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“I’m not going to tell you what to do, son. You have to decide what the right thing is for you. But think about what I said at first: I didn’t meet your mom and think right then that I wanted her forever. When I met her, I thought she was a hot piece of ass. Being with her made me want to be with her more, and more, and then forever. Good relationships develop, Dunc. They don’t just pop up fully formed. It sounds like you’re trying to see the destination before you take the ride. That’s a good way never to get on the road at all.” Duncan chuckled softly, and Dad turned a look on him. “Why’s that funny?”
“It’s not funny. It’s good advice. The way you said it, though—you and all the uncles, you all give advice like old biker poets. Everything’s a road and a ride with y’all.”
Now Dad chuckled, too. “Hey, that’s what this life is—a ride on a road, with our family riding along, taking all the turns with us.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Hold on, hold on, I’m not done yet!”
Phoebe shouldered Jethro, a big Angus steer, out of her way and finished tightening the final bolt. She gave the last new cattle brush a good tug to make sure it was firmly affixed, and got out of the way.
“There ya go!”
Jethro almost ran her down in three steps, getting to the bright blue bristles. He rubbed his chin over them, and his eyes rolled up. He actually moaned.
Phoebe looked over to make sure Mickey was getting the whole scene on video. Sometimes he lost focus and forgot to keep recording, but he was on the job this afternoon.
Despite a few conversations with charity heads and grant officers that indicated how much effort Lydia Copperman was devoting to trying to take her down all the pegs, Phoebe was feeling extra confident that Ragamuffin Ranch would weather the storms of one Mega-Karen, no matter how rich and influential she was. She’d done a new fundraising push on social media, and the fruits of those efforts were already ripening.
The UPS truck had made an appearance today, with several Amazon boxes—she’d put out a link to her wish list, and gifts were rolling in. Amongst an array of other much-needed supplies, somebody had donated six big cattle brushes. Just about enough for the whole motley herd.
They weren’t the mechanical kind, which spun on rollers like car-wash brushes, but in her mind these bolt-down ones were better. No mechanisms to break down. Just good places where the animals could get a scritch whenever they wanted, and could scrape off their own mud and not have to wait until grooming time. Also less grooming for the humans to manage. Wins all around.
Now, in both pastures, the animals were enjoying orgasmic scritch-a-thons, vying for space on the bristles. All but Titan, who stood at stalwart attention in the horse pasture, monitoring his charges, and Smoky, who was counting down his time in quarantine.
“Hey, Mick, look over there.” She pointed to the bright-yellow brush on the other side of the gate, where Derek, Justin, and Brad, the goats, where rubbing their faces in almost perfect unison. Mickey turned and focused Phoebe’s phone on them.
Later, she’d turn the camera on herself for a moment and say thank you, and tonight, she’d cut the footage together into a three-minute version for social media and a longer one for Patreon. She’d never imagined herself being a ‘content creator,’ and she’d prefer not to have to add her noise to the cacophony online, but that content creation was why the Ragamuffin herd had just been gifted about two thousand dollars’ worth of goodies, not to mention being able to afford hay and vet care and everything else, so she’d keep making noise.
Once they had enough footage, Phoebe took her phone back, and she and Mickey gathered up the tools and the empty boxes and headed back toward the barn.
“Mr. Vin’s coming,” Mickey observed about halfway across the yard.
Phoebe looked over and saw Vin heading their way, bundled up against the cold. Noticing the extra hitch in his gait that suggested his prosthetic was rubbing wrong on his stump as he navigated the gravel paths, she told Mickey, “Go on in. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Will you flatten the boxes for me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said and continued to the barn.
