At Home on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [5]
Dodging the snapping, lunging attentions of Rebel, the sheepdog who spent most of his days lying under the porch and dreaming up ways to make the lives of the human inhabitants of the house miserable, Lori crossed the scrubby patch of winter lawn toward the back garden. A warm breeze tossed playful shadows across the ground and dappled her skin with a lacework of sunlight. The air smelled like baby grass and daffodils and the flock of sheep, grazing contentedly in the meadow that stretched beyond the house, looked like a painting. Bambi, the pet deer who had followed Lindsay home from a walk one day, grazed along the fence line with his rope harness trailing the ground, plucking up the juiciest blades of new spring grass.
Lori grinned happily and raised her arm in greeting as she approached the back garden spot where Bridget, wearing an oversize, long-sleeve chambray shirt and a big floppy hat, had stuck four sticks into the muddy ground about forty feet apart, and was carefully winding twine around them to form a large square.
With her short platinum bob, round, girlish face, and too-big clothes, Bridget looked more like Lori’s sister than her aunt. In fact, she was not really Lori’s aunt, and neither was Lindsay. But the two women had been her mother’s best friends since before Lori was born. Bridget’s two children, Kevin and Kate, were adults now and Kate even had twin girls of her own, but Lori had grown up with them as though they were cousins or even siblings. Bridget and Lindsay had been part of all of Lori’s holidays and every vacation; they had picked her up from school when her mother was sick and had made her lunch when her mother had to meet with a client. They had held her hands at her grandmother’s funeral. They were better than aunts. They were, to Lori, second and third mothers.
When Cici, Bridget, and Lindsay had impulsively decided to give up their suburban Maryland lifestyle and buy a crumbling mansion in the Virginia countryside together, some people had been surprised. But not Lori. Some people had predicted that three women living together, especially in rural isolation, were doomed to ruin their friendship. Lori had not. From her twenty-year-old perspective, they had always been together, and quite simply always would.
“Hi, Aunt Bridget,” Lori called as she approached. “Wouldn’t you like to have—”
“Satellite television and high-speed Internet for the low introductory price of $99 a month?” replied Bridget, concentrating on the knot she was tying in the twine. “Can’t. We don’t have a clear view of the southern sky.”
Lori stared at her, then at the brochure in her hand. Her face fell as she read the small print regarding the necessity for a clear view of the southern sky. “How did you know?” she asked.
“I saw the same flyer in today’s paper. Besides, we checked out satellite Internet service when we first moved in. Come and hold this string for me, will you, sweetie, while I tie this?”
Lori stuffed the brochure in her back pocket and hurried to help. “What are you building? An addition to the house?”
“Our garden,” replied Bridget, securing the twine and regarding with satisfaction her perfectly cordoned-off square of crabgrass, dandelions, and vetch weed.
“It’s awfully big,” replied Lori skeptically.
“We have a lot of mouths to feed.”
“Um, supermarket?” suggested Lori.
“Excuse me? This from the girl who has been preaching to us all winter about carbon footprints and social consciousness? Don’t you know that growing your own food is the most ecologically responsible thing you can do?”
“Well, that’s true.” Lori’s expression brightened. “Good for you, Aunt Bridget.”
“It’s a lot of work, you know.”
“Nobody said saving the planet was easy.”
Bridget said, “As soon as you and Noah dig up the ground, I’ll mark off the rows. These first two will be for sweet peas, and back up against the fence there we’ll plant corn, beans, and cucumbers. Over there where we get strong afternoon sun,