When they arrived at Dora’s house on the farm Lois was surprised to see her working in the kitchen and making homemade strawberry preserves. Val went over to Grace and sat down next to her as she ate a strawberry.

“Was she good?” Val asked Dora.

“Of course she was. We’re having a great time. Aren’t we, baby Grace?” she asked and smiled. Grace made a giggling noise and then continued to eat the strawberry.

Lois took in the sight of all the full jars and the large pots on the stove.

“What is all this?” she asked, finding it interesting.

“I’m making the strawberry preserves, jams, and jellies for the store. Then I’ll head to Ella’s. She’s jarring pickles today.”

“That is awesome. Is it hard to do?” Lois asked.

“Not really, but tiresome, I guess. I make about five hundred jars of each kind. There’s blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, peach, and blackberry.”

“No wonder it smells incredible in here,” Valentina said and smiled.

“People buy a lot of them?” Lois asked.

“They sure do. We sell out in a couple of weeks, tops. If I had more time, I would make more, but then there’s the store to run and manage. I’ll be working on this all week.”

“Do you need help?” Lois asked and Dora stopped what she was doing.

“You’re interested in learning?”

Lois looked at Val and Val gave her a nod of encouragement.

“I would like to learn. I was working in a bakery in the city for a while. I love making pies and cookies. If you need help, it would give me something to do and to keep my mind off missing Kenny while he’s in school.”

Dora smiled.

“Okay. You come by tomorrow after he gets on the bus. Be ready to work. It’s hell on the back,” she said and Lois smiled.

“Well, we should get going. We were planning on walking with Grace in the stroller to the school to get the kids,” Val said to her.

“That will be great. I bet the kids will be excited to tell you about their first day in school.”

“We got the chocolate chip cookies all ready to go. Lois and I made them last night,” Val said, lifting Grace up into her arms after she wiped the berry juice from her face and hands.

“Oh, are they a recipe of yours, Val?” she asked.

“Not mine. I took it from Lois. She’s a master at making cookies.”

“Interesting. Well, we’ll talk more tomorrow.”

“Thank you for watching Grace for me,” Val said to her.

“Any time. She’s a pleasure. See you tomorrow.”

As they headed out of the house and over to Val’s car, Lois opened the back door to help place Grace into the car seat.

“So you really want to learn how to make jellies and jams and stuff?” she asked.

“It looked like fun. It smelled so good in there. I bet it could be fun.”

“I think so, too. Plus, maybe it will free up some of Dora’s time so she doesn’t look so exhausted.”

“She did look tired. I hope she’ll be okay.” They buckled Grace in and then headed into the car and back to the cottage.

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