Days flow by like a river... la la la... been through the desert on a horse with no name... wanted dead or alive... la la la...
The days did go by calmly. The work was slow, despite the amount of second-hand equipment the tall, freckled human woman Sasha had bought at the auction in Arfafield. A day of unloading everything and putting it in place, mainly in the secondary room of the underground bunker, some of it stored in the large shed; one of the stainless steel dairy freezers and the stainless steel meat freezer went into storage as they were not yet needed, but saving some space in the underground room was needed; most of the stainless steel cabinets went into the shed, some to be stored, some to be used as storage for the bags of animal feed. All of the racks were swapped out; the wooden ones that were built by the purple and white vixen-taur Buddleia were relieved of their aging goat cheeses and jars of jam and set in the large shed, several of the stainless steel racks were set up in their place in the underground room to carry the cheeses and jars, back to back and pointing into the room rather than against the wall, to make better use of the available space. The stainless steel counters were set up along one of the walls, with the smaller under-counter refrigerators and freezers under them, as well as some of the stainless steel cabinets. The stainless steel prep tables were also set up in the underground room, in separated stations clearly marked for dairy work and meat processing. Even the outdoors furniture was set up; one of the tables with its four chairs in the narrow field in front of the house, near the rabbit runs and hutches, one of the tables with its four chairs in the back garden, near the tree stump they had been using as a garden table all the time, the third table and its four chairs stored in the shed for later use on an as-needed basis.
The following day, Millie helped with loading the B3 batch of silage bales onto the back of the 1953 MAZ-200 truck so Sasha could drive it to the BGA with Buddleia, while Millie drove the VW van and trailer they had borrowed so it could be returned to the Ag Co-op. The BGA was their first stop, so they could deliver the silage bales and take delivery of a payment of $19,530, which in turn opened the door to visit the Ag Co-op, not just to return the borrowed van and trailer and pick up Sasha's 1956 Citroen 2CV AZU delivery vehicle, but to speak with the tan Katanga lion Ag agent Daniel as well, on the hefty and important subject of land purchase.
The large payment and the prospect of enlarging the grounds of Butterfly Farm caused a crackle of excitement in the air as the three females pulled into the yard of the Co-op. Sasha parked the MAZ truck by the fuel pumps, gesturing at Millie to park the van and trailer furtheron by the wall along the front side of the yard and taking the keys once both vehicles were parked and they had all gotten out. The lion man Daniel waved at them as they stepped into the large building and tossed Sasha the keys to the Citroen at the same time she tossed him the keys to the VW van.
"Morning Sasha, morning Buddleia, morning Millie!" he greeted them cheerfully, catching the keys. "Has everything gone well?"
"Very much so, Dan," Sasha smiled, also catching the keys. "I scored so much at that auction we had to overload the van and the trailer, because we also still had to sleep in it on the way back."
"That sounds like a good shopping spree to me!" Daniel nodded with a chuckle. "So we can soon expect even more cheese to come from your farm?"
"If you have already eaten all three of the ones you bought last week, then we'll definitely have to increase our output to keep up with your gluttony," Sasha sniggered.
"I may be a glutton, Sasha, but I'm not that bad," Daniel chuckled. "I'm only about halfway through one of those three cheeses so far, I'll have you know."
"Damn, that's still gluttonous, Dan!" Sasha laughed. "Those cheeses are twenty-five ounces apiece! And you already ate half of that in only about a week? Jeez!"
"You made them too damn tasty, Sasha," Daniel chuckled. "I keep telling myself I'll only have a small bit, and I cut off a small bit to nibble on, and then I go, eh, maaaybe just one more small bit can't hurt. And... well, you know how it goes."
"You need to learn some more restraint," Sasha sniggered. "What if, in the next couple of cheeses I'll sell you, I'll hide some pieces of barbed wire or something? That should help you slow down."
"Please don't!" Daniel said with a laugh. "I'd rather face the consequence of getting fat, haha!"
"Well, it's good for us, because it'll keep bringing money into our account," Sasha chortled. "And that is in fact why we're here at the moment. Of course I had to return your van and thank you for lending it to me, but we also just sold our third batch of silage to the BGA, so now we have more than enough money in our account to do a bit of expanding."
"I thought so!" Daniel nodded with a smile. "I kept up with your schedule, so I knew you would be selling your third batch one of these days and I prepared for it by getting some paperwork ready. You'll be looking to purchase that chunk of land that already used to belong to Butterfly Farm before, right?"
"Exactly," Sasha nodded with a smile of her own. "That field I pointed out to you some time ago, on the right side of that large pond. According to my calculations, we can get two cuts of grass from it before the winter rye is ready for harvest, and after that we can plow it all into one field, or two more logically shaped fields."
"That's what I thought, yes," Daniel nodded, taking a binder from below the counter and opening it on the counter, flipping several pages. "So here is the map of the property lines at that side of your farm, and this grid here on this page is basically the way the land is divided up into more or less evenly sized rectangles. If you look at this grid, this rectangle here is the one that used to be the full grounds of your farm; this whole rectangle, and if you compare it to this map here, you can see the chunk that is taken out of that rectangle, the whole part between the dirt path and the roads."
Sasha nodded as she followed some of the lines with a finger.
"That matches with the property markers we found in that long field between the dirt road and the forest, yes. I thought it was a bit weird that a relatively small triangle was cut off that field, but now I see that's where the large rectangle of the grid runs." She looked up and curled her lips into a cheerful grin. "So do tell me, Dan; have you managed to finagle a decent discount for us to fill the original rectangle of our farm grounds back out again?"
Dan chuckled softly.
"I've spent about three hours on the phone with the Arfajia Province council, all in all, to discuss that tract of land. It is in our advantage that we're so gosh darn out in the middle of nowhere here; they bought the land back then in nineteen eighteen for no other reason than that Buddleia's great-grandparents offered and needed to sell it, but they never had any use for it, just as they don't have any use for all the other land in pretty much this entire valley."
"Please tell me that means we can buy the land back for the same price they paid for it over a hundred years ago," Sasha chortled.
"It doesn't only mean that, it also means I'm allowed to offer the eight rectangles around the rectangle that makes up Butterfly Farm for the same price per acre," Daniel smiled. "And in nineteen eighteen, the price per acre was three hundred and sixty-two dollars."
Sasha actually had to lean on the counter with both hands for a few moments, hanging her head with her eyes closed and pulling in several slow, deep breaths.
"When I first asked you about that field, you said we'd be looking at about thirty grand," she said slowly, without looking up. "With this development... how much, or rather, how goddam little, are we looking at?"
"Well, according to this paper right here, that chunk of land that used to belong to your farm's grounds is six point six five acres," Daniel smiled. "Times three hundred sixty two, that makes... damn, I can't do that math from the top of my head, gimme a moment." He pulled out his phone and used it as a calculator. "Right. Two thousand, four hundred and seven dollars and thirty cents. Jeez, why the hell did I calculate that, it says that same number on this bill of sale here pretty much."
Sasha still kept her head leaned down and her eyes closed while leaning on the counter with both hands.
"Fuck, me, sideways," she said in a low and drawn-out moaning tone. "This is unbe-fucking-lievable. Here I was, fully prepared to spend a good thirty grand, and now you're telling me it's gonna cost us not even ten fucking percent of that?"
"Pretty much, yeah," Daniel said with a cheerful chuckle, leaning over a bit and turning his head to try and look at Sasha's face with a grin. "Should I ask Clarissa to pour a shot of bourbon in your cup of tea, Sasha?"
"You'd better give me the whole damn bottle," Sasha smirked, still not looking up. "So, since I'm shocked to the core already, I may as well endure another shock or two. That field on the other side of the dirt road behind our farm which turned out to belong to us, right? That triangle that's cut off of it by that rectangular grid; how much are we looking at for that bit?"
"Let's see," Daniel smiled, turning his attention back to the papers. "That small piece is... two point three eight acres, according to this. So times three hundred sixty two..." He did another calculation on his phone. "Eight hundred sixty-one dollars, fifty-six cents."
"Done deal," Sasha said, still in a low voice. "That spot of land should be added to that ridiculous long field, it's stupid to keep that small corner off of that large stretch of land. Ring them up before I wake up, Dan."
Daniel nodded with another chuckle and started tapping on the computer, while the rust-colored and white Border Collie woman set down cups of tea for Sasha, Buddleia and Millie. Sasha slowly stirred a cube of sugar through her tea and sipped it piping hot, a smile slowly forming around her lips at the soft, concerned rubbing of Buddleia's paw up and down her back. By the time Daniel had finished drawing up the sales contract and a deed for the land, Sasha had finished her cup of tea and had regained herself again, checking the papers Daniel had printed out, signing one of them and scanning her company bank card to pay for the purchase.
