Budget wisely. Spend your money sensibly. Don't go on sudden shopping sprees.
Such wise words to live by. But... what happened when one finds themselves with a sudden sizeable amount of money? ...Right. A shopping spree usually ensues. Even when it's the only money available and it's well known that the money needs to be made to last, the temptation to make frivolous purchases is often too strong to resist.
Even on Butterfly Farm.
It all started with a phonecall to the Ag Co-op. Or to be fair, it started with the sale of the first batch of silage bales and getting a hair over seventeen thousand dollars into the company account. Of course that was a joyous occasion. And the tall human woman Sasha even made a point of it to remind both herself and her purple and white vixen-taur wife Buddleia of the fact that they would need to spend that money wisely so they could make improvements to the small, old farm. It might be not that run-down anymore, it had been quite effectively raised from its rut and was beginning to come back around, but it would still take quite some time before it would be sufficiently profitable to justify frivolous purchases.
Sasha had laid out a quite strict plan. Start with taking apart the Deutz Fahr combine harvester and see what parts needed replacing and which parts could still be repaired. There should not be too much needed in the way of replacements, as Buddleia had ran the harvester only five years earlier for the last time. But whatever money was not going to be spent on the harvester would be spent on making repairs to the 1959 Skoda 706 RT grain truck once they had swapped in the running engine from the similar 1963 Skoda 706 RT tanker truck. And there was a budget for groceries, of course, and for regular gasoline, but the rest of the money would be saved so that when the other two batches of silage bales had been sold, they would have the money needed to expand the farm a bit with the purchase of some more land.
After a morning routine of breakfast, a bath in the pond, feeding the chickens, gathering the eggs, feeding the rabbits and Choco the goat, milking Choco and filtering, chilling and bottling the milk, and making more cheeses with the oldest milk in storage, the two of them had walked to the backside of the farm to have a look at the two rear fields. The winter rye had grown another inch, waving calmly in the cool morning breeze. Turning to the right, Sasha remarked on the strange shape of the field on that side which Buddleia's grandparents had used to grow sunflowers on. It did have a rather unusual sort of L-shape, the short part of the L dipping into an opening in the small forest that covered the low hill behind the silo and the shed, and the long part of the L running along and across the side of the low hill off towards the right, following the dirt road that ran behind the farm.
As they walked down the dirt road to look at the other side of the small forest, Sasha pointed out it would be the handiest to purchase the field that ran from the right side of the forest all the way to the dirt road that ran in front of the farm, so they would own the entire large rectangle of land which would allow them to divide it up into more logically shaped fields. Turning back towards the farm again, Sasha also glanced at the field that lightly sloped away from the other side of the dirt road and then up towards a small, elongated forest several dozens of yards in the distance.
She tilted her head when she spotted an anomaly between the flowers that were displaying their most brilliant end of season colors.
"Are those property markers?" she wondered aloud, crossing the road and stepping into the long grass, pushing it aside to reveal a stake painted an almost luminous orange. "They are! These are property markers! So this field is divided in some way, looks like..." She took a few steps back and looked across the dirt road, "...at the very edge of our property on that side. That looks suspiciously like our property line extending from that side across this road towards that forest over there."
Buddleia let go a sudden and quite loud yip, lifting her head with a shock and with her ears perked straight up and her golden eyes wide open.
"Sasha! Grandparents mow grass in that field sometime! When waiting for crops to grow, they make hay with grass from that field! It may be part of the farm!"
"That... would explain why they had a tedder despite only baling the straw left over after harvest," Sasha said slowly, running a hand over her chin with her head a bit tilted, her lips slowly forming into a mild grin. "But are you seriously telling me here that..." She made a sweeping gesture at the large stretch of land with an arm, "...all those acres are part of your farm's grounds and you never even knew about it, fuzzbutt?"
"I never pay much mind!" Buddleia said, shaking her head. "Grandparents only make hay sometimes, and not anymore last several years they alive. I forgot about!" She lifted her feral forepaws off the ground and pivoted on her feral rear feet, turning towards and trotting over to the farm. "I go look!"
She was already down the dirt path between the two rear fields by the time Sasha had even reached that path. Slowly shaking her head with a bit of amusement, the lanky human woman walked over to, and into, the small farmhouse, finding Buddleia standing on her feral hind feet on the kitchen counter with her feral forepaws on the flat ceiling over the small bathroom, her upper body leaning over to reach and pull near a box from which she was pulling old papers, checking them and almost tossing them aside.
"Hey hey hey!" Sasha said with a soft laugh. "Don't make such a mess, fuzzbutt! Take that whole box down and let's go through it calmly!"
She started picking up several papers that had whirled to the floor as Buddleia pulled them from the box, while the vulpine taur gave a nod of her head and picked up the entire box in her arms and pivoted on her feral rear feet again to jump to the floor.
"What is all this, anyway?" Sasha wondered, checking some of the papers she had picked up. "Oh, okay, these look like farm records. Wow, your grandmother must have been the record-keeper; this is beautiful handwriting."
"Grandmother keep records, yes," Buddleia nodded, carrying the box over to the small desk she had built for Sasha's laptop and printer and setting it down. "She teach me to write, and she always say; write so people able to read it, and like to read it."
"Were you home-schooled, then?" Sasha smiled. "I thought you would have gone to that school in Rolling Hills?"
"I did, yes, but I already able to write by then because grandmother teach me," Buddleia nodded again.
"Impressive," Sasha smiled, neatly stacking all the papers she had picked up. "Now, take out all those papers in that box and let's go through them from the bottom up, okay? If there's some kind of ground plan of this farm, it's likely one of the first papers in there."
Buddleia gave another nod of her head and reached into the box to take out thick stacks of papers, turning them over and laying them on the desk to keep them in order. Once all the papers were out of the box, Sasha sat down on the chair and started checking the papers, handing them back to the purple and white vixen-taur to put back into the box. Folded between two double-folded papers, the freckled human woman found a very old paper that was yellow with age, and even brown along the folds. She very carefully unfolded it and lay it on the small desk, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose as she leaned over to study the faded lines and symbols on the paper.
"I think this is the one, babe," she smiled. "This looks like a ground plan. Let's see... if that little rectangle represents the farm house, then... that over there is the road that runs in front of the farm, this here is the road that runs along the back, and that is the road that leads to the sawmill. So that means these hatched parts represent the wooded areas." She slowly shook her head. "God dammit babe, I wish you had remembered this sooner. Look at that; those lines are the property lines, and they do include that whole stretch of land on the other side of that road out back! All the way up to that narrow forest! Do you know what that means?"
"That means is our land!" Buddleia nodded with a smile that displayed the lower halves of her upper canine teeth.
"And that means there's a good forty grand in silage sitting out there we should have mowed and baled before the rain came!" Sasha said with a playful smirk. "But maybe it's not too late yet; let's have a look at the weather forecasts." She booted up her laptop and checked the forecasts for the next two weeks. "Hmm. Couple of days of rain after tomorrow, but it clears up after that and stays dry and sunny for at least a week. We can start mowing by the end of the week, that grass should have dried and lifted back up enough by then to make that possible and not have too much moisture in it when we bale it. And this..!" She put a hand on the yellowed paper. "This is almost parchment, it's so old! When was this farm first established? Did your grandparents build it? Wait, no, you said that rifle belonged to their grandparents in the late nineteenth century, so were they the first?"
"No, farm already be here hundreds of years by then," Buddleia said with a smile that still just displayed the lower halves of her upper canine teeth. "Grandfather tell me Silvercreek clan first farmers of this valley, they make farms here in seventeen hundreds. Seventeen..." She crinkled her slender muzzle in thought. "...forty-one? Seventeen forty-one or fifty-one, I not remember."
Sasha almost choked on her own breath.
"Jeezus fuck!" She coughed and shook her head. "Don't tell me they established Rolling Hills too!"
Buddleia shook her head with a light chirp.
"No, village come later, in eighteen hundreds sometime. Grandfather of grandfather bought rifle at first Stebbins General Store back then."
"Holy hell!" Sasha said loudly, shaking her head again. "Talk about goddam history! Then this is a damn historic document by now! Jeezus, I hope Dan has a digital copy of it, because this one is about ready to fall apart. Here, put it away very carefully, fuzzbutt, I gotta go and call Dan."
Buddleia nodded with a smile and very carefully folded the yellowed paper back up and put it back between the sheets of double-folded paper it had come from before placing it into the box. Sasha took off her glasses to press her fingers into her eyes for a moment, then took her phone, swiped to the contacts list, tapped the number for the Co-op and set the loudspeaker function so she could lay the phone on the small desk and have her hands free to clean her glasses.
"Sasha! I was just about to call you! What a coincidence!"
"That's some timing indeed. Tell me about your reason for needing to call me in a minute, Dan, because I first have to ask you something super important."
"That sounds... well, important. What can I do for you, Sasha?"
"I just got the shock of the century. We found property markers on the other side of that road that runs along the back of our farm, so I asked Leia if there was a ground plan of this farm somewhere. She found it, and it's a goddam historic document that belongs in a damn museum! Apparently this farm was established sometime during the seventeen forties or seventeen fifties! Please tell me you have a digital copy of the deed and the plan of the farm grounds?"
"Wow! I knew that farm had been around for a long time, but that's almost ridiculous! I had no idea! But yes, since we mediate for the Arfajia Province land council, we have files on all the land in the valley here, including the deeds and ground plans of all the enterprises. So I do in fact have a plan of Butterfly Farm on file."
"Pull it and check it for me, would you please? According to that historic document we found, our grounds include that whole stretch between the road behind us and that narrow forest back there."
"Possible! Very possible! Give me a moment, Sasha." There was a distant sound of clicking and typing for several moments before the voice of the lion Ag agent returned. "Yes, you are correct, Sasha. The grounds of the original Silvercreek Farm formed a large rectangle enclosed by the roads on the south and west side, the forest on the north side, and a dirt path connecting the north and south roads on the east side."
"Are you fucking telling me that field to the right of the pond that I asked you about belongs to this farm too?!"
"It used to, but not anymore. According to the files here, that chunk of land was sold off shortly after the first world war, near the end of nineteen eighteen. They must've been strapped for cash after the war, I'd wager."
