Pit-a-Pat High Jinks

By Jnana Hodson

Are they even hippies? Kenzie's housemates share a dilapidated farm for a host of reasons, their version of a loosey-goosey intentional community. But what do they have in common besides low-rent, dogs, cats, and chickens or a pile of dirty dishes or a school bus bouncing out to nude swimming at the big lake all summer?
Heartbroken after being deserted by his one-and-only love in college, Kenzie collapses into their back-to-the-earth haven while he adjusts to his first full-time regular job and endeavors to find true love anew.
At least he's rarely alone. In addition to the four monogamous couples and three other singles at the farm, he's soon making hip connections around the town down in the valley and its campus.
Among his new buddies are Drummer, whose rhythmic hands make surfaces speak, and Ramona, who seems to know everyone who counts when it comes to cool.
Along the way, each of his new lovers presents another essential insight. In the sexual revolution of "If it feels good, do it," Kenzie learns of living in the present from a future scientist on her way to California. And of the importance of mutual interests from a vaporous nursing student who turns into a dead end when she shares none of his. And of erotic epiphany from a nearly perfect but very demanding Holy Trinity. And of dimensions darker than kink from a voluptuous entanglement on her way into bondage. And of the weight of caring for others from a young secretary he'd marry in a minute, if only she could let go of her past to be with him. And of orgasmic timing, anatomy, and technique from a future schoolteacher whose approach to intercourse resembles a form of gymnastics. And of working around limitations from an exotic dancer in a leg cast. And of lightness itself from a future supermodel. And of the ecstasy in a high voltage whirlwind before a tanned cipher hits the road on her bike. And of chaste passion from a visiting Latina. And of liberating harmony from a gentle feminist who's keeping her options open. It's all a new world of relationships for him.
It's quite a whirlwind of discovery and growth.
His new life extends beyond physical pleasure. His introduction to Tibetan Buddhist practice leads to an embrace of its natural, drug-free high. His emotional outlook brightens through its militantly physical yoga exercises. Its esoteric teachings sharpen a desire to learn more. Will he take off for three years of monastic seclusion and study? Or is an unanticipated twist waiting just over the horizon?
Either way, he's free and open to the adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jnana Hodson
• Release date: Jan 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463831618

Jnana Hodson

It’s been a while since I’ve been known by my Hawaiian shirts and tennis shoes, at least in summer. Winters in New England are another matter.For four decades, my career in daily journalism paid the bills while I wrote poetry and fiction on the side. More than a thousand of those works have appeared in literary journals around the globe.My name, bestowed on me when I dwelled in a yoga ashram in the early ‘70s, is usually pronounced “Jah-nah,” a Sanskrit word that becomes “gnosis” in Greek and “knowing” in English. After two decades of residing in a small coastal city near both the Atlantic shoreline and the White Mountains northeast of Boston, the time's come to downsize. These days I'm centered in a remote fishing village with an active arts scene on an island in Maine. From our window we can even watch the occasional traffic in neighboring New Brunswick or lobster boats making their rounds.My wife and two daughters have prompted more of my novels than they’d ever imagine, mostly through their questions about my past and their translations of contemporary social culture and tech advances for a geezer like me. Rest assured, they’re not like any of my fictional characters, apart from being geniuses in the kitchen.Other than that, I'm hard to pigeonhole -- and so is my writing.

Book preview

PIT-A-PAT HIGH JINKS

Of housemates, lovers, and friends

. . . . .

A novel by Jnana Hodson

. . . . .

Copyright 2019, 2013, and 1991 by the author

Dover, New Hampshire, USA

Thank you for selecting this story. Please remember this ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please order an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

= + =

Table of contents

. . . . .

Jump start

Far out on the farm

Testing the waters

Third world

Riding a wind horse

Settling into winter

Judith

Other interests  

With class and polish

Spring in the air

Shoshanna

With presence and non-judgment

Portfolio

Acts of faith

Dot-Zen

Hopscotch

Clinical details

The wheel is turning

Rosa

Combing the air

Queen Tara

About Jnana Hodson and this book

For more

= + =

Jump start

. . . . .

