Massive cloud formations drifted over the large land of Minnaluna. It made for very strange, changeable weather this early in the country's hurricane season. A day of rain, a day of sun, two days of rain and wind, a day of sun, a day of thunderstorms, followed by a very windy day, followed by a day of dreary drizzles, followed by another calm day with sun. It was almost impossible to predict what the weather was going to do from day to day.
The entire region of the Arfajia Valley bowed under the changeable weather. Thin little streams of rainwater trickled down the side of the Dino Mountain range. Throughout every day and night, flashing orange lights could be seen high up the side of the mountains as signs with strobe lights warned people that the M73 mountain road was treacherous, and at times plain hazardous to travel on. Freight traffic was rerouted for the hurricane season; between Fossil City and Bronto Valley, anything from small box-trucks up were prohibited from driving the M73 and had to take the B-road hugging the border of the Arfajia Woods. It brought occasional visits from drivers to small towns and villages they had never been to before, or that never saw outside visitors for most of the year.
Somewhere in the middle of the enormous stretch of mostly empty valley, the small, centuries-old farm run by the fluffy purple and white vixen-taur Buddleia and the tall freckled human woman Sasha, Butterfly Farm, was undergoing the changes in the weather like it had been for decade after decade after decade - even century after century. Two fields of winter rye were waving in the breeze or bowing under the rain, full and dark green and six feet high. Four fields were getting greener and greener by the day after having been freshly plowed and cultivated and planted with a cover crop, the winter peas soaking in the rain and sprouting enthusiastically in the sun. The remaining fields were still covered in grass, thick and lush and growing back after a fresh cut - with one of the fields, field 3, the field to the left of the old little farmhouse and along the back fence of the farmgrounds, re-growing the grass that had been there but which had been plowed under to sow fresh grass there with a bit more variety that would give a better yield for both occasional bales of hay used for the rabbits and the goat and sold to the livestock dealer, or bales of grass wrapped in bright purple plastic wrap to ferment into silage to be sold to either the livestock dealer or the BGA plant.
Alongside the driveway, to the right of it, replanted and newly planted flowering bushes were budding and shooting out fresh green leaves. A patch of dirt where once an old building had been was plowed and cultivated, and numerous dark green shoots were poking up from the soil with the promise of forming a dense patch of colorful coneflowers. On the opposite side of the driveway, in the shelter of a narrow, elongated patch of elm and birch trees and some spruce trees, two bee boxes were sitting, one covered with a tarpaulin, the other literally buzzing with activity as honeybees were establishing a full colony, huddling together during the rainy days, flying in and out and on and off during the sunny days. Five adult rabbits, three younger ones and nine recently born baby bunnies having grown just enough to have their full fur and their eyes open hopped around in two large, spacious open runs of which the grass had been cut in several areas because it was growing faster than the rabbits could nibble it down. Tufts of coarse brown hair blew in the wind from the shelter near the front fence of the farmgrounds as the Alpine goat Choco was rubbing herself against the planks of the fences to rid herself of her old, shed coat, the tufts being picked up by numerous small birds to line their new nests with. Closer to the small farmhouse, four young Sussex chickens and a young Sussex rooster were scratching around in the dirt of the large run attached to their coop, while an adult Sussex chicken spent most of the time inside the coop on one of the nest boxes, brooding on a clutch of eggs that had been left in there. It appeared the young rooster had already been busy and there would be more baby chicks soon.
Equipment sat around under various shelters or inside the large shed situated in the large open area to the right of the driveway right by the old little house. The May rush had just passed by, the planted fields taken care of, the grass fields freshly cut and the grass baled and wrapped and stacked under the shelters from underneath which the previous month's bales had been loaded up onto the muted lavender 1953 MAZ-200 flatbed truck and the long bale trailer to be transported to the BGA plant and sold. A fresh injection of several tens of thousands of dollars into the farm's bank account, another seven percent step closer to the mystical million dollar figure. Things were going well.
Weather permitting, Buddleia and Sasha spent time walking around the farmgrounds, talking, bouncing ideas off of one another, making rough sketches of how the new crop fields would be laid out once the current crops had finished growing and had been harvested, or observing the three female biologists taking their samples and gathering their data on the new super fast-growing trees planted in strips and triangles of land bordering fields 5a and 5b. During drizzly or rainy days, time was spent in the large shed and attached workshop, doing maintenance on the farm equipment to make sure everything was and stayed in good working order. Both chainsaws had received a brand new chain as the teeth on the old chains had been filed down to nubs after the last sharpening. The sickle bar cutter had its teeth sharpened and its pivot points greased, as they still used it to mow the grass alongside the driveway and around the animal pens. All four tractors were serviced, greased, cleaned inside and out, received new wiring or hoses where needed and had their paintwork touched up. All four tractors also had been stripped of their distinct brand colors to make them part of the official Butterfly Farm fleet; the old Hanomag Perfekt 400e had already been painted in the light, muted lavender color that had become the farm's company color, the orange and white 1976 Fiat 900E tractor and the recently acquired faded red and white 1973 Massey Ferguson 1135 and the green and yellow 1980 John Deere 4840 tractors got the same paintjob applied to them, as well as the additional equipment that had come with them.
Friday was the steady day to undertake the long drive to the tiny community village of Rolling Hills, to pick up mail, to pick up revenue from sold products, to do some grocery shopping for the week to come, and to socialize with friends and loved ones - which was most of the village populace. Another boxful of freshly aged butterfly-shaped goat cheeses was dropped off at the Stebbins General Store, and a boxful of empty glass jam jars was picked up as the village folk who had bought jars of Butterfly Farm jam brought the jars back to the store once they were empty so they could be re-used. Most of them even washed out the jars before returning them. A tasty lunch was enjoyed at the Marm's Munchies diner, where over lunch, thoughts and ideas and speculations were shared with other townsfolk about the current developments in the valley, near the tiny village. The extension of the small freight rail line that originally stopped at the grain elevator in the town of Campion Crossing but which was now getting extended all the way up to the Arfalley Sawmill. The small influx of outside visitors due to the seasonal partial closing of the M73 mountain road. And of course, the large shared new farm being built somewhere between the Waving Grain Farm and the Wildflour flour mill.
