There was always something to do. Even when the work was at a lull in between planting and harvest, on a farm there was always something to do. Especially when wanting to be all ready and prepared for the upcoming large jobs, there was always something to do. And when there were large vehicles and equipment that had been neglected for years, there was most definitely always something to do.
On Butterfly Farm, there was always something to do. And on Butterfly Farm, a whole lot had been done and was being done. The fluffy purple and white vixen-taur Buddleia had already done a lot of preparation work during the few days the tall freckled human woman Sasha had been attending a large auction in Arfafield. Several of the chores Buddleia had prepared had been finished up upon the return of Sasha, with the help of the chocolate Labrador girl Millie. After Millie had been brought back to the tiny village of Rolling Hills, and the new inhabitants of the village had been met and introduced, the two farmers had returned to the work that had been partly prepared and the work that simply came up in the regular run of the days passing by.
The delivering of the batches of silage bales also meant that the fields the grass had come from were ready for mowing again. The purchase, at a very reduced cost, of the final small part of the large field beyond the dirt road that ran along the back of the farm, and the field on the right side of the large pond which brought the farm grounds back to their original amount it had been before the first world war, meant that even more grass could be mowed and baled up and wrapped to produce even more silage. But with the livestock they had on the farm, namely the four rabbits and the one goat, a bit of hay was not going to go amiss either, so Sasha had mowed the small triangle of the grass field beyond the back road, tedded it and let it dry in the several days the weather was nice and sunny and relatively warm still, and once it had turned into hay, it had been baled up and the bales were stored in the large shed. The grass in the field to the right of the pond had also been mowed, as well as the grass in the two fields to the left of the old little farmhouse, and all that grass had been baled up right after, the bales having been wrapped into gleaming purple blocks the next day, and the resulting number of bales - 77 from the front-side left field, 81 from the rear-side left field, and 86 from the field to the right of the pond, adding up to 244 bales - had been collected and stacked up in a number of rows next to the bale shelter and all along the shelf of rocks sticking out from the dip in the light hill next to the front field, and all of them had been marked with "B5", the word "day" and a tally mark every day that followed, as they had mowed and baled all the grass in one go and then wrapped all the bales to make one large batch.
During the days Sasha had been doing all the mowing and baling work, Buddleia had continued doing preparative work that was more physically challenging and required the vulpine taur's exceptional strength. She had removed the diesel engines from both their 1959 Skoda 706 RT grain truck, and the wrecked 1963 Skoda 706 RT tanker truck, and had given the tanker truck's engine a quick overhaul while they were out anyway. With how quickly it had gone, with the help of the engine hoist they had gotten from the Ag Co-op and the strip of concrete pavers they had put on the dirt floor of the rickety open shed, as well as the pulleys they had hung from the roof trusses, Buddleia had applied her great strength to also pull the grain box and even the cabin off the grain truck so she could very easily put the tanker truck's engine into the grain truck after the overhaul, bringing it back into a drivable state. A few parts of the wrecked truck were also used to patch up the grain truck, such as one of the front windows and one of the windshield wipers, and the whole rest of the cab was pulled off that truck so all the other parts could be taken off as well, including the entire interior - for as far as they could use the parts, as the grain truck was equipped with the first-series driver cabin with sleeper space behind it, whereas the tanker truck just had the day-cab, so it had much smaller doors for one.
While Sasha had been busy wrapping all the grass bales, Buddleia had continued her work on the grain truck as well - with the large box taken off the back, she had a very easy reach to remove all three of the hydraulic rams and all the hydraulic lines and replace them with the new ones the Katanga lion Ag agent Daniel from the Co-op had given them for their wedding. She also proceeded to fully strip all the rest of any usable and salvable parts off the wrecked tanker truck such as the transmission, almost all of the suspension parts and the wheels, most of the exhaust system and several of the lights. During that time, Sasha had finished wrapping all the bales and had turned to cutting down all the pine trees in the two strangely shaped triangles of land Daniel had also signed over to them, de-limbing them and using the Massey Ferguson tractor with the front loader and forks to load the trees onto the flat back of the lavender 1953 MAZ-200 truck - except for the thin young trees, those went into the little trailer that was attached to the back of old Emmie, the 1948 Chevrolet Fleetmaster, together with the chunks and slices Sasha had cut from the pine stumps as well as the elm stumps that were still present along the shelf of rocks and boulders next to the front field, as those were meant to go to the new turnery in the tiny village of Rolling Hills.
The large pine trees were all brought over to the sawmill to have them all turned into beams, planks, slats and a few cubic feet of woodchips. With those materials, Buddleia built a small addition onto the side building of the large shed that served as the new workshop, so she could store all the salvaged parts of the wrecked tanker truck in there. A full day with lunch skipped and dinner had late was used to also strip the wreck of Sasha's old white Volvo station wagon of everything that was still usable in any respect, the parts also stored in the new additional storage built onto the side of the workshop. Another day of that full week of work was used by Buddleia to drive into town with old Emmie, taking Sasha along with her so the human woman could pick up her 1956 Citroen 2CV AZU which was still sitting on one of the parking spots between the garage and the hardware store. That vehicle was also given a good pass-over with the DA sander and the paint gun to give it the same muted lavender color as the rest of the vehicles. And no, the engine of the Volvo station wagon did not fit under the hood of it.
All the work went smooth, it went well, it went easily. It also left them with a decent pile of scrap metal they had to get rid of. Buddleia easily loaded it all onto the flat back of the old MAZ truck; she had already proven she could pull the entire wrecked Volvo on her own, and with the vehicles dismantled into loose parts, the loose parts were light enough for the vixen-taur to hoist them onto the back of the truck and strap them down. A thorough tour of the farmgrounds had any and all additional scrap metal collected and strapped to the deck of the old truck as well. A quick phonecall to the Co-op confirmed that they could indeed dump the scrap there, and Daniel would pay them the price that would be paid to the Co-op by the salvage yard in Arfafield. There even was a scale at the Co-op so the scrap could be weighed to determine the proper price.