He's too beat up to feel the beat. Numb. Dazed. Defeated. Whatever primal rhythm is in the air no longer moves him. And this is the Revolution of Peace & Love? This kick in the gut?

Just before he graduates college, his beloved Liz bolts. Worse yet, with one of his housemates. And then his promising career openings evaporate. All of them.

No wonder he's crushed. Devastated. A desperado. Hits the road on his thumb, no idea where he's going. Anything to get away from where he's been. Beats climbing the walls or staring comatose at the ceiling.

He survives on the kindness of strangers, mostly of a counterculture bent. Relies on his old camping skills, too.

His meandering takes in much of the eastern half of the country. He's amazed by its diversity and beauty, in some stretches, and the contrasting industrial and commercial obliteration, in others. He hungers for green hope, a fresh start, a place he belongs, but sees himself shut out of the action.

Ten days after leaving Indiana, he drops in on a former colleague now working in the sticks somewhere north of Gotham. You know, he just happens to be in the neighborhood. Pure chance, right?

Nita's not just anyone. She had been Liz' roomie in the dorm, but also a star journalist who relied on his photographic skills to illustrate her stories. A year older than him, she kept in touch when she headed for the hills rather than the big time. She had her reasons.

When he drifts into the newsroom and drops his backpack by her desk, she's hardly surprised.

Where you been? seems more a scolding for delay than an invitation for his own Don Quixote retelling.

Quite simply, he's in time to apply for — and accept — a position as half of their regular photo staff. Not that it pays much. And the hours, including early mornings, late Saturday nights, and holidays, are atrocious.

You have your camera, don't you?

Would I go anywhere without it?

Still, apart from his remaining travelers' checks, he's broke. Destitute, actually, until his first paycheck … in two weeks.

Helping him nail down a job and fronting the money to buy a used Volkswagen are only part of her aid. Kenzie-boy, you're going to need a place to live, she points out over beans in a diner that reminds him, well, of her ex-boyfriend from Minnesota. Maybe it's the gorilla-sweat coffee in hairy mugs? You could pay a bundle for an apartment in town, she says, "or, for a third of that, join in with a bunch of us who rent an old farm up in the hills. We each have our own room and share the rest — the kitchen, dining room, and front parlor plus the meadows and woods. Besides, we just happen to have a bedroom open. Interested?"

So Kenzie goes deeper in hock to her.

In short order, he eases into little more than a second-floor closet under the sloping roof of what they call the Russet Ranch. She helps him find a mattress and a battered dresser. Helps him through auto licensing and insurance. Sets him to work properly, coaching him to pace himself smartly on his first full-time job. The pay's miserable, but there are ways to economize, she tells him as she outlines underground approaches to survival.

That's a short version.

= + =

There are loose ends to wrap up. He dashes back to Indiana, packs his earthly goods into his new used Bug, closes his bank account, bids farewell to those chums still hanging around, and zips back to his rustic hilltop.

His butt's soon sore from all the driving.

Every morning that first week in his new digs, he stirs in his sleeping bag. What has he gotten himself into? None of this would be happening without her. Nita's taking a gamble, and she's generous. What does she see in him that warrants such assistance? This is more than a charitable concern, isn't it?

The her can also be Liz, the chick from Motown who broke his heart and left him reeling. She wanted him to become more, what? More of a bohemian? He'll show her, then. Become the one she'll return to.

He never intended a back-to-the-earth twist in his life. No, he was headed straight to the glam big city. Well, so was Nita, a year earlier.

So just where, exactly, is he?

The landscape is so different from his past. This is forests and mountains, unlike the endlessly flat fields of so his native Midwest or the lolling hills around his old campus. Here agriculture is mostly dairy, rather than corn, soybeans, and wheat. The ground is generally rocky. The reason he's at Russet Ranch at all is that the site is too hardscrabble to be viable. Labor in vain, as they say. Rent it out to a bunch of gullible hippies.