One of the 14 year-old twin daughters of the diner's proprietors, Susan, the one with one erect and one kinked-over ear, brought two plates of thin, small buckwheat pancakes over to the table where Sasha and Buddleia were sitting. She also took a bottle of maple syrup out from under one of her arms and set it on the table, sending Buddleia and Sasha a sparkling smile.
"Have you met the new people yet? They'll be kinda like neighbors to y'all, yeah? That one woman who's come into town once or twice already is so nice!"
"We haven't actually met any of them yet, honey," Sasha smiled. "I suppose they would be sort of like neighbors to us, but they're more neighbors to Waving Grain Farm, it's still quite a ways over to our farm from there. Not exactly a distance for us to quickly pop over for a visit, and I'm sure they must be insanely busy as well if they're having a whole farm built from scratch."
"Oh yes, Miss Williamsen said they're working 'round the clock almost!" Susan nodded, leaning on the table with her arms. "But she's so nice, and she looks real pretty too!"
"I guess that's a pleasant bonus," Sasha chortled.
"We meet them on way back to farm!" Buddleia said with a smile that showed her upper canine teeth and the tip of her dark pink tongue. "When we done here, we go visit flour mill to talk about new crops, and we drive home on road there that go past Waving Grain Farm, so we pass new farm too, yes! We visit them to say hello!"
"If they're not too busy with, you know, building a whole farm from scratch and all that," Sasha said with another chortle.
"Miss Williamsen will be glad to meet you! She been coming 'ere in town a time or two already after all!" Susan nodded with a smile.
The voice of Stephen Marm, one of the diner's proprietors and Susan's father, sounded from behind the counter.
"Susan! Order up, the deputy!"
The teenage Manchester Terrier girl almost hopped to her feet.
"O'course! Sorry! Y'all enjoy your lunch, Sasha, Budders!"
She quickly walked back to the counter to pick up a plate with two rolls dressed thickly with slices of turkey breast and slices of a white-ish cheese - the shape of the slices proving it was goat cheese sliced from a Butterfly Farm Beech Butterfly cheese. While the canine girl brought the plate over to a table at which the amazingly pretty silver-white Burmilla cat deputy sheriff was sitting, Buddleia rolled up one of the buckwheat pancakes on her plate into a rather tight tube and managed to fit the entire thing in her mouth in one go, happily chomping and chewing on it with her bushy tail slowly swaying back and forth across the floor behind her. Sasha gave her head an amused shake over the sight and actually used the knife and fork that came with the plates to spread some maple syrup over one of the pancakes and roll it up, then cutting small pieces off the end of it to stick them in her mouth.
They didn't talk very much while enjoying the pancakes, which in Buddleia's case had thin slices of apple baked into them, and in Sasha's case came with very narrow strips of bacon baked into them. Only when they were down to the last of the small thin pancakes did their conversation restart.
"You think they maybe built much already, Sasha?" Buddleia said while chewing on a rolled-up pancake she was this time just holding in a paw.
Sasha gave a light shrug, sipping the last tea from her cup.
"No idea, babe. We first heard about it, what, two or three weeks ago? I don't think they could have built very much yet in that time."
"But they could put up big barn in a day!" Buddleia pointed out cheerily. "We did on our farm too! Frank and Fred and me built big new shed in one day, yes!"
"That were all pre-built walls and stuff that just had to be put back together, fuzzbutt," Sasha chortled. "Sure, they could have a barn like that or a pole shed or something up in a day or two days, but I would think they'd start with first building a house for the people that will be living there, don't you? And in two or three weeks, I would wager they only have the foundations up, especially with the old-school way things are built around here. It took months before the buildings for the joinery and the plant shop were done, after all, and those were relatively simple buildings."
"But Dan say he recommend ABC to them when they ask!" Buddleia smiled, hiding her upper and lower canine teeth in the rest of the rolled-up pancake she stuffed into her mouth. "And... mmwp... ABC make... mmmbl... kits for buildings, yes! Mmpf, yum! So good pancakes!"
"What is ABC, anyway?" Sasha said with another amused shake of her head. "I don't think I've heard of them before."
"ABC is the Agraric Buildings Company, Sasha," the other 14 year-old twin daughter of the diner's proprietors, Jennifer, the one with the two kinked-over ears, said with a smile as she stopped by the table to pick up Sasha's empty teacup. "They specialize in these like flat-pack kinda building kits, you know? Kinda like your shed! You want a shed or a garage or a shelter or a barn or a washing station or whatever, they deliver it in a stack of pre-built walls and roof panels and they put it up in a day, or you can put it up yourself if you wanna save on the cost."
"I see! That does sound very handy," Sasha nodded, running a hand over her mouth. "Do they have a catalogue or something?"
"They have a website, I'm sure!" Jennifer nodded with a smile. "And mister Tawnto from the Co-op has a physical catalogue I believe, you should ask him."
"I may give him a buzz about that sometime soon," Sasha smiled. "Thank you, honey. Oh, and could you please bring us two more cups of tea?"
"You got it, Sasha!" Jennifer smiled, turning to walk back to the counter and calling out to her father. "Dad! Two more teas for the ladies Farr!"
By the time the fresh cups of tea were brought to the table, the pancakes were clean gone so Jennifer took the empty plates back over to the counter. Sasha lightly leaned against Buddleia's upper torso while they calmly sipped their tea and relaxed to let the pancakes settle a bit. All in all, close to an hour and a half had passed before they got up and sauntered over to the counter where Sasha paid for their lunch.
"Compliments to your lovely wife, Stephen," Sasha smiled as she put her debit card away again. "Those pancakes were once again outstanding. How does she even keep those wafer-thin strips of bacon from burning?"
"Chef's secret, darling!" answered the voice of the Manchester Terrier woman through a hatch in the wall between the counter and the kitchen. "But thank you! Glad to hear you enjoyed your lunch!"
"Always, when we come here, Clara!" Sasha called back at the hatch with a chortle.
"Was yum! Your pancakes always so yum, yes!" Buddleia added with a cheery smile. "We go to flour mill now, and meet new folks, yes! At new farm! We tell them they gotta come here for yum pancakes, yes!"
