All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 09

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John had taken good care of the chickens while they were gone and when they got to the cabin, they found four dozen eggs in the refrigerator, awaiting their new home, or frying pan, as the case may be. While they were gone, John had added a rooster to the flock. There's going to be chicks this spring.

While Andi and Macy stayed in the cabin and discussed ideas for Macy and John's new cabin, Paul hooked up a small four-wheel trailer to the Ford tractor and he loaded several large plastic buckets on the trailer along with the twins and Yi, then they headed back to the woods. Meanwhile, John started a fire in a large burner made from a couple steel drums that was in a shed in the woods behind the cabin.

Back in the woods, the twins were telling Yi how cool it was to come back here on the snowmobile and buy Christmas Trees. "Who do you buy them from?" asked Yi.

The twins pointed at Paul and said, "Him."

"You buy trees from your father?"

"Wellll... he wasn't our father yet," said Sandy. When Paul stopped the tractor, Sandy said, "Is this where we buy Christmas trees?"

"Nope, that's way over there," said Paul, gesturing to the west side of the property. He hopped off the tractor and walked up to a maple tree with several pieces of plastic tubing wrapped around it... "It's been kind of crazy here this year, so we didn't get much sap. We usually get fifty to a hundred gallons." The tubes led from several taps in the tree through Y connectors to a plastic gallon jug. Paul opened the lid to the five-gallon bucket and had a filter made from a hand strainer and cheese cloth and poured the sap through the filter into the bucket.

"Are we going to make syrup?" asked Yi. This was exciting. She was a firm believer in keeping the distance between the garden and the plate to a minimum. The eggs and most of the meat she cooks were harvested right here, all within a three-mile area.

"Yes we are, John is firing up the sugar shack right now."

"I have always dreamed of this!" gushed Yi. This was such a huge part of early American history. The sugar plantation owners with their legions of slaves sickened the hard men and women of the Northeastern colonies. The prices the plantation owners charged for their sugar were outrageous. In retaliation the Yankees went out and collected sap from almost every tree on their land, maples of all varieties, box-elder, birch, black walnut, butternut, English walnut, even Elm trees, although they're getting rare due to Dutch elm disease. This was how the self-sufficient Yankees got their sugar, and they used roots like carrot for sweetening. (That's where carrot cake came from.)

"There's acres of maples back in this corner. I've been weeding out the crowded saplings and getting the stronger saplings some room to grow," said Paul as he replaced the gallon jug and collected a jug from another tree. "This weather is perfect for collecting sap," he said as they carefully strained the sap.

"Why?" said his little scientist Madeline.

"The temperature is above freezing in the day, and below freezing at night. At night the tree stores its sap in its roots underground so it won't freeze. In the day when the temperature warms up, the sap comes up through the tree just like a thermometer. When that happens, we collect a little tiny bit of sap." Having only seen digital thermometers, the twins had to take his word for it.

"Can I taste?" asked Yi. To her sap was thick and sticky but this was as thin as water.

"It's just sugar water, sure." Paul handed Yi a ladle, and she dipped some of the clear liquid from the bucket and tasted it.

"You're right. Sugar water with a slight maple flavor."

"Me! Me! Me too!" demanded both twins, so Yi gave them each a sip and they wrinkled their nose at it. "I like Kool-Aid better," said Sandy.

"Goofy Grape," agreed Madeline, and Paul wondered how she knew the name of a product that stopped being sold twenty-five years before her birth.

In the end, they collected over 7 gallons and headed back to the cabin, but they followed John and Paul's tractor path through the woods. The path circled through the middle of the woods from the eastern side next to Brad Clemmon's hog farm to the west side by Tom and Jeff Steinbach's small tree farm, then the path curled back toward the pond climbing a hill. At one point, Paul stopped and set the brake and said, "Come see this." They lifted the twins down from the trailer and walked back through the bare branches of brush and birch trees. The sound of a waterfall reached their ears and Paul said, "This is one of John and Macy's favorite places. If they disappear into the woods they'll probably end up here. Please give them privacy."