Working in the square confines of the paper and living in the freak environment of the farm, he's inhabiting two quite different worlds, with Nita being the only commonality linking them. Neither side's the least bit familiar.

On the job, he's scheduled to show up early four mornings — with Wednesday free — and then work past midnight Saturday. As he discovers, Sunday's mostly recovery. The one upside is that once every month or so, he gets three days off together.   

Some mornings, he opens the darkroom at 5 to mix fresh chemical solutions and then process rolls of film left from the night before or arriving by bus from outlying correspondents — all before he's sent out to cover traffic accidents, storm damage, new construction, store openings, or breakfast speakers. He's expected to come up with a good feature shot, too — one to play out big on the front page or to anchor the local news page. Finding a suitable image on his own day in and day out can be harder than you'd think. Come autumn, there will also be club events, fundraisers, and early school programs. Saturdays, on the other hand, the ballgames kick in.

Apart from his two internships, this is his first full-time job, and it carries a weight of tribulation in knowing he won’t be returning to campus at the end of summer. Here he's required to act and dress professionally, despite its miserly wages and erratic hours. This is it, a morass of the wretchedly straight.

It does, however, give him a reason to get out of the sack five days a week. He has to admit it's the top priority in his life at the moment, the central core in his existence, his most distinguishing identification. It's the income that will allow the other things to happen, his very reason for being in this backwater locale. He resolves to make the best of it.

Settling in to the job forces him to learn his way around town and the surrounding highways, memorize the names of political and business leaders, even adjust to differences in local jargon, plus know just who does what at the paper. Any of these can be a snake pit. Why is he here, again?

A dress code at the paper requires men to wear neckties. Kenzie notices that all of the males over age thirty wear starched white shirts and striped ties. His younger minority wears the stripes in their dress shirts, and their choke-pieces are typically paisley or flowered. Bell bottoms and sandals are altogether out of the question, even in the hottest weather. He is, after all, dealing with the public. A generally square, suspicious public.

At the office, Nita is all business. She wears a pantsuit when the copy curriers all favor miniskirts, even if, as he notices, she sometimes looks as if she's slept in her clothes. Which she probably has. She keeps her flaming hair short and pulled back, often with a wide headband. Does she even own more than a single skirt or a dress? Not that he's seen here.

The assignments he's given are typically pedestrian. It's in-out work, an assembly line, impersonal, superficial, on-the-clock, anonymous even when his name appears with the caption. He creates private jokes to keep himself sharp. How many American flags can he work into the background, for instance.

He has to wear a pager, even in the darkroom, and when he's out of the building, to know where the nearest pay phone is, should he be needed to shoot a big fire or crash or maybe simply to pick up some take out on his way back. Naturally, he finds this annoying.

On his morning shift, the first thing he's required to do is step into the teletype room and check on the wirephoto machine to make sure it hasn't jammed or run to the end of the spool or its ink. The small, noisy glass-walled chamber includes four teletypes each nearly as big as a gasoline pump — one for the national and international news, another for regional news, a third for sports, and the fourth for financial and market reports. To his ears, the flying typebars bang away like snare drums, each one with a different rhythm, often sounding as if it's striking the side of the drum as well as the stretched head. What he hears are modern-day tribal messages relaying developments in the universe beyond this town and its valley. A modern-day telegraph, too.

He reads of a poet who was arrested for shoplifting a volume of his own words. Charged with theft, imagine that! Whose poems were they, anyway — the poet’s or the shopkeeper’s?

He reads of his old roommate who will be performing a solo recital at the White House. What could his bro possibly play before the president as a strong political statement in opposition to the war? Kenzie smiles when he sees the program will be full of funeral mourning.

Nita counsels him, When you’re away from your job, do you think you can put the cameras aside? Just for a while? Let yourself live for a change? Experience life, directly? What if you have enough shooting to do at work? Can you let that suffice? Perhaps she perceives that his art has become an addiction. Or maybe a shield or a mask he hides behind. She doesn’t come right out and say that. Instead, she'll let him discover that situation on his own, maybe with a few gentle nudges.