"Thank you, sweetie!" came the voice of the Manchester Terrier woman through the hatch, and the very similar-looking Manchester Terrier man behind the counter sent them a smile as well. "We certainly appreciate that, Buddleia, thank you. Have a great day, both of you. And you're welcome to stay longer if you want, because..." He pointed at the window next to the door on which rivulets of water had started running down. "...it just started raining again, and not too light either it looks like."
"Thank you, Stephen, but we'll survive I'm sure," Sasha chortled. "It's only a couple of minutes to where we parked old Emmie, and we gotta start on that long trip home sometime soon anyway if we wanna get home before dark. See y'all next week now, 'kay?"
They waved and stepped out the door. A steady rain was indeed coming down, but despite that, Sasha and Buddleia still calmly walked up the narrow dirt road leading past the butchery to the main dirt road. From there, it was only a short walk over to the parking spaces between the garage and the hardware store where the freshly refurbished 1948 Chevrolet Fleetline was parked. Once in the car, they both took off their shirts to wring the water from them a bit, and while Buddleia started the car and drove up the dirt road running along the left border of the small village, past the small church and the doctor's office, Sasha sagged and wiggled about in the passenger's seat to also take off her shorts and wring them once she had taken everything from the pockets.
With the damp clothes draped over a box in the back of the car to dry a bit more, they calmly talked a bit while driving up the dirt road leading northeast away from the village. At the unusual spiderweb-ish crossing where the northeast road crossed the dirt road that had become Waving Grain Road up to the crossing and Mill Road from the other end of the crossing onwards, Buddleia used one of the curved sliproads to make a right turn onto Mill Road, honking the horn at the chipmunk couple who ran Waving Grain Farm and their two children who were hurriedly unrolling the canvas cover over the back of an old grain truck. Half an hour up the road, they passed a large yard that had recently been cleared and graveled, filled with a number of trucks and a fairly sizeable open concrete foundation over which a number of men in bright orange overalls were setting up tarpaulin shelters. There were several complete buildings on the yard already as well; off to the right side, a wood shed with open ends and wide openings between the planks on the sides, and off to the left side a couple of large barns in brick and aluminium siding.
Buddleia chirped a chortle and pointed as they drove past the yard.
"See, is big buildings already, yes! I right! Yee hee!"
"So you are, fuzzbutt," Sasha nodded with a chortle of her own. "Seems like they did indeed enlist that company Jennifer mentioned. Well, I suppose the rain will interrupt their work so that'll give us some time to meet them in a bit."
"Yes! But we go to flour mill first! They close at end of day!" Buddleia nodded cheerily.
"I take it you know the folks that run it quite well, babe, don't you?" Sasha smiled with another chortle.
"Yes!" Buddleia nodded again. "Ben is so nice fellow! And is funny, woman who deal with unloading grains and payments and stuff, she called Sasha! Like you! Yee hee!"
"That is quite a funny coincidence, yes," Sasha nodded with a smile. "Well, hopefully she can give us good news about processing small amounts of experimental grains."
It was another eighty minutes or so before they reached the flour mill, although the large buildings of the factory already came into sight well before that. A pair of massive aluminium grain silos towered into the sky at the back of a large brick building with two large, long round brick chimneys rising up into the air, both with a plume of white-ish smoke being blown from the tops of them by the wind. The mill was sitting a ways back from where the road just started making a long, wide, shallow curve off towards the right, with wide, curved access roads leading onto the premises. At the back, between the massive silos and the large brick building, was an unloading dock consisting of a very large grate enclosed by low concrete walls on either side, and thick metal pipes ran from the tops of the silos into the large brick building. Judging by the pipes coming out of the brick building and curving downwards over the grate, bulk materials could also be loaded at that area, even though there also was an area at the front that had elevated loading docks by a pair of large garage doors.
The buildings had clearly been modernized once or twice over the years. On the right back corner, brick walls ran up along the sides of what once had been a very large wooden granary, which was still in use as was proven by pipes running from one of the silos into the additional narrow elevated part at the top of the granary's roof. As Buddleia drove past the yard to pull into it via the far right-side access road, Sasha noticed that on that side, there also was a smaller granary-like building clad in brick with an additional brick building attached to it that had an elevated loading dock built of wood on brick pillars, a roofed-over unloading grate and a low but very wide, stumpy silo clad in rusty yellow-painted siding, those smaller buildings clearly being much older than the large main building but apparently still in occasional use as well. And all the way at the back edge of the premises was a very large storage building with a roof slanting towards the back and a row of large garage doors in the front wall, built out of brick in the same style as the main building, but being clearly more recently built as the brickwork was much fresher in color.
The main building was actually quite attractive in design. It was built out of grayish brick, with a flat roof but several steps of elevation at the top of the front and rear walls and thick columns at the corners and at the ends of each of the elevated steps, built out of contrasting red brick, which also surrounded all the windows in the front wall. About in the middle of the front wall, an addition built in the same style jutted out from the front of the building, with brick steps leading up to a pair of doors, flanked by brick planters holding a narrow conifer and several flowering plants. Between the red brick columns flanking the highest elevation step of the roof in the middle was a large sign in almost the same color as the red brickwork, with large black-outlined off-white lettering reading "Wildflour Mill" and below that "Power through flour!"
Sasha let go a light laugh as she spotted the signage, shaking her head and wiggling in the passenger's seat of old Emmie again to put her shorts and shirt back on. After parking the car, Buddleia also pulled her damp shirt back over her upper torso, and she took Sasha by a hand to lead the human woman up the brick stairs and through one of the doors of the smaller rectangular building jutting out from the front of the main building. On the inside, the floor was tiled with square stone slabs in the same grayish color as the outside brickwork, with rows of red-ish slabs simulating the look of the red brick columns. Stating the reason for their visit at a red cedar counter manned by a hamster woman with thick gold-colored fur and long curly dark-blonde hair, they were soon met by a fairly heavy-built albino guinea pig man with clear white fur and short white hair and almost bright red eyes behind a pair of slightly yellow-tinted glasses, who spread his arms wide as he stepped up to the both of them.
