4: Farm Living
(June 25, 2017)
A geographic peculiarity meant that sometimes Gravity Falls Valley was much hotter than surrounding areas in the summer, and sometimes much colder than the same areas in the winter. The odd shape of the valley, surrounded by high cliffs with only one opening toward the east, could make the whole Valley simmer like a skillet in summer and freeze like, uh, a frozen skillet, I guess, in the winter.
The idiosyncratic microclimate has to do with wind currents, surface heating, temperature inversions, and stuff like that. Anyway, on that Sunday as Mabel drove them to Sallie Corduroy's farm, up past Morris, the temperature's rush to the top of the charts at least slowed. Whereas in the Valley (or at least at the Shack) the thermometer showed 86—still well before noon—by the time they'd passed Morris and were on the country road leading to the farm, the temperature outside the car was a mere 83.
That difference partly resulted from the difference in altitude—Morris was several hundred feet more above sea level than the Valley—and partly from a breeze that the Valley didn't feel, since the cliffs around Gravity Falls shielded it from low-level winds. When Mabel parked and busied herself with un-seat-belting Tripper, Dipper and Wendy got out. The farmhouse lacked air conditioning, except in the bedroom, but all the windows were open, the curtains stirring in the breeze.
"Now," Mabel warned, setting Tripper down beside the car, "the chickens don't like to be chased, so play nice!"
Tripper looked as if he understood. Anyway, he had visited before and liked running around the big pasture and the barnyard. A gang of Rhode Island Red hens did come out to meet Mabel, but they didn't do their normal demonstration for her—usually they practically threw a chicken parade with her, complete with brass band, or at least enough energetic clucking to remind onlookers of one, but today they had their wings slightly spread and their feathers ruffled and looked as if they would like to learn how to sweat.
"Wendy! Hello. And Dipper and Mabel," said a sharp but good-humored voice from the porch. Sallie Corduroy Bellone, a widow, tall and thin as ever, her red hair now liberally streaked with gray, stood on the porch. "Mabel, lead those fool chickens to the shady side of the barn and turn on the mister."
"Mister who?" Mabel asked.
Sallie barked with laugher. "Child! There's an outdoor spigot—faucet, you city folks call it—beside the barn, toward the front. It's hooked to a sprinkler system, only the sprinklers don't sprinkle, they mist. Hens like to cool off there on a hot day. Get them around there for me. They'll follow you. Your pigs are in the usual stall, lazing 'cause it's so blame hot."
Mabel led the clucking, shuffling hens toward the barn, while Wendy and Dipper went up to the porch to be hugged by Aunt Sallie. "You finally told Danny, I hear," she said by way of greeting.
Wendy laughed. "Well, we're tying the knot, end of August, so we kinda figured we'd better let him know."
"He told me to save the date. That is a beautiful engagement ring, Dipper."
"It's real special," Wendy said. "You wouldn't believe where the diamond came from!"
"I like the birthstones, too. It's lovely, Wendy. Well, let's not stand out here in the heat. Come in, come in."
The parlor wasn't broiling, but it wasn't exactly cool, either. "Let me turn on the ceiling fan," Aunt Sallie said. "Won't do much, but at least it'll stir up the air."
She left the light off—plenty of daylight streamed in through the open windows, anyway—and as the blades started to revolve overhead, Dipper felt some relief from the heat. "You young people—you really want me there at the wedding?" Sallie asked as she settled into her armchair.
"Yes," both Wendy and Dipper said together. They were side by side on the sofa. Wendy elbowed him. "I got this, Dip. It's not gonna be a big wedding, Aunt Sallie," she explained. "Just a few friends and family. Civil service. We've talked to Dr. Gaspell, and along in December we'll have a renewal-of-vows kinda thing in the church, and that'll be more like a formal ceremony."
"No gifts for this one," Dipper said.
"Hogwash," Sallie said cheerfully. "You know I'll give you two something. I've got second sight, you know. What I give you won't be expensive, and you don't even have to let anybody else know about it, but it'll be something you can use to draw good luck and chase away bad."