"Now, don't you dare tell me you found a slurry spreader and a Fortschritt combine for us that are only gonna cost us a handful of nickels," she said with a light chortle after she had put her card back in her wallet and her wallet back in a pocket of her shorts.
"No, either fortunately or unfortunately, I have not yet been able to find that kind of equipment for you, Sasha," Daniel chuckled. "So I won't be giving you another big shock today. However, with this land purchase I knew was coming up, I have been thinking."
"Oh dear, did it hurt?" Sasha sniggered.
"Har har, you're a riot, Sasha," Daniel grinned, shaking his head. "As a matter of fact, goat cheese is good for the brain, so you've indirectly helped me to think even better."
"Sure, of course," Sasha nodded with a chortle. "So what have you been thinking about?"
"This," Daniel smiled, pulling out another map and pointing at it. "I'm sure you noticed that next to your farm, the dirt roads are very weird. There's the one that branches off the main road down by the forest, bends around the side of the forest and runs past the side of your farm and in the direction of the sawmill, and there's the one that runs from where Cherry Blossom Farm was over in this direction and eventually along the rock shelf in the direction of Waving Grain Farm. And right next to your farm, they make this really weird, very long-drawn and wavy X as they cross over one another, right?"
"Yeah, I did notice that, it almost looks like whoever made those roads was pretty damn drunk," Sasha nodded with a cheerful smirk. "It makes no sense either, because that road from Cherry Blossom could easily connect to the sawmill road, and that road towards Waving Grain as well, that would be so much simpler and neater."
"Yes, well, apparently those roads were not created at the same time," Daniel said. "So that's most likely why they look so weird and make that very strange X-shape. But I'm sure that on your way to the sawmill, you must have seen the two more or less triangular patches of land the legs of that X enclose, with all the tall pine trees in them, right?"
"Yeah, I remember thinking that looked planted," Sasha nodded. "Or at least it did not look like there had been a pine forest there which those roads cut through, some of those trees are way too young for that."
"That's right," Daniel nodded. "Do you know who owns those two patches of land?"
"If you say we own them, I'm gonna slap you," Sasha sniggered.
"I'm safe then," Daniel chuckled. "Butterfly Farm does not own those patches of land, I do. For some strange reason, when the Arfajia Province started laying out the grids and all to divide the land into plots, those two weird patches were never claimed, so I staked a claim on them."
"Right, well, in that case; howdy, neighbor," Sasha sniggered. "What are you gonna grow in those weirdly shaped patches of land; very narrow cucumbers?"
Daniel shook his head with another chuckle.
"Yeah, see, that's the thing, Sasha. Those two patches of land are not exactly suitable for farming, due to the weird shape and how small they are. I planted those pine trees there ages ago because they were a surplus in our storage back then and my father gave them to me, but that's pretty much all I could do with that land. And they can't be combined into one single, more suitable field by rerouting the dirt roads around them, because those roads are owned by the province. So I was thinking, since they're directly adjacent to your farm, maybe you'd like to have them?"
"Very generous, Dan, but what the hell would we do with that land?" Sasha shrugged. "We just as much can't farm it as you can't."
"See, now that's what I've been thinking about," Daniel said with a light chuckle. "That land is pretty much only suitable for a few rows of trees. Now, have you heard about the developments in creating trees that grow super fast, for the paper and woodchip industry?"
"No, I haven't," Sasha said with a shake of her head. "Do elucidate, Dan, because that sounds interesting."
"Right," Daniel nodded. "You may have heard of the giant or great silver fir, which is a popular Christmas tree; it can grow between forty and seventy meters tall, and it its first years, it grows as much as a meter and a half per year. And in South Asia, there's a tree called the albizia, which is the record-holder of fast growth for trees; it can grow a good five meters per year in its first three to five years of age. That tree is mainly used for softwood lumber and for making paper. And of course you must be familiar with bamboo, which you can literally see growing before your eyes because it can grow almost a meter per day."
"Yes, that I am familiar with, and that fir as well, but not that other tree you mentioned," Sasha nodded, giving a light shrug. "So what about all that?"
"Well, you see, the thing is that some very clever biologists at a couple of the renowned agricultural universities in this country also took note of those growth rates and came up with an idea," Daniel said with a light chuckle. "So for several years already, they have been hard at work splicing genes and what have you, to create a tree that you can see grow with the naked eye, and still produce pretty dense and useful wood despite how fast it grows so it can be used as softwood lumber and pulp making for the paper industry. A tree that grows super fast is much more sustainable for fulfilling the demand for paper and the ever growing demand for woodchips. And as it happens, a bit over a year and a half ago, they came out with the first successful specimens that can be planted on a commercial scale; they call it the bambizia fir. According to the reports, in favorable circumstances such as the climate here and the nutrient-rich soil in this valley for instance, one tree can grow to ten meters tall and almost two meters in circumference in a bit over a year and produce over twenty-five and a half hundred cubic feet of biomass."
Sasha gave another light shrug.
"Okay, that's impressive I suppose. So this is relevant... how exactly?"
"That's what I've been thinking about," Daniel chuckled. "It could be an additional boost to your income without adding too much work. I could sign over those two weird triangles of land to Butterfly Farm, or draw up a cost-free lease that allows Butterfly Farm to work that land in my possession free of cost, you could plant a few rows of those new trees there, you'll get a grant from the universities for it as they can use it for collecting data as well, and once every year you can cut down the trees and cart them over to the sawmill to be chipped and earn a nice bit of extra income. Plus, if an influx of woodchips suddenly starts coming from this valley to provide the Paranka paper company in Bronto Valley for instance, that means more traffic, which in turn means we may be able to convince the province to improve the main roads around here, grade and smoothen them, possibly even gravel them."
"Hm," Sasha nodded slowly, running a hand over her chin in thought. "To be honest, I'm all for that. Goodness knows those dirt roads here can do with some improving. Alright, so let's talk logistics and finances. Say you would sign over those two patches of land to our farm; how would that affect us?"
"Butterfly Farm would become a bit larger," Daniel chuckled.
"Well duhh, how dumb do you think I am?" Sasha sniggered. "What I mean of course is, how would it affect us financially? Would it increase our tax, for instance?"
"I never paid tax over that land, so I really doubt that," Daniel chuckled. "And of course I'm aware it would be different for you, as you're a commercial enterprise rather than just a shmoe who owns a sliver of land, but your farm tax is not calculated by the amount of acreage you have, it's calculated by the amount of income you generate from that acreage. So the only financial effect this would have on you is that every year, you would see a small increase in the amount of tax you'd have to pay because of the increase in income you generated from the woodchips of those trees."
"Right, okay, that I can live with," Sasha nodded slowly. "So what about those grants you mentioned?"
"Those are deductible," Daniel smiled. "And that runs via the universities, so you wouldn't even need to think about it."
"Right, speaking of those universities," Sasha said. "How much would those be in our hair over this, with their data gathering and stuff?"
"I would assume you'd have a visit from a representative at least once, to talk about the experiment," Daniel smiled with a light shrug. "They might want you to keep an eye on the trees, but I'm sure you could make arrangements that would keep your farm out of the data gathering and leave that fully up to the university, and I would assume that would mean you'd see some folks from the university gathering data on those patches of land every now and then. To be fair, I'm not sure about all of that, because I haven't looked that deep into it so far, I only heard about the developing of those trees. But I can get in touch with them on your behalf and gather all the information and relay that to you so you can then get in touch with them and make all the arrangements."
"Alright, that would work," Sasha nodded slowly. "Work's in a lull for the coming few months anyway until we can harvest the winter rye and start planting a spring crop. But here's a thing," she said, looking up with a mild grin. "Say I accept this deal; that means we'd have to cut down those pine trees that are currently growing on those patches of land, and which you planted there. What's to be done with all that wood? Because that's gonna be quite an amount of wood."
Daniel chuckled again.
"Whether I sign over those bits of land to your farm or whether I draw up a lease for them, those trees are yours to do with as you please. I only planted them there because they were surplus and I had to get rid of them here. So yes, they'll have to be cut down, and as far as I'm concerned, you can cart them off to the sawmill to have them chipped or turned into planks that you can use for whatever fences and buildings you may need planks for on your farm. Or turn them into a big bonfire for all I care."
"Yeahhh, that would get out of hand real quick, there's a forest on the other side of those roads," Sasha sniggered, shaking her head. "But fine, I suppose we can have the sawmill turn them into materials; it's all pine, that makes for great lumber." She looked up again. "Say, but here's a question. How would we get those super trees to plant them in those patches of land?"
