“I brought lots of quarters,” Erik said, pulling a nice handful out of his pocket.
“Yes,”Gael exclaimed, handing Jenny his cider so he could focus on the chickens.
Jenny gave Erik a big smile, hoping he could see how grateful she was that he had thought of thissmall thing that was bringing Gael such big happiness.
Working together, they carefully placed a quarter in a little machine that looked like it was for gumballs and then turned the knob. Gael laughed brightly when a handful of corn poured out of the little metal door and into his cupped hands.
“Ten-tay,”he called to the chickens as he threw a few kernels of corn into one of the pens.“Ten-tay.”
“What does that mean?” Jenny asked him.
“I’m not exactly sure,” he said, turning to her with a puzzled look. “But my abuela had chickens when she was a little girl, and she told me that’s what she said to make them come get their food. Feeding them was one of her chores.”
“That’s really cool,” Jenny told him. “We’ll look it up and find out exactly what it means.”
That got her a quick smile before he turned back to continue his happy task.
“I’m so glad we came,” she heard herself say.
“Me too,” Erik agreed. “This is really fun.”
After the chickens, they continued on to see the goats, a few deer, and even a duck pond with a little bridge over it. When they went out onto the bridge, the ducks swam around and scolded them for not immediately offering food. Once again, Erik put a quarter in the little machine, and Gael threw his handful of pellets across the pond to the happy ducks.
By the time they were finished with the animals, Gael’s cheeks were pink from the cold and even Jenny was shivering a little.
“Should we head out?” Erik asked. “Or did you want to check out the playground or the Christmas shop?”
“Didn’t we already see the Christmas shop?” Gael asked.
“That was the nursery,” Erik told him. “But there’s a Christmas shop upstairs in the barn, and that has Christmas things all year long.”
“Yes,” Gael said immediately. “Let’s dothat.”
“Sounds great,” Jenny said, happy at Gael’s choice. Every time the boy showed his Christmas spirit, she was grateful that losing his grandmother hadn’t taken away his love of the holidays.
As they headed back to the stone barn, Jenny couldn’t help admiring the displays of wreaths and bins of apples outside.
When they stepped in, there was a huge market filled with produce and jars of things like preserves and local honey, and also a little sign pointing to a set of stairs.
“This way,” Erik said, heading up the stairs.
Jenny followed with Gael by her side. The stairs wound around the outside wall of the barn and opened up to a beautiful shop.
The center of the octagonal space had displays ofhandmade crafts. There were beautiful candles, knit scarves and gloves, and gorgeous mugs with wreaths or snowy scenes that were just imperfect enough to be hand-thrown pottery.
The outside of the room was lined with a forest of Christmas trees, each decorated with a theme. The ornaments on the trees had little paper tags and Jenny realized that the trees were offering ornaments that were for sale, like a much nicer version of the racks in an ordinary shop.
The whole space smelled like cinnamon, though whether that was from the candles or the decorations, Jenny wasn’t sure. Twinkle lights crossed the ceiling, giving the softly lit shop the effect of a starry night.
“It’s beautiful,” she murmured.
“Look at that,” Gael said, heading right for the trees.
“Let’s be super careful,” she reminded him as he reached for a miniature wooden nutcracker hanging from one of the branches. “A lot of this stuff is probably really delicate.”
“Okay,” Gael said solemnly, pulling his hand back and just looking instead.
“Thanks for stopping in,” a young woman said politely as she approached. “My name is Melody. Let me know if you need anything at all. Everything is discounted today for our after Christmas sale.”