"Oh, okay. Heh... I don't suppose we could lay claim on that land because it used to originally be part of this farm, right?"
"Haha! No, unfortunately, it was officially sold off, so if you want to bring the farm back to its original shape and layout, you will have to buy that chunk of land back from the province. I might be able to finagle a discount for you when you do, though, so you could maybe buy it back for the price that was paid for it in nineteen eighteen."
"If you could manage that, I'll grind a whole deer into sausages and cover you in several times your own weight in sausages, Dan, haha."
"Damn well worth it! I'll do my best for you, Sasha, haha!"
"Okay, but there's no rush. Because this means we have a whole huge goddam chunk of land we need to mow and bale first, and I still need to grow a ton of thyme and green onions for those sausages. But listen, Dan, since you just saved us over fifty grand on expansion costs, we now have some funds to play with, and I need a few things from you."
"That's what I was going to call you about, Sasha. I got a tractor for you! It's got a bit more horsepower than the range you specified, but I hardly think that would be a problem, would it?"
"Hell no, the more the better I'd say, so long as it's affordable. So what are we talking about here, Dan?"
"Nineteen seventy-three Massey Ferguson eleven thirty-five. It's got a hundred thirty-five horsepower, a whisker under six thousand hours on the counter, and it comes with a front loader with pallet forks and a thousand-liter bucket, and a grader on the rear three-point plus a towed batwing mulcher."
"That sounds like it's either too good to be true, or like we won't be able to afford it."
"Thirty-five hundred and it's yours. It was a trade-in at the Arfafield Co-op by some landscaping company, and Jack jumped at the chance to go pick it up. Between you and me, he's so keen on driving to Arfafield all the time I'm thinking he may have a boyfriend there."
"You're tempting me badly, Dan. How much less will it be if we trade in our fifty-two horsepower Hanomag tractor? We've serviced it so it's very reliable again, we put the half cab of the other Hanomag on it and we painted it. And if you have a mulcher as well, we'll also trade in our two-blade deck mower, which is also refreshed and painted; heck, we'll attach it to that tractor, it can run that thing pretty decently. Not sure how many hours it has on the clock though, that stopped working around forty-two hundred a long time ago."
"I'll give you five hundred trade-in for that."
"Sold! We'll be there in four hours, Dan!"
"I'll have it sitting out front for you, Sasha. Was there anything else you needed? You said you needed a few things from me."
"Yes. We've been trying to pull the motors out of those trucks with that engine hoist you gave us, and we encountered a problem."
"It doesn't fit."
"It fits well enough, but it won't roll very well on the dirt. Not to mention not at all. Even on that very hard-packed dirt in the shed, the moment we hook the motor to it and start pulling, the wheels dig into the ground."
"Right, that's a problem. So you need, what, concrete?"
"Or pavers at least."
"Ah! In that case, I have a gift for you!"
"You're too generous, Dan. Keep that up, because fuck me does it help us out. What'cha got?"
"A pallet full of fifty by fifty centimeter concrete paving slabs that were probably left over from building the pyramids, because they've been sitting here about that long. And they take up space and make the yard look untidy, so please take them?"
"Alright, I'll be generous too and rid you of that rubble in your yard. Thanks so much, Dan, that's really a big help. Would you also happen to have a steel I-beam laying around and a good sturdy pulley or two and some lengths of thick chain that would fit around those pulleys?"
"Ah, hmm... chains and pulleys we have, I'm not sure about any I-beams though. I'll have to check around for that."
"Two big sturdy pulleys and several yards of chain with hooks will already do, the beam will be a bonus if you can find one."
"Four hours should be enough for me to go searching around the yard. Anything else?"
"That was it for now, but I do have another question. Will all that stuff fit on the back of our flatbed truck?"
"I don't think so. That batwing thing has a pretty long tongue and it's quite big. You'd be better off bringing your trailer, just to be on the safe side."
"We'll do that then, it's about high time that thing starts earning the new tires we put on it. See you in about four hours, and thank you so much again, Dan."
"I'll be looking forward to your arrival, Sasha."
The contact was cut, and Sasha tapped out her phone and looked up at Buddleia who had in the meantime put all the papers back into the box. There was a smile on the vulpine taur's face big enough to expose her upper canines and the tip of her dark pink tongue.
"I never bought new equipment before! This be exciting, Sasha!"
"Hell yeah, that's one helluva deal Dan has," Sasha nodded with a smile of her own. "Well, we better go see if we can get that little old tractor onto the trailer! That's gonna be a bit of a challenge, I would think, since we have no loading ramps or nothing."
"We have beams and planks, we make ramps!" Buddleia smiled.
Sasha nodded again.
"That'll be our best bet. Meet you in the shed, fuzzbutt!"
She got up from the chair after shutting off her laptop and walked out of the small house. Buddleia took the box in both arms again and jumped back onto the counter so she could put the box back on the flat ceiling over the small bathroom. Out in the rickety open shed, Sasha got into the 1953 MAZ-200 truck, started it and drove it around to hitch the bale trailer to it, pulling the combination out onto the driveway. She was carrying several of the thick planks they still had in stock over to the back of the trailer when Buddleia also walked out of the house and grabbed several of the wood beams to carry them over to the back of the trailer as well.
Setting three of the beams up against each other on each corner of the trailer and covering them with the planks, they made some makeshift ramps. Not the most elegant solution, as the ends of the beams and planks stuck up over the deck of the trailer a decent bit, but it was the best they could do. Buddleia strapped the sets of beams and planks together with some straps while Sasha got onto the old little Hanomag tractor they had put the half cab on and had painted in their muted light lavender color, maneuvering it around so she could hitch the deck mower to the back of it. Very carefully, she drove the combination onto the sets of beams and planks, manipulating the throttle lever back and forth to make the small tractor climb the makeshift ramps carefully. They bowed and creaked a bit, so once the rear wheels were on as well, Sasha gave the throttle lever a yank to make the small tractor lunge forwards and onto the deck of the bale trailer.
With both feet planted on both brake pedals, the human woman managed to stop the tractor before it bumped into the rack at the front of the trailer. Buddleia slid the makeshift ramps onto the trailer as well, and with several more ratchet straps they strapped everything down to the deck of the trailer as tight as they could get it. Sasha went into the house and stepped into the small bedroom to put on a shirt and a pair of shorts, making sure she put everything with her that she would need to bring, while Buddleia prepared some sandwiches and drinks as it would be well into lunchtime by the time they'd get to the Co-op. After also putting a shirt on her upper body, the vixen-taur brought the old little cooler over to the old MAZ truck and climbed into the cab, settling her quadruped lower body down in the passenger footwell. Sasha got behind the wheel after a last check of the straps, pulled the truck over to the large old diesel tank and topped up the truck's tank for the long drive.
She had also brought the phone holder with the suction cup so she could attach her phone to one of the windshields. Not that she needed the GPS app to tell her how to get to the Co-op, but she could let it play a Spotify playlist so they wouldn't go raving mad from the noise during the four-hour trip. While driving, they also talked a bit about obtaining some essentials and non-essentials for the house, as finding out they owned more land than they had been aware of had theoretically saved them several tens of thousands of dollars in money they would not have to spend in the coming months, which in turn meant they had some room in their finances to play with. Getting new panes of glass for the cracked windows of the house would be a nice thing to spend some of that money on, if the hardware store in Rolling Hills would have proper glass available, and Sasha was actually quite interested in visiting the spinnery and weaving workshop to look for a rug or two, and possibly have some sofa cushions prepared for either a frame Buddleia could build, or one made by the joiners who were getting close to moving into the small village.
That would still have to wait until the next day, however, as it was already quite the trip to the Co-op, and they wanted to get the new equipment back as soon as possible. Besides, with a day or two of rain showers predicted, nothing could be done on the land anyway which would provide an opportunity to spend a day traveling to and from the small village.
Arriving at the Ag Co-op, Sasha had to park the truck and trailer quite off to the side of the yard, as in front of the building, near the large garage doors, a sun-baked, faded red tractor with a white roof was sitting, slightly larger than the Fiat tractor they had at the farm. On the right side, the L-shaped hood was quite scuffed and only showed faint remnants of the tractor's designation, but on the left side the silver-colored band over the side of the hood was still intact, showing the large capitols MF near the cab, the name Massey Ferguson along the side and the number 1135 near the front. There was a pair of large round work lights facing rearwards on the back fenders, and three rectangular work lights facing forwards on the front edge of the roof, from which also a single wiper came down over the windshield. A straight pipe with a flapper valve stuck up from the top of the hood and reached to above the top of the roof, accompanied further forwards by a much shorter pipe ending in a round wire mesh cage holding an air filter holder. The exposed engine was partially obscured by a set of hydraulic arms following the line of the hood and dipping down at the front, ending in a frame just below the metal strip functioning as a front bumper to which a set of pallet forks was attached, which carried a scuffed and somewhat rusty bucket and were resting on a pallet full of square concrete slabs stacked twelve high.
The lion Ag agent Daniel was already outside by the time Sasha had parked the truck and she and Buddleia had gotten out. He spread his arms in a cheerful gesture and pointed at the tractor with the index fingers of both paws.
"Sasha, Buddleia! There you are! Ain't she a beauty?"
"In the eye of the beholder, sure," Sasha said with a light snigger. "She can definitely do with a lick of paint at least. But she certainly looks like a very capable machine, Dan, and that will help us out so very much with the work we have at the farm. After all, the machines don't have to look pretty, they just have to work."
"And work she will!" Daniel nodded with a chuckle. "That landscaping company who traded this in has used it for years to grade hills and roadsides and what have you. Here, look at this!" He pointed at the rear of the tractor, where a large steel grader blade on a movable arm was attached to the three-point hitch. Below that, a PTO shaft and a long tongue were attached as well, running towards a wide green-painted steel triangle on small solid rubber wheels, with rounded corners of which both rear corners were folded upwards and resting against a frame on the top. "That's a pretty heavy-duty grader for a tractor this size, but she pulls it no problem. And that big green flat thing is the batwing mulcher; I think you can tell why it's called a batwing."
