Mike nods thoughtfully. “You can’t be completely self-sufficient without them, you know.”
“No, indeed.” Josh’s eyebrows lift. “Do you want a tour of the place?”
Mike’s smile is wide and friendly, and I tell myself not to be so prickly.
“Sure!”
While Josh gives Mike the full tour, I get dinner on the table. The kids drift around, Bethany helping me with the food, Jack trailing after Josh and Mike, and William getting some wood in since the nights are still pretty cold. As I take the pie out of the oven, Rose tugs on my sleeve.
“I don’t have to eat that stuff, do I?” she asks anxiously, nodding toward the salad Mike brought.
“Yes, you do,” I reply firmly. “It’s only polite, Rose.”
She lets out a little whimper of distress that I ignore. This is all part of building resilience.
As they come back in, I can tell that Josh’s good humor is faltering a little. Mike has clearly been keeping up a monologue about what we need to do on the homestead, as well as what we’re already doing wrong.
“You really should have cold frames,” he says as Josh ushers him into the kitchen. “So you can prime your summer garden. Frankly, I’m amazed you haven’t even plowed yet. It’s March, after all, and without the cold frames…” He shakes his head despairingly, which makes me feel like hiding under our bed. Clearly, it’s hopeless. It’s March, and our spring planting and summer harvest are already toast.
“Well, there’s this pesky broken leg of mine,” Josh replies, his smile a little fixed. “I only got the cast off a couple of weeks ago, so…”
“And you really should be stocking that pond,” he adds, a note of warning in his voice. “If you’d done it last August or September, you could have some decent-sized fish in there already. Trout and pike… as it is, I’d do it in April, if I were you. Better late than never, but you won’t be catching anything worth eating for another six months atleast.”
“I don’t like fish,” Rose volunteers, and Mike turns to her with a kindly smile.
“Well, I think you’ll like them all right if they’re all that’s separating you from starvation,” he says cheerfully.
Rose’s eyes widen, and I hurry to smooth over the moment.
“Dinner’s just about ready, Mike. Can I get you something to drink?”
The well-meaning and relentless advice continues all through our meal, along with asides about what I’ve served.
“Did you process the chicken yourself?” he asks as we all dig into my very homemade chicken pie. “The meat seems a little stringy to me. You know you shouldn’t go past seven weeks with a meat chicken? And let them drain for at least three days, making sure you constantly add ice; otherwise, they’ll be tough.”
“Yeah, I watched that YouTube video, too,” Josh mutters under his breath.
Bethany chokes while William smothers a laugh. Mike, thankfully, is oblivious, but I feel as if the evening is getting away from us.
“Mike, are you hoping to have meat chickens?” I ask, and he gives me a benevolently indulgent smile.
“I’m planning to be entirely self-sufficient,” he reminds me, his tone almost gentle, and I’m amazed I could have forgotten for so much as a second.
And so the evening goes.
“All right, I get it,” Josh burst out almost the very instant I close the door on Mike.
It’s nearing eleven, and I think everybody is exhausted. I still have to tuck Rose in, and my belly feels all achy, and I don’t think it’s the chicken pie I ate.
“Get what?” I ask as I start clearing plates. The kitchen is a mess; we went from dinner to dessert to coffee to aperitifs—Hooch’s huckleberry gin liqueur—without any cleanup, and the result is two dishwasher loads scattered across every work surface.
“Get why you don’t like Mike the Prepper,” Josh says succinctly.
I hurriedly hush him. “I never said I didn’tlikehim.”
Josh cocks an eyebrow. “Abby.”
“I didn’t,” I insist, stubborn now. “And I think you’re being a little unfair. I know he can be a little…keen, but so were we when we started. Do you remember all the videos we watched? We thought eleven seasons ofAlonemade us survivalist experts.” I let out a huff as I recall Josh expostulating on how best to skin a deer, when the only dead deer he’d ever seen in real life was one being picked over by crows on the side of the road, hit by someone else. “We need to give him a break.”
