The first rain of the season had fallen. Just overnight, just for a few hours, just enough to make the dirt damp but not muddy, and make the grass and bushes and trees shimmer and gleam in the morning sunlight.
It lay a shimmer over the two plowed, cultivated and seeded fields of Butterfly Farm as well. A shimmer with a greenish tinge, as in the four days Sasha had been traveling back and forth between the farm and the town of Arfafield for the CT-scan on her ribs, the winter rye they had planted had germinated and was beginning to show its first new sprouts above the ground. It gave a bit of a feeling of excitement; not only was the first crop in the ground, it was now also growing! The purple and white vulpine taur Buddleia was almost giddy over it, and the tall, lanky human woman Sasha also felt a happy and content rush at the so very visible progress.
There had been another cute little surprise Sasha had found herself coming home to. In the final two days of her visit, the young chocolate Labrador girl Millie had taken one of the leftover double-thickness planks they had used to re-deck the bale trailer with, had sanded it smooth, painted it in the light muted lavender color that was the farm's new company color, and once that had dried, the light brown canine girl had painted the Butterfly Farm name and logo on it and had nailed it to the long poles that sat on either side of the driveway entrance, as a sort of welcome arch over the opening in the fence. That was just absolutely adorable, really.
Sasha had also noticed, on her return trip, that the mechanic Jack from the Ag Co-op was already underway to Arfafield to pick up the wrecked 1963 Skoda 706 RT truck she had bought at the local junkyard. The traffic was so non-existent on the gravel road running through the valley that it had been very obvious when she passed a large teal-colored Mercedes flatbed truck with a timber wolf man behind the wheel going the opposite direction. That meant it would only be a few more days before the timber wolf mechanic would be back and they'd have a decent parts vehicle to get their grain truck up and running. Fortunately, Buddleia had been doing a bit of wrenching on the old Deutz Fahr combine harvester, and the engine of that machine was still running, so they wouldn't be facing any crippling surprises when it was time to harvest the rye.
The purple and white vixen-taur had done some work inside the small old farmhouse as well. With some of Sasha's old belongings having been brought to them, the only place to store them was in the boxes they had come in. That was of course far from ideal, so Buddleia had built a large cabinet with shelves for in the small bedroom, so they could put all of the folded clothes on there, along with a few random loose items. The two framed photos, of Sasha's grandparents and of the human woman and the chocolate Labrador girl Millie together, were set on the small mantel over the fireplace, on both sides of the candelabra that had been gifted to them by the crafts store for their wedding. Buddleia had also built a simple table and a simple chair padded with one of the cushions from her nest-bed for Sasha to use as a desk, so the printer Sasha had bought and her laptop were set up on that.
With rain now in the air, making hay was getting harder. The front-side left field was ready for mowing again, but Sasha made a double pass over it with the deck mower so the grass got chopped up extra fine, and was baled the next day so the bales could be wrapped and set in the new shelter to ferment into silage. While Sasha was doing the baling, Buddleia marked all the bales already sitting in the shelter with a sharpie, writing "B1" on them and the word "day" with a number of tallies behind it to indicate how long they had been laying there. That would at least help them to keep the bales separated so they knew the order in which they had been placed in the shelter and which ones therefore would be done fermenting and ready for selling first.
The temperatures were a bit cooler as well, but still very pleasant. Nothing that stopped Buddleia from doing all her work without any clothes on except for her yellow sun hat, and even Sasha continued doing her work in the nude except for her pink sun hat, despite the lack of fur on her tall, lanky body. The warmth of the day seemed to sink down into the entire valley every day like a comfortable blanket and remain there, keeping it very pleasant to not wear any clothes. Even when the timber wolf Jack from the Co-op arrived after a few days with the large flatbed truck holding the wrecked 1963 Skoda water tanker truck, Sasha didn't put on any clothes as she directed the timber wolf man to back into the rickety open shed next to the small farmhouse and unload the wrecked tanker truck there. He had been rewarded for his effort with a jar of Buddleia's plum jam and one of the small mini butterfly-shaped goat cheeses that had finished aging.
Having collected all 77 of the wrapped new bales Sasha had made in the front-side left field the next day, the tall human woman and the purple and white vulpine taur were working in tandem to put them under the shelter. Sasha marked the bales with "B2", the date of that day and the word "day" and pushed them to the very back of the 1953 MAZ-200 truck's flat bed, from where Buddleia picked them up in her arms and stacked them under the shelter in neat rows and stacked up to just below the roof of the shelter. They stacked them in rows of two wide with space in between the double rows, so all bales would be easy to reach for checking them with the thermometer, moisture meter and PH meter, and easy to remove in the proper order.
It was sweaty work, as while the bales were the same size as the hay bales they had made previously, they were a decent bit heavier. A bath in the pond to rinse the sweat off of themselves had been had before lunch, therefore, and once the soup, sandwiches and herbal tea had been enjoyed in the back garden, they stretched out for a good deal of relaxed cuddling to rest up from the work they had already done, and the rest of the work that was still waiting for them.
Sasha's phone interrupted their calm cuddling. The lanky human woman quirked an eyebrow in surprise when she saw the incoming call was from the Ag Co-op. She swiped her phone to answer it and set it to the loudspeaker function so she could continue gently petting Buddleia's while she answered the call.
"Dan, you sharp-sensed bastard, you smelled our goat cheeses have aged and now you want one," she said with a light chortle.