"I'll have to ask about that when I get in touch with the university," Daniel shrugged with a smile. "I'm assuming they would deliver saplings to you. And I'm also assuming you shouldn't ask for any until you have the ground ready for planting, because if they really grow that fast, there's no way you could store the saplings for any extended period of time."
"Yeah, that makes a lot of sense," Sasha nodded. "I remember the crates of poplar saplings one of the farms around Fennfield used to plant, and if these new super trees grow ten meters in a year, they would burst out of those crates in a matter of days." She ran a hand over her chin again and thought in silence for a few moments before once more looking up. "Well, you know what, Dan; let's do this thing. I'm admittedly kinda curious about it, I can see how it could be kind of fun to do, and I wonder what Fred and Frank would say about those trees when we roll into their yard with a truckful of them. And like I said, I'm all for increasing the output of this godforsaken no man's land of a valley so we might possibly get better roads around here."
"Alright, I thought you might be interested," Daniel nodded with a smile. "So would you want a cost-free lease on those bits of land, or would you like me to add them to the total acreage of Butterfly Farm?"
"If it's not gonna cost us extra in land ownership, you may as well add them to our acreage," Sasha smiled. "That would keep things consistent and much more overseeable."
"That's what I thought," Daniel nodded with another smile. "Give me just a few moments more." He did some more typing on the computer and eventually printed out another paper which he lay on the counter. "There you go, if you sign that, you can call yourself the owner of two ridiculous spots of land in ridiculous shapes between two ridiculous dirt roads."
"This certainly has been a ridiculous turn of events," Sasha sniggered as she signed the paper. "But I'm ridiculously grateful, Dan, because it's ridiculously generous of you. I'm sure you realize you just pretty much gave us several thousand bucks worth in pine wood, right?"
"I'm well aware of that, yes," Daniel nodded with an even wider smile. "Call it an investment in the future of your farm and this valley."
"Sure, why the hell not," Sasha chortled, accepting a copy of the paper Daniel handed her and folding it to stick it in her pocket. "Well, as I said, it's ridiculously generous of you, and I'm super grateful, Dan. You go on and do your thing with calling that university, and you can text or call me any time to let me know the outcome of that and how I should proceed from there, or even email me all the info once you've gathered it."
"You got it, Sasha," Daniel smiled while filing away the original paper he had printed out, chuckling softly. "So, is there anything else you'd like to buy here since you just saved about twenty-seven thousand dollars?"
"I'm sure as hell topping up the tank of that truck, for one," Sasha sniggered, nodding her head at the wall of glass doors and windows. "And come to think of it, do you have any winter barley seed? There were some bags of it with that pallet full of seed bags you gave us, but it's not quite enough to plant any of our fields. We'd need at least eight more bags for a minimum spread on our smallest field."
Tappety tappety went the fingers of the lion man on the keyboard again, followed by a nod of his head.
"Yeah, we have some in stock. It's last year's, so you can let it sit for another year easy and just mix it with the other seed once you get to planting next fall."
"How much do you have?" Sasha inquired.
"Fourteen bags," Daniel said while checking the computer. "We got two pallets for Waving Grain Farm last year, but they only ended up taking a bit under one and a half pallet."
"We'll take all of them in that case," Sasha decided. "I can set the seeder to a more dense spread, that'll be fine."
"You got it," Daniel nodded again after yet some more typing on the computer. "I'll bring it out front with the forklift in a moment and put it on the back of your truck."
Sasha scanned her company bank card again and entered the PIN code to pay, nodding with a smile as well.
"You do that, in the meantime I'll go grab my Citroen from the side of the building and we'll take that rack off the roof rack on your van."
All of them walked outside, and while Dan walked over to the storage buildings by the large concrete bunker, Sasha walked over to the far side of the building where her old Citroen delivery vehicle was parked on one of the parking spots next to the building. By the time she had driven it over to where the old MAZ truck was parked, Buddleia and Millie had already unstrapped the vintage grocery store rack from the roof rack on the VW van and were taking it off, sliding it into the back of the old Citroen as Sasha opened the rear doors of it. Daniel also drove up to them in a forklift holding a pallet with several rows of bags stacked on it, which he set on the deck of the old MAZ truck.
Once everything was strapped down, Sasha shook Daniel's paw and thanked him again, and Buddleia did as well. Daniel drove the forklift back to the storage buildings, and Sasha turned to Millie with a light chortle, opening the rear-hinged driver door of the old Citroen.
"Do you think you could drive this to town, choco-snoot?"
Millie looked into the vehicle and tilted her head a bit.
"Uhm... I'm not sure, mom. I can drive a stick-shift, but this one is weird, it comes out the dash, I don't know how that works."
"It's actually quite easy once you get the hang of it," Sasha smiled, getting behind the wheel of the old vehicle and explaining the pattern of the gear shifter, which looked like an umbrella handle with a pool ball on the end sticking out of the dashboard to the right of the steering wheel. "See, turn to the left and pull, that's first gear. Push in and let it plop upwards, neutral, push in, second gear. Pull out straight, third gear, turn to the right and push forwards, fourth gear. That's really all there is to it. Plus of course, turn to the left and push in, that's reverse, so you gotta keep in mind all the time that the pattern is reversed so you don't accidentally shift into reverse when you want to grab first."
"Uhm, yeah... that's kinda counter-intuitive, I don't know if I would remember that and I wouldn't want to break your car, mom," Millie said. "But I'd love for you to teach me how to drive it sometime, though!"
"Alright, we can do that sometime," Sasha nodded with a smile. "But that does mean that for now, you're gonna have to put those strong farmer's arms of yours to use, choco-snoot, because you'll have to drive the truck in that case, and that one needs some muscle to slam it into gear. Unless you think you can drive this car, babe?" she added with another smile, turning to Buddleia. "That driver's seat comes out real easy, it's designed to be taken out in the blink of an eye."
"I think I can drive, yes, but I not sure I can fit, even with that seat out, Sasha," Buddleia said with a light chirped chortle. "That round roof come down quite low, I maybe too tall to fit, yes."
"That's a good point, I do have to slouch in the seat a bit too," Sasha nodded with a chortle of her own. "Alright, I'll drive this then, and you'll have to drive the truck, Milbilly. That's a standard four gear pattern, but like I said, you have to double-clutch for first and second and really slam it into gear quite hard, and you have to row through those gears a lot to keep up the revs because the engine tends to bog down a lot. Think you can handle that?"
"I can do that, mom!" Millie nodded with a smile. "Uncle Chester taught me how to drive in his old grain truck, and that one has an unsynchronized first gear too so you have to double-clutch so I learned how to do that!"
"Very good, then you should have no trouble driving that old monster," Sasha chortled. "Just keep the pedal to the floor all the time, that thing may be torque-y but it's hella slow and lazy so you really have to work to get it up to a half-decent speed." She grinned cheerily. "That's probably because of the heavy load with this fuzzbutt in the spot where the passenger seat used to be."
In response, Buddleia chirped her staccato yips and leaned over to grab Sasha around the waist with both arms, easily flipping the tall, lanky human woman over her shoulder and patting Sasha's butt with light slaps of one paw.
"You mean mean tease, Sasha, yee yee hee! I not that heavy, yee hee!"
Millie giggled loudly, and Sasha sniggered, bracing herself against the back of Buddleia's upper body with one hand so she could ruffle the vulpine taur's long purple hair and pointy ears with her other hand.
"Put me down, you fluffy menace!" she chortled, pulling her long ginger hair out of her face and pushing her glasses back up her nose when Buddleia had set her back on her feet. "Jeez you're nuts! Haha! Anyway, let's top up the tanks and then it's about high time we get you back to your workplace, choco-snoot, don't you think?"
"I suppose so!" Millie nodded with a giggle. "It was a lot of fun staying with you and going with you to Arfafield though!"
"I'm sure we can figure out some kind of excuse for you to come over for a few days again sometime soon," Sasha chortled as she scanned her bank card at the scanner on one of the fuel pumps and started filling the large tank of the old MAZ truck.
"Yes! We maybe grow poppies next year, we need you to teach us about!" Buddleia chirped a chortle.
"That would be neat!" Millie nodded cheerfully. "There's actually a few things you'd need to know about growing and harvesting poppies, like, you'd need a special harvester head on your combine, and the combine needs to have a shaker." She turned to Sasha with a smile. "I heard you mention a Fortschritt to mister Tawnto, mom! That's the combines auntie Ruth and uncle Chester use!"
"I know," Sasha nodded with a smile. "That's why I asked Dan to look out for one, because we're aiming to plant sunflowers next year."
"Yeah, they're good because they have a shaker, and you can use a regular corn header for sunflowers!" Millie nodded brightly. "You'd still need a special header for poppies though, a regular grain header won't do. I could ask auntie Ruth where they got theirs from if you want!"
