our legislators are scared to death to promote it even
though you’d have to smoke a ton of the stuff to get a
decent buzz.
Zach and Barbara’s kids had been all over the Internet
scouting out alternatives and they had brought print-
outs to share with us.
“What about shiitakes?” Emma said now, passing out
diagrams of stacked logs.
“She-whatys?” asked her Uncle Robert.
“Shiitake mushrooms. You take oak logs, drill holes
in them, put the spores in the holes and plug the holes
with wax. They grow pretty good here because they like
a warm, moist climate and that’s our summers, right?”
Her brother Lee added, “We could convert the
bulk barns to mini greenhouses and grow them year
’round.”
“Right now, a cord of wood can produce about two
thousand dollars’ worth of mushrooms,” said Emma.
“Two
Andrew frowned as he looked at the diagrams. “But
what’s the cost of growing ’em?”
“According to the info put out by State’s forestry ser-
vice, the net return is anywhere from five hundred to a
thousand a cord. But they do warn that the profit may
go down if a lot of people get into growing them.”
“That’s going to be the case with anything,” said
Seth. “What else you find?”
“Ostriches,” Lee said.
Across the room, Dwight winked at me and sat back
to enjoy the fun.
41
MARGARET MARON
both predictably taken aback by the suggestion.
Andrew’s son A.K. laughed and said, “Big as they are,
we could let Jessie here put saddles on them and give
kiddie rides.”
Isabel said, “Ostriches? What kind of outlandish fool-
ery is that?”
“Some of the restaurants and grocery stores are
starting to sell the meat over in Cary,” said Seth and
Minnie’s son John, a teenager who hadn’t yet com-
mitted to farming, but was taking surveying classes at
Colleton Community College.
“Oh, well,
most of my family, the name of that upscale, manicured
town just west of Raleigh was an acronym: Containment
Area for Relocated Yankees, although Clayton, over in
Johnston County, was fast becoming a Cary clone with
