Who: Anna and Elsa When: Late June Where: Arendelle Manor What: Gardening! Rating/Warnings: Low/None Status: Complete!
Anna showed up with a basket in hand. She let herself in through the front door, and hollered up the stairs on her way through the house. “Hi, Elsa! Kate! I’m here! Heading straight into the garden!” She opened the sliding glass door into the back, tugged on her sunglasses and hat, then moved through the garden to inspect the vegetables. Everything was bursting with produce! Anna was so excited!
Elsa knew Anna would love it as soon as she saw the garden, everything had gone crazy. “Your vegetables have taken over the garden” she said with a smile as she came out to join her sister, sun hat in place along with shorts and a tank top - perfect for an afternoon gardening.
“I know!” Anna beamed, turning to grin brightly at her sister, then her eyes came back over to the creeping cucumber plants, the tomatoes like fireworks all over their cages, the pumpkin plants taking over half of the garden to produce the green, growing pumpkins. Anna was astonished. “I mean, I’d say I’m sorry, but look at the amazingness! We’re gonna have such great salads! I hope you stocked up on croutons!”
“Never be sorry, it’s amazing. Even I can see how incredible it is” Elsa said, “And I am sure it tastes amazing too. We’re all going to be eating salad for a while” which was definitely not a bad thing, “Croutons and dressing” she nodded, “I’m all prepared”
“Good thing!” Anna was really excited to put some of those cucumbers with some tomatoes and some feta. Balsamic. It sounded like heaven! “Shall we get to work? I’m gonna start over there with the zucchinis. Want to come with?” She asked, taking a couple steps toward that part of the garden. “The drip-irrigation system is working really well!”
“I’m following your lead, I have no idea what I’m doing otherwise” she told her little sister with a grin, “It is, I have to admit your promise about it being fairly low maintenance has been right”
Anna laughed. “I have no idea what I’m doing, either! But it’s fun! And look how many veggies we have to eat!” She moved to the zucchini plants. Each of them had two or three fat zucchinis on them. Now Anna was regretting putting in so many. “...I’ll have to learn to make zucchini bread.”
“I wonder if Baxter’s bakery would be interested in any? I imagine they could make a large batch of bread to sell” Elsa said thinking out loud, because it did look like they were all ready at once and they’d never be able to get through them all and Elsa had no idea if freezing them would be a good idea or not.
“Oh my gosh, that’s a great idea!” Anna said, brightening considerably. “Let’s put together a big basket and take it over there when we’re done with the rest of the harvesting. And then we can get a sparkling latte while we’re there!”
“I think together we come up with the perfect ideas” Elsa said, because a sparkling latte sounded like the perfect way to finish their harvesting success. Taking out one of the little knives Elsa began to help her sister harvest the food they’d managed to grow.
“I think so, too!” Anna moved over to help her sister. And soon they’d harvested enough for a dozen zucchini loaves. Anna got dirt all over her gloves, resting them on the ground, then wiped the sweat from her brow, and left her forehead a muddy mess. “I think that’s all the zukes,” she said, glancing around. “Though it looks like the plants will have more to give us in a few days if we keep watering them this much!”
Elsa smiled as she watched her sister, she loved moments like these. Moments they should have had growing up but hadn’t thanks to their parents. Elsa tried not to resent them, they’d done the best they could but in sending Elsa away the sisters had lost so much time together. Getting a clean damp cloth she leaned over and wiped Anna’s forehead, “We’ll be overrun with food, which is not at all a bad thing”
Anna flushed when she realized that Elsa was cleaning her face. She grinned sheepishly and shrugged a little. Hey, it was hard to keep clean when one was gardening, right? Or, well, when one was Anna and gardening. “Thanks,” she said, and nodded. “I love fresh salads all summer! Besides, who wants to cook when it’s like, a thousand degrees out? My place doesn’t have air conditioning.”
Elsa found it rather adorable, it reminded her of a time before she’d been sent away and they used to be together all the time. Anna had always been the more adventurous tomboy like of the two of them. “Anytime you need air just come over” Elsa said, “I’ll always have a salad prepared in the fridge too” she promised.
