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El Dorado County, 1950
This morning Ayla rummaged around in the shed and found among the spider webs and mice droppings, a can of black enamel and a can of white. She painted a sign on a barn-wood board that said:
The sign would have to wait a while, however, as they had nothing to offer yet and the women agreed it might take a month or more to open for business.
Bartle liked the new animals. They were good natured, healthy specimens, but as luck would have it, he found goats’ milk to be disgustingly undrinkable. He remembered his mother telling him as a child, “You can get used to almost anything with time, Bartle, just be brave.” But he suspected his mother had never had to smell or drink goats' milk and he swore that he would not either, not for less than $50 a glass.
For all that, he’d put up a temporary pen made of chicken wire, and now found himself with a hammer in his hand, a jar full of nails, and a pile of lumber at his feet to build a milking stand. Lonnie Riles had agreed to come the following Sunday, his only day off, to help. They would be adding a lean-to on the back of the shed, so that’ll mean another day of lost studio time, Bartle thought, but no matter.
“I have been poring over this book for three days,” sighed Louvina, “and I am afraid that this goat raising business might be more work than we imagined.” (By page 30, she had already exclaimed, “Holy Cow!” six times.) She riffled through the rest of the book saying, “There is so much to learn here, Ayla! I had no idea!” She put the book down, sighed, drank her tea that had gone cold, and looked around the kitchen, which was sorely lacking in upkeep.
“I need to be cleaning up the sink right now and getting the stew on the stove for tonight's supper instead of reading about goat management.
“Don't you worry, Louvina, we’ll work it out. All we need is a little more time.”
“Ayla, I have found that in this world, there is no more time to be had. All we ever get is twenty-four hours in one day. We are just going to have to leave some things off, that's all there is to it,” she said, looking around at the disarray.
“We could leave off sweeping,” Ayla suggested, as she whisked the broom around the stove, “and maybe laundry.”
“Right you are!” agreed Louvina, noticing that the laundry basket was again overflowing.
Bartle, who had been listening in on his women grumbling for a couple of days, thought they’d all better get to talking things over. “Pass the bread, would you please,” he said, helping himself to beef stew with swedes and carrots and giving his wife a wink. “Ayla, I have not seen you around the studio for over a week. What’ve you been doing lately?
“My week is full of goats and housework and working three days at the store. What I want to do most is draw and paint, and I don't seem to be able to fit much of that in right now.”
Bartle nodded and slipped a bit of beef from his plate to Maggie who was under the table patiently standing on Bartle’s left foot.
“But,” she continued, “Louvina said we could maybe stop doing laundry and sweeping in order to give ourselves a little extra time.” Bartle raised his eyebrows and nodded, reasonably certain that that was not likely to happen.
“But I did get that query off to to the University Press about my drawings,“ she said, using a newly-learned word.
“Bartle said, “I see you have decided to start at the top.”
“Well, yes, why not? I sent them a few sample drawings and a couple of watercolors. I asked them if they had a place on their art staff for me, or any freelance work at all. I followed the correct protocol.”
Bartle, noticed that her vocabulary had suddenly grown to include the realm of professional publication and was impressed.
“I haven't heard back yet. But then I think that might be a good thing. At least I did not get rejected immediately.”
Bartle agreed. “As long as the publisher has your things, my clever girl, you are still in the running. Now, Louvina, what about you? How are you managing these changes?”
“Well... Ayla’s been tending to the milking and feeding of the goats for right now, God bless her. I couldn’t do it all myself. The soap making is not hard, but it does take time. I have about twelve pounds made, cut, wrapped and labeled so far – about forty five beautiful bars perfumed with peppermint.
“It is turning out right nice, just as I had hoped. And as for the pies, they are still selling out every week and I am managing to keep up so far. But I cannot report anything good about the making of cheese. I tried four batches and had to throw it all out! I am wasting a lot of milk, which I am ashamed of, but I cannot seem to get any edible results.”
Bartle said with an almost undetectable hint of relief, “Maybe pies and fancy soaps are enough for now. That keeps you more than occupied, seems to me.” He did not say that he, personally, was not interested in getting anywhere within ten feet of the smell of goat's cheese.
“I know I have to sort things out,” said Louvina, ladling out more stew, “because my work day is too long. I scarcely get into bed before eleven.” She turned to Bartle. “And you, my hero? We hardly see you these days.”
“Sketching and painting everyday. I already had nine finished pieces and I have two others nearly completed now. Inspiration, unfortunately, is not always forthcoming,” he confessed. “I cannot turn it on like a tap. I just have to wait for it. And, I am thinking we might have to get ourselves telephones.”
Ayla and Louvina both looked up wide-eyed at this sudden possibility of joining the modern mode of communication, which was common now to the more affluent.
“I never thought of having a telephone from one day to the next,” he explained, “but when inspiration has found me and I need to work late into the night, I may not want to drive home. I need to be able to let you know so you won't worry.”
The women agreed that it was a very practical concession to mid-century progress and Louvina would drive over to Placerville right away and order a thrifty party-line service.
Later that evening, Maggie, got up from where he had been dozing next to the stove, and gave himself a good shake, starting at the nose and moving through to the tip of the tail. With a deep stretch of obeisance to the canine gods and a wide-mouthed squeaky yawn, he joined his family at the piano, where they were singing 'Abide with Me' and 'Wildwood Flower'. Then Ayla and Bartle sat side by side, leaning into each other on their sagging, over-soft couch, eyes closed, as Louvina lulled them with an elegant sonata of Robert Schumann.
I remember rotary phones.
People worked so hard back then!