The next morning, their breakfast porridge was had inside the house, as a light rain was drizzling down. A bath in the pond was almost unneeded, as they were showered by the rain quite effectively during the rest of the nude morning routine of feeding the animals, gathering the eggs, fingering and milking Choco the goat, filtering the milk and putting it in the large, new second-hand stainless steel dairy freezer. Several additional cheeses were also made with a few liters of the older milk, whereas the oldest milk was kept aside to make butter from later. There was plenty of room now; with the large double-door stainless steel refrigerator, the stainless steel chest freezers - of which only one of the dairy ones had been set up in the underground room while the fish was kept in the regular old chest freezer that already was there - and the smaller under-counter freezers and refrigerators a very large amount of milk and associated products could be kept, and with the number of stainless steel shelving racks, especially combined with the small and low multi-shelf racks Buddleia had made to put on the large shelves, almost five times as many cheeses as before could be laid out to age.
It was quite well into the morning already after all that recurring morning work by the time Sasha and Buddleia climbed into the cab of the old lavender MAZ truck and set out towards the Ag Co-op. Rowing through the gears as if she was stirring through a large cauldron full of witchy soup and with her foot to the floor, Sasha chased the old truck up to its loud, complaining maximum performance. Nevertheless, despite managing to poke the truck up to a bit over fifty miles per hour even with the load of scrap metal on the back of it, it still took four hours before they finally pulled into the yard of the Co-op. At least it had stopped raining by then.
Daniel waved cheerfully as the two of them stepped into the large building and up to the counter.
"Sasha, Buddleia, there you are again! Good to see you two! Say, have you heard the big news?"
"Yes, one of our rabbits is pregnant," Sasha nodded with a chortle.
"Haha! Well, that's not what I meant, Sasha," Daniel chuckled.
"Why not?" Sasha sniggered, sitting down at the counter. "That's very big news, because we had nothing to do with it, we never put any of our males and females together. So we have a little miracle on our hands here! Big news!"
The tan Katanga lion man chuckled again.
"That is quite a miracle alright. Or perhaps it's just a matter of a wild rabbit having gotten into one of your runs. I remember, from my visit when I brought you those fish, that those runs have an open top. By the way, speaking of; how are those fish doing?"
"Fine, for as far as I can tell," Sasha chortled. "We see some of them swimming in the pond every now and then, and every three or so days we toss a cup of those food pellets in there and then it's a slurp-fest at the surface, so I'd say they're doing well."
"Is distraction!" Buddleia chirped a chortle, patting the counter with a paw. "Focus, Dan! Big news! What is big news? I curious! Yee hee!"
"Right!" Daniel nodded with a laugh. "Well, hold on to your hair, ladies; Cherry Blossom Farm has been sold!"
Buddleia let go a happy yip and clapped her paws together in front of her muzzle, and Sasha, who was just about to put a sugarcube into the cup of tea that had been set down on the counter for her by the rust-colored and white Border Collie woman, dropped the cube into the cup with a splash as she looked up.
"Say what?"
"I said, Cherry Blossom Farm has..." Daniel grinned.
Sasha cut him off with a wave of a hand.
"Alright alright, I heard you," she chortled. "Well! That is rather big news, isn't it? That farm is as out in the middle of nowhere as ours, and it's been sitting empty and pretty much abandoned for how long now?"
"Just about six years now, all in all," Daniel nodded. "And it's not that out in the middle of nowhere; it's only about a half hour or so away from your farm."
"Yeah, like I said, way out in the middle of damn nowhere," Sasha sniggered, stirring the sugarcube through her tea. "But that's brave of whoever bought it. So who bought the place, do you know? Is it another farmer, or is it one of those city types with more money than brains who thinks they need to get away from it all and have utter silence and nothingness all around them? Because in that case I predict that farm will be back to abandoned before the end of the year."
"Nope, it's a farmer alright," Daniel chuckled. "A pair of very lovely ladies as a matter of fact, a mother and her daughter from what I understood, and their aim is to raise less usual poultry."
Sasha quirked an eyebrow as she sipped her tea.
"Unusual poultry? The hell does that mean? Ostriches or something?"
"You never know!" Daniel said with another chuckle. "But from what I heard, from the lady herself as a matter of fact, they're gonna start out with ducks, quails, ptarmigans, black grouse and wood grouse and pheasants, because that's what they used to raise before."
"Okay, that sounds pretty unusual, I'll give you that," Sasha nodded with a chortle.
"Is ambitious," Buddleia smiled. "Grouse much better suited for cold, they not indigenous to this country, is too warm here. They need to provide lots forest, rocky ground, water, maybe cooling."
"Well, there's plenty of forest around that place, this whole valley is full of patches of forest," Sasha chortled. "And there's plenty of rocks too, those are all over the damn place. Water though, yeah, ducks need to swim, I know that much. Is there even any bodies of water out that way?"
"Is creek, but runs quite a ways behind Cherry Blossom Farm," Buddleia nodded. "You remember, Sasha, I mentioned when you asked about fishing poles in our house."
"Oh, right, that creek where your grandfather took you fishing for catfish," Sasha nodded with another chortle.
"And despite the boulders all over the place, it's easy enough to dig a giant pond, Sasha," Daniel chuckled. "That's what Buddleia's ancestors did as well when they settled in this valley; that pond on your premises is not a natural pond, it was dug out. And this new farmer lady has already inquired here about the renting of a backhoe and any possible contractors nearby."
"Right, makes sense," Sasha nodded. "She'll have her work cut out for her, then." She turned to Buddleia with a smile. "We should pay a visit to introduce ourselves and see if we can offer some help or something."
"Yes!" Buddleia nodded with a smile that showed her upper canine teeth. "We see what she like, and we can help maybe!"
"I'd better tell Jack to hurry with unloading your truck," Daniel chuckled, getting up from behind the counter and walking over to the right-hand side wall to stick his head around a door. "Hey Jack!"
"Yo boss!"
"Sasha and Buddleia are here with a load of scrap!"
"Big stuff?"
"Quite! Parts of that tanker truck you picked up for them in Arfafield, for one!"
"I'll get the telehandler out!"
"Good man. I'll bring them out back." The lion man walked back to the counter. "He'll be ready in a minute, you can start driving around back. I'll meet you by that bunker, the scrap pile is behind those buildings."
"I remember," Sasha nodded with a smile, drinking the last bit of her tea and getting up as well, smiling at Buddleia again. "You go with him, babe, I'll meet you with the truck."