Kenzie has trusted her, even when she moved into realms he couldn’t fathom. Respect her professional work, especially. All along, she had been expected to start out at the New York Times or the like, back before the big round of bloodletting and layoffs. Even so, there was a lot of muttering in the school newsroom when she took the job in a place no one had heard of. She could explain all she wanted that it really wasn’t that far from the Big Apple or that in a small operation, one person can make a big difference and gain managerial experience quickly. What she couldn’t explain was how much, after all the frenetic events on campus, she needed a period of relative tranquility, of freedom from bureaucratic intrigues, or even from her own intensely competitive nature. Time, especially, for investigating some deeply personal and spiritual matters. Maybe they both needed long rest and recovery. What she asks of Kenzie, in other words, is something she also pursues.

The drive home from the job seems to chug uphill forever, a matter of trying to go higher and higher. Going back to work, however, is all downhill. How low can it get?

Saturday nights can be especially forlorn. The last half of the shift he's there just in case something unexpected but big breaks out. Usually, he manages to read a novel or type letters to family and friends, though he'd rather be out on a hot date. Man, would he.

The shift does allow him to get to know some of the blue-collar guys working in the warren behind the newsroom. The engravers Brewer and Jocko, especially, who are curious about his alternative lifestyle.

One night, Brewer asks if Kenzie's a swinger.

Don't you have to be in a relationship before you can swap partners? If only.

No, not that kind. A sly smile. What Brewer insinuates is no underwear.

Have they no qualms?

Jocko had been in the Philippines and seen men run over by army tanks, had fought on the front lines, even been arrested in France. When he ran rum in Australia, he nearly sank the boat with his augur. Used to drink three or four shots of whiskey for lunch. Here at work, he had been known to pull up his apron and let his wang pop out.

Times are changing. Times are not changing.

Then there are the brownies Kenzie took to work for his late shift.

Brewer and Jocko both help themselves and then ask about the stems and seeds.

One of my housemates made it. She was out of raisins and walnuts. Maybe she used oregano or thyme? You get what you get.

Both Brewer and Jocko come back for seconds.

One night Kenzie has a spate of intense dreams. In the first, police come unexpectedly and drag him to the draft board for a physical.

The following week, when Kenzie mentions the dream at work, Jocko declares, Serving would do you good.

But Brewer, a veteran recently back from ’Nam, reacts emphatically, Oh, yeah? He doesn’t have to add, What do you know? Everybody hears the unspoken thought. An acute generation gap jags right through the workplace.

Kenzie also dreams he's smoking pot with Jocko, who grins profusely. We have only one nail. It will be a good thing if you cross your legs.

Only then does Kenzie remember Jocko had really said it.

They get truly heavy about his hair. Want to burn off the beard. In an aside, Brewer tells Kenzie it alienates the older generation.

No shit, Kenzie replies.

If I came home with hair like that, my wife would throw me out, Brewer laughs. Haven’t they said anything to you out there, meaning the bosses. Your eyes still look like two snowballs somebody pissed on.

Nothing prepares them for the night they find Jocko face down behind the big accordion camera Brewer rushes in, probes the mouth for bridgework, and starts mouth-to-mouth. Kenzie jumps in with CPR. They have a pulse going when the paramedics swoop in.

But Jocko is gone before the ambulance reaches the hospital.

He'd just told me how to make a million. Showed me which stocks he'd bought for his son, Brewer says, tearing up.

Despite all of their bantering, Kenzie hadn't gotten around to a portrait of Jocko. Or Brewer. As a courtesy to the family, he gets permission to photograph the funeral and interment.

A war is raging, and not always in Indochina.

= + =

Far out on the farm

. . . . .

Getting settled in his private life is nearly as challenging as the job. A year before his arrival, a dozen free spirits agree to rent the farm and split the cost based on the size of the room. This isn't a commune. They ascribe to no central mission and definitely don't pool their money or goods. Pointedly, they refuse to agree on a set of rules other than paying the rent on time.