A chuckle from the lion man sounded from the phone.
"You bet I want one, Sasha. I've been thinking about your salted and nutted cheeses ever since you mentioned them to me. But that's actually not what I'm calling you for."
"It's not? Aw, I'm disappointed, Dan. So what are you calling for, then? Did you find a mulcher for us?"
"Not yet, no. I've put out the word for it, but so far none have popped up yet. But something else did pop up, and that's making it so that I now have to ask you for a favor, Sasha."
"Really? Well now, what could a humble farmer lady of a small farm struggling to get back to its feet do for a large professional Co-op, Dan?"
"Oh come on Sasha, you're doing just fine! The amount of progress you two have made the past few months is admirable! But correct me if I'm wrong; you have a quite large pond on your premises, right?"
"You are certainly not wrong, Dan; we do. It even has a cute teeny little island in the middle of it, that's how big it is. What about it?"
"Well, the thing is this, Sasha. I don't know if you, on your way to Arfafield, noticed a farm along the way that was being emptied out?"
"Can't say that I have, but then again I wasn't really paying very much attention to any farms in that open stretch of valley, I was paying more attention to the GPS when I started reaching civilization."
"Okay, well, there was one farm that was a decent bit out this way that got foreclosed on. Almost all of the equipment went to the Arfafield Co-op, but some of it went to us because we're just a little bit closer by; about eighteen to twenty miles or thereabouts. And it appears they had been trying to do some aquaculture on that farm."
"What, growing seaweed or something?"
"No, fish. To be exact; Comizo barbels, or Iberian barbels as they're more commonly known."
"Never heard of those. What are they used for, food?"
"Mostly, yes. In some cases they were also used for weed control, but not as much as grass carps. There's hatcheries near Fostedina and Fairy Haven where they are bred for release programs, as they have become classified as Vulnerable. I think that's what this farm was trying to do as well, as there's no major rivers or streams around here where they could be needed for weed control."
A lightbulb went off over Sasha's head.
"And since you're closer by than the Arfafield Co-op, they brought the live fish to you because that was a shorter trip, right?"
"Exactly. And it really put me up a creek, Sasha. There's a big pool sitting in our yard now with about forty adult fish of a foot to a foot and a half long, and a smaller pool with a couple hundred juveniles between three and five inches long, and I have no idea what the hell to do with them. The pools are sitting right in front of the building too, there's only just enough space left to swing a short truck around by the fuel pumps. I'm really hoping you'll let us dump them in your pond."
"I see no problem with that, if they can survive in our pond they're welcome. But would it be a temporary or a permanent solution? Because if it's temporary, I can't give any promises that we can catch all of them out of that pond again."
"To be perfectly frank and very blunt, Sasha; I don't give a flying fuck. They sprung this mess on us without giving us a choice, we don't have the space nor the equipment to keep those fish here and healthy, so as far as I'm concerned, it's a permanent solution if you let us dump them in your pond. If the Arfafield bank or Co-op want to see those fish sold on later, it'll be their goddam problem to get them back out of your pond, I really can't be assed with coming up with something better for them, they should have thought of that before they sprung this crap on us."
Sasha couldn't help sniggering under her breath.
"You don't sound like a very happy bunny about this situation, Dan."
"I'm not. I'm not even a happy lion, I'll tell you that much for free. It's that live animals are involved, otherwise I would have told them to load up their shit and get the hell out of my yard."
"Haha... sorry, not laughing at you, Dan, I swear. I'll be glad to help you with this mess; those fish can come swim their laps in our pond, I'm totally fine with that. And they can stay there for the rest of their lives, however long that may be, as far as I'm concerned."
"Thank you!"
"Any time, Dan. But before you run outside to load them up and drive them here, let's talk about this rationally for a moment or two, okay? I do want to know if there might be any possible consequences for us, if yes, what those consequences might be, and if there is anything we have to do here to keep those fish alive and in good health. Hm, and not unimportantly, what we can do with them. And how the hell would you even get them here?"
"That last one will, thank goodness, be relatively easy. We have a few old IBC tanks sitting in the back with the tops cut open, we've been using them to store waste recyclables in. Bits of wood, small metal scrap, that sort of stuff. We can dump that out for a day or two and set those things on the back of the truck and fill them with water to put those fish in for transport. They're in metal frames, so that should be sturdy enough."
"Alright, fine, that sounds doable. So let's talk consequences. Should Leia and I be concerned we'll suddenly get visits and possibly fines from the Ministry of Agriculture or the Ministry of Nature if those fish are released into our pond?"
"It's a contained body of water, right? No connections to any streams or creeks?"
"Yeah."
"Then no. They'll be contained, and that's basically the same as being in those giant pools they're in now, just more natural. With no danger of them escaping into any waterways, there's nothing for you to worry about."
"Okay, good. Now, you said they're classified Vulnerable; that's on the... what the hell is that called again? Hang on, gimme a sec, Dan." Sasha swiped to her main screen and opened the search engine app to do a quick search. "Right, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, their Red List. Classification Vulnerable; that's not too bad, but bad enough to raise another concern. Should we worry about them breathing down our necks?"
"Not that I'm aware of. If anything, they'd probably give you an award for keeping a population of them alive and well. But there is a chance they will want to know about it at least and pay a visit to see the circumstances in which the fish are kept. And they probably will known about these fish, because they're involved with those hatcheries in Fairy Haven and Fostedina, so there is indeed a decent chance they will be in touch with you at one point or another."
