Almost another week had passed. And slowly, quite slowly but definitely surely, changes were beginning to become noticeable. Changes for the better, improvements.
Butterfly Farm no longer looked as dilapidated as it had been. It still looked run-down, with the broken windmill, the rusty once-white silo, the rickety open shed with all the rusty vehicles and implements in it, the slightly sagging workshop and the overgrown fields. But the junk around the workshop building had been mostly cleaned up. A number of the vehicles and implements were less rusty and more cleaned up now that they were being used again. The overgrown fields looked less wild as the grass had been mowed in all of them - except for the rear-side left field as it still had the patch filled with a good dozen tree stumps in the middle of it. Even the front garden of the small farmhouse had been tended to, a number of the wild plants having been removed and the flowering bushes having been pruned back, which even despite the still broken picket fence made the small farmhouse look just that little bit better.
Even the farmers looked better. The vixen-taur Buddleia's fluffy purple and white fur was smoother and looked even softer and her long purple hair looked smooth and glossy, now that it was regularly tended to with washing and a lot of brushing from the tall human woman Sasha. And by far the largest change for the better was visible on Sasha herself. She was still super tall, and she was still lanky and even a bit gangly, but she was slowly beginning to fill out a bit. The farming work, despite it so far having mainly been riding on the small tractors to cut, ted, rake and bale the grass that had overtaken the fields, was building some muscle in the tall human woman, and Buddleia's hearty country cooking was putting some healthy meat on her bones. Even her fair, freckled skin had deepened from its somewhat pallid complexion into a healthier, deeper tone. She still smoked cigarettes, but she had cut down significantly, if only simply because it was much more difficult to obtain cigarettes when the only places where she could buy any were a four-hour drive away from the farm.
Sasha had noticed the changes in herself and Buddleia as well, and from all their time spent together cuddling and relaxing between and after the work they were doing, Sasha had also noticed that while Buddleia's speech pattern had improved now that she had Sasha to have actual conversation with, it was still a somewhat broken speech. At first the human woman had thought the vixen-taur was speaking the way she did on purpose, for endearing effect or because she simply had no further drive to improve it. But all the time they spent just laying together in the grass, cuddling, relaxing, brushing each other's hair and fur after bathing, had gradually made Sasha realize there was more to it. The fact that the purple and white vixen was a taur seemed to have retained a few somewhat more strong animalistic capacities inside of her. Sasha had seen Buddleia sometimes chasing after wild rabbits purely for entertainment, the vixen-taur wagged her tail, and some of the most clear indications were the way she chortled and giggled in short, staccato yips and even more so the affectionate licks she gave Sasha whenever they were cuddling or just simply relaxing, and the soft, content and happy whines she let out when they cuddled and petted one another or when Sasha was brushing her fur. And it apparently had an effect on her speech pattern as well. But it was indeed very endearing, and Sasha loved each and every one of the little quirks as it made Buddleia the sweet, special and unique vixen-taur that she was.
The improvements they made to the farm so far were still small and limited by their available budget, but they were still noticeable. A few more trees with dead branches and dead ends in them had been cut down. When Sasha had mowed the grass in the narrow field in front of the small farmhouse, she had also mowed the grass in the broad strip of ground between the right side of the driveway and the pond, both to get a couple more bales of hay they could sell, and to make it look much neater and maintained. There were some small unseen improvements as well; Sasha had taken the front seats out of the wreck of her Volvo station wagon and installed the passenger seat in the 1948 Chevrolet Fleetline, and even put the driver's seat behind it so she could put that in place behind the steering wheel whenever she had to drive old Emmie by herself. The 1953 MAZ-200 truck had also gotten some more work done, mainly on getting its starter mounted better and braced so it wouldn't make the awful clanking and grinding noises when starting the engine.
They had even taken a day to clean the entire small farmhouse both inside and out so it no longer looked dusty and neglected. During that, Sasha had learned a few things about the small house she had not yet noticed before. While the old wood-fired cast-iron stove was sitting right next to the small kitchen counter but was distinctly separate from it, one of the cabinets under the counter on the other side, near the wall of the bathroom, turned out to in fact be a small refrigerator - even though Buddleia used it to store cans of soup and other foodstuffs because there was no electricity to actually run the refrigerator.
The small house had a pointed roof, and on the inside the ceiling was open all the way to the point of the roof except for a flat ceiling over the small bathroom - which in fact also held a toilet immediately to the left of the door that was hardly seen because the door opened to the inside and to the left so it obscured the toilet when opened - and while Sasha had obviously noticed that, as they were going through the entire small house to clean it, Sasha also noticed there were some shelves high up on the walls at the point where the sloped roof began, and even a few hooks on the inside of the roof that held fishing rods, and on the inside of the roof over the bedroom even an ancient Marlin Model 1881 lever-action repeater rifle. The human woman had to blink several times as she spotted that.
"I didn't know you had a gun, Leia?"
The vixen-taur looked up at the rifle sitting in the hooks on the inside of the ceiling.
"Oh! Yes, is very very old." She placed her feral forepaws high up against the wall and stretched her upper body to reach the rifle and lift it out of the hooks very carefully. "Was of grandfather of grandfather of grandfather, was new in nineteenth century. Grandfather sometimes used to hunt deer."
"Wow," Sasha said softly, touching her fingers to the rifle very carefully as Buddleia held it out to her, almost as if she expected it to crumble into dust under her touch. "Have you ever fired it?"
"Sometimes, grandfather taught me," Buddleia nodded. "He said was important I know how to. But I not used in long long long time. Deer is tasty, but one deer is very much meat and I can not store for long. And I not need rifle for hunting rabbits, I can do with rocks, saves on bullets."
"Sheesh," Sasha sniggered with a shake of her head "That's how you've been getting those rabbits? By throwing rocks at them? That's... quite impressive actually, now that I think about it."
Buddleia nodded with a light chortle.
"I good at, grandfather also taught me. One rock, one rabbit. All I need for me, for two days, and now for one day because we share." She let go a light yipping giggle. "Grandfather even taught me to skim rabbits with rock, catch them alive. I not do, is a bit cruel, but I did once when I little, caught rabbit to keep as pet, was so cute."
"Are you kidding me!" Sasha said with a full-out laugh. "That's awesome! I gotta see that sometime!" She snapped her fingers. "In fact, you should definitely show me sometime, Leia. If we can catch a couple of rabbits alive, we can keep them here, let them breed a bit, and have a somewhat steady supply of fresh meat. They won't cost us anything at all in upkeep, we can just keep them in a hutch with a big run in the grass and let them graze, and feed them the leftovers of the vegetables and the hay we're making now and all."
"Yes!" Buddleia nodded happily. "I like! We do, Sasha! Bunnies cute! We get some different ones, butcher in village sell bunnies too, with ears like this!"
She leaned the rifle she was still holding against the wall and took the tips of her pointy ears between her fingers to pull them down along the sides of her head. Sasha chortled softly at the sight.
"Lop-ears? Those are pretty darn adorable indeed. Does that butchery actually sell live rabbits?"
"They breed bunnies in the garden, sell them dead and skinned, but I sure they sell alive one if we ask, yes," Buddleia nodded with a smile.
"Well, that's good," Sasha nodded, chortling softly again. "I still want to see you chuck a rock at a wild one and catch it alive, though. And can you build a hutch?"
"Easy!" Buddleia nodded with a brighter smile. "I only need few things from hardware store, hinges and lock thing and so. And mesh stuff, yes."
Sasha nodded again.
"I know what goes into the making of a rabbit hutch, yes, I had pet rabbits back on the farm as a little girl too. I just don't know if I can actually build one myself, I'm not yet that handy with a hammer and nails," she chortled.
