Page 12 of Spicy Ever After
“You gonna make your restaurant deliveries while you’re at it?” Pop barks. This isn’t a question or a suggestion.
Of course, he’s right. If I’m driving into town, it doesn’t make sense to make just one stop.
“Yep.”
“Gonna need another crate,” he gripes.
“Yep.”
So I hit the store shed for another half a dozen sacks before I’m on the road.
Maybe it’s better being behind the wheel of the tractor. Because as soon as I’m on Gendarme Road, my mind doesn’t wander.
It whirs.
Pop fell. Again.
Am I an idiot for not taking him to get checked? Should I call Griffin and risk disrupting his and Kennedy’s long-awaited trip to NYC?
My brother-in-law might forgive me, but my twin?
The last thing I want to do is call Uncle Paul. He’ll just use the latest fall as another opportunity to push selling. I can just hear him.
It won’t be long before he needs full-time care.
None of us wants to see him end up in a nursing home.
If you sell the acreage, you can keep the house, set him up with quality home health, finish your degree, and do whatever the hell you want with your life.
He doesn’t seem to get that what I want to do with my life is exactly what I’m doing.
Running the farm.
Only—with any luck—better.
Not better than Pop or Grandad. Just better for the times.
Better agility. More efficiently.
And, of course, more profitably.
I’ve got plenty of ideas, but none of them are cheap to implement.
Like the new harvester.
At least the last two rounds have proven that the investment is going to pay off.
And then there’s my other project.
Sweet potato vodka.
It could be huge. It could make the kind of difference for us that would see Pop getting the right care that’ll allow him to stay in his house for the rest of his days.
It could give us insurance against seasons that go south for us. Summers and falls that are too wet. A late cold snap. Fungal spread. Pests. Low yield on our off-season crops: soybean, corn, and alfalfa.
Even though I’ve held the permits for more than a year, my sweet potato vodka enterprise is just a dream that takes up one corner of the east store shed. A little micro distillery where I play with mash composition, yeast balance, purifying methods, dilution ratios, infusions—all while I make notes of every variation between batches.
It also takes up most of my evenings, but when it’s time to sample a batch, Javier is there to keep me company. He’s so enthusiastic about the pecan and maple infused recipe that I’ve bottled about a dozen liters of it, and he’s pushing me to start offering sample bottles to our restaurants and local groceries.