"Yes, that's a setup I've never seen before, but it looks quite interesting, and seems to have a pretty good spread," Sasha nodded, leaning over a bit to inspect the two folded-up corners. "Three small blades in triangle-arrangement in each of these, wow, I'm impressed."
"Yes, and there's three more large ones under that main deck," Daniel nodded. "Plus some ducts; basically that's the main mower and the ducts direct the mowed grass to those side mowers where it gets mulched. So it actually leaves two swaths in one pull." He let go another light chuckle. "And of course, you can't run it and the grader at the same time, the tongue is very much in the way of the grader, but as you see, you can attach them both to transport them at the same time."
"That can come in handy, I suppose," Sasha nodded. "And I like the front loader, that will make a lot of our work a lot easier as well. Does it come with a weight?"
"No, they basically always had the grader attached and used that as a rear weight," Daniel smiled. "It weighs over five hundred pounds, so that's quite sufficient, I would say."
"That'll work," Sasha nodded again, walking to the front of the tractor and leaning down to look at the square paving slabs, sniggering softly. "So they built pyramids out of these, huh? I didn't know they already had the technology to produce concrete back then, but these look damn good for how old they are." She spotted two large pulleys and a heap of thick chain sitting in the bucket resting on the pallet forks. "Ah, and that's some good chain and good sturdy pulleys, those will certainly hold up to what we're planning to put them through."
"Yes, we didn't have any steel beams laying around unfortunately, but I hope those will do at least," Daniel nodded with another smile. "What are you planning to put them through, if you don't mind me asking?"
"The plan is to hang them from the roof trusses of the open shed and use the chain to lift the cabs of those Skoda trucks," Sasha smiled, standing back upright. "There is just enough room to pull the engines through the opening in the front if we fully remove that panel, because they're inline engines, but the arm of the hoist won't fit over the engine through that opening. So we'll have to disconnect the cab and lift it up at the front at least, because those cabs don't tilt, apparently."
"Right, I see," Daniel nodded. "So one for each truck?"
"No, two for one truck, I want to put them in line and run the chain over both pulleys to spread out the load, because I really don't feel like buckling or even pulling down any of the roof trusses of that shed. It's rickety enough as it is," Sasha said with a light chortle.
"Of course! Safety third and all that," Daniel chuckled, walking over to the trailer behind the old MAZ truck. "And look at how pretty you made this old girl look! You wouldn't say this is a very old and underpowered little tractor."
"It's powerful enough to run that deck mower, if you're not in a hurry," Sasha chortled. "Do you maybe have some good sturdy metal loading ramps laying around here, Dan? We used those bundles of beams and planks to get that tractor on there, and I'm not really keen on trying to get it off the same way and loading this much heavier-looking tractor on there the same way."
"We do have good ramps here, yes," Daniel nodded, letting go another chuckle. "But I'm sorry to tell you that you can't take any of them with you; they're part of our fleet so we have to keep them ourselves."
"Right, well, if we can at least use them here to unload this tractor and load that one, that'll be a big help already," Sasha shrugged with a smile that slowly turned into a mild grin. "And would it be alright if I go dumpster diving again for lengths of square tubing and angle profiles or C-channels?"
Daniel laughed shortly.
"I totally know what you're getting at, Sasha. When we have those tractors swapped out on your trailer, I'll show you around back; there's a bundle of square tubing laying there somewhere that we can save from Jack bringing it to the salvage yard by the end of the month."
"Like, I said, you're too generous, and like I also said, keep that up," Sasha chortled. "Even with a few tens of thousands of bucks saved in purchase costs we no longer have to make, we still need to save our pennies where we can."
"No problem," Daniel smiled. "It's like with those pavers; cluttering up our yard, so whatever you're willing to take, you're welcome to it because it tidies up the place."
"Don't tempt me like that, Dan," Sasha sniggered. "Next thing you'll know I'll have emptied out your yard of everything here, including the dumpsters."
"Let me rephrase that, then," Daniel chuckled. "Whatever you're willing to take, of the useless trash and clutter, you're welcome to."
"That sounds more like it," Sasha chortled, beginning to undo straps. "Now; ramps?"
"Right," Daniel nodded. "Buddleia, mind giving me a hand? Those things are kinda heavy."
"I help, yes," Buddleia nodded with a smile.
She followed the light tan lion man over to the open-front buildings where heavy machinery was sitting in. Moments later they walked back to the old lavender truck, carrying two long steel ramps covered in diamond-tread aluminium between them. Sasha had undone all the straps holding down the old little Hanomag tractor and had started it, slowly backing it towards the rear end of the trailer. Daniel and Buddleia set the steel ramps up against the rear edge, shifting them towards each other a bit so the wheels of the old little lavender tractor would fit on them. Sasha drove the old lavender tractor off the trailer and parked it off to the side, shutting off the engine again.
Before driving the faded red Massey Ferguson tractor onto the trailer, Daniel instructed Sasha on the operation of the front loader by setting the bucket with the chains and pulleys in it onto the deck of the trailer, after which Sasha gave it a try by lifting the pallet full of concrete paving slabs and setting that down on the deck of the trailer as well, all the way in the front. Driving the old red tractor onto the trailer, the human woman pulled it all the way to the front as well until its small front wheels touched against the pallet. The triangular mulcher deck scraped on the ramps a bit, but it followed the tractor onto the deck easily enough, and there was plenty of space on the quite long trailer. Sasha rested the forks down on the pallet full of paving slabs again and Buddleia lay the bucket back onto the forks while Sasha started strapping down the tractor, mulcher and the pallet.
As Buddleia helped Daniel carry the ramps back to the open-front buildings, Sasha accompanied them and looked around a bit at the large vehicles and machinery. In one of the buildings, she noticed rows and rows of racks stacked with pallets which were stacked with bags and waved Daniel over.
"Hey Dan, do you have any grass seed amongst all that stuff? Something like a bit of a wild mix or something? We want to keep at least one of our fields as grass to make hay and silage, so we're looking to reseed one of the fields with field grass to get a better yield out of it than that wild grass that's growing there now."
"Plot seed is over there on that side," Daniel pointed while also walking over to where he was pointing, gesturing at a couple of rows of pallets. "This is our selection right here; we even have some cool-weather grasses here, and a few mixes. What in particular are you looking for?"
"Something that gives good yield, and is primarily suitable for feeding our goat and our rabbits," Sasha said. "And it should make Simon and Harry happy as well, because we'll only use a handful of bales from one cut and sell the rest to them."
"I'd advice mixing some of these in that case," Daniel said, motioning at some of the pallets. "Like here, that's a fescue mix, it's a blend of red fescue, ryegrass and brome grass. That there is Orchard grass, and over there is Timothy grass, they're used for mixing with other blends, which is why those bags are smaller. I would say a one to one to one mix would be your best bet; you'll get a mix of cooler and hotter climate grasses, all with good yield." He scratched the back of his head for a moment. "Although if you want to be real nice to your bunnies, I'd say mix it one to two to one; one Orchard grass, two Timothy grass and one mixed fescue. The Timothy is very fiber-rich, which is better for digestion of horses and rabbits in particular. Oh, and I have some leftover bags of flowering perennials I'll throw in for you, there's Birdsfoot Trefoil with those and your bunnies will adore that. The others are Sainfoin and Cicer Milkvetch, but you might wanna keep those separated because they're ground coverers and may choke out the other grasses, so just sow that stuff in places you want a nice ground cover with pretty flowers that you can mow, like around your pond for instance."
"Alright, sounds like that might make for a nice look in that narrow strip between our driveway and the pond," Sasha nodded with a smile. "What'll be the cost?"
"Ten bucks a pound for the Timothy and Orchard, but you get much better value at larger quantities; the twenty-five pound bags are a hundred twenty bucks each. The fescue mix is fifteen bucks a pound, same deal; hundred forty-seven for the twenty-five pound bags. And the deal even extends with the number of bags; there's twenty-five bags on a pallet, and each pallet comes to a thousand bucks," Daniel summed up.
Sasha nodded slowly again, pulling a wrinkle into her forehead. For several moments, she stood silently, with a hand on her chin and tapping her index finger against her cheek, eventually looking up.
"We'll take three pallets; one of each. That should be more than enough to reseed one of our fields, and possibly enough to reseed another down the line if need be. Does that seed keep well?"
"I'll bring them out for you," Daniel nodded, letting go a chuckle. "And so long as you don't put it in the ground, the seeds will keep amazingly well. These bags have been laying here for a few years already, and as soon as you dump them out on the soil, they'll start growing."
Sasha shook her head and sniggered softly.
"Of course, the age-old joke; if you don't use it, it will last forever. But that's good to know, because I'm sure we'll have plenty left over once we make a mixture from those three types to reseed one field with. Do we need to make some room on the trailer?"
"Nah, I'll put them on the back of your truck," Daniel smiled. "Go on inside and ask Clarissa for a cup of tea, it'll be a bit before I get all this stuff outside."
"Thanks, we'll do that," Sasha nodded. With a cheerful laugh, she sat down on the back of Buddleia's quadruped lower body and lay a hand on one of her upper shoulders. "Heigh ho, Silver! Off we go!"
Buddleia laughed cheerfully as well and actually reared up for a moment before trotting off towards the large main building with Sasha on her back. Stepping inside through the large glass doors and over to the counter, the rust-colored and white Border Collie woman chortled softly as well when she saw them coming in. Sasha cheerily hopped off Buddleia's feral lower back once they were at the counter and smiled.
"Miss Stebbins, how nice to see you again!"
"It's very nice to see you again as well, missus Farr and missus Farr," the canine woman smiled. "What can I do for you?"
"Please, do call me Sasha," Sasha smiled. "Dan's gathering seeds for us, he said you could provide us with a cup of tea while we wait?"
"And my name still Buddleia, you not need call me missus," Buddleia chirped a chortle.
"Of course, but then I insist you call me Clarissa as well," the rust-colored and white Border Collie woman smiled. "Please have a seat, I'll be out with some tea in a moment."