"I build hutch, Sasha, I good at!" Buddleia said happily. "I catch bunny alive to keep as pet when I little, grandfather only let me do if I build hutch myself. He teach me, but I had to build by myself. We get bunnies, I like, I like very much! And we get too many, we can sell to butcher, yes!" She picked the rifle back up to place it back in the hooks on the inside of the roof. "Oh, can you shoot gun too?"
"I'm not proud of it, but yes, I can," Sasha nodded. "My gramps taught me too when I was a teenager. He hunted sometimes too so there were some rifles on the farm, and he made it a point that all of us knew how to handle them to prevent accidents."
"Is very important, yes," Buddleia nodded, placing her feral forepaws high up against the wall and stretching her upper body again to place the antique rifle back in the hooks. "Guns dangerous, I not like much." She let go a light chortle. "But I need for hunting deer, I can not hunt deer with rocks, I can not throw such big rocks hard enough."
"I would have been super impressed to see that!" Sasha laughed. "Does that rifle actually use cartridges? It looks like one you still have to pour gunpowder and a little lead ball into."
"No, is bullets, look," Buddleia said, reaching up to one of the shelves right below the open ceiling and taking a box of .38-55 caliber cartridges to show to Sasha.
"Oh yeah, thirty-eight fifty-fives, gramps used those too," Sasha nodded. "Wow, those go back that far? That rifle must be from like the late eighteen hundreds, I never knew they already had these kind of cartridges way back then."
"Yes, eighteen eighty-two," Buddleia nodded, putting the box back on the shelf. "You hunt deer before, Sasha?"
"Once," Sasha nodded again. "I didn't really like it very much at all, but I do have to admit I have a bit of a soft spot for venison and the deer sausages my granny made when gramps had downed a deer." She smiled softly. "We really should get the electricity to this place restored soon, Leia, so the fridge will work, and maybe we can even get a small freezer box. That way we can get a deer sometime and store the meat for a long time. Not to mention all the other commonplace conveniences it will give us like electric lights and the chance to plug in my laptop," she added with a soft chortle.
"Yes, we try maybe tomorrow?" Buddleia nodded. "I need your help for that, Sasha, I can not climb windmill, and I..." She dipped her ears for a moment. "...not really dare to."
"Awww," Sasha smiled, softly patting one of Buddleia's arms. "That's okay, Leia. I'll need your strength for lifting those blades, but I'm sure we can figure something out to make it work."
Buddleia nodded again and smiled, turning a bit to take Sasha into a soft hug. Sasha pressed a light smooch on the cool and damp black pad of the vixen-taur's nose as she hugged back. They spent the rest of the day cleaning the small farmhouse, washing the small windows and even scrubbing the rough brickwork of the walls on the outside. It wasn't much of a difference, but it was a noticeable one. The house looked much more habitable by the time they were done and shared a simple but tasty meal in the back garden, followed by content cuddling and petting until the stars had filled the sky.
Sasha did still sleep in the regular bed while Buddleia used her nest of pillows and cushions; the human woman's ribs were feeling a lot better so they were definitely healing, and while she loved the one night they had cuddled up in the nest of pillows together, she was not going to tempt fate now that she was finally beginning to feel good enough to do the harder physical work. The next morning, as they were having their bowl of breakfast porridge and Sasha checked the weather forecasts and any messages on her laptop, the human woman leaned over a bit to the screen and let go a soft sound of excitement.
"Is nice news, Sasha?" Buddleia asked from where she was laying in the grass.
"Rather, it says here my replacement phone has been delivered to the post office," Sasha nodded with a smile. "That is going to make things a lot easier. Can you drive me to that little village to pick it up?"
Buddleia also nodded.
"I can do, but maybe you can do by self? Then I go weld on frame of windmill, make it more sturdy and safe." She sent the human woman a cheerful smile. "And you not driven old Emmie yet, you should, she nice."
"I hope she won't mind someone new suddenly driving her," Sasha giggled softly. "But you showed me where to turn off to get to the village, so I'm sure I'll find it, and it shouldn't be too hard to find the post office. Because honestly, how big could that village even be?"
"Very small," Buddleia nodded with a chortle. "Is road, on one side is..." She started ticking off on her fingers with an expression of thought that had the end of her dark pink tongue poking from her muzzle. "On one side of road is hardware store, craft store, garage, dairy, spinnery, on other side of road is general store, post office, vegetable and fruit store, baker, butcher. Farmer's market is behind them, and bar and diner and little houses."
"That's actually quite impressive for how in the middle of nowhere this is," Sasha smiled. "Is there a gas station by any chance?"
"Garage has pumps," Buddleia said with another nod, still with the end of her tongue sticking from the front of her muzzle. "They sell some cars too."
"Okay, good, I'll fill some of our jerrycans. Hmmm..." Sasha turned back to her laptop and concentrated on it for a few moments, then sitting up and smiling at the vixen-taur. "After the parts for the mower deck I ordered and our upkeep, we have almost two thousand free for loose purchases. We should save and invest wisely, but I might have a look to see if I can maybe find a cheap little car to accompany old Emmie. It'll be a bit handier to have a car for me as well to get to the village in so I won't have to put in and take out that driver's seat from Emmie all the time. Is that okay with you, Leia?"
"If you think we can afford, is good," Buddleia nodded with a smile after she had pulled her tongue back into her mouth and letting go a short yipped giggle. "Friend for Emmie is nice idea, yee hee. But is good idea too, maybe sometime I go to village or Co-op, and then you need go somewhere too, you need car too, yes."
"Yeah, we have a little wiggle room at the moment," Sasha smiled. "It'd be wisest to invest in possibly replacement implements, but what we have does work well for what we're currently doing and it will indeed be much handier to both have a car for any unforeseen circumstances or emergencies." She shut off and closed her laptop. "And don't worry, if I can't find anything under five hundred or so, I won't get anything and we'll save up our precious funds for later when the Co-op can suddenly give us an awesome deal on a great big new used combine or something."
"Yee hee! I not think we need, but save money is good, yes," Buddleia chortled. "I sure you know what to do best, Sasha, you so good with the money."
"I guess all those jobs I've had in the city were at least good for something," Sasha said with a playful smirk. "Anyway, while I'm in the village, is there anything you need or want me to pick up?"
"Yes please," Buddleia nodded, folding her arms around Sasha's shoulders when the human woman lay down in the grass and leaned up against her. "Stuff for hutch from hardware store. Small gate hinges and small normal hinges, lock thing and mesh. Ask mister Speel, maybe he have old mesh for cheap. Not get bunnies yet, we not have planks for hutch yet. Oh, but ask missus Stebbins from general store for rubber bands, maybe ask missus Dobbart from post office too. I make jam today, plums is ripe."
"We have plums?" Sasha said with a light giggle.
Buddleia let go a yipping giggle as well.
"You not see? You drove past when mowing grass! Is plum tree near pond!"
"Wow, shows how much I've been paying attention," Sasha giggled, shaking her head. "But that sounds great, Leia." She let go a louder giggle. "Only, I gotta ask; what the hell do you need rubber bands for to make jam?"
Buddleia lowered her head a bit to give a light lick over Sasha's forehead.
"Is to close jars, Sasha. I have jars and I have sheet for tops, but I not have rubber bands anymore, and rubber bands is for putting bits of sheet over tops of jars."
"Duhh!" Sasha laughed. "Oh man, am I a doofus or what? That's how granny did it! I so should have known that!" She turned a bit to lean sideways against Buddleia's upper body and reached up to run her fingers along the vixen-taur's slender muzzle and cheek. "I'll get you some rubber bands, Leia. Anything else?"
