xp_logs | log: at the farm

Saturday morning Dani and Mrs. McCoy chitchat while they work on breakfast before everyone else gets up. Gifts are given and eggs are scrambled.

Edna and Norton had eaten early - they usually did, and they'd figured they should let their visitors sleep in. Now Edna was preparing for the second installment of breakfast... eggs, bacon, and sausage were out and ready to be tossed in a pan the moment someone showed up, and now she was mixing pancake batter. It was nice to have people to feed again - and Kyle showed signs of eating with as much enthusiasm as Hank had at that age.

She looked up, hearing a footstep, and smiled as Dani peeked around the door. "Good morning, dear. Did you sleep well?"

"Morning Mrs. McCoy," Dani wandered in absently tying her hair into a knot behind her neck and smoothing down her new poncho over her prairie skirt. If was a nice deep red-brown the same colour as wood almost. Beautiful. "Thank you for the poncho again."

"You're welcome, dear." Edna smiled at her. She seemed like a sweet girl, if very quiet most of the time. "Thank you for the grandson."

Blushing, Dani looked away from Mrs. McCoy, "Can I help with breakfast? Anything?"

"Of course, dear, if you like." Edna smiled. "Hank's told me you do a lot of cooking at the school... you wouldn't know how the boys like their eggs, do you? Hank prefers scrambled, and he told me that Maddie does too, but I forgot to ask about you and the boys."

"If you tell Forge they were cooked in red bull he'll eat them any way you want," Dani replied with a small grin. It was hard not to like Dr. McCoy's mother and maybe even wonder if her own mother had been a little like her, "I don't think Kyle eats eggs though. He's got a list of food allergies and digestive mutations longer than my arm. Mostly, he eats meat."

"Meat we can certainly manage. I don't think eggs were on the list of things he can't eat that Hank gave me, but I'll double check. We have pancakes, bacon, sausage, and steak in the fridge if he wants it, so we should be fine either way." Edna smiled brightly. "Would you mind cutting some slices of bread for toast?" She indicated the loaf on the counter - she liked making her own bread, and always did it when Hank was coming home.

Nodding, Dani did as instructed. "You made this?" she asked, checking her theory. Homemade bread was so much better than store-bought. Cheaper too.

"Yes indeed," Edna agreed. "I've been making my own bread for years. I can't do it all the time, anymore... I get a twinge of arthritis now and then. But I do it when Hank comes home, because I know he doesn't get good homemade bread often.

"He ain't asked!" Dani replied, taking the comment as a slight against her cooking, "'sides, I make frybread every day. Forge is addicted," not to mention herself and probably a few others in the school.

"He does like your frybread, and I want you to teach me to make it, while you're here." Edna shook her head. "And he doesn't, usually... ask for food, I mean. He's used to just eating whatever appears in front of him."

That made sense, Hank didn't like to ask for much. He and Dani were alike that way. "If you got a frying pan, you can make frybread. It ain't hard, once you get the hang of it. The key is knowing how long to let it cook for. Ain't right not having frybread at a meal."

Edna nodded, poking at a lump in the pancake batter. "Then you'll have to teach me to make it. Will fresh bread and pancakes do for breakfast, though? We have honey and home-made strawberry jelly to put on them."

"If it's moving, Kyle'll catch it. If it's not, even better," Dani grinned, "Most students find their own breakfasts on the weekdays, those that eat it," lunch and dinner were the two big meals of the day and lunch was usually just soup or salad and sandwiches, nothing fancy.

"Hank tells me that Kyle is a big eater." Edna smiled reminiscently as she got out the Big Frying pan. "Just like Hank at his age... He'd eat four or five meals a day, as well as snacks, just to keep up with himself."

"Yeah, sounds like Kyle, but he's pretty active too," Dani finished slicing the bread and stacked it neatly on a plate by the toaster, "'Course, Dr. McCoy could probably eat that many meals now, too."

"Probably. Is he eating all right? Not skipping too many meals?" She shook her head. "He forgets to eat and then he gets so hungry that he has to go on midnight rampages through the fridge. I never could break him of the habit."

Dani giggled, that was a very Dr. McCoy thing to do. "I try to make him eat regularly, but yeah, he still goes looking for food at midnight. A lot of people at the school don't eat unless you remind them, ain't easy keeping up with them all."

Edna tutted. "They just don't take care of themselves," she said reprovingly. "Hank hasn't had more than an evening off since before New Years, did you know that? He works too hard."

Dani didn't say anything and untied her hair to plait it into her customary braids instead. She knew he worked hard, but she had thought that he'd taken more time now that he had Billy. He was an adult though, and she technically was too but only because of an arbitrary number of years decided by the government, so she didn't comment or try to stop him.

Edna nodded. "OF course, you can't take much time off when you have a new baby, they need you an awful lot... but he shouldn't be trying to work so hard as well. But I'm just his mother, what do I know?" She smiled ruefully. "Would you mind going and calling them for breakfast, dear, while I get started on the bacon?"

Dani nodded and headed upstairs to get the others before running back down to try and catch Mrs. McCoy before anyone else showed up. "Mrs. McCoy?" she asked, handing her a medium sized package wrapped in the Sunday funnies, "I brought this for you and Mr. McCoy."

"Why, thank you, dear!" Edna said, abandoning the bacon just for a moment to open the package. She lifted the dreamcatcher out gently, beaming. "Oh, this is beautiful," she said admiringly, touching a green bead gently. "Did you make it yourself?"

"Yeah, just found stuff in the art room," Dani smiled, pleased that she liked it. After Dr. McCoy had said that his mom was knitting for her, Dani had to do something to reciprocate, "I'm glad you like it."

"It's lovely. As soon as we're done with breakfast, it's going right up in our bedroom." She beamed. "Now... what would you like for breakfast?"