Before them, a thirty foot tall waterfall splashed over a sheer drop on a slate hillside. There was a lot of ice from the spray freezing on every branch and plant and the rush from the melting snow swelled the stream. It wasn't the sweet waterfall that first enchanted John and Macy; it was swollen and angry and thundered over the 30 foot drop, but it will settle down in a couple of months.

Back on the tractor, they climbed the hill, then turned up a secondary path to an opening in the woods. When they saw the outhouses at the edge of the clearing, the twins started looking around. "The king's house!" gasped Sandy.

"We saw the forest king here!" Madeline told Yi.

"We saw a nice twelve point buck back here in December. This is where friends from church go camping on Independence Day weekend."

"It's nice," said Yi as she looked around the small meadow. She preferred camping on soft sandy soil like in Florida, but this forest has potential.

Paul circled around and headed back to the cabin, then pulled the tractor between the cabin and the barn and then turned behind the cabin. There were thick woods there and back in the woods about ten meters into the forest was a pavilion with three quarter height walls, and a smokey chimney. "John and I guessed that there was a still operating here back in the day. We converted it to a sugar shack."

They had an oven made of a large metal drum laying horizontally. On the top was a large metal tray divided into three sections and in those sections was maple sap being boiled. The first section was clear, the second was a pale golden brown, and the third was dark, almost boiled down to maple syrup. In the back of the shack, next to the chimney, was a Coleman field stove hooked up to a propane tank. On a shelf above the field stove, was a collection of glass jars. "This is where we make the magic," said John as he helped Paul carry the five-gallon buckets of sap in.

"We should get a quart of syrup from this," said Paul as he and John poured a couple of gallons into a pre-heating pan above the boiling pans. Once they got the sap boiling nicely, Paul and John sat down and John picked up his guitar and started strumming.

"Are ya going to help me?" asked John.

"Ok," groaned Paul and he opened his guitar case, pulled out his guitarrone and strummed it. Paul plays it like a guitar, but he also plays it like a base, especially in folk music, which often called for a base. "Here's your Aunt Macy's favorite song," Paul said as the twins watched him play, fascinated by the big instrument.

"It is not," said John, as they strummed and plucked through the introduction.

"Every Canadian loves this song," said Paul and they launched into the happy little song. It was upbeat and had a beat they could try to dance to, so the twins loved it and tried to sing along with the chorus:

For he goes birling down and down white water

That's where the log driver learns to step lightly

Yes, birling down and down white water

The log driver's waltz pleases girls completely

"What's birling?" asked Sandy after they played the song a fourth time.

"It's logrolling," said John, as he drained boiled down sap from the boiling tray to a pot and carried it over to the small Coleman stove.

"I can get that," said Yi, as she set it on the stove, turned the fire up and put the candy thermometer in it. "Just going to two nineteen?" that's the temperature needed to make syrup.

"Yes ma'am." John handed her a syrup hydrometer. "After you get it up to 219° (104°C) shut the fire off and check with the hydrometer. We're looking for 66.9 Brix and it will be perfect."

And so, the day passed. They played songs and told Yi about days gone by here on John's Chicken Ranch, and occasionally Andi and Macy would come out and check on them. Back inside the cabin, Andi and Macy talked excitedly about their babies. For Macy, this was the first, and she had a good feeling this one would go to term. For Andi, it was her first single baby. With the twins, she always knew she was carrying twins. She always felt 'crowded,' but now she felt more comfortable.

"When I hit eight months I looked like I was smuggling typewriters."

That reminded Macy of something. She got up and started looking at pictures back in the corner by Paul's desk. There was one on the wall that struck a familiar cord when Andi mentioned how big she felt. Macy took a picture down off the wall and said, "You must have felt like this poor girl," and she handed the picture to Andi.

Andi looked at the picture and smiled. It was a photo of the group that had gathered in St. Paul for a conference. In the back row, Paul towered over everyone, and directly in front of him was a tiny blond girl who was very pregnant. "I felt exactly like that poor girl," said Andi, as she looked at the photo and smiled. "It was me."

"No... that picture has been in here forever. How could Paul get your picture? See? This was back when he was dying his beard."

"That's me, right there, I was mad at my husband and cut my hair short." Andi grabbed her blond tresses and held them behind her head. "See?"

Macy looked at the picture, then at Andi, then back at the picture. "Je suis choqué! (I am shocked) I never noticed that! You and Paul met over five years ago?"