"Yes please, when you at general store, get sugar please? Two bags, or five pounds if missus Stebbins have loose sugar. Is for jam, is gonna take all sugar I have now so I need new sugar," Buddleia smiled, squeezing her eyes a bit and nuzzling her snoot against Sasha's fingers.
"Of course, I'll get you some sugar too, sugar," Sasha chortled. "So that's... you know what, I'm just gonna write it down." She took a small notepad and the pen from her laptop bag and started jotting down. "Small gate hinges, small regular hinges... how many do you need, Leia?"
"Two regular and four gate ones," Buddleia smiled. "Or no, four regular and eight gate ones, I need build two hutches. One for boy bunny and one for all girl bunnies, otherwise we have too many bunnies super fast, yee hee! So four and eight please, and two lock things. Like clip ones, or that turn, you ask mister Speel, he know."
"Alrighty," Sasha nodded with a smile, jotting it down. "So four of the regular kind and eight of the gate kind, two locks, a roll of mesh, and ask if there is used available, rubber bands, and five pounds of loose sugar, or otherwise two bags. Is that it?"
"That all, Sasha, yes," Buddleia nodded, wagging her bushy tail through the grass happily. "I excited to get bunnies! They so cute!"
Sasha chortled cheerfully and reached up to tickle under the vixen-taur's chin with two fingers.
"We should cut those trees you downed in half tomorrow and load them onto our awesome new relic of a truck, then I'll drive them to the sawmill and have them made into beams and planks so you can get to building."
"Yes!" Buddleia smiled happily, licking Sasha's fingers before getting to her four feral feet. "I go cut them now, that easy and quick!"
"In that case I'll first park the truck near them so you can load them too," Sasha said with another cheery chortle over the vixen-taur's almost giddy excitement.
The lanky human woman also got to her feet and walked out of the back garden around the right side of the small farmhouse. By the time she got to the open shed next to it, where the old MAZ-200 truck had also been parked in, Buddleia was already trotting back over to the left side of the farmhouse with the chainsaw. With a cheerful and amused shake of her head, Sasha climbed into the cab of the old truck, started the two-stroke diesel engine and slowly drove the truck over to the left side of the farmhouse as well, where Buddleia was already cutting in half all the trunks of the trees they had cut down days earlier and moved over to that side of the house. After parking the truck, the human woman took several moments to mount the Volvo's driver's seat behind the steering wheel of the old Chevrolet and put several of the metal jerrycans in the trunk, and a few more moments to put on a pair of cut-off jeans - all the pairs of long pants she had were turned into shorts because they were too short to fully cover Sasha's incredibly long legs anyway - and her beach sandals and a t-shirt that she rolled up to just below her small breasts so the flowery wrap around her chest was free, and of course the pink round sun hat with the two ribbons that Buddleia had given her.
Old Emmie had no qualms about being driven by somebody other than Buddleia and dutifully brought Sasha down the wide dirt road. Taking the turn onto the dirt road leading off to the left at the triangular junction, Sasha looked around her a bit again as she drove down that road, having never been in that direction either. The landscape in itself was just a whole lot more of the same; smooth fields and gently rising and falling low hills covered in thick green grass dotted with numerous colorful flowers, small forests and individual copses and clusters of trees that were mainly pine, fir and spruce, and sometimes birch and beech or occasionally oak. But with how open and relatively flat it was, it only took minutes before the human woman already saw buildings appear in the distance. Even from that far away, it looked like the tiny village still spread a decent way off towards the left, with a small church off to the side, its low steeple watching over an open area between short, neat rows of not even houses but small cottages built out of painted brickwork with pointed roofs covered in brown-ish, flat clay tiles and each with a small dormer with a pointed roof at the back side.
As Sasha approached the small village, she saw there was a weathered wood sign on the left side of the dirt road that read "Have a pleasant day in" and "Rolling Hills" below that. Shortly behind that sign was a narrower dirt road that ran towards the left, denoting the border of the village. On the right side of the wide, main dirt road was a fuel station with a garage building behind it and a dirt lot next to that building in which a handful of old cars were sitting. Opposite the fuel station, on the left side of the road, was a small post office with quite artful wooden benches flanking the door. Sasha drove further down the road, slowly and carefully because there were actually chickens roaming free, and looked left and right at the buildings she passed.
Next to the post office was a fairly large building with an extra cube protruding from the front wall, and the sign over the front door was very clear; "Stebbins General Store". Opposite the general store, on the right side of the main road, was another fairly large rectangular building with a sign on the front saying "Speel Hardwares". Next to that was a smaller, more square building which had a smaller addition built on to the left side in the back, the main building sporting a sign that read "Handmade Items" while a small sign over a door in the addition read "Chandlery". Opposite that, on the left side of the main road, was a smaller rectangular building with several stands holding low wood crates with vegetables and fruits flanking the front door and a sign over the front door that attested of a sense of humor as it read "Greene the Grocer".
Next to the greengrocer's building sat a larger rectangular building with an open porch, and Sasha didn't even need to read the sign over the door to know that was the bakery as she could see two large round brick ovens sitting behind the building. On the right side of the main road opposite the bakery sat a fairly large rectangular building of which the narrow end faced the road, the sign over the door reading "Weaver's Guild/Spinnery". The last building on the right side of the road was another fairly large building with a sign over the large double doors reading "Dairy Products", while the last building on the left side of the road was a square one with an open lean-to on the right side of it and a sign over the door that read "Jonesey Fine Meats". The buildings were all built out of brick with clay-tiled roofs, but they had all been painted different colors - although the roof tiles all had the same brown earth-ish color.
Another narrower dirt road ran off towards the left a little way after the butchery, which Sasha used to turn the old Chevrolet around so she could drive back towards the beginning of the row of stores, feeling like she had somehow driven into a vintage movie set. Between the garage building behind the fuel pumps and the hardware store was an area of flattened dirt where a small handful of cars were parked, and Sasha parked the old Chevrolet there as well. Getting out of the car, she halted and sniffed for a moment, a slow smile beginning to curl her lips as she smelled what she had, in her teenage years, described as 'small town fragrance'. It was a mixture of fresh air and grass, with a hint of diesel from the fuel station, a light fresh and sweet scent rising from the displayed fruits and vegetables in front of the greengrocer's, the scent of recently baked bread mixed with smoke of a wood fire from behind the bakery, a slightly bittersweet scent of blood and fats coming from the lean-to at the butcher shop and even a mild note of sour wafting from the dairy building. Gosh, if this was a movie set, please let her have a starring role.
The lanky human woman's smile deepened as she crossed the dirt road and opened the door of the post office, which gave a high-pitched and long-drawn creak of the hinges. As if they were doing it on purpose! On the inside of the building was a polished wood plank floor painted dark green, a couple of tables and chairs near the left wall next to what looked like a bank of small lockers, and on the right a large counter with a high and wide cabinet full of small cubbies behind it - as well as a slightly chubby mouse woman with sleek grayish tan fur and graying light brown hair done up in a topknot, dressed in a short-sleeved flowery pink dress and wearing a pair of half-moon glasses, who smiled as Sasha entered the post office.
"Good morning, dear," she said in a soft and friendly voice. "I've definitely not seen you before, so you must be new around here. What can I do for you?"
Sasha stepped over to the counter and smiled.
"Good morning. You must be the missus Dobbart Leia mentioned. My name is Sasha Farr, I'm staying at Buddleia's farm and helping her bring it back onto its feet, and I believe there might be a package for me here?"