Buddleia also nodded and followed Daniel out through one of the back doors, while Sasha stepped outside through one of the large glass doors and got back into the old MAZ truck. Wiggling her way between the buildings and rows of heavy machinery, she made her way over to the large concrete silage bunker and the open-front buildings sitting next to it. Daniel directed her on how to drive around the buildings and back up to a smaller concrete silage bunker in which a heap of twisted, discarded metal was piled up. The wolf man Jack was already there as well with an old telehandler that had a grabber claw on it.
Right in front of the bunker was a metal platform Daniel directed Sasha to park the truck on. A few pushes on buttons called a number on a small digital screen. After the old bits and pieces of the wrecked truck and wrecked station wagon had been unstrapped from the back of the old lavender truck, Jack carefully picked them up with the claw and dropped them on the heap of discarded metal. The lion man pressed some buttons again and called another, lower number on the small digital screen, taking note of it. He told Sasha she could park the truck out front again, and after doing so the tall human woman walked back into the large building where Daniel was behind the counter, tapping keys on the keyboard of his computer.
The difference between the two numbers that had been on the small screen was the weight of the scrap metal that had been on the back of the old lavender truck. Daniel showed a page of the salvage yard on Arfafield that listed the scrap prices per pound, a quick calculation was made, and an amount of money was transferred to the Butterfly Farm account. And then the wolf mechanic Jack dropped a bomb as he appeared from behind the door in the right-hand side wall, carrying a small box which he set on the counter with a grin.
"You're gonna love this, Sasha," he grinned. "They sent this directly to our department, the garage; arrived a coupla days ago."
Sasha tilted her head as she looked at the box. Even Daniel quirked an eyebrow in wonder.
"I didn't know about that?"
"My fault, sorry boss, I shoulda let you know but it slipped my mind," Jack said. "It's Sasha showing up here with what was left of that tank truck that brought it back to my mind."
"Oh hold on a second now, don't tell me that's..." Sasha started, giving her head an amused shake when Jack nodded.
"Yup. Them pumps you ordered for your grain truck. Do you even still want them? Or should we just send them return to sender for a refund?"
"Oh hell no, gimme," Sasha sniggered, grabbing the box. "We still have the motor out of that truck, and with these I can get that motor running so we can put it in that monster out there and make that way more roadworthy."
"Haha! Good shout, Sasha," Jack nodded with a laugh.
Daniel also laughed.
"It never fails, something you're desperately waiting for always shows up moments after you don't need it anymore. But repurposing that engine for Simon's truck is a good idea indeed, along with the transmission it should make that truck about twice as fast."
"I'll already be happy with a fifty percent increase," Sasha chortled. "And I don't even mind at all this just added a full day and maybe even two days of work to our schedule, the result will be so worth it."
"Toldya you'd love it," Jack chuckled. He slapped Sasha's shoulder amicably before walking back to the door in the right-hand side wall. "Good luck, Sasha, I'll be looking forward to the next time you'll come here with a decent motor in that old relic out there."
"I suppose we'd better get going then," Sasha chortled, tucking the box under her arm. "We suddenly have a bunch extra to do."
"Yes, we meet new people, and we make truck run better! All improvements!" Buddleia nodded with a smile. "We still make steps forward!"
"And that suddenly reminds me," Sasha shook her head with a laugh. "Leia, that seeder in our shed, I used that to plant our winter rye. So it handles cereal crops. Is it also suitable for sunflowers?"
"Oh! Actually, no!" Buddleia said, lifting her head suddenly. "You right, Sasha, is good point! We need planter for sunflowers, and I not have one anymore, I sold the one we had nine or ten years ago."
"I-i-in that case, Dan..." Sasha chortled.
"You got it, I already made note of it and I'll look out for one for you guys," Daniel nodded with a laugh.
"Thank you," Sasha chortled. "And now we'll get going for realsies."
With cheerful laughs and chortles, they said their goodbyes. Getting into the old MAZ truck, Sasha mashed the accelerator to the floor and mashed the gear stick into seven gear selections within a minute and a half to get the old truck up to speed. They drove off the Co-op yard and down the large, wide dirt road, but at the first triangular junction, they did not hang a right but took a left turn instead, driving along the other side of the forest. The dirt road curved in a wide, smooth, shallow bend around the west side of the forest and wound between a couple of low hills and large groups of huge boulders in a couple of long, drawn-out shallow S-curves.
Several hours later, they took another left turn on a drawn-out triangular junction that formed two of the legs of the long and wiggly X near the side of the Butterfly Farm grounds. A somewhat narrower dirt road ran westwards into the open, rolling, empty countryside between more small forests and large patches of evergreens and deciduous trees and groups of boulders or even enormous single boulders here and there. From that road, a quite long dirt driveway split off, running between a couple of overgrown fields and again splitting into a Y-shape, running around a fairly large triangle in which sat a couple of smaller boulders, a number of bushes, an occasional birch or beech tree, and a number of cherry trees in lines along the two parts of the driveway that led up to a large open yard of packed dirt with a two-story farmhouse sitting at the very back of it, off-center to the left.
To the right, on the other side of that leg of the driveway, sat a very large two-story wood barn that was even more dilapidated than the open shed at Butterfly Farm, with many of the dark planks broken or even completely missing and the large double doors hanging crookedly open. A couple of dirt patches showed where other buildings had sat in the past, and some random fence posts could still be seen sticking up from the tall grass here and there. Near the right corner of the open yard sat a small and relatively new shelter built out of pre-made double-plank walls and covered with wavy sheets of corrugated aluminium, and in that shelter a flash of muted lavender was visible near the back, whereas the very rickety large wood barn was completely empty as it looked like it could collapse the moment a sparrow sneezed on it.
The way the dirt was disturbed in the large open yard proved it had been overgrown but recently cleared. The farmhouse looked like it had been there for ages as well, and had sat empty for a long time but had recently been given a fluff-up; the bricks of the walls were very dark and weathered and mossy, a Wisteria plant against the left side wall had grown out of control and covered the entire wall and even part of the roof, and some of the railings of the roof-less porch in front of the house were broken or missing - but several light and clean planks showed where holes in the floor of the porch had been repaired, and the windows and front door of the house were clean. Near the left corner of the porch a vehicle was parked; a low passenger car-like pickup truck in a two-tone color scheme of an almost black, dark gray from the line below the door handles down, and a fresh green on top over an extended cab with four doors; a 1989 Nissan D21 Navara.