"That's fine, but that does bring me to another concern. We bathe in that pond, Dan. Not that I'm worried about fish nipping at my toes or even more personal areas, but we use soap and shampoo in there. Surely that can't be good for them?"
"You'd be surprised at what those fish can tolerate, Sasha. Besides, such miniscule amounts in such a large body of water make no difference. Not to mention, I happen to know exactly what soap and shampoo you use, because Buddleia's been using it for years and it's the exact same stuff I use, as well as everyone else here because it's the only soap and shampoo we can get out here. It's totally natural and organic, milk-based, no perfumes or nothing, so it's not a danger to any animals at all. Hell, you could feed a bar of that soap to your goat, and the only thing that would happen is that she gets very clean teeth."
"Haha... okay, well, that's a relief. But since I mentioned nipping personal areas, here's another thing. What the hell do those fish eat? Since you mentioned weed control, I'm assuming they eat underwater plants?"
"Yeah, pretty much. Underwater vegetation, young reed shoots, a bit of small snails and stuff since those are in the plants anyway when they eat them."
"Right, well, there's a bunch of vegetation in the deeper part of the pond, and kittytail reeds all along that little island, so that should be fine. But if you're gonna dump a couple hundred fish in there, I would imagine they'd go through whatever plants are down there pretty quick, and then what?"
"Fortunately, they did not only dump the fish in my yard; they also dumped the basic stuff needed to take care of them. So there's two pallets full of bags of pellets sitting here that you can feed them, and I can order more of it from the same supplier I get all the other animal feed from."
"Hm, alright. To be totally honest, that's an upkeep cost I'm not all too keen on, but since there's already a decent stock of it that should last for a good while, it should be alright. We should be well enough in the dosh by the time we run out of that food to buy more of it and not make too much of a dent in our finances."
"And they'll stabilize, Sasha. If you don't even feed them but just let them be and do their thing, they'll stabilize into a sustainable population that can keep itself alive without outside help. The feeding is mainly for the purpose of actively breeding and farming the fish."
"Right. So how reproductive are these fish?"
"How the hell should I know? My interest in fish stretches only as far as fillets and fish sticks. The info I've been giving you so far is just the stuff they told me when they plonked all that stuff in my yard. I don't know any specifics or details, and I don't care to know either. The only thing I want to know about fish is how long to pan-sear it and how good it will taste once it's on my plate."
"Haha! Okay, fair enough, Dan. And that brings me to another thing. There's a couple of fishing rods in the house here; how much trouble would we be in if we use them in this pond to catch one of those fish for supper?"
"None. They're food fish, and I seriously doubt you and Buddleia will eat two hundred of them in a year. At adult size they're twenty inches long and can reach upwards of forty pounds, so one of them could keep you fed for a damn week. Matter of fact, we have a few here that didn't survive the trip so they're on ice in a cooler now, and those alone could keep you fed for a month or two or three. Hell, with the ice and four of those fish in there, it takes two of us to lift the damn thing."
"Holy shit, that heavy? Yeah, I like a bit of fish, but not every day, that's for sure. So if you bring those ones in the cooler as well, the live ones should be safe from us even attempting to angle them back out of the pond for several months at least. Well, I guess the only thing left to ask is when you'll be arriving here?"
"Tomorrow. We'll be needing the rest of today to empty those IBCs, strap them to the truck, fill them and transfer the fish, and collect and pack up all the other stuff, and I doubt you'd want to see us driving up your driveway at midnight or later. So we'll get everything ready for transport today and start driving first thing tomorrow morning, meaning we'll be up your driveway sometime between eleven and noon."
"That's fine, we'll see you guys then. And we'll toss an extra can of soup in the pot and butter a few extra sandwiches so you can stay for lunch too if you want."
"Awesome, that's really appreciated. And honestly, thank you so much, Sasha. I'll tell you, I was a very unhealthy mix of desperate and pissed off when they plonked all that crap in my yard. The BGA helped out a bit by taking a dozen of the adult fish to put in their clarification pool, but I was really at my wit's end here trying to figure out what the hell to do with all this stuff."
"I don't think I would want to see any feline at the end of his or her wits. So I'm glad we can help you keep yours collected, Dan. See you tomorrow, okay?"
"You betcha. Thanks so much again, Sasha, and see you tomorrow."
The contact was cut, and Sasha tapped out her phone as well. Leaning back against the side of Buddleia's quadruped lower body, she chortled softly at the expression on the vulpine taur's face being a strange mix of amusement and concern.
"I not hear Dan so upset for long time," she said, wiggling her bristly whiskers a bit.
"Yeah, I can't imagine that was a very nice surprise to suddenly be burdened with," Sasha nodded. "Especially if the only choice they gave him was 'ha ha, deal with it'. But hey!" With another chortle, the human woman reached out to boop the cool, damp black pad of Buddleia's nose. "We're gonna get fishies, how about that?"
"Fishies be nice!" Buddleia nodded with a smile. "I not think there ever be fish in the pond, I not remember seeing any ever. Frogs, but not fish."
"Then what the hell are those fishing poles for I saw inside?" Sasha sniggered.
Buddleia giggled in short staccato yips.