We're people of good will, they tell themselves. We'll pitch in as needed.

Along with the claim, Hippies don't need leaders.

As an intentional community, this one is live-and-let-live and not much else. It is cheaper than anything they'd find in town, and they don't have judgmental neighbors in sight.

So here they are, a baker’s dozen or so of mostly hairy humans who dwell together in a cramped, imitation-brick tarpapered farmhouse, along with a one-story unpainted barn and a former machine shop with a hayloft overhead, plus a few stray sheds — all set back from the corkscrew highway, screened by trees, and tucked in behind an active blueberry farm.

The property itself slopes mostly downward from the crest of a big hill. A wooded lane runs out behind the compound, separating two large, rocky meadows before dropping into a tangled ravine at the back.

Not quite six weeks since his soul mate dropped him — his sole mate, too — Kenzie remains in a daze. He's managed to get through his first week of employment without a major screwup, but doing so leaves him frayed. He's taken Nita's advice on an afternoon power nap, if he can, so he'll have some energy for social opportunities in the evening.

It's Wednesday, Kenzie's day off work. Nita's left for the newsroom, leaving him as the only one up at this hour. Well, it's not yet seven. He sips his early morning coffee and listens to cackling birds and whirring insects. His eyes circle the kitchen — its piles of unwashed dishes, cobwebs, unswept floor. He looks out through the grimy window at the gravel barnyard where two Volkswagen Bugs, a microbus, and one classic Willy's Jeep are soaked in dew. The sun hasn't yet arched high enough over the trees to dry the vehicles.

Another sip, and his gaze reaches out across a village in the hollow. The Methodist spire and the general store facade float in an ageless summer of their verdant, winding crossroads. The broader view is a psalm promising milk and honey, maybe even figs. He's comforted that some things in the universe retain their good order. Yonder, a progression of five azure summits till the stratosphere. Pink clouds, severed from a farther horizon, stack up like pristine, fluffy laundry. Reared in Iowa flatlands and cultured in Indiana foothills, Kenzie believes he's ensconced in graceful mountains. As he'll learn, it's a start.

He has no idea how the weekday morning routine normally unfolds in the farmhouse — he and Nita are long gone before anyone else is out of bed. Mylin will no doubt be up soon — he's the only other resident holding regular employment — but whether he'll shower before work, make a breakfast, even fill a Thermos are still blank details in Kenzie's book. After that?

To be honest, the place is a pit. And he's in the pits. Not a day has passed that he hasn't missed her. Silently begged her forgiveness or blamed himself for her flight. Wondered whether she'd approve of his new encounters. Worse, he's heard nada from her end. Or maybe that's a good thing. Well, he did write to her parents to let them know of his move and post office box number. He got a sympathetic card in reply saying they had heard nothing, either, and were quite worried.

He tries to put a positive spin on his situation. The ranch is supposed to be a haven. A place to be free. He's landed on the East Coast, though far upstream from the Atlantic. All of his fellow Ranchers went to Woodstock, except for Nita, who followed the developments from the office. He's not holed away without social introductions. They seem interesting.

He'll hear of a few who moved on, including the couple who created the opening for him. The household is now comprised of four monogamous pairings — Rusty and Phoebe, Adam and Joni, Mylin and Angie, and Wink and Irma — plus three single guys — Dominic, Mongo, and himself — plus Nita.

Already, he's piecing together their backstory. Their resolution appeared to make sense in late spring the previous year, not long after the deep packed snow had melted and the icy-ruts-turned-muddy-slops had dried into dusty roads once more. The settlement made sense when no one had reason to think about heating drafty rooms through the January deep freeze or digging out to get to work or classes. It made sense before they learned about hunting seasons and the hunters who came invading.

No, each of them was enchanted by something. Just look at those bluestone fences, the lichen, the trees billowing in the breeze.

