March was being troublesome. While the temperatures already started rising from day to day again, the Minnaluna hurricane season was gearing up, bringing days upon days of violent and very wet weather. Even though the worst of the weather, the actual hurricanes, primarily remained near the western coast and some way across the western inland, the unusual geography and the location of the Fangle Mountain Range in the middle of the country, and the Sawtooth Mountain Range and the Dino Mountain Range along the northern end of the country funneled the remainders of any hurricanes reaching the west coast much further inland, across the Fenn Desert and below Coelacanth Bay, and from there over the Arfajia Woods towards the east coast. It was a double-edged sword; it brought a good amount of water to the desert, but it also could do some significant damage to the old-growth forests on both sides of the Fenntura River.
With the Dino Mountain Range shielding the eastern north coast, the weather was also directed right over the Arfajia Valley. It was a hassle for the agricultural sector, as it could all but cripple the work that many farms needed to do in preparation of the upcoming growing season. Butterfly Farm felt it too; the February batch of silage bales was still sitting under and around the new and enlarged shelter as it had not yet fully fermented, and the grass in the fields could not be cut as it was too wet and too flattened. Still, it did not dampen the spirit of the two farmers of Butterfly Farm, the purple and white vixen-taur Buddleia and the tall freckled human woman Sasha.
They worked around the weather, and they worked with a sense of excitement. Even while the weather was sour, the upcoming growing season meant a significant change for the farm. After almost six years of being dormant and neglected, several of the overgrown fields were slated to be made arable and grow crops once again. During the worst of the weather - with winds so strong they had even put the brake on the windmill to protect it as well as the accumulator bank under it - they sat inside in a spread of papers, sketching and planning out the shape and size of the fields and the crops they would grow. Buddleia even had trouble staying still due to her excitement over the prospect of sowing several fields with sunflowers, wagging her bushy tail so hard she made papers whirl around and constantly wiggling about and yipping cheery happy sounds as Sasha made her rough sketches for upgrading some of the old overgrown fields and creating a couple of new fields.
Of course, it was all still just preparation. The actual work wouldn't start until at least a month later, as per the advice from the three female biologists from the agricultural university in the city of Enfanor, the sunflowers would only be planted at the end of June, with a cover crop of winter peas getting planted in April. So for the whole month of March, farm work was still laying still. Whenever weather allowed, they did do plenty of other work in preparation, however.
Back-ordered parts for the Deutz Fahr combine harvester had finally arrived, so at a lull of a few days in the stormy weather, Buddleia worked on getting that machine fully operational again. Sasha in the meantime used the downtime to dismantle the wrecked red 1987 Citroen 2CV6 she'd had the garage in Rolling Hills source for her and transplanted its engine and gearbox into her 1956 Citroen 2CV AZU, effectively giving the old delivery vehicle a thirty-year upgrade. She also transferred the instrument cluster and front seats of the newer car into the old one to make the interior a bit less spartan, and stripped all other salvageable and usable parts off the wrecked car to put into storage before loading what was left over onto the bale trailer so it could be brought over to the Ag Co-op for recycling. With that work done, the last vehicles of Butterfly Farm had been refurbished and all of the farm's vehicles and implements were once more in working order. It was a small step, but a significant one.
Their livestock also increased. The Omutima Speckled wild female rabbit Buddleia had caught, and the second of their Verdant Island Lop female rabbits had both given birth to a litter of baby bunnies within three days of each other, adding another nine rabbits to the total, four males and five females. That in turn meant a call to their Dutch Spaniel neighbors at Cherry Blossom Farm was in order, as they now had both a good breeding stock and a surplus for slaughter lateron, and Sasha had promised she would give one of their bucks to Cherry Blossom Farm to establish a breeding stock as well. Admittedly, they had kind of forgotten about that a bit, quickly correcting that little oversight when the baby bunnies making their first hops outside of the hutch on one of the dry days brought it back to their mind. Fortunately, the phonecall Sasha made to Marian Witteveen proved that all the hard work Marian and her daughter Margot had been doing on setting up their poultry farm had also caused it to slip from their mind.
