It Was A Question Of Coffee Beans

 

The very things themselves!

☕

 
            As everybody knows by now, Ralph and Ramona had become coffee drinkers, if they could get some coffee by one of two or three methods. Sometimes Millicent would send a bag of Bargreen’s Organic French, pre-ground. It was lovely. Sometimes Ralph would trade some firewood for a bag of whatever kind of coffee Ranger Rick had picked up when he was in town. Rick was not a coffee snob, so it might be anything. Once it was canned Safeway store brand coffee. (One shudders!) Sometimes faithful friend Thaga sent a bag of her home roast and ground coffee. It was pretty good. Maeve could carry a 2lb bag quite easily. She did this for Millicent also.
            Time went on and the coffee fever in the Home Clearing deepened.
 
            Meanwhile, somewhere further afield than Ralph generally roamed, there may have been some far-ranging by mysterious means involved, he came upon a warm dry valley where once upon a time some Original Dwellers had lived. He could tell that they had moved on a long long time ago. There were no houses of any kind left, whether skin, or bark, or wooden he didn’t know.
            It was so ideal that Ralph wondered how they could have stood to leave it. He shook his head, sensing that perhaps trouble had come to the sweet little valley. It was so perfect. There were trees for shade uphill a bit, there was a small stream for drinking water and washing babies and such, a little small for fishing, but “who knows,” he thought. Deer slept in the shade of the trees as it was midday. Ralph could smell and hear them up there.
            As he was looking at the signs of habitation remaining, he found an interesting stone. It was granite and about the size of a large sofa cushion, more rounded though. It had three bowl shaped depressions on the flattish top of different sizes. Ralph knew enough about rocks to see that these holes were made by the hands of man, or more likely, woman. But, he wasn’t quite sure what the holes were for.
            Since no one was there using it or needing it any more, he decided to bring it home to Ramona. He thought that maybe Thaga and Ramona could find a good use for a nice big stone with some obvious signs of historical usefulness on it.
            He tucked the interesting stone up under his left arm like you would a three ring binder once upon another time and did a few complicated steps with his big feet. He smiled, thinking of home, and hummed a little tune quietly. Then the little valley dreamed on without him.
 
            “Hey, Mona, look at this neat rock I found,” called Ralph when he got home.
            She looked up from teaching Cherry how to tie useful knots in strings and said, “Let’s see it! Oh, it is a nice rock, Baby. I wonder what it’s good for?” said Ramona.
            “I’m not sure,” said Ralph. “But somebody put these hollows in it somehow. I thought maybe you and Thaga could find a use for it.”
            “Hm. Maybe,” said Ramona. “She will probably know who did that and why.”

            Then, just as if she knew she was wanted, Thaga appeared carrying a sack of something.
            “Ramona, I have an idea,” said Thaga. “Wait until you hear it!”
            “I can’t wait,” said Ramona, smiling at her good friend.
            “I have a great big bag of green coffee beans at home, and I decided to teach you how to roast your own!” (Thaga has her sources!)
            “That sounds like fun. What’s in your bag there, Thaga?” said Ramona, as if she didn’t know.
            “Green coffee beans. Of course,” said Thaga. “We need your big flat pan for this!”
            So, Ramona went into the cave and got her big flat pan and brought it out to the fire. Thaga instructed her to lay it on her grill. Then Thaga dumped the green coffee beans on it.
            “You have to keep stirring them while they roast, Ramona,” said Thaga. “They need to darken to about the color of Ralph’s hair! That’s why your coffee is dark brown, the roasting.”
            So, while Ralph and the kids watched, Ramona tended the coffee beans until they were just about the color of Ralph. Then she set the large flat pan on her little stump table to cool. It smelled wonderful, almost too much wonderful though. Roasting coffee beans have a strong scent!
            “Now that the roasting’s done, you must grind them somehow,” said Thaga. “How do you grind nuts? That ought to work on coffee too.”
            “I just kind of mash them with a rock on my little stump table here, Thaga. I don’t know if that will work for these hard beans,” said Ramona, while looking all around for something that would work better.
            Both ladies, were a little bit stymied, but they knew there had to be a way.
            Then just as if the heavens opened and a choir started singing, Ralph got a brilliant idea.
            “Hey, Mona! Show Thaga that cool rock I brought home today! I bet I know what those bowl shaped holes in it are for! Of course!” shouted Ralph. “I bet thousands of Original Dweller mothers ground nuts and whatever in those holes! Can you imagine how long it took to make those holes?”
            Thaga was a reader. She had seen photos of these things before.
            “You’re right, Ralph. For sure! Ramona just needs the right tool to fit into the holes now.”
            “I already have it,” said Ramona. And she did. It was a stone thing about 8 inches long. It had a narrow section like a handle and a larger end that that mostly flat on the bearing surface. She had been using it forever to crack nuts and things like that.
 
            So there it is. Ramona learned how to make her own ground coffee after roasting it herself. And it turned out that the neat rock Ralph brought home was very useful after all. A kind of circle was completed.
            Maeve arrived just as the big blue coffee pot was settling. She was just in time for a little bowl of coffee.  Of course Ralph and Ramona and their friend, Thaga, enjoyed it because these were very special cups of coffee!

            Twigg didn't care for it, nor did Cherry.

            Bob and Berry demurred, but smiled at the coffee party in the Great Forest.

💚