As Sasha drove the old lavender MAZ truck onto the large yard and brought it to a stop, a woman appeared from the left side of the house where she had been cutting a large part off the overgrown Wisteria shrub. She was relatively short at five feet and eight inches in height and had a Spaniel-like appearance with thick, wavy half-long white fur decorated with swaths of a reddish orange and a long and extremely plumed tail. With a quite slender build and quite small paws and feet she looked almost delicate, a look that was exaggerated by her fully drooping ears covered in half-long reddish orange fur almost disappearing in her long and wavy chestnut-brown hair. She was dressed in a pair of brown overalls over a light pink and white plaid button-down shirt and a straw sun hat, and over a pair of rather dark blue eyes sat a pair of small round glasses.
Sasha smiled at the woman as she jumped out of the old MAZ truck and even hid a quick chortle behind a hand when Buddleia also jumped out of the truck and let out a cheery yip at the sight of the small-ish canine woman.
"You so adorable!"
"Do excuse my wife's exuberance, although she is quite correct," Sasha smiled.
"Ah, that is... quite alright," the woman said in a soft voice and with a light blush. "Who might you ladies be?"
"We're your neighbors," Sasha smiled, offering a hand. "Sasha Farr, pleased to meet you. And this is my wife Buddleia Farr; we run Butterfly Farm a good half hour east of here up the road. We were just at the Co-op and mister Daniel Tawnto mentioned that this farm had been bought and was being brought back into business again, so we figured to stop by on our way back to introduce ourselves."
"Oh! Right!" the canine woman nodded, a smile brightening her expression. "Mister Tawnto did mention there was another farm nearby." She shook Sasha's hand. "Very nice to meet you indeed, missus Farr. My name is Marian Witteveen, and indeed, my daughter Margot and myself have bought this old farm to re-start our poultry raising here in this lovely open valley. And it's very nice to meet... oh my, you're a taur," she added as she turned to shake paws with Buddleia.
"Yes! And you adorable!" Buddleia smiled brightly, displaying both her upper and lower canine teeth and a fair part of her dark pink tongue while she happily shook the small paw of the fluffy white and orange canine woman.
The slim Spaniel-like woman blushed lightly again, and Sasha hid another chortle behind a hand.
"Ah, well... thank you. You are quite attractive as well, I have never seen a taur person before." She turned to Sasha again. "And actually, come to that, I have never met a human person before either."
Sasha wagged her right thumb back and forth between herself and Buddleia, letting go another light chortle.
"We both are a bit rare, it seems. But if you don't mind me saying so; you are a bit aside from usual as well, both in your name and in your looks. Might I ask what type of canine you are?"
"Ah, yes, well... I'm Dutch, both in breed and in origin," the canine woman said with a small smile. "I originally come from North Holland, and I'm a Kooikerhondje, a... a Dutch Spaniel you could say. I moved to this country with my parents when I was a very young girl, however my daughter has been born in this country."
"That is interesting," Sasha smiled, adding a light laugh. "And in that case you will love visiting our community village of Rolling Hills; the spinnery there is run by triplet sisters who are Dutch in origin as well. And do excuse my curiosity, but is your daughter around as well? I'd like to meet her and introduce myself to her as well."
"Ah, she should be here soon," the slim, small-ish canine woman nodded with a light smile. "She drove back to Issalon a few days ago, that's a town near Limekenny, we used to live there. She went to rent a moving truck and pick up our furniture and equipment as we could only bring some basics with us initially. There was so much to do here to even make the house habitable again, we've been working on that for the past several days and we only just got the water, sewage and electricity reinstated and the gas tank filled yesterday." She made a slightly helpless gesture. "There is still a whole lot to do, to be honest. But we'll get it all done, no doubt. Mister Tawnto has already been very helpful, so I'm sure we'll manage to get the larger projects squared away soon enough."
"Oh, absolutely," Sasha nodded with a smile. "You will find everyone around here is incredibly helpful, even if you may not see very much of them. The village I mentioned is almost a hundred eighty miles away from here, but whenever you visit there, you'll find how friendly and open and warm and helpful everyone is." She chortled shortly. "Come to that; is there anything we could possibly help you with?"
"That is very friendly of you, missus Farr," the small-ish canine woman smiled.
Sasha made a dismissive gesture with a hand.
"Sasha is my name, and as neighbors, I consider us friends and on first-name terms. I'm also going to call you Marian, if you don't mind me doing so."
"Ah, oh no, that is fine," the slim dog woman nodded with another smile. "And as I said, I appreciate your offer, it's very friendly of you, mis... Sasha." Her smile deepened a bit. "As a matter of fact, could I ask you if you would know of anyone who could help us take down that old barn? It's very unstable and quite dangerous, and to be honest, it's in the way, we have no use for it."
Sasha turned to look at the dilapidated two-story dark wood barn, but before she could even say anything, Buddleia was already near the worn-down structure, looking alongside it, leaning over to look near the ground, every now and then touching it with a paw. Only a moment or two later, the purple and white vulpine taur looked up with a bright smile.
"I can do! Is easy! You have chainsaw?"
"Ah, uhm, no, I do not own a chainsaw," the small-ish canine woman Marian said.
"We have! I go get!" Buddleia nodded cheerfully, lifting her feral forepaws off the ground so she could pivot around on her rear feet. "You wait with nice lady, Sasha, yes! I back soon!"
Again, before Sasha could even answer, Buddleia was already off, galloping down the driveway and disappearing from sight in mere moments.
"Oh my, she is quite energetic, isn't she?" Marian remarked with a light smile.
"That she is, and a bit impulsive at times," Sasha nodded with a smile of her own. "And she is super incredibly helpful and one of the sweetest women I ever had the good fortune of meeting."
The Spaniel-like woman nodded as well and smiled again, accepting a cigarette and a light from Sasha. They sat on the flat deck of the old MAZ truck to calmly smoke their cigarettes and talk - Sasha recounted the events that had led to her ending up in the valley and on the farm of the purple and white vixen-taur, and everything that had happened since then to bring the old and neglected little farm back from its near-dead state. Marian in her turn told of how she came from a long family line of duck farmers, who had started out as duck hunters weaving their own blinds and decoys and went into poultry farming from there - at first merely ducks, but slowly expanding to include other kinds of poultry like grouse and pheasants, and eventually also quails, and they had just recently started adding ptarmigans to their roster, breeding them for both their eggs and their meat, and in lesser form also their feathers.
