#so anyway. full time berry farm summer I guess

[littlestarofthewest]

Title: Meeting Miss Morgan | Word Count: 3289 | Rating (for entire fic): 18+!!!

Pairing: Arthur Morgan x female OC | Chapter: 04 of 08 |  Link to Masterlist

Arthur knows what he's doing is stupid. In fact, he is stupid. He got up even earlier than usual, taking care of the firewood. Julie prepares it most of the time, but when she briefly mentioned in conversation that she doesn't particularly like doing it, Arthur immediately had the urge to do it for her.

He likes to think that he's just trying to help out around the farm, but after the pencils and the whole trouble Arthur went through with Jasper, he can't pretend that what he's doing has nothing to do with Julie. Somehow he always ends up helping her in particular.

Ever since she kissed him on the cheek, she wanders around in his mind when he's not busy thinking about something else. Having the chance to hold her in his arms didn't make it any easier. In fact, he feels like he's years younger, even more of an idiot, and stupid enough to think that she might like him as more than a friend, if at all. 

Julie's a nice person. Doing sweet things comes naturally to her, and has nothing to do with Arthur, but he still can't stop hoping. He's chopping wood and buys a new shirt like a changed man, as if he wasn't a killer, wanted outlaw, and complete failure.

Arthur finishes the last logs with a sigh, knowing full well that his day won't get any better. With some tools, he heads out to one end of Mr. Henderson's property, beginning the work that will probably take him the whole week, building a new fence.

On the one hand, it's a good thing that he can stay away from the stables for a while. That way, he at least can't embarrass himself in front of Julie. On the other hand, he has a lot of time to think. 

For the last two days, he's been remembering his ride with Julie. They didn't talk much, but Julie kept smiling at Arthur, so abundantly happy that she was finally able to ride Jasper. It was a joy to watch her race over open fields, her blonde hair flying in the wind. She seemed to glow in a golden shine under the warm summer sun, so free and unburdened that watching her made Arthur's heart ache. 

Fuelled with those memories, Arthur keeps working on the fence, trying to neither think back to his old life nor imagine the future. All that matters is hitching up posts, one after the other until the day is gone.

He makes good progress until he hears a rider approach. Arthur's heart drops when Julie rides up to him on Jasper. "Hello, Arthur."

Arthur tips his hat, pulling it deeper into his face. "Jules."

She hops off the horse and strides over to him with a bundle in her hand, her eyes wandering over the already finished fence. "Let me guess, you didn't take any breaks."

Arthur opens his mouth, but Julie shakes her head and takes his hammer away before throwing it into the grass. Then she grabs his hand and pulls him to the nearby woods, making him sit down on a fallen tree in the shadow of a few branches.

"I had time to make something to eat for you since the firewood was already done," Julie says, raising a single brow at Arthur while unpacking the bundle in her hand.

"Was it?" Arthur says, looking out over the farmland in front of them. 

Julie pushes a bowl with stew into his hand and tops it off with a thick slice of bread. "It's cold but better than nothing."

"Thank you," Arthur says, although he's not sure how he's supposed to eat with butterflies in his stomach. 

Julie is sitting way too close, her leg brushing against his. Arthur would move, but then he'd fall off the tree. Instead, he shovels a spoonful of stew into his mouth. That should keep Julie from asking him any questions. 

"You know that you don't have to do everything, right?" she asks.

Arthur chews, but Julie keeps looking at him, waiting for an answer. He clears his throat, trying to come up with an excuse. "I don't mind the firewood. It's quiet work, relaxing. Just like building a fence."

"You must have had quite the excitement before when you actually like doing these boring things."

"Enough for a lifetime," Arthur says, knowing that he's avoiding her unspoken question. It's not fair to keep it a secret from Julie who he truly is, but the thought of her thinking less of him twists Arthur's stomach into knots.

He forces down more stew, and maybe Julie takes the hint or just wants for him to eat, but she stays quiet, looking up into the trees. They sit there until Arthur is done eating, and Julie fetches a bottle of water for him as well, scolding him for not bringing one along in the first place. 

Arthur thanks her again, trying to put the bottle into his bag to bring it along. He curses when one side of the bag tears, and his journal drops to the ground. It falls open, and Arthur hurries to pick it up, but Julie is quicker than him. Her eyes grow big as she looks at the page, and Arthur's heart stops, thinking about the things he recently wrote about her.

"I thought you only wrote in this," Julie says, "I didn't know you were drawing, too."

"It's just silly little doodles," Arthur says, hoping that Julie won't turn the page.

"That's the whole farm from the viewpoint up on that ridge," Julie says with wonder in her voice. She moves a few steps before turning around, holding the journal up against the horizon. "Arthur, that's incredible. Where did you learn to draw like this?"

"My pa," Arthur begins, realizing too late that he was thinking about Hosea and horrible guilt consumes him. 

"Your father was an artist?"

"No, what I meant was that he gave me my first journal when I was 15," Arthur says, the memory weighing heavy on him. "I've been trying to draw whatever I saw since then."

"Well, then he's a good father. You're really talented," Julie says. She closes the journal with such care as if it was a precious relic before handing it over. "I've meant to draw a few places around here, but somehow I never get around to it."