"Oh! Oh!" the mouse woman smiled brightly, clasping her paws together in front of her face. "You're Buddleia's new friend! Oh, it's so nice to meet you, miss Farr!" She held out her right paw. "Yes, I am indeed Lisa Dobbart, I'm the postmistress of Rolling Hills and my husband is the postman. Oh dear, it was so nice to see Buddleia again and hear that she has found a friend who will help her bring her farm back to life! My husband and I could hardly believe it when she came here to pick up bank papers and told us about it!"
"That is correct, and we're even much more than friends, we're also business partners and romantic partners," Sasha smiled while lightly shaking the mouse woman's paw. "It is most certainly a pleasure to meet you too, missus Dobbart. The bank papers were the documentation and new debit cards for the company account we opened as we registered the farm as Butterfly Farm under both our names in the first step on the road to recovery."
"Oh, that is so nice!" the mouse woman smiled brightly. "Butterfly Farm sounds so cheerful! It's just such uplifting news, Buddleia's grandparents were such friendly and helpful folk and so is she. It pained us all to see her slowly turning into some sort of hermit and letting the farm fall into disrepair. Ah, and indeed, this is for you!"
She turned and leaned down, taking a small and somewhat flat box from below the counter and laying it on top.
"Fantastic, that is my replacement phone, it's going to make doing business that much easier," Sasha smiled. She leaned against the counter a bit. "It appears that the roads here have no names, and the farm has no address, so any and all correspondence will have to go via this post office. Do you perhaps have something like a post box available?"
"Certainly, dear, certainly," Mrs. Dobbart nodded with a smile. "They are over there against that wall." She pointed at the bank of small lockers against the opposite wall and reached below the counter again, bringing up a paper and a pen which she lay on the counter. "If you fill out this form and pay me a deposit of fifteen dollars, one of them will be all yours, dear."
"Thank you so much, that will make doing business a lot easier as well," Sasha smiled.
She filled out the form, lay the pen on it and took her wallet from a pocket of her shorts to also lay two banknotes on the form. The mouse woman adjusted her small glasses for a moment and read the form, gave a nod of her head and once again reached below the counter, putting the banknotes in a cashbox and taking a ring with two small keys which she lay on the counter.
"There you go, dear, your box is number nineteen. We put any mail in the boxes after the truck's been around in the morning, so it should be ready for you to pick up from about half past nine in the morning onwards."
"Thank you very much, missus Dobbart," Sasha smiled. "Leia or I will come by once a week to pick up any mail because it's a drive of four hours from the farm to here. But if there is something urgent, please do let me know via call or text message. Oh, here, let me give you my number."
She took the pen and wrote her phone number on the bottom of the form as well. Mrs. Dobbart looked at it for a moment and nodded with another smile.
"Of course, dear, you can count on that. My husband would deliver your mail to you, but as you mentioned, it is a drive of four hours so that is honestly and unfortunately too far away."
"Yes, it is certainly very spread out here, I noticed," Sasha also nodded with a smile. "And come to that, I should get on with the other chores I came to this lovely village for. Oh, but before I forget, Leia asked me to ask you for rubber bands? She is making jam today."
"Oh, how lovely!" Mrs. Dobbart smiled brightly. Another reach under the counter produced a glass jar filled with rubber bands of various sizes and thicknesses. "Here you are, dear, do take the whole jar, we have more jars!"
"Thank you so much, missus Dobbart," Sasha smiled. "I'll ask Leia to bring you back the jar and also bring you a jar of her jam the next time she goes here."
"I will be looking forward to that!" Mrs. Dobbart smiled brightly. "Have a wonderful day, dear! And of course, welcome, welcome to Rolling Hills!"
"Thank you so much again, and do have a wonderful day yourself as well," Sasha smiled.
With the glass jar under one arm and the small box in her hand, the human woman left the post office and crossed the dirt road again. She reached into the old Chevrolet through the missing left rear window to put the jar of rubber bands inside, and after a moment's thought she also put the box in the car, having no doubt in her mind that it would still be there by the time she got back to the car. Taking the jerrycans out of the trunk, she stepped over to the fuel pumps, where she found she could scan her debit card on a small screen at each pump, and filled the jerrycans with regular gasoline. Once they were back in old Emmie's trunk, Sasha walked a bit further down the road to make her way into the large hardware store next to the fuel station and garage.
Inside, she looked around for a moment or two at the many aisles of racks full of tools and hardware and various DIY items and scratched the top of her head, then gave a light shrug and stepped over to a large counter to the left of the store. Behind it was a fairly tall skunk man with deep charcoal-gray and white fur under a pair of green denim overalls over a green plaid flannel shirt. Somewhat amusingly, from under his short black hair came a number of thin white stripes that made the black fur on his forehead look almost like a barcode. He also sent Sasha a friendly smile as she stepped up to the counter.
"Good morning! A new face in town! How can I be of service?"
"Good morning," Sasha smiled. "I'm Sasha Farr, I'm Buddleia's new business and romantic partner, and I'm here for some hinges and locks for a couple of hutches she is building as we're aiming to keep some rabbits."
"That's you!" the skunk man smiled broadly. "The rescue that turned out to be a savior! Oh, awesome! The word's been going around town like wildfire ever since Buddleia showed back up a bit over a week back!" He shook Sasha's hand heartily. "Paul Speel at your service! Do call me Paul! It's so great to meet you, Sasha!"
"Most certainly likewise, Paul," Sasha chortled.
"So, rabbit hutches!" the skunk man smiled. "Bringing the farm around, you two, are you? That's awesome! What kind of hinges and locks are you looking for?"
"Leia mentioned small regular hinges, four of them, and small gate hinges, eight of those," Sasha smiled.
"Right this way!" the skunk man smiled, stepping around the counter and leading the way into one of the aisles. Halfway down was a panel on which several styles and sizes of hinges were displayed in rows, corresponding to rows of plastic bins in the rack below it. He pointed at a few hinges of which one side were rectangles with three holes in them and the other side were rectangles running out into elongated metal strips of various designs with a row of holes in them. "If it's for rabbit hutches, she probably meant this style of gate hinges. Take your pick, Sasha!"
"Yes, these are the ones I was thinking of as well," Sasha nodded with a smile. She pointed at a hinge that was relatively small and coated in a black color, and a regular hinge of approximately the same size in the same black color. "I think these will do perfectly."
"You got it!" Paul nodded.
He took eight of the long style of hinge and four of the regular style from their bins in the rack below and led the way around the end of the aisle into the next aisle, where a similar panel over a rack with rows of plastic bins displayed various styles of gate locks. After a bit of looking and deliberating, Sasha eventually pointed out a small brass lock with a round knob that could be turned to make a strip of steel move back and forth, either into a doorjamb or under a small brass profile.
"I actually quite like those, so I'd like two of those, please."
"You got it again," Paul chuckled, taking two of the indicated brass locks from a bin in the rack. They came sealed in plastic over a cardboard backing as they actually had three parts. "Is there anything else you need?"
"Yes, mesh," Sasha nodded with a smile. "And I'm already rubbing off on Leia with my emphasis on saving all the money we can because we hardly have any yet, because she asked me to ask you if you might have some used mesh that we might get for cheaper."
"As a matter of fact!" Paul chuckled. "Follow me out back, Sasha, please."
The skunk man led the way through the store, through a storage room, and outside through a door. Sasha followed him and looked around as they walked around an area of flattened dirt, filled with bins and dumpsters, pallets of boxes and bags, and piles of loose things. At one side of the yard, Paul rummaged around between several loose rolls of chicken wire-style mesh and eventually disentangled and pulled out four rolls of galvanized mesh in squares of one by one centimeter. The rolls were a bit flattened, and mangled at the edges, but looked very full as the skunk man set them upright.