"That's fine, then," Wendy said. "But we don't need like furniture or pots and pans or anything like that, not yet. We'll be living in a dormitory room at college, so we won't have room for the normal stuff."
They heard Tripper yipping—not in a serious way, but more as if he were greeting his two friends Waddles and Widdles—and Sallie asked quietly, "Is Mabel going to the same college as you two?"
Dipper shook his head. "She's going to Olmsted. It's a college that specializes in art—visual arts, music and dance, theater, like that. But we'll only be a few miles away from her. Western and Olmsted are both not too far from Crescent City."
"Oh," Sallie said, nodding. "Down south of Eugene. I know where that is. Wendy, you be sure to come home and visit Danny about once a month. He won't tell you, but he's going to miss you a lot."
"We'll plan to do that," Wendy said.
"And if there is anything you two need for going off to college, you be sure and let us know."
"We're pretty well covered," Dipper said. "But thanks."
They heard steps on the front porch, and a moment later Mabel came in. "The chickens love the mister," she told Sallie. "I kept it running. Is that OK?"
"For a half hour or thereabouts," Sallie said. "Then they'll go to the coop and roost, letting their feathers dry. That cools them off too, you know. How hot's it going to be in Gravity Falls?"
"Hundred and two," Mabel said. "And about that hot tomorrow, unless we get a storm."
"Now, that was one thing I didn't like about living in Gravity Falls when we were young 'uns," Sallie said. "The summer heat. In an hour or so we'll have some lunch—cold fried chicken—not one o' mine, Mabel, I bought it in the market—with a cold vegetable salad and some trimmings, but right now, would anybody care for some lemonade?"
They were all in the mood for it, and Wendy helped her fill glasses with ice and pour the freshly-squeezed lemonade. It was great, sweet but sharp and refreshing. After a few minutes of chatting, they heard a polite scratch at the door, and Mabel let Tripper in. "Don't get in chairs or on the sofa," she warned him. He gave her an oh-please kind of glance and flopped down on the wood floor, panting but looking happy. Mabel said, "Dipper, go turn off the mister thingy. I have to make sure Tripper minds his manners."
Tripper gave a little huff sound as if he mildly resented being implied to be less than a Good Dog, but Wendy said, "Come on, Dip, I'll show you where it is."
Where it was actually was pretty apparent. Beneath the deep shade of a well-trimmed poplar, fans of drifting misty water sprayed up from the sprinklers. The hens were clustered, deep red with the moisture, clucking contentedly. Waddles and Widdles had come out of the barn, too—both of them now mature hogs, Waddles only a little more massive than his daughter—and had plopped themselves down in the grass, enjoying the drift of cool water.
"Wonder where Gompers is," Dipper said as he turned the sprinklers off.
"He and the Geep are probably up in the pasture near the creek," Wendy said. "They kind of hang out there. Want to walk out and see if they're OK?"
"Sure," Dipper said. He and Wendy walked holding hands, which was nice, and once they were in the meadow the breeze picked up a little, which was also nice. Sure enough, they found both Gompers and his somewhat smaller hybrid offspring, half-goat, half-sheep, dozing on a boulder overlooking a slow, shallow stream. Gompers raised his head and obviously noticed them, but gave them only a dismissive glance. Goats and cats have a lot in common where interpersonal relations are concerned.
"This is a nice spot," Dipper said. He and Wendy sat on a rock at the edge of the creek, took off their shoes and socks, and rested their bare feet in the water. "Not as cool as the creeks in the Valley, though."
"Yeah," Wendy said. "This is nice and all—but I'm glad Dad didn't move out of Gravity Falls, like his big sister Sallie did. Man, I used to get so fed up with that place—me and my gang were kinda outsiders, you know, and the dang Valley is so bizarre it gets boring after a while—but looking back, I'm glad I grew up there instead of anywhere else. Is that mature, or am I just being sappy?"