The work that had been done on Cherry Blossom Farm was pretty amazing as well. Coming up the long driveway in the newly refurbished old Emmie, both Sasha and Buddleia were duly impressed by what they saw. The narrow, elongated fields along the left side of the long driveway were all but completely covered by two eight feet high, completely enclosed runs built out of both metal and wood posts and fine-mazed metal mesh in a fresh brown coating, both with a very large, spacious two-story coop in them behind what looked like some sort of airlock door system, both with a mix of patches of grass and patches of plain dirt all over, both with a small watering hole dug into the ground and some specific bushes and small trees planted in them. The frontmost one even had several logs scattered around to mimic fallen trees, with shrubs planted near them that had long, overhanging branches, as well as large ferns; a handful of adult quails in dark brown with thin, wiggly black lines all over could be spotted rooting around among the bushes and in the taller grass. The second run, closer to the main yard, was smaller in size but had an actual narrow stream of water in it, with in the middle of that a somewhat larger watering hole, and there were less bushes and shrubs, between which quite small quails could be seen rooting around; several in differing tints of brown and tan, a couple being very colorful with red backs and wings, blue chests and undersides and bright white and black throats, and even a good number of tiny little light tan-colored chicks.
On the other side of the main yard, at the right where the large dilapidated barn had been that Buddleia had taken down in her unorthodox manner, now was a sizeable single-story shed built out of brick, with a garage door in the far right and far left of the front wall and two regular doors in the middle. On an area paved with rough flat stone slabs next to that shed sat a very large, light brown 1954 Volvo L395 Titan truck with curvy black front fenders and a bed with low upright sides over which sat squared-off boughs holding a brownish gray canvas tarpaulin that was rolled up at both sides. Alongside the right arm of the split driveway sat the pen with the enclosed shelter and milking area holding the pair of adorable little Mini LaMancha goats, and there were even two tiny little baby goats in the pen as well. In the field behind the goat pen and the shed sat the old mini excavator, near the start of a fairly large pond that had only recently been dug out as a large mound of dirt was sitting right on the other side of it, and it had already filled with water due to all the rain that had fallen in the past couple of weeks. Right alongside the back border of the main yard, to the right of the house, another sizable run had been built, only five feet high and with the top being open, and it was divided into two separate areas, both holding one of the rabbit hutches Buddleia had built and which were now painted a fresh brown color - in the larger of the two areas two Verdant Island Lop rabbits were also hopping around and nibbling on the grass.
As Buddleia parked the freshly refurbished 1948 Chevrolet Fleetline next to the green and dark gray Nissan D21 Navarra and the brown Land Rover, the front door of the farmhouse opened and the delicately-built white and orange Dutch Spaniel Marian stepped outside, being as naked as Sasha and Buddleia were and waving at Sasha getting out of the car at the passenger side.
"Good morning, Sasha!" she smiled, stepping closer. "Oh my, is that your old car? It looks almost new again!"
"Morning, Marian," Sasha smiled, stepping around the car with a small wood box with air holes in the sides in her hands. "Yeah, Peter and Jonathan and I refurbed old Emmie a while back, as a sort of Valentine's gift for Leia. Looks pretty nice, huh?"
"Look so good!" Buddleia chirped as she got out from behind the wheel. "She make me cry, Marian! So sweet surprise, I not know what I see when she come back with old Emmie looking all nice and new!"
"I can imagine that!" Marian nodded, with a light giggle at Buddleia leaning over and taking her into a big hug. "That must have been quite a bit of work."
"It was alright," Sasha chortled, setting the box down on the hood of the car so she could take Marian into a friendly hug as well. "And you two have been doing a lot of work as well, it looks like. I mean, look at those huge coops and runs! I'm impressed, honey!"
"And that's just the two for the quails, you should see the five even larger ones on the other side of those trees," Marian's daughter Margot said with a cheerful grin as she also came walking out of the farmhouse, just as naked and taking both Buddleia and Sasha into a hug one by one. "Took us over a month to get those all built, and we might even have gotten a place for ducks finished if the weather hadn't drowned the work we've been doing on that so far."
"Yes, you have pond!" Buddleia chirped a chortle. "So nice! You want fishies for in pond? We can give you some fishies from our pond, yes!"
"Thanks, but that pond is only half finished yet," Margot chuckled. "It needs to be much larger, but as I said, the recent weather sure put a stop to our work. We even almost lost the excavator in the mud, haha!"
"And I've seen those fish that are in your pond, they're so big!" Marian chortled. "Much too big for what that pond there will be, and they might even bother the ducks. We'll just catch some smaller fish to establish a decent ecosystem in that pond once it's finished, but with the hurricane season coming into effect, that may take a bit longer than we anticipated."
"We'd hoped we'd get it done before the first storms of the season," Margot nodded. "But we got caught out." She shrugged. "It's not too bad though, at least we got all the pens done for the birds we already had and that were staying with the livestock dealer, that was the most important."
