Eyes on the Prize by Sunni Jeffers

Author:Sunni Jeffers [Jeffers, Sunni]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8249-4839-9
Publisher: Guideposts
Published: 2009-09-24T04:00:00+00:00

“I’ll be out in a minute, Louise. I want to check my e-mail before I go out to the garden. I sent a message to my old friends and coworkers in San Francisco, looking for sponsors for the Harvest race. I want to see if there are any replies.”

“Take your time. I’ll go on ahead.” Louise went through the kitchen, collected what she needed, then hurried out to the garden while Jane was absorbed with her e-mail. Wendell followed Louise and sniffed around, looking for whatever he’d encountered earlier when Jane found him.

Louise retrieved a trowel from the shed, then went to the pumpkin patch.

She saw the mess before she got there and nearly dropped the paper sack she was carrying. The smallest of the three pumpkins was split open and the vine and leaves scattered. She looked beyond it to her giant. Leaves were strewn, the umbrella leaned at a precarious angle, but the pumpkin seemed to be intact.

She stepped up to it carefully. A scratch marred the surface. The split stem that had been buried was uncovered, but not cut through. Looking around to make sure she was alone, Louise opened the sack she was carrying and took out a jar. She knelt down and poured the contents around the base of the plant’s stem, then worked it in with the trowel. She put the jar back in the sack and set it out of the way, beneath a bunch of leaves where Jane wouldn’t see it. As she stood to go back to her pumpkin, the side door of the inn opened. Louise started, but quickly regained her composure and returned to the pumpkin.

Jane went first to the shed, then came out carrying two rakes and a large black plastic yard bag. She looked around at the carnage. “What a mess! Is your pumpkin all right?”

“The big one just has a scratch. But the little one is split open.”

Jane went to the big one first. “I think it’s all right, Louise. The skin looks like it’s toughened, so the scratch probably didn’t breach the pumpkin. We’ll have to watch it, but surface cuts can heal. Let’s give it additional shade. We can attach some old blankets to the umbrella and make a tent.”

“Good idea. Did you see this one? Whatever attacked the garden got to this one first.”

Jane went over to the smaller pumpkin. It had split wide open and dirt had been tossed all over the pumpkin, the leaves and the path as if something had been digging or scuffling. “Wendell must have surprised it. I wonder if a raccoon invaded the garden, Louise. I haven’t seen any around this summer, but they like ripe fruit and vegetables. And where there’s one, there’s a family of raccoons.”

Louise looked around. Considering the damage from one animal, she pictured the complete destruction of Jane’s garden. Although Jane harvested daily, an abundance of produce remained. “If it’s a raccoon, it’ll come back. What shall we do?”

Jane pushed up her three-quarter-length sleeves as if preparing to do battle.

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