Farm Work
The flower fields at dusk felt like something from another world. There was so many rows of beautiful, lush, green plants and bright colorful flowers as far as the eye could see. Iris stopped and pointed out a flower to him,
“Christmas Star Dahlia.” He looked at the flower that Iris had delicately held between her two fingers, eight perfect points, exactly like a star, bright Christmas red middles with white curled in edges and a yellow center full of pollen. It didn't look real.
He looked at the other flowers around him, the sweet aroma of fresh flowers wafted through the air with the breeze and he realized that he had no idea just how many different flowers Iris grew along with traditional plants and potion ingredients.
“Iris, this is incredible.” He told her, impressed that she could remember the names of different flowers let alone keep them thriving, “I have never seen so many flowers before.”
“Thank you. It's been a labor of love.” She smiled over her shoulder as she walked towards a white barn near what he thought was the end of the property and he could see there was no rows of flowers beyond the barn.
He passed by flowers that looked like tiny tight balls, large dinner plate sized ones, and some that looked like a cactus like bloom. There was teepee like structures that he realized were trellising sweet peas and he smiled, remembering the sweet pea blooms that Ginny would bring in by the handful during the first few weeks of summer break.
The barn doors were wide open and Iris walked straight through the middle of the barn and out to the field in the back, turning to ring a bell mounted on the side of the barn. Two brown cows were the first to come into his view.
“This is Myrtle.” She said, placing a hand on one cow who had a pink collar with a bell around her neck. “And this is Ethyl.” She then pointed to the second brown cow with a yellow collar and bell. “They're my Jersey cows.” She lead them into their stalls and then went to grab some grain for them and the pails for milking.
“So... What do we do?” Charlie asked, having no idea how to go about milking a cow. Iris poured a bunch of oat into a bucket, sat a pail under Myrtle and then stepped back.
“Lactarium.” Iris said, pointing her wand towards the cows udders. Charlie watched in fascination as invisible hands began to milk the dairy cow who was happily chewing her oats. “Normally you can only milk one animal at a time, but with magic I can milk both both cows, and a couple of the sheep and the goat at the same time.”
“That's really cool, actually.” Charlie placed his hands on his hips and watched as the bucket started to fill with the creamy milk and Iris turned her attention to Ethyl, repeating the same process.
“You think that's neat you should see my root cellar.” Iris said, as she cast the spell on the other cow, beginning to milk it as well.
“Root cellar?”
“Yep, it's pretty cool if I do say so myself.” She told him, stepping out back and pointed her wand in the air, casting a blue light. “That gets the goats and sheep to come in.” She answered the silent question, and Charlie looked up to see a bunch of smaller mammals making their way to the barn.
There were six female Nubian goats, as Iris had explained, and one male. They were apparently very good milk producing goats, and honestly Charlie found them quite cute little creatures. One of the females had a pair of kids, and Iris picked one up and handed it over to Charlie. He had to smile holding the little black and white baby, who was bleeting for his mum, with it's long gangly legs and and long white ears.
She then introduced him to her flock of sheep as she milked the females and put them in each of the stall that they were allotted. Icelandic, bluefaced Leicester, and babydoll. It all made his head spin. She explained that each of their wool was different in texture, amount produced, and what she deemed as coziness.
“The babydoll sheep don't do much, but look at heirs faces!” Iris cooed, holding on of her sheep's faces in her hands. It honestly looked like it was smiling at her, and with the small size, it was an adorable little animal and he understood why Iris loved them.
Charlie realized that here, on the farm, with her flowers and her animals, that this was the happiest he had ever seen her. He had felt like he had watched her wither since Ben's passing, but here and now he watched her bloom again.
“Do you have chickens yet?”
“Do I have chickens! Boy you haven't seen chickens til you've seen mine!” Iris smiled brightly. “Grab that basket, let's go get some eggs.”
Blue, green grey, olive green, brown, white, a shade that almost looked pink, Iris had eggs coming out the ears. Charlie helped her pick up the eggs and place them in the basket and found one that was chocolate brown in color. The thought hit him, that this was Iris's dream, but it would also become his responsibility as well. She had everything taken care of, obviously, but he could help her reach more goals, expand. He was going to be her husband in a few weeks. He had already achieved his goal, to work with Dragons every single day, he hoped one day to write a book on it, and he hoped that iris would support him with doing that, and he would return the effort.