She also mentioned they were looking to become a bit more self-sufficient, especially since the valley was so spread out and empty, with other enterprises and stores so far away which made it harder to shop for groceries and the like.
"We may get a cow or two, to provide us with milk," she smiled. "I know there are some smaller breeds of cows that will be quite manageable. Of course we will have a good supply of meat from our fowl, but we may also look into something to provide us with different types of meat. A very large freezer so we could buy a whole slaughtered pig or cow and store it to have meat for a long time, for instance, although I'm more inclined towards something cute and small we could breed ourselves."
"I would advice a goat, actually," Sasha smiled. "We were given a very nice Alpine goat for our wedding by the fellows from the livestock dealer, and she gives a gallon and a half of milk per day that we also make cheese from, and since recently also butter. That should be plenty for you and your daughter as well, and even easier to manage than one or two cows, even smaller ones. And we also have some rabbits from the butchery in town that we'll be breeding for the specific purpose of providing us with meat, so we won't have to hunt wild rabbits or even deer around all these forests and such here."
"Oh, that is a very nice idea, yes," Marian nodded with a smile. "I do like rabbits, and it will be a nice little project for my daughter." A light chortle escaped her. "Margot is a bit larger than me and she acts like quite the tough cookie, you know, but she is a really sweet girl and she has a few soft spots; she'll adore having a gaggle of bunnies to take care of, and a goat as well."
"Once you get more settled and the hardest work is behind you, let us know," Sasha smiled. "My wife Leia used to build rabbit hutches a lot for the children in town, she told me, and she built a couple really nice ones for the rabbits we have now. I'm sure she will be happy to build a very nice one or two for you as well, and you can get one or two live Verdant Island Lop rabbits from the butchery in town if you ask for live ones, I'm sure. But if you do, just get a female, or two females. One of ours is pregnant, we found out a day or two ago, so I'll be glad to give you one of the males from that litter."
"Oh, that is very friendly of you, thank you so much," Marian smiled. "That will also help us out quite a bit with the financial hill we'll be climbing the first year or so, after this move, so I'm really grateful for the help."
She pinched out the butt of her cigarette after a last drag and put it in one of the chest pockets of her shirt - just as Sasha always did when finishing a cigarette, an action which clearly told the freckled human woman that this almost dainty canine woman was a true farmer with a close bond to nature. Sasha smiled quietly as she noticed it and did the same, then waving her hand in a dismissive gesture.
"Don't mention it, Marian. I know all too well how difficult it can be to get on top of that financial hill. Hell, Leia and I are only just now beginning to see the crest of our own financial hill we've been climbing, and that is mainly due to the help of the wonderful people of this valley. And I am only too happy to extend that same help to any who need it." A mild grin curled the ends of her lips. "Especially when it concerns a cute new neighbor."
The small-ish Spaniel-like woman blushed a bit again and for a moment dipped her head before looking up.
"Ah, heh... thank you, I guess. It really is very friendly and generous of you, and I will be glad to accept any help, or even just some good advice on how we could best go about setting up our farm to incur as little cost as possible and make it successful as quickly as we can." She gave a light shrug. "I'm aware it will be quite different here from how we did it in Issalon. There, we had everything quite close by, it was only fifteen minutes to get to town from our farm, and we had a steady sales market for our eggs and poultry, but with how spread apart everything here is, I would imagine it will be a decent bit harder."
"That's true," Sasha nodded with a smile. "I have found that this valley does have everything to keep small farms alive and successful, but you do have to put in a decent amount of extra effort. For one, you will have to set aside a whole day per week or so just to travel to the village, where you need to get your groceries, and your mail from the post office because they don't deliver this far out, and any revenue from products you may have the stores in town selling for you."
Marian also slowly nodded.
"I see. That will take a bit of getting used to, but it will probably become a quite pleasant recurring routine. Is the only way to sell products through the stores in that village? Mister Tawnto mentioned he would be happy to establish some contracts for us with companies in Arfafield."
"You can trust on that, he will do his very best for you," Sasha nodded with a smile. "But it will be a very good thing to also get involved in the village and become part of our community. My main advice would be to start out small, but of course your case is different from ours, as you come from an already successful farm." A light chortle escaped her. "Would you object to me asking you a few quite impolite and intrusive questions?"
"Ah, uhm... about what?" Marian said in a low voice while dipping her head again as she blushed lightly without even knowing why.
Sasha chortled again.
"Mostly about your finances, not about your private life, don't worry."
"Oh, yes... that would be alright," Marian nodded, bringing a small smile back to her face.
"Right then," Sasha nodded with a smile. "Then let me start by asking you if you have taken out any loans yet?"
"Ah... not yet, but I have asked mister Tawnto about the options he could offer," Marian said.
"That's good," Sasha smiled. "I would advice not to do it. This valley has everything you need to live off the beaten path and even off the grid and survive quite comfortably. So as I mentioned before, the best thing to do would be to start small. This farm you had in Issalon, I assume you had a decent flock of livestock there, yeah? Did you bring any of your livestock with you?"
"We actually sold most of it, in part to finance the move, in part because we had seen that this farm is not yet suitable to keep them," Marian said with a mild smile. "We only kept a select few of our best breeder ptarmigans and Western Capercaillie, and a rooster and two hens of our pheasant flocks. We reared three types of pheasant, you know, the common one, Golden pheasants and Mikado pheasants. Those friendly men at the livestock dealer allowed us to keep them there for a while until we have pens ready."
"To be perfectly frank, that just went a bit above my head," Sasha smiled with a chortle. "I'm not too versed on types and breeds of fowl, really. But it's a good thing that you will be more or less starting from scratch again, in a way. That will allow you to utilize the work you have to do to make your farm here ready for the rearing of fowl to also bring in some initial income."
"How exactly do you mean that?" Marian said with a deeper smile.