"Is stream out that way, Sasha," she waved in the direction of the left fields. "Run behind Cherry Blossom Farm and past sawmill. Grandfather take me fishing there sometimes, we catch catfish."
"Oh, okay, fair enough," Sasha nodded with a louder chortle, curling her lips into a cheerful grin. "I hope these fish taste better than catfish, I gotta admit I never really liked the taste of catfish." She let go a laugh. "Not to mention it's a really stupid name! Catfish! Well, what are you, a cat or a fish? Make up your damn mind, haha!"
Buddleia let go a cheery laugh as well, helping Sasha to her feet and rising to her four feral feet herself. After a couple of stretches and bringing their lunch dishes back into the house and washing them, they walked back to the old MAZ truck sitting by the bale shelter, resuming their work of marking the newly wrapped bales and stacking them in the shelter in double rows. It didn't take too long, but as the bales were quite a bit heavier they still took another break when they were done, and used the rest of the day to only clean the deck mower and the baler before having an early dinner and a good long time of relaxing and cuddling after their bath.
Not much work was done the next morning, either. There was the steady routine of feeding the chicken and the growing baby chicks, the rabbits and Choco the goat, gathering the eggs, milking Choco and filtering, bottling and chilling the milk, and making more cheeses with the oldest milk. Sasha even made several more of the larger butterfly-shaped cheeses with finely ground pink salt and chopped roasted beech nuts as during the four days she had been traveling to and from the hospital in Arfafield, Buddleia had only milked Choco and filtered and chilled the milk, but she had not made any cheese herself so there was an extra surplus of older milk.
She had, however, built several smaller racks that fit on the shelves of the new large racks in the underground bunker, so the cheeses could be stacked four high on each shelf to age. With the rate they were getting milk and making cheese at, they were already beginning to run out of room on the large racks. Sasha had therefore also started looking into making butter out of the milk, but both her online searches and a talk with the rabbit triplets who ran the dairy in the small village had taught the tall human woman that she would need several things that they did not have yet; most importantly a mixer, and a cream separator. A cheap second-hand stand mixer was already on its way to the post office from eBay, but a cream separator had proven to be a bit more of a challenge; even if decent ones were available for not too much money, the prices were still high enough that Sasha had decided to wait until they got their first large payment for silage into their account before committing to buying a machine of a couple hundred dollars.
By the time the tall human woman was done making new cheeses and packaging the first batches of mini cheeses and larger cheeses that had finished aging, a light drizzle was falling outside. The rabbits were staying in their hutches, and Buddleia had just finished cleaning out the heavy earthenware food bowls and filling them with fresh pellets, setting them under the platforms in the runs so they were shielded from the weather. She perked and swiveled her ears, standing back upright and turning to look at the forested hill opposite their farm and the wide dirt road than ran to the left of it.
Sasha joined her, and smiled when after a few moments, she saw the reason for the perking of Buddleia's ears. From around the forested hill came the Ag Co-op's teal-colored 1985 Mercedes-Benz L 1114 truck that had originally been a boxtruck but which had the damaged box removed to create an open flat bed. On that flat bed, directly behind the square cab, two large white cubic tanks in metal frames were strapped down with straps both running through the pallet underside of them and over the top of them. Despite how slowly the truck was making its way down the dirt road, water was still splashing up from the open tops of the tanks every now and then.
Very slowly and carefully, the truck made the turn onto the dirt road that ran along the front of the farm, followed by an even slower and more careful turn into the driveway of the farm. Sasha waved at the gray and black tabby cat man behind the wheel and the light tan lion man in the passenger's seat and directed them to park the truck off the right side of the driveway, as close to the large pond as they could safely get it. Splashing more water despite the very slow speed, the truck pulled off the driveway and came to a stop quite close to the shore of the large pond.
Both feline men got out, the gray and black tabby shorthair cat giving a cheerful wolf whistle while the tan lion man tilted his head a bit with a paw over his muzzle as they looked at Sasha and Buddleia wearing nothing but their sun hats.
"That's, uhm... quite an interesting farming uniform, Sasha," the lion man Daniel said with a light chuckle.
"The best one," Sasha grinned. "Total free motion, and nothing beats some healthy sun on your skin."
"What sun?" the tabby cat man chuckled, tilting his own head to look up at the gray sky that was still releasing a steady light drizzle of rain. "I ain't seeing any sun up there."
"Yes, well, that's just a tiny side issue of today," Sasha sniggered. "And didn't you bring Jack? I thought he was so crazy about getting out on the road?"
"Give the guy a break, Sasha!" the shorthair cat man chuckled. "He's been here just the other day after going and coming all the way from Arfafield! Besides, it was my turn now to get a breath of fresh air, and after Jack's wild stories, I wanted to see for myself just what this place looks like now."
"Yes, it's really looking amazing, Sasha," Daniel nodded with a smile. "I'm really impressed with how much progress you two have made in just a few short months. And that sign over your fence is just lovely!"
"That was Millie's departing gift, apparently," Sasha nodded with a chortle. "We'll give you a tour in a minute, let's first get those fishies into a roomier home, shall we?" She walked over to the back of the truck and tilted her head at all the items that were strapped to the bed behind the large square tanks. "What's all this stuff?"
"That's all the stuff that came with the fishies," Daniel chuckled. "The huge pools they've been sitting in, three huge canister filters and a handful of large aerators, a couple of large nets, and the two pallets full of feed bags I mentioned."