"How come?" Arthur asks, wishing he could see some of Julie's drawings.

"Mrs. Henderson would say I work too much," Julie sighs, "and Mr. Henderson is always concerned about me. A young woman alone on the road? Better not. There's a beautiful pond up in those woods, but there's a road going past with many travelers and stagecoaches, so there are sometimes bandits in the woods as well. Mr. Henderson would kill me if I went there on my own."

"He's not wrong," Arthur says. He met enough outlaws in his time who went far beyond thieving and killing. Some of them were so bad, you wished they would have killed their victims. "There are some bad people out there."

Julie studies Arthur for a moment as if to ask if he's one of them, but then she walks over to Jasper. "I better let you work now, or Mr. Henderson will have my head for distracting you."

"Thank you for the food," Arthur says again. After all, he can't tell Julie that she's already distracting him anyway.

"Somebody has to take care of you," Julie says with a smile before riding off, leaving Arthur with a warm feeling in his chest.

------

The next morning, Arthur walks out of his cabin, finding a fresh water bottle and a tightly wrapped package in front of his door. He doesn't have to look inside to know what it is. Julie must have gotten up even earlier than usual to prepare some food for him. Arthur picks it up, finding a little note tucked into one of the folds. It says, "Take some breaks."

Smiling, Arthur puts the package in his saddlebag and rides out to continue his work on the fence. This time, he doesn't mind those thoughts of Julie dance around in his head. He can't change her as much as he can't change himself, so he might as well enjoy her kindness, no matter how undeserved it might be.

When noon comes around, Arthur takes Julie's advice to have a break. He unpacks the food package, finding cold roast, bread, and berries. Sitting in the shadow of a huge tree, Arthur savors his meal. Somehow, it tastes so much better than anything he's ever eaten before. He's about to pack up when he finds a piece of paper sticking out from under his plate.

Arthur pulls it out, his eyes growing wide. It's a drawing of him on the Mustang riding up to the stables. Despite sketching other people all the time, Arthur has never seen a picture of himself. It's like looking into the mirror, and he's impressed how well Julie can draw. 

Wondering why Julie picked this specific scene, Arthur's stomach does a little summersault when he remembers what happened right afterward. Closing his eyes, Arthur can imagine how Julie's touch felt on his skin, but then he quickly gets up. He can't risk to drift off into these kinds of phantasies. 

Instead, Arthur carefully folds up the drawing and puts it in his breast pocket before riding out to town. Mr. Henderson asked him to run some errands, and he might be able to find a little thank you gift for Julie. At least that's what Arthur thought.

He's done with Mr. Henderson's business in no time, but even after an hour, Arthur can't find anything to give to Julie. He can't exactly gift her a sack of rice, but at the same time, anything more personal could give her the wrong - or worse - the right idea about Arthur's growing feelings for her. In the end, he decides that a heartfelt thank you has to do.

On his way back, Arthur has another idea, though. He's on the road Julie talked about the day before, so Arthur steers his horse into the trees to find the pond. It takes him a little going back and forth, but he knows what Julie has been talking about once he sees it.

It's a beautiful place with high trees and lots of flowers that surround the small body of water. Birds are singing, and when Arthur comes closer, a few deer quickly jump away and disappear. Letting his horse roam free, Arthur walks around the pond two times to find the right spot before settling down with his journal.

Usually, Arthur's quick with his drawings. He always had other things to do or was with someone who didn't appreciate him taking forever to sketch an abandoned church or oddly shaped tree. Today, Arthur takes his time. He tries to capture how the sun sparkles on the water, and painstakingly draws all the single petals on most of the flowers. He only rushes to finish the picture when the sun begins to set.

Looking at his finished work in the dim light, Arthur remembers Julie's words about him being talented, and for the first time in a long while, he feels proud about something that he did. Folding the paper as carefully as possible, he puts it to Julie's drawing in his pocket and hurries back to the farm so he won't miss dinner.

At the house, Julie greets him with a lovely smile, and Arthur's heart skips a beat once again. Thinking about giving her the drawing later makes him so nervous he can barely follow the conversation. When they're done eating, Julie heads outside to play her guitar, and Mr. Henderson holds Arthur back to talk about work.

Arthur nods along until Mr. Henderson finally gives him free. Outside, Arthur finds Julie sitting on the steps that lead up to the door. Her guitar is lying next to her, but she's not playing.

"No music tonight?" Arthur asks.

"I felt like watching the stars," Julie says before turning to Arthur and patting the floor next to her. "Come sit with me."

Arthur swallows a lump in his throat, feeling like he might pass out. He can't remember the last time he's been so nervous. For a moment, he thinks about making up an excuse to go, but his feet act on their own, carrying him all too willingly over to Julie. He sits down next to her, leaving generous space between them, but Julie scoots closer, pointing into the sky.

"I love that one," she says, and Arthur follows the line of her outstretched arm to a big star that shines particularly bright.

"It's pretty," Arthur says, looking at Julie. She turns her head, and he tries desperately to come up with something else to say. "Thank you for the food. And the drawing. You're way more talented than I am."

