“I can live with that.” Dana smiled over at him. “Looks like a party going on,” she said, gesturing to the huge cedar home, walking through the picket fence gate that he’d opened for her.
“The ranchers and farmers are really tight here in the valley and their families are very good friends with one another,” he said, taking the lead. A few more steps up to the porch and he knocked on the door.
“Well, well,” Mary crowed, opening the door moments later, “you finally made it, Colin! Come on in. Hi, Dana!”
Mary Bishop was wearing a dark purple jacket, a fuchsia blouse with ruffles, and trousers.
“Good to see you again, Mary,” Dana said.
Mary grabbed Dana and gave her a fierce hug and released her. “You’re looking better!”
The hug reminded Dana sharply of how her mother would bear-hug her as a child and she quickly forced tears away over that memory. Stepping away after returning the hug, albeit a much more gentle embrace, she said, “Why wouldn’t I? So many good things have happened to me in the last day, that my head is spinning. I can’t keep count of all that’s going on at the ranch this week and next.”
Cackling, Mary reached over and squeezed Colin’s left hand. “I think this gent here filled you in on everything?”
“He sure did.” She looked around the huge space, the kitchen to her left, the dining room in front of her, and beyond that, a huge living room with a floor-to-ceiling fireplace where a fire crackled and popped, the warmth welcoming her.
Sliding her hand around Dana’s left arm, Mary said, “Come on, you need to meet your new neighbors. We’re all sittin’ around in the living room chawing and waiting on our two-dinner meal.” She grinned elfishly and added, “Wait till you taste Louise’s cooking. She’s made a vegetarian meal for us women, and a meat meal for the guys.”
“That’s wonderful that we can have vegan food here tonight. I was dreading an all-beef meal.”
Mary led her into the living room. “Not while I’m alive! I’ve been vegetarian all my life and look at me! No one thinks I’ve lived so many decades.” She chuckled.
Dana was introduced to Logan and Lea Anderson, the owners of the largest ranch in the valley. Then she shook hands with Chase, and his wife, Cari, who gave her a warm, welcoming hug. Cari looked very pregnant and Dana guessed she might be seven months along. Sitting down next to Colin on an antique pink velvet settee, she was served peppermint tea with honey, while Colin received coffee from Louise, who held a silver tray with sugar, plus cream for those who wanted it. She noted he took his coffee black.
Dana liked all of the families, the feeling in the room one of coziness, camaraderie, and she absorbed their moments of laughter. Pretty soon, just listening to the chatter back and forth between good friends, she discovered Logan had also been in the military. The idea of hundreds of beehives as a business was new to Dana, and she listened intently whenever Cari spoke about the enterprise, which had been surprisingly successful.
“Cari?” she asked, “I’m planning on eighty acres of fruits and vegetables. Could beehives help pollinate more of my crop if I had them there?”
Cari nodded. “Absolutely. Originally”—she gave her husband a warm look—“when Chase hired me to come and create a major beehive plan for his ranch, his hay, vegetable, and fruit orchard production was at a certain level. I had our team install two hundred hives around the ranch. This year”—she smiled over at Chase—“his production has nearly doubled.”
“Wow,” was all Dana could manage. “That much?”
Chase said, “It blew me away, too, Dana.”
“But I thought bees were in decline,” she said to Cari.
“Unfortunately, they are globally, and it’s mostly due to pesticides, herbicides, and now, the GMO threat to them.”
Wrinkling her nose, Dana muttered, “I told Mary when we got together, that everything I am going to raise will be organic.”
Mary said, “It’s the only way to go. Did you know that Cari and her team are now reaching out to people in the Silver Creek area, and if they grow a garden, she will supply to them one free beehive, with bees? They’re teaching a whole lot of our neighbors not only how to care for the bees, but their garden crops will produce so much more food for them and their families, as well. It’s a win-win.”
“That’s a wonderful idea,” Dana said, excitement in her tone about the far-reaching program. “But I’d like to be able to buy a lot of beehives.”
“You’re looking at roughly one thousand dollars for each one,” Chase said.
Deflated, she glanced over at Colin, who sat listening intently to the conversation. “Gosh, I don’t have that kind of money, Chase. I mean, I wish I did.”
“We could extend you a one-year promissory note on, say, fifty beehives for your land,” Cari urged, equally excited over the prospect. “We could start a monthly payment plan after your crops come in this fall. There would be no interest on it, either. What do you think?”
Stunned by Cari’s generosity, Dana said, suddenly emotional, “I’d love to do that! I can’t believe you’re offering me such a deal. People nowadays don’t do this.”
Laughing, Cari sipped her tea and said, “Welcome to the Silver Creek Valley, then. I didn’t believe it when I came here, either. Chase made it his mission to show me how everyone worked together. It takes a village, or in this case, all the farmers and ranchers, plus individual folks, all our neighbors, to work together to pull it off. It was so inspiring to me. Since getting married to this guy”—she gave Chase a warm look—“I’ve instituted a neighborhood beehive plan outreach to anyone who wants it.” She pointed to Mary. “It was Mary’s idea, years ago, to help people living in and around the town, to turn their lawns into gardens. She would bring out wranglers, who volunteered their time to prepare the soil to be planted. This was given to the family for free. All that Mary asked was that they would grow organic and never use GMO seeds, and no poisonous pesticides or herbicides on the plants. And Cari and Chase wrote off the beehives as a donation.”
“That’s right,” Mary said. “When I was growing up, we had what we called victory gardens. Every family who owned ground around their home created a huge garden that would give back to them. Canning became the rage and everyone contributed, had big gardens, and they managed for a decade to have food to eat. Otherwise, so many would have starved.”
“And do you teach these neighbors how to can?” Dana wondered.
“At my grocery store, we put on weekly workshops on gardening, growing, canning, dehydrating, and freezing their food for use during the winter.”
“Mary,” Dana said sincerely, “you are just so uplifting. You have so many good, commonsense ideas.”
“Thank you, dear. No moss grows under my feet. I learned a long time ago that when you are successful at something, you pass it on, you teach it, you show others how to do it so that they, too, are successful.”
Everyone traded knowing nods and looks.
“I feel like I’ve gone to another planet,” Dana said, admiring the group.