"Right," Sasha nodded. "You know we don't really need those pools if the fish are going into that pond, right?" She gave a light shrug. "Eh, you know what, fuck it, we can probably use them for something else at some point in the future, and I'm not gonna make you take all that stuff back with you again."
"Thank you," Daniel grinned. "If you'd make us take them back, they'd have gone straight into the garbage. I don't care one bit for all this mess they dropped into my lap."
"Yeah, you really didn't sound all too happy on the phone yesterday," Sasha nodded with a small grin. "Well, let's have a look at what you brought us!" She climbed onto the back of the truck and looked into the open tops of the large square tanks. "Wow, okay, are you sure these aren't ornamental pond fish, Dan?"
In one of the tanks, numerous small silver-colored fish were flitting around from side to side. In the other tank were a few tens of quite large fish, slowly settling down after the bumpy trip; most of them were a greenish dark silvergray fading to a lighter silvery gray on the bottom, several were much darker, with almost black backs and fins, but a handful of them were a solid, almost dandelion yellow in color. The lion man nodded as he also climbed onto the back of the truck, while the tabby cat man started undoing the straps holding everything down.
"Yes, some of them come in yellow, apparently," he nodded. "I suppose you could keep them as ornamental fish in a garden pond, they're pretty enough for that, but if they're so keen on eating plants I don't know if that would be a very good idea."
"Right, good point," Sasha nodded. "It appears we have some casualties, too," she pointed at several of the small fish floating or hovering around motionless in the water.
"Apparently they do that as well, a bunch of them were like that when they arrived in our yard," Daniel nodded. "They'll get around, and if they don't, oh well. Just toss'em in the water with the rest, and any dead ones will get eaten by the live ones."
"Fair enough," Sasha nodded as well, looking around at Buddleia picking up two very large triangular rubber nets with long handles. "Wanna have a look at the fishies, Leia? I'm not sure how much we'll see of them once we toss them into the pond," she chortled.
"I wanna see, yes!" Buddleia nodded happily. She handed Sasha the nets, set her feral forepaws onto the bed of the truck and made a quick hop to get the whole rest of her up there as well, leaning over to look into the large tanks with her bushy tail wagging. "Aw, they so nice! I like the yellow ones! They so pretty!"
"Yes, I do believe we'll see those clear enough in that clear water," Sasha nodded with a light giggle. She looked at the nets she was holding and at the pond for a moment, tilting her head slightly while thinking, then giving another nod of her head. "Okay, here's how we'll do this. You stand there next to the truck, Leia, okay? I'll scoop the fish out of here, hand you the net, and you'll let them go in the pond. With two nets, we can keep going back and forth like that while these two fine feline gentlemen unload the rest of all this stuff... actually, check that, leave it on here, it'll be easier for you guys to first drive this truck over to the shed because it'll have to be unloaded there. Okay if I set the spigots on the bottom of those tanks to start draining out the water right here onto the deck, Dan? It'll be easier to catch them if there's less water in here."
"Go right ahead, the truck won't melt," Daniel chuckled.
"Good, I'll start with the little ones then, they'll be easiest," Sasha chortled. "Ready, fuzzbutt?"
"Yes!" Buddleia nodded cheerfully, jumping off the bed of the truck again. "I ready, Sasha!"
With a smile, Sasha knelt down and turned a small valve at the bottom of the square tank sitting on the right so the water started draining out in a steady trickle. Leaning one of the nets against the tanks, she took the other net and did a large scoop into the tank with all the small silvery fish in it, handing that net to Buddleia and taking the other net. The purple and white vixen-taur smiled at the number of small fish flopping about in the net and lowered it into the water of the pond, slowly turning it and pulling it backwards, then up to release all the small fish which hovered for a moment before suddenly flitting away towards the middle of the pond. She handed Sasha the empty net and accepted the second net full of small fish that the lanky human handed her in return.
Alternating like that, it only took several scoops before almost all the small silvery fish were out of the large square tank and into the pond. Setting the net over the opening of the valve on the inside of the tank, Sasha knelt down again and opened the valve all the way so the water gushed out in a thick stream, keeping an eye on the content of the tank and catching the last couple dozen of small fish in the net as the last water drained from the tank. Buddleia released them into the pond and handed Sasha the empty net again, turning to the truck and lifting the empty tank off of the bed to set it aside in the grass so it would be easier to reach the other tank without having to lift the net over the empty tank all the time.
Having set the valve of the second tank to start slowly draining as well, Sasha quickly found the large fish were much more of a challenge. She caught one in the net, and puffed as she tried to lift it out of the tank.
"Phew, holy hell Dan, you weren't kidding when you said these things get real heavy, were you?" she puffed. "This is just one of them, and it sure... yeeack!"
She almost let go of the net as the large fish flopped and thrashed about when the human woman started lifting it out of the tank, splashing water everywhere. The tan lion man quickly jumped off the bed of the truck and hid behind the cab, laughing shortly and wiping a paw over his face.
"Maybe the lack of clothes was not such a bad idea after all," he chuckled.
"No shit," Sasha smirked, shaking some drips off her face while still holding on to the net with both hands, sending the flopping fish another smirk. "Lay still, damn you! Come here... hhhumph!"
