Love Letters from Ladybug Farm (2 page)

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Authors: Donna Ball

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Cici looked at her for another moment, then closed her eyes again. Her tone was flat. “I’m so glad.”
The screen door opened again, and the silk banner pulled away from the wall and sagged down on Bridget as she came through the door. She wrestled with it for a moment, her petite stature and frothy chiffon dress making her look like an Easter egg doing battle with a marshmallow. Finally she simply jerked the fabric away from the remaining staples that held it to the wall and let it cascade to the floor like a fallen flag. She kicked it aside unceremoniously.
Bridget was the oldest of the three, with a sweet round face, a bouncy platinum bob, and an earnest innocence that made her lookyounger than either of her two friends. She was wearing Hint of Spring green in a delicate
peau de soie
with an empire waist and matching two-inch heels. The Nearly Nude Shimmer & Silk stockings actually did make her legs look longer, as promised by the manufacturer.
“Feeling any better?” she ventured hopefully to Cici.
Bridget winced as Cici removed the package of peas from her face to reveal the ugly red and purple bruise that had half closed her left eye and was beginning to discolor her cheek.
“Oh, yes,” Cici said without expression. “I’m just fine. Thank you for asking.”
Bridget hurried over to her. “It was an accident, you know. She’s really sorry.”
Cici returned the peas to her eye. “What did I say about goats?” she demanded simply.
Bridget wisely declined to answer that. “I found your earring,” she said instead and offered up a mud-encrusted seed-pearl drop pendant.
Cici just stared at her for a moment, clearly debating whether maintaining her pique was worth the effort. Then a corner of her lips turned down ruefully, and she held out her hand. “Thanks.”
Bridget smiled, dropped the earring into her hand, and took a chair, and the three of them sat in exhausted silence for a while, watching the birds and the changing patterns of muted light. In comparison to the chaos that had reigned only hours before, the muffled sounds of activity from the house sounded like a benediction.
“You know,” Bridget observed after a time, “all things considered, it really was a lot of fun.”
Cici tried to lift her head to look at her, winced in pain, and settled back again. “You did not just say that to me.”
“Well, I mean, except for the storm.”
“Tornado,” corrected Lindsay.
“That hasn’t been confirmed yet,” Bridget objected.
“And the dog,” Cici said without opening her eyes.
“And the groom’s mother.”
“And the groom.”
“And the explosion.”
“And the goat.”
“Like I said,” Bridget said uncomfortably. “All things considered.”
No one spoke for a measure of time. No one had the energy.
“You know what the problem was, don’t you?” Bridget said after a moment.
“Personally,” replied Lindsay, a rather tired smile twitching at her lips, “I blame Michelle Obama.”
Bridget smothered a giggle, and even Cici, without opening her eyes, managed a lopsided smile.
“Okay,” Cici said, “Tell me what the problem was.”
“Sex.”
Cici opened her eyes and lifted her head to look at her two best friends. The three women thought about that for a while. Then Cici gave a slow, reflective nod of her head. “Do you know, Bridget,” she said, “this time I think you’ve got it exactly right.”
Lindsay agreed regretfully, “Sad but true.”
“But it was a beautiful ceremony” Bridget said.
Cici glanced at one of the half-empty champagne glasses on the small table beside her chair. She had no idea to whom it belonged. She picked it up dubiously sniffed the contents, gave the rim a cursory examination for lip marks, and drank it down.
“Yeah,” she said, and smiled just a little. “It was.”
To Love and to Cherish
2
What a Difference a Year Makes
Three weeks Previously
Excerpt from
Virginians at Home magazine
 