"I'm sure Dan can find something when the time comes," Sasha smiled, scanning her card at the other fuel pump to fill the tank of her Citroen with regular gasoline after she had finished filling the tank of the MAZ truck with diesel. "But that's still at least a year away, so there's no rush. Besides, there's a lot of other things we need to consider as well. Such as, what the hell would we even do with a full harvest of poppy seeds? I'm sure the Lawrences would like to buy some for their baked goods, but I doubt we could dump a few tons of it at the flour mill."
"Yeah, that's true, there's not very much you can do with poppy seeds," Millie nodded again. "You can't really press oil from it, and if you want to sell it to medical companies for the opiates you have to harvest it differently, so it's only really suitable for dressing on bread and bagels and stuff."
"That's things to do some study on, I guess," Sasha smiled, tapping the fuel nozzle on the edge of the Citroen's filler opening and hanging it back on the pump, then screwing the filler cap back on. "Well, we're all fueled up, so time to hit the road, darlings!"
She got behind the wheel of the old 2CV delivery vehicle and started the engine, looking at Buddleia hopping into the cab of the MAZ truck and settling her quadruped lower body down in the passenger footwell while Millie climbed into the cab on the other side and sat down behind the large steering wheel. Several moments later, the engine was started with a thick puff of blue and black smoke from the exhaust pipe, and the large old truck slowly shuddered into motion. Sasha smiled again and followed the old lavender truck off the yard of the Co-op, down the narrow dirt road along the base of the hill and onto the shortcut through the forest near the livestock dealer.
Despite Millie having some trouble driving the old MAZ truck - which Sasha could tell by the way it shuddered and kept losing speed before speeding back up with a downshift and a roar of the old engine - it didn't take too long before they reached the tiny village of Rolling Hills. Buddleia was evidently giving directions to Millie as the lavender truck turned into the narrow dirt road to the left just behind the welcome sign and drove over to the small market square of packed dirt. Again Sasha smiled to herself, driving on down the main dirt road a little bit and swinging the old Citroen delivery vehicle around to back it in one of the parking spots in front of the general store. She shut off the engine and got out, calmly opening both narrow rear doors and leaning against the cargo box while she waited for Millie and Buddleia to walk between the general store and the greengrocer and up to the old delivery vehicle.
Millie took the vintage grocery store rack from the back of the vehicle and happily carried it over to the general store. Inside, the black and white Border Collie woman Mrs. Stebbins looked up and around at the tinkle of the bell over the door and smiled at Sasha holding open the door, her head tilting a bit when Millie stepped into the store the next moment with the rack.
"Hello Sasha, hello Millie, good to see you're back," she smiled. "What is that now?"
"Hi missus Stebbins!" Millie smiled brightly, carrying the vintage rack over to the counter with the cash register on it and setting it upright. "I brought you something from Arfafield! Look at this awesome retro candy rack! When I saw it, I immediately wanted to get it to give to you for in the store, to say thank you for everything you've done for me!"
"Aww, you shouldn't have, dear!" Mrs. Stebbins smiled, clasping her paws together in front of her chest. "That is so very sweet of you! And it looks so lovely, I'm sure we can find a good use for it."
"You're so welcome!" Millie smiled brightly again, happily wagging her slender tail. "I right away thought of the store when I saw it, and I really really wanted to say thank you for everything so very much! And Sash helped! She bought it for me at the auction because I couldn't do any bidding, but I paid her back for it and all!"
"You're such a sweet pup," Mrs. Stebbins smiled warmly. "And this looks so nice, it has Art Deco styling. Here, we'll set it in a place of honour right next to the counter." She opened the door behind the counter and stuck her head around it, calling out. "Barry! When you're done in there, bring out the display boxes with candy bars and rolls of candy, and bring a box of the mixed magazines and newspapers!"
"Yes ma!" a young voice sounded from somewhere behind the door.
"I'll help him!" Millie said happily, trotting around the counter and disappearing through the door.
"Yep, the energy's back in the store," Sasha chortled.
Mrs. Stebbins turned around again and smiled at Sasha and Buddleia with a light chortle as well.
"Ah, Buddleia is here too, hello dear. Yes, it does seem like things will pick up significantly again now that you're back. I take it everything went well at that auction?"
"Like you wouldn't believe, Doris," Sasha smiled. "It was a very interesting experience, and I got so much equipment even the van and trailer I borrowed from Dan were almost not enough to carry it all back home. We came back home late Monday evening, and it took all day yesterday to unload everything and set it in the proper locations, so that's why I'm only giving you your energetic employee back today."
"That's absolutely fine, dear," Mrs. Stebbins smiled. "And it's so good to hear you had such success. You should really take a picture of your facility sometime, I have to admit I have gotten rather curious as to what it looks like by now. Mister Speel has told me you have a very nice underground room that he has put some kind of special floor in."
"You should come visit and see it in person sometime, Doris," Sasha smiled. "I'm positive Millie would do very well tending the store with Barry's help for a day, and then I can also show you how nice your old chicken coop is looking and how well the little chicks are doing and everything."
"That would be lovely!" Mrs. Stebbins nodded with a smile. "I could perhaps visit on a Sunday sometime, after preacher Kyeeru's service, we keep the store closed on Sundays anyway."
"That could certainly work," Sasha smiled. "And there's no rush; Paul did indeed put an amazing epoxy floor in there, and he brought a bunch of glazed wall tiles as well we'll have to put on the walls, but I first have to speak with him about expanding the room, he said he can do it in a way that wouldn't require digging up a large part of our yard."
"It's so wonderful to hear you're having so much success with your farm that you're even talking about expanding," Mrs. Stebbins smiled. "It really brought a new spark of life back to this whole village, you know."
"Dan said something similar, yes," Sasha nodded with a light chortle. "According to him, we can even revitalize this whole valley with an idea he had. Because talking about expanding; we just came from the Co-op where we bought some land to bring the grounds of Butterfly Farm back to what they were before the first world war, and even a little extra, and Dan gave us some land he owned right next to the farm as well."
The black and white Border Collie woman clasped her paws together in front of her again and smiled brightly.
"That is amazing news! Congratulations, dears! Although revitalizing the whole valley, that sounds like it would be a massive undertaking; surely that couldn't be done by just one or two persons on their own?"
"It will be kind of a team effort, actually," Sasha chortled. "Dan has heard about some new super trees being developed at an agricultural university; they grow at an amazing rate, thirty feet in a year. So he gave us those bits of land to plant those trees on, we'd plant and cut down the trees and bring them to the sawmill, Fred and Frank will run them through the chipper, and all of that will be brought to the BGA plant and even out of the valley to Arfafield and even all the way up to Bronto Valley to a large paper company." She let go a short laugh. "According to Dan's positive theory, that would increase the traffic from here enough to bamboozle the province council into improving the roads around here, perhaps even gravel them."
"Oh my!" Mrs. Stebbins smiled. "That is quite ambitious, but it would certainly be wonderful if that plan came to fruition, wouldn't it? We have already seen a bit of increased traffic, with the new folks who moved here recently. Have you met them yet, Sasha?"
"No, but Leia did tell me they arrived when I was in Arfafield," Sasha smiled. "We're actually going over to say hello in a bit, I'm very eager to meet them and see what that botany shop has to offer, because I need seeds for herbs and such, but not in the crazy bulk quantities Dan can sell me, haha."
"Oh, you definitely should, dear," Mrs. Stebbins nodded. "The ladies of the new plant shop are such a delightful pair." She let go a light chortle. "And I heard you already ordered custom work from the joiners before they even got here?"
"Haha! Yes, we very much need a couch, so I asked the Warmelink sisters to make some cushions when I shopped for rugs at their store, and told them they should team up with those furniture makers once they got settled in," Sasha nodded with a laugh. "They thought it was an exquisite idea, so we definitely gotta go say hi to them as well."
"Say hi to who?" Millie smiled as she appeared from behind the door behind the counter with a large box in her arms, followed by the young black and white Border Collie boy Barry carrying several smaller boxes.
"The new folks in town, choco-snoot," Sasha smiled. "I already have some of them doing work for me, so we should at least introduce ourselves."
"Oh! Okay! That sounds like fun!" Millie smiled as she set down the box and opened it, taking out stacks of various magazines and putting them on the lower shelves of the vintage rack.
"They are nice people," the canine boy Barry nodded.
"In that case, we'll leave you to your work and go introduce ourselves to the newest members of our close little community," Sasha smiled.
"Don't you want your revenue, Sasha?" Mrs. Stebbins smiled. "It piled up a bit again since you brought new cheeses."