Pivoting the net over the edge of the tank, she managed to lift the large fish out of the water and got a good hold on the net to hand it over to Buddleia. The vulpine taur chittered a soft giggle and quickly took the net to stick it into the water, turning it to let the fish swim out of it with a sudden swish. She shook the net a bit and turned to hand it back to Sasha, who had meanwhile caught another of the large fish in the second net, her long ginger hair dripping from all the water it had splashed up.
All in all, in about an hour and a half, all the fish had been caught out of the large tanks and released into the large pond, with only a handful of casualties among the juvenile fish floating about on the surface of the pond. Buddleia set the empty tank back on the bed of the truck and took a few steps away to shake herself vigorously, while Sasha leaned sideways and gathered up all her long ginger hair to wring the water from it and flip it across her shoulder. They walked into the farmhouse for a towel while the gray and black tabby cat man got back behind the wheel of the truck and drove it further up the driveway, turning around in the open space where the cars were parked and backing it up through the opened sliding doors of the large shed. On the right side was a fairly large platform about six feet high, where all the bags of animal feed and crop seed they had been gifted were stacked on pallets. Sasha climbed onto the platform via a simple ladder, pulling near an empty pallet and catching the bags of pellet food Buddleia took from two pallets on the bed of the truck and heaved up to the platform so the human woman could stack them on the empty pallet. Once one of the pallets on the bed of the truck was empty, Buddleia heaved that up to the top of the platform as well so Sasha could stack the rest of the bags onto that pallet.
Three very large Fluval FX6 canister filters were set upon the platform as well, along with a plastic storage bin holding thick plastic hoses and several aerators with air stones hanging from thin plastic hoses, and a long nail was hammered into the wall of the shed to hang the two nets from. In the space under the platform, the tan lion man and the gray and black tabby cat man lay down what looked like two very thick, heavy dark blue folded tarps and stacked quite an amount of metal frames on top of them. Pushing it all up against the side wall of the shed a bit, it didn't even take up that much space.
Climbing back down the ladder, Sasha wiped some water off her glasses and teasingly flicked it into the face of the shorthair tabby cat man who was staring at her tall naked body.
"My eyes are up here, Tim. I know I'm tall, but it shouldn't strain your neck too much to look up here, would it?" she chortled.
"Hey, sorry, not every day I get to gawk at a pretty woman walking around naked like it's nothing," the feline man chuckled, wiping his face with the back of a paw.
"Just behave yourself around these two married ladies, Tim, because I'll just as soon stuff you into one of those IBCs on the way back, fill it back up with water and floor it all the way to the Co-op so it bounces around a bunch," the lion man Daniel chuckled.
The gray and black tabby cat man Tim raised his paws.
"I'll be a good kitty, promise!" he chuckled. "But you can't blame me for being a man with healthy interests, can you?"
"I suppose he does have a point, Dan," Sasha chortled. "But here, I'll tone down the temptation a bit while Leia makes us lunch."
She led the way into the small farmhouse and stepped into the small bedroom, taking the faded flower-print sheet off the bed and draping it around her tall lanky body like a toga. They all laughed shortly and hung around a bit inside the small house while Buddleia heated up two cans of soup in a pot on the stove and Sasha prepared a plateful of sandwiches. As it was rather cramped and they only had the one chair that Buddleia had built to go with the small desk for Sasha, they took their lunch back into the large shed and used the bed of the large teal Mercedes truck as a table while sitting around it on crates.
When the food had been finished, Sasha helped Daniel carry a fairly large cooler into the underground bunker and over to the old chest freezer in the secondary room. It was pretty darn heavy indeed, being filled with half-melted crushed ice and four of the large dead fish. Finding a plastic tub, Sasha set that in the freezer and scooped the not yet melted crushed ice into it, after which they carefully lay the four frozen fish on the ice.
"I never even knew this was here," Daniel commented while he looked around inside the secondary room of the bunker. "I do remember my father telling me he had helped Buddleia's grandfather Phlox to get in touch with an electrical company in Bronto Valley and a contractor from Arfafield to convert the windmill to an electricity generator, but I had no idea they built this whole bunker here. This is pretty neat, actually! And a real good space for you to process the milk in; I see you have been real busy with that," he chuckled, pointing at the racks with all the goat cheeses aging on them.
"Yeah, it's ideal for that," Sasha nodded with a smile. "And now you can see why I asked for the stainless steel restaurant kitchen equipment; that's all planned for in here so I can set up a real good and clean workspace to make the cheese, and butter once we get a cream separator, and possibly some wine as well. There's so much space in here, Leia's grandfolks really thought ahead well when they had this built."
"Yeah, seriously," Daniel nodded, curling his lips into a grin as he looked at the large racks with all the smaller racks holding numbers of butterfly-shaped goat cheeses on their shelves, and a couple of shelves filled with jars of plum jam. "Damn, looking around in here is making me hungry again, and we just finished lunch!"
He reached for one of the cheeses, and laughed when Sasha playfully slapped his paw.
"Ah ah ah, mister! Those are not done aging yet," she chortled. "However, these are, we'll be bringing them to missus Stebbins tomorrow so she can start selling them for us," she smiled, turning to the small stainless steel table and pointing at several stacks of packaged mini butterfly-shaped cheeses and larger butterfly-shaped cheeses, picking up a couple of the small ones and one of the large ones. "Here, I promised you'd be the first to get the chance to taste them, so these are for you." She took a few more of the mini cheeses and grinned lightly. "And these are for those other freeloaders working for you."
