm a farmer, not a city boy. I need a pickup."

Leo Toll had been standing off to the side where we were talking while the two older men looked through the vehicles. Leo said to me, "Tell you what, I'll take the discounted invoice and five hundred on the truck if we don't have to dicker for the next hour. Let me show you the invoices and notices."

Pete told me to go make a deal while he and Bert took a test drive. This was crazy, as I had been in and out of this dealership a lot lately. It took Leo fifteen minutes to go over all of the invoices and discount notices before he came up with a number. He added five hundred to it, and it looked good to me.

I had to round Pete up to sign the title paperwork for the truck fifteen minutes later. When we were done, I made sure that Pete would go straight to the gas station because the fuel gauge needle on the truck was on empty. Pete told me, "I'll go back to Bert's and let him drive my cart home, after that we'll both be over to your place for supper, okay?"

"That'll be great, Pete. My family is going to have a fit about your place, but I think a certain young couple will be pleased. We have to swing by Benson's and finish this first."