"Miss Buddleia! What a pleasant surprise! It's been over five years since we last saw you or heard from you, we were worried you had disappeared from the valley."
"Hello Ben!" Buddleia smiled, showing her upper and lower canine teeth and the tip of her dark pink tongue poking between them. "I still here, see! I just not farm much last few years no more, but my Sasha help me make farm work again, yes! And we married!"
"That's even more of a surprise, but just as pleasant!" the white-furred guinea pig man smiled, turning to Sasha and shaking her hand. "So nice to meet you! Ben Miller, pleased! And congratulations on the wedding, I take it that means the name has changed?"
"Yes! We now Farr!" Buddleia nodded cheerily.
The albino guinea pig man let go a light chuckle.
"Haven't you always been quite far from here, Buddleia?"
"Yee yee hee! Nooo!" Buddleia giggled in several staccato yips. "Is name, Ben! Farrrrr! RrrRRRRRrrrRr! Fuh, ah, rh, rh! Yee hee!"
"What she means," Sasha interjected with a short laugh, thumbing at Buddleia, "is that my name is Sasha Farr, and by marriage, her name is now Buddleia Farr, spelled with a double R."
"Ah! Of course! I see!" the guinea pig man named Ben Miller nodded with a short laugh as well. "My apologies! But do please follow me to my office. I'm sure your sudden visit has a reason!"
He led the way into a short corridor on the left of the building that dead-ended at a door leading into a spacious office. There was a quite large desk holding two computers, two telephones and an intercom as well as a large pot overflowing with drooping stems laden with light pink flowers. Two comfortable armchairs were facing the desk, a large oval rug in muted tan sat under both chairs and the desk, the walls held several fairly large paintings showing views of forests or streams, two large filing cabinets made out of red cedar wood sat against the wall behind the desk and a similar cabinet but with doors instead of drawers sat in the corner of the wall behind the desk and the left-hand wall, and large tubs holding large green plants combined with low flowering plants were sitting along all the walls.
Opening the doors of the tall wooden cabinet in the corner, the albino guinea pig man took a large, flat rectangular cushion which he lay down next to one of the armchairs.
"There we go, have a seat, ladies, have a seat! Can I get you a cup of coffee or tea?"
"Tea please, Ben," Buddleia smiled, settling down on the chest and tummy of her quadruped lower body on the large flat cushion.
"Same for me, thank you," Sasha nodded with a smile, sinking down in the armchair right next to the cushion.
"Of course," Mr. Miller nodded, sitting down behind the desk and pressing a button on the intercom. "Miss Lynnwood, would you please bring two cups of tea and a cup of coffee into my office?"
"At once, mister Miller," sounded a voice from the intercom.
The white-furred guinea pig man sat back and pushed his glasses back up his short, stumpy muzzle while smiling.
"Now then! Can I draw the conclusion that your visit here today means that you will be producing grains again and will be making use of our facilities?"
"Yes!" Buddleia nodded cheerily, lightly pushing a paw against Sasha's shoulder. "You tell, Sasha! You much better with words, yes!"
Sasha let go a short laugh and took Buddleia's paw off her shoulder, holding it in both her hands and giving it a light squeeze.
"That is a correct conclusion, mister Miller."
"Ben, please! May I call you Sasha?"
"You may, and thank you. Do you want to hear the whole preliminary story of how I suddenly showed up in this valley and at this here fuzzbutt's farm as well?"
"Of course! It must be a real special story!"
Sasha chortled softly.
"I suppose you could call it that, yes. Well then..."
She sat back in the armchair and crossed her legs, still holding Buddleia's paw in both her hands as she started telling the story of how she had lost her most recent job, joined her friends for some relax-time in the city of Bronto Valley, got the notification from her apartment building's administration about her impending eviction, hurried back to Fossil City and was forced off the mountain road, which had ended in her being found and taken in by Buddleia. There was a short interruption when a short-coupled shorthair tabby cat woman entered the office with a tray holding several cups, and while sipping from one of the cups of tea after stirring a sugarcube through it, Sasha continued her story of how she had found the determination to help the caring vixen-taur farmer who had saved her from the wreckage of her car and bring the neglected old little farm back to life, their marriage, the struggle to start the work back up with what equipment was available, the almost overwhelming help from the townsfolk of Rolling Hills, and their most recent progress of having new crops planted.
Finishing her cup of tea, the tall human woman leaned forwards to put the empty cup back on the tray, then sat back and crossed her legs again.
"So that is the whole story. At the moment, we're a couple of months away from harvesting our first actual crop of winter rye, which we will be bringing here to be processed. And I actually have a question or two about that and another thing or two that I would like to ask you."
"Good golly! That is quite the story alright!" Mr. Miller said, shaking his head and taking off his glasses to clean them. "But I'm so glad to hear everything turned out so much for the better, for both of you! And of course, I will be glad to answer any questions you may have, so go right ahead and ask them!"
"Thank you," Sasha smiled. "First and foremost, could you enlighten me on what the procedure is for delivering grains for processing? From what I understood from what Leia told me, she brings her harvested grains here and you pay her for them, after which I take it you then process them into flour and ship that off to... well, wherever you may ship it off to?"
"Correct, that is indeed the most common procedure," Mr. Miller nodded, putting his glasses back on. "We do also have a procedure where a farmer can deliver a load of grains which will be processed into flour, and instead of a monetary payment for the grain, they receive the flour, palleted in bags of twenty-five pounds, minus a number of pallets that we keep to cover the cost of processing, and then the farmer can sell off the flour for a higher price themselves. However, that is more a remnant of a procedure that our predecessors used to run; it is hardly used anymore nowadays, except for smaller loads of grains occasionally."
"That brings me to my next question," Sasha smiled. "I am assuming, judging by the size of this plant, that you process grains in fairly large bulk quantities, of like, fifteen, twenty thousand liters and higher. But does this plant have the capacity to also process smaller quantities of grains that are different from the common grains you usually process here? I take it you usually process wheat, rye, possibly barley and corn, but can you also process small quantities of grains like spelt, triticale, durum or sorghum for example?"