"Let me give you an example," Sasha smiled. "Leia's farm has always been a cereal farm, growing grains and sunflowers. But everything got overgrown, so we have a bunch of work to get all the fields arable again. But rather than just running a plow over all the grass, chuck in some old seed and hope for the best, we decided to first bring our finances up to scratch by actually using the grass. At first we made hay from it, and by recommendation from the livestock dealer, we're now making silage out of it by means of baling the grass after mowing and wrapping the bales to let them ferment. That turned out to be a very good boost to our income, as both the livestock dealer and the BGA next to it are very interested in taking the silage for a very good price. And there were a number of trees we had to take down, and we were able to sell those at the sawmill two hours northwest of here, and they turned several of them into building materials for us. That is what I would advice you to do as well." She made a wide gesture around with an arm. "I don't know how much land this farm encompasses, but it seems to me like you will have to do a lot of mowing grass and cutting down trees before you can erect any sizeable coops and runs for your fowl. So use that; take the trees you have to cut down to the sawmill to be made into building materials, and then you can use those materials to build your coops. The only thing that will cost you is a few hours of time to travel to the sawmill and the time to do the building, and a box of nails. And when you have to clear grounds for the coops, mow the grass and bale it up, wrap the bales and set them aside for a month so they turn into silage; they'll be out of the way and it'll be a good boost to your income for work you had to already do anyway."
"Oh! Yes, those are very good ideas, indeed," Marian smiled, lifting her head. "Do you think mister Tawnto can rent us all the equipment we need to do those things? I mean, we already bought a really cute and very old tractor with a mower because we knew we would need it first thing, and he gave us a very good deal on it, and it's such a lovely color! But of course we don't have a baler or wrapper or anything like that, and I don't think it would be very feasible for us to buy that kind of equipment because we wouldn't use it very often."
Sasha smiled and patted the desk of the old MAZ truck they were sitting on with a hand.
"This here truck has proven very capable of transporting trees to the sawmill, and the small baler we already had and the wrapper we bought have so far not let us down, and we've been working them very hard. Hell, we just finished baling and wrapping almost two and a half hundred bales, and it went without a hiccup. And since we just finished that, we're back into a lull while the grass has to grow back and the bales have to ferment, so our equipment is not in use at the moment. When you're ready to mow grass, give me a call and we'll come over with the baler and wrapper to bale up that grass and wrap it for you, and whenever you have some trees felled, give me a call as well and we'll bring this truck over to move the trees to the sawmill for you."
"Ah! Oh my! That is really very helpful of you, Sasha," Marian said, with another blush but also a bright smile. "Oh my gosh, I can't believe how generous you are with offering your time and equipment."
"As my grampa would say; pishposh and poppycock," Sasha chortled, making a dismissive gesture with a hand. "We have the equipment, it's currently sitting inoperative and waiting for the next harvest, so it's not a problem at all to let you use it for a few harvests as well. That's what we do around here, Marian. In fact, Dan, Dan Tawnto from the Co-op that is, told me something quite profound not too long ago. This is such a stretched-out and empty valley, we're so in the middle of nowhere here, that everyone here is one family and we should all look out for one another and help each other, because we're all dependent on each other since we're pretty much on our own here." She put her hand on the Spaniel-like woman's shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze, smiling warmly. "You're more or less going through what Leia and I have been going through the past months, so of course we'll help you get through it and get back on your feet in your new start. It is indeed not feasible for you to purchase expensive equipment that is not directly related to the kind of farming you will be doing here, so you should avoid those costs. And as I said, we do have that equipment because it's directly related to the kind of farming we do, but it's often sitting inoperative for long periods of time so it's no more than normal that we allow it to do more of that work for others who need that kind of work done only occasionally. Besides, I'm sure that once you're all set up, there's things you can do for us in return as well."
"Oh, you can count on that, Sasha," Marian nodded with a smile. "Gosh, I really appreciate this so very much! It will be such a big help in getting started back up."
"It's my pleasure," Sasha smiled. "And here's another bit of advice; before you turn to purchasing expensive materials, for building your coops for instance, pay a visit to our little community village first and ask around for used materials. There's a good large hardware store that's ran by a very friendly fellow, and I'm sure he'll be happy to provide you with old but still very usable chainlink or mesh, for instance; he gave us a bunch as well for our chicken run and rabbit runs. And Dan has a bunch of stuff at the Co-op that he's happy to give away I have found, haha."
"I will definitely keep that in mind and do that," Marian nodded, smiling deeper and leaning over to the side to take Sasha into a light embrace. "Thank you so much for all the good advice and all the help you already offered, Sasha."
"You cuddle already! Yay! Good!" Buddleia's voice suddenly sounded from behind the truck.
Marian sat up quickly and blushed a bit again, bringing up a paw to wipe a few locks of her long brown hair from her face. Sasha looked around and chortled at Buddleia having trotted up to the truck holding one of their chainsaws and one of the large metal jerrycans, her fluffy fur and long purple hair windswept and tousled from the running she had done. The purple and white vulpine taur set the jerrycan and the chainsaw on the deck of the truck and ran the fingers of both paws through her hair to smooth it out a bit and brush it out of her face, her upper canine teeth and the end of her dark pink tongue on display in the cheerful smile showing on her slender muzzle.
Pulling out her phone for a moment, Sasha checked the time and chortled again.
"You did that very quick, fuzzbutt, not even an hour has passed yet. You must have been really sprinting."
"I very fast!" Buddleia nodded cheerily. "And I back just in time too, I can join cuddling, yay!"
"That was just a hug of gratitude, fuzzbutt, because I promised Marian we'd lend her our baler and wrapper so she can generate some initial income from the grass she'll have to mow to make room for her poultry pens," Sasha chortled.
"Oh! Yes! Of course we do!" Buddleia nodded again while she removed the caps from the chainsaw's fuel tank and the jerrycan and carefully tipped the jerrycan to fill up the chainsaw, sending the Spaniel-like woman a canines-and-tonguetip smile. "We help you start, yes!" She screwed both caps back onto the chainsaw and the jerrycan. "You need to cut trees, you borrow chainsaw too for long as you need! We have one more, is no problem! And you cut trees, you borrow truck too, bring trees to sawmill and make beams and planks to build pens, yes!"
"Ah... Sasha did mention that, and I will certainly be doing that, yes," Marian nodded with a soft smile.
"Good! Is good idea, they make good materials," Buddleia nodded, picking up the chainsaw. "I take down old barn now, is easy."
And with that, the fluffy vixen-taur was already on her way to the dilapidated old barn, fiddling a bit with the chainsaw. Sasha gave her head a light amused shake and put her hand on Marian's shoulder again, smiling as they looked at what Buddleia was going to do. By the large old barn, Buddleia knelt through her feral forepaws so she could lean over towards the ground, starting the chainsaw and sticking it between the ground and the walls of the barn here and there. With whines and small sprays of sawdust and woodchips, the chainsaw made a number of cuts wherever the vulpine taur stuck it between the ground and the walls of the barn. She calmly shuffled her way all around all sides of the barn, until she was back at the front right corner where she had started.
