It was bound to happen at some point. Even if the Minnaluna hurricane season was not the most active of hurricane seasons, it could be expected that at least one of the hurricanes managing to make landfall at the far western coast would be large and powerful enough to blow its way across the entire stretch of the mainland all the way to the east coast.
It was bound to happen, and it had happened. The hurricane dubbed Julia had made a west coast landfall as a Category 3 hurricane between the large city of Catativa on one side of the Luna Nature Preserve and the smaller city of Split River at the other side of the Luna Preserve, had gone right over the Luna Preserve, sideswiped the smaller city of Moon Hills, partly followed the run of the Luna River, crossed over the northern spur of the Suso Woods and rolled right along the jagged line of the Sawtooth Mountain Range. Over the Fenn Desert, it had sideswiped Tulu Town, losing strength and downgrading to a Category 1 by the time it reached the city of Treeflee, then gathering a bunch of strength back up as it crossed over the lower point of Coelacanth Bay and brushed Fossil City as a Category 2 before blowing over the massive Arfajia Woods, bumping into the Dino Mountain Range, losing strength again and downgrading all the way down to a tropical storm while brushing the city of Bronto Valley, then going right over the city of Enfanor before disappearing up the Verdant Strait between Verdant Island and Cookie Cutter Island off the east coast.
A week of gale force winds and extremely heavy rain and hail accompanied by severe thunderstorms had disrupted the flow of life in several cities and towns. Reports of flooding and wind and hail damage kept showing up in the newscasts on both radio and TV, along with occasionally, the sad news of fatalities. Day after day, the sand-yellow rabbit weather presenter woman Brandi Johnston had done twelve to eighteen hour weather reports, tracking the hurricane as it made its way across the mainland and informing people on what to do, how to prepare, and when to take shelter. Day after day, phones had been wailing and screaming away with alerts, warnings and emergencies.
The eastern side of the country did not usually see such violent weather. That only happened when a hurricane had been strong enough to keep together and make it over the Fenn Desert, and regain some strength over Coelacanth Bay. Therefore, the damage reports from that side of the country were a bit more serious. The city of Fossil City had seen roofs blowing off in the suburbs, and even a fair amount of broken windows in the inner city from debris being blown around. The cities of Senabelle, Dretmond and Limekenny, as well as Fossil City, saw strongly reduced public wifi and cellphone coverage as two of the signal towers on the 'tail' of the Dino Mountain had blown over. The M73 mountain road up along the side of the Dino Mountain was closed entirely for all traffic as parts of it had been damaged by small rockslides or mudslides, or had even washed away. Parts of the giant Arfajia Woods went through yet another cycle of renewal, as some of the old-growth trees had succumbed to the force of the wind and went down to make room for younger trees to grow into old-growth trees.
The sparsity of occupation in the Arfajia Valley had proven its worth. Lots of gales had blown through the valley, not a lot of damage had been done, as there was not much to get damaged. But what was there, had seen damage. The small grain station just outside the town of Campion Crossing was needing more refurbishment, as not only was the railway line being extended, but falling trees had knocked dents and holes in some of the grain elevator towers. A number of new streams and creeks running down from the 'tail' of the Dino Mountain were turning large swaths of the foothills into marshland. The subsidiary branch of the brickworks that was being built had all its materials spread over about three square miles. Some of the powerline poles along the back edge of the Arfalley Sawmill had gone down or snapped off, and one of them had fallen right alongside one of the processing buildings and ripped off the woodchips loading pipe.
At the site where the large new joint farm was being built between Waving Grain Farm and the Wildflour flour mill, all the canopies and tents had been blown away, and despite several of the concrete floor sections for the house already being in place, the foundations had filled with rainwater. The tiny community village of Rolling Hills had been spared major damage; the most damage there had been some roof tiles flying off of roofs - and some of those roof tiles had done some interesting bodywork to one of the second-hand cars sitting in the lot of the Stanzford Garage. Damage to the outlying enterprises had been mostly limited to, or caused by, falling trees.
The BGA plant had fared best of all, being such an open area. The livestock dealer and the Agricultural Co-operation had mainly seen trees in the surrounding patches of forest going down, with some of those falling trees causing damage to fences and a couple of pens at the livestock dealer, and the fence around the yard of the Co-op. Some smaller, not-anchored items in the Co-op yard had also taken a bit of a trip into the fields further towards the east. And a thick branch snapping off one of the trees in the surrounding patch of forest had left a hole and massive webbing of cracks in one of the large, floor-to-ceiling tall windows of the main building, but fortunately the glass had not shattered.
Almost two hundred miles westwards, Butterfly Farm had weathered the storm bravely, as it had done for several centuries. With the home weather station and the extra laptops to track weather systems the tall freckled human woman Sasha had acquired, they'd had plenty forewarning and enough time to prepare. The chickens, the rabbits and Choco the goat had been brought into the underground bunker for a couple of three days. The beehive boxes had been anchored both to the trees and to long metal pipes driven deep into the ground. All the equipment and vehicles had been packed tightly into the large shed - even old Emmie, the 1948 Chevrolet Fleetline, had found shelter in the workshop building. The windmill had gotten its brake applied.