"And you have bunnies too! Hello bunnies!" Buddleia smiled with her upper canine teeth and the tip of her dark pink tongue on display, wiggling the fingers of one paw in the direction of the rabbit runs next to the farmhouse.
"And here is one more," Sasha chortled, picking up the small wood box again. "A bit late because we both forgot, but hey, better late than never, right? Oh, and we brought you a bale of hay for them as well."
"Yes! Where you want? Under shelter or in shed?" Buddleia nodded, opening old Emmie's trunk and ducking down to pull a small hay bale out of the back of the car.
"Ah, thank you," Marian smiled. "Uhm, I suppose put it in the shed, by the feed bags?"
"Yeah, here, lemme show ya where that is," Margot nodded, leading the way over to the wide shed.
"In that case, I suppose we'd better go and get this poor boy out of here and into a much roomier home," Sasha smiled at Marian with a light chortle, lifting the small wood box a bit.
"Ah, yes, that's a good idea," the white and orange canine woman nodded with a smile as well.
While Buddleia followed Margot towards the shed with the hay bale, Marian and Sasha walked over to the large runs next to the house. Getting closer, Sasha could tell the runs even had doors in them just like the large ones for the poultry. The smaller of the two was already all set up as well, with the smaller hutch holding a layer of wood shavings and several large heavy earthenware bowls of which one was filled with fresh water and one held a cupful of feed pellets. Just as the freckled human woman was about to open the small box she was holding to release the rabbit in there, it started raining again, so she quickly lifted the roof of the hutch and let the male rabbit hop out of the box inside the hutch so it would be dry and sheltered right away.
Margot and Buddleia were already trotting quickly towards the farmhouse, and Marian and Sasha followed them after Marian had closed and locked the door of the rabbit run. Inside, the dainty white and orange Dutch Spaniel woman darted up the stairs to grab some towels which she handed out to the others, before stepping into the kitchen to make a pot of tea. The other three of them sat down in the living room, with Margot and Sasha lighting a cigarette and combing their damp hair out of their face with their fingers, and Sasha drying and cleaning her glasses on a slip of the towel.
"So, I been back and forth to the sawmill a coupla times, and I seen these bare naked ladies pottering about in that spot of land right next to your farm," Margot started a casual conversation with a mild grin, sitting back on the sofa and crossing her legs. "What's that all about? Have ya been hiring farm hands already? If so, you made a mighty fine choice I have to say, heh."
"If only," Sasha chortled. "No, they're biologists from an agricultural university all the way over in Enfanor."
"Then what the heck are they doing all the way down here?" Margot grinned. "What's so interesting for them in this desolate stretch of emptiness of a valley?"
"Trees," Sasha said with another chortle, putting her glasses back on. "They've been developing a strain of trees that grow super fast and make pretty darn decent wood at that university. Dan brought it to my attention that recently they got far enough in their research that the first samples of them could be made available commercially, and that they were looking for people interested in growing them so they could take all kinds of real-life measurements and what have you. He offered us the two patches of land he owned that were between those crazily crossing roads next to our farm before we rerouted the roads, and since the way we farm gives us a lot of downtime in a month, I figured, why the hell not? So we got a bunch of those trees planted there, after a full year we get to cut them down and bring them to the sawmill, and those ladies are all too happy to do their on-site research dressed in the same way as us."
"Ain't you lucky," Margot grinned. "You get to have three sexy naked ladies right near your farm to ogle every day. It's a miracle you're still getting any work done, ha!"
"Oh, not just that, we sit close together to have lunch every day as well," Sasha sniggered. "And with the weather of the past couple of weeks, we're not getting any work done anyway, so it's not like they hinder our productivity."
"They so nice!" Buddleia smiled, still smoothing down the thick purple and white fur along the sides of her quadruped lower body. "They very helpful, give good advice for farming too. And one is all giggly, is so funny, yee hee!"
"Are you talking about those ladies who work next to your farm?" Marian smiled as she came from the kitchen with a tray holding a tea set and a small plate of cookies. "We'd been wondering what they might be doing there, and why they are, ah, naked all the time."
"Yeah, they're biologists from an agricultural university in Enfanor, they're here to check on some super fast-growing trees they developed there, and they're naked all the time because that is the best way to be anyway, and to distract us from our work," Sasha chortled, leaning over to stub out the butt of her cigarette in the ashtray sitting on the coffee table.
