Second Chance Rose by Sally Glover

Author:Sally Glover
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance
ISBN: 9781738662005
Publisher: Sally Glover
Published: 2023-05-23T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

The week was a rush of harvesting and delivering orders, fertilizing crops, and reviewing our organic conversion plans and records before the certification agent came on Thursday. Maybe August was right; it was time to think about finding some help. But unless something changed—fast—paying a salary for outside help was impossible.

The restaurants in town counted on our produce, and with the attention Domino West was bringing to the island, I’d begun to dream about how Orcas could set an example for sustainable communities around the Pacific Northwest. Today, though, the farm was stuck in a place where there was too much work for two people, even when Bluebell pitched in, but not enough money to hire someone. I bit my lip, worrying about the growth we’d outlined in our plan. If we could barely afford to make ends meet today, how was anything going to change tomorrow?

I folded the corner of a page in my notebook where I’d jotted down ideas about how restaurant owners and suppliers on the island could join together to help address food insecurity and sustainability. My grand ideas would have to wait.

I tipped back my mug, sipping the last of a tea made with mint from our garden. Mint, I wrote at the end of my list of things to bring to the farmers market. For me, tea made with dried leaves didn’t compare with the flavor of fresh herbs. And in weather like we were having, it was just as good steeped cold in a big jug with lemon and a few spoonfuls of honey.

Rosehips, I added to my page, imagining a future where I could specialize in artisanal teas.

Rosehip tea held a special place in my heart. Like most of the women my age on the island, I was named for a native plant. Mine was the Nootka rose, a bubblegum-pink bloom derived from Nootka Sound on the coast of Vancouver Island. My mom and I used to love collecting the reddish-orange seeds the plants produced after the roses faded, which we’d dry and make tea from. Every spring I was buoyed by the sweet, subtle scent of the wild rose shrubs that were scattered across shorelines, thickets, and roadsides on the island. But in fall and winter, when the leaves fell and the flowers turned to hips, the branches bare and prickly, all I could think was how much I missed my mom.

I rubbed my eyes and looked at the clock. Nearly midnight. Pappy had gone to bed an hour ago, Fig loping lazily behind him. Lately this was what evenings looked like: me hunched over the kitchen table, papers and notepad spread out before me next to a laptop. The computer was great for accounting, and inventory, and all the records we needed for certification, but nothing beat a to-do list on paper.

Pushing up from the table, I rustled the papers into a pile and took my mug to the sink. I was exhausted. As I shuffled to hit the light switch on the way out of the kitchen, I thought of August for the hundredth time this week.

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