“Did you order the piglets this morning?”he asked.
“I forgot this morning, but I was able to do it this afternoon.I ordered five females and one male, just as we discussed.”
Everett’s head jerked up.“Did someone say bacon?”
They all laughed.“It’ll take a year, but then we should have a steady supply of bacon,” Sally told him.“My father was a pig farmer, and I learned a great deal from him.I’m excited to have some pigs again.”
“I volunteered you men to help with the pig barn this weekend,” Maggie told them.“Did you get an idea of when they’ll be here?”
“Katie thought we’d have them by the end of next week.Pigs are so much fun!I get attached to the breeders, but try not to get too close to the ones we plan to butcher.I’ll teach you all how to castrate a piglet.”
Tom flinched at the thought.“Why are we castrating them?”
“If we don’t castrate the males we plan to butcher, they don’t taste right.You want the bacon to taste good, don’t you?”
“We need to listen to Sally,” Maggie said.“I need more bacon in my life.”
“I trust her when it comes to pigs and crops,” Tom said.“But it seems unnecessarily cruel.”
“I’ll not castrate one so you can taste the difference...but you’re eating that whole pig yourself.”
Tom chuckled.“No, you do what’s right, and I’ll follow your lead.”
“Smart man,” Everett said, grinning.
After supper, the men immediately got to work on the fence.Sally offered to help, but Tom told her to make them an evening snack for when they were finished instead.
She went inside to find Maggie and Belle once again doing her dishes.“You two have to stop cleaning my house!I feel bad!”
Belle smiled.“You’ll be watching my baby two days this week, and I’m going to ask you to cook our supper, so I don’t have to do it after hunting all day.Trust me, we’re all going to help each other, and it will come out even in the end.”
“The men want something to snack on when they’re done.Should I bake a cake or cookies?Any suggestions?”
“James has been wanting gingerbread lately.Not the cookies.Just plain gingerbread.Do you think the other men would be happy with that?”Maggie asked.
Belle shrugged.“As far as I can tell, Everett has never met food he didn’t like.”
“I don’t know about Tom yet, but if I don’t have him try new things, I’ll never know.It appears he’s lived for years on just hardtack and jerky.I cannot imagine,” Sally said.
“Let’s make gingerbread then!”Maggie said, sounding excited.
While Maggie whipped up the gingerbread, Sally took her place, wiping the dishes dry and putting them away.“The goat hasn’t been milked this evening.I’m going to go out and take care of that, and we can all have fresh milk with the gingerbread,” Sally said after putting the last dish away.
It wasn’t long before the men called it a night.They’d spent the whole day working, and then worked into the evening on the fence.Sally was thrilled with how they all worked together toward a common goal.Perhaps before her pigs were ready for slaughter, she would have a cold house as well.Life would keep getting better.Planning for the future was the key.