"Oh, right, it might actually be handy to have some cash money at hand when we drop by the plant store," Sasha nodded with a smile.
Mrs. Stebbins nodded as well and stepped behind the counter, taking a notepad from below the counter and totting up a row of numbers quite quickly before ringing the cash register, taking out an amount of money and putting it in an envelope she handed to Sasha. After several thank-yous back and forth and a great big hug and thank-you from Millie, the tall human woman and the fluffy vixen-taur waved and left the store, calmly walking up the main dirt road to head towards the two new buildings that had been built at the end of the row of stores.
They only got a little way before a shout suddenly rang out.
"Whoa! Sasha, duck!"
Sasha's initial reaction was to turn and say "what?" while looking around... but she should have ducked right away. From between the hardware store and the crafts store came a thick spray of water, which was immediately shut off as Sasha stepped in its path, but which still hit her dead-on and instantly soaked her and even pushed her a few staggered steps sideways. Buddleia had jumped out of the way just in time, and stepped back up to Sasha who stood gasping and dripping in the middle of the road, leaning over to pick up the human woman's glasses which had flown off her face.
From between the hardware store and the crafts store, several people trotted up to the road as well; the charcoal-gray and white skunk man Paul Speel who ran the hardware store, a quite short-coupled pale orange Caspian tiger man named Jasper Nicla, who was the beekeeper providing the crafts store with beeswax and the general store with honey, a black-furred Brush-tailed rat man named Ruben Bekker who was the craft store's potter, a very pretty silver-cinnamon Ocicat woman named Sonya Jonker, who was the wicker weaver and carver of the crafts store, and the grayish tan and yellow deer mouse mechanic Peter Stanz who was the 'Stanz' in the Stanzford Garage. All five of them gathered around the soaking wet human woman as she recomposed herself.
"Oh my gosh Sasha, I'm so sorry!" the Brush-tailed rat man Ruben said.
"Are you okay, honey?" the Ocicat woman Sonya said, wiping some water from Sasha's long ginger hair.
"I'm fine, but what happened?" Sasha said, shaking some water off her glasses and putting them back on.
"We were just testing the pump," Ruben said, motioning at something between the buildings.
Sasha looked around and tilted her head as she found herself looking at a very old firetruck in deep red with squared-off white front fenders and a white front bumper, its heavy diesel engine calmly rumbling in an on-and-off rolling rhythm even though it puffed out thick plumes of black smoke from the exhaust pipe, and a large water cannon slightly drooping over the roof of the rounded cab was still leaking a steady drip of water.
"Well then!" she said, gathering up her long ginger hair to wring the water from it as she had her head tilted to the side anyway. "That's new, since when did this village get a firetruck?"
"We picked it up last week at an auction," the deer mouse man Peter said. "It's a nineteen sixty-five Magirus-Deutz DL one-seven-eight firetruck that was used in Arfafield, and they got it from the Northback Airport on the other side of the mountains back in the nineties. We have a volunteer fire brigade in town, you know, but all we had was a hand-operated pump cart from about the turn of the previous century, so it was about time we got something with a motor in it."
"Yeah, we've been working on it all week to get the engine running, and we were just testing the onboard tank for leaks and the pump for pressure," the skunk man Paul nodded.
"I'd say your test was successful," Sasha said with a light chortle, wringing her long hair again. "My fire has certainly been put out quite effectively, I tell you what."
"You really okay, Sasha?" Buddleia asked, rubbing a paw up and down Sasha's back and every now and then taking a fistful of the human woman's shirt to squeeze the water from it.
"I'm totally fine, babe, don't worry," Sasha smiled, flipping her wet hair back over her shoulder. "It was unexpected, sure, but hell, I'm not made of sugar so some water won't melt me."
"We're really so very sorry, Sasha," the short tiger man Jasper said. "I told them we should wait with testing the pump until we had the tires and transmission fixed so we could turn the truck around and point it away from the road."
"Like I said, don't worry," Sasha smiled, waving a dismissive gesture with a hand. "It's really quite funny actually, and hey, at least I'm clean now!"
"I'm glad you take it so lightly," Ruben said with a small smile. "We almost knocked you over, I feel bad about it."
"Yes, let us at least make it up to you, honey," Sonya said. "C'mon, we'll get you something dry to wear." She ushered Sasha over to the spinnery and stepped inside, drawing the attention of the three European hamster sisters, the Keeshond woman and the Bettong woman. "Emergency, honeys! We accidentally hosed Sasha down when we tested our firetruck! We need a towel and some dry clothes!"
The three hamster sisters sprung into action, abandoning their looms and trotting into the back of the store. Only a moment later, Mary-Jo, the one with the black hair, returned and handed Sasha a large towel, while her sisters Rosemary, the blonde-haired one, and Jasmine, the cream-haired one, were all too eager to help Sasha out of her soaked clothes and rub down her naked freckled body with the towel and put some fresh dry clothes on her, letting their paws cheerily stray all over the bare freckled skin in the process. Sonya also happily helped rubbing Sasha down with the towel and also let her elegant paws stray a bit as she helped pull a dry pair of shorts up over the tall human's narrow hips. Sniggering softly to herself, Sasha just stood still and let them fiddle about for a bit, eventually taking the towel herself and gathering all her long ginger hair in it to firmly rub the last moisture from it, and drying her glasses with it.
With all her belongings transferred from the pockets of the soaked pair of shorts to the pockets of the dry pair of shorts, Sasha looked down herself for a moment and chortled at the pair of dark green denim shorts and the matching dark green denim button-down shirt with brass press-studs instead of buttons she had been hoisted into.
"Well, look at that, seems like green's my color."
"Oh yes darling, most definitely, you look awesome!" Jasmine smiled brightly, holding up her paws with the tips of her thumbs against each other to frame Sasha. "It's so you!"
"Although you looked even better in between the wet clothes and the dry clothes," Sonya chortled with a playful wink.
"Of course I did, that's my most natural look and the way I walk around all day and do all my work on the farm, so it's the look I carry the best of all," Sasha grinned.
"Oh my gosh you gotta let me visit your farm during work hours sometime!" Sonya chortled louder.
"We get to do that soon!" Rosemary giggled. "The sofa you ordered is almost done, Sasha! We'd show you the cushions we made for it, but the Jolink family already has them in their workshop so they can build the frame."
"Right, that's actually where we were headed before I got hosed down by those zealous volunteer firefighters," Sasha chortled. "I only got back from Arfafield the day before yesterday myself, so I should go introduce myself at least." She playfully pulled all six of the woman into a hug one by one. "Thanks for the care and the dry clothes, darlings. I'll pick up my own clothes next time I'm in town, or you can bring them if the couch is finished before that."
"Count on it!" Mary-Jo nodded with a smile.
"And you're welcome!" Rosemary smiled.
"And thank you for the preview as well!" Jasmine giggled.
"Yeah, I'm almost tempted to tell the guys to do another test of the pump when you walk by again," Sonya giggled with a wink. "We really are very sorry, Sasha, but that was actually a very pleasant bonus effect of our whoopsie, haha!"
"Yes, well, don't make it a habit," Sasha sniggered. "Otherwise I might chase you up a tree and you'll have to call your colleague volunteers to get you down again."
Laughing and giggling cheerfully, the five women of the spinnery returned to their work while Sasha, Buddleia and Sonya walked back out of the store. Sonya walked over to the small group of men, who were still standing in the middle of the road and smiled when Sasha sent them a thumbs-up with one hand while making a sweeping gesture along her dark green denim-clad self with her other hand. They waved at each other, and as the four men and the feline woman stepped back between the buildings where the old firetruck was parked, Sasha and Buddleia walked further up the road, to the large dairy building on the right and the butchery on the left which both no longer were the last buildings in the row as another quite large building had been erected next to the dairy, and a smaller building was now sitting next to the butchery.
The large building next to the dairy consisted of three distinct gable-roofed buildings connected to each other, with the roofs running over into each other and the middle building sticking out forwards quite a ways from the other two. The front edges of the roofs also were embellished with quite massive but very intricately decorated bargeboards, while each of the three roofs had an artfully turned finial on its frontmost point. A large sign decorated with the same intricate details around the edges as the bargeboards had was attached to the front of the middle building, with elegantly carved lettering spelling out "Joinery - Cabinetry - Turnery". All three buildings were built in bricks that varied in tint from dark yellow via orange to muted red, and the two buildings on each side had large gothic-style windows with white stonework around them while the middle building had a somewhat disproportionate gothic-style double door that spanned almost the entire width of the facade - being almost twice as wide as it was high, it looked a bit silly, but at least it matched the windows.