"I think you will find this very suitable for rabbit hutches," he smiled. "The bunnies can't stick their little pawsies through these small holes, and it's galvanized so it won't ever rust."
"I do believe this will be absolutely perfect for the hutch doors and the runs we're aiming to build," Sasha nodded with a smile. "How much will you take for these, Paul?"
"Take'em!" the skunk man smiled. "You saw it all tangled up in the other junk, didn't you? It's not gonna do me any good laying there taking up space, and if it helps bring Silvercreek farm back around, it'll be an honour to have had a little hand in that!"
"Well, thank you so much, that is very generous," Sasha smiled. "Oh, and it's Butterfly Farm now, we gave it a new, official name."
"Now that is cute, I like that a lot," Paul smiled broadly. "Oh, hey, and if you're going to build runs in the grass for the rabbits, take those too." He pointed a bit further down the yard, at a bunch of several dozen T-profile metal fence posts all tied into one big bunch with metal wire. "That's from an old fence we pulled up at Cherry Blossom Farm when Jane called it quits after her husband died. You'll need something to stretch the mesh along, and those are aluminium so they'll never rust either."
"That is even more generous," Sasha smiled, letting go a light chortle. "Good thing Emmie has a roof rack, because I only planned to go to this village to pick up my replacement phone, some hinges and locks and a roll of mesh and some sugar, I never thought I'd be going back home with a full load of stuff so I didn't bring the trailer."
"Think nothing of it," Paul smiled. "All the metal junk here was meant to go to the salvage yard at some point anyway, and like I said, if some of it can help your farm to come back around, I will consider it a little honour. Here, let me give you a hand with all this."
He walked over to the bunch of fence posts and hoisted it up onto his right shoulder, and he took one of the rolls of mesh in his left paw. Sasha took the other three rolls and led the way back to the small dirt lot where the old Chevrolet was parked. They put everything on the roof rack and strapped it down, and walked back into the store where the skunk man got back behind the counter he had put the hinges and locks on. Sasha paid for them, and Paul put them all in a small paper bag.
"Here you go, Sasha. Oh, and wait just a second." He walked off quickly and returned a few moments later with a small metal butterfly. "Give this to Buddleia as a little gift from me."
"That is adorable, thank you so much," Sasha smiled, shaking the skunk man's paw.
"You're most welcome," Paul smiled. "Have a fantastic day, Sasha, and lots and lots of good luck with the farm."
"Thank you, have a great day too, Paul," Sasha smiled.
She waved and walked out of the hardware store, again back to the old Chevrolet to put the paper bag and the metal butterfly in it. Just as she turned and started to make her way over to the general store, a woman came trotting out of it; a short-coupled black and white Border Collie woman with curly black hair, dressed in a short and somewhat puffy dress in vertical bands of pink and white, and an apron over that.
"Miss! Oh miss! Miss Farr! You're miss Farr, right?"
Sasha calmly walked over to the woman and smiled again, nodding.
"That's me indeed."
The canine woman held a paw on her chest and panted for a moment before looking up with a smile.
"I'm Doris Stebbins. I saw old Emmie and I just wanted to say hello and thank you, miss Farr."
"Well, I was just on my way to your fine store, missus Stebbins," Sasha smiled. "I haven't bought anything yet, but let me guess, the thank-you is for helping Buddleia to get the farm back on its feet, right?"
"Indeed!" the Border Collie woman nodded with a smile. "Oh gosh, you can't believe how happy I was when my sister told me the news after you had been to the Co-op."
"That was your sister? How nice!" Sasha smiled. "She is such a friendly woman."
The black and white canine woman nodded with a smile again.
"Please allow me to invite you for a cup of tea, miss Farr. I want to give you and Buddleia something to help with the farm."
"A cup of tea sounds absolutely delightful, so I will accept your invitation with pleasure, missus Stebbins," Sasha said with a wider smile.
She followed the canine woman across the road and into the general store, looking around and smiling at the aisles and the shelves along the walls holding just about everything anyone could need, from cleaning products to canned goods and from paint thinner to powdered sugar. The Border Collie woman led the way towards and around a sizeable counter, in passing motioning her head at a teenage black and white Border Collie boy with curly black hair, dressed in a blue pair of overalls over a black flannel shirt.
"Mind the register, Barry, I will be back in a while."
"Yes ma," the boy said with a nod.
He got behind the counter while the canine woman led the way through a door behind the counter for Sasha and through a room and out onto a porch at the rear of the building. Ushering Sasha to sit in a very comfortable cushioned patio chair, she went back into the building and returned several moments later with a tray holding a teapot, cups and saucers, tea spoons, a cup with sugar cubes and a tray with a few cookies on it. She set the tray on the patio table, poured two cups of tea and offered Sasha one of them and a cookie. Sasha smiled, stirring a sugar cube through the tea and taking a sip.
"This is excellent tea, missus Stebbins."
"Thank you, dear," the Border Collie woman smiled, taking a sip herself as well. "May I ask where you appeared from so suddenly? I heard Buddleia helped you after you fell off the mountain?"
"Indeed," Sasha nodded with a smile. "I'm from Fossil City, although the first eighteen or so years of my life I grew up on the farm of my grandparents, just outside the small town of Fennfield. I had recently lost my job, and some of my friends invited me to come with them to another friend living in Bronto Valley so I could get a change of scenery and all that. But while we were there I got word that I was about to be evicted from my apartment so I had to rush back to Fossil City. Driving down the M-seventy-three along the side of the mountain that night, a small truck sideswiped me and my car went over the edge and rolled down the side of the mountain. Buddleia had seen the headlights of my car go down the mountain, so she rushed over to get me out of my car and back to her farm where she nursed me until I woke up again."
"Oh dear," Mrs. Stebbins said softly. "You have been very lucky, dear, that sounds most serious. And Buddleia must have run like the wind, the mountains are miles and miles and miles away even from where her farm is. I hope you were not too seriously injured?"
"Considering what happened, not really," Sasha smiled. "I was scraped up and had cuts and bruises all over, and I broke two ribs." She lightly patted the flowery wrap around her chest with her left hand. "Which Leia has taken care of very well, I may say."
"I was wondering why you had such a tight shirt under your shirt," Mrs. Stebbins nodded with a light smile. "Are you sure you don't want the doctor to have a look at you, dear?"
Sasha smiled deeper.
"If you had asked me three weeks ago, I would have said, yes please. But I fully trust Leia knows what she's doing. She takes this off of me when we bathe and puts it back on afterwards, and I can feel my ribs are healing up, so I really do not think I need a doctor anymore at this point."
"It is so heartwarming to hear you have such trust in Buddleia, especially because she must have been a total stranger to you," Mrs. Stebbins smiled, taking a small sip from her teacup. "And it is so very wonderful of you to help her with her farm. It was so saddening to see her lose her motivation and letting the farm get away from her. She is such a sweet and friendly woman, just like her grandparents were. She did not come to town very much, which is understandable seeing how far away her farm is from here, but whenever she came to town, she hung around for half the day and helped out wherever she saw someone needed help with something." She took another small sip of tea. "I do hope you will stick around for a while, miss Farr. Do you think the two of you may have Buddleia's farm back on its feet by the time you're all healed up again?"
"Not in the least, it's going to take years," Sasha smiled, shaking her head. "But we have all the time in the world, because I'm not going anywhere. Leia and I renamed the farm to Butterfly Farm and became business partners, and I realized this is the life I'm meant to live. Matter of fact, I saw that small church on my way here, and if the preacher there would be willing and Leia would not faint from me asking her, I would be on their doorstep tomorrow to marry that sweet silly fuzzbutt."