"Oh, awesome! Thank you, Sasha!" Daniel smiled. "This big one, that has the pink salt and roasted nuts, right? How much are those?"
"Based on what the De Verley triplets advised me, with the addition of the pink salt and the roasted beech nuts, that cheese comes to a buck fifteen per ounce, and they're twenty-five ounces, so that'll make twenty-eight seventy-five each. The little ones are just goat milk with no additions, they told me a fair price for that is ninety-two cents an ounce, and they're eight ounces, so the small ones will be seven thirty-six each," Sasha smiled. "So be prepared to pay thirty bucks apiece for the big ones and eight bucks for the small ones at missus Stebbins, because she has to make a little on them as well. However, as you just gifted us several thousand bucks in live fish and stuff, that one you're holding there is a gift."
"I didn't gift that to you, I dumped it in your lap just to get rid of it after I got it dumped in my lap," Daniel chuckled. "But thanks a lot, Sasha, I really appreciate it a lot!" He laughed shortly. "Damn, I gotta start watching out, you two are so productive with so many tasty things that I wanna try and enjoy, I'm gonna get fat!"
"Well, next time you wanna buy some tasty treats straight from the source, walk here instead of driving, that should burn off some calories," Sasha chortled, leading the way back out of the underground bunker and switching off the lights.
Daniel laughed and shook his head as they walked back to the large shed.
"Yeah, a hundred seventy-some miles, like hell I'm gonna walk that! It's already bad enough driving it," he snickered.
"Well, then it's not my fault if you turn into a chubby lion, Dan," Sasha chortled, curling her lips into a cheerful grin. "Should I even tell you about that awesome meat grinder and sausage stuffer you saw down there which I'm planning to use to make deer sausages the way my granny used to make?"
"Oh stoppit! Hahaha! No you shouldn't!" Daniel laughed.
"Did I hear deer sausage?" the gray and black tabby cat man Tim said with a grin, looking up from the large square tanks he was strapping back down to the bed of the truck.
"Yes!" Buddleia nodded with a smile. "Sasha say her grandmother make yummy deer sausage, and she brought machine from Arfafield to make sausage, so we gonna try!"
"Future endeavor, though," Sasha chortled. "I first have to get a good amount of good and fat pork butt and hog casings from mister Jonesey, and I first have to grow fresh thyme and green onions somewhere around here. And of course, Leia has to down a good deer for me. And with the amount of pork butt I'm likely to need, we'll only be able to afford that after the first batch of silage has been sold. But in the meantime..." She handed the feline man the small goat cheeses. "Here you go, Tim, these are for you and miss Stebbins; our first goat cheese. Jack already got one the other day. These are very young though, they just finished aging, so if you prefer it a bit older and harder, you'd best put it somewhere cool and dark for a couple more months."
"As if!" Tim chuckled. "They're not gonna last a week! Hey, thanks a bundle, Sasha!"
"You're welcome," Sasha smiled, chortling at Daniel rubbing his paws together after having put the goat cheeses he was carrying into the cab of the truck. "Well, someone's ready for a tour!"
"You betcha!" Daniel nodded with a chuckle. "It's already looking so different here, so do show me all the changes and improvements you made!"
"Right, well, look!" Sasha sniggered, gesturing around her. "New shed!"
"No kidding!" Daniel said with a laugh. "Looks real good though, and look at all the old equipment in here; it looks like new with that fresh new paint and all. I take it you'll paint the tractors at some point too?"
"And the combines," Sasha nodded. "But again; after we get paid for our first load of silage. We need that money to buy parts for the combines, and once we have those we can repair the combines and paint them while we're at it. And only around that time we'll do the tractors as well, because by then they'll about be done for the year and we'll have the time to go through them and paint them. Heck, and if you can find us a cheap tractor with about a hundred to a hundred twenty horsepower, I'll trade in one of those for that," she pointed at the once-blue small old Hanomag tractors.
"I'll put out the word and keep an eye open," Daniel promised with a smile. "Hell, there may even have been something among the equipment from that foreclosed farm those fish came from; I'll give the Arfafield Co-op a buzz about that tomorrow."
"That'd be nice, but yet again; we can only afford it after getting paid for the silage," Sasha smiled. "So if you do find a decent little tractor soon, you'll have to keep it tucked back on your yard somewhere until we can afford it."
"With those damn pools gone, we have our space back so that's no problem," Daniel chuckled.
"Great, I appreciate that," Sasha nodded with a smile, leading the way out of the shed and down the dirt path between the silo and the windmill, pointing at the two seeded fields. "And check it out; that's some of that seed you gave us at work there."
"Hey, awesome!" Daniel smiled brightly. "Winter rye? That's wonderful that you have your first crop in the ground already! I remember you mentioned it might be a year to two years before you'd get to that."
"Yeah well, with you and all those way too generous nutcases in that village overloading us with gifts for our wedding, our progress shot ahead by a year," Sasha chortled. She started leading the way back to the front of the yard, gesturing at the chicken coop and run. "And of course, missus Stebbins has been way too generous before that already, so lo and behold; her old chicken coop and one of her adult chickens and a bunch of baby ones that she gave us."
"It looks good in that light purple color," Daniel smiled. "And good that you get some eggs already too."
"Yeah, Susie there is a very generous girl," Sasha chortled, motioning at the adult chicken. "We already got way more eggs than we can use, so a few batches have already gone to mister and missus Lawrence."