Stepping into the building, both Sasha and Buddleia immediately were struck with the pleasant scent of wood shavings and pine sap and resin permeating the building, and the concert of whining, buzzing, and the irregular swish-swishing sound of a hand plane. On both the left side and the right side were fairly large counters, the one on the right manned by a housecat girl of approximately twenty years old with white fur sporting random patches of light brown with darker brown tabby markings in them, long and curly dark brown hair and a pair of thin-rimmed rectangular glasses over a pair of goldenbrown eyes, dressed in a pair of brown jeans and a brown button-down shirt.
"Ah, hello, welcome to the furniture store," she said with a smile. "I'm Vicky, how can I help you?"
"Hello Vicky, I'm Sasha Farr, and this is my wife Buddleia Farr," Sasha smiled.
"We've met before, yes," the housecat girl nodded with a smile. "So you must be the lady who ordered a sofa! Nice to meet you! My mother is putting the finishing touches on it and she'll varnish it tomorrow, then the day after it can go to the ladies Warmelink to have the armrests upholstered." She stepped out from behind the counter and gestured at a wide door leading into the right building. "Would you like to see it?"
"That would be very nice," Sasha smiled. "We did come here to introduce ourselves, so that will be a nice opportunity to get a sneak preview as well."
"Of course!" the feline girl smiled brightly. "Please follow me, and don't mind the mess. We only just got settled in, and we haven't even had much time to get every detail squared away because we right away had an order to work on, hee hee!"
She led the way through the wide door into what turned out to be a very spacious workshop. Along the wall separating the buildings were racks full of sheets, planks, beams and slats of different kinds of wood, along the back wall were several large pieces of fairly heavy machinery such as chop saws, scroll saws, drill presses, top-down lathes and two large table saws, and against the wall opposite the door was a slightly elevated platform. A housecat man with white fur splotched with dark brown here and there and short brown hair, dressed in a pair of brown denim full-body coveralls, was by one of the table saws cutting a stack of planks, while on the elevated platform was a housecat woman with a frilly tabby pattern of dark brown in her light brown fur, which even faintly showed in her medium-long curly brown hair as well, dressed in a two-piece set of brown coveralls, and she was working on a wooden frame of a three-seat sofa, meticulously carving the image of a curled vine with pointy elliptic leaves in the round-topped front of one of the armrests, every now and then running a slip of fine-grit sandpaper over the carving.
The younger feline girl pushed a button right next to the door which sounded a calm but very distinct buzzer, drawing the attention of the other two cats. The feline man shut off the table saw and took off the pair of ear protectors he was wearing, while the feline woman sat up and took a pair of earbuds from her ears. Both of them smiled as the feline girl led Sasha and Buddleia into the room, getting up and walking over to them.
"Good day, missus Farr," the housecat man said. "Nice to see you again."
"Is this your wife you mentioned?" the tabby cat woman smiled.
"Yes, this Sasha," Buddleia nodded with a smile. "She back from auction in Arfafield now and we come introduce."
"Very pleased to meet you," the feline woman smiled while shaking Sasha's hand. "I'm Vivian Jolink, and you've already met our daughter Victoria."
"Vicky!" the feline girl said with a mild smirk.
"Robert Jolink, pleased, and our daughter Victoria," the feline man introduced himself, also shaking Sasha's hand with a small playful grin in his daughter's direction. "I understand you're responsible for us getting to work straight away after moving here?"
"That is indeed correct," Sasha nodded with a smile. "We run Butterfly Farm, a good four hours west of here, and as you can possibly deduce from my wife's anatomy, there's hardly any furniture that is suitable for someone of my stature. A week or two or so ago I inquired with the sisters Warmelink if they could make couch cushions for us, and the idea arose to have them get into contact with you once you were settled to cooperate on the fabrication of a comfortable and attractive sofa."
"That was such a lovely idea!" the tabby cat woman Vivian smiled. "We come from the town of Mariat, east of the city of Bronto Valley and close to the Dinoleb River, and we had some very good contacts with weavers and tailors there; it's so nice to come to a new place and immediately have such contacts again! And they're such lovely women!"
"They are very skilled and friendly and pleasant women indeed, if perhaps a bit effervescent at times," the brown-spotted housecat man Robert nodded with a light chuckle.
"That's nothing, you should see your direct neighbors," Sasha chortled.
"Oh we've met them, they're something else alright!" Vivian nodded with a giggle. "But come, come have a look, I was just putting the finishing touches on the frame of your sofa."
Sasha and Buddleia followed her over to the elevated platform and looked at the sofa frame sitting there with a smile. It looked very elegant as well as robust, the bottom of the seat and the backrest made with a latticework of thick horizontal and vertical slats, braced and strengthened with thick crossbeams. The perimeter frame was constructed out of fairly thick beams as well, but they were rounded off along their entire lengths and had an artful elongated swirl carved into them. It was sitting five inches off the floor on thick, bulbous feet at all four edges as well as in the middle, and the armrests on either side were almost solid, rounded at the top and with fairly deep indents in them that, as the tabby cat woman explained, would contain the foam and upholstery. And of course, on the fronts of the armrests were the artful twirled vines with pointy leaves that the tabby cat woman had been working on.
She even set the six cushions made of the very soft and slightly ribbed dark green fabric on the frame to show what it would look like.
"See, these armrests will get a layer of foam as well, which will be covered with this same lovely fabric," she smiled. "We made the back and the seat bottom extra sturdy, so your wife can sit on this sofa as well without any danger of breaking the slats. What do you think?"
"It's looking so beautiful already that it's going to give us a lot of work to spiff up the inside of our old little farmhouse, otherwise it's gonna look very out of place with how pretty it is," Sasha smiled with a chortle. "I absolutely love it already, missus Jolink, and those decorative details are such a lovely touch."
"Thank you!" the tabby cat woman smiled. "That's my signature touch, I'm so glad you like it. I should have everything done by tonight, then tomorrow we move it to the paint room so I can varnish it. Once it's dry, the day after that, we'll bring it over to the spinnery and I will be helping the ladies Warmelink with applying the foam and the upholstery. I'm quite positive that we will finish that in one day, so the day after that your sofa should be ready."
"Would you like a text, phonecall or email to let you know it's ready to be picked up, missus Farr?" the housecat man smiled.
"That won't be necessary, I had already arranged with the sisters Warmelink that they will deliver it once it's ready, because they also want to see the progress we have made on our farm," Sasha smiled.
"Of course," the feline man nodded with a smile. "And let me thank you for being our very first patron in this new village, missus Farr, we really very much appreciate that."
"You're very welcome, and I consider it a special honour to have been your very first patron," Sasha smiled. "This workshop, heck, this whole building looks amazing, and I'm really happy to see new people moving to this lovely little community." She chortled softly. "You can also expect quite an influx of patrons, because everyone here gets their clothes at the Warmelinks, and they will be chattering everyone's ears off about how amazingly beautiful that sofa looks. Especially Jasmine with those theatrics of hers, haha. So the whole village will know about your excellent craftwork in no time."
"Haha, well, that will certainly be very appreciated," Mr. Jolink chuckled. "And of course, if there is ever any furniture you need, don't hesitate to reach out, we'll be happy to make it for you."
"I'll absolutely keep that in mind," Sasha nodded with a smile, adding another chortle. "I'll also stop keeping you from your work now, as we're aiming to also introduce ourselves to the other partners in your carpentry business, as well as the other newcomers in the village, and it is also still a four-hour drive back to our farm from here."
"Of course, thank you for your visit, and have a wonderful rest of your day," Mr. Jolink nodded, turning to his daughter. "Victoria, please show the ladies Farr to the other workshop, alright?"
"Daaad, Vickyyy," the housecat girl grunted, giving her head a quick shake and putting a smile on her face. "And of course, please follow me, ladies Farr."
Shaking paws with the two housecats again, Sasha smiled and followed the younger housecat girl out of the workshop together with Buddleia. She couldn't help chortling softly as they crossed the floor of the middle building and walked over to a similar wide door leading into the left building.
"You really don't like your full name, dear, do you?"
"No, I don't," the feline girl said. "My folks are absolutely gaga for Victorian architecture, so much even that they named me after it, and I hate it. Makes me sound like a wrinkly old grandma in a hoop dress who lives in the sixteen hundreds or something. At least Vicky I can live with, but they refuse to call me even that."
"Well, Vicky is short and sweet, I like it," Sasha smiled.
"Yes, Vicky is nice name for nice girl," Buddleia nodded with a smile that showed the lower halves of her upper canine teeth.
"Aw, thanks," the feline girl said with a small smile, leading the way into the left-hand building. "Anyway, here we are, this is the other workshop."