She turned and disappeared through the door behind the counter. Sasha sat down in one of the chairs by the counter, while Buddleia lay down on the chest and tummy of her quadruped lower body next to the chair. Leaning on the counter a bit, they looked out through the wall of glass doors and windows, seeing Daniel driving a forklift holding a pallet full of bags over to their lavender truck and placing it on the flat bed, pushing it all the way forwards before driving back off. A moment or two later the Border Collie woman returned as well, carrying a tray with two cups of tea, small spoons and a bowl with sugarcubes which she set down on the counter.
Calmly sipping their tea, the two women kept looking at the lion man driving back and forth a couple of times with a pallet on the forklift and setting it down on the flat bed of the lavender truck. Sasha noticed the last pallet had several extra bags stacked on top of the bags already on there - those were probably those flowering perennials Dan had mentioned. Driving away in the forklift a last time, the lion man walked into the building through one of the side doors several moments later and stepped over to and behind the counter, doing some typing and clicking on the computer. Sasha gave a playful moan as she beeped her company bank card and keyed in the code to process the $6000 payment, but at least they got a truck and trailer full of stuff in return for it.
And that wasn't even the end of it, as after a receipt had been printed out, Daniel led the way for Sasha and Buddleia through one of the back doors and through the storage yard behind the building. Hidden out of sight behind some of the open-front buildings were heaps and stacks of discarded metal, amongst which was a sizeable bundle of lengths of square tubing and angle profiles tied together with baling wire. With Sasha's help, Buddleia picked up the entire bundle and carried it around the right side of the main building and over to the truck and trailer. Sasha undid some of the straps again so Buddleia could lay the bundle on the deck of the trailer along the simple wood ramps they had made, after which Sasha strapped everything back down as tight as she could get it.
With some cheerful waves, they said their goodbyes and got back into the truck to undertake the long drive back towards the farm. It took a bit longer, with the quite heavy load there were now pulling, but it was still light by the time they arrived back at the farm. Swinging the truck and trailer around in front of the rickety open shed and parking it, they undid all the straps again and set up the ramps made of wood beams and planks to see if they would hold - but the serious creaking sounding out the moment the rear wheels of the Massey Ferguson tractor set down upon the wood ramps made them decide not to risk it and leave everything where it was until the next day.
The next morning, after their whole routine of breakfast, bathing, caring for the animals and processing the milk, Sasha put on a fresh shirt and pair of shorts again before walking outside with Buddleia.
"You're so much better at welding, so I'll leave it to you to make some good sturdy ramps out of all those square tubes and angle profiles, fuzzbutt," Sasha smiled. "Try to make them as long as you can, so the approach angle is not too abrupt, okay?"
"I do, Sasha, yes," Buddleia nodded with a smile that showed the ends of her upper canine teeth. "When you in town, ask missus Dobbart for rubber bands again maybe? Is enough blueberries and blackberries for jam, but I running low on rubber bands again, I make so much plum jam, yee hee!"
"I'll ask her," Sasha promised with a smile. "If you get as far as to unload everything before I get back and you want to start using those pavers, start in the workshop, alright? I rather have the whole floor of the workshop paved first, and we can make a strip in this shed with the ones that are left over to roll that engine hoist on. They'll have to come back up eventually, because I do want to replace this shed at some point, so it'll be no use making a large paved area in here, I really rather have the workshop floor paved first."
"Is good idea, yes," Buddleia nodded again. "Oh, and ask Warmelink sisters if they maybe have organic cotton cloth? Untreated, couple or three yards or so if they have, please?"
"You got it, babe," Sasha smiled, playfully booping the cool, damp black pad of Buddleia's nose and winking. "But what should I do if they start flirting with me again?"
Buddleia wiggled her bristly whiskers and giggled in short staccato yips, flicking out her tongue at Sasha's finger.
"Kiss them! Big big deep kiss like you give me, yes, yee hee! And De Verley sisters too!"
Sasha laughed and gave her head an amused shake.
"Yeah, okay, you're nuts. But you got it, babe, I'll do that; should shut them up pretty effectively, for a couple moments at least, haha."
"Good! Tell me if they do when you back!" Buddleia chirped another giggle
She hugged Sasha, and crooned happily when the lanky human woman pressed a deep kiss onto her lips as well. With another cheerful wink, Sasha trailed her fingers along the side of Buddleia's slender muzzle again as she turned and walked over to the open area in front of the shed. Getting into the 1956 Citroen 2CV AZU, she calmly drove off and honked the cutely cracking horn as she made her way down the driveway and onto the wide dirt road.
A Virgin Snow double-album CD in the Volvo's old radio/CD player combatted the noise of the little old engine for two hours and four minutes. The final song coming around for the second time got cut off right at the intro as Sasha shut off the engine after parking the old delivery vehicle on one of the parking spaces between the garage and the hardware store when she had reached the small village. Some mail was picked up at the post office, and at her question about rubber bands, the tan and gray mouse woman produced another large glass jar half filled with rubber bands. This time, Sasha came prepared; she had brought a small square plastic storage box with a lid to put all the rubber bands in so Mrs. Dobbart could keep the glass jar behind the counter.
With the mail and the box of rubber bands put back into the old Citroen, Sasha calmly walked over to the hardware store. She fought the urge to slam the door behind her as the charcoal gray and white skunk man was stocking a shelf with small boxes, and just greeted him cheerfully.
"Morning, Paul!"
The skunk man looked around and smiled.
"Ah, good morning, Sasha! Nice to see you! What can I do for you?"
"I'm looking for glass, Paul," Sasha smiled. "Small panes, forty by forty centimeters and preferably twelve millimeters thick, or thicker if you have it. Do you actually have any glass?"
"It counts as hardware, in a way, so I do in fact sell glass panels," Paul nodded with a light chuckle. "Forty square, you said? I can cut those for you, how many do you need?"
"I need ten at least, it's for the windows in our house," Sasha smiled. "But if the way you cut them leaves you with extras, I'll take one or two extra as well."
"Let's go have a look," the skunk man smiled. "Follow me, Sasha."
He led the way towards the back of the store, and into the storage room. Halfway down the storage room he turned into a room to the right and switched on the lights. Sasha tilted her head a bit as she saw a very large cutting table sitting in the middle of the room, with a console connected to it, while in racks along the walls sat large panels of glass in various thicknesses.
"That's some seriously expensive professional equipment for a hardware store in a tiny village, Paul," she remarked.
"And the only piece of expensive kit in this whole store," Paul chuckled. "I picked it up second-hand in Bronto Valley as an investment I really felt I needed."
"In a town as tiny as this?" Sasha smiled with a light grin.
"Yes indeed," the skunk man nodded, switching on the console attached to the table. "I'm the only one here who sells glass cut to size, and people here do sometimes need a new pane, you know. Especially now, with those new buildings going up. I used to cut by hand, but after almost losing a finger for the third time I thought it was about time to automate the process, because I'm quite attached to my fingers." He started checking several of the sheets of glass in the racks with a caliper tool. "Twelve millimeters you said, right?"
"That makes a lot of sense," Sasha nodded with a chortle. "Yes please, twelve millimeters, sixteen if you have it, and if neither, ten will do."
"Hmm... twelve it is, I don't have enough sixteen to make ten forty by forties," Paul said, checking a few more of the sheets of glass.
"In that case, can you give me two forty by forty centimeter panes of sixteen millimeters, and eight of twelve?" Sasha smiled. "The window over the kitchen counter has only two panes, and I want to make it openable."
"That I can do," Paul nodded with a smile.
Utilizing handles with two large suction cups on each side, the charcoal gray and white skunk man picked up a panel of quite thick glass that had several squares taken out of one of the sides and set it in some long loading forks sticking up on one side of the table. He turned to the console and did some clicking and typing on a keyboard and mouse, pulling shapes into a program and entering the desired dimensions. After hitting a large button below the screen of the console, the table hummed into life; the forks lifted and tilted, sliding the sheet of glass onto the surface where other arms centered and squared it. Another arm spanning the width of the table moved over the surface, a large head on it beginning to move back and forth until it reached the edge, tracing out a square shape, then another one, then returning to its first position and lowering a bit to retrace the two square shapes with low screeching sounds.
As the arms moved the main sheet of glass back onto the loading forks which lifted and tilted again, two small squares of glass remained on the surface of the table. Paul picked them up one by one and ran the edges along a polishing wheel attached to a workbench against the wall the console was also sitting against. He ran his thumb across the polished edges and nodded, setting both square panes in a small rack on the workbench and using the suction cups to pick up the large sheet of glass and setting it back in the rack he had taken it from. Picking up another, even larger but slightly thinner sheet of glass to set it in the loading forks, he repeated the entire process, with the only difference being that it took a while longer as the table cut eight panes of forty by forty centimeters rather than just two. All of those also had their edges ran along the polishing wheel and were set in the small rack on the workbench so the large sheet of glass could be taken from the loading forks and set into its rack.
Taking a small square box, the charcoal gray and white skunk man put a layer of wood wool in the bottom and carefully lay the small square panes of glass in the box one by one, with thin strips of styrofoam in between them, and more wood wool packed and stuffed all around the edges once all ten panes were placed in the box. He closed the box with a strip of tape and held it up with a smile.
"And there you go, ten panes of glass, forty by forty centimeters, two of sixteen millimeters thick and eight of twelve millimeters thick. The sixteen mil ones are on the bottom."
"Awesome, thank you so much," Sasha smiled. "I'm quite impressed by that machine, I have to say." She followed Paul out of the room and back through the store to the counter. "Oh, and I'm gonna need two large hinges, one of those C-channels that pivots, with holes in it, and some kind of glazing putty or caulk or silicone or something. What would you recommend?"
"They're all outside windows, right?" Paul said, nodding as Sasha nodded. "Right, just a sec." He walked into one of the aisles, returning a few moments later with two hinges, a long window latch and a small bucket and a packet holding small metal push points, setting them on the counter. "This is all you'll be needing. These push points will keep your panes in places while you seal them, and this is pre-mixed latex putty, so it'll stay a bit flexible and won't crack over time, and there's an applicator on the inside of the lid."
"Fantastic," Sasha smiled with a light chortle. "And while I'm here on a spending spree; do you have a decent amount of plaster? The inside walls of our house are plastered, and it's cracking all over the place and has crumbled away in several spots, so we're looking to redo it."
"One more sec," Paul chuckled, walking off again and returning a few moments later with seven half-gallon-sized buckets. "This is all I have at the moment, will this be enough?"
