“Hi, this is Ellen McKenna. I just wanted to check to see if you needed anything before the storm hits. Jake and Mateo are in the field right now, but I can send them over if you need help. Let me know.” She hung up.
“No answer?” Penny said.
“Grandma, they’re probably doing what we’re doing. They have dozens of sheep that need to be secured. If I don’t hear back from them in an hour, Avery can check on them. She would love to spend time with Gianna.”
“Avery can come with me,” Penny said with a smile. “She has her permit and drives better than most young people today.”
Living on a farm meant that all her kids drove on the property, except Bobby, because he wasn’t tall enough.
“No one is driving on the road today,” Ellen said. Why didn’t Penny understand that the roads were crap? The last thing she needed was her eighty-four-year-old grandmother and fifteen-year-old daughter stuck in the mud, even only a mile away.
Penny scowled. It had been hard on her, moving back into the house where she’d raised her family. When John and Ellen had married twenty years ago, Penny and Milton had moved into the original house on their property, across Orchard Lane, where they had lived the first ten years of their marriage. They gave John and Ellen the larger house as a wedding present. Ellen had brokendown and cried when they gifted her the keys. She’d never had a stable home; her dad had moved them all over Texas and Oklahoma, wherever he could find work.
Then, three years ago when Milton died, since Penny could no longer drive, John had insisted she move back into the house. Penny reluctantly agreed. It was an adjustment—especially in the kitchen—but Ellen loved John’s grandmother. Her grandparents had never been a part of her life, and when she went to her own grandmother’s funeral several years ago she didn’t recognize most of her distant family or her family’s friends. Her parents had divorced, her mom had a new family and lived in Oregon, and Ellen could count on one hand the times she had met her two half brothers who weren’t much older than Jake.
“If Rose calls, let me know,” Ellen said as she pulled on her boots in the mudroom. “After I check on Lyla, I’ll ride over to the Coulters.”
Penny gave her a look that essentially saidyou’re a hypocrite.
Ellen didn’t want to argue with her; she could reach the Coulters on horseback without even going on the road.
Sometimes, she felt like she had five children.
Ellen trekked through the muddy yard to the barn. The area around the barn was unusually wet; the storm over the weekend and the sudden downpour last night had saturated the ground. They had placed sandbags all around the base, so hopefully that would protect the foundation.
She walked over to the drainage ditch at the lowest part of the yard and scooped up the leaves, then used a push broom to clear more debris and mud. The drain looked clear, so when the rain came, it should be sufficient to handle the overflow and prevent the barn from flooding.
In the barn, her thirteen-year-old daughter, Lyla, had everythingunder control. The horses already had their blinders on and were secure in their pens. Their two dairy cows had been milked, and Lyla had strained the milk and poured it into glass containers, which would be labeled and stored in the refrigerator. Fresh milk lasted up to a week, and when Betsy and Susie were in full lactation, Ellen sold the raw milk to a farm in neighboring Grayson County that used it to make yogurt and cheese. They were both near the end of the lactation cycle, so Ellen wouldn’t be making a large sale anytime soon.
Fresh hay and water had been distributed to all the animals, and Lyla had let the sheep and goats out to graze in the secure pen rather than the field, which would make it easier to corral them back into the barn. The chickens were out in their own pen, and Lyla promised to shoo them back into the chicken house as soon as the rain started.
Distant thunder told Ellen it would be sooner rather than later.
“Have you checked the sandbags?” she asked Lyla.
“Before Jake and Mateo left, we walked around the barn. There’s a few spots that I need to repair. Jake hooked up the trailer on the tractor, so I’ll get it done. There’s a couple wet spots in the barn, I don’t know why. Jake said he’d inspect them when he gets back, but for now I’m going to double up the sandbags on each corner.”
Lyla was so dependable it was almost scary.
“Do you think there’s a leak in the roof?” Ellen asked, looking up, her heart pounding uncomfortably. Reminding her that John had died here, outside this barn, when he fell from the roof. There was no way she was sending one of her kids up there to look.
“I don’t know, I can—”
“Stay away from the roof.” Ellen had hired someone to make the repairs that John had been working on when he fell. “I’ll find someone to take a look.”
Lyla nodded; her face suddenly sad.
Ellen rubbed Lyla’s back, gave her a side hug, and kissed herhead. Her kids had all been close to their father and missed him as much as Ellen.
She suppressed her own wave of grief because she needed to be strong for her kids. “Are you good here for about an hour? I’m going to ride over to the Coulters, but it won’t take long.”
“Yeah, I’m on top of it. The prep last week is making it easier this morning. Though I wish I knew how the water was getting into the barn.”
“We’ll figure it out when I get back.” Ellen glanced around and said, “I thought Bobby was in here.”
Lyla rolled her eyes. “He went out to look for that stray cat. Whiskey’s with him.”
“Whiskey’s going to need a bath,” Ellen muttered. The dog was not going to be happy being trapped in the mudroom, but if he was out in the wet fields, he was going to be filthy when they came back.