Elsa didn’t need air conditioning, did she? That was one of those moments where Anna felt a tiny pang of jealousy. But it was short lived--she’d seen first hand what happened to Elsa in the Dreams, what could easily happen to her in this world. Her powers were unique and inexplicable, and people feared what they didn’t understand. “I will.” Anna said, giving her sister a smile. “I promise. Okay, now we’ve finished with the zucchini… how about the cucumbers?” She lifted the basket to set on a table on the patio, then turned her attention to another part of the garden. “And peas! We’ll have to harvest those monsters.”
No, Elsa didn’t but they had it in the house anyway. It could be an icy temperature and she never noticed, she didn’t feel the cold. “Oh I love peas! Can we do those next? I’ll try not to eat them all before they get to the basket” she winked.
Anna laughed. “I make no such promise,” she teased, turning toward the peas. There were large trellises covered in the green vines, and the closer they got, the more she saw the peas. Huge pea pods dangled all over the place. “Oh my gosh, we might not have enough room in our baskets!” She said, and started to harvest.
“Well in that case maybe eating a few of them would be the best thing to do” Elsa said as she joined her sister and began picking. They would have the most incredible fresh salad for lunch.
“I just wish these were all in season at the same time as lettuce. I’m afraid if we’d planted that, it would have gone to seed right away.” Bummer that so many lettuces were winter veggies. At least, in Southern California. “But we can toss an amazing salad with cucumber, tomato, onion and peas.” The sugar snap kind were absolutely amazing. Anna started to harvest them, putting them all into the basket.
“It’s not so bad, a non lettuce salad isn’t too bad” Elsa said, sometimes it made you appreciate the other vegetables more. As Elsa harvested a couple didn’t make it to the bowl as she happily munched away.
“Well, that’s true. I mean, so many of these vegetables look amazing. And I bet they taste good, too--since they’re picked at the perfect time. Not like the stuff you get in the supermarket that was ripened in a truck on the way to an airport on the way to another truck on the way to the market.” Anna pulled some more peas off the vine and tossed them into the basket. She took the next one and munched on it, giving a little groan of approval. It was so sweet and crunchy.
“Exactly” Elsa agreed, “It’s going to be really tasty” Probably the best thing ever, there was something about food you grew yourself. “They’re tasty right?” she grinned at her sister as their baskets filled.
“They are!” Anna beamed over at her sister. “Okay, peas are mostly finished. Tomatoes next? There’s a bunch there that can be picked, and more not quite ripe yet.” She dusted her hands off as she climbed up to her feet.
“Mmmhmm” Elsa nodded her mouth full of pea, “The cherry ones look great, you know I read that cherry tomatoes do really well in hanging baskets” she added, as they moved on.
“Really? Maybe we should do that next year!” Anna beamed at her sister. “I'm so glad you're letting me do all this gardening here. I love it, and my yard kinda sucks for it. We have so much patio!”
“I think that’s a good idea” Elsa said before smiling at her sister, “I’m glad you’re using the garden, it would be a waste not to do something and it means I get to see you more”
“I love swinging by and watering the place.” Anna said, turning to grin over at Elsa. “I mean, I should start trying to grow some things in my own place. It’d be great to have some stuff here, and some stuff there! But this yard works so much better for all the plants that need to grow in the ground.”
“Well you know you’re welcome anytime and we can all enjoy some nice food together as well now too. It’s lovely being able to eat fresh especially in this heat” Elsa said with a smile.
“I love being able to eat without having to cook!” Anna grinned. She took another bite from the peas she was gathering, and chewed triumphantly.
“You and me both” Elsa said with a smile, though sometimes a nice piece of cooked salmon was nice with a salad.
Anna finished up harvesting the vegetables off the plants she was working on, then lifted her basket and headed back over to where they were collecting them. She dusted her hands off and looked around the garden. “What else should we do while I’m here?”
“Let's get all this in the kitchen and have a cool drink while you tell me how you've been” Elsa said with a smile, it didn't all have to be work time. They could have sister time too.