Julie's cheeks gain a little color, and she waves her hand. "Like you said, just silly little drabbles."

Arthur thinks about the picture in his breast pocket, and it takes all his courage to take it out and hand it to Julie. "I thought about what you said when I was heading back from town. You probably could have done a better job, though."

Julie unfolds the paper and gasps before staring at Arthur. "You drew the pond?"

"I gave it a shot," Arthur says, rubbing his neck. Now that Julie is looking at it, he begins to see mistakes he didn't notice before, and he feels he should have taken more time to get the picture right.

"It's beautiful," Julie says, her eyes wandering over the page. "The details in the flowers. The water. This must have taken you forever."

Arthur shrugs. "Maybe when I'm done with the fence, we can ride up there together, and you can draw it yourself. Or any of the other places you wanted to draw."

Julie looks back up at Arthur, a shine in her eyes that makes his skin tickle. "You would do that?"

Arthur's not quite sure how they ended up so close to each other, and he knows he should just say yes, or maybe nod, but he's always been an idiot. "For you," he says, his voice almost giving out on him.

He moves even closer to Julie, knowing full well that he shouldn't. She opens her mouth as if to say something, but then she leans in, and Arthur closes the distance between them, his lips brushing against Julie's. Arthur's heart feels like it might jump out of his chest any second, and he wants nothing more than to hold Julie close, but then the door screeches behind them.

They move apart as if hit by lightning, and only seconds later, Mrs. Henderson comes out of the house. "Aren't you going to play, Julie? I really feel like-"

She stops herself when her eyes fall on the paper in Julie's hand. "Oh, my dear, that's lovely. When did you draw that?"

Julie throws a quick glance over to Arthur before handing the drawing to Mrs. Henderson. "I didn't. Arthur drew it today."

Mrs. Henderson's mouth falls open, and she looks back and forth between Arthur and the drawing. "Well, look at you, Mr. Morgan. Aren't you full of surprises? Who knows what else we might find the longer you stay with us."

She can't know it, but her words cut deep, and Arthur gets to his feet. "I think I better go to sleep. I want to get an early start on that fence."

"You two make quite the couple," Mrs. Henderson sighs, running a hand over Julie's hair. "The name, the drawing, and nothing but work in your heads. The two of you really need to have some fun for a change."

Julie lets out a muffled noise, and Arthur wishes he could just melt into the ground. Instead, he taps his hat. "Goodnight."

He turns around, walking away so quickly that he doesn't know if the two women respond. Arthur's whole body seems to fill up with rage, and he wishes he could give himself a good beating. 

When he left the gang, Arthur swore that he's done with making stupid mistakes, yet here he is, well on his way to hurt a nice, young woman, and maybe ruining more lives. The surprises he's filled with are danger, sorrow, and regret. Neither Julie nor the Henderson's deserve any of that. If he wants to stay, he has to get himself under control.

--------

Pretending to be busy with the fence, Arthur manages to stay away from Julie for two days, and then he jumps at the chance when Mr. Henderson asks him to bring one of the horses he sold to its buyer. That way, he gets to stay away for three more days, trying to sort out his feelings. 

At first, he goes with booze but concludes that that's just one more mistake, considering how he behaves when drunk. The trouble is that Arthur can't sleep when he's sober. He's tossing and turning, only drifting off for a few minutes before waking up in a cold sweat, guilt consuming him over and over again.

By the time Arthur gets back to the farm, he's so tired he can barely walk straight and doesn't remember the last time he ate. Still, he brings his horse into the stable, doing his best to take care of it. It's already dark, and Arthur hoped he could sneak into his cabin without anybody noticing. Of course, he has no such luck.

"Arthur?" Julie asks behind him, and Arthur does his best to stand up straight when he turns around to her.

"Yes, it's me. I just got back."

Julie takes a step closer, worry in her eyes. "Are you alright?"

"Just a little tired," Arthur says with a forced smile. "It's been a long ride."

He's not sure if he actually sways at those words, but it sure feels that way. Julie comes even closer, studying his face. "A little tired? You're dead on your feet. What's wrong?"

Arthur knows that he won't get out of this so quickly, so he shrugs. "Haven't slept well for the last few days. I'll be fine."

He waits for Julie to scold him, but she just takes his hand and leads him into the next empty stall. It's filled with fresh hay, and Julie forces him to sit down. "I'll be right back," she says, her voice low.

Arthur wishes he could go, but he's not sure he could get up on his feet before Julie's back. Instead, he shrugs out of his jacket and puts it behind his head like a makeshift pillow. He's staring at the wall on the other side when Julie appears in front of him. She puts a blanket over him and then sits down with her guitar on her legs.

"What are you doing?" Arthur asks, but Julie only shakes her head.

"Just close your eyes."

She starts playing, and Arthur does as she says. He's nervous with her closeby, and he wants to apologize, but he's not sure how to even get the words out. "I'm sorry, Jules," he finally manages to say.

"Sleep, Arthur," Julie says, her voice warm and comfortable like the blanket over him. "You'll be fine."