"It's, ah, it's very nice they are so free and open as well," Marian nodded with a smile, pouring four cups of tea. "And they are, ah, quite attractive if I may say so, Margot and I have seen them a time or two when we drove over to the sawmill. I heard they are staying there, too?"
Sasha nodded, handing a cup of tea to Buddleia and stirring a cube of sugar through her own cup of tea.
"Those three buildings at the front of the sawmill yard, one is the office as you probably know by now, those other two are houses. The crew lives in one of those, and apparently they keep the other one for guests." She sat back with her cup of tea. "I'm guessing the sawmill crew rotated by now? Fred told me that they have two crews who work there in shifts of six months, alternating with one another, and they had just started their shift when we first met them. And that's well over six months ago now."
"Ah, yes, indeed, they changed crew at the beginning of this year," Marian nodded as she sat down on the sofa with a cup of tea. "The people working there now are Dave, he is an otter from Africa, and Samantha, she is a very attractive Samoyed dog lady. Her fur is so thick and fluffy, and it has a real nice texture even in the color of it."
"Sam's a woman then?" Sasha chortled. "I remember Fred mentioning the other crew were named Sam and Dave, I figured they'd be two guys as well."
"Nah, Sam's a girl alright, and quite a butch one at that," Margot grinned. "You shoulda seen it, Sasha; we brought the remains of that old barn there, and she grabbed four of those ten by ten beams off the back of the truck, put them on her shoulder and walked over to the chipper with them like it was nothing! I mean, I'm pretty damn strong, but damn! That was something else!"
Sasha laughed shortly and turned to Buddleia with a cheerful grin curling her lips.
"Seems like we may need to cut down a tree or two again and bring them over to the sawmill so we can introduce ourselves, babe."
"Yes! I not seen Sam and Dave for six years!" Buddleia nodded with a chirpy chortle.
"Right, of course, you've known them for years already, I should have known that," Sasha chortled. "Well, they still should meet me, and we can still do with extra materials even if we may sell them off to Paul, so next dry day we should still cut down a few trees."
"They will pay you close to full material price for trees now," Marian remarked while sipping her tea. "Samantha told us they're very busy producing building materials for a new farm that's being built. We have actually taken advantage of that a bit by clearing out another patch of the forest behind the house here so we'll have some land free for a grouse pen."
"Say what?" Sasha said, quirking an eyebrow. "What new farm? We haven't heard anything about that yet, and we were in town just last Friday."
"Sammy mentioned it's being kept on the down-low for now," Margot chuckled. "There is actually more in the pipeline, she also said a small natural brickworks is being put up some way west of the sawmill, close to where that stream is coming from the mountains, but they promised to keep that away from the public yet until it's up and running in case the project might fall through."
"They will probably go public soon, though," Marian added with a smile. "That small brick factory already is looking at a sizeable first order as soon as they are established, because they will provide the bricks for most of the buildings of that new farm. That was actually the whole reason they decided to start that branch, it's like a subsidiary of a larger brick factory from Fossil City that's coming all the way over here to this valley so they can be a more local source for bricks."
"I do remember Paul mentioning he has to source bricks all the way from Arfafield or even from Bronto Valley, so it would indeed be handy to have a more local source," Sasha nodded. "And multiple buildings for a farm, that's a pretty damn big order alright, but what when that's done? What would they sell their bricks to once that farm is built? I don't see many large building projects coming to this valley anytime soon."
"They'll be just close enough to the villages and towns towards the west to provide them as well," Marian smiled.
"And they can export there rather easily, Sammy said the small freight railway that stops in Campion Crossing is being extended all the way up to the sawmill by investment of the Fossil City brick factory," Margot added.
"I've seen that when I went to Fossil City!" Sasha nodded. "I was actually quite surprised to see it because they were still running a steam train on there. So that is coming all the way out here as well? Damn, this quiet deserted valley is stirring up quite a bit of activity all of a sudden!"
"Where is new farm gonna be? What they grow?" Buddleia chirped excitedly.
"According to Sammy, it's gonna be a large shared farm between two families, with one growing tobacco and the other going for the raising of exotic meat and some unusual types of wool and pelt, mainly for small artisanal companies," Margot said.
Sasha curled her lips into a slightly mocking grin.
"I don't know if that sounds like a very feasible and sustainable business plan; they would have a mighty small niche market so it will be hard to sell and make any kind of profit. And even then, what the hell should I even think of for exotic meat?"
"True, but they can sell at much higher prices because their products are so exotic and low in quantity," Marian nodded with a light smile. "We see that as well with some of the types of eggs we farm here, quail eggs are still considered somewhat exotic so they fetch a much higher price."