"Yes, somehow Paul ended up speaking at a conference for Pulmonologists. It was just a week or two before the twins were born. They were restless that day and before I went back to my room he asked if he could feel the twins and mentioned that his wife had died before they were able to have kids." Andi sighed as she looked back at that day with mixed emotions. "He put his hand right here where Madeline was kicking me." Because Madeline always stands, sits, and sleeps on Sandi's left, when Andi looks back at when she carried her girls, she decided Madeline was on her left. "When he did that the girls settled down."

"Tu es sérieux, ou quoi? Are you serious or what?" grinned Macy.

"It really happened," said Andi. "I called him the Baby Whisperer." She smiled as she studied the photograph. "At this very moment, my husband Frank finished banging the teenage cleaning lady and was leaving me a note that he had enough of a fat frigid wife."

"You were frigid too?" gasped Macy. Early in their marriage, sex was a nightmare for her and John, but they finally worked their way to a place where sex was magnifique.

"Only with Frank," sighed Andi. Then, after a long pause, she asked, "What was Melony like?"

Macy frowned and said, "We never met. She died a week after John and I married. You need to speak to Paul."

"He won't talk about her."

"Then talk to John, they met a few times, John was at their wedding but..." Macy shook her head and didn't go on.

"What's the matter?" asked Andi. "Did something happen?" Something embarrassing almost always happens. At her wedding to Paul, people gave Wonka so many cookies, he puked. Currently, he was lying in front of the wood stove waiting for his call to action.

Macy continued. "John said the wedding was nice. We may have a few pictures. Paul and Melony wore their formal dress uniforms. It was after that there were problems. Melony's sister Monica was a spoiled rich kid. She gave John a glass of orange juice that was laced with LSD and Melony's father defended her actions."

"What?" gasped Andi.

"Monica thought John was not fun so she gave him acid. Please do not tell anyone in the congregation! They could vote us out!" Macy looked like she was going to cry. "John and I were both empoisonné with acide and we both had the same illusions. I was given acid when I was a model for the same reason as John, someone wanted to make me more entertaining."

Andi pulled her tall sister over and rested Macy's head on her shoulder. "Shush your tears," said Andi. "I've gotten the acid treatment too." She held Macy's hand and said, "I was quite a party girl in college. I was the slut that Frank would have adored. At one party we were drinking jungle juice and somebody dropped a little piece of blotter paper into my drink. I asked him what that was and he said it was my magic carpet."

"Anything scary happen?" asked Macy.

"This is just between you and me, right?"

"Oui."

"Ok, I was having sex with one guy, I think it was just one guy... anyhow I'm sure everyone at the party was standing around us watching. But I swear his dick broke off and was crawling around inside of me."

"That must have been terrifying!" gasped Macy.

"Nah, it wasn't very big." Macy was quiet for a while, then she snorted and started laughing so Andi continued, "If it was Paul, that would have been scary. I'd have bruises everywhere inside."

"Stop!" cried Macy, and she sat up and wiped the tears of laughter out of her eyes. "Paul said that Monica was un connard. Her actions got all the fliers at their wedding grounded until they could pass a drug test. He and Melony were furious, but Melony's family, her mother, father, and sister Monica, didn't care. Months later they got orders to Japan. Paul and Melony went to visit her family and Melony's family still did not realize or did not care how egregious her actions were."

Andi nodded in agreement. "Un connard." (Un connard has many translations, the kindest of which is "asshole")

Outside, John didn't look happy about something, but they continued with their slow, careful production of maple syrup. Finally, the twins went inside for lunch and John sat down next to Paul, who was strumming "Stair Way to Heaven" on his guitarrone. John took out a copy of the Air Force Times, a newspaper that someone in the church handed him. He opened it and showed Paul an article.

"That part of my life is over," said Paul, without looking at what John was trying to show him. "As long as they send me my retirement check I am happy. That's all that I want from those chowderheads."

John drew his attention to a particular article. "I'm here for you as your pastor and your brother," John whispered.

When John said that he was there as Paul's pastor and brother, Paul knew something was up. Whenever John said that, it was never good. He glanced at the headline and said, "Buzz Blecher? Hasn't he died in prison yet?" said Paul as he turned away from the paper.