It takes a while until Arthur can focus on the music, but then a nice heavy feeling settles in his stomach, the notes carrying him over into a better world, a world where he doesn't have to apologize for liking someone.

#my writing

[punkpoemprose]

A Brief History of the Farm; Or Why Emily is the Way She Is

As requested, a brief (okay it got really really long) history of life, adventures, and my/ my family member’s fuckups on the farm.

@karis-the-fangirl I hope some of this is helpful/ amusing. Feel free to ask questions at any time if you’d like. If living in the sticks can be helpful to anyone I’m more than happy to share the knowledge I have.

So my dad has like the longest list of insane stories related to farmwork, so a lot of these will be his, and I should say that my family farm is only a hobby farm, so the work is a lot less difficult than my cousin’s dairy farm and the farms around me. We’re more of a subsistence farm/ homestead.

           When my dad was in middle school/ highschool he worked on my cousin’s dairy farm, and nearly died there five times that I know of (there’s probably more).

1.)    In the hayloft and a board broke out from under him sending him to the floor below (about a 10ft drop), which would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that the weak board sent him into a pile of very sharp tools that should have probably impaled him. He walked it off.

2.)    Was switching off equipment because he heard a storm was rolling in. The first strike of lightning in the whole night hits the barn, comes through the outlet, and knocks him flat on his ass, gasping for breath.

3.)    Was digging a trench for waterlines out to the barn. His little cousin was playing with her sisters in the back yard and went running, fell into the trench and straight on top of my father (she wasn’t necessarily small at that age and it was a 12ft trench). She nearly broke my Dad’s back, but it was lucky that she landed on him, because if she hadn’t, she likely would have hit a stone at the bottom of the trench and died.

4.)    Rolled a tractor (you’re not supposed to live through that), and not like a John Deere Mt or a little Ford or something, no, a huge commercial farm tractor with no cab. Again, he went flying, but walked it off.

5.)    Some kid decided to walk up to the back of one of the tractors when a PTO (power take off- basically a thing that spins wicked fast that you can use to power equipment off the back of a tractor, like a mower or what have you… this might explain better https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_take-off) shaft was running. If you so much as touch one of those babies when they’re going it can break your arm/ leg. God forbid you get a scrap of clothing stuck in there, you’re as good as dead. Anyway, kid gets too close, my Dad sees what’s about to happen and shoves the kid out of the way. You can probably guess what happens to Dad’s pants. If it weren’t for the fact that Dad yelled for the kid to move and the kid screamed, which caused my Great Grandfather to come running and shut the tractor off, I probably wouldn’t be here today. Oh, and what happened to him? He walked it off.

Mom wasn’t born on the farm. She was a city gal. Okay so like not a big city, but they had more than one grocery store, so that’s a city for me. My town only has farms, car garages, a post office, a town hall, and the general store an Amish lady opened up about a year ago (the pie is so damn good and her prices are so low it’s a miracle I bake at all anymore tbh, my grandmother has definitely given in all her thanksgiving pies were handmade by Laura Yoder and her three girls).

When she first started seeing Dad she was about my age (I think around 19 or 20?). They met at her summer job (at a plastic plant out towards Utica). My dad was her supervisor, and even though she had never done farm chores before, she started to learn on her visits. My father lived with his grandfather and the house desperately needed a woman’s touch, so Mom often did the dishes and tidied up for them, and she learned to crochet during the winter just to make my Dad a blanket.

By the time they were married Mom felt much more comfortable on the farm, but let me tell you (as she would, she’s a lovely woman and likes others to learn from her mistakes) she made some major mess ups/ had some adventures before and after the wedding.

She ruined about three weeks worth of green beans by weeding the row while they were wet (when you touch green beans while they’re wet they “rust” which is basically a disease/ blight that ruins the beans on the affected plants).

Planted three different plants that are so terribly invasive we’ve done everything we can to kill them since the early 2000’s and they still keep coming back (word to the wise if you ever want to plant spearmint do it in a pot).

Somehow Virginia Creeper ended up in our grape vines, and thankfully Mom only ate one berry (they look a lot like wild grapes). It lit her whole mouth on fire, and luckily she and dad were able to tear it all out before anyone else made the same mistake.

She didn’t fully cook Swiss Chard and had a similar adventure in mouth/ throat burning (The plants have tiny microneedles in their stems that will make you feel pain like no other if you eat it raw/ undercooked).

Once she made a pie with the apples off the back tree, and somehow managed to get several worm filled apples which did not reveal themselves until dinner that night, dead in the pie. In similar bug/ apple tree issues she accidently sent a wasps nest out of the tree and onto my father while picking apples (though Dad got his revenge when I was a kid and sent a chuck of beehive onto her by accident).

She was pulling weeds in the garden, accidently dug up/ pulled out a snake and panicked, not letting go of it, but running so that the poor thing (just a little garter snake mind you) was bouncing up and down the whole time, probably just trying to be free of her. She only dropped it when she ran over to my father (who’s terrified of snakes) and he smacked her hand.

When she was pregnant with me, she and Dad hadn’t accounted for such a cold/ long winter, so in the middle of February (7 months pregnant), she was up in the woods filling up a sled (that didn’t hold much but was heavy when full) with wood to bring back to the house. She had to make this trip 3-5 times in a day, and the woods are a quarter mile from the house in any direction.