"I can answer that question with a 'yes', but I think it would be better to have it answered in more detail by our esteemed director of processing, miss Sasha Lafronte," Mr. Miller said with a smile, leaning towards his desk. "If you would give me a moment?" He pressed a button on the intercom again. "Miss Lafronte, could you be so good as to join me in my office for a little dissertation on our milling procedures, please?"
"Be right there, Ben," sounded a quite soft yet slightly high-pitched, feminine voice from the intercom.
"Thank you." The albino guinea pig man sat back in his chair and again pressed his glasses back up his short muzzle. "Just a moment more of patience, please."
"Of course," Sasha smiled. "In the meantime, let me ask you another question; how do you distribute the flour from this mill? Because I rather doubt the bakery in Rolling Hills would go through thousands of pounds of the stuff, right?"
"Hah, that is also correct, yes," Mr. Miller said with a short chuckle. "The Lawrence Loafs Bakery does procure their flour from us in bulk, but it's usually no more than a pallet or two. All the rest is transported by truck to the town of Campion Crossing, because there is a small freight station there from which it can be further transported to the large cities out west." He sat up and raised a finger with a smile. "And within the not too distant future, that will be even more easy to do as we received news that this freight rail line is being extended all the way up to the Arfalley Sawmill. When we heard of that, miss Lafronte and myself got in touch with the directors of the oil mill further up the road from here and agreed to raise some capital and invest in a further continuation of that railway line, all the way to the area between this mill and the oil mill where a small freight loading station will be built. And during those negotiations, we also heard word that the rail freight company Outfield Freight in Arfafield has expressed interest in connecting their freight terminal in Arfafield to the small freight station that will be built between our two mills here, utilizing the sections of the abandoned railway from the eighteen nineties that are still present here and there between here and Arfafield."
"Trainsies! We get trainsies back?" Buddleia chirped, sitting up straight and perking her ears. "Grandparents tell me used to be trains near here, but they no run no more since their grandparents run the farm, yes!"
"Really!" Sasha said, also sitting up straighter. "I had been wondering why there was such a lack of railroads this side of the valley, with how many communities and small towns and villages and farms there are out here. It may have surprised me to see the steam train still in use at that station in Campion Crossing when I passed by there, but I did also find it unusual that any railroad would just stop dead there."
"Yes, from the history I gathered, the railroad that used to run through this valley ceased most operation around the turn of the previous century, as by the nineteen hundreds, the main coastal railroad running on the other side of the mountain range had been completed and took over all the routes between the cities out west and the cities in the east, because there are several larger cities along that route, such as Senabelle and Salastite, and around that time Dretmond and Ofelond also started booming," Mr. Miller nodded, looking up at a knock on the door and the door opening. "Ah, miss Lafronte, thank you for joining us. Buddleia, you already know her, but missus Sasha Farr, meet miss Sasha Lafronte."
Sasha looked around - and then down. The woman who had entered the office was a positively diminutive Roborovski dwarf hamster standing just a bit over two feet and seven-and-a-half inches tall, with a light sandy-beige fur along her sides and back and in her face from her tiny muzzle upwards, creamy white fur on her front and in two small patches over her eyes that enhanced her eyebrows, and long platinum-blonde hair - or relatively long as it hung down to her waist, but that was only about a foot and a half long. She was dressed in a neat dark blue pantsuit over a light blue blouse with a pink string tie, and it was only that plus the pronounced pair of breasts on her chest, even if those were still somewhat small, that provided evidence she was not a child but an actual mature woman.
Buddleia clapped her paws together in front of her slender muzzle and let out a cheery yip as the tiny woman stepped around the armchairs and deftly hopped into the unoccupied chair.
"You still so cuuute! Yee!"
"And you are still impulsive," the petite dwarf hamster woman said with a light, high-pitched chortle, standing up on the seat of the chair to extend a tiny bare-skinned paw at Sasha. "Nice to meet you, missus Farr."
Sasha quite gingerly shook the tiny woman's paw with her head a bit canted.
"Likewise, miss Lafronte. I have to say we make for quite a distinctive pair of Sashas, being at either end of the length spectrum."
"I have to agree," the diminutive hamster woman nodded, canting her own head to look all the way down from Sasha's head to her feet and back up, then sitting down on the seat of the armchair with her back against the backrest and her feet reaching about the middle of the seat. "So, how might I be of assistance? What information about our milling procedures is required?"
"Missus Sasha Farr inquired about the possibilities this mill has to process smaller quantities of less common grains, miss Lafronte," Mr. Miller said with a smile. "Would you mind elaborating once more, missus Farr?"
"I do not mind, if you would please stop it with the 'missus Farr', Ben," Sasha said with a chortle. "This mill may be a fairly large company in comparison to the village of Rolling Hills, but I still feel that all of us here in this valley are part of the same community and therefore viable to call each other by their first names. Not to mention that we already agreed on doing that earlier," she added with a short laugh, turning a bit in her chair to face the tiny dwarf hamster woman. "And on that note, while it might sound a bit strange as we share the same first name, I am going to call you Sasha and insist you call me Sasha as well."
"So I will," the petite woman nodded with a smile. "See, Ben, I've said it so many times before; you can save the polite forms of addressing folks for the representatives of our client companies." She also turned to face Sasha. "And with that out of the way, please do tell me what you wish to know, Sasha."
"Thank you," Sasha smiled. "As we have started production back up on what is now our shared company of Butterfly Farm, we shall be delivering loads of grain to this facility again to be processed, such as the winter rye we currently have growing, as well as wheat and possibly barley, and that will be in bulk amounts of ten to fifteen thousand liters and over. But I had been wondering if this facility also has the capacity to process smaller amounts of less common and experimental grains, as we want to try our hand at growing some more artisanal grains like spelt or triticale. As we would just grow a small field of such grains at a time, the harvest would likely not exceed the amount of ten thousand liters, so would it be possible to have such small amounts processed here, and possibly receive some of the resulting flour for our own use and selling on?"
