A Birth day

"I haven't made savory pies in a long time," Angus said. "Hadn't even considered it, but I could. They make great breakfast or lunch entrees. I have several good recipes that I haven't made in years. One of Kate's favorite light lunches are some individual savory tarts, served with some really nice salads and a homemade vinaigrette, and she liked to serve that with a strawberry fool for dessert."

"That would definitely be a light lunch," Marcus said.

"What's a fool?" Ginger asked.

"It's an idjit," Sam said sarcastically. Ginger rolled her eyes at him.

"Not quite," Angus laughed. "It's basically stewed strawberries layered with custard."

"Why is it called a fool, then?" Anise asked.

"I'm honestly not sure. I could ask some of my chef friends. I bet somebody knows," Angus said.

Ruby chuckled and looked at Sam and Anise as they spoke to Angus she looked at Angus and nodded she agreed with Marcus " oh and pickles and chutneys to go with them, oh and I read that The term was once thought to be derived from the French fouler, meaning to crush as in the berries." she said and looked at Angus chuckling " hey I read, a lot" she added and saw Aria chuckling.

"I think I prefer Sams definition" Aria said still chuckling as she closed her book and set it down " but savories pies sound really good and we could make the pickles and chutneys to go with them" she offered with Ruby nodding " we'll keep the kids with us they can help too" she added knowing them watching the two of them cooking would be good for them both, plus keep them quiet.

"That's fine," Angus said. "I think I have a couple jars yet in the pantry of a spiced apricot chutney that I made awhile back. I got a good deal on some apricots for the main house, and I made a spiced apricot chutney with them, and I think I still have some here in the pantry. It isn't being saved back for anything special, but I think its the only chutney I have on hand right now. i need to actually do an inventory and then restock us here and in the main house both. I'll try to get to that in the next day or so. There's still a lot of the harvest out, so I need to make sure I know what we have and what is yet to harvest so I can perhaps add some recipes for the crew to prepare in the summer kitchen to stock us for the winter months."

"Can we go shopping for furniture on Saturday?" Sam asked. "Any reason we can't?"

"No, no reason I know of," Angus said. "Did you make me a list?"

"We each need a bed, a table, and a couch. That's pretty much it, right?" Victor asked.

"Really? You think that's it? How are you going to refrigerate food or heat it? How are you going to cook? What are you going to serve the food on? What are you going to use to drink? How are you going to dry yourself after your shower?..." Angus began to ask questions.

"Told you," Anise scowled at Sam and Victor. "Make the stupid list. I told you that you weren't thinking. Dopes--both of you. Dad, you need to send them both out into the woods with just their clothes on their backs and make them stay out there a couple nights. They'd change their tunes."

"Dad wouldn't do that to us," Sam frowned.

"Oh, yes he would," Marcus laughed.

Aria heard the boys and girls talking and chuckled then heard Marcus and looked at him " its good wilderness training" she said looking at them " I had to do it in a swamp, gaters and all " she said " but it taught me survival" she said smiling " oh what about pumpkin spike chutney, or red jelly to go with turkey on thanks giving" she asked to Angus " we could make it and sell some too"

Ruby smiled and looked at Angus " we should stick up for winter and I think pickles and chutneys would be great, and I saw that , had a small taste too very nice" she said smiling to him. Hearing Marcus she chuckled again " maybe they should redo that course in Colorado?" she suggested.

"Oh," Angus said, "Robert has done several difficult winter survival courses in some really harsh winter weather conditions in Colorado. It is not a fun course. Winter in the Colorado mountains, where the ranch is, can be beyond brutal. It isn't unusual for it to get to be -50 C there, with blizzards, and sometimes several feet of snow, not just a few inches. To survive those sorts of weekends, one has to truly be ready for anything and has to be experienced. Robert always goes on those weekends when the training itself puts the team's life on the line just by being in that sort of weather. Twice, we had to bail on the training because the weather was just too deadly to continue being out in it. We damned near lost a trainee one year when someone didn't follow directions and it nearly cost him his life."

Marcus glanced at the girls who had gotten paper and pens and were writing.

"What are you doing?" Marcus asked him.

"Making lists for the boys," Anise said. "They have no clue. They're both going to have empty apartments if we leave them to their own devices."

"Well, you do realize I'm willing to let them struggle with that in order for them to get me a sensible list," Angus said calmly.

"No, because that means when we go over there, we're going to be sitting on the floor," Ginger said. "And I'm not having it just because they're stupid."

Ruby listened to Angus talk of the courses and gasped when he said one was really brutal " wow , not good but good that that poor trainee was okay" she said " and that you guys came back " she said then saw the girls writing a list and chuckled as she heard their explanation about why they were doing it " makes sense, " she said to Marcus " maybe get them to make their list and compare the two and see who comes up with more" she added.