When I was a toddler and my brother was a baby she worked in the garden with him in a playpen and I would be playing with my toy garden tools. My cousin, unfortunately, had planted a cornfield in the lot behind my house that he rented from us that year and I toddled off into the corn field. My poor mother ran through the corn field barefoot with my brother in one arm, screaming like a banshee for a good fifteen minutes. By the time she got back to the house, ready to call in a search party, I was being pushed on my swing set by my great grandpa (who was very hard of hearing).

My Gramp was the sweetest/ toughest man you would ever meet and doted on my brother and I terribly. He was half deaf, blind in one eye, his heart barely worked, he had a bad back and barely functioning lungs, but he would go up into the woods on the hottest day of summer to pick wild blackberries, strawberries, and raspberries for me and my brother. When Conner was a baby and I was a toddler he would do it for hours, come back, mash them all up for us with some sugar, let us eat it all, and tell us stories. My dad always said that he wouldn’t have lived as long as he did if it weren’t for me and my brother being around to give him something to live for.

As far as my experiences go I’ve been lucky to avoid anything too possibly life ending. Though we cut our own wood, and when I was a kid my Dad would fall a tree and cut it up and me, my mom, and my brother would load it into the truck or the wagon to take back to the house. Well my favorite thing was when he’d fall a tree on a hill so that we could roll the blocks down the hill to be split/ loaded. One time my shirt got caught on a log I was rolling, and it took me with it. I thankfully got thrown off the block before it could roll on my chest, but it got my leg pretty bad and it knocked all the air out of my lungs. I was pretty young at the time so my parents were worried. They made me and my brother stay in the truck the rest of the time, but we really just wanted to be out rolling more blocks. Also I’ve been hit multiple times by thrown pieces of wood to varying levels of damage to myself. I accidently broke my dad’s glasses when I didn’t see him and tossed a piece at him when I was about 12. But he was mostly fine and my brother broke a window doing the same thing when we were filling a shed, so we’ve all done something.

We use a tractor to plow out the driveway in the winter because we get so much snow. When my brother was a baby he loved riding on the tractor with Dad. (He called it a put-put because that’s the sound the exhaust/ exhaust cap makes when it runs). One time my dad hit a snow bank pretty hard and my little brother (probably about 2 or 3) went flying off the tractor and into the bank. I’m about 4 or 5, so I’m just sort of confused when my dad plucks my brother out of the snow and grabs us both (amazing given how puffy both of our snowsuits were really) and says the one phrase the three of us still share today “Don’t tell mom!”

When my brother and I were up playing on the edge of where the field meets the woods (where my great grandma used to throw the trash because they didn’t have pick up or anything like that) I sliced my finger open on a piece of glass and my brother said I’d have to get stitches so I tried hiding it from my mom for hours. I don’t know how much blood I lost, but my mom (God bless her) found out and managed to butterfly bandage it closed and made me drink a ridiculous amount of water. I probably should have gone to the hospital, but it never scarred and I lived. I have other stories that did leave scars, but I can sum almost all of them up as “young Emily really liked animals but the animals didn’t always like Emily back”. I didn’t learn obviously, I’m a Biologist.

When I started being able to do chores on my own I got my shoe eaten by pigs while bringing them slop, accidently pulled out all the plants and left the weeds in the garden because the leaves were very similar (thankfully we were able to replant them), I accidently broke a ton of eggs, I lost most of the hay out of a bale I was carrying, I ripped open a feed bag because I held it wrong, and I fell into what I will affectionately refer to as “puckey” more times than I’m willing to admit. I also freed all the fish my brother caught (because they were cute), cried over a bird that my brother shot by accident while trying to scare them out of the tomatoes, and with detached emotion named my three pigs breakfast, lunch, and dinner (my brother, who really isn’t a monster I promise, named his bacon, ham, and sausage).

I refuse to hunt, but I’ve gutted deer (the first time was an adventure trust me there), and for the last year I’ve been the closest thing my family had to a farm vet. The vet most people used around here passed recently and evidently a student of biology with a firm understanding of google is good enough for my family when it comes to the chickens and wildlife. I’ve only lost one patient and consulting with my actual vet student friends, she wasn’t going to make it anyway.

Also critters get into the house a lot and because I’m the only one in the family who isn’t afraid of them (mostly mice, bats, moles, and the occasional bird, my mom can handle the frogs/ toads/ salamanders herself), it’s been my job since I was about 12 to shoo them out. I don’t do snakes (because while I respect them I’m afraid of them), but I’ve been known to catch spiders and bring them out to the deck. The only thing I would ever outright refuse to catch is this fucking massive squirrel that used to hang out in the hay loft of my friend’s barn. It was a terror.

Oh and my brother and I had our hair chewed on by a horse when we were kids because we used to have straw blonde hair.

I overfilled a pressure canner once and I nearly died when we opened it prematurely because it blew the pressure gage clear off the top and just past my head.