"That is certainly possible, Sasha," Ms. Lafronte nodded with a smile. "I don't know if you may have seen all of our facility yet, but on the east side of the premises we still have the original processing plant this mill started out as in the eighteen thirties. While we have grown into a much larger facility since then, we have always kept that original plant intact and operational, and we can process small amounts of less common grains there. The small size of that facility and the less regular influx of uncommon grains allow us to process a multitude of grains there as we can fully clean out the machinery in between batches of processing. In fact, we currently occasionally process small amounts of buckwheat there from Waving Grain Farm, and in the past we have processed small amounts of fonio, teff and foxtail millet in that facility."
Sasha first quirked one eyebrow, but quite soon her second one followed.
"Fffu... -rgive me for almost being rude, but wow. You have just successfully stumped me." She took off her glasses to press her fingers into her eyes for a moment and shake her head. "Yeesh, and here I thought I was knowledgeable as a farmer with the information I have on spelt and triticale and some types of millet." She put her glasses back on and drew a deep breath. "Wow! What even are those first two types of grain you mentioned?"
"They are African grains, teff is from the area of Ethiopia and Eritrea and fonio comes from the western end of Africa; think Mali, Nigeria, Burkina Faso or the Ivory Coast," Ms. Lafronte smiled. "It's only been exported in higher quantities in the past decade or so, and it's still not very widely known, so you don't need to feel bad about not knowing about them. There have only been a couple of farms between here and Campion Crossing that so far have experimented with them, to see if they're suitable for growing in the climate here, and we were the mill chosen to process them because we're the only mill in the area that has the ability to process small amounts of experimental grains aside from the bulk processing of common grains."
"I see," Sasha nodded slowly, sitting back up. "Well! That most certainly answers my question on whether you have the capability to process small amounts of uncommon grains as an aside, which is almost word for word the way I had been wondering about that. So thank you very much for that, Sasha, and you can be certain that you will see us showing up here from next year on with small loads of some less common grains we aim to experiment with. And in about a month and a half to two months with a first load of rye."
"I shall certainly be looking forward to that," Ms. Lafronte smiled. "It's been so long since Buddleia has last graced us with a visit, and it makes me very happy to know she and the farm are still doing well."
"I'm glad to hear that, thank you," Sasha smiled, gingerly shaking the very small hamster woman's tiny paw again. "And also thank you very much for your time and your explanations in answer to the questions I had, and that same goes for you as well, Ben, thank you so much."
"It's been our pleasure, Sasha," Mr. Miller smiled, rising up from the chair behind his desk. "As miss Lafronte mentioned, it's so very good to know that Buddleia is still around and doing so well, and that you are both doing so well with the farm."
All four of them walked out of the office and back into the main lobby. They shook paws and hands again, waved and parted ways, the tiny little dwarf hamster woman walking off to the right side of the building, the albino guinea pig man returning to his office, and Sasha and Buddleia walking outside and getting into old Emmie. It wasn't until they were in the car and had closed the doors that Sasha turned and gave Buddleia a playful poke in the side.
"Fuck me, that woman was tiny! Why didn't you tell me about that, fuzzbutt? I felt like my eyes plopped down onto the floor when I first saw her, haha!"
"Yee yee hee! I sorry, Sasha!" Buddleia giggled in a number of staccato yips. "I not think about! I know she super cute, but I always just say hello when I bring grain to here, because I deal with her so much is normal to me that she so small! Yee hee!"
"I suppose that makes sense in a way," Sasha sniggered, taking off her glasses to shake her head with a hand over her eyes. "Haha, but goddam! That was definitely not what I had expected! She's like, what, two and a half feet tall? God damn! If you'd stand up on those four feet of yours, she could walk under you! Damn! If it wasn't for her having obvious boobs, I'd have thought she was a little kid! Goddam, she musta been mistaken for a kid millions of times in her life!"
"I think she a kit first time I met her, yes! Yee yee!" Buddleia chirped more short yips. "But she talk all grown up! She so smart! So I know she not a kit, yes! But she still super cute, yes, yee hee!"
"I'll give her that, she's goddam adorable," Sasha chortled, putting her glasses back on and wiping her damp hair out of her face. "As if I needed any more incentive to come to this place, knowing I'll be dealing with her when delivering grain is gonna make it even more of a leisure trip I'll be looking forward to, haha!"
"Yes! She super nice, and super cute too!" Buddleia nodded cheerily.
She slowly backed the old car out from the parking spot, almost bumping her head against the driver door window as she wanted to stick her head out the window to look behind the car, but was still not quite used to having a window in there. Sasha concentrated on running her long ginger hair through one hand to wipe off most of the rain, and to not laugh at the vulpine taur's mishap. No matter how many times that had happened since she'd had the old car refurbished in February, it was still funny every time.
The rain was still coming down quite steadily, the thick cloud cover over the sunlight making it seem later in the day than it actually was. With both the headlights and the small windshield wipers switched on, old Emmie dutifully made her way down the dirt road, splashing through small puddles and patches of mud but staying straight and even under Buddleia's steady hand. After almost an hour and a half, they came up to the large yard they had passed earlier, and seeing the activity going on there, Buddleia pulled the old car into the yard as it was clear the people were still out and about to meet them.
Under the tarpaulin shelters that had been set up over the concrete foundation, a number of the men in the bright orange overalls were working on laying and connecting pipes and cables. Several others were balancing along the top edges of the concrete walls, drilling holes at spots where luminous pink marks had been placed and sticking something into the holes. Off to the right side, a crane was lifting slabs of concrete up from the back of a 2008 Volkswagen Constellation cabover-style tractor truck with a flatbed trailer, holding them suspended in the air with one side leaning on the side of the trailer while a few other men drilled holes in the underside of the slabs at the spots where similar luminous pink marks were placed.
Sasha lightly quirked an eyebrow as she looked around while Buddleia parked the car. That huge VW big rig already was a bit unusual, and while there were several more large trucks sitting around on the yard, those were clearly from the building company the men worked for as the cabs of them were also bright orange in color. But off to the side, near the open shed with all the wide spaces between the planks, several more vehicles were sitting, and they were all Volkswagens of some kind. Two VW T3 Transporter vans from the 1980s and a T4 Transporter van from 1992, a VW T3 pickup truck version from the mid-1970s, a 1983 VW Beetle and a 1982 VW Derby 1300 GL. That was somewhat unusual to say the least, and to make it even more unusual, each and every one of the VW vehicles were painted in the same light medium brown color.
