Regeneration (Mad Swine Book 3) Read Free

structures. The first of the structures served as
quarters for seasonal workers, as well as interns from the local
community college’s agricultural programs who worked there for
experience and class credit.
    The building was a rectangular
structure that ran perpendicular to the main house. At least two
thousand square feet, there were ten rooms with two bunks per room.
With its own bathroom and showers, the quarters reminded me even
more of boot camp, but it was perfect for us.
    During the growing season, the bunks
were full with seasonal workers that helped keep the farm running.
During the winter, only three of the workers had remained living in
the dorm. Carrie and David had come down from Canada to backpack
across the U.S., but they ended up taking jobs on the Farm and fell
in love with the Finnegan’s and the lifestyle, and stayed on. The
other winter resident, Ernesto, was an immigrant from Mexico who
was working to save money to bring his family to the United States.
During the winter, they helped with the livestock and other farm
chores, and in return, they were given room and board, and a
monthly stipend.
    Now, only Carrie remained as a
resident in the dorms; David and Ernesto had died with Old Man
Finnegan the night before we’d arrived, killed by a small group of
men who had come to the farm in search of food and supplies.
    To the west, between the main house
and the quarters was another single story rectangular structure
that served as a kitchen and cannery. Although half the size of the
quarters, the kitchen was large enough to accommodate a team of
chefs, and was equipped with stoves, ovens, walk-in freezer, and
several refrigeration units. There were also two pantries, which
stored much of the canning that Maureen and Cleona did for the
family. The large prep area consisted of three large stainless
steel tables that formed a U shape at the center of the room. At
the opposite end of the kitchen, double swinging doors opened up
onto a large dining space with two twenty foot tables flanking each
other. Instead of individual chairs, long benches served to seat at
least forty diners. Just outside the kitchen stood a smokehouse and
root cellar.
    Further to the west lay the remains
of the original barn, which the family had outgrown many years ago.
The original barn, before it burned, was used primarily for the
family’s personal storage and garage where the Finnegan brothers
worked on their motorcycle projects. To the north, the new barn
stood, a massive structure nearly ten thousand square feet. West of
the new barn—built about seven years ago to meet the growing needs
of the farm—were several additional structures, including a large
machine shed, granary, and corn house.
    To the east was a patch of land that
Maureen called the garden, where the family grew lettuce, carrots,
potatoes, onions, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, and herbs and
spices for their own consumption. Flanking the garden was a large
greenhouse that stretched across an open field, beyond which stood
pastures and fields on which they grew various crops, sprawling as
far as the eye could see before the land gave way to thick
shrubbery and woods that surrounded the farm.
    Further west, beyond the sheds, stood
more fields and the access road that meandered around the vast land
that eventually intersected with a main rural route. Opposite the
road were residential homes with small patches of pasture and
fields, but nothing on the scale of the Finnegan farm.
    Winter at Finnegan Farm was as close
to typical as possible to what farmers do during the winter in
Illinois, or so Lara told me. She’d spent most of her time
shadowing Cleona and Maureen, the matriarchs of the family.
Although there was no need to reconcile books or paperwork any
longer, there were logs and notes to study as they began to
consider next year’s crop cycle. There were the basic farm chores
as well, like cleaning and maintaining the equipment, caring for
livestock, and