My dog ran across a wet bridge and sent my cousin into the creek below where he broke his arm. I had to run back to the house (about a half mile) to get my mom to call his mom so we could bring him to the hospital (I was about 13, so he was either 14 or 15).

My brother and I have pulled more stone out of the fields around my house than I can count. Not little ones either. You can run little ones over with the tractor. I’m talking rocks the size of a laptop or larger. Once or twice we’ve found ones so big that we needed my dad to come through with the tractor to get them out.

I’ve been face to face with a bear (which is why I bring my brother, our 4-wheeler and his rifle whenever I go blackberry picking now), and we’ve all had deer, coyote, porcupines, skunks, and snakes cross our paths. Dad tries to shoot all the woodchucks out of the lot (they cause a lot of damage), but I won’t let him kill them if I’m around (same for the moles in the lawn and the field mice in the house).

There’s like a million more things I could say, but this is over 2500 words and I think I should stop now.  

#my life #farm life #this is what happens when you're raised in the middle of nowhere #This is why I am the way I am

[k3elizabeth]

Oahu Part 1: Read it here! Maui Part 2:  Read it here!

Our cruise was doing two stops on the Big Island – Day 6 stopping on the eastern side of the island in Hilo and Day 7 in Kona on the western side of the island.

Day 6 – Hilo

The Big Island is known for being the island with active volcanoes, with the most recent eruption being Mount Kilauea over the summer. So of course one of our Big Island must-do’s was to visit Volcano National Park, which fortunately just re-opened a few weeks prior.  It had been closed during the eruption from May – August 2018, and even when we visited in October there were still several sections that have not yet reopened due to destruction or land instability.

To be completely honest, I was not expecting Volcano National Park to be the most exciting attraction.  It’s not that I didn’t want to go, but due to the timing of our visit being so close after the last eruption I figured there would not really be too much to see – lava was no longer visible from the park, which is the first time since 1983 and the lava tubes which I wanted to explore were closed.  However, I am happy to write that I was surprised on how much I really enjoyed the park and viewing the old lava flows from past decades.  We took a few hikes around the steam fields and sulfur fields (which don’t worry – we checked to make sure were at levels safe for pregnancy!)

Rim of Kilauea Caldera which was widened over a mile due to the last eruption.

In the park you can drive from Kilauea down the “Chain of Craters” road right down to the ocean.  Along the way, you see old lava fields and it kind of transports you to another world.   I know the pictures won’t do it justice.

We tried to stop at the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut farm on the way back after the Volcanoes, but one of the uber drivers we used to get from the cruise port to our rental car place earlier that day told us it was closed down due to e.coli contamination.  I guess there was a huge recall – I think I’ve definitely seen that brand at BJ’s so I guess be aware.  Although this post is coming out months after we traveled so not really a good warning I guess.  Anyway – the point of this note was just to say Macadamia nuts are a huge export of Hawaii if you didn’t already realize.

Anyway, back to the cruise ship.  There was a great view of it from our drive.

  Day 7:  Kona

The week that we were in Hawaii happened to be the few days leading up to the world famous Kona Ironman triathlon.  Just in case you didn’t know (or if you want to feel worse about skipping a workout today, the Ironman consists of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and a 26.22 mile run – all without a break.  UGH.  I know two people that have completed the Kona Ironman, and I have infinite more respect for them and the dedication it takes for training and endurance.  Of course while the athletes were passing us while we were walking up a giant hill to get our rental car for the day I was a bit embarrassed huffing and puffing.  Need more cardio.

  About Kona:  So we are now on the western side of the Big Island, which is known for some great beaches.  We did our research to continue our turtle hunt (clarification point – not to hunt turtles but to swim with them) so we planned to call it a beach day.  However, before we could do that, we had to check off one MAJOR thing on Sean’s must-do list.  What else is Kona internationally known for… their coffee!

We took a drive through “coffee valley” which is a little 20 mile area of scenic roads on the Hualalai and Mauna Loa slopes with more than 650 coffee farms.  Even if you don’t have a full coffee farm, most of the families in this area grow coffee plants and sell the cherries (ripe coffee berries) to the farms for full production.

We took a tour of Greenwell Coffee farms, which was super interesting.  I didn’t really know anything about coffee production prior to the tour so learning about the amount of work that it takes to produce (mostly by hand) 1 lb of coffee is incredible.  Greenwell coffee compares their process of coffee production similar to what it would be like to produce a nice craft beer.  Just like craft beer, real 100% Kona coffee per lb is definitely more expensive than a commercial brand of coffee, but it’s definitely worth it.  Only 2 lbs of coffee is produced annually from each coffee plant, and their berries are picked by hand to ensure that only ripe berries are used.  In mass-produced coffee, they have machines that take all the berries off the limbs – ripe or not – and once picked coffee berries do not ripen, which leads to the bitterness coffee can have.

After berries are picked, they sun dry the berries then de-hull them to get to the coffee bean.  Greenwell farms specifically ships out their coffee bean to other coffee companies to roast and sell as 100% Kona coffee under their brand, but they roast small batches to sell under their brand locally on the farm.

Sean was in heaven.