 
Cecile Burke, Bridget Tyndale, and Lindsay Weight are like the Three Musketeers—if the Three Musketeers wielded hammers and saws instead of swords, if they fought dry rot instead of highwaymen, and if they were ... well, girls.
The “girls” in question, just enough past middle age to consider it a compliment, each gave a considering tilt of her head, purse of her lips, or waggle of her eyebrows.
They were gathered around the oiled hickory table in the kitchen, a vase of fresh-picked daffodils between them. The raised fireplace at their backs smelled of last night’s fire, and the breeze that came through the open back door tasted of snow not long melted, clean and clear, with the cool base notes of the winter that had barely passed. The ancient bricks that paved the floor beneath their feet and the walls around them gleamed in the sun that flooded through the freshly washed windows. The last of the asparagus and spring onions were on the cutting board, a chicken, aromatic with sage, rosemary and garlic, was roasting in the oven, and a package of last year’s peaches was thawing in the sink, waiting to be made into a pie. A ladybug landed on the magazine page, and Cici absently flicked it off as she read aloud.
The three
ladies are
part
of a
growing trend
of young
retirees who, having completed successful careers, seek
a
different
kind of a success in the second half of their lives. Burke, an attractive blonde ...
Cici lifted an eyebrow. “Attractive,” she repeated, preening a little.
The other two ladies gave her an impatient wave. “Go on.”
She started the sentence over.
Burke, an attractive blonde who knows her way around a power saw, owned her own real estate company in Baltimore. Tyndale spent most of her life as a homemaker and Wright is a retired school teacher. They were best friends and neighbors in the same suburban cul-de-sac for over twenty years.
When the three of them came across an abandoned old mansion during a vacation trip through the Shenandoah Valley, it was love at first sight. Within the year, they sold their Maryland homes, combined their resources, and took on the challenge of their lives.
“Our dreams were a lot bigger than our abilities,” confesses Burke, who likes to be called “Cici” by her friends. “We knew that none of us could have taken on a project this big alone. But together, we can do anything.”
Bridget said, “Well, just about anything, anyway. I guess you didn’t mention the chicken coop.”
“What about it?” Cici challenged.
“It was a disaster!”
“We got it built, didn’t we?”
“Will you go on?” Lindsay said. “Read.”
Cici returned her attention to the magazine.
Blackwell Farms Estate—now called Ladybug Farm—was rich in history and even richer in challenges. The sprawling, hundred-year-old mansion came complete with an orchard, vineyard, barns, and livestock. Ida Mae Simpson, who has been keeping house at Blackwell Farms since the 1950s, recalls the heyday of the Blackwell Farms winery, and tells stories of the famous Blackwell Farms cheeses having been aged in the same caves that the Confederate army used to store munitions during the Civil War.
Cici smiled. “That was nice of them to mention Ida Mae. She’ll get a kick out of it.”
“If she doesn’t sue the magazine for misquoting her,” Bridget said.
“She has been crankier than usual lately...”
“Read?” prompted Lindsay.
But when the ladies took possession of the estate two years ago, the roofs were collapsing, the vineyard was so overgrown as to be practically unrecognizable, and the house was completely overrun by ladybugs—thus the name.
“The first few months were a little daunting,” admits Bridget. “Well, okay, the whole first year. I don’t think any of us really knew what we were getting ourselves into.”
With determination and elbow grease, the ladies restored the beauty of the heart pine floors, the mahogany banisters, and the stained glass window overlooking the staircase landing. They uncovered two hand-painted murals flanking the fireplace in the first-floor sitting room, and reclaimed the six large, sun-flooded bedrooms on the second floor.
They trimmed berry bushes, pruned fruit trees, and brought back the rose gardens and fountains. They built chicken houses and saw a flock of sheep through a bitter winter. Room by room, they painstakingly restored the Blackwell mansion to the glory of a forgotten age.
“Financially, it’s been a fiasco,” Cici says frankly. “Old houses are expensive, and that’s the bottom line. We never know where the money for the next project is coming from. But emotionally ... this has been the time of my life. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
The next project for this ambitious crew is to restore the vineyard, with an eye toward eventually reopening the Blackwell Farm winery.
“We don’t have the faintest idea what we’re doing,” says Lindsay with a laugh, “but that never stopped us before. The
great thing
about
wine is that it takes
a
long time to make,
and
we can learn on
the job.”
Meanwhile, the vivacious redhead...
Lindsay grinned. “That’s the part I was waiting for.”
Cici obligingly read it again.
Meanwhile the vivacious redhead is
fulfilling
her lifelong dream by opening
an art
studio in the old dairy barn
of Ladybug Farm.
“It’s something I’ve
wanted to do
all
my
life,” Lindsay
says.
“It’s
why I became
a teacher, really.
I only have
a
handful
of students right now, but I’m thrilled to be teaching them. And of course, my prize student is Noah.”
Noah Clete, age sixteen, came to work at Ladybug Farm soon after the ladies purchased it, and almost immediately established himself as one of the family. Lindsay took his education in hand, nurturing his talent for art, and today Noah is an honor student at John Adams Academy in Staunton, as well as the holder of the prestigious “Young Artist of the Year” award from the Virginia Council for the Arts.
“Oh, my God!” exclaimed Cici excitedly. She flipped the magazine around to show them. “They included one of Noah’s paintings! He’ll die! Where is he, anyway?”
“I sent him to town to get more copies,” Lindsay said, beaming as she snatched the magazine away from Cici to study it. “Oh, look, it’s the oil painting he did of the crow in the apple tree. Hey Bridget, look at you!”
Bridget peered over her shoulder to admire the photograph of her putting the finishing touches on a red velvet cake in the kitchen. “They printed my recipe,” she noted happily. “The writer said she wasn’t sure if there’d be room.”
“Wait, there’s a whole section on you.” Lindsay continued to read out loud.
Bradget Tyndale is the driving force behind Ladybug Farm’s newest enterprise, Ladybug Farm Fine Foods and Catering. Her exquisite homemade wine jams and delightful gift baskets can be purchased at many local shops and through the Ladybug Farm website.
Bridget wrinkled her nose. “One,” she repeated. “One local shop. Which sold exactly a dozen jars of pinot noir jam.”
“But the gift basket was a huge success at the church bazaar,” Lindsay pointed out.
“Come on girls,” Cici said, “the website has only been up a couple of months. What do you expect?”
Bridget sighed and Lindsay read on.
With the help of
Cici’s daughter, Lori Gregory,
who gradu
ates
next year from the University of
Virginia,
Charlottesville,
Bridget a/so runs a blog on which she shares her favorite recipes and observations about life on Ladybug Farm. You can enjoy this authentic taste of Virginia for yourself at
www.ladybugfarmcharmsblogspot.com
. .

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