AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That’s right.”
“But you…what do you do with them? I know people sometimes keep sheep for…for meat.”
“Arrgh!” I close Gerald’s ears before he hears. “Not here.”
“But pretty soon, the sheep are going to overrun the place if you don’t keep the males and females separate.”
“They don’t breed like rabbits or anything, and I have lots of land. I can always build a bigger barn.” She’s probably right, though. Unless a few sheep go for the castration operation, I’m going to be overrun here. She might have a point. “I’ll look into it.”
“Okay. But then you wouldn’t have any more milk, right? If you don’t have more lambs?”
She’s also right about that. “I can find someone else selling sheep cheese if I’m hard up for it.”
“Are you sure? It doesn’t seem that common.”
“There are lots of farms around here. Plus, I’ll still have lambs for a while. I won’t have to worry about that.”
“Maybe you can just keep one male, uh,intact, but then what if he was naughty and jumped all the ladies? He’d have to be separated, and that wouldn’t be any fun for him. He’d probably be so lonely.”
“Sometimes, I do separate them. As I said, I have lots of land. The mothers and babies often need their own space. Everyone is a little bit older already and doing well, but I generally do have them by themselves for the entire afternoon and, of course, in their stalls at night, where they have their privacy.”
“That sounds like a lot of work.”
“I don’t have a job anymore. And this isn’t work. It’s a passion. I enjoy having these animals.”
“Do the chickens just roam freely all day long?”
“For the most part, yes. They have their coop they can go into. Shaggy keeps any predators away, so I haven’t lost one yet. I think I’m unique in that, but this area doesn’t have a lot of foxes and wolves that I’ve seen.”
“And the cats?”
“They keep the mice population down. And having the chickens roam freely helps keep down bugs like ticks.”
Nina’s face blanches. “Oh my god. Ticks? You have those here?”
“Generally not this late into the summer, but occasionally.”
She does a little dance on the spot, high-stepping each leg. She found a pair of vintage cowboy boots at the thrift store yesterday, and she paired them this morning with a frilly yellow skirt trimmed in lace that looks totally handmade. It fits her well, but it doesn’t match at all with the T-shirt with the super scary clown face on it. She laughed at my expression when she came out of the bedroom after I suggested that we go out and pet the sheep. I’m horrified by clowns, and she admitted she is too, but she had to get the shirt.
“You’re wearing boots. The chances of getting one out here in the low grass aren’t very good. Stay out of the tall stuff, and you’ll be fine. But boots help too. Boots and socks in the boots and pants tucked into socks.”
“Holy god, how do you stand it?”
“If I get one, I just tweeze it off, but they’re honestly not bad. I hardly ever find them on any of the animals out here either.”
As if to prove that I’m telling the truth, Shaggy walks over to the fence. He stays on the other side, gives himself a good shake, lets all that rippling white fur go where the wind will take it, and then flops onto his back. He rubs himself all over the grass and lets out doggie groans because he’s clearly hitting the itchy spot.
“Well, you probably have chores and stuff to do. I don’t know what it entails other than feeding everyone, so I’ll go back in and make something for us. Something that isn’t blended up spoon smoothie. No smoothie at all, actually, seeing as I cooked your blender.” She frowns. “I’ll work it off. The debt, I mean. For my car and the blender. I know I only have a week, but I can—”
“Don’t worry about that stuff. Call it a gift, and call it accidents happen. Life is so often a comedy of errors, but it’s not funny. Whoever came up with that should have called it a tragedy of errors. I guess other people might find it funny, but when it’s happening, it’s not amusing at all.”
Nina’s nose wrinkles. I can tell she doesn’t like me describing her life that way. She stays silent, though, holding in her opinions about it. “What are you going to do now?” she asks, catching me off guard.
“Now?” I think I know what she means, though I don’t know if I want to answer her.
“Now that you don’t have a job. You sold your software. I know that much. And you made tons of money. You don’t need to work, but aren’t you going to get bored out here? Escape is one thing, and having a passion is beautiful, but what now? What are your next steps?”
My first instinct is to deflect. “What areyournext steps?”
