A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [71]
“I’m going for a run,” she said. “That’s the whole problem, you know. We’re just not active enough.”
Cici and Bridget waited until the door had slammed behind her before they let the giggles take over.
Cici glanced again at the labels as she sat beside Bridget at the island. “Not wanting to seem ungrateful or anything, but the last thing we need is more jelly. What we need are labels for vegetable soup.”
Bridget reluctantly tucked the labels into the back of the cookbook. “You don’t think it’s strange? A basket of persimmons is left on our porch the same morning I find a stack of handmade labels—who knows how old they are—for persimmon jelly?”
“Right. And I guess you’re going to tell me the ghost of Emily Blackwell left them there.”
“Well, somebody did.”
“Soup,” Cici insisted, nudging the cookbook. “Soup.”
Bridget turned pages in the book, sipping her coffee. “We’ve got eight gallons of soup in the freezer. Tomato, tomato basil, tomato and okra, tomato with carmelized onion and red wine, cream of tomato, tomato chowder. Corn, corn chowder, cream of corn . . .”
“Okay, I get it. I know we’re going to be glad we have it in the winter, but right now I don’t care if I never see another vegetable.”
“Wait. Here’s something we haven’t made yet. Brunswick stew.”
“I love Brunswick stew.” Cici leaned in to peer at the recipe. “Tomatoes, butter beans, onions, corn . . . this is perfect! We can use all these vegetables in one big stew!”
Bridget wrinkled her nose and she dragged her finger down the list of ingredients. “Venison . . .”
“Use beef,” suggested Cici.
“Duck . . .”
“Chicken.”
“Hog jowls?”
“Pork loin.”
“It says here to slow roast the meat on a spit over an open fire.”
Now it was Cici’s turn to wrinkle her nose. “When was that thing written anyway? During the American Revolution?”
Bridget looked up from the book. “Wait. We’ve got Lindsay’s propane grill stored in the barn. We haven’t used it all summer.”
“We’ve been too busy peeling vegetables.”
“That’s an open flame, isn’t it?”
“It sure is,” agreed Cici. “And while we’re slow roasting the meat, why don’t we grill some of those red peppers that are about to go bad?”
Bridget grinned. “Do you know how much fire-roasted red peppers go for in the supermarket?”
“This is fantastic.” Cici rubbed her hands together, gaining enthusiasm for the project. “We can get rid of every last vegetable in this kitchen today! Do you know how to can fire-roasted red peppers?”
Bridget shrugged. “How hard can it be?”
Cici, remembering the strawberries, said, “Maybe we’ll freeze them.”
A dreamy, serene expression spread across Bridget’s face as she looked around the kitchen. “We could do it. We could really clear out everything in this kitchen today.”
“Except the persimmons,” Cici pointed out.
Bridget’s brow knotted faintly as she thought again about the labels. “I still think it’s weird.”
Cici finished her coffee. “I’m going to get the grill out.”
“We’ll have to go into town to buy the meat.”
“And freezer containers. Don’t forget freezer containers.”
“Of course we can’t do anything until we shell all these butter beans, husk the corn, and peel the tomatoes.”
The two of them stared at each other, momentarily defeated. There was a knock on the back door.
The boy Noah stood there, the perpetual cigarette dangling from his lips, wearing filthy jeans and a faded blue T-shirt with a dragon on it. The temperature hoverered around fifty degrees, and there was gooseflesh on his bare arms. “Gettin’ ready to start splitting your wood,” he said. “Where you want it stacked?”
Bridget didn’t hesitate. She snatched the cigarette from his lips and tossed it over the rail, then grabbed his arm and pulled him inside. “Do you know how to shell butter beans?” she demanded.
When she lived in the suburbs, Lindsay ran two miles every day. Well, maybe not every day, but most days. Some days. The problem with running in the country was that there was no place to run to.
She started jogging around the outside of the pasture fence when the crazed border