Millie had called me to go over and help her make mustard pickles again, so I was there and busy when Farmbeau came into the house around noon and said “Are you going to feed us?”

I said, both flip and serious, “Feed yourself, you lazy lout,” and followed him to the door to give him a kiss and hug before he bolted out.

I came back here to get some grub out of the fridge to throw together a simple lunch over there for everyone, and saw him heading onto the road in a combine before I could tell him what was up. He is not a person who can skip meals, for he gets faint and headachey (and cranky), so a little later I came back to the house here and gathered up everything edible I could fit into a small cooler, with a couple non-alcohol beer, and hopped into the van to go find him.

Which field would he be in? I felt fortunate to spot him near the first place I looked, and went driving over bumpy pastureland to get to where he was. The heat and humidity was suffocating, and he and his brother had stopped at the corner of a field to dick around with the machinery. They were happy enough to gulp down the beer and nibble on the sausages, cheese, bread, strawberries, and cookies, but Farmbeau said “You drove right through the fence over there, you know.”

Indeed, I had. They had strung electric wire along the edge of the pasture, and I hadn’t seen it as I drove through what I thought was an open gate. This meant they would have to spend some time repairing the damage I’d wrought - and in this heat and at this time when they are so busy -- well, you can imagine what a blind idiot I felt like.

Later I was informed that some of the cattle had gotten out of the pasture while the fence was being fixed, and would need to be chased down.

At the beginning of my evening stroll, Pa came driving past me in the old farm truck and said, through the open window, and with a grin, “Wire ain’t safe from a woman, eh?”

“Nothing is safe from a woman.”

“You got that right!” he said, chuckling as he drove away.

~~my second batch of dill pickles ~~
~ the first batch was soggy and salty ~
~~~~ and went to the pigs ~~~~

4:16 p.m.

Pa calls when I am hurrying to get garden vegetables washed and taken care of, because Millie wants me to go help her make beet pickles. “My son likes them,” she tells me, as if naturally I will want to stock up on his behalf. Little does she know that I feel no traditional obligation to go far out of my way to provide my partner’s dietary delights, and that I am doing it to help her because her back bothers her if she stands too long, and because I like beet pickles too. Tsk. What kind of woman am I? One who has no regrets (in principle, that is; in practice it’s another story) when she hasn’t knocked herself out in the kitchen to take care of, or please, a man.

Anyway, Pa calls.
“My son would like you to take the camera out to the field,” he tells me.
“Okay,” I say, and hurry to finish what I am doing in case Farmbeau has come across a den of baby foxes or something.

I walk across the yard, through a pasture, under the electric wire fence, and over wide swaths of rye. Foolishly, I am wearing my rubber thongs, which live outside because neither rain nor sleet nor hail nor snow at 40 below seems to damage them.

Never wear thongs to walk through stubble. It is hard and pokey and you really need something to protect your ankles.

There are two machines at opposite ends of the field. One is pulling a baler, one is pulling a combine, and I cannot see the drivers from this distance. I don’t know which one Farmbeau is in, but my gut pulls me toward the combine.

By the time I reach the other side of the field, he has stopped and gotten out of the tractor to unplug the combine, and is bent over the front thingy, tugging at stalks of rye clogging the intake thingy.

“Here’s the camera,” I say, holding it out to him when he straightens up. “What did you want a picture of?”

“The combine picking up that wide swath at the end of this row. You’ll have to take it.”

“Oh.” I watch him for a moment, expecting the combine to be unplugged any second. It seems to take forever. He keeps pulling more stalks out and laying them on the swath ahead of us. I think about helping, then that he’ll be done any second so it won’t make much difference but I might be getting in the way if I do. He keeps pulling stalks out and tossing them onto the ground, then going back for more.

“What were you doing?” he asks me. “On the phone?”

“Washing cukes and beans I picked this morning, trying to get them out of the way long enough to go over to your mom’s and help her pickle beets. She’s probably already started.”

“Oh. Sorry to have bothered you then. You didn’t have to come right away.”

“That’s all right, if it doesn’t take long.”

He kept pulling rye out of the combine. I strolled to the end of the swath it was on, eyeballed the field, and took a few pictures before walking back over to Farmbeau, still pulling stuff out of the combine.

We head for the city to shop for vans. My van has been huffing out black smoke recently, so the push is on to find a replacement. It means a day off work for Farmbeau, when he has lots of work to do (but isn’t that always?), but this was a trip scheduled because Grandma had a medical appointment (cancelled as we were walking out the door), and I wouldn’t think of buying a vehicle without his input.

He notices every nick in the paint, every funny sound in the transmission, every rattle coming from somewhere in the back. Me, about all I notice is the colour. You get my meaning: I need his eyes and ears, his knowledge of vehicles, prices, potential problems.

It was a hot, sunny day, and we took his half-ton. I sat next to him on the bench seat; he opened doors for me as he always does; we held hands, snuggled. We talked about the addition to our house as if all we need is a plan and then we can move forward.

***

We drive four vans, twice.

I make a firm offer of $10,000 on a four-door ‘98 Dodge with 63,000 km. They counter, and we say no thanks and leave. We are willing to shop until we get a great deal. If this proves to be the best deal we can find, I’ll come back.

Back home, I go for a sunset ramble.

I’ve decided to buy a van for trips where the four of us go places together, and fix up Farmbeau’s old Chev for running around between the farm and town.

It’s a diesel and needs a heater and a new battery and some other repairs, but it sounds like he is willing to let me put it to use. I’ve had my eye on it for some time already. Give me a half-ton over a sportscar or a luxury sedan any day.

I learned to drive on a Chev truck, though Dad got a three-quarter-ton four-on-the-floor after that, and learning to shift gears was accomplished on icy winter roads with my father’s hands dug up to the knuckles in the dash and his voice shrieking in my ear, “Get your foot off the brake!”

Now I just have to get it in off the pasture, where it was used as a fence this summer.