"Oh my!" Mrs. Stebbins said, only just managing to not choke on a sip of tea. She dabbed her lips with a slip of her apron for a moment before smiling at Sasha. "Oh my, dear, forgive me. Gosh, that is such a sweet thing of you to say, and it's such a wonderful thing to hear, that you will not be leaving. It is very unusual that people move here, you see, because of how out of the way it is here, so we usually only see people leaving."
"It's perfect to get away from everything, however," Sasha smiled. "Although I do admit I would like it if things were not so very far apart from each other. I would love to regularly visit this lovely little village, but with our farm being four hours away from here, that makes it very difficult unfortunately."
"Yes, for those of us who live in the village, it is not so much of a hindrance as we have everything we need within walking distance," the Border Collie woman nodded with a smile. "But for the few farmers out here, and the mills and the Co-operation, it can be very lonely and quite difficult." Her smile deepened. "And to that end, I would like to give you a few things to help you and Buddleia with your farm, dear. As I mentioned, she was always helping out everyone here, and now it is our turn. If you would please care to follow me?"
"I appreciate that very much, missus Stebbins," Sasha smiled.
She got up from the chair to follow the black and white Border Collie woman off the porch and into a large garden enclosed by a low fence. Quite near the back was a large shed, a storage building was closer to the store building, and between those was a large chicken coop with a very large open area fenced off with green-colored mesh. Twenty-three speckled Sussex chickens and one rooster were milling about, along with about two dozen little dark yellow baby chicks.
"Those are very pretty chickens," Sasha smiled. "They're Sussex, if my memory is serving me correctly?"
"You are indeed correct, dear, very good, I can see you grew up on a farm," Mrs. Stebbins nodded with a smile. "These are our egg-layers, and as you can see, we recently hatched a batch of chicks. But we did not pay enough attention, the batch was only supposed to be one dozen, not two, so now we have too many and this coop will become too crowded when they grow up. So please do accept my gift of half a dozen of these chicks for your farm, dear."
"Aw, wow, that is so generous of you, missus Stebbins," Sasha smiled. "I would definitely love to bring some chicks home with me, however there is a slight problem; we do not have a coop, and currently not even the materials to build one."
"That is much less of a problem than you might think, dear," the black and white canine woman smiled. "As you can see, this coop is fairly new. And over there," she pointed at the shed in the back of the garden, "behind the shed, is our old coop, disassembled into panels that are ready to be assembled back into a still very suitable coop. We only took it down because it was smaller than this new one, and I would like very much to also offer you that coop along with its feeder and water container as a second gift for your farm."
"Aw missus Stebbins, that is too generous!" Sasha protested with a smile. "I appreciate it so very super much, and I would absolutely love to accept it, but surely that's too much!"
"Nonsense, dear," Mrs. Stebbins smiled. "It is still a very good coop so it is a shame to dispose of it, but we no longer have a use for it. I do feel it would be much better in place on your farm to help you and Buddleia out with the hard work you will be having to bring your farm back to its feet. These chickens are very good layers, their eggs are good for you and will keep for a month so you can sell the excess back to us or to the bakery of mister and missus Lawrence. I will give you one of our mature chickens as well so you will get eggs right away, as it will take five to six months before the chicks are ready to lay, and that way you will have a little leg-up for your finances."
"Seriously, missus Stebbins, it is too generous, but I am so very grateful and I won't insult you by refusing your super generous offer," Sasha smiled, taking one of the Border Collie's paws in both her hands.
"That is what I wanted to hear, dear," Mrs. Stebbins smiled, patting Sasha's hands with her free paw. "I will have my son give you a hand with getting the coop loaded into your car. And if there is ever anything anyone of us can ever do for you and Buddleia, please do not hesitate even the littlest bit to ask."
"Well, as a matter of fact, I did need to visit your store for sugar, because Leia is making jam today," Sasha smiled with a light chortle. "But I am not letting you give it to me for free, missus Stebbins, seriously."
"That's fine, dear," the Border Collie woman nodded with a light chortle of her own. "How much sugar do you need?"
"Leia asked for five pounds if you have it available loose, otherwise two bags is good," Sasha smiled.
"Certainly dear, we have that," Mrs. Stebbins nodded with a smile. She started leading the way back to the porch and into the building. "Say, miss Farr, could you by any chance use paint on your farm?"
"I'm afraid to say yes, with how overly generous you have already been," Sasha chortled. "But to be honest, our finances are still so low and will be for months to come that we can actually use just about anything that won't cost us too much."
"In that case, yes, I do have another gift for you," Mrs. Stebbins smiled, raising a paw. "And before you say anything, dear, let me explain. We got a delivery of a remainder of paint from our wholesale store well over a year ago, it was given to us for free because they could not sell it. However, we can't sell it either, it is pink and blue paint for children's rooms and nobody here has a need nor a want for that, so it has been sitting in our storage for more than a year already. If you do not mind the colors, I will gift you the paint as well, because it is good quality paint, suitable for both wood and metal."
Sasha's smile widened a good deal.
"Missus Stebbins, you have just given me an excellent idea. Pink and blue mixed together makes a very pretty light purple color, that may well closely match the color of Leia's fur. We already have given the farm the new name of Butterfly Farm, it will be very lovely indeed to give it a fresh new color as well. So yes, I will without any guilty feelings accept your very generous offer of the paint as well."
"Very good, dear, very good, it will indeed be very lovely to see that," Mrs. Stebbins nodded with a deeper smile. They stepped back into the store through the door behind the counter, and the Border Collie woman turned to her son. "Barry, go fetch the paint that is in the back of the storage. You know, the paint we cannot sell."
"All of it?" the Border Collie boy asked.
"All of it, Barry, and make it snappy," Mrs. Stebbins nodded, clapping her paws twice shortly.
"Yes ma," the boy said, disappearing through the door.
"He is a very obedient boy," Sasha smiled.
"He's a good kid," Mrs. Stebbins nodded with a smile. "Needs to learn how to deal with the store, but he's picking up on it well. Here, let me get you your sugar, dear." She set a large bag in an old-fashioned scale and stepped through an open doorway next to the door behind the counter, reappearing moments later with a large burlap sack of sugar. "Do you by any chance need any paintbrushes or other things as well?" she smiled as she began scooping sugar from the burlap sack with a large scoop and pouring it into the heavy paper bag on the scale.
"We do actually have a good number of paintbrushes in the workshop," Sasha smiled. "But one or two paint trays and some rollers and a bottle of paint thinner will probably be handy as well." She chortled again. "And I'm paying for those as well, missus Stebbins." She lifted her head with a deeper smile when her eye caught a cabinet behind the counter holding rows of packets of cigarettes. "Ooh, and two large hard-packs of Chesterfields please, I'm almost out."
"Very well, dear," the canine woman nodded with a light chortle. She stepped aside when there was a thump against the door behind the counter, which a moment later was opened by the teenage Border Collie boy who pushed a low cart stacked with no less than a dozen boxes. "Good boy, Barry. Bring them to miss Farr's car and help her put them in her car, then come back to bring our old chicken coop to miss Farr's car as well and help her load it, along with the feeder, water container and a bag of feed."
"Yes ma," the boy nodded.
Sasha already drew a breath to say something, but checked herself and just smiled at the quick, merry wink the Border Collie woman sent her while scooping sugar. She smiled at the canine boy as well and held the front door open for him, then leading the way across the dirt road to the small lot where the old Chevrolet was parked. Opening the trunk, the human woman and the teenage Border Collie boy started putting all the boxes into the car's trunk - which went easy as there were no seats in the car so the trunk opened right into the rest of the interior.