As Buddleia parked the old Chevrolet near the collection of VW vehicles and both she and Sasha got out, a rabbit woman stepped over to them from near the large VW Constellation truck.
"Hello, can I help... oh my, you're a taur."
"And you cute!" Buddleia smiled so brightly all her canine teeth were on display. "You have such nice spots, yes!"
That was not a lie. The rabbit woman's fur was a grayish white in color, deepening just slightly in tint towards her back which was just visible through her soaked plaid shirt, and she had a pattern of dark gray, almost giraffe-like spot markings over both her shoulders and both her hips, as well as very dark gray toes on both her feet. She was moderate in size, with medium-length light brown hair done up in a ponytail high up on the back of her head, and she had quite deep blue-green eyes. And a bit of a blush spreading over the top of her short-ish muzzle and the tops of her cheeks at what Buddleia had said - or rather blurted out, drawing a light chortle from Sasha who stepped around the car and lay a hand on Buddleia's shoulder.
"Do excuse my wife's enthusiasm, please, and allow me to introduce ourselves. My name is Sasha Farr, this is my wife Buddleia, and we're the owners of Butterfly Farm, about two or so hours down the road from here. We were just returning from a visit to the flour mill and thought to stop by and say hello."
"Ah... of course, I see!" the rabbit woman nodded, a smile slowly replacing her blush. "So you're the ones who make those cute butterfly-shaped cheeses? They're very tasty!" She shook Sasha's free hand and Buddleia's paw. "It's nice to meet you two. My name is Vivian Williamsen, spelled with an E instead of an O, and my daughter Heather and myself will be running the new Smoky Hills tobacco farm we're having built here, in conjunction with the Perkat family who will be rearing uncommon livestock here."
"We had heard something of that nature, yes, and we're very pleased to see more people moving to this remote part of the valley," Sasha smiled. "Is your daughter around as well, by any chance, to introduce ourselves to?"
"Oh, no, my daughter is staying with my cousin Gloria in West Yarrow together with our dog, until at least the house here is built and we can move in," the rabbit woman said with a smile. "I'm currently staying in that lovely tavern in the nearby village, but that's not very comfortable for a young girl, and she is actually still in school in West Yarrow. And our dog is a dachshund, so she would get underfoot here with all the work going on."
"That makes a lot of sense," Sasha nodded with another smile. "Do you mind if I ask what age your daughter is? Pardon my impertinence, but you don't seem old enough to have a mature daughter, and she most probably isn't as you mentioned she's still in school."
Another light blush appeared on the speckled rabbit woman's face, but it shared space with a smile that remained there.
"That's, uh, that's okay. My daughter is sixteen, and I'm thirty-eight." She let go a light, short laugh. "My cousin and I even share the same birthday, although she is one year younger than I am, so that is rather funny."
"That so cute!" Buddleia chirped. "You get presents on same day, and extra big cake, yes!"
"Uh... something like that, I guess," the rabbit woman nodded lightly, nibbling on a fingertip with her head slightly canted. "Oh gosh, do excuse my staring, but... I didn't even know people like you existed. I thought the tales of taur folk were just fables."
"No, I very real! Yee hee! See?" Buddleia giggled in several staccato yips, leaning her upper torso over a bit to take the rabbit woman into a big, if rather damp due to the rain, hug.
The lapine woman let go an eep and blushed again, both her ears flopping down along both sides of her face. Sasha laughed shortly as well and lay a hand on one of the rabbit woman's speckled shoulders.
"I don't know how many of the inhabitants of Rolling Hills you have met so far, but you will find our tiny little village holds quite a few wonders where it concerns unusual folk," she chortled. "Our priestess and doctor for instance is a lovely jerboa woman with angel-wings, we have a pair of leopard sisters with very lovely fuchsia-pink fur who moved here recently, and there's two sets of triplets in the village; the De Verley rabbit sisters who run the dairy, and the Warmelink hamster sisters who run the spinnery." A louder laugh escaped her. "And of course there's my big soft fuzzbutt of a foxtaur wife, who I think would do well to let go of you by now," she added, playfully poking the shoulders of Buddleia's quadruped lower body.
Buddleia chirped more light cheery yips and swished her bottlebrush tail, but she did let go of the rabbit woman, even patting along her sides to smooth down the soaked shirt a bit.
"Ah... u-uhm... thank you," she said softly, running a few fingers through her hair. "Yes, I, uh... I have met the doctor in town, she is a very special-looking woman indeed. And I'm sure it will be very nice meeting those other people you mentioned as well."
"It definitely will be, but let me give you a small warning," Sasha chortled. "The De Verley sisters are even way more exuberant and playful than my wife here, and I wouldn't put it past them to take you into a big group hug when you go introduce yourself."
"Ah, well, uhm... It's, uh... it's nice to know the people here are so friendly at least," the rabbit woman said while trying to recompose herself.
"They are at that, the whole community here is like one big family," Sasha nodded with a smile. "So come to that, don't be surprised if everyone starts calling you by your first name from the moment you introduce yourself. Matter of fact, we're going to do that as well, and I would like if you'd call me Sasha."
"And I Buddleia! But Leia is good too, yes! Is short, and handy, and easy to say, yes!" Buddleia said with a bright smile that showed her canine teeth and the tip of her tongue poking from between them.
"Right, yes..." the speckled rabbit woman nodded slowly, another smile beginning to break through on her muzzle. "That will be nice, and I don't mind if you call me Vivian, or even Viv. And, uh... thank you for the heads-up, Sasha."
"You're very welcome," Sasha smiled. "So, you'll be growing tobacco, you said? So I can soon source my cigarettes locally rather than having to buy Chesterfields at the general store?" she chortled lightly.
"Ah, well, cigarettes may be later down the line, but initially it will just be artisanal cigars," the rabbit woman Vivian said with a light smile. "In fact, that will be done here in town by my cousin, she is a very skilled torcedor. Ah, I'm sorry, that is the term for a professional cigar roller," she added at the momentary look of surprise crossing Sasha's face. "In fact, it's the term for a highly skilled artisanal cigar roller; once they have reached the level where they're allowed to carry the title of torcedor, it's almost an insult to just call them a cigar roller."