"Very nice," Daniel smiled again, tilting his head a bit. "And who gave you the awesome rabbit hutches?"
Sasha grinned softly.
"Mister Jonesey gave us the bunnies, but Leia built those hutches herself. And I painted them, so it was a team effort, haha."
"Oh, that's amazing! They look really good!" The lion man let out a sudden laugh. "And I suddenly remember that Buddleia used to build lots of rabbit hutches when she was young! She built one for me when I was a kid!" He tilted his head. "I thought Jameson only bred Verdant Island Lops, though? I didn't know he bred Omutimas too?"
"She told me that, yes," Sasha nodded with a laugh of her own. "And he doesn't, the Omutima Speckled in that run there is a wild one Leia caught. Seems like there's a population of them in the fields behind here."
"That's neat! You may be able to breed a whole new variety, haha!" Daniel chuckled.
"Yeahhh, not sure if we're gonna go into that," Sasha chortled. "We're mainly keeping the rabbits to have a supply of fresh meat for ourselves once they start breeding, and any surplus will go to mister Jonesey; as cute as the bunnies are, I'm really not looking into going the bunny breeder way here." She gestured at the pen with Choco in it. "And of course, this you already knew about, as you were here when Simon and Harry brought this girl and her little house over. And we also fixed the fences all along the front and the back, as you can see."
"Indeed! And it all looks really good in that fresh light purple color," Daniel nodded with a smile. "I'm so happy to see all this, Sasha, it's so good to see everything here coming back around so amazingly."
"Thanks, Dan," Sasha smiled. "We're really happy with how things are going as well. It's going much better than I had originally thought it would, and that's for a very large part thanks to you and everyone in Rolling Hills. We really couldn't have made so much such good progress so quickly without y'all." She let go a light chortle. "Say, not that we're already looking to expand, but Leia mentioned that you handle the buying of new land around here as well?"
"We're only too happy to help, Sasha," Daniel nodded with another smile. "Way out here, we're on our own so everyone is part of the family, you know. And indeed, land purchase can be done through our Co-op, we mediate for the Arfajia province land council and we're qualified to give out deeds."
"Ah, right, I'd been wondering about that," Sasha nodded, letting go another chortle. "So let's say we're ready to expand, how much would we be looking at for, say, that field there?" she pointed at the stretch of land to the right of the large pond. "The right one of those newly seeded fields I just showed you runs along the top of that, so it would be handy to own that whole bit."
"You'd need to sell a few loads of silage, I'd say," Daniel chuckled softly. "Land out here is still relatively cheap, but you're still looking at five-figure amounts at least for anything over an acre. Prices per acre are between six and nine grand out here. That field..." He ran a paw over his whiskers for a moment. "I reckon that would run you about thirty grand at least."
"Ouch, my wallet," Sasha grinned. "Yeah, that's definitely still far into the future then. But good to have a baseline so we know what we can work towards."
"You could always take out a loan," Daniel shrugged with a chuckle.
"You know, I've thought about that," Sasha nodded. "And we're not gonna do that. When my grandfolks died, almost all the money from selling their farm and all the stuff in it and all the equipment and all went into paying off the mortgage for the farm and several running loans they had open at the time. We're doing well now with what we have, it's working for us, we're content with living the way we do, and we have all the time in the world to take it slow, so we'll just stay away from the loan sharks and take little steps ahead with what we earn by doing what we're doing now."
"That's a very wise decision, Sasha," Daniel smiled as they walked back to the large shed. "We've dealt with some farms out the Arfafield way in the past, and all of them are pretty much gone now. Heck, we're here because of that, because I told you those fish came from a farm that was foreclosed on. Many farmers get in over their head with loans to get equipment and everything to start making money as quickly as possible, often because they need to, and they can't keep up with it. You and Buddleia are... well, pardon the expression; backyard farmers, in a way. You do need it for your income, but you have no contractual obligations to other processing companies or anything, and if you don't mind living off the grid in a small little house with little money to spend and doing your own thing, there's really no need to stick yourself into a bunch of debt."
"My thought exactly," Sasha nodded with a smile. She shook Daniel's paw and Tim's paw as they got back to the teal truck. "Anyway, it's been great seeing you, and thanks a bunch for the fishies, it certainly livened up our pond," she chortled.
"Really, again, thank you so very much for taking this stupid problem off my hands," Daniel chuckled. "I hope the fish do well, and hey, if you ever get to making your own fish sticks, let me know and I'll be the first to pounce on them."
"If by that time you haven't become too fat to pounce from devouring all our goat cheese and deer sausages," Sasha laughed.
They all laughed cheerfully. Daniel and Tim said their goodbyes and got into the teal Mercedes truck, driving off and honking the horn. Sasha and Buddleia waved after them and closed the doors of the large shed. Sasha also took off the flowery bedsheet again and hung it from the cabinet in the bedroom to dry, as the light drizzle of rain was still coming down and had soaked the fabric pretty good.
Standing by the large pond with their arms around each other, the tall human woman and the fluffy vulpine taur smiled as they looked at the water and every now and then saw some of the large fish slowly swooping by - mainly the few yellow ones which were indeed quite visible in the clear water. How about that; new livestock! Perhaps not really in a very traditional sense, and certainly very unexpected, but it could still be counted as another step forward.
Their future baths in the pond were certainly going to be interesting, though.
