A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [67]
“It’s times like this,” Bridget said, chopping herbs for a pasta sauce, “that I really miss my library job.”
Cici was washing off the last of the overripe tomatoes they had been able to salvage from the ruins of the garden. “Somehow this is not what I pictured when I decided to move to the country either,” she agreed. “The guy said they have to trim back the poplar tree by the porch,” she added. “Otherwise the whole thing would come down when they felled the hickory tree.”
“I hate to see the hickory tree go. I was going to make a hickory nut cake.”
“It was already dead.”
She sighed. “I know. It’s just a shame.”
Lindsay opened the refrigerator and took out a bag of store-bought lettuce, which she began to shred for a salad. “At least Noah will have plenty of work cutting and stacking all that firewood.”
“Not to mention cutting back the wisteria and cleaning out the dairy barn.”
“You’re damn right,” said Lindsay darkly. “I’m not setting one foot back in there until all the creatures have been cleared out—and that includes dust mites.”
Cici chuckled and scooped a handful of chopped tomatoes into the pan Bridget had prepared. They sizzled softly and released a tangy fragrance as they struck the garlic-infused olive oil. “That should be fun,” she said. “Sanitizing a barn.”
Bridget used her knife to scrape the chopped herbs off the cutting board and into the pot. “What are you going to do about the holes in the wall?”
“Not a problem,” Cici said, “a couple of one-by-sixes and you’ll never know what happened.”
“Oh yes I will,” replied Lindsay morosely. “I’ll never forget it. What I’d like to know,” she added with a touch of weary indignation, “is why all the wildlife is picking on me. First the yellow jackets, then the snake . . . I hate wildlife. I don’t even like the dog.”
“Nobody likes the dog,” Cici pointed out.
To which Bridget replied defensively, “I do.” She poured a measure of red wine atop the tomato and herb mixture and set a pot of water on the back burner to boil. Then she said, “Maybe they’re trying to tell you something. I read a book one time about totems and animal medicine. Every animal has a different message.”
“Great,” said Lindsay. “Now I not only have to worry about being stalked by them, I have to figure out what they’re trying to say.”
“I don’t think bees officially qualify as animals,” Cici said, “so you’re off the hook there. Wait a minute.” She turned toward the window. “The noise has stopped. Do you think they’re finished?”
Bridget turned the heat down under the tomato mixture and all three of them went out onto the porch to survey the results of the afternoon’s work. For the longest time all they could do was stare.
Where once the sprawling hickory tree had framed the meadow, there was now only blue sky and rolling fenced pasture beyond. The newly clipped lawn was littered with leaves and branches and massive chunks of chain-sawed trunk, as far as the eye could see. The air was filled with the bitter smell of stripped hickory leaves and green bark.
Slowly, almost as one, they walked around the porch to the front of the house. The majestic poplar tree, whose shade had once stretched over the entire west side of the house and halfway across the lawn, had been shorn off at roof level. Bare stubs of branches were all that were left of what once had been as much a part of the house as the columned porch or the mansard roof. The porch was carpeted with its green leaves, and its broken branches lay like fallen bodies from the steps to the flower beds.
“Good God,” said Cici, when she could speak.
“It looks like a bomb went off,” Lindsay said, her voice subdued with horror.
“It will take weeks to get all this cleaned up.”
“I guess . . . nobody said anything about