“I'm surprised you don't have ducks or geese.”
“I need a pond.” Iris informed him as she checked the last box for eggs, pulling our four to place in the heavily loaded basket of rainbow eggs. “I have a spot for the coop or house, whatever you call it, but I just haven't done it yet. I would also like to get a horse, some things I can't do with magic because I employ muggles, so if I do anything with magic it has to be after they go home. A horse, or a pair, would cut down their labor in the fields if we could use them to til. The barn is big enough, I just... Well, I've had other priorities.” She took the basket of eggs from Charlie and locked up her chickens for the night.
“We could do it, you know. I think what you're doing here is amazing.” He encouraged her and he saw a softness in her features that he hadn't seen in years.
“Thank you, Charlie, that's really sweet of you to say.”
“I mean it! I'm super proud of you! I'm going to be bragging about you at the reserve, all the guys and gals are going to be jealous!” He told her happily, and he intended to. What Iris had done and accomplished deserved to be praised. She had always put herself on the back burner and even now she kept her accomplishments quiet and he had no idea just how successful she was because she stayed so humble. “You got to show me that root cellar too! So I can brag about that!”
“Or make fun of me.” She joked. “Can you help me with the pails? You can use leviosa and just levitate them into the cellar for me.” Charlie was more then happy to help and quickly cast the spell, levitating the pails of fresh milk carefully into the air.
Iris showed Charlie around the barn and to a little set of stairs that went down into the dirt, that lead to a arched door. Once inside, Charlie saw shelves full of canned goods, squashes, pumpkins, vegetables, rows of colored eggs, potato's, anything you could think of, Iris had in that root cellar.
“Have you showed Mum this? This would be her heaven.” Charlie told Iris as she started to organize her eggs on the shelves.
“I haven't. She hasn't been to the farm in a very long time,” Iris informed him. “You can put the pails down wherever.”
Charlie watched Iris work, casting spell ofter spell to seperate the milk from the thick layer of cream at the top of the pails. She would then quickly label the jars cow milk, goat milk, goat cream, cow cream, and so on before she opened a second door in the back, where Charlie saw more jugs and bottles of milk and stuff that looked like cheese.
“Is that... Cheese?”
“Oh, yeah, I tried my hand at it.” She told him, grabbing two blocks, handing them over to him. “That's gouda and a block of fresh goat cheese. We can give it a try when we get back to the house.” Charlie looked down at his hands, two small blocks of cheese that seemed so unassuming. The gouda had a dark yellow rind and the goat cheese was the most pure white cheese he had ever saw.
“You do this everyday?” He asked, looking up at Iris who was closing the door to the dairy cellar.
“Make cheese?” She asked, “no-”
“I mean... Everything. The milking, the organizing, the storing, collecting the eggs, not to mention feeding and watering them all.”
“Charlie this is a cake walk when I compare it to my teenage years.” She told him honestly. “Our seventh year I was volunteering at the ministry, in three different departments, I was also volunteering at St. Mungos, I was head girl, tracking R and occasionally having fights with them. Studying for the NEWTS, keeping my botany projects alive, trying to juggle having a boyfriend, whatever other calamities I was drug into, and I had already dealt with the cursed vaults. I was surviving on four hours of sleep a day, if that. Then go ahead and throw in the second wizarding war that decimated my life... This is easy. This is my happy place.” Iris talked as she grabbed some things here and there to restock her own kitchen. “It's like you, the reserve is your happy place. Mine is different, but that doesn't make it any less joyful.”
It struck Charlie then just how strong Iris was. He had never really thought about all that Iris had survived and persevered through. He knew in his head she was strong, everyone did because everyone went to her if they had a problem, but it occurred to him that not many people more then likely asked if Iris had anything they could help her with. He hadn't. He had just focused on Dragons and school, and once in a while helping Hagrid with something in the forbidden forest.
“You have any wine down here hiding?” He asked.
“No, but I have some mead in the house.”
“Let's go drink and have some cheese, future wife.” He added with a wink, trying his best to flirt. He watched the corner of Iris's lips turn up in a faint smile.