Shutting off the chainsaw, she walked back to the truck and set the chainsaw on the deck of the truck, smiling at Sasha and Marian.
"You stay here, yes. Safe outta the way. Hide behind truck if you have to, yes."
While Buddleia walked back to the old barn, Marian sent Sasha a curious look.
"What is she going to do, Sasha?"
Sasha shrugged with a smile.
"Beats me. She has some unconventional but very effective ways of doing things I found, so... oh hell no," she said, shaking her head and sliding off the back of the truck.
Marian hopped off the desk of the truck as well and stood next to Sasha, tilting her head a bit as she looked at Buddleia.
"Is she..?"
"No no no. No you don't, fuzzbutt, that's crazy," Sasha said, shaking her head.
Buddleia had stepped up to the middle of the barn's right-side wall, laying her paws against it here and there and tilting her head. Eventually, she gave a light nod of her head and started walking backwards. When she was a few dozen yards away from the barn, the purple and white vulpine taur braced herself in the grass with her four feral feet, balled her fists and stuck out her shoulders with her upper body a bit turned. Throwing up some loose grass and dirt, Buddleia launched herself into a sprint, galloping straight towards the old barn.
The moment she reached the side of the barn, Buddleia turned her upper body even more and smashed her shoulder against the wall of the barn, at the same time rearing up a bit to slam her feral front paws against the side of the barn as well. Creaking and groaning, the old barn rocked and slowly keeled over to the side, the left wall folding under as the whole building sagged like a house of cards - it was immediately clear Buddleia had cut all the upright support posts. She jumped back as the building folded over sideways and ducked while turning away. With a rumble of creaks and cracks and the sounds of snapping and splintering wood, the old barn collapsed in on itself and crashed to the ground, drawing up a cloud of dust and propelling bits of splintered wood in random directions.
With a warning shout, Sasha ducked over Marian while folding her arms around the small-ish dog woman, shielding Marian with her own tall lanky body as bits and pieces of wood flew past them. They stood like that until silence once more descended over the old farmyard and the birds started chirping again while the cloud of dust slowly settled over a large heap of cracked and splintered planks and beams. Slowly standing back upright, both Sasha and Marian looked at Buddleia also rising back up, patting some dust off herself and stepping over to them, and suddenly quickening her pace.
"Sasha, you bleed! What happen? You not hide behind truck?"
The fluffy vixen-taur was immediately fussing over Sasha, who looked down herself and only then noticed some blood seeping down from a long scratch over her right upper arm, just below the short sleeve of her shirt.
"Huh. Guess one of those bits of wood just caught me. I hadn't even noticed that." She put her left hand over the scratch. "Don't worry babe, it's just a scratch."
"Oh my gosh, wait right here!" Marian said, turning and trotting into the farmhouse.
She returned a moment or two later with a bowl, and small towel and a first aid kit, blushing as she trotted back over to the tall human woman who in the meantime had taken off her shirt so her small freckled breasts were on full display while Buddleia dabbed at the scratch with a slip of the shirt. Trying not to look at the pair of small freckled breasts, Marian dipped the small towel into the bowl which held lukewarm water and carefully cleaned the scratch on Sasha's arm, then rubbed some antiseptic cream onto it which helped stop the bleeding. Sasha smiled and let the two of them fuss for a bit, but it really was not too bad a situation as it was only a superficial scratch.
They were so absorbed in the situation, none of them noticed a late-model Scania boxtruck pulling into the yard behind them and coming to a stop. Only the slamming of a door and the sound of a voice speaking up made them look up and around.
"The hell is going on here?"
Behind them, coming from the truck, was a very similar Spaniel-like dog woman with thick, wavy white fur splotched with large patches and swaths of a reddish orange color, chestnut-brown hair and deep blue eyes, although the left eye was a much lighter blue in color than the right one. She was clearly a decent bit younger than Marian, and a decent bit larger as well, standing at six feet even and more solidly built, even if she still had the same kind of elegance in her arms and legs, and paws and feet. Her tail was even longer and plumed with incredibly long and thick but silky white fur with a splotch of reddish orange running down over the top of the tail from the base, almost seeming to drip down into two more somewhat oval-ish splotches further down on the upside of the tail. She was wearing very short denim daisy dukes and a Led Zeppelin t-shirt with some holes in it, and she had her head tilted and an eyebrow quirked as she looked at the scene in front of her.
Marian took a step back and smiled, putting the tube of antiseptic cream back into the first aid kit.
"Ah, Margot, you're back. These are our neighbors, missus Sasha Farr and missus Buddleia Farr. They helped with taking down that old barn, but a piece of wood went flying and scratched missus Farr's arm." She turned back to Sasha and Buddleia and smiled, mainly at Buddleia as she still tried to not let her eyes land on the human woman's uncovered freckled breasts. "Sasha, Buddleia, this is my daughter Margot."
"Holy shit, that barn is gone!" the firmer-built Spaniel-like woman said, looking at the heap of crumpled wood over which the last puffs of dust were still settling.
"You adorable too!" Buddleia chirped.
"And nice to meet you too," Sasha said with a light chortle.
The younger canine woman's eyes flicked from the heap of wood to Buddleia and Sasha.
"Holy shit, you're a taur! Cool!" Her head tilted a bit again as her eyes landed on Sasha. "And a human, neat. Do you always take off your bra for a scratch on your arm?"
"No, because I never even wear any in the first place," Sasha said with a light snigger.
"My kinda woman," the younger canine woman grinned, shaking the hand Sasha held out. "Well, definitely nice to meet you. So you two are married, huh? Neat."
"Yep, and over on our farm, we even do all our work without any clothes," Sasha chortled. "We're about half an hour east of here, just up the road your driveway connects to, feel free to drop by any time once you two are settled down a bit."
"Cool, count on it," Margot nodded with another light grin, again tilting her head a bit and looking Buddleia all over while shaking the vulpine taur's paw as well. "Wow, you look neat. Never seen anyone like you, but I like the color of your fur, that's really neat, you don't see purple very often."
"Thank you!" Buddleia smiled brightly, displaying her upper canines and the front end of her tongue. "You adorable, like your momma! I like, is so cute!"