"I don't think it's sappy," Dipper said. "I think you're lucky. See, Mabel and I grew up in Piedmont, but—somehow, I don't feel all that much attachment to it. I mean, you look at it, it's just another suburban town like a hundred others in California. Gravity Falls is quirky! And it's got you, which is its greatest advantage."
"We oughta finish up those last few dozen memory cylinders this summer," Wendy said. They had made a project of reviewing the memories stored by the Blind Eye Society over its twenty-some years of existence. A lot of times they had let the victims of the Society know about their memories. Other times, they didn't have to bother, because the people whose memories had been erased had died or moved away. And still other times, they talked it over and agreed they would be doing more harm than good, if the victims had wanted to lose the memories and if they didn't seem too impaired.
So they left Robbie Valentine serenely forgetful of the time when Rumble McSkirmish had tried to pound him, and Susan Wentworth really had no need to be reminded of the existence of Gnomes now that they were the official garbage service for Greasy's Diner. Of course, Dipper had some explaining to do when Wendy viewed Robbie's memories with him.
"Oh, dude," she said when she saw Robbie taunting a then twelve-year-old Dipper and challenging him to a fight. "Robbie could be so uncool back then!"
But she also admonished Dipper, not too harshly: "You have to be careful about letting video game characters loose, man. If it had been GTA, everybody's cars would've been stolen!"
Because of their touch telepathy, Dipper kept almost nothing secret from Wendy any longer—but when he discovered one memory cylinder labeled "Amanda Corduroy," he had debated for weeks whether to let her know about it. He finally did.
"Mom," Wendy said softly, holding the glass tube in her hand.
"I haven't looked at it," Dipper said.
"Thanks, Dip," she whispered. "We've got photos of her, but no home movies or anything. Sometimes I can barely remember what she looked like."
"If you want to watch that alone—"
Wendy bit her lip and shook her head. "Not yet, Dipper. Maybe—maybe after we get married, OK? And we'll watch it together. If it was a hurtful memory, I'll need some support."
"OK," he had said.
They had been sitting together beside the creek in silence for a few minutes when Wendy said, "You're thinking of that one of Mom's."
"Yeah," he said. "I hope it wasn't something she—you know, wanted to forget. I'm hoping it was just the dumb Society butting in again."
"We'll find out together," Wendy said. "Hey, listen!"
It was the clanging of a triangle—the call to come in for a meal—and from the enthusiastic sound of it, Mabel was the one doing the calling.
Tripper came trotting out, saw them, woofed, turned, and looked back over his shoulder expectantly.
"OK, OK, we're coming," Dipper said with a laugh. "Run back and let Mabel know we're on the way!"
Tripper yipped and sped off as Dipper and Wendy got their socks and shoes back on and started up a slope and across the pasture toward the farmhouse.
Beyond it, to the south, the sky had darkened. Clouds seemed to be piling up.
"Summer storm," Wendy said. "We probably ought to head back to the Falls soon as we have lunch and help Aunt Sallie with the dishes."
Dipper took his phone out to check the weather app. "No severe warnings yet," he said. "They do say to expect thundershowers."
But the storms were off in the distance and off in the future, and they settled around the table and enjoyed a delicious cold fried-chicken lunch, with the vegetables in a piquant vinegar-based sauce and the cold potato salad different from any Dipper had ever eaten, and yet tasty, too, and had at least a fine meal and a companionable time with Aunt Sallie as they tidied the dishes.
Before they left, she gave them two dozen eggs—fresh from the hens—one dozen for Dan, one for the Shack. Mabel put Tripper back in his harness and buckled him in, Wendy and Dipper got in the back seat of Helen Wheels, and once she was behind the wheel, Mabel said, "Hey, Dip—we're a little bit low on gas. OK to get some at the NorWesCo station in Morris?"
"Sure," Dipper said.
"OK if you pay for it?"
"I've got the cash," he said.
Wendy asked, "Mabes, don't you ever carry money?"
"Not if I can help it," Mabel said as she started the car. "It just complicates everything!"