Read Love Letters from Ladybug Farm for Free Online

summer, they watched the hummingbirds dart back and forth between the red feeders. In the fall, the cardinals and the blue jays scolded each other from the ancient boxwoods that flanked the porch. In the spring, barn swallows soared against the pale lavender sky.
    The mountains grew black, and the low-hanging sun etched distant evergreens in brilliant gold. They settled into the taste and texture of the coming night and let go of the challenges of the day. It was as though, in that quiet hour, they reconnected with the place that had won their hearts, with their reasons for coming here, and with each other.
    Bridget said, sighing a little, “What a difference a year makes, huh?”
    “I don’t know.” Cici sipped her wine, her voice lazy and content. “This time of day, it seems that nothing has changed for thousands of years. Or ever will.”
    “Which is why I love this time of day” Lindsay put in with a sigh. She lifted her glass to Cici. “To things that never change.”
    “I’ll drink to that,” agreed Bridget. She tried, not very successfully, to hide her grin of pleasure in her glass as she added, “One hundred two comments on the blog. I guess that means I’ll actually have to start posting to it more often than once a month now.”
    “Good heavens, what are they saying?”
    “Nice things. How much they loved the article, and how beautiful our place looks, and how they wish they could live like this...”
    Cici choked on a laugh.
    “And,” insisted Bridget a little defensively, “twelve requests for information on gift baskets!”
    “Say that’s great!” Lindsay lifted her glass to her.
    And Cici added, impressed, “You go, girl. At thirty-six dollars a pop, that’s not exactly chicken feed, you know. ”
    Bridget frowned a little, disconcerted. “Actually it is. Just about enough to keep the chickens in that organic feed they like through the summer.”
    “Ah, well. Easy come, easy go.”
    They were quiet for a while, listening to the distant muffled clucking of the chickens as they settled into their roosts in the coop behind the house, a single ferocious volley of barking from the border collie, Rebel, the soft baaing of the sheep in the meadow as they, too, settled down for the night. The sky was streaked with bruised red clouds and slashes of gold.
    As they watched, a long-legged deer picked his way across the lawn, nibbling at grasses and budding flowers, accompanied by the soft clanging of the miniature cowbell that hung around his neck. Bambi had followed Lindsay home from a walk as a fawn, been adopted as a pet by Noah—who, as a country boy, should have known better—and made Ladybug Farm his home. They had tried building pens and fences for him to keep him safe from eager hunters, but as he reached maturity he simply leapt over them. It was Noah who had come up with the idea of the cowbell, to alert hunters to the fact that the deer was not ordinary prey. Now they fenced their flowers and their crops, and the deer roamed free.
    Lindsay asked, “Are we really going to do this wedding thing?”
    “I think it could be fun,” Bridget said.
    “You think everything is fun.”
    Cici was more thoughtful. “It’s a lot of money. I don’t see how we can turn it down.”
    “I know.” Lindsay’s enthusiasm, if it existed at all, was muted. “I just don’t know how I feel about all those Washington society types roaming around all over the place.”
    Bridget stifled a laugh. “Some of those ‘Washington society types’ are our best friends! Not to mention my own son.”
    “You know what I mean.” Lindsay was unmoved. “And just because Kevin works in DC doesn’t make him one of them. Not yet, anyway.”
    “Good to know. You used to date one or two of those Washington society types, if I recall,” Bridget reminded her.
    “Which is why I can speak with authority on how smarmy they can be.”
    “Smarmy,” Bridget repeated thoughtfully. “There’s a word I haven’t heard