|
“Is there a water source?” Scott asks.
Pam shakes her head and shrugs. “I’m not sure what you’ll do about that. Maybe you could set up a rain barrel.”
Morgen's playing among the trees on the edge of the grove, running from one cedar tree to another, her hair flying out behind her and a huge smile on her face. I walk over to her and kneel down.
“Do you like it here, honey?”
She nods.
“This lady says that we can use this space to grow a garden. We could have a pretty big garden here, couldn’t we?”
She looks around the clearing. “What will we do with all the food?” she asks.
“We’ll eat it, honey. And share it.”
“Okay.”
I return to Pam and Scott, who are discussing how we’d get a rototiller in here.
“The trail in from the road is wide enough,” Pam says. “You can just drive it in.”
“That’d be perfect.”
She hesitates. “Well, just make sure the ground is hard enough so you don’t leave big ruts in the path. I don’t want the path destroyed.”
“We will,” I promise. “Thanks for letting us do this. It’ll be so great to grow our own food.”
“You’re welcome,” she says, turning to leave.
“See you in the spring,” I call after her.
When we get back to the car, though, Scott says he’s not sure about this. He doesn’t know how we’ll get enough water, or how we’ll keep the deer out. “That’s a big area to fence.”
“It’s the only option we have.”
He doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t start the jeep.
“What’s the matter?” I ask after a minute. “Don’t you want to do this?”
“I don’t want to invest a bunch of time and energy and hope into something that isn’t going to work out.”
“How do you know it won’t work?”
“A lot of times, things don’t,” he says. “There’s been many times we’ve invested a lot of ourselves and then been disappointed.”
“This isn’t like a big life-changing decision here. We’re just going to grow some vegetables. Besides, we won’t get anything if we don’t invest a bit. This is an opportunity.”
“Okay,” he says, but he still doesn’t smile.
I, on the other hand, can’t stop smiling. Now my dream of being self sufficient is within closer reach. From that plot of land, we’ll be able to grow enough food to preserve for ourselves to last for the whole winter, and we'll have enough left over to share and sell. I can hardly wait.
Year Twelve
Waiting
In October, Morgen and I spend our Saturdays going for long walks on area trails and sitting on the shore of Lake Superior, collecting agates and polished beach glass. The whole landscape around us has been transformed over the past few weeks from green to deep, rich hues of gold and orange. As we sit on the beach, we marvel at the magnificence of the lake on one side and the fall colors on the other.
Soon, the colors are gone and the trees are bare. The first snowfall is gentle and beautiful, and we run outside to play in it, catching snowflakes on our tongues. After only fifteen minutes, though, we run inside, shivering, not yet used to the cold, and we warm ourselves with a cup of hot cocoa. We watch the snow falling outside the windows. The trees are dusted in white, and the whole outdoor landscape looks fresh and calm.
Christmas is nice and simple. I give Scott and Morgen each a handmade necklace, and they give me a handmade journal. The cover is made out of painted pieces of cardboard sewn together with blank paper in between.
“It’s just so beautiful and thoughtful,” I tell them. I can feel myself tearing up. I know exactly what I want to write on the pages. I want it to be my journal, like the other ones I’ve filled over the years, but I want this one to only contain the happiest of thoughts. It’s the perfect place to write about all the ways things are working out for us—sort of a detailed record of our creation of the good life. I won’t write anything unless it’s positive.
So for a while, through the short days of January and February, I don’t write anything at all. My dad and Pat come down to spend the weekend, and I pick up my pen to write about how excited Morgen is to see them, and how they shower her with love and attention. But I don’t have much else to say, so I don’t write anything.
69/83 首页 上一页 67 68 69 70 71 72 下一页 尾页
|