Aria chuckled and shook her head as Angus spoke of the brutal training they had to do in Colorado " wow , I thought the gaters were bad, that's just brutal" she added and closed her book " was that the extreme survival training, i heard some of the grounds men talking about it"

"Robert's survival trainings for the first stringers are always extreme," Marcus said. "He's taken us to a desert, he's taken us to a swamp, into blizzards, into hurricanes, you name it. He believes we should not be taken by surprise if we can help it. He always allows us to take a handful of things. Normally its 5 or 6 things, and we've learned to rather work together so that someone might have a first aid kit. someone else mgiht have water, someone else might have some shrunken campfire cooking equipment, someone else might shrink some blankets or something. We've learned to work together and pick very, very wisely, and everyone has learned to make a really good swiss army knife as something that they take."

"Remember that one year that only one of us took a knife?" Marcus asked.

"Yes. The bozo lost the damned knife," Angus sighed.

"So, this one here," Marcus gestured to Angus, "improvised. He took a damned big rock and beat on the handle of a cooking pot until he broke it off at an angle, making a sharp jagged edge on the piece he broke off, and that was our knife for two days. it worked. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. And it got him some extra points in the final score.

"And that one brought us back some poisonous toadstools to eat," Angus gestured to Marcus. "I chucked them out. And he broke out in a rash that had him nonstop scratching for about five days."

"That was nigh onto miserable," Marcus said.

"Well, because you didn't tell Robert about it. Robert didn't know a stinking thing until I outted you to him."

"Well, yeah, you were right about that one. You were right," Marcus sighed. "And when we did get some real mushrooms, they were pretty tasty because of those spices you smuggled in."

"They were good, weren't they?" Angus laughed.

Ruby smiled as Angus and Marcus regaled them with survival stories " but sounds like you guys bonded very well over that" she smiled at them both " maybe the survival training might not be a bad idea" she said and looked to Aria who shook her head .

"oh no, I get enough survival training with these two" she said and pointed to the babies. " this is life survival" she said and Ruby chuckled as Aria smiled " not that I would ever give up my time with these two, your survival stories do sound fun, even if he wasn't fun at the time" she said smiling.

Joseph had grabbed some food and retired to his room for the night , once eaten he slipped onto the bed and lay down to fall asleep. He dreamt of being home his mother telling him his father was gone but then it changed to a dark dream of him running down the streets as his father chased him with a thick leather belt held above his head. Sitting up Joseph looked around the room and shook his head " not again" he said standing and dressing then heading down to the pond in front of Marcus place.

Michael and Robert decided to go for a night time swim in the big pool behind the main house. Supper was over. Abbey and Molly were in bed, asleep because Robert had read the bedtime story tonight. Kate was in her studio finishing a portrait for a client, and Khaat was working late night at the hospital meeting for a budget committee meeting. Brian was pulling an overnight at St. Mungos because of a healer shortage. That left Robert and Michael with a little unusual free time and they decided on a swim. They came outside, and they slipped off their short kimono robes and laid them on a couple of lounge chairs.

The moonlight and the backyard lights around the pool, along with the lights in the pool were all they needed. They didn't need blazingly bright lights.

"When did you get sunburned?" Robert was asking Michael. He had noticed that the mammoth scar on Michael's back seemed a lot more vibrant and irritated tonight. Sunburned scars often looked that way.

"Worked out in my back garden in my shorts without a shirt," Michael said.

"I warned you about doing that," Robert frowned.

"Well, I hadn't planned on being out more than an hour max, but I saw a big tall weed that I missed, so when I went to pull it out, I saw a second weed, and a third, and before long, I'd weeded the whol back garden," Michael shrugged.

"Well, we'll get a sunburn potion and put on it when we're done out here. That should ease some of that. I've seen lobsters that are a lot less red than you."

"Yeah, yeah. Let's swim," Michael said.

"We did," Marcus replied to Ruby. The boys went to shower, and the girls finished the lists and gave them to Angus.

"Better?" Ginger asked. Angus looked at the lists.

"Oh, much," Angus said. "Well done. I'll look them over and then we can all discuss it. Thank you."

"Okay. We're going to go shower," the girls said, heading downstairs. Angus heard the niffler rattling the door on the box. Angus got up, filled a bowl with salad and a mug with water, and he took it to the niffler so it had some supper.

Joseph stood and watched as two figures walked out the main house to the pool he heard Robert and Michael both talking and chuckled but seeing the scar across Michaels back he carefully walked over but paused as he saw them start to swim in the pool , moving to a sun longer he sat down waiting for them to finish swimming , thinking he needed to talk to Michael and sort out this thing between them and if he was family or not.

He watched them both swim and saw the scar across Michaels back as it stood out against his now tanned skin and the water.

Ruby heard the girls and glanced at the list smiling as they handed it to Angus , moving she smiled seeing the list and the things on lit " oh so much better than nothing" she said and chuckled. Hearing them say they we going to go shower she nodded " all right" she said and sat back down on the couch.