After the coffee tour, we went a little farther driving to a beach called Two-Step.  It’s known for good snorkeling and the name comes from the way the lava has made a natural two steps into the water for easy-ish access.  Like I said, we were on a turtle hunt, and this place was known for it, but unfortunately we did not see any during our snorkeling.  Two strikes.  Although we didn’t see any turtles (or pink dolphins which also frequent this area), we did get amazing snorkeling.  I think this was the best coral reef I’ve ever snorkeled – so many fish.  We also saw an eel, which Sean was not a fan of.

Back on the boat – we were heading off to Kauai that night to spend two days docked in Nawiliwili bay.

xx,

    Big Island, Hawaii – Babymoon Part 3 Oahu Part 1: Read it here! Maui Part 2:  Read it here! Our cruise was doing two stops on the Big Island - Day 6 stopping on the eastern side of the island in Hilo and Day 7 in Kona on the western side of the island.

[captain-fanattic]

All questions from the meme with Kotac

real talk i cant remember which meme this is from bc this ask is like months old but i remember it was one with 50 questions so im finding the first one i can in my tag and just answering those

1. What’s their full name? Why was that chosen? Does it mean anything?

kotac is his full name i never bothered to give him a last name. idk it just sounded cool

2. Do they have any titles? How did they get them?

FARMER idk nothing special. he works. on a farm

3. Did they have a good childhood? What are fond memories they have of it? What’s a bad memory?

YEAH his parents are real good to him and he’s very close with them and his family. his fave memories are doing stuff together as a family just out and around like going berry picking. idk about bad memories maybe one time he was attacked by an angry farm animal as a kid but that’s all i can think of

4. What is their relationship with their parents? What’s a good and bad memory with them? Did they know both parents?

VERY GOOD he still has both parents and no real bad memories.

5. Do they have any siblings? What’s their names? What is their relationship with them? Has their relationship changed since they were kids to adults?

i mean honestly probably but i havent created them so no

6. What were they like at school? Did they enjoy it? Did they finish? What level of higher education did they reach? What subjects did they enjoy? Which did they hate?

he graduated high school and then kind of just stopped doing school. he enjoyed science but hated math and english

7. Did they have lots of friends as a child? Did they keep any of their childhood friends into adulthood?

yeah! he’s good at making friends and he keeps in contact with a few.

8. Did they have pets as a child? Do they have pets as an adult? Do they like animals?

yes and yes bc he works on a farm and has animals on said farm

9. Do animals like them? Do they get on well with animals?

YES totally 100% animals love him it’s almost weird how much animals like him

10. Do they like children? Do children like them? Do they have or want any children? What would they be like as a parent? Or as a godparent/babysitter/ect?

he is okay with children but he wont actively seek them out or anything. he’d probably be a good parent but he’s not interested in kids rn. would have to adopt anyways

11. Do they have any special diet requirements? Are they a vegetarian? Vegan? Have any allergies?

he eats vegetables a lot bc he’s part rabbit but he also eats a lot of meat bc of being part cat as well. he’s not really allergic to anything and loves to cook

12. What is their favourite food?

apple pie

13. What is their least favourite food?

idk he’s not picky so it’s kind of hard to find something he actually hates

14. Do they have any specific memories of food/a restaurant/meal?

he doesn’t eat out at restaurants very often but he does have a few memories of going out for special occasions with his family

15. Are they good at cooking? Do they enjoy it? What do others think of their cooking?

YES YES he’s very good at it and loves it. others love it too

16. Do they collect anything? What do they do with it? Where do they keep it?

probably collects weird things like antique spoons

17. Do they like to take photos? What do they like to take photos of? Selfies? What do they do with their photos?

he’s not a really techy person but im sure he takes cute pictures of his animals sometimes

18. What’s their favourite genre of: books, music, tv shows, films, video games and anything else

he likes to read big novels it doesn’t really matter the genre he probably reads a lot of books about animals too. he loves country music and doesn’t watch T.V. very often; same w/ movies. doesn’t really play video games either.

19. What’s their least favourite genres?

*shrugs*

20. Do they like musicals? Music in general? What do they do when they’re favourite song comes?

yeah he likes musicals and music in general. he probably sings along to his favorite songs.

21. Do they have a temper? Are they patient? What are they like when they do lose their temper?

he is very paitent and rarely ever loses his temper.

22. What are their favourite insults to use? What do they insult people for? Or do they prefer to bitch behind someone’s back?

he probably has some extreme weird insults, i imagine he uses a lot of metaphors and whatever, immmmmmmm listening to music and it’s distracting me but i dont feel like pausing it and i cant think of the right word for it. idioms?? maybe. anyways he’ll tell someone to their face if he has a problem with them but he rarely ever does that since he is very tolerable.

23. Do they have a good memory? Short term or long term? Are they good with names? Or faces?

he’s good with memory for things about his farm and he’s good at remember faces but he’s not so good when it comes to names.

24. What is their sleeping pattern like? Do they snore? What do they like to sleep on? A soft or hard mattress?

he goes to be late and gets up really early but for some reason it doesn’t bother him. he sleeps on his bed and its some weird mix of hard and soft. it’s not awful but most might find it uncomfortable.

