“What about driving to school?”
“You’re on call 24/7. Your job description requires a company vehicle while you are on call.”
“Everything is clickity clacking along.”
“Thankfully, but it might get rough, because there are entities that don’t like marriage, and our marriage will be tested.”
“They say that in Church. How would you deal with that?”
“An old Pastor told me about his first Church. Had a couple that were married, but not to each other. He told them that wasn’t what God wants them involved in, and they said they were in love.”
“Must have been awful. Did their spouses know what was going on?”
“No. They thought they had good marriages, and kids too.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Pastor was raised on a Dairy farm, so he was always up at 4:00 in the morning. Started praying in the Sanctuary at 5:00 in the morning. Prayed an hour every morning, but Sunday for everyone and everything he could think of. The couple finally received and heeded the convictions God wanted them to have and they separated and got closer to their respective spouses.
Pastor actually enjoys praying like that every day and hasn’t stopped.”
“We haven’t taken time to pray.”
“I’m sorry Mitzi. I should have taken the lead in that respect. I can say I prayed this morning while getting our equipment ready to go.”
“I prayed while fixing breakfast this morning.”
“Nice to know we are on the same page.”
“Cuz Ralph is working the stack-wagon, the tractor is an 180T. He’ll get further behind picking up bales toward the end of this field, because we are getting farther away from the stack.”
“Just one stack?”
“No, there will be three stacks for this field to reduce tractor run-time and fuel costs. It’s time for you to take the wheel for the rest of this field. There are going to be some rough spots you need to have experience on, so you will know how to deal with difficult situations.”
Mitzi pointed, “There’s a couple by that car in the shade watching us.”
“Happens once in a while. There are people that actually enjoy watching people work. You think about it, they are watching people accomplish something.”
I had already talked to her about my settings and all she had to do is engage the drives, and release the clutch.
Mitzi saw the rough spots coming, and geared down to slow down while maintaining the same rpm just like she had seen me do a few times.
As soon as we were finished baling the field, I took over driving, because I wanted to drive faster to the next field than I would allow her to drive until she has more experience.
“Well, Mitzi, you can bale this field from start to finish. It’ll be a lot rougher, so we’ll go one gear lower. It’s what I had to do during first cutting.”
“OK.” And stayed in the Buddy-seat until I got to the door, so she would have room to reach the driver’s seat. Kind of a dosey-doe we have to do when we trade seats.
Mitzi and I do a lot of talking during our tractor-times, and it makes time fly. For the last two windrows we went up one gear because the terrain wasn’t as rough as earlier. We finished a little earlier than expected and got to the Barn at 3:45. Cleaned all our gear out of the cab, and headed to the cabin for a shower and maybe a half-hour nap.
“There! Right there!”
We’re standing belly to belly in the shower relaxing in each other’s arms. My hands are roaming up and down her spine, and Mitzi is sensitive at the bottom of the small of her back. “Here?”
“Ooohhh yyeess!”
“Tell me about it, so I can understand what’s going on?”
“Right where you have your finger rubbing next to my spine excites my clitoris.”
“How about this side?”
Mitzi writhed into me in the excitement, “Paul! You knew about that spot didn’t you?”
“I saw a tiny little mention of it a couple of years ago in a trivia book, and hoped I could try it on you.”
“Two years ago?”
“Just before the lavender shirt incident. I also liked how serious you were, in fact this morning is the first time I ever saw you involved in a giggle-fit.”
“You’ve never been in a girls’ locker-room. Were you praying for me? I mean, is that why I wound up in your bed?”
“Not that I know of. Jesus rebuking his disciples for not praying an hour with him, and the old Pastor praying an hour every morning caused me to start praying an hour first thing in the morning. The first time I tried, I lasted five minutes. I had to make a prayer list long enough to last through an hour of prayer. I knew the first people on the list had to be my enemies, then family, friends, acquaintances, people I encounter through a normal day, and a few oddballs. You are the first one in the friends category.”
“Why?”
“Because you were the first one I thought of. The first time I started my freshman year was January at the beginning of the second semester, because I missed the first semester.
“Must have been hard to start in the middle of the school-year.”
“Yes there were some classes I couldn’t take because they were two-semester classes. Fortunately there was almost enough classes to fill my school day requirements, and I took math even though it was a two-semester class, because I figured I could challenge it at the end of the school year for a full year’s credit.”