"Read it," said John. "You need to read this."

Paul rolled his eyes and read as he played "Merry Go Round Broke Down" an old goofy song once used to introduce cartoons. "Disgraced General Abernathy Blecher charged with assault and rape of Captain Melony Ruskin. Blecher is currently serving..." Paul stared at the paper, his eyes wide as he read about the charges against former General Blecher. "Oh God..." he whispered.

"It's ok, you didn't know."

"No! No it's not! I should have trusted her... oh my God... all those years I hated her; I believed his lies... Oh God." His stomach felt like he swallowed a rock and got up to run, but John held him back.

"Stay with me, give me your pain, you know I can take it."

Yi dashed into the cabin through the back door and saw Andi making sandwiches for the twins. "Paul needs you," she said.

"What? Why?"

"John showed him an article about some General raping a Captain named Russian or something like that and he's having a meltdown."

Andi knew exactly what she was talking about. Paul told her several times about Melony and Buzz Blecher, the general he helped put in prison for her death. Paul was absolutely positive that Melony and Buzz had a grand time in Korea, having sex every night in the VOQ. It's the story that the general told everyone. Then when she said she was pregnant, she took the Plan B tablet he gave her to cover everything up.

"This is big. Can you feed the girls?" asked Andi, as she grabbed her coat and dashed out to find Paul shaking and weeping. John was holding Paul, who was in emotional agony.

"Every night for years," he said through his tears, "I'd drink myself unconscious damning myself for marrying her... hating her and everything to do with her." He found John wasn't holding him anymore. It was Andi.

"It's ok darling, I'm here for you." Then Andi said something that shocked Paul to his core. "It's ok to love her again. I'm proud to be taking over for her." He threw his arms around Andi and let the hate and anger drain.

"Thank you for being here," said Paul as Andi wondered if she should tell him about her dream. This was the second time she's dreamed about something in his past that she was unfamiliar with. However, each dream, no matter how different it was from what happened, accurately represented an event in their past.

Paul still had the number for the office number of the Staff Judge Advocate that prosecuted Buzz the first time. Paul wanted to be there to finish the job.

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The first hymns were over, and the congregation was greeting each other. It was time to reign in the joy and read the announcements. Paul stood up and stepped up to the lectern and looked around the congregation. As usual, the late arrivals were just sitting down, and that included John and Macy. They always stood at the front door of the church, welcoming everyone that they could. Today, the late arrivals made him smile. It was Kenny and Yi, and she was in a dress. Paul didn't realize that she owned a dress. Kenny and Yi entered with Kenny's parents Dave and Angi Johnson and sat in the pew behind John and Macy, who sat with Andi and the twins. It was time for Paul to start.

"Good morning," said Paul in a loud voice. "How is everyone this nice spring morning? Everyone sad to see that winter is over?" he was met with boos and groans. "It's good to be back, for those of you who are new here, my name is Paul Jarecki." That brought a few chuckles. Paul has been busy since the first of December, with marriage, honeymoon in the Bahamas and road trip to the mountain west.

"I'd like to thank you for loaning me your pastor while we were verifying the ice age was indeed over in the Bahamas and Andi is finally moved in, she's no longer a Denverite. We have a few announcements this morning..." and he read out the list of activities that the church had planned. As always, he ended up with, "Does anyone have any announcements?"

Gus raised his hand, and Paul called on him. "Tuesday evening, we are going to have a prayer gathering and dedication for Pastor John's house, the work is finally finished!"

Through the applause, Paul said, "For those of you that haven't seen Pastor John and Macy's house, it is amazing. They gutted it and rebuilt the interior, and they did most of the work themselves. It is beautiful. I want to thank Gus for teaching my brother the skills he needed to finish the job. Me? I'm still trying to figure out how to sharpen my hammer. Anyone else?"

Dante Reese, the worship leader, announced he was going to need a few extra voices for the Easter service, and Mary Kraft asked for extra prayers for Nancy Sagget, who was in the hospital. "Ok, last call, anyone else?" said Paul and Tammy Schatz, president of the women's ministry, raised her hand. "Tammy? What do you have?"