Page 5 of Townshipped
When things didn’t work out between us, I got the wild idea to raise goats. I spent a few weeks binging baby goat videos on YouTube during my get-over-her stage right after the breakup. Goat therapy. It’s a thing. Or at least it should be.
Shortly after I purchased my first four goats, I got wind of this llama who needed rescuing. And that’s how I ended up with Lily. My family jokes that I never came across a need I didn’t think I could fill. I don’t know about that. But I couldn’t leave Lily without a home, so I took her on. And, while most llamas are pretty subdued, she’s definitely not. Leave it to me to find a diva llama with attitude.
I’d love to eventually have a cow or two, but each animal means a lot of extra work and I still have to meet the demands of my IT consulting business, so I’m pacing myself.
The kids and I make cocoa and I light the fire while they get out the Monopoly board so I can train them to prepare for world domination. It’s the least I can do as their favorite uncle.
Ashley’s words replay through my thoughts:Why don’t you have a mom in your house? I think back to the strangest recurring dream I’ve had over the past few months. The woman who stars in my dreams is a redhead with a bit of sass and a great sense of humor. In every dream she’s working the farm with me, laughing and sharing the load. I don’t even know any redheads except Jed and Bubba White, and obviously neither of them is the redhead in my sleep-induced fantasies.
Maybe the dreams are a sign that I ought to start dating again. I’ve gone on dates, but not in a while. It’s easy to get into a routine out here. Wake, feed the animals, check emails, follow up on client needs, eat, work the crops or run into town in the afternoons if needed, wrap up more consulting work, evening animal care, then curl up with a book or a show, fall asleep and do it all over again.
At least one or two days a week, I travel out of town to see clients in person.
I could make an effort to pursue romance. Then again, who needs a woman? I have everything I need right here, or so I tell myself and anyone who asks. And they do ask. It’s Bordeaux, after all—the corn isn’t the only thing with eager ears.
I pick up my cocoa and walk over to the coffee table where the kids have the game board already set up with the play money sorted.
“I’m the dog!” Ashley says. “I’m always the dog. You can be the thimble.”
“No one wants to be the thimble,” Sawyer answers her. “Nothing about a thimble says I’m going to kick your butt.”
“Mom said don’t say butt,” Ashley reminds him.
“Fine, kick your bootie,” Sawyer amends. “If I can’t be the dog, I’m the cool old car. Uncle Aiden can be the thimble.”
“I’m the top hat,” I say, settling in with two of my favorite people in the world for a ruthless game of property acquisition. He’s not wrong about the thimble. It’s like saying,I’m going to mend your clothing as a sign of my cutthroat business savvy.
Sawyer tromps Ashley and me, owning Park Place and Boardwalk with hotels and sets of properties in a couple other spots. He brings us down to a pittance before my phone rings.
“Hi, darling,” my mom says when I answer.
“Hey, Mom.”
“What time are you all coming? And are you bringing anything?”
“I baked French bread and was thinking of turning it into garlic loaves. Do you want me to bring some of that?”
“That will be perfect. I’ve got a roast with potatoes and vegetables. The bread will be just right. Can I just say I’m so glad I raised a man who bakes bread? Women love a man who knows his way around a kitchen.”
“Duly noted,” I say.
Mom routinely finds ways to loop nearly everything I say full circle to make the point as to what a catch she thinks I am or how I ought to be finding myself a good farm wife.
It’s a thing around here. There are wives, and then there are farm wives. A farm wife is a woman who wants to run the property with you, loves animal husbandry and working crops, and would rather live remotely than in a town or city. And they are harder to come by than you’d think.
The idea of farming holds charm in theory. The actual day-to-day work takes someone special because the agrarian lifestyle involves early mornings and late nights, hard physical labor, and shoveling more manure than you ever imagined you’d have to deal with in your lifetime.
The way we talk about farm wives sounds so provincial and archaic. I’m not one to diminish women or relegate them to a place beneath men. A farm wife gets all my respect. Most ranches and farms wouldn’t survive without the woman who shoulders half the burden. The fact remains, pledging yourself to a life on a farm is a whole other level of commitment.
“We’ll pack up and come over now. Sawyer just beat us in Monopoly, so it’s a good time to wrap things up.”
“Good. We’ll see you in less than a half hour.”
The kids and I put our coats and boots on and load into my truck. Sunday evenings have become family supper nights at Mom and Dad’s. We used to gather sporadically, but now that my younger brother, Trevor, is married and expecting a baby any day, Mom has upped the schedule to weekly.
When we walk into Mom and Dad’s, Trevor and his wife, Lexi, are sitting in the family room talking with my brother-in-law, Dane, and my dad. My older sister, Karina, is in the kitchen with Mom.
“Were you two good helpers at Uncle Aiden’s?” Karina asks when the kids come thundering into the kitchen where she’s tearing lettuce for a salad.