"Should be plenty, our house is quite small," Sasha nodded with a smile. "And I'm gonna experiment by mixing it with paint before applying so it's colored right away and we won't have to paint it later." She let go a chortle. "Hey, and if we chip off all the old plaster and grind it into powder, do you reckon we could use it again if we mix it with water?"
Paul laughed shortly while setting the buckets on the counter.
"I'm not sure, actually. If it's gypsum plaster, chances are that might work. But here's what I would do; chip off the old stuff, you need to do that anyway, grind it into powder and then mix it with this and the paint. That should make this last longer as well."
"That's a good idea, we'll do that," Sasha nodded with a chortle. "Okay, last thing; I'll need two of those boards with a handle on one side, and two of those big rectangular applicators."
"Of course, I should have grabbed those while I was there," Paul chuckled. Once again he walked off, and returned again a moment or two later with the requested tools. "There, are you sure that's all you need?"
"I'm pre-e-etty sure," Sasha nodded with a laugh.
Paul laughed shortly again as well as he started hitting keys on the register, adding up the total and smiling as Sasha paid.
"Need help carrying it to your car, Sasha?"
"If you could carry that box with the glass panes, then please," Sasha nodded with a smile, picking up the other items. "I'd rather not risk dropping that, and if you drop it, at least I can demand free replacements."
"Haha! That's fair," Paul nodded with another laugh.
He took the box and led the way out of the store, holding the door open for Sasha as the human woman had her arms full of buckets and such. By the old Citroen, Sasha stepped over to the rear of it and stuck out her right hip with a chortle.
"Keys are in my pocket, could you get them and unlock these doors for me, please?"
Paul laughed and nodded, holding the box under an arm while carefully reaching into Sasha's pocket to take the car keys, unlocking the rear doors of the 2CV's cargo box and opening them. Sasha leaned over and pretty much let all the buckets and applicators spill from her arms before standing back up straight and taking the keys from Paul's paw.
"Thanks, we'll put that box on the passenger's seat, that's safer."
She unlocked and opened the rear-hinged passenger door to let Paul set the box of glass panes on the passenger seat. Closing all doors and sticking the keys back in her pocket, Sasha walked back up the main road with the skunk man and said goodbye as he stepped into the hardware store while she herself walked on towards the spinnery further up the road.
Stepping into the fairly large building and looking around, Sasha couldn't help letting go another chortle. The building was divided into three sections, with a store section at the very front and a workshop behind that; in there, on the right, were a couple of mechanical spinning wheels as well as a pedal-operated manual one, while along the left side were several different upright looms. By the spinning wheels were two women, one of them a Bettong woman with fur in an agouti pattern of gray with yellow and cream and short, pale blonde hair, the other a Keeshond woman with magnificently plush fur in cream and bluish gray and dark steel-gray hair. The combination of a heap of thick cream and gray fluff laying by the spinning wheel and the spitz-like dog woman's clothes fitting quite loosely around her body indicated that she was actually spinning her own thick fur into threads.
Two of the upright looms on the other side of the room were operated by a pair of almost identical European hamster women with black and tan with yellow fur, one of them with dark blonde hair and the other with almost cream-colored hair, and a third, very similar European hamster woman with black and tan with yellow fur and black hair was sitting in lotus position on a low table, sewing together what looked like a silk shirt. The three of them were obviously sisters, and Sasha knew from a previous experience that one of them, Jasmijn, who went by the anglicized name of Jasmine, the one with the cream-colored hair, tended to be rather theatrical.
Sure enough, as Sasha entered the building, all five women looked up, and the cream-haired hamster woman abandoned her loom and walked over to the front of the room with her arms spread wide and beaming a bright smile.
"Darling! Oh how lovely to see you! Always such a pleasure when you honor our humble workshop with a visit!"
Yep, nothing lost of her theatrics, alright. Sasha grinned slightly to herself; usually she would just chortle and make a friendly joke, but after the things she and Buddleia had recently talked about, the human woman chose to change her tactics. That hamster woman wanted theatrical flirting? She'd get it.
Beaming an even brighter smile, Sasha also spread her arms out wide and stepped through the store section of the front room towards the open screens that sectioned off the room.
"Sweetheart! Always a bright spot of my day to see your sexy self as well! That's worth visiting here even if I don't need any fabric or clothes or whatever!"
The other four women giggled softly as the cream-haired hamster woman actually blushed lightly and dropped her arms to her side. That certainly was not a reaction she had expected.
"Ah... yes... Uhm... That's... certainly nice to hear, dear," she said in a much less flamboyant manner. "So, uh... can I help you?"
"You most definitely can, sweetheart," Sasha nodded with a smile that still showed traces of a grin. "I'm looking for a couple of good rugs for our house, and I do believe this is just the place to find any."
"Ah, of course, we have several rugs you can choose from," the cream-haired hamster woman nodded, smiling again and gesturing with an arm. "Please follow me, darling."
Sasha stepped past the screens into the workshop section of the room and chortled softly at the other women.
"If that's your new way of greeting, I'm all for it, Sasha!" the black-haired hamster woman, Marjolijn, who went by the anglicized name of Mary-Jo, chortled from her low table with a wink.
"Heck yeah, that's right up our end of the street!" the third hamster woman, Rozemarijn, the blonde-haired one who went by the anglicized name of Rosemary, nodded with a cheerful chortle. "What made you change your game, huh?"
"Let's just say Leia and I had a heart to heart about certain things," Sasha grinned.
"Ooo!" the Bettong woman, Bella, crooned with a giggle. "Now that's an implication I like, honey!"
"Yes, well, for now, I'm actually here for rugs," Sasha sniggered. "The kind you lay on the floor under your furniture, to be specific."
All the women laughed cheerfully, and the cream-haired hamster woman pulled near a clothing rack in which a number of rugs were hanging from thin metal holders.
"Here's our selection of rugs you can choose from, darling," she smiled. "Are you looking for anything in particular?"
"Actually, I am," Sasha nodded with a smile. "I want one that's about five feet long and two, two and a half wide, nice and thick and soft, and either oval, or rectangular with rounded corners. Color doesn't really matter too much, to be honest, but something muted would be nice."
"How about this, darling?" Jasmine smiled, pulling forward a rug that was rectangular in shape with rounded corners, with a diagonal pattern woven into it and a color that seemed to shift hues between a light beige and a deeper ruddy tan.
"Oh, that's very nice indeed," Sasha nodded again, lightly running her fingers over the rug. "That's very soft, is it wool?"
"Yes indeed, it's wool from our alpacas," Jasmine nodded with a smile. "Very durable, nice and soft, and actually quite easy to clean."
"You've convinced me, I'll take it," Sasha chortled.
Jasmine nodded and took the rug from the rack, unclipping the long narrow holder and draping the rug over an empty tailor's table.
"Did you want more than one, darling?"
"Yes, here is my next request," Sasha chortled, curling her lips into a bit of a grin and slightly lowering her voice. "Now I'm looking for a very luxurious, soft, plush rug, at least six by four feet and preferably with rounded corners. Same thing about the color, but it should be reeeeeally soft and plush and thick and comfy, a rug you just want to spread out and cuddle on. You see, in our bedroom, we actually don't use a bed. Leia has this big nest of pillows and cushions, which is super comfy, but it's still just laying on the bare plank floor so I want a good thick fluffy snuggly rug to put all those pillows on and make an even comfier bed for us."
"Give her my rug, Jas!" the Keeshond woman, Isabella, called out with a chortle.
"Ooohh yes, yes darling, take a look at this," the cream-haired hamster woman crooned, pulling another rug forwards on the rack. It was a bluish creamy gray in color, a bit larger than what Sasha had asked for, and it was super fluffy. "This is our shaggiest shag rug, deep-pile four-inch loop shag, with bands of four-inch cut shag for an extra fluffy feel. This is actually made from Isabella's fur; we found her fur is extremely suitable for making shag pile due to the length of the tufts." She took one of Sasha's hands in her free paw and gently ran it over the fluffy rug, crooning deeper. "Just feeeeel how soft and plush this is, mmmmm. Isn't this just gorgeous? Oh my golly, you could just siiink into this rug, it's sooo cozy."
Sasha did her best not to snigger as she felt the hamster woman's bare-skinned paw was doing more than just directing her hand; it was also gently petting and squeezing it. She had to admit, though; the rug felt unbelievably soft and plush.
"Oh, you've convinced me again, sweetheart," she smiled with her voice still slightly lowered in a smooth, rolling tone and closing one gray eye in a quick wink. "I will definitely take this rug as well, it's perfect for our bedroom. Now..." Before Jasmine had the chance to let go of Sasha's hand and unclip the rug, Sasha grabbed the hamster woman's paw in her hand and squeezed it lightly, winking again. "Between you and me, sweetheart; I know what you're doing here. I was the Amazon queen of flirting back in Fossil City, and you don't flirt with me like that and get away with it," she grinned softly.
"Ah... I'm sorry, darling," Jasmine said with a light blush, wiggling the short fingers of her captured paw a bit. "I did not think it was much of a problem..."
"Well, let's just say Leia gave me very explicit instructions on what to do if I would find any of you flirting with me again," Sasha smiled with a wider grin.
Jasmine's blush deepened a bit.
"Ah... what's that..?"
She squeaked when Sasha pulled her close by the paw she was still holding in her hand.
"She told me to do this," the lanky human woman grinned.
Wrapping her other arm around the hamster woman's shoulders, she leaned over and pressed her lips to Jasmine's lips in a firm kiss. The cream-haired hamster woman squeaked again and blushed even deeper when she felt Sasha's tongue brushing against her lips. Unable to stop herself, she instinctually parted her lips a bit as well and crooned a squeaky sound when Sasha slipped her tongue along the hamster woman's small, narrow tongue and into her mouth, deepening the kiss considerably and holding it for several long moments. She even playfully suckled on Jasmine's little tongue while flicking and brushing her own tongue against it a few times.
The other four women gleefully whooped and giggled at the sudden turn of events. Jasmine's blush had shifted and spread all the way from the tiny pink pad of her nose to both the inside and the outside of her bare-skinned ears, another quavering squeak rolling from her lips as Sasha eventually broke the kiss and stood back upright.
