“Sure, go ahead. Go quietly out the far door so as not to startle the young moose, okay? And watch for its mother. She should be close by. Stay clear of her.”
“Okay.”
Rays of early sunlight topped the trees and illuminated the greenhouse. In minutes the temperature in the glass enclosure soared. Abel went through the large structure and lifted hinged glass panels off cold frames and row covers off crops on the floor. A sea of Dutch mache, Swiss chard, beet tops, mizuna, komatsuna, bok choi and radicchio lettuce—all young, tender greens—greeted the light. He went from greenhouse to greenhouse for an hour, lifting glass, pulling poly covers and bringing to light a riot of edible greens and herbs.
The complex of thirty-six growing houses was the cornerstone of the new town and one of its larger financial hearts. Each morning, dozens of people from the little village converged on the enclosures and went to work tending the plants, sowing new seeds, harvesting mature crops for wholesale market and picking free food for lunch and dinner.
The great greenhouse array was the culmination of Abel’s pioneering research into the development of indoor year-round food production. Most of the structures produced copious crops in every season without so much as an added BTU of heat. So productive and cost-effective was the nested coldframe/greenhouse system that agronomists from temperate climates around the world flocked to the Minnesota bluff country to observe Abel’s agricultural complex and practices so that they might be duplicated elsewhere. Advocates for sustainable culture and environmentally sound development badgered him constantly to travel and lecture about his work. He had just returned from a three-day weekend of seminars at Davis, California, where he’d been the primary attraction.
The man finished his rounds and walked out into the slanting white October sunshine. It was chilly, down to twenty-six degrees Fahrenheit, but the patriarch of the experimental community reveled in the cool temperatures.
On the greenhouse knoll above the community center, Abel turned to survey the forest and grassland domain along the bluffs. He pushed fingers through his auburn hair, its strands long enough to turn up at his collar. The hair had gone gray in a streak. His sideburns were the color of flu ash already. He needed his glasses at times now.
Abel exploited a vibrant physiology. He jogged most days along the bluffs and worked in the greenhouses tirelessly. His love of teaching brought him into the village’s school classrooms on occasion for lessons with the youngsters. Not a day went by when he was not teaching several courses any time the adult education center, the Institute for Total Life Skills, was in session. At night, he would sit hunched over his computer and write for several hours.
The founder of the village watched the sun swab saffron pigment across the eastern-most plains of South Dakota and ebony Big Stone Lake, resting below at the foot of the glacial debris that gave form to the bluffs, before turning to descend to the community kitchen below.
“Good day to you, my liquid friend,” Abel called to the thirty-mile-long finger lake.
“Hello, Abel,” chimed a woman twenty years Abel’s senior, as the village founder entered the kitchen of the Independency village Community Center, the facility all in town called the CC.
“And a good morning to you, Ms. Markham,” smiled the man.
Penny Markham was in the great kitchen most mornings. She loved the company of people who loved her food.
“This morning I made your daughter and her new friend very, very happy.”
“Oh, you did? And what magic did you perform for them this morning?”
“I started them off with stewed raspberries in warm goat’s milk, then I gave them a hot biscuit and honey from Oleg’s new hives.”
“How many other courses did you feed my little one, Penny?”
“Well, Pelee helped me make quiches.”
“Any left?”
“Of course, Abel. Sit down and I’ll get you a slice.”
“Coffee on yet?”
“What kind of a foolish question is that?”
“I can’t live without coffee. It’s the one vice I cultivate.”
“A little vice now and again will keep you young and frisky, Abel. You don’t look like a Puritan to me.”
Abel gnawed away at the edge of his lower lip. “I feel like a Puritan, Penny.”
Penny leveled her eyes over the rim of her glasses and surveyed the visitor. “I know this will sound awfully old-fashioned, but you need a companion.”
“Who would want an old radical like me?” The man eyed a fly on the ceiling.
“I’m plumb serious, Abel. You’re a decent fellow. You need a good woman.”
“Okay, Penny, you’re my woman from now on.”
“I’m old enough to be your grandmother and you know it. Here, take some of my quiche, you middle-aged fool.” Penny placed a heaping plateful of quiche in front of Abel and slipped a warm biscuit alongside.
“You can call me middle-aged anytime, Penny. But fool? That’s going too far.”
“You do need female companionship, Abel. It’s the natural order of things.”
“I need a few pounds less of your calories, Penny. That’s what I need.”
“You won’t have a serious conversation with me today, will you?”
“No, ma’am. I’m too well fed to be serious.”
“If you come in tomorrow, I’m going to whack you with an iron skillet. Maybe then we’ll have a serious conversation.”
“If you hit me with a skillet, Penny, that’s the last conversation I’ll ever have.”
Both of them laughed heartily.
“Hear from your ex, Abel?”
“Yes. She calls Pelee every few days. Liz is at Yellowstone National Park, conducting a study of sorts. She says there are odd things going on there. She was called in by the Park Service to sort it all out.”
“What things?”
“I don’t know, really. Apparently some areas in the park have heated up a good deal. The Park Service had to close several popular tourist spots because the ground is too hot. There’s a large lake in the park, too, you know. Liz wants to study what is happening on the floor of the lake. She says some odd feature could be dangerous sometime.”
“Dangerous?”
“I guess so. Maybe it could create a new geyser. That’s all I know.”
“Is she coming back this way soon?”
“She’ll be back east for a week at Thanksgiving and then again through the holidays. She hates being away from Pelee for so long.”
“Well, of course she does. But you take good care of Pelee. She can’t mind that.”
“No, she doesn’t mind in the least. She thinks this is the best place on the planet for Pelee.”
“It is indeed.”
Abel nibbled the quiche. The wedge was light and saturated with delicate flavor.
“What are you up to today?” asked the overlord of the kitchen, booting up her laptop computer on a counter in the large community kitchen.
“The new wave comes in for the Total Life classes. I’ll jump in, greet everybody and get everyone motivated, as always. You’ve got your work cut out for you tonight.”
“We’ll put on a fine meal.”
“I have no doubt about that.”
“How does this sound, Abel? I’ve got it up here on the screen.” Penny went to the computer, leaned over and began reading from a list. “Let’s see. We’ll have spicy white bean and cabbage soup with hot whole-wheat biscuits and chutney. Then we have our big salad with a little of everything we grow. Our entree will be the sampler from around the world: one small corn tortilla with refried beans and our bell and hot pepper salsa, a breaded tilapia filet, a curried egg and lentil ball and, oh, grilled shitake mushrooms topped with melted cheddar.”
“May I come to dinner, too?”