The room they walked into looked very similar to the right-hand room. It was very spacious, along the wall with the door in it were several racks; some small ones in which wood beams as well as thick tree branches were sitting upright, and several shelving racks which held sheets and planks as well as chunks of tree trunk. Along the rear wall were several very large horizontal lathes, there were table saws and chop saws and drill presses against the wall opposite the door, as well as a few large cabinets with numerous cubbies holding bolts and screws and nails and hinges and handles and the like. The front wall with the windows in it was also occupied, by several desks and workbenches holding smaller equipment, and several rolling stools without a backrest.
There were also a few more people in the room. By a workbench against the wall opposite the door were a tan and brown meerkat man and a pewter gray mink woman working together on putting together a cabinet, and at the workbenches under the gothic windows were a Eurasian badger woman whose fur was a deep dark honey-gold in color, with the traditional white markings over her head and face, but the black markings that usually were there were of a deep hazel brown color instead, just visible from under a thick mop of frizzy dark blonde hair, and a gerbil woman with white fur that had a sheen of silvergray agouti tipping over it, and whose long platinum-blonde hair was tied into a ponytail that stuck straight up into the air from the very top of her head and which had several additional elastic hair bands around it to keep the hair from flopping down all over the place. The badger woman was turning what looked like a wooden bowl on an upright lathe, while the gerbil woman was turning something that looked like a candlestick on a small horizontal lathe, holding a very fine chisel against it to create a wavy pattern with the tip of her tongue poking from between her lips.
Again the housecat girl pushed a button next to the door to sound a similar calm but incessant buzzer, drawing the attention of the four people in the room. They all looked up and smiled at Sasha and Buddleia stepping into the workroom.
"Aha, the illustrious missus Farr graces us with a visit," the badger woman smiled.
"And which one of us would that be?" Sasha chortled.
"Denny was talking about you, since we already met the other illustrious missus Farr," the gerbil woman smiled with a soft chortle.
"In that case; pleased to meet you," Sasha chortled, holding out a hand. "Also, that is quite a distinct hairdo you're sporting there."
"Gotta keep hair this long far away from the lathe, honey," the gerbil woman nodded with a smile, shaking Sasha's hand. "Trust me, you really don't want to get it caught in there when the lathe is running. Felicia Bakersfeld, by the way, and this is my lovely honey of a wife Denise."
"Sasha Farr, and my lovely fuzzbutt of a wife Buddleia, whom I'm assuming you already met before," Sasha chortled, also shaking the badger woman's paw. "Very nice to meet you both indeed, and it makes a whole darn lotta sense, what you said there."
"Yep, gotta keep up with the safety in work like ours, with the equipment we work with," the meerkat man nodded as he shook Sasha's hand. "Arnold Fourie, how do you do, and my lovely slinky of a wife Esmeralda."
"Very pleased to meet both of you as well," Sasha smiled while shaking the mink woman's paw. "It's so nice to see so many new people moving to this lovely little community, even if Leia and I won't see very much of any of you as we live on our farm four hours away from here."
"It's a wonderful little getaway," the mink woman smiled in a surprisingly deep but soft and silky-smooth voice. "We were so lucky to get in contact with the Jolinks and being able to band together to make this move and the setting up of a new business possible."
"I'd say you certainly made a very good choice," Sasha nodded with a smile. "I may have ended up here by literal accident, but it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me."
"Yes, we absolutely adore this place, and the people here are so wonderful and helpful and friendly," the badger woman smiled.
"Even if some of them are a tad eccentric, but hey, at least my hairdo won't be out of place," the gerbil woman added with a short laugh.
Sasha laughed softly as well.
"Don't tell me you walk around with your hair like that all the time?"
"Haha, oh heck no, only when I'm working, and then even only when I'm working with a lathe I have to lean over," the gerbil woman laughed.
All six of them laughed shortly - as the younger feline girl had left the room to man the counter in the middle building again. For a while, Sasha looked around in the workshop, admiring the cabinet that was being put together by the meerkat man and the mink woman, and the candlestick that was being turned by the gerbil woman. She remarked that she would very likely ask the meerkat man and the mink woman to build a number of small cabinets for her to replace the rather sagging old cabinets over and under the kitchen counter in their old little farmhouse, and as she was looking at the candlestick on the small lathe, an idea came to her mind that caused her smile to grow quite wide.
"Say, as I already hooked up those lovely people in the other workshop here with some of the locals for a joint project, how would you feel if I do the same for you?" she smiled at the gerbil woman.
"Keep talking, honey, I'm piqued," she smiled.
"Well, see, the thing is this," Sasha smiled. "When I looked at that candlestick you're making, I suddenly remembered something. I grew up on a farm that my grandparents ran, and they had some very old-fashioned furniture - or at least it seemed like that to me at the time. And one thing I suddenly remember quite clearly was a lovely standing lamp. It was made out of wicker, with the base being a tall and narrow hourglass shape, and a very tall, tapering lampshade that had large rectangular openings in it, and a thin yellow fabric on the inside. The base also had two round wood disks in it, at the top and the bottom, and the one on the top had a lovely narrow turned wood stand that held the fitting for the bulb, on which also the metal ring holding up the lampshade rested. Now we have a very lovely lady in the crafts shop here who is a talented wicker weaver, so I'm sure she could recreate the base and shade of such a lamp; how about I tell her to talk to you about making the wood parts for it, so those disks and the upright stand thingie?"
"Oh heck yeah, that would be great, and I can do that with my eyes closed," the gerbil woman nodded with a smile. "And it will be wonderful getting to work together with some of the other craftspeople of this village, so yes, go right ahead and do that, dear. It will be a pleasure, and something so simple; I'll make that something special for you."
"Excellent," Sasha smiled. "And come to that, I can actually even supply you with the materials as well. We just acquired two small patches of land that are full of pine trees that need to be removed, and some of them are quite young and thin, so would you be interested in those?"
"Always, I can make lots of great things with those," the gerbil woman smiled, nodding again.
"Alright," Sasha smiled, turning to the badger woman. "And I may have something for you as well. There's several elm trees on our property we had to cut down, and we couldn't grind away the stumps so those are still there. They even stick up a decent bit above the ground, so I could possibly cut them down much closer to the ground yet, and that would leave me with a handful of quite sizeable disks of wood that could be anywhere between three and seven inches thick. Are you interested in those?"
"Oh yes, please!" the badger woman smiled. "I can make some very nice bowls out of those, and even just some pretty wall art with thinner ones."
"Right, well, Leia and I usually come to the village once a week to pick up our mail and revenue from the general store, so on our next visit, we'll bring along a load of lumber for you," Sasha smiled with a light chortle, turning to the meerkat man and the mink woman. "I will also let you know that about two hours away from our farm is a quite large sawmill, and they are very adept at turning trees into planks and such. So you can also source your materials locally if you want."
"We had heard about the sawmill, yes, but thank you for bringing it to our attention," the meerkat man nodded with a smile. "I have no doubt we will be making use of its service in the future."
"You're very welcome, all of you," Sasha smiled. "I know I will definitely be looking forward to seeing what beautiful pieces will come from these fine workshops." She shook the paws of all four of them. "For now, we'll leave you to your work, as we still have another visit to make, and after that we have a drive of four hours long back to our farm. It has been great meeting all of you, and I look forward to talking with you again next time."
"It has been lovely finally meeting you as well, honey," the gerbil woman smiled.
"Yes, do come back soon," the mink woman nodded with a smile.
She saw Sasha and Buddleia out of the workshop and waved as the two of them left the building. Crossing the road, they walked up to the other new building that was sitting next to the butchery. Sasha actually stopped almost in the middle of the road for several moments to just stare at the building; it seemed almost strangely out of place.
It was built in brick, like the rest of the buildings, but bricks of a much larger size had been used, and they looked to be some kind of hewn limestone. And while the building was relatively small, especially compared to the new carpentry building or the dairy building, it had an unmistakable Palladian architectural influence in its design; it even had a suggested portico 'supported' by ornamental pilasters over the front door, integrated into the front wall but sticking out in a quite deep relief, and on either side of the front door was a narrow Venetian window, with the top of the arch in the middle almost reaching the roofline. The entire front side of the suggested portico's pediment was used to serve as the sign for the building, with chiseled letters reading "The Botany Boutique".
After giving her head a light shake over the small building's almost pompousness in relation to the other buildings along the road, Sasha crossed the last part of the dirt road and stepped into the building together with Buddleia. As suggested grandiose as it had looked from the outside, as plain and simple it was on the inside. It was no more than an open rectangular space, with in the middle what looked like a stack of thick squares five high, with each one being a bit smaller than the one below it so it resembled a sort of pyramid; indoor houseplants were placed upon that contraption, from low, flowering Cape Violets on the lowest platform, somewhat higher green plants like spider plants and pancake plants on the one above it, yet higher green and flowering plants like Clivias and bushy lady palms on the one above that, flowering moth orchids in various colors on the second-highest one, and the top one held a centerpiece of a giant Monstera plant held up by a pipe covered in rough jute and with several vines of Pothos wrapped around it.