"Ohh my g-golly..."
"Not what you expected, but goddam was it ever what you hoped for, am I right?" Sasha sniggered, pushing her glasses back up the bridge of her nose.
Jasmine pulled in a deep breath and brushed a lock of her cream-colored hair from her face with a paw.
"My goodness... yes, you can say that again, darling," she breathed with a smile.
The blonde-haired hamster woman slammed down the batten bar of the very old-fashioned treadle loom she was operating with a loud clap and stood up with a cheerful laugh.
"You can also do that again, honey! Surely you're not gonna let her have all the fun by herself, are you?"
"Oh c'mere, you crazy-ass poofball," Sasha sniggered, opening her arms.
With more cheerful whoops, both the other two European hamster women, the Keeshond woman and the Bettong woman all got up and lined up. Sasha shook her head with a laugh at that, taking each of them into a deep and passionate kiss in turns and leaving all of them crooning and murmuring content and happy sounds as they broke apart again. They all stood close together in a sort of group hug for several moments, but eventually the four women returned to their work areas while Jasmine finally took the creamy bluish gray fluffy rug from the rack and draped it over the beige rug on the low tailor's table so she could roll up both rugs one by one.
As she made to pick up the rolled-up rugs, Sasha stopped her again and gave another playful wink.
"I'm actually not done yet, sweetheart." More whoops, making Sasha grin cheerfully. "I am done with the kissing for now though! But I do in fact need a few more things from this store."
"Ah, of course, darling, do tell, what can we do for you?" Jasmine smiled.
"Leia asked me to ask you if you happen to have a few yards of untreated organic cotton?" Sasha smiled.
"Ah, yes we do, actually," Jasmine nodded, turning to a cabinet consisting of numerous fairly large cubbies and taking a folded piece of off-white fabric from one of them. "We used it to make underwear from, but it was not very popular for some reason. Are you planning to make some underwear perhaps?"
Sasha grinned cheerfully.
"Nope, I don't wear the stuff, see?" she sniggered, lifting her shirt to flash her small freckled breasts for a moment, causing yet more cheery whoops. "Matter of fact, we don't wear any clothes at all on our farm. But I'm thinking Leia wants to use it for jar toppers; she asked me to bring rubber bands as well and mentioned there's plenty of blueberries and blackberries now to make jam with."
"Ah, of course!" Jasmine nodded with a smile. "That is an excellent idea, darling, it is so suitable for that!" She was already regaining her theatrics. "Do take this! Consider it a gift for making our day, darling! We're not using it anymore anyway since it's not popular!"
"Well, thank you very much, I do appreciate that," Sasha smiled. "Now, I have a last request for now. Could you fine ladies prepare some couch cushions for us? Or at least the coverings for them? We have next to no furniture in the house, you see, and so far that hasn't been a problem since we just lounge and relax in the grass of the backyard. But with the weather now going south, that is becoming less of an option so we're going to have to spend our evenings indoors, and I really rather have a comfy couch to sit on rather than the bare plank floor, even with that nice rug on there."
"Ah, of course, of course!" Jasmine nodded with a bright smile. "We can most definitely do that, darling! What kind of size were you thinking about, and what kind of fabric?"
"For fabric, something durable but soft," Sasha smiled. "Show me what you got, and I'll make a choice. As for size, the couch needs to be a three-seater, so either three square seat cushions and three square back cushions, or two larger rectangular ones of each. I'm thinking perhaps you could work together with those furniture joiners who are moving in here? They could build a nice frame, and then you could also upholster the armrests with some foam and the same fabric."
"Aah, fantastisch, geweldig, that is such an amazingly great idea, darling!" Jasmine crooned, sprinkling some Dutch words into her exclamations to enhance her theatrics. "We should totally form a partnership with them to produce some exquisite furniture!" She took Sasha by an arm and waved with her other arm. "Come, darling, come! Let me show you our fabrics so you can make a choice!" She pulled Sasha over to another rack that held many large bolts of fabric and pulled out one in a deep dark pond green color, flipping a flap of the fabric over to show the texture. "How about this? This is just wonderful for a comfy sofa!"
Sasha looked at the ribbed texture of the fabric with her head a bit tilted and a light grin.
"That looks like corduroy."
"In a way, it is, darling!" Jasmine nodded with a flourish. "It's woven according to the same principle as corduroy, but it is pigment-dyed alpaca wool and the bands are very short and soft pile so it's as durable but much softer than corduroy!" She took Sasha's hand again and ran it over the fabric. "Just feel, darling! Feel how soft it is! Doesn't it feel just wonderful?"
"It does feel quite soft," Sasha agreed with a chortle. "I'm not sure, though. Like I said, we don't wear any clothes at all on the farm, and sitting on a corduroy couch is gonna leave lines all over my bare butt after a while."
"Not this, darling, not this!" Jasmine smiled brightly. "The pile bands of this fabric are much softer, they squish down when you sit on them, so your lovely tush is safe from imprints!"
"How the hell do you know it's lovely? You haven't seen it yet," Sasha sniggered, causing yet more cheery whoops from the other four women with her use of the word 'yet'.
"I was merely extrapolating, darling!" Jasmine smiled with a chortle. "You are lovely, so it comes naturally that your tush is as well! Yes indeed! And I can assure you that it will be totally safe on this fabric, darling, you have my guarantee!"
"Alright then, I'll risk it," Sasha chortled. "I do like the color, it goes very nicely with that light brown of that rug." She curled her lips into a cheerful grin and lay the tip of an index finger against the petite pad of the cream-haired hamster woman's nose. "Let me make you a deal here, sweetheart. Make some cushions for a three-seater couch with this fabric, use it for the armrests as well once those furniture makers have moved in here and they can build a nice couch frame, and deliver it to our farm personally when it's done. Then you can stick around all evening while we sit on that sofa, and just before we go to bed you and Leia can closely inspect my butt for any imprinted lines; if there's even one, you take the couch back again and redo all the upholstery in a smooth fabric."
There were more loud and cheery whoops from the other four women, and Jasmine giggled cheerfully as well despite a trace of a blush around the edges of her petite nose pad.
"It's a deal, darling! And I am so confident that this fabric will behave just as I say it will, that I will stipulate a provision to your deal! You let me be naked too and sit in your lap all evening to put extra weight onto the fabric, and you will see that by the end of the evening, there will still be no imprints in your skin whatsoever. And with that proven, you are going to come back to town with me naked and let me measure you the whole day for a full-length silk dress!"
Yet more loud whoops, and Sasha curled her lips into a wider grin, pressing her fingertip a bit firmer against the small pad of Jasmine's nose.
"Tell you what, missy; if you're that confident, then bring your sisters to deliver the couch and all three of you get to sit in my lap all evening."
"Whooo! Now you're talking, honey!" the blonde-haired hamster woman Rosemary whooped.
"Heck yeah, we accept!" the black-haired hamster woman Mary-Jo nodded with a loud giggle. "And no imprints, you're gonna let all three of us feel you up for all the measurements all day the next day!"
"Good god you're all nuts!" Sasha laughed, shaking her head. "Alright then, y'all got yourselves a deal, ladies!" She grinned and winked at the Bettong woman and the Keeshond woman. "And don't worry, I'll figure out something for you two later as well."
Everyone laughed cheerfully. Jasmine pulled the bolt of dark green ribbed fabric from the rack and set it aside, then stepped over to the low tailor's table to pick up one of the rolled-up rugs while Sasha picked up the other one and the swath of cotton fabric. They carried them into the front area of the room and set them down by the counter where Sasha paid for the rugs and filled out a small form to specify the work on the sofa cushions.
Jasmine also helped Sasha carry the rugs to the old Citroen delivery vehicle and put them in the back. Calmly walking back up the road, Sasha gave the cream-haired hamster woman a playful hug when they reached the weaving workshop again and said goodbye, walking on to the dairy shop while Jasmine stepped back into the spinnery. The human woman grinned lightly to herself again; with how things had gone in the spinnery, she had a very good idea of how they would go in the dairy shop, as the rabbit triplet sisters running the dairy were even flirtier than the hamster triplets.
The greeting she got as she stepped inside at least was less theatrical. The silvery-brown rabbit woman Lucille was churning butter in the back of the building, and the other two rabbit women, Annette the silvery-blue one and Jeanine the creamy-orange one, were just sitting together by the counter. They both hopped to their feet when Sasha came in, however, and smiled brightly.
"Sasha! How nice to see you!" Jeanine smiled.
"What can we do for you?" Annette smiled as well.
"I need a little more education, darlings," Sasha smiled with a light chortle. "We've sold our first silage, and the price was so good we now have some extra money to play with, so I'm ready to buy a cream separator. Could you perhaps enlighten me on what would be the best choice for home use?"
"Of course! Come over here!" Annette smiled, pulling a book from behind the counter. "No, on this side, honey!" she chortled when Sasha stepped over to the front side of the counter.
With a mild grin, the tall human woman stepped around the counter to the back, finding herself with a plush-furred rabbit woman on either side of her the very next moment. Annette opened the book and leafed through it, until she got to the section that showed cream separator machines. Leaning sideways a bit, she almost cuddled up against Sasha's side while sliding the book to the side so it was in the middle between them, using her left paw to point at the pictures and flip the pages while her right paw came to a rest on Sasha's left shoulder.
"Look here, honey," she all but cooed. "If you're going to increase your milk production, these are very good ones to start out with. You can already use them for low volumes of milk, and they can handle up to seven gallons at once. How much milk are you currently getting per day?"
"We just have the one goat, but she's an Alpine so she's very generous," Sasha chortled, her lips already curling into a grin again when she felt the silvery-blue paw moving on her shoulder and the fingers of it sifting into her long ginger hair. "She gives a bit over a gallon per day; almost four liters on the nose to be precise. And seeing as how we're not drinking that much that quickly and I'm already running out of room to age cheeses, I don't think we'd be getting a second goat any time soon."
"Right, I see. Yes, that would indeed be a bit much for just home production," Annette nodded with a smile, flipping a page or two with her left paw while the fingers of her right paw began to actually run through Sasha's hair. "In that case, you'd wanna look at a smaller one, like these two and a half gallon ones."