When the cart was empty they crossed the road again and walked around the large store building and the large garden behind it. At the back was a gate, and Sasha helped loading a number of wood panels and wood frames with mesh onto the cart. The canine boy also took two old feeders from inside the shed and a large bag of chicken feed which he put on the cart, pushing it back around the building and across the road to the old Chevrolet. With a bit of balancing, they managed to stack all the panels and frames on the roof rack and the rolls of mesh and bundle of fence posts that were already on there and strap them down tightly.
As they walked back into the store, Mrs. Stebbins started saying something to her son, but Sasha raised a hand this time.
"Please hold on, missus Stebbins. I need to make a couple more stops first, so don't cage up the chickens yet. I shall be back for them when I have made my other stops."
"Of course, dear," the Border Collie woman nodded with a smile, turning to her son and pointing at two paint trays, two handles and two foam rollers laying on the counter along with a bottle of paint thinner, two 45-piece packets of Chesterfield cigarettes and the large heavy paper bag of sugar. "Mark all these up, Barry, eighty cents to the dollar. The sugar is five pounds."
"Yes ma," the canine boy nodded, beginning to tap keys on a cash register and every now and then counting on his fingers with his lips moving silently.
Sasha swallowed the new protest she was going to make over the small discount and merely gave her head a light, merry shake. After the lanky human woman had paid for the purchases, she brought them over to the old Chevrolet and put them inside. Basically, she had now done all her chores she needed to get to the small village for, but as she was there, she wanted to have a little look around, meet the proprietors of the other stores and make a few more small purchases inspired by the gifts Mrs. Stebbins had given her.
She first returned to the hardware store and bought a paint gun, a couple of cans of thinner, reducer and hardener, and the skunk man even had a small second-hand air compressor she could buy for only $15. Next she stopped by the greengrocer's, the crafts store, the spinnery and the dairy store to meet the proprietors and have a short chat with them, and to buy some butter, cheese and yogurt at the dairy store. She also stopped by the bakery for a short chat and to buy some fresh apple fritters and a loaf of poppy-seed bread, and finally she stopped by the butchery for a short chat and to ask if they would be interested in buying rabbits from them once they would have bred some. The reddish brown squirrel butcher said they would be delighted to, and despite Sasha's mild protest, he gave her a very lovely lop-eared female feral rabbit from their own breeding stock, with an ash-gray fur that almost seemed to have a slight tinge of olive green to it, white ventral fur from the nose around the eyes and all the way to the underside of the tail, and darker gray spot markings all over the body, saying it would be happy to share the coop with the chickens for a few days until the hutches were built.
With the feral rabbit in her arms, Sasha walked towards the left of the village where the groups of small cottages and the large open area were. There were artful wooden benches similar to the ones by the post office along the edges of the open area, and marks in the packed dirt that showed where stalls sat regularly when the farmer's market was open. At the right side of the sort of square were a diner and a bar, of which Sasha also met and chatted with the proprietors for a few moments, and at the left side was the small white church, where the human woman met a friendly white-furred jerboa woman preacher who had a set of magnificent downy white angelic wings on her back, and she had a somewhat longer chat with that amazing-looking woman.
Finally, still carrying the dark-colored lop-eared feral rabbit in her arms, Sasha returned to the general store. Mrs. Stebbins sent her son out to the back garden and invited Sasha to follow her as she made her way there herself as well. They put one of the adult speckled chickens in a metal wire cage with a wood bottom, and six of the small yellow chicks in a small wood crate with holes in the side and the hinged lid, where the feral rabbit also was set into. The animals were put into the old Chevrolet as well, in front of the Volvo's old passenger seat, and after another heartfelt thank-you to the black and white Border Collie woman, Sasha got into the old car and started on her long drive back to the farm.
Arriving back at the farm a little over four hours later, the human woman parked right in front of the small farmhouse, got out of the car, left the animals in there for the moment and just took the large bag of sugar and the glass jar full of rubber bands into the house. She smiled at Buddleia looking around from by the cast-iron stove, upon which a very large and wide pot was slowly bubbling and spreading a delightful sweet scent. On the counter next to it sat fifty small glass jars, upside down in groups of ten and stacked five high, and Sasha spotted a large basket full of deep purple plums sitting next to the stove along with a low table upon which another fifty jars were sitting, filled with deep purple jam and still lightly steaming.
Sasha actually blinked at the amount of glass jars as she stepped into the small house.
"Holy shit fuzzbutt, where did you get all those from?"
Buddleia smiled and pointed at the flat ceiling over the bathroom with a wooden spatula.
"Is lots space for storage up there, Sasha, I keep empty jars there."
"Of course," Sasha chortled, shaking her head. "I should know better than to be surprised, you just keep pulling surprises from all nooks and crannies of this place." She handed Buddleia the large glass jar full of rubber bands. "Here you are, Leia, with the compliments of missus Dobbart."
"Oh! That lots rubber bands, thank you, Sasha," the vixen-taur smiled, taking the jar and setting it on the small shelf over the two-pane window.
"Don't thank me, thank missus Dobbart," Sasha smiled. "I told her you'd give her back the jar as well as a jar of your jam next time you're in the village."
"Of course! She get two!" Buddleia nodded with a smile. "And sugar, thank you, I out of sugar now but still need more." She took a large glass jar from a cabinet over the counter and started pouring the sugar into it, letting go a light yipped giggle when she jar was full to the brim and the bag was not yet empty. "You got wrong amount, Sasha, is more than five pounds."
Sasha laughed and shook her head.
"Oh that gosh-darned overly generous sweet little woman! She gave me more, of course she did!"
Buddleia chortled and poured some of the leftover sugar from the bag into the large wide pot on the stove and began stirring in it again with the wood spatula.
"Missus Stebbins always so nice! She give you tea?"
"Oh hell fuzzbutt, she gave me so much more than that!" Sasha laughed. "Can you leave that pot for a few minutes safely? Because I will need your help unloading the damn car!"
"She gave you much?" Buddleia asked with her head a bit tilted. She took an old but clean flowery sheet and used it to lift the large wide pot off the stove and put it down on top of the filled glass jars on the table next to it. "I put here for a bit, is safe. I come see!"
She followed Sasha out of the small house, and actually stopped dead for a moment before slowly continuing to step over to the old Chevrolet with her head tilted further and her deep golden eyes wide with surprise at the loaded roof rack.
"Sasha? What all that? What missus Stebbins give you?" She looked through one of the missing side windows. "Emmie full too! What you do, Sasha?"
The human woman giggled and shook her head while laying a hand on the vixen-taur's arm.
"What did I do? I just said hello to everyone and being unable to refuse all their generous offers, fuzzbutt. That whole darn village is too fucking generous for its own good, I tell you!"
"But what all this?" Buddleia asked, her ears suddenly shooting straight up as she caught sight of the metal wire cage in front of the Volvo passenger seat. "Is chicken! Missus Stebbins give you chicken?"
"A-a-and that's just the start of it, fuzzbutt," Sasha chortled, motioning at all the wood panels and frames on the Chevrolet's roof rack. "Because all that is their old chicken coop, she said it would be real easy to put it back together. So I am going to take it off of here in a minute, and once you have finished that batch of jam you're making, you're going to put that coop back together. Because..." She opened the front right door and leaned into the old Chevrolet to take the wood crate from the passenger footwell. "She also gave me these," she smiled, gingerly lifting the lid of the crate a bit to let Buddleia look into it.
The purple and white vixen-taur leaned over to look into the crate and let out a happy yip.
"Chickies! And bunny!"