Rusty envisioned spading and planting a whopper of a garden out back, not knowing the field he specified was an angular bog frequented by deer with ravenous appetites. Phoebe wanted the freedom to be with Rusty without the intrusions on campus. You know, totally hippedelic.

Adam could use a shed for working on cars and motorcycles. Joni? Nobody had reported her as a runaway. Her story's complicated, with Flushing as her last previous address.

Mylin ran the numbers, saw that they could carve out two rooms in the barn, and he wouldn't have to work quite so hard to get by. Angie just didn't want to be hassled by anyone. She had had it with creepy neighbors.

She's an earth biscuit, says Adam.

Wink and Irma expected a party. Wanna have fun, as he says with a wink.

Dominic wouldn't have a snooping landlord.

He has no time for nonsense, says Irma.

Mongo wanted solitude to pursue his own genius.

He obsesses with clouds. And getting caught in the rain, says Adam.

But things get out of hand. A few extra residents show up, expecting to live rent-free in a teepee. When more arrive with plans to build a yurt for year-around dwelling, the founding Ranchers call a limit. The kitchen and dining room can accommodate only so many, to say nothing of the toilet and shower. There are, after all, other bills to pay, including propane, electricity, and toilet paper. Hospitality needs to be redefined. It's a two-way proposition.

Kenzie hears someone stirring. It's Rusty, not Mylin. Trash day. Will you help me carry the bins out to the road? It takes four trips.

As they share the chore, Rusty discloses, When my father was released from a concentration camp in Poland, along with a host of details Kenzie never would have imagined. No wonder Rusty fears American fascists. Everyday realities?

Rusty and Phoebe, now in their junior year of college, have been together since high school out on Long Island. They have the room below Kenzie's. Like Nita and Kenzie, they keep somewhat regular hours, dream of going places, and are preparing accordingly.

Mylin's up and gone before they're finished. And that's it for what Kenzie sees as ring one of their circus.

The second ring has a remarkable knack of getting by on minimal effort. Kenzie will admit that without them, there would be no Russet Ranch. Period. As Kenzie will learn, Ranchers in this ring have practical skills. They can repair a water pump, reline the well, replace the shower stall when its plywood floor rots through, hoist the engine from his Bug and put it back again, tend a garden, shoo deer and rabbits away from young sprouts, locate hidden items in the yard, sew buttons anew, cook up huge pots of mouth-watering food, and in any junkyard anywhere find about anything they’d ever need rather than buy it from a hardware or auto-parts store. When they feel like it, they'll even scrounge up a job when they need cash, though they prefer to remain experts at bartering and a cashless economy. By and large, they prefer to go their own way as weightlessly as foxes through a field.

At the moment, they're all still asleep, as are those in the ephemeral third ring. Who knows what Wink and Irma do for coin? Or Dominic or Mongo?

Put them altogether, and Mylin comes as close as anyone to serving as mayor of this encampment, with its penchant for anarchy and gradations of free love. Maybe he's the ringmaster?

If only things would remain this tranquil. Kenzie has no idea what he's going to do for the rest of the day, an uncommon experience. His to-do lists have been put aside, at Nita's urging.

He has no idea how quickly things will change, once they're tempted to add dogs, cats, and chickens to their collective. As for babies? They have no idea what they're in for.

He grabs a blanket, a novel, and a couple of sandwiches and treks off down the wooded lane. Finds a secluded pocket and nestles in. The sunlight feels marvelous. He's barefoot. Nobody's around. Strips off his shirt, then pants and underwear. He's never had a day like this in his life. The only thing that's missing is a woman.

Oops. Bummer. Worse than a thick cloud overhead. A chill runs down his back, along with a bead of sweat. He's still in love. Obsessed with that past, actually. There's no escape. His daisies-in-the-sky dizziness was everything. She won't go away or come back. She's still messing with his head, though she'd have no idea.

