Planting,Lenore shouted in her mind. How in the world were they going to plant anything without water? She didn’t say anything, though, as Brandon had started toward the barn, and she had to jog a little to keep up.
“I’m also thinking of building a sheep tractor,” he said. “I think that’s down the road, though.”
“A sheep tractor?” Lenore had never felt like she didn’t understand the English words until today.
Brandon chuckled. “We move them around to mow down the fields and grasses that we don’t want. Instead of just cutting the grass, you have sheep. Again, they have feces that regenerate the land. You have a labor-free way of keeping your land mowed and cared for.”
“And we have sheep,” she said. She loved animals, and she’d love to have sheep on the homestead.
“Yep, you’ll have sheep,” he said. “We can also do it with goats, and then you can milk ’em.”
The thought of having milk and eggs and chickens and vegetables…Lenore honestly felt like she’d struck a gold mine.
“I don’t think food and livestock are going to be your problem.” As he neared the barn, he got the broken door open and said, “I can fix this later tonight.” Then he entered the dimmer depths of the barn. “I think we can definitelyimproveyour gardening. We can make a couple of mobile mini coops that we can move each day by hand. Sheep tractor down the line.” He paused his musing and started writing on the clipboard.
Lenore honestly had no idea what to think of or what to do next. They’d only been out talking for maybe a half-hour. A complete sense of overwhelm pressed down on her, created by everything he’d said. She needed another cup of coffee and a dark room to lie down in while she thought through things like “sheep tractor” and “move a whole building around a house.”
Brandon wrote, moving one page to the back and bringing forth a fresh one. Finally, he finished and looked at her.
“Chicken coop. More chickens in mobile mini groups. Improved gardening space. That’s livestock and food—both of which are essential to a functioning homestead. Crops will come. I really believe we can do that. We can add more enclosures and pastures and all the animals you want. But what you can’t do with those animals and crops….”
Lenore’s stomach flipped, and it felt like someone had poured popping candy into her blood.
“You can’t keep them alive unless you have water,” Brandon said, delivering the death blow. “Animals and cropsrequirewater. Wehaveto get water on this homestead.”
“I don’t know how,” Lenore said.
“Are there any other homesteads around? Any other farms where we can run a line from their irrigation to your land? You could pay them a fee.”
“I don’t know,” Lenore said. “Do people do that?”
“I’m not sure either,” Brandon said. “There’s a ranch owners’ meeting on the third Thursday of every month. You should come to the next one, and we can ask all the questions we have. There are tons of knowledgeable people there, and they’ll know the answers.”
He glanced around the barn, and now that Lenore’s eyes had adjusted to the dimmer light, she could see the disarray and disrepair of it. Since she wasn’t the most organized person, the barn had ropes, bags, and tools thrown anywhere they’d land.
“I can text them all too,” Brandon said. “I bet I could find out if there’s a water line here or how to drill a well.”
Lenore sucked in a breath. “Brandon, there is no way I can afford to drill a well. Do you even know how much that is?”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t.”
“Well, I do,” Lenore snapped. “And it’s really expensive. We’re talking thousands of dollars. I don’t have it. It’s impossible.”
His eyes latched on to hers, his glare becoming as hard as her voice had been. She stared him down, because shehaddone this research. Because, when she faced the hard truth of things, she knew the homestead would not survive without water.
“The first thing you need to do,” he said. “Is get rid of the wordimpossible. You don’t know how you’re going to pay to drill a well. Doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”
She sighed mightily, because she didn’t need this lecture.
Brandon didn’t continue his inspection of the barn. He simply walked through it, keeping his thoughts to himself. She let him go, irritation firing through her. He hadn’t offered a solution for her water problem or where he was going next.
In the end, she started after him, catching the barn door before it slammed closed after he had departed. He stood several paces away, facing the woods. “We can get all the lumber we need right here from these trees. This is your forest, right?”
“Yes,” she said.
“We can get the lumber we need for the gardening shed, the firewood pile, the chicken coop—all of it right here. In fact, some of these need to be cut down simply for fire safety.”
“Fire safety?” Lenore repeated, wondering how many times she would repeat something he’d said as a question.