"And you should think of things like bison, yak, ostrich, gazelle, and even weird-ass stuff like camel or giraffe," Margot chuckled, raising a finger. "That's what Sammy mentioned, but with the provision that she is not sure because she only heard rumors."
"That sound so exciting!" Buddleia yipped a chortle while clapping her paws. "So much strange new animals! We not see here!"
"Yeah, that sounds more like a damn zoo than a farm," Sasha sniggered, shaking her head. "I know bison and ostriches are farmed for meat on a small scale, but those others you mentioned? That just sounds crazy. I mean, hell, giraffes; aren't those protected or something? And aside from that, would they even thrive here? Aren't they used to roaming deserts and the like?"
Margot shrugged lightly, leaning back on the sofa.
"Sammy said she thinks they may be in cahoots with the IUCN, getting permission to raise them for meat and pelts in return for cooperating in selective breeding programs. But again, it's only rumors at this point."
"However, should it be true, they would actually do quite well out here," Marian added with a smile. "This valley is so protected it's pretty much perfect for such an enterprise. In fact, that is the main reason they even chose to come here, because there's so much open space and such a suitable environment."
"Yeah, Sammy said the building site is somewhere halfway between Waving Grain Farm and the Arfajia Wildflour flour mill, and it actually stretches over a mile and a half towards the west," Margot nodded. "So whatever type of livestock they may be planning to raise there, at least they're making sure to have tons and tons of space."
"Hot damn," Sasha said, turning to Buddleia with a light snigger. "Well, wasn't it one of our plans to pay a visit to the flour mill and the oil mill sometime soon to have a talk with them and letting them know our production is starting back up so they can expect to see us bringing stuff to them, babe? Looks like we may be able to catch a glimpse of whatever is stirring in that mile of grassland we'll pass by on the way."
"Yes! We go look! Maybe see people, meet and talk and hear what they plan, yes!" Buddleia nodded cheerily. "Is exciting! New people is always nice to see come here!"
"That's a fact," Sasha chortled. "Hell, and with that in the future, who knows, Rolling Hills may even grow from a township into an actual town, haha!"
"That would be so nice," Marian smiled. "It's such a lovely little place, it deserves to prosper and get some good positive improvements."
"And this whole place still won't lose any of its sparsity," Margot chuckled. "Even with such a large farm establishing itself near here, everything is so stretched out and far away from each other they'd still be pretty isolated and we'd see hardly if any change in the way life holds itself out here."
"That's a fact as well," Sasha nodded with a laugh. "I mean, hell, I've been here almost a year now and I still haven't even met the folks of Waving Grain Farm nor those two factories. I only saw what I assume are their kids when I passed that farm on my way to Fossil City a few months back."
Buddleia chortled in several staccato yips and pushed Sasha against the shoulder with a paw.
"We go meet them! Ben and Sophia such nice people! And their kids too! We meet them on way back from flour mill, yes!"
All four of them laughed shortly and cheerfully, and Sasha playfully poked Buddleia in the shoulder with a finger.
"I should have known you know them quite well, fuzzbutt. And it's a deal, we'll drop by their place when we come back from visiting the flour mill. Just help me remember I really need to ask the folks at the mill if they can handle small amounts of spelt and sorghum, because I do still want to try growing those."
"It would be so nice if the bakery in town could get some good quality spelt flour from the mill," Marian smiled. "They could try baking Dinkel bread, that's such tasty bread, it's such a shame you hardly ever see that available anywhere."
"Yeah, one of the bakeries in Fennfield did some artisanal baking with spelt, and my grandfolks sometimes had a Dinkel loaf for Sundays," Sasha nodded with a smile. "That's why I want to try and experiment with growing spelt, and I really hope the flour mill can accept and process it on the side."
"This whole settlement of the village and the surrounding farms and mills is pretty artisanal, I noticed," Margot said. "Probably because it's so isolated and small-scale, I reckon. It's nice though, I like it, and I'm real happy to be a part of it too."
"So are you gonna go into even more artisanal flocks of poultry as well, then?" Sasha chortled. "I already noticed on our way here that you seem to have some pretty special little birds in those pens out front."
"Yes, those are our Old World Blue quails and our New World Marbled wood quails," Marian nodded with a smile, making a somewhat vague gesture with a paw. "Don't ask me why there's a differentiation between Old World and New World and what that means or why it was called that, because I have no idea. I only know they are different families of ground birds."
