Coming Home Again - Part VI

“Sometimes you just have to meet your problems head-on”. The words Dustin had heard upwards of a thousand times from Grandpa Wilbur kept whirling around in his mind.

When he was a nine-year-old boy, Dustin had believed his life and his world had ended. His Mom and Dad had dropped him off at school one morning with a plan to go to the new plant nursery in the next town over and buy some rose bushes to plant in the back yard of their newly rented house.

That afternoon, his Grandpa’s truck was waiting for him when he got out of school. Grandpa had been crying and could barely get the words out to tell him they had been killed in a car crash on the way back home from their errand.

Grandpa Wilbur had embraced his grandson that afternoon, literally and figuratively, and had taken him to his house to stay. Grandma Mary had passed away with a stroke about two years earlier, so it was just the two of them left to find a way to go on.

Dustin brushed away tears as he remembered what a challenge he had been for his Grandpa.

He was destined to be a challenge for whoever raised him. Exceedingly intelligent and headstrong with a heart of gold and an iron will, Dustin Henry never demanded more of anyone than he demanded of himself.

All those years of growing up, he had one balancing influence. Close to him in age, temperament, and academic ambition. They became the best of 'frienemies'.

Then as now, Jenny Carson had been his soulmate, critic, rival, encourager, and was soon to be his wife.

Dustin could hardly believe his good fortune in spite of all his misfortune. He was caught in reverie of years gone by when he heard Jenny’s car coming up the driveway and he jumped to his feet.

Today was going to be a busy day. The first thing they would do would be to make a plan, a written plan, of how to bring all the farm animals back home.

The hardest job would be moving Old Bart. Dustin did not have a truck and trailer big enough to move Bart and the other livestock back home.

But Andy Noble did. Dustin would go over to Andy’s house when the time was right and help him coax Old Bart into the trailer. But first, he needed some help bracing up the old barn and preparing the stall Old Bart claimed as his own.

Dustin had made a list of needed supplies, and he and Jenny were planning to go into town today in Grandpa Wilbur’s old truck and bring back everything necessary for the job.

Once they got back and unloaded their cargo, they would drive over to Andy Noble’s house in Grandpa’s old truck and load up the hens, the roosters, and the one turkey for the trip home. Dustin had been up since before sunrise cleaning out hen houses, checking for and repairing weak spots in the wire walls of the pen, and putting clean hay in place in each chicken house.

Dustin felt a disproportionate sense of excitement about getting the chickens and turkey back . Being awakened by the crowing of the roosters would be the first step in bringing the farm back to active life again. Dustin was sure Grandpa would be pleased.

With a sense of purpose and urgency, Dustin and Jenny completed one task after another all day until the chicken coup was bustling with life again with the chickens all fed and settled for the night.

The last chore they tackled for the day was beginning the job of putting the barn loft back in order.

They moved from the chicken coup to the loft of the old barn with the intention of just assessing what Dustin would need to buy at the hardware store the next day to start the job.

Tired to the bone, they sat down side by side on two bales of hay and looked out over the scenery from the center of the barn loft. The view was breathtakingly beautiful and they sat stone still for a few minutes not wanting to say a word.

A full moon illuminated the trees and bushes leading out to the lake that sparkled like dancing diamonds and made the perfect contrast for the shadowy mountains in the far distance.

Summer was still in full force, though past the mid-way mark, and darkness did not come until after 9:30 at night.

Putting thinking aside for the moment, Dustin and Jenny watched nature’s free light and color show on display for them.

Shades of gold, red, pink, lavender and blue glowed gloriously as the sun made its way down to and progressively below the horizon.

Dustin wrapped his arm around Jenny and pulled her close, not wanting to miss any of this special time. Suddenly, they both gasped in amazement and delight. Across the top of the mountains, for not much more than a second, maybe two, a line of radiant green light glowed and disappeared as suddenly as it had come.

They looked at each other, each face reflecting the wonder and amazement in the other.

Dustin told Jenny, in hushed tones, about Grandpa telling him about seeing just such a flash of green light over those mountains the night he proposed to his Mary from their vantage point of the barn loft.

Grandpa had told him there was both science and legend connected with the green light. The science part concerns the refraction of light when the light rays pass through more of the atmosphere than usual, such as at sunset and sunrise.

When the atmosphere bends the light rays that pass through it, the light is separated into its various colors.

His Grandpa had told him that a good hands-on example is the prism that bends and divides light into the colors of the rainbow.

The wavelength of the color determines how much the color’s light waves bend. Blue, green, and violet, the shorter wavelengths, have stronger refraction than yellow, red, and orange (the longer wavelengths).

When the blue and violet light waves are scattered by the atmosphere and the red, yellow, and orange are absorbed, all that is left to show through is the green light.

“That is what we just witnessed, Jenny”, said Dustin in a quiet voice.

“And what about the legend?”, asked Jenny.

“That’s the best part”, Dustin almost whispered. There is an old adage that states, “after seeing the green light (at sunrise or sunset) one can never go wrong in matters of the heart”.

“It worked for Grandpa, Jenny, and it is working for us too”.

Hand in hand, Dustin and Jenny climbed down the ladder from the old barn loft and returned to the house. They needed to get some restful sleep.

Tomorrow promised to be a busy day as they kept working to bring the farm back to life.

“I’ve been waiting, asking, and longing for a sign that Grandpa knows I love him, I’m home, and I will take care of his farm", said Dustin. "I believe I got that sign tonight…a green light means ‘Go’. Let’s go from here on out together, Jenny!”.