"Wow, you talk weird, but it's kinda cute I guess," Margot sniggered.
"Don't be impolite, Margot," Marian said. "Did you get all our last things from Issalon? You did that trip quite fast, I have to say."
"Yeah, I got high on a crate of RedBulls and drove through the night last night because I didn't feel like sleeping in the truck," Margot nodded, thumbing at the truck across her shoulder. "Everything's in there, I spent a couple hundred bucks on having some guys help me load everything. Keys to the old place are turned in, too."
"You should get some sleep then, honey, if you drove for that long." Marian said.
"Are you kidding me, ma?" Margot sniggered. "I'm so wired from all those RedBulls I was buzzing in the seat. No way I'll get any sleep until that wears off, so we may as well unload the truck. Rental company said it's fine to drop it off at the Co-op here, someone from the Arfafield branch will pick it up, and we may as well get that over and done with."
"Co-op is four hours away, how you get back?" Buddleia said.
Margot thumbed across her shoulder again.
"How'd you think I got to Issalon from here? My car's on a trailer behind that truck, and that trailer has to be returned too."
"We help," Buddleia said with a definitive nod of her head. "Get truck empty soon, get returned soon, get you settled in soon, yes."
"Well, thanks," Margot said, nodding at the heap of crumpled wood that had been a dilapidated old barn minutes earlier. "Least we got plenty wood for the fireplace it seems like."
"You need fire to cook?" Buddleia asked. "Is always warm here, you not need fire for warm."
"We actually have a gas stove, there's a tank behind the house," Marian said. "The fireplace really is mainly ornamental. For the atmosphere, you could say."
"Then I would suggest we load all that wood on the back of our truck and cart it off to the sawmill," Sasha smiled. "They'll run it through the chipper, you'll get some money, win-win situation."
"I like that idea," Marian nodded. "Who knows how long it will be until our old farm is sold, and who knows how long it will take before we actually see that money, so any help to our finances is welcome." She turned to her daughter. "If you're still so energized from all those energy drinks, you may as well start with unloading the truck, Margot."
"I help, I strong, I carry everything easy," Buddleia nodded with a smile.
"Then I'll move the truck over to that ruin over there and start loading up," Sasha chortled. "I'll let you know when I'm ready to drive to the sawmill, Marian. It would be best if you'd come along, so you'll know where it is, and you'll have to give them your info so they can credit the money to your account."
"Ah, I'll, uh... I'll just help you," Marian said with a light smile. "I couldn't let you do all that work by yourself, it's already so very generous of you to even offer all the help."
"Less talky then, more worky," Margot chortled, clapping and rubbing her paws together.
She walked to the back of the Scania truck and pulled out a pair of ramps of a car trailer the truck was pulling, on which was sitting a brown 1995 five-door Range Rover. After undoing the straps holding the car to the trailer, Margot got into it and drove it off the trailer, parking it next to the Nissan pickup truck. The trailer was disconnected and rolled out of the way, and the truck was moved a bit to have its rear door pointing at the farmhouse and close to the front door. In the meantime, Sasha moved the old MAZ truck over to the heap of crumpled wood and parked it alongside what the front of the barn had been. A laugh escaped her as she got out of the truck and spotted the vehicle that was parked under the small shelter at the right rear corner of the yard; a small, old Hanomag tractor with a half-cab on it, which had once been blue but which had been painted a muted light lavender color, carrying on its rear three-point hitch an old deck mower that was also painted a muted light lavender color; the very same old tractor and mower they had traded in at the Co-op for the Massey Ferguson tractor with the John Deere batwing mulcher.
With the help of Marian, the tall human woman started picking up the old planks and beams. Any undamaged ones were laid aside for the moment, while all the cracked, splintered or otherwise damaged ones were stacked upon the flat back of the old MAZ truck, the planks on one side and the beams on the other side. The work was hard enough to distract Marian from the fact Sasha still had not put her shirt back on so she was still fully topless.
At the same time, Buddleia helped Margot carrying a variety of furniture and boxes from the back of the Scania truck into the farmhouse. The more firmly built Spaniel-like young woman turned out to be pretty darn strong as well, and between the two of them they had emptied out the back of the truck within an hour and a half. Margot attached the trailer back to the hitch and put her Range Rover back on the trailer before getting into the truck and driving off to the Co-op. Buddleia started helping Sasha and Marian with loading all the old dark wood of the demolished barn onto the back of the MAZ truck. She also used the chainsaw to cut several of the damaged planks into usable lengths and used the old nails that were in the planks plus an old hammer to quickly hammer a crude crate together in which all the small bits and pieces of wood were put.
The purple and white vulpine taur left the chainsaw and the metal jerrycan with two-stroke fuel in it stashed in the shelter so the canine mother and daughter could use them to take down trees later. When all the damaged wood had been stacked onto the back of the lavender truck - and it was so full they decided to leave the stacks of undamaged beams and planks sitting at the side of the yard so they could possibly also be used later - Buddleia calmly walked back up the road to Butterfly Farm, alongside the old MAZ truck as Sasha drove it to the sawmill, accompanied by Marian. She had put her shirt back on by that time, both for when she would be dealing with the crew from the sawmill, and for the Spaniel-like woman's peace of mind. As they passed the side of Butterfly Farm, Sasha stopped the truck for a moment to point out their farm to Marian while Buddleia walked up the path between the two left-side fields and waved at them.
Sasha also dropped Marian back off at her farm when all business at the sawmill had been dealt with. They exchanged phone numbers and Sasha insisted Marian call her for any help at any time, or even to ask for any advice on things she might come across during the newly setting up of their farm. Marian gratefully thanked her with a warm hug, and told Sasha she and Buddleia should come visit again soon and have dinner with her and her daughter. The tall human woman promised they would and gave the Spaniel-like woman another hug before getting into the old MAZ truck and driving back to Butterfly Farm, arriving just in time for the supper Buddleia had just finished preparing.
Sitting in the grass in the back garden with the food and without their clothes, they calmly enjoyed their supper and a good hour or two of content cuddling. Buddleia still fussed a bit over Sasha's arm, but the scratch was just a red stripe over the human woman's upper arm. Soon enough their lazy and slow conversation returned to the really very adorable Spaniel-like mother and daughter who had moved into the former Cherry Blossom Farm.
What a development! More new people had moved into the valley! And one of the abandoned farms was being brought back to life!
