I remembered a trip to Aunt Fern's farm today. This time it was without my darling cousins to keep me safe. Dad had some business in the area and my mother was having one of her 'visits' to the locked wing of some hospital or other. It had been decided I would spend some time with Aunt Fern and what ever relatives were around.
During my two week stay, it was decided that I needed to be kept busy during the dreary days of not quite spring but not winter. The seedlings had been nursed through to optimin leafiness and were in grow pots throughout the house. In my bedroom, I had to dance a careful tarantalla through my room and a maze of grow-lights to make it out to the cold bathroom. Aunt Fern sniffed at my ineptness. More than once she uttered "Thank goodness we're not asking her to keep the chicks warm." That dubious pleasure fell to Uncle Bob, who, at night, was surrounded by the baby chickens, just hatched, and they relied on his extra body warmth at night for succour. Such was the strange way my Aunt and Uncle's farmed. Everyone did something extra. Poor Uncle Bob was so frightened that he might accidentally roll over and squish one of the chicks, he was getting very little, if any sleep.
The days were warming up and according to the Almanac, and my Aunt's unfailing bargaining with Jesus, it was time for planting. Though accoustomed to some gardening, I had no idea of just what persnickity work this would turn out to be. With the spring sun beating down on me, I planted row upon row of vegetable I would never be able to recognize if there hadn't been a little stick at the end of each row with Aunt Fern's neat handwriting on it.
Uncle Ted, a more distant Uncle, since he had gone out into the big bad world and come back covered in colorful tattoo's was helping us out. He always helped with planting, hoeing and most of the chores. Aunt Fern would scold him terribly, but he bore up under he tongue lashings just fine. He would have a twinkle in his eye and generally have a hard candy or two to share with a niece when the Aunt wasn't looking. "Just coz she has some hardness she has to show the world, doesn't mean to say there isn't some sweetness in there, Little Kennedy. She just done forgot how to let the kindess out, is all."
I had to hold on tight to those kind words the day the magpies decided to blitzkrieg the garden. I awoke one morning to shouts in the kitchen and thought that the end of days was certainly upon us.
I raced down stairs to find Aunt Fern waving her second-best bible in the air and shouting out the door. When I ran to the open door, I nearly peed my pyjama pants. There, in the once orderly garden, was a terrible mess. Where there had been rows, there were magpies, pulling up the seedlings I had so carefully planted.
Uncle Bob came downstairs, wearing his pyjamas and a heavy shirt, carrying a shotgun.
Determinedly, he cocked it, and without further ado, he shot both barrells at those noisy birds. In a flurry of feathers and caw-cawing, they took flight, never to be seen again. I don't know how Uncle Bob did it, but he managed not to hit a single bird, but he certainly managed not kill anything.
After we gained our hearing, calmed Aunt Fern down, and had some breakfast, we went out to survey the damage. We decided to get some seedlings from the greenhouse in town to replace the worst of the damage. The Uncles' helped me replant and Aunt Fern made a big scare-crow. We always referred to it as the scare-Magpie. I don't know how, but there were never any magpies on Aunt Fern's property from that day onward. I think she may have cursed them, but I can't be sure.
Momma got a bit better, and it wasn't until later that summer when I could join my cousins back at Aunt Fern's. The vegetables were ours to pick for dinner and Uncle Bob was off on other duties. Uncle Ted would be off haying, but he would always carry sweets for the 'girls.''
And we never did see too many magpies.
Love
Kennedy.
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