Dulsie always appreciated how things had a way of working out for the best. They would be getting a bigger farm where she could really develop her efforts to help preserve a heritage breed. And hopefully soon after she and Shad got settled in they could get started on a family, whereupon Dulsie would leave her job as a financial counselor and devote her time to their home and farm.
Shad’s income in the last year and a half was more modest than it had been during his first year and a half as a staff attorney, but Dulsie had learned thrift at Mom’s knee. She also figured his earnings would go up as Shad became more established, whether in spite of or because of his insistence to keep himself affordable to the middle and lower earning classes. Dad claimed his current farm did only a little better than break even, which was why he did side work as a self-employed handyman and Mom worked in an accounts receivable office. It was hard for a family farm to thrive in these modern times, but it was a lifestyle Dulsie didn’t want to give up.
When she moved into a dorm in Columbia for her freshman year of college, Dulsie quickly confirmed that she didn’t like city life. It was nice that Shad, who’d already completed a couple of years in college and had moved into an apartment in Columbia the previous year, was there to show her around, run errands with her, share rides.... Dulsie had never imagined they would wind up getting married less than two years after that. And to think she once believed there was no way Dulsie would ever get married before actually graduating from college.
It was one of the arguments Mom used when Dulsie and Shad got engaged. Dulsie was too young. And although Dulsie agreed that only twenty years old qualified as young, she wasn’t getting married for the same reasons as many other women who married so youthfully. She wasn’t fleeing a bad home life or seeking someone to help her achieve “independence” from her parents. Dulsie and Shad were both fully aware that “young love” was more like a stream – all bubbly and exciting but lacking in much practical use – while mature love was more like a major river, which might look slow and a bit dull but was the force that contained enduring power. Shad wasn’t trying to rush her into anything and was absolutely determined that Dulsie’s own studies would continue unabated. They shared the same values, and Shad was showing all the qualities of a reliable family man. After all, he had learned to be so at Uncle Pax’s knee. Getting married just before Shad started law school would be both convenient and challenging, although Dulsie now admitted she didn’t fully realize just how consuming law school would be, even for someone as bookish as Shad. She quipped that if their marriage could survive that first three years, it could survive anything.
As they both scanned about the garden for a ripe vegetable that might be hiding, Dulsie remembered how nice it was that Shad no longer had to contemplate any free time as a chance to catch up on lost sleep. He’d dared to also continue working as a part-time night janitor while in law school, which probably only “brainiacs” like him could get away with.
“I think we got it all,” Dulsie glanced at Shad. Because they were working in the garden on a morning that was quickly getting hotter, they were dressed in summer work clothes. Shad was wearing denim shorts and a light green tee shirt, and Dulsie had on tan cotton shorts and a yellow tee shirt.
Dulsie turned her attention toward Sadie. The large white dog was lying outside the garden. Not only did the short fence keep her out, Sadie knew better than to try coming through the gate to join her masters. The dog was too bulky and klutzy to avoid trampling the plants. Her thick white coat looked pretty rough this time of year because the dog would pull out her own shedding hair as a way to cope with the heat, which actually sort of added to how intimidating Sadie could appear when she started to bark.
Barking was the first recourse in Sadie’s job to guard the turkeys. Although actually quite friendly, especially to people she knew, Sadie left no doubt in a coyote’s or stray dog’s mind that she would shred it to bits if it ventured too close. Dulsie was also quite proud that the dog had even mauled a couple of opossums and a raccoon in the past three years.
“What’re your plans for all this?” Shad glanced between their baskets of produce.
“Make fried okra and tomatoes for lunch.” Dulsie looked down at her own basket. “Have green beans with supper tonight. Make a squash casserole to take to dinner tomorrow.”
Every Sunday after First Day meeting, their families would gather at either the Wekenheiser home or the Delaney house to share a meal and visit.
“You sure about the casserole?” Shad asked. “You know we’re all eating squash these days.”
Dulsie laughed. “If we don’t eat them, they’ll take over the planet.”
“Maybe you could take some to work after this weekend and give them to your coworkers.”
“Are you kidding?” Dulsie grinned at him. “This time of year they make sure they lock their cars so nobody can leave a bag of squash in there.”
Dulsie led the way out of the garden, and after Shad closed the gate they walked together toward the house. Sadie lumbered to her feet and trotted over to one of the oak trees beside the house to lie down again in a shady area.
There was a stoop on the back corner of their house closest to the turkey gate. The door there opened into the kitchen, and when Dulsie and Shad entered they set the baskets on the counter beside the sink.
Dulsie had nicknamed this place the Handyman’s Delusion. It wasn’t a bad house, really, but it had issues related to both its age and the changing styles of the times. From the outside it was sort of cute with its broad front porch and white clapboard siding. But the inside showed either signs of wear or evidence where past repairs had been performed. The house was also a testament to modeling changes over the last eighty years.
With its two bedrooms and one bathroom it was only one room larger than the apartment they had rented while still living in Columbia. There was still no central air or heating installed, so a small furnace stood in one corner of the living room and a window air conditioner was perched at the side wall. Dulsie and Shad had added another cooling unit to one of their bedroom windows.
Every room but the bathroom had two windows, and all had all been replaced with aluminum storm windows over thirty years ago, adding to the eclectic timeframe of the house. The windows really did need replacing again. They were drafty and provided, Dulsie suspected, some of the many entryways the mice used to regularly show up in the house. At least during the summertime her discoveries of mice were much rarer because the snakes were as adept at getting in. Dulsie decided she preferred snakes to mice, but the first time somebody offered her a free kitten she would snatch it up.
Shad started taking tomatoes out from their baskets and setting the fruits closer to the sink while Dulsie picked up the wooden cutting board and drew a chef’s knife from the block at the other end of the counter.
“Beat it.” Dulsie walked around Shad and set the implements to the other side of the baskets.
Shad arched an eyebrow at her as he set the last tomato on the counter. “Looks like you mean it.”
Shad deferred to Dulsie in the kitchen. Although he could cook – his parents had seen to that – Shad needed a recipe and the right ingredients for any dish beyond “the basics.” Dulsie could look in the pantry and the refrigerator, fix items together and produce a meal. She would ask for Shad’s help whenever she had multiple tasks in operation, but otherwise like a typical Leeds woman Dulsie preferred to hone her cooking skills without someone less inventive in her way.