"I will definitely keep that in mind," Sasha nodded with a light chortle. "And do I understand correctly that there will be another store built and opened in our little village soon?"
"Ah, yes, that is right," Vivian nodded as well. "Once the farm here is built and my daughter and I have settled in, a small store and workshop will be built in that lovely little town where my cousin will do her work with the tobacco leaves we grow here. There will be plenty of time for the building during the growing and drying of our first crop here."
"That so nice! More nice people!" Buddleia chirped happily, clapping her paws.
"Yes, that is wonderful to hear, indeed," Sasha nodded with a smile. "Do you think there will be a sufficient market for artisanal cigars here so deep in the valley to sustain both yourself, your daughter and your cousin, though? And if you don't mind me asking, what made you decide to even move way out here in the first place?"
The speckled rabbit woman Vivian wiped a thick lock of soaked hair that had splatted down over her face behind an ear and smiled lightly.
"The quality of the cigars my cousin Gloria makes is so high they justify the high price they're sold for, and that price per cigar is sufficient to pay for her work as well as mine here on the farm. Plus, we also grow a few other types of tobacco that we sell off raw to the Tagrisja company and one or two other small artisanal cigar making companies." She gave a light shrug. "We've operated out of West Yarrow for years now, but we have been bought out by Sanford Cigars. That money, plus the opportunity to share the costs of relocating here with the Perkat family, has been plenty of an incentive to relocate and keep our business private, as we did not wish to become employees of Sanford Cigars."
"That I can understand, and good on you for keeping on doing your own thing," Sasha smiled. "Well, let me officially tell you welcome into our close little community, darling. I have to say I never thought about smoking cigars, but I remember my grandfather smoked a cigar on Sundays and it had quite a pleasant aroma, so I'd be interested in trying one of your cigars sometime." She gave the rabbit woman's speckled shoulder a light squeeze. "But for now, we will leave you to all the work that is going on here; it looks like there is a whole darn lot to do that you probably need to oversee, and it's still quite a drive back to our farm and we have some livestock to take care of."
"Ah yes, of course, please don't let me keep you from your own work," Vivian nodded with a light smile. "But thank you so much for stopping by and introducing yourselves, I really appreciate that."
"Any time, darling, and once you have some time to spare, do feel free to drop by our place with your daughter," Sasha smiled, letting go a light chortle. "Although be warned that most farmers around these parts are nudist farmers, and so are we and our more direct neighbors Marian and Margot Witteveen of the Cherry Blossom Farm, so whenever you do drop by, you will find us without any clothes on."
"Ah... well... that is, uh... that is fine," Vivian said while lowering her head a bit and nibbling on a finger again to hide the new blush spreading over her muzzle. "We, uh... we do prefer to farm that way as well, and we have already heard from the Perkat family that they do their farming that way as well, so, uh... yeah."
"Right, well, that's good then," Sasha said with another chortle. "At least you know what to expect. And if there's anything you need, any kind of help, don't hesitate to ask, okay? Oh, matter of fact, here, let's exchange numbers, alright?"
Vivian gave a slow nod of her head, which caused the thick soaked lock of hair to splat right back down over her face while she stepped over to the VW Derby and took her phone out of it. She gave Sasha her number and put the freckled human's number into her own phone as well, managing a smile as Sasha held up her phone to snap a picture that would go with the phone number.
"There, all set," she chortled after Vivian had also snapped a picture of her and one of Buddleia and had also exchanged phone numbers with the fluffy vulpine taur. "Now, before we go, could you perhaps enlighten me on something I have been wondering about from the moment we pulled into the yard here?"
"I, uh, I'll try?" Vivian said with a light smile, fiddling a bit with her phone to set the pictures she had snapped as display pictures to the numbers she had added. "What have you been wondering?"
"It's about the cars," Sasha chortled. "I assume all the brown ones are your company and personal vehicles, but why the hell are they all Vee-dubs? Hell, I didn't even know VW made big rigs, but yet, there's one right there. Is there any specific reason for that?"
This time, Vivian let out an actual giggle.
"I get that one quite a lot, actually. It's because of my initials, Sasha. My name is Vivian Williamsen, so my initials are VW, and I've been teased for that so much when I was young, with everyone always calling me Vee-dub all the time, that I eventually decided to make it our actual thing and make sure that any and all of the cars and vans and such I ever drove were and are always exclusively Volkswagens."
"Ha ha ha!" Sasha laughed, shaking her head. "Okay, that makes all the sense! Good one there, Viv! I can't believe I hadn't put two and two together myself yet, haha!"
"Yes, that so fun! And it fit! They so nice cars!" Buddleia chortled with several short chirps. "But why they all brown? Is so much nicer happy colors for cars, yes, yee hee!"
"I've actually had them all repainted in that specific color, because that color is called Tobacco Brown," Vivian said with a soft chortle.
"Again, that makes all the sense," Sasha said with another cheerful laugh. "Well, thank you for clearing that up, Vivian, and as I said, we'll leave you to all the work that's going on here and return to some of the work we still have to do. Good luck in your endeavor, and don't be a stranger now, okay?"
"Thank you, and we'll definitely come visit sometime when we're all settled in," the speckled rabbit woman nodded with a smile. "It's been very nice meeting you, Sasha, and you, Buddleia."
"Yes! You so nice and so cute!" Buddleia smiled with all of her canine teeth on display. "We talk more soon, yes! You have nice day now, and good luck, yes!"
Despite the start of a new blush forming on her cheeks, Vivian smiled and waved after Sasha and Buddleia as they got into the old Chevrolet and slowly drove off the yard. And despite the rain still coming down steadily, Buddleia kept up the speed at a decent level, so it wasn't all too late before they were back at their farm and could take off their soaked clothes before milking Choco the goat for the evening and doing a quick check on all the other animals.
A fire was lit in the fireplace, a quick yet filling and tasty supper was prepared and eaten, and all dry and comfortable again, plenty of cuddling was done by the fire while talking about everything that had happened that day.
It had certainly been a day full of surprises! And pleasant news for the future!