Her fingers every now and then gently brushed Sasha's neck as well, causing the human's grin to deepen. Oh it was on. She brought up her own left hand and ran it up through Annette's long silver hair until her left fingers brushed against the back of the rabbit woman's relatively short but broad left ear, leaning her head a bit more sideways as well so their cheeks touched. Managing to bite back a chortle at the shiver she felt running through the rabbit woman's body, Sasha brushed her left cheek against Annette's right cheek as she lowered her head to look down at the book.
"That seems like a good option," she said calmly and neutrally, meanwhile curling her left fingers a bit to lightly rub against the back of the silvery-blue rabbit woman's left ear. "But would it be a better idea to get an intermediate one? I'm thinking I'd save the milk and let it sit for a few days to develop a cream layer and use the separator once a week to get enough cream in one go to make butter with."
"Ahh... Yes... That's a fine idea, honey," Annette smiled a bit breathily, her ear flagging and wiggling against the softly rubbing fingers, her own right fingers curling a bit into Sasha's long ginger hair. "See... See... There are these four or five gallon ones, those would be... ahh, perfect."
"Gee, are you alright, darling? Is there a problem?" Sasha smiled with feigned innocence.
"Ann's ears are so erogenous," Jeanine said on Sasha's other side, having been softly giggling to herself the whole time over what was happening.
"Ahh... nyehh... they are," Annette nodded slowly, dipping her right ear almost all the way forwards over her head while her left kept wiggling and flicking against Sasha's softly rubbing fingers. "As... ahh... much as I love it, honey... why ahh... are you rubbing my ear?"
"Why are you cuddling up against me like that and running your fingers through my hair while I'm just asking a simple question about dairy equipment?" Sasha retorted with a grin. "That's just the return you get for challenging the Amazon queen of flirting from Fossil City, darling."
Jeanine snorted a giggle, her giggles joined by Lucille's who had abandoned her butter churn to step over to the counter and get a good look at the action from close by. Annette smiled around a breathy giggle as well, dipping her right ear sideways to brush it against Sasha's cheek.
"But you're... ahh... fun to flirt with, honey," she murmured. "Especiahh... -ally since you never gave much of ahh... a response before."
"Yes, well," Sasha grinned, trailing her left fingers all the way up the back of Annette's left ear and catching the tip of it between her left thumb and index finger, giving a light rubbing. "I had a bit of a talk with Leia about it, and she very specifically told me what I should do when you bunbuns started flirting with me again."
Annette shuddered and almost went limp at the touch, closing her deep blue eyes and pressing her upper buckteeth into her lower lip to stifle a moan.
"Aahhahh... what... would that be..?"
Sasha grinned and winked.
"Just this."
She slid her fingers back down the back of Annette's left ear and lay her hand on the back of the slivery-blue rabbit woman's head, lightly pushing Annette's head towards her while tilting and leaning in her own head. Another stifled moan of the silvery-blue rabbit woman died in the deep kiss Sasha pressed upon her lips, both ears going limp as the human woman's tongue easily slipped past her eagerly parting lips into her mouth and began playing with her small tongue. The other two rabbit women cheered joyfully, Lucille rubbing Annette's back while Jeanine began rubbing Sasha's back with both paws.
Several content moments the deep and passionate kiss lasted, Annette's ears slowly going back up and moving about to brush against Sasha's head while she folded her right paw around the back of the human woman's neck. Sasha gave a playful little suckle on the silvery-blue rabbit woman's tongue as she pulled it into her own mouth, then slowly broke the kiss and flicked the tip of her tongue against Annette's furiously wiggling nose, causing yet another light moan that was a lot less stifled.
"Nnnyahh... shit, now I'm horny..."
Sasha grinned again and leaned her head up a bit, brushing her nose against the glowing warm skin on the inside of Annette's left ear and giving a very light little lick as well as she murmured into the wiggling ear.
"Yeah, you don't challenge an Amazon, darling. You'll always lose... even if you win."
Yet another moan was lost in the giggles of the other two rabbit women who both leaned over and each lay a paw on each of Sasha's shoulders while lightly brushing their other paws along each of the human's freckled cheeks.
"We're flirting too, honey," Lucille chortled.
"Oooh yes, golly are we flirting with you," Jeanine giggled.
Laughing softly, Sasha turned around on the spot so she was leaning with her back against the counter, reaching up with both hands to take the tip of Lucille's silvery-brown right ear between her left thumb and index finger and the tip of Jeanine's cream-orange left ear between her right thumb and index finger, rubbing lightly and making both rabbit women croon and lean up against her.
"One atta time, darlings, I only have one tongue," she sniggered.
As Jeanine was the closest since she had already been leaning up against Sasha's other side, the cream-orange rabbit woman leaned in more and turned her head a bit to press her lips against Sasha's lips, cooing a happy sound at the human woman's tongue sliding past her own small tongue and into her mouth. She tilted her head and pushed deeper into the kiss, suckling and lapping as much at Sasha's tongue as Sasha was doing at hers, dark brown eyes closed contently and her ears drooping forwards to rest over Sasha's face. It actually took an effort for her to eventually break apart from Sasha, but her motion of pulling back was helped by one of Lucille's paws pushing against her shoulder.
The cream-orange rabbit woman drew in a deep breath and let it go in a long, content sigh while her silvery-brown sister locked lips with Sasha in turn. Surprisingly deep dark pink eyes closed and her ears also drooped forwards over Sasha's face as she took the human woman's tongue into her mouth and suckled on it while running her own small tongue back and forth against it. With one paw still against Jeanine's shoulders, her other paw came up to rest on the back of Sasha's head, even her small poofball of a tail wiggling when one of Sasha's hands started petting at the droopy ears during the passionate kiss.
Eventually, all four of them got into a more upright position again, breathing deeply and contently and opening their eyes again. Sasha pushed her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose and chortled softly at the blissful expressions on the faces of all three rabbit women.
"Damn, you gals been wanting this bad," she sniggered.
"Since you first came to town, honey," Annette breathed, holding a paw over her chest as if to steady her breathing.
"And then you got married to our darling friend Buddleia..." Lucille smiled with a breathy chortle.
"And good on her finally putting you on the right path," Jeanine murmured with a wide smile.
"Yeahhh... I've said this many times before already, but good god y'all are nuts," Sasha sniggered. "This whole village is, each and every one of you, that big fuzzbutt of mine included." She suddenly lifted her head. "Hey, hang on a second! Oh my god, haha, that would explain so much!"
"What would, honey?" Jeanine smiled.
Sasha grinned even wider.
"The first time I came to town, I had tea and a long talk with missus Stebbins. She mentioned Leia's helpfulness, and also mentioned that whenever Leia came to town, she'd hang around for most of the day to help everyone she spotted needing a hand." She laughed softly. "That's not the only reason she always hung around town, now was it, mm?"
"Oh yes, she's always been so very helpful," Jeanine nodded with a smile and also a light chortle. "She certainly helped out a lot around the dairy here."
"She's always been especially good at collecting cream," Annette smiled with a breathy giggle.
"Bunny cream, I'm sure," Sasha sniggered, shaking her head. "Goddam, I should have known. No wonder you three have been chasing my butt like you have!"
"Oh yeah, we knew you were fair game when you first came to town," Annette nodded with a smile. "And when you married Buddleia, we knew you were even fairer game, and golly we've been wanting you."
"Well, you just forgot about one thing," Sasha sniggered. "Or rather, you misjudged something." She winked cheerfully. "Y'all are the game, for I'm a huntress, I've always been, and a damn successful one if I may say so myself."
"We certainly aim to find out mighty thoroughly, honey," Annette smiled, finally taking her paw off her chest to brush a lock of her silver hair behind her ears.
"Then let me tell you something right now, bunbun," Sasha grinned, touching the tip of her right index finger against Annette's flat wiggly nose. "When I'm home later today, or tomorrow morning, I'll be ordering me a cream separator. Once it arrives here and I'm in town to pick it up, y'all are invited to accompany me back to the farm and inspect my cheese and butter making facilities, thoroughly, and give me lots of tips and tricks and pointers on what I could improve."
"Ohhh YES!" Annette crooned with almost a squeak. "Oh you are so on, honey!"
"Oh yes you are!" Jeanine chortled, nodding so firmly her ears bobbed back and forth repeatedly. "We'll take you through all the paces!"
"You betcha!" Lucille added with a bright smile, looking at both her sisters with a mild grin. "What'chall think, should I give her some of the cream cheese?"
"Bring it!" Annette nodded fervently, making sure her swaying ears brushed Sasha's face several times.
Sasha snorted a giggle and shook her head as the silvery-brown rabbit woman walked off.
"Oh god damn... I have a feeling I know all too well what that stuff is made with."
"Our very special specialty for only our closest friends, honey!" Jeanine nodded with a giggle.
"Here! Don't eat it all in one go now!" Lucille chortled as she returned and pushed a small white unmarked tub into Sasha's hands.
"I'll make sure Leia and I savor it, sweethearts," Sasha sniggered. "Go on ahead and waste the rest of your day dreaming now, and I'll see y'all sometime next week when my cream separator has arrived."
The three rabbit sisters pulled Sasha into a close group hug and playfully covered the human woman's face with lots of small kisses. Sasha laughed again and eventually managed to free herself from the hug, sending the three lapine women a cheerful wink as they walked out of the dairy building. Waving at each other, the De Verley sisters looked after Sasha before going back into the building, and Sasha smiled and calmly walked down the road back to her car.
Her smile deepened when she spotted the black and white Border Collie woman who ran the general store standing just outside of the store and smiling at her.
"Missus Farr, how nice to see you."
"It's very nice to see you too, missus Stebbins," Sasha nodded with a smile. "But please, do call me Sasha."
"If you call me Doris," Mrs. Stebbins smiled. "Could I ask you to come inside for a moment, dear? There is something I think you would like to see."
"I will be right with you, Doris, let me just put this in my car," Sasha smiled, lifting the small white tub for a moment.