"Fair enough," Sasha chortled. "Those blue and red ones I saw are pretty darn small too, I don't suppose those would be used for meat? It doesn't seem like there's any usable meat on them anyway."
"Ah, no, Blue quails are not suitable for meat, you're right," Marian nodded again. "They're actually mainly kept in aviaries because they stay on the ground and keep the bottom of an aviary nice and clean without disturbing or interfering with any other birds in there. We started raising them because we just so happened to be able to get our hands on a few pairs, and as it turns out their eggs are actually a praised delicacy, so you could say they are one of our artisan breeds."
"That makes sense," Sasha smiled. "Once you're all done setting up and getting everything running, are you planning on doing any other artisanal things as well? Or will you just keep to raising meat and eggs?"
"We actually used to make mayonnaise from our duck eggs and pheasant eggs, back in Issalon," Margot said. "So we'll be getting back to that once everything is up and running and our flocks have grown enough to sustain that kind of thing. But there's really not much else you can do with bird meat or eggs, so that will be the only artisan product coming from our farm." She let go a light chuckle. "Well, unless you would count the more rare and unusual eggs an artisan product, like ma just did."
"Right," Sasha chortled. "Well, I would say that you may possibly produce the artisanal products of jam and wine once all your cherry trees are full of ripe cherries, but if that is too much work for you to undertake with all the other work you're already doing here, we'd be glad to take the cherries off your hands because we already make a good amount of jam, and we even have some wine aging now."
"Ah, I do enjoy making jam, and I would actually like to try my hand at making our own wine," Marian smiled. "I think there's enough space in the cellar to do it alongside the area we have for making goat cheese, but I would like some help in learning how to do it."
"Well, once your cherries are ripe in a few months, you can give me a call and I'll be glad to pass on the knowledge I have gained on the subject," Sasha chortled.
"We do have something for you to work with, though," Margot said with a cheery wink. "When we were clearing out that extra patch of forest, we found several elderberry bushes that were full of berries, and since we had seen your jam in the general store, we figured to save the berries for you. So when you're ready and if you want them, we have several baskets full of them we can load into your car."
"Thank you! That so nice!" Buddleia smiled with all her canine teeth on display.
"Yeah, that's real nice," Sasha nodded with a smile of her own. "You could easily keep them to make jam yourself that you can sell, goodness knows you need the income as much as we do."
"I already made a batch of jam with them for ourselves," Marian smiled. "And we're still so busy with building and setting up, we don't have much time for other projects. So you are welcome to take the berries this time."
"Well, we really appreciate it," Sasha smiled. "Just out of curiosity, what did you do with the bushes?"
Margot curled her lips into a cheery grin again.
"We plucked them of all their berries and then mulched all but one of them. That one we didn't mulch, we dug up and put in a large pot to keep it around so we can use its berries for enriching the diet of the quails, but we don't need a whole patch of them growing in the way of our pens. They grow so rapidly they can get kinda invasive, and we first and foremost need the free empty space."
"I suppose that also makes sense," Sasha nodded with a chortle. She looked around at one of the front living room windows and rose up from the armchair she was sitting in. "Well, we'd better get to it, the rain has stopped for now so we may as well take advantage of that."
All of them stood up and went down to the basement of the farmhouse. Several woven wicker baskets were sitting near the door, filled with purplish red elderberries. With each of them taking a basket, it took them two trips back and forth from the basement to the old Chevrolet Fleetline to put all the baskets in the back of the car. Affectionate hugs were shared between them, before Buddleia quickly drove herself and Sasha back to their farm where they carried all the baskets into the underground bunker and emptied them into similar but even larger and higher wicker baskets, of which Buddleia carried two into the small farmhouse as well so they could clean the berries and cook them into jam.
But before that, they first made another quick trip back to Cherry Blossom Farm to return the baskets, and Marian insisted they stayed for dinner as well. After dinner, they stayed for a while to relax and cuddle with each other, but not for too long as they still had to return to their own farm in time to milk Choco the goat for the evening, and Marian and Margot had to milk their two mini goats as well. Back at Butterfly Farm, Choco was taken care of, and while Sasha filtered, chilled and stored the milk, Buddleia already made a start on cleaning the elderberries she had set by the kitchen counter.
Even if the weather kept them from doing any grass cutting, they still had plenty to do that would still generate a bit of income in the coming days. And with the information they had heard was floating around, it seemed like there was definitely a lot stirring in the valley's future! Exciting times ahead!