"Yes, the bunny was a gift from mister Poole, the butcher," Sasha smiled. "He said she can stay in the chicken coop for a few days while you build the rabbit hutches. And missus Stebbins said they had recently hatched too many chicks so their new coop would get too crowded once they grow up, so she insisted I take some with me for on our farm. Plus she gave me the big one so we will have eggs right away, and any eggs we don't eat or use we can sell back to her or the bakery, she said."
"Yeeeeeyee! So nice! So cute!" Buddleia yipped happily, wiggling the fingers of one paw at the slightly opened lid of the small crate. "Hello bunny! Hello chickies!" She calmed down a bit when Sasha closed the lid and carefully set the small crate back inside the car, looking at the roof rack again. "Is much mesh here too! And poles, what are poles for, Sasha?"
"That's gifts from mister Speel," Sasha smiled. "I asked him for used mesh for the hutches and he came up with those rolls, and said, hey, if you're gonna build runs in the grass, you'll need something to stretch the mesh along, so take those posts too." She smiled very deeply and lay a hand on Buddleia's arm again. "He also gave me another little gift, but I'm only gonna show you that after we have everything unloaded and you have the coop built so we can free these poor animals, because it's a quite special and cute little gift."
"Aww, he so nice!" Buddleia smiled with her upper canines and the tip of her dark pink tongue on display. She lifted her head with her ears pricked up sharply and her bushy tail wagging. "I go finish jam, Sasha! Then we can make coop! Yes!"
"You go do that, Leia, and I'll unload all this stuff," Sasha nodded with a smile. "Where do you think we could best build the coop, and the hutches?"
Buddleia pointed at the sharp dip in the slope next to the narrow field in front of the house, where the boulders were sticking out and the strip of elm trees was.
"There! Is nice out of wind and sun under trees, and we can see them from window! That field bit too small for crops anyway, so we just use for grass and for bunnies and chickies! Yes!"
"You got it, fuzzbutt," Sasha chortled, playfully patting the fluffy purple rump of the vixen-taur's quadruped lower body. "I'll put all the stuff over there while you go finish your jam. Oh, but hold on, here..." She leaned into the old Chevrolet again and took out a paper bag and a small box, containing the apple fritters and the loaf of bread in the former and the butter, cheese and yogurt in the latter. "Put this in the fridge, would you please?"
"Of course!" Buddleia nodded, unable to resist sticking her muzzle into the paper bag for a moment. "Oh! Apple frizzles! Yum! Thank you, Sasha!"
The lanky human woman snorted a giggle over what the vixen-taur had called the treats, but let it slide and just began undoing the straps over the old Chevrolet's roof rack while Buddleia walked back into the house with a small bounce in her step and a definite bounce to her wagging tail. Soon enough all the wood panels and frames were unloaded, as well as the rolls of mesh and the bundle of fence posts, and Sasha even set the metal cage and the wood crate in the grass so the animals at least had some fresh air. Driving the old Chevrolet over to the workshop, she set the paint trays, rollers and bottle of thinner on the workbench and stacked all the boxes in the corner by the stack of old wheels, opening the last box for a moment to look in it. There was a three by three group of nine cans of paint in the box, and as Sasha lifted one she gave her head another light, amused shake; it were cans containing a gallon and a half of paint each. That sweet little black and white Border Collie woman had given her a hundred and eight cans of paint amounting up to a hundred and sixty-two gallons of paint in total. If they mixed it together, they could freaking paint all the implements, all the vehicles, the chicken coop as well as the new rabbit hutches and the farmhouse and the old silo two times over at least with all that!
Leaving the old Chevrolet parked where it was near the workshop, Sasha took the small paper bag from the hardware store and the box with her replacement phone into the house and lay them on the low table that was sitting near the sooty little fireplace. Turning and stepping over to the small counter, she smiled at Buddleia using the large bent ladle to scoop big purple blobs from the large wide pot and carefully pour them into the glass jars. The purple and white vixen-taur smiled back happily and held out the full ladle for a moment so Sasha could stick her finger in the purple blob and then in her mouth to taste the freshly made and still warm plum jam. Buddleia did put that jar on the counter rather than with the others stacked on the low table next to the counter once it was filled, however.
When all the empty jars were filled and there was only a little bit of jam left in the pot, Buddleia set the pot on the counter as well and walked out of the farmhouse with Sasha, going over to the workshop to get a hammer and a box of nails. Again she stopped short for a moment and tilted her head as she saw the stack of a dozen boxes in the corner of the building, but smiled again as Sasha explained the boxes all held cans of paint Mrs. Stebbins had given her as well. Taking the hammer and box of nails over to where the panels and frames were stacked by the dip in the slope, the purple and white vixen-taur started laying them out while Sasha pulled the rolls of mesh and the bundle of fence posts out of the way and set the metal cage and the wood crate on one of the large boulders for a moment.
Still remembering what the old chicken coop had looked like in the back garden of the general store, it took Buddleia only a little over half an hour to reassemble it. Sasha went back to the workshop for a small sledgehammer, a pair of pliers and cutters and the spool of the metal baling wire they had used before, and with the aid of that they hammered a number of the metal fence posts into the ground, stretched some of the mesh along them and tied it to the posts securely with the metal wire in another forty minutes. One of the feeders was filled with some of the chicken feed from the bag Mrs. Stebbins had given Sasha as well, the other was filled with water and both were set in the open run. Opening the wood crate, Sasha quickly grabbed the dark-colored lop-eared feral rabbit before it could jump out and set it in the run, and Buddleia very carefully and gently scooped up the chicks in both her paws one by one and cooed at them before setting them down in the run as well, after which the adult chicken was also taken from its cage and placed in the run.
Sasha brought the tools back to the workshop and set the cage and the crate back into the old Chevrolet, while Buddleia lay on the chest and tummy of her quadruped lower body next to the run and happily looked at the animals beginning to explore their new home. Sasha sat down in the grass next to the vixen-taur when she returned from the workshop and leaned up against Buddleia's side, bringing up a hand to brush her fingers along the side of Buddleia's slender muzzle and fuzzy cheek.
"Look at that, fuzzbutt. The farm is beginning to look like an actual farm," she smiled.
"Yes! I so happy, Sasha!" Buddleia crooned, pulling the lanky human woman into a happy hug. "We have chickies! And a bunny!"
They sat by the run to look at the animals for a while more. Eventually they got up and went into the small farmhouse so Sasha could take off her clothes and get her brush and Buddleia could get the soap and shampoo. Before they brought it over to the pond for their bath, however, Sasha took the small paper bag from the low table in front of the fireplace.
"Here's the hinges and the locks for the hutches, Leia," she smiled. "And when I told mister Speel we named the farm Butterfly Farm, he gave me..." She reached into the bag and pulled out the metal butterfly, holding it out. "...this, to give to you as a gift from him."
The purple and white vixen-taur looked at the metal butterfly with her deep golden eyes wide as she held it up in front of her face on both her paws.
"Awww! Is so nice! I like so so much! Is so pretty! Thank you so so much, Sasha! And thank you mister Speel so so much too! I like so very super much!" she smiled happily, with a rolling churr in her voice and both her upper and lower canines and a good bit of her dark pink tongue on display. "We put on door, Sasha! Yes! Is, uh... mascot! Butterfly Farm mascot! Yes!"
"That is a fantastic idea, Leia," Sasha nodded with a wide smile.
The hammer and a single nail took care of that. The bath in the pond was then taken, followed by a tasty meal with an apple fritter as dessert. After that, a couple of happy, content hours of cuddling in the soft grass, this time in the field in front of the small farmhouse so they could also look at their new animals, was enjoyed, eventually followed by a good night of relaxed sleep. It most definitely had been a day full of surprises!
But as Sasha had said; the farm slowly began to look like an actual farm. They had their first livestock!