She took the few more steps needed to reach the parking spots and opened the driver door of the old Citroen, leaning in to place the tub on the passenger seat. Rising back up and closing the door, the human woman turned and crossed the road to walk over to the general store. Mrs. Stebbins smiled again and also turned, leading the way inside and holding the door for Sasha. As the tall human woman walked into the store, she suddenly stopped so stone dead it seemed as if a massive spike had suddenly nailed her straight to the floor, her eyes growing wide and her mouth sinking open to spill out an involuntary exclamation.
"What the fuck are you doing here?!"
Behind the counter, a chocolate-colored Labrador girl dressed in green denim overalls over a white denim shirt and her brown hair spilling in two braids out from under an old felt cowboy hat smiled brightly.
"Today I'm learning the register. Yesterday we restocked, and tomorrow we'll be taking stock and ordering new stock. How can I help you, missus Farr?"
Sasha opened and closed her mouth several times like a fish on dry land, only managing a puff of air every now and then. After several moments, she took off her glasses and pushed her fingers into her eyes, shaking her head while a low sound escaped her lips. Looking up and putting her glasses back on, she turned to the black and white Border Collie woman.
"Doris... can she be excused for a while?"
"Of course, dear," Mrs. Stebbins smiled warmly, turning to the light brown Labrador girl. "Take her to the back room, Millie, I'll take over the register after I've brought you some tea."
"Certainly, missus Stebbins," Millie nodded with a happy smile, holding out a paw. "Please follow me, Sash."
Sasha stepped around the counter and through the door behind it, preceded by Millie. They took the same route Mrs. Stebbins had taken the human woman before, but instead of stepping out onto the rear porch, Millie led the way into a smaller room to the right side where a few faded bronze-colored armchairs were sitting around a small round table near a window overlooking the garden and chicken area behind the store building. Several moments later, Mrs. Stebbins arrived in the room as well, carrying a tray with a tea set and a plate with cookies, which she set down on the small round table. She poured two cups of tea and smiled at Sasha again.
"Take your time, dear, I do believe you two have some catching up to do."
Nodding silently, Sasha looked after the canine woman stepping out of the room again and closing the door behind her. She turned her gaze back forwards to look at the canine girl as well, who stirred a cube of sugar through her tea with a smile. Sasha did the same and sat back in the armchair with the cup of tea, taking a slow sip. For several more moments, a silence hung between them, until eventually Sasha spoke up.
"I repeat my question from before, with somewhat more polite wording. What are you doing here, choco-snoot?"
"I live and work here now, mom," Millie smiled happily.
Sasha took another slow sip of her tea and made a prompting gesture with her other hand.
"Explain."
Millie smiled again and offered Sasha a cookie, sitting back and nibbling on one herself afterwards.
"When I left your farm to go home to the city so I could pack up my stuff, I first stopped here in the village. I just wanted to see it again before I went home, it's so darn cute! And, well, I wanted to get some snacks at the store here for on the way back because it's such a long drive. Missus Stebbins mentioned how nice she had found it when I was with you and mom Leia and we visited the village, and we got to talking a bit more, and... well, one thing led to another, sorta."
"Did you ask her for a job, Milbillie?" Sasha asked from behind her teacup.
"Not directly," Millie smiled. "I did mention how nice it would be to work here, and missus Stebbins said she really wanted her son to go back to school to get a good education, because she didn't like she had to pull him out of school to help her with the store when her husband died. So she said she could do with help in the store, and if I would like so much to work here, well..."
"Of course. Bless that woman's heart, she's such a caring soul," Sasha nodded slowly, taking a sip of her tea again. "Your aunt and uncle okay with it, Mil?"
"They're actually real proud of me," Millie nodded with a brighter smile. "It's no different for the work on their farm than me living in the big city, and I showed them pictures of this village and the store and all, and they're really happy I chose to help such a nice little community."
"Of course they are," Sasha nodded again. "I should've known better than to even ask. So where do you actually live, choco-snoot? Can you even afford to live here?"
"Oh yes, missus Stebbins pays me a fair wage, mom," Millie smiled. "And I live right nextdoor from her, in one of those adorable cottages! Mom, seriously, it's amazing! I only pay a third of the rent I used to pay for my studio apartment in the city, and it's roomier than that studio, and so much cuter! I even have a little garden and all, and part of a second floor! I love it so much!"
"I don't know what those cottages look like from the inside, I've never been in one, but that sounds pretty nice indeed," Sasha nodded, her teacup not quite hiding the smile on her lips. "Now, I know better than anyone what an energetic girl you are, choco-snoot. Are you sure you can settle in a tiny little backwater village in the middle of nowhere?"
"Are you kidding me?!" Millie smiled with a giggle. "There's so much room to run around and play! And everyone here is so super nice! I totally love it here!"
"Of course you do," Sasha smiled around a sip of tea to drown a light snigger. "And of course that has nothing to do with the fact you're now only four hours away from a certain little farm instead of two days, has it, mm?"
"Of course it does! Totally!" Millie giggled. "That's what I love the most, mom! That I'm close to you and mom Leia again!"
"You didn't tell missus Stebbins that was the real reason you wanted to live here, did you?" Sasha said with a mild grin behind her teacup.
"Well, no, but she kinda guessed," Millie smiled. "I mean, come on, she's seen me visiting here with you two. But I promise I did not tell her a thing about the mom thing, mom. Honest."
"Of course you didn't, because you're a good girl," Sasha said, letting go another light snigger at the happy whine escaping Millie's lips. She leaned over to set her teacup on the small round table, sat back in the armchair again and opened her arm. "C'mere, choco-snoot."
Millie let go another happy whine and got up from her chair, stepping over to the other chair and crawling into Sasha's lap. Her hat fell off when she nuzzled her cheek and snoot against the human woman's chest, wrapping both arms around Sasha's sides in a close hug and slowly wagging her slender tail. Sasha smiled and folded her arms around the Labrador girl's shoulders, gently rubbing her back up and down with one hand and leaning down her head to lightly nuzzle and smooch at one of Millie's floppy triangular ears.
They sat like that for several long moments in silence, until Sasha put her hands on Millie's shoulders and pressed the canine girl a bit upright in her lap.
"Promise me one thing, choco-snoot."
"Anything, mom," Millie murmured happily.
Sasha chortled softly and put the tip of her right index finger against the cool, damp chocolate-colored pad of Millie's nose.
"Don't let our now much closer proximity stop you from making friends in the village, okay? You know what kind of friends I mean."
Millie nodded with a light blush giving a bit of a glow to her smile.
"I'll do my best, mom, I promise. Only, well... I don't really know who here are... like us, you know?"
Sasha sniggered and lightly tapped the damp cool pad of Millie's nose with her fingertip at each mention she made.
"The De Verley sisters. The Warmelink sisters. Those other two ladies working in the spinnery. All three ladies working in the crafts store and chandlery. Priestess Kyeeru. And the deputy sheriff. Take your pick, choco-snoot, but I personally would advice you to start with the De Verley sisters from the dairy, if only to keep them off my back a bit, especially now that I've given them the go-ahead to get involved with Leia and me since they've already been involved with Leia for years."
Millie blushed deeper and closed her eyes, nuzzling her nose against Sasha's finger with a deeper whine.
"Nnnyeeeinn... I should have known you'd know all that, mom... You've always been an Amazon..."
"You bet your sweet little patootie I was, and still am, choco-snoot," Sasha chortled.
Millie slowly opened her eyes, still blushing and smiling at the same time.
"Do you... do you think I stand a chance with those rabbit ladies from the dairy, mom..?"
"Sweetie, once you get them started, you'll need a stick to beat them off you," Sasha sniggered. "They're just as silly and energetic as you are, and by next week I will have found out just how crazy they are in the intimate field as well."
Millie's blush deepened and she leaned back forwards, nuzzling her snoot into the nape of Sasha's neck and giving a few soft affectionate licks and kisses.
"I love you, mom... I'll give it a good go, I promise..."
"I know you will, choco-snoot," Sasha smiled, turning her head to kiss one of Millie's floppy ears. "I love you too, and you should drop by for a visit again once you get some free time from learning the ropes of this store." She chortled softly. "Now, finish your tea, it's about time you get back to work and I get started on that darn four-hour drive back to the farm. Leia must be wondering what's keeping me by now, and I shouldn't let her do all the work by herself."
Millie nodded with a smile and sat up a bit, letting go another happy whine as Sasha held her for a moment and pressed a soft kiss on her lips. Once they had finished their tea, they got up and left the room, walking back into the store where Mrs. Stebbins smiled at them from behind the counter.
"Keep an eye on this energetic puppy for me, Doris," Sasha smiled. "And take good care of her, she means a lot to me."
"Of course I will, Sasha," the black and white Border Collie woman nodded with a smile. She turned to Millie. "Millie, collect the revenue for missus Farr, will you please? You can see the total for the last week in the ledger under the counter."
"Right, I may as well bring that while I'm here," Sasha nodded with a smile. "And I have some equipment to order, so when that's here next week you'll see me again, Doris."
Mrs. Stebbins nodded with a smile, nodding as Millie checked through the ledger and quickly counted in herself to add up the different numbers, then ringing the "No sale" key on the register to open it and take out an amount of cash money. Putting it in an envelope she took from under the counter, she handed the envelope to Sasha and made a note with the amount to put into the drawer of the register.
"Here you are, mo... missus Farr."
"You call me missus Farr one more time and I'll personally pull you over my knee to spank you, choco-snoot," Sasha sniggered, sticking the envelope in a pocket of her shorts. "I know you should be polite to customers here, so keep that up, but don't pull that stuff on me now, we have too much of a history for that, y'hear?"
"Of course, I'm sorry, Sash," Millie nodded with a smile.
"She'll learn, she's a bright girl," Mrs. Stebbins smiled. "Have a wonderful day now, Sasha, and say hello to Buddleia for us, alright?"
"You can count on that," Sasha nodded with a smile. "You two have a great day too, okay?"
They happily waved at each other as Sasha stepped over to the door. Back outside, the lanky human woman crossed the road, got behind the wheel of her old 2CV delivery vehicle and took off her glasses again to press her fingers into her eyes for a moment or two before sitting back up, putting her glasses back on and starting the engine of the old Citroen.
Today had certainly been a day full of surprises! Time to go home, she had so much to tell Buddleia about!