25. What do they find funny? Do they have a good sense of humour? Are they funny themselves?

he’s got a good sense of humor and will joke around a lot with his farmhands. not sure what exactly his sense of humor qualifies as

26. How do they act when they’re happy? Do they sing? Dance? Hum? Or do they hide their emotions?

he likes to hum and occasionally sing. he gets very smiley when he’s happy and excited

27. What makes them sad? Do they cry regularly? Do they cry openly or hide it? What are they like they are sad?

probably losing animals on his farm. like a fox gets one of his chickens or something and he’s probably heartbroken but also that fox is like his #1 enemy now so he’s angry at the same time. i guess THATS one way to make him mad. probably will cry openly but not often.

28. What is their biggest fear? What in general scares them? How do they act when they’re scared?

he is afraid of losing people and animals he loves but that’s probably normal. he doesn’t really have any other fears. not even bugs or anything. he’ll straight up pick up a spider and go run around in the dark and everything. he’s hard to scare.

29. What do they do when they find out someone else’s fear? Do they tease them? Or get very over protective?

he’s probably protective

30. Do they exercise? Regularly? Or only when forced? What do they act like pre-work out and post-work out?

yeah often, but it’s not like a gym work out. it’s working on the farm for hours and hours on end. keeps u in shape when u gotta take care of a million things in one day, every day

31. Do they drink? What are they like drunk? What are they like hungover? How do they act when other people are drunk or hungover? Kind or teasing?

ya he will drink and he’s probably a very giggly and open drunk like he’ll talk more and get more cuddly. he’s very grumbly and sleepy when he’s hungover. he will absolutely take care of people who are hungover though.

32. What do they dress like? What sorta shops do they buy clothes from? Do they wear the fashion that they like? What do they wear to sleep? Do they wear makeup? What’s their hair like?

very country. jeans and ripped clothes and overalls and white t-shirts and all that jazz. probably just wears boxers to bed. he is all hair he is a furry. his the  white hair on his head is pretty unruly most of the time.

33. What underwear do they wear? Boxers or briefs? Lacey? Comfy granny panties?

boxers

34. What is their body type? How tall are they? Do they like their body?

muscular, strong, kind of a big build. he’s probably like idk 5′10″ or something. he likes his body but at the same time he does not really care at all

35. What’s their guilty pleasure? What is their totally unguilty pleasure?

idk im bad at answering this type of question

36. What are they good at? What hobbies do they like? Can they sing?

good at idk growing food. cooking? cooking for hobbies too. maybe he doodles some in whatever spare time he has but he’s not really an artist or anything, like not even close. can sing.

37. Do they like to read? Are they a fast or slow reader? Do they like poetry? Fictional or non fiction?

yeah he like to read. he’s like medium. enjoy poetry and probably reads fictional stories a lot but thinks non-fiction is also very good

38. What do they admire in others? What talents do they wish they had?

work ethic and sense of humor. he also likes it when people are happy. um idk he’s pretty satisfied with what he can do already

39. Do they like letters? Or prefer emails/messaging?

letters > anything techy

40. Do they like energy drinks? Coffee? Sugary food? Or can they naturally stay awake and alert?

drinks coffee a lot in the morning but always seems to be awake and alert no matter what. some people think it’s strange but he’s totally fine with it. being awake and alert always means farm work is done well

41. What’s their sexuality? What do they find attractive? Physically and mentally? What do they like/need in a relationship?

gay. doesn’t really have a preference. likes people that like animals idk he’s not picky and i don’t know how to answer this question

42. What are their goals? What would they sacrifice anything for? What is their secret ambition?

to have a good farm / would sacrifice for farm / wants farm to be popular with local people

43. Are they religious? What do they think of religion? What do they think of religious people? What do they think of non religious people?

mildly yeah

44. What is their favourite season? Type of weather? Are they good in the cold or the heat? What weather do they complain in the most?

loves summer and spring! loves bright hot days and days with cool breezes, also loves light rain. dislikes snow bc…….farm

45. How do other people see them? Is it similar to how they see themselves?

everyone generally loves him and he loves himself so yeah

46. Do they make a good first impression? Does their first impression reflect them accurately? How do they introduce themselves?

probably but sometimes people catch him after he’s been working all day and he’s all dirty and tired and everything and thats probably not a very good first impression

47. How do they act in a formal occasion? What do they think of black tie wear? Do they enjoy fancy parties and love to chit chat or loathe the whole event?

doesn’t go to formal events often, doesn’t like the formal clothes, avoids it as much as he can

48. Do they enjoy any parties? If so what kind? Do they organise the party or just turn up? How do they act? What if they didn’t want to go but were dragged along by a friend?

no not really. likes family events but not like crazy random parties. would probably just drink a lot if he got dragged to one

49. What is their most valued object? Are they sentimental? Is there something they have to take everywhere with them?

idk does his horse count? he loves his horse

50. If they could only take one bag of stuff somewhere with them: what would they pack? What do they consider their essentials?

um i never know how to answer questions like this

#jay-noeyes #kotac #long post #speakin #SORRY THIS IS FRICKIN. LONG