He hears something off in the woods, as if the trees are gossiping. What on earth? It's not just the wind tossing the leaves. This is sotto voce. A droning invitation. He dons his clothes, including the shoes, and heads off to investigate. The sound grows more distinct, but he has trouble placing its location. Sometimes it's off to the right. Others, to the left or even straight ahead. He catches a motion and then sees a flutter around a fallen tree. A figure in tie-dye and a headband hovers along the trunk, coaxing the most unearthly sounds to come forth. If Kenzie hadn't noticed something along the lines of drumsticks or mallets, he would have sworn what he's hearing is produced by bowing or breathing. And then the figure startles, straightens up, and everything stops.

Uh, that's amazing, Kenzie says. So you're the drummer?

Yeah, that's me. A chuckle. I'm Drummer. Who are you?

So Kenzie introduces himself and launches into his tale of woe only to find himself addressing a sympathetic spirit. Drummer explores the resonance of the hollow trunk, finds spots more expressive than others, and liberates Kenzie's anguish to the sunlight.

Wow. That's unbelievable. How do you do it?

I don't know. I just do it.

So what are you doing out here? I mean, on the farm.

Oh, I rode along with friends of friends who know someone in the farmhouse.

Russet Ranch?

Yeah, that's the one. Nice place you got.

You haven't been inside the house, have you?

No.

It's pretty funky, hate to say. We got some work to do.

Blank looks, both ways.

Well, now you, too, know someone in the farmhouse. I'll let you get back to your thing. See you around?

Yeah, dude. I hear you.

Drummer returns to the log, but the sounds coming forth are entirely different. What was brooding and mysterious earlier is now jovial and light. Amazing. So trees, in the right hands, can talk?

As Kenzie walks in the dust back to the house, he wonders whether all drumming is produced by beating a surface or whether it can arise by other techniques, such as caresses. Much of what he's just heard felt much more like a nuzzle than a blow. In other words, not just percussion.

Before he gets to the barn, he's intercepted by Rusty's voice. Hey, you free for a second? I could use a hand.

Kenzie looks around, finally detects Rusty bent over in a cleared patch below the barn, and saunters over. Sees a dozen tomato plants, three rows of lettuce, furrows of sprouts – corn?

Aren't you a little behind the season?

Hope not. But spring was unusually wet and then cold. Just couldn't get out here to work it.

What Rusty has in mind will take more than a second. He could really use a hand from everyone. Where are they?

As Wink would say, Fuhgeddaboutit.

Wink? He's such a lazy stupid shit, says Phoebe.

What Rusty has in mind is surrounding the plot with two strands of electrical fencing, which he's running off a circuit from the barn, thanks to Dominic's engineering. He needs someone to hold the posts in place while he pounds them into the ground.

Kenzie can do that, right?

Well, a pair of work gloves helps, along with a wrapped-up towel to soften the blows.

As they labor, he hears about the previous year's travails. Not just the way the deer and groundhogs mowed down the produce, either. Or how Rusty's poison ivy got worse in high summer. If you're allergic to it, don't rub the dogs, OK?

Kenzie's lucky there, on two counts. So it wasn't just the result of aggressive weeding?

Apparently not.

Kenzie can see that even if other Ranchers pitch in, this is going to take longer than one day. Once the posts are in place and the insulators installed on each one, stringing the line demands patience.

Rusty grins and responds, You're from the Midwest. You know all about farming, right?

Well, we had a garden. My dad works for John Deere, but not making tractors.

So much for stereotypes.

And where did you learn about all this?

"From an avid reading of the Whole Earth Catalog in the depth of winter."

The what?

I'll introduce you, if we ever get a break. Like a rainy day? It's full of dreams. All kinds of useful stuff and ideas.

They're interrupted by Phoebe's voice. I thought you might want some liquid, oh, hi, Kenzie, glad I made extra Kool-Aid, hope you like strawberry, and you two should get out of the sun before you fry.

She's right on all counts.

As they head for shade, Kenzie learns of the two dog houses — one at each of the outer corners of the garden. Seems just the presence of a dog is enough to deter most wildlife. No need to have the canines there during the day, though. Besides, those quarters need some shade, too.

Before he can ask about the dogs, he's being led to