“Did it work?”
“It wasn’t working very well, so I called Dad and waited for him, and when he got there, we went back in the Principal’s office, and I explained that while they were twiddling their thumbs during three and a half months of the first semester, I was working eighty to ninety hours a week. It seems like I should get some credit for work-ethic.”
“I got full credits for the math class and five credits for work based learning.”
“Twiddling thumbs?”
“I got my point across. That was the end of school, and I saw you the first day of your freshman year. I heard people call you Mitzi, and later I saw your last name on a roster for a class we were in together. We were taking classes together, because I didn’t start them the last school year. I traded my study-hall times for other classes just to make sure I was far enough ahead to avoid something like what happened in my freshman year.”
“I’m doing the same thing. I want out this coming January.”
“We’ll be married before September, so they’ll probably confront us about the marriage when we start back to school. When you have the credits to graduate in January it’ll be taken care of even if we have to assert some credits for work based learning.”
In the midst of the conversation we had finished our shower, missed our nap, got dressed for dinner, and hit the road for The Steak and Lobster House!
Surprised to see Uncle Bob there. He introduced a Glenn and Susan Bates in their forties to me, and said he had a flight gig and had to leave, so he checked with Dad to see if the couple could join our group for entertainment. No problem we just happened to have room for two more.
Everybody settled down around the seven foot diameter table which seats ten comfortably, and the four foot six inch Lazy-Susan in the center held the condiments around the outer edge within easy reach.
I performed the introduction of the Bates couple visa versa the family members at the table, explaining that Uncle Bob had an unexpected job pop up, which he couldn’t turn down, and left the Bates couple stranded for entertainment.
Everybody ordered, opting for the Steak and Lobster combo special. A few of us ordered something more than water to drink.
“What’s up with your Lavender crop? Are you going to be able to make a profit?”
That was a good question from Mitzi’s Dad. “I’m sure there are a few rumors floating around about what I’m up to, but harvesting a seed crop, and some blossoms for perfume is about all I can do right now.”
“I’ve heard it’s hard to get a good return after expenses.”
“That’s true, especially in America, because production costs are higher than other countries.
“Lavender doesn’t require much water, fertilizer, or pesticide, but turning Lavender into useful products is spendy. There is a saying among the insiders that it’s like putting a two dollar plant in a two hundred dollar hole.
“I had initially planted a hundred dollars of English Lavender seed on a whim, then in the same spring I planted two hundred dollars of Grosso Lavender. I plan to set up a Presto log machine to deal with the waste in the Lavender line, timber trimmings and scraps from cleaning up thirty acres of woodland.”
“You looked down the front of Mitzi’s lavender shirt and saw a B Cup boob trying to escape from an A Cup bra , and as soon as you got home you wanked off two times and went to work, and when you got home at 10:30, you wanked off again and fell asleep. Then you ordered a hundred dollars of Lavender seed. That was a whim?”
I glanced at Mitzi and noted the blush going way down inside the front of her blouse, Janice did it again.
“Now I know why you girls had a giggle-fit in the car this morning.”
In the meantime April giggled, then somebody laughed and the rest of the table joined in.
I ruefully shook my head, “I slept good that night.”
“Dad? As your client, I suggest you talk with your employee about embarrassing your client in public.”
“Objection noted son, I’ll take that under advisement. Janice will be working a little earlier tomorrow.”
In the midst of the buzz of conversations, Susan Bates asked Mitzi how she liked driving tractors.
“Oh, you’re the couple we saw standing by the car in the shade watching us! Paul is teaching me to deal with difficult moments of driving tractors and what trails behind like the baler we used today. Paul told me the tractor I was driving today can pick itself straight up off the ground, can you imagine that?”
“Do you have that video in your tablet Susan?”
Why yes Glenn, do you want me to show her.”
“Yes please.”
Susan dug an electronic tablet out of her tote, and found the video and walked around the table to show it to Mitzi.
The video showed the tractor rigged with cables to stabilize it. A driver came on scene, walked to the tractor, climbed up and inside, started the machine; put it in gear, the wheels turned and the four foot diameter pulleys on the rear axle wound the cables lifting the tractor six feet in the air while the stabilizers kept the tractor level.
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