Along the wall on the right was another stepped platform which held several zinc buckets with bunches of cut flowers and bouquets in them, and numbers of empty ornamental plant pots. Along the wall on the left was a similar wide stepped platform of which the steps were much wider and held a variety of garden plants in plastic pots, or in peat pots sitting in a low plastic tray. All the way in the back was a wide counter with a brass cash register on it, and on the right side of that counter were metal racks holding rows and rows of small packets of seeds, while on the left side of the counter was a shelving rack with bags of topsoil and potting soil on the bottom and bottles and flasks of fertilizer, misters and watering cans on the other shelves. And truth be told; the large Venetian windows did make it very light inside.
Behind the wide counter were the proprietors of the new store, and again Sasha halted at the sight of them. They both were leopard woman, one being clearly larger and more heavily built than the other, and the smaller of the two had much longer black hair that came down all the way to the base of her tail whereas the larger one of the two had similar black hair that only came down to the small of her back - but aside from that, they were absolutely identical. And unusual. From below the hairline, their fur was a clear white in color, covering almost their entire heads apart from two large circular patches over their eyes, and the fronts of their throat, chest and tummy, and they both had a white end to their tail and wide white bands around the upper part of their lower arms. They also had the traditional leopard rosette markings, but those were a ghosted white in color that made them look almost semi-translucent, the markings dotted all over the contrasting color of their fur except for on their ears, tails and feet. And the contrasting color of their fur was not yellow or gold, but a very deep, maroon-ish purplish dark fuchsia pink in color. Plus their eyes were a very bright, almost icy blue in color.
Both of them were also dressed identical, in an off-the-shoulder pale peach-colored dress with a deep rounded cleavage and a wide bell-bottom just above their knees. They both looked up as Sasha and Buddleia stepped inside, smiled, and spoke up almost in unison.
"Hello there, welcome!"
It actually took Buddleia's paw landing upon her shoulder to snap Sasha out of her surprise and give her head a quick, short shake before stepping further into the room and up to the counter.
"Hello indeed, this is a sight I was not expecting," she smiled.
"We get that a lot!" the smaller of the two deep pink feline women nodded.
"At least you didn't gasp or squeal," the larger one of the two said with a chortle. "We get that a lot as well, but judging by the lady you walked in with, you're used to something at least."
"Yeah, I thought I had seen some unusual folk with unusual fur colors, but apparently I hadn't seen everything yet," Sasha nodded with a light chortle as well. "But let me properly introduce myself, as that's what I came here for; Sasha Farr, and you may already have met my wife Buddleia here. Whom do I have the unexpected pleasure with?"
Both leopard women shook Sasha's hand in turns, the smaller one first, then the larger one.
"Melody Diouf, pleased."
"And Nathalie Diouf, also pleased."
"We're sisters!" said the smaller one.
"As if that wasn't obvious," added the larger one with a chortle.
"Twin sisters even!" Melody smiled.
"As if that wasn't obvious also," Nathalie chortled.
"You're beginning to sound about on par with the sisters De Verley," Sasha chortled. "But still, very nice to meet you both."
"We've met them! They're adorable!" Melody nodded with a bright smile.
"Very lovely and energetic ladies indeed," Nathalie agreed. "And how nice to see not just one set, but two sets of triplet sisters in this lovely little town."
"Yes, before we came here, we hadn't even met any triplets at all!" Melody nodded again. "Several twins, but never triplets! And now here we are in the tiniest of tiny villages, and there's two sets of triplets right next to each other!"
"This village holds many wonders for how small it is, I have found," Sasha chortled. "It's actually a real shame our farm is four hours of driving away from here, which limits us to one visit per week to pick up our mail and revenue rather than actually living right here in the heart of it."
"Is everything as wide open and empty around your farm as it was on the way here from Arfafield?" Melody asked. "That must get really lonely!"
"It is, but it's lovely with all the large forests and the birds and wild bunnies and everything," Sasha smiled with another chortle. "Not to mention it allows us to freely do our work in the nude without even having to think about it, and we do also get visitors from time to time, plus of course there's this invention called a telephone that we found we can apply to keep in touch with people."
"Oh, that does sound lovely," Nathalie nodded with a smile. "Working nude is the best way to do it, it's so free and unrestrictive, and such a necessity, even up here in the north."
"Yeah, now I'm kinda jealous!" Melody chortled. "Can we come over to your farm to be nude and maybe help out a bit or something sometimes?"
Sasha laughed shortly and cheerfully.
"Any time, darlings! Matter of fact, I didn't just come here to introduce myself, I'm also in need of some of your wares," she gestured at the racks filled with packets of seeds.
"Of course!" Nathalie smiled. "Do tell, honey, what are you looking for? Anything in specific?"
"I am, yes," Sasha nodded with a smile. "First and foremost, I need a decent amount of thyme seeds and green onion seeds. Possibly all you have on that rack. And for the rest, I can do with a variety of other herbs; parsley, basil, rosemary, chives, sage, oregano, a bit of chamomile, maybe some mint, dill weed, coriander and lavender, and also garlic."
"Sure, we have all of that," Nathalie nodded. "We even have celery, fennel and turmeric if you want."
"And white and black peppercorn!" Melody added.
"Why not, I may as well go all out on my herb gardening," Sasha chortled.
"We get such fragrant garden!" Buddleia chirped a chortle.
"Alright, well, let me make it easy for you then," Nathalie smiled. "Just a moment." She stepped through a door in the wall behind the counter - the wall actually had relief on it that mirrored the doorway and the Venetian windows of the front wall - and returned a few moments later with a box she set on the counter. "Here, this is one of our refill boxes for the herb collection on the rack, it has a good number of every variety of seed."
"Excellent, toss in an extra stack of thyme seeds and green onion seeds and I'll take it," Sasha chortled.
Both deep pink leopard women chortled as well.
"Is there a specific reason you need so much thyme and scallion?" Melody asked while Nathalie reached under the counter for a similar, opened box.
"There is," Sasha nodded with a smile. "My grandmother used to make very tasty deer sausages, and it had two secrets; one being a specific mix of certain spices, the other being a very generous amount of chopped green onion and thyme. I'm aiming to make those sausages as well sometime soon, but I first need to grow a good amount of the herbs I need."
"That sounds delicious!" Melody smiled brightly. "Will you be selling them as well? I want to try them!"
"There's a good chance I have to make so much there will be an immediate surplus, in which case that surplus will be brought to mister Jonesey to sell it for me," Sasha nodded again, letting go a soft chortle. "And since that's right nextdoor from here, I can right away pop in here to let you know about it."
"Awesome! I'll definitely be looking forward to that!" Melody all but cheered.
In the meantime, her larger sister Nathalie had taken a few stacks of packets from the opened box under the counter and had added them to the box she had set on the counter, sending Sasha a smile.
"That does indeed sound very tasty, I will be looking forward to that as well. And here you go, I put a bunch of extra packets of thyme and scallion seeds in here for you."
"Thank you, that will be an important step towards the creation of my granny's deer sausages," Sasha chortled, scanning her bank card at a small scanner and keying in her PIN code to pay.
"Any time, honey, glad we can help," Nathalie nodded with a smile. "Don't be a stranger now!"
"I don't think I could be any stranger than you two, or my darling fuzzbutt here," Sasha sniggered while she picked up the box. "But yeah, either way, you'll definitely be seeing more of me. Have a good one now, dears!"
The two deep pink leopard women waved cheerfully after Sasha and Buddleia as they walked back to the front of the shop and Buddleia held open the door for Sasha to step through with the box in her arms. Walking back to where Sasha had parked her old Citroen 2CV delivery vehicle, they suddenly found themselves with a small problem; Millie had been dropped off in town, but they still had both the Citroen and the old MAZ truck to drive back to their farm. Both of which were vehicles Buddleia did not fit in to drive them. So they could not bring both vehicles back to the farm.
With a bit of a shrug, Sasha handed the box to Buddleia so she could take her keys; it wouldn't be too bad to leave that vehicle in town for a while. She did get into it to drive it off the parking spot in front of the general store and instead park it in one of the spots between the garage and the hardware store, so it would be out of the way. After getting out and locking the doors, the human woman accompanied Buddleia over to the small market square where the lavender MAZ truck was parked, setting the box with packets of seeds in the cab and getting behind the wheel while Buddleia settled her quadruped lower body in the passenger footwell.
They did still have a drive of four hours to get back to their farm after all. And a lot of new work still to do.
