Harvesting Ashwood Minnesota 2037 Read Online Free PDF Page A

else if the boy is yours. There’s plenty of resources, and affection, to stretch over one more set of shoulders.” He winked. “We have room for one kid, even if he can pick up coins with his toes like his mother.” His arms settled around my shoulders. I heard his lips kiss my hair. “Now I’ve got to run.”
    By dinner we’d all be comfortable with David’s absence, for that was the way we lived—he traveled the world responding to the most powerful customers of the U.S. Department of Energy and I managed the third-largest privately-held agricultural production estate in Minnesota. In my office solar sensitive blinds filtered the morning’s strong sun. Thermal heating and cooling kept the main residence comfortable, but the DOE office building changed systems frequently as a lab setting for future technology. The current system worked less than perfectly against September’s worst weather.
    Three hours into my workday I had nothing accomplished. I pulled an old photo collection off my credenza to remember my own family that nurtured me and my first husband, Richard. How young I looked at his side before the economy collapsed.
     “Anne. You look like you’re deep in thought. Didn’t we schedule the agricultural operations group meeting at this time?” Magda walked in to sit at her favorite place at my office table. Estate living kept both of us lean, but I thought she looked younger than her thirty-five years while I felt the approach of my thirty-ninth birthday.
    “Are you okay?” Remnants of an Eastern European accent gave her deep alto voice a catlike growling quality. Her current life partner, a quiet Jamaican woman named Ena, managed installation of crop rotation in the greenhouses. Together they seemed to be organically a part of all that was green on the estate.
    “I’m wishing Paul had another branch of the Regan family tree we could shake for more strong South Dakota workers.” I sighed. “Seven years ago this estate had almost bare food shelves, large market obligations, and not enough laborers. Today we have prosperous businesses with high-demand products and the government ratcheting up its agricultural product requirements while it sucks up most of our workforce. I don’t understand what’s happening.”
    She shrugged at my recap of old news. With an ever-growing Bureau of Human Capital Management directing allocation of all labor, there was always pressure on estate management to provide training opportunities as well as jobs for the young and the unemployed. Unfairly, we did our best with little guarantee of retaining the people we trained if other industries had needs.
    “When did all these manufacturing companies build factories around the cities?” Magda asked as she stretched. “It’s not like they’re making shoes or something locally useful. It’s all missiles and munitions. Not at all self-sufficiency.”
    “This morning’s first group of day laborers didn’t look like the whole lot could produce more than the resources they might use.” I added to her concern. “All city workers trying to put in a full day in this heat.” I put the pictures down, moved from my desk to join her. “I’m worried about having enough people to finish harvest.”
    “You always worry about something, Anne.” Magda, a true operations manager, tossed aside easy problems. “Ena’s system of rotating people through time in the greenhouses and the fields minimizes heat issues. We’ll be okay.” She removed a pencil from her thick braid of hair. “Let’s come back to this thought after we go through reports.”
    We drilled through planting, harvesting, and produce distribution. Paul joined us to talk about the grain harvest. His knowledge of the flat plains of southern Minnesota and South Dakota saved our crops in many situations. Forty minutes passed.
    “Even field staff breaks at some point.” David stood in the doorway. “I need a minute with my wife and father.” 
    “I need to