And that was in fact the most serious damage to the farm; the windmill brake had failed under the force of the gales, and the overload triggered by the sudden excessive spinning of the blades had tripped the accumulator bank's safeties and caused all the stored power to be discharged. There was some more damage, but that was mainly trees having been blown over - although one of the trees that was downed had been in the patch of trees behind the shed and double silo, and it had smacked cracks into one of the solar panels on the roof of the shed before punching a dent into one of the cylinders of the double silo on its way down. And the long bale trailer, which had not fit in the shed, had blown over, but as it was empty, that wasn't even damage. Several stacks of the wrapped silage bales had also toppled, but remained intact.
The windmill was the most serious. Power was still available, but the entire accumulator bank would need to recharge - and Sasha was not resetting the safeties until the brake had been repaired. The freckled human woman had already assessed the damage and done a search online for similar or improved braking applications for pump windmills; fortunately it appeared there was a good amount of different types of brake assemblies for windmills and generators. Hopefully they would be relatively readily available through the Ag Co-op, too, so while the fluffy purple and white vixen-taur Buddleia brought the animals back to their pens outside and took care of milking Choco the goat, Sasha put in a call to the Co-op.
"Sasha! I was going to call you today," sounded the voice of the tan Katanga lion Ag agent Daniel from her phone. "How have you guys fared through that storm? Do you have any damage?"
"Moderate. A bunch of stuff toppled over, and most of that stuff are trees. One of those cracked one of our solar panels and dented the silo, but it's not all too serious. The one serious bit of damage we have is that the brake on our windmill failed so the generator overloaded and the accumulator bank tripped all its safeties and did a massive discharge dump."
"Yikes! Are you out of power?"
"No, miraculously the rotor remained intact and it's still working, so there's still power coming in, it's just not being stored in the accumulator at the moment."
"Is that a difficult fix for you guys? Or do you need me to get in touch with the power company?"
"No, it's as simple as flipping a few breakers. But I'm not doing that until that brake is fixed, so that's why I have you on the phone right now, because we need a replacement brake assembly."
"Okay, so what broke? Cables, the brake disc, the calipers?"
"How the hell should I know? I don't even know where the brake is on that thing."
"What brand is your windmill?"
"Apparently, it's an old Aermotor seven-oh-two, does that help?"
"It does. Those windmills, as old as they are, already came with two brake assemblies, one being a yaw brake in the head to turn the rotor perpendicular to the wind direction, and either a disc or drum mechanical brake somewhere on the main shaft. That can be either just below the head, or just above the pump, or in your case, the generator."
"Right. Gimme a second, Dan." Sasha lay her phone on the small garden table and looked over to where Buddleia was milking Choco. "Hey babe? You wouldn't happen to know where the brakes are on that windmill, would you?"
Buddleia looked over Choco's back without interrupting the rhythm of the milking.
"Is big round box on main pipe going into the generator, is almost right up against roof of the underground room, yes."
"Thanks, babe." Sasha blew a playful kiss before turning back to her phone. "Right, so, apparently it's some kind of drum brake on the shaft, just below where the shaft comes through the concrete slab that mill is sitting on."
"Okay, that would be the mechanical brake, that serves as, you could say, a parking brake or an emergency brake. You would set that brake when you need to do maintenance on the mill, for instance."
"I do remember Leia stamping on a lever when I asked about brakes when I was trying to put the rotor back on, yes."
"Yes, that would have actuated the mechanical brake. I take it that's the one that failed? Are you sure the yaw brake is still operational?"
"You know, Dan, I have no fucking clue because I don't even know what a yaw brake is, let alone that I was aware our windmill had one."
"Haha! Okay, that's fair. Well, like I said, a yaw brake is in the head, it's basically an aerodynamic brake. You use it to furl the rotor, which means you turn the axle so the blades are parallel to the tail vane. That way the wind blows past the blades rather than into them and it's basically the wind itself that holds the brake on the mill."
"Right, gimme another second, Dan." Again Sasha looked up and in the direction of the goat pen. "Another question for you, babe! Can the rotor of our windmill be turned so the blades sit at the same angle as the tail?"
Buddleia looked up over Choco's back again, displaying her upper canine teeth and the very tip of her dark pink tongue in a funny smile.
"Used to! Grandparents sometimes did, but it rust so it not turn no more."
"Okay, thanks again, babe." Another playful kiss was blown in the vulpine taur's direction before Sasha returned to her phone once more. "According to Leia, that function stopped being operational decades ago, back when her grandfolks still ran this farm."
"I see. That might explain why the other brake failed in that storm of the past few days, if that was the only brake you set."
"Yeah, all I remember is, when I tried to put the rotor back on and asked Leia if the thing had a brake, she stepped on a lever. So we pushed down that lever when the storm came, but nothing else because I for one had no idea there were additional options."
"Right, yes, that makes sense. So do you want to fix both brakes? I would definitely recommend that."
"If it's recommended by the expert, I'm definitely doing it if it's something we can do ourselves. Is it something we can do ourselves, and are there even any parts available for these archaic types of windmill?"
There was a distant sound of tapping keys and a clicking mouse.
"As a matter of fact, there are. I can order full replacement brake assemblies from Aermotor themselves, both a yaw brake assembly and a mechanical brake assembly. They're for the series eight-oh-two pump mills, but that's just the successor of the seven-oh-two that you guys have and they're backwards compatible."
"I take it that as they're newer, they're also beefier? Because if I'm gonna be putting new brakes on that thing, I want to put something a lot beefier on there to prevent this from happening in the future."
"Yes, they're made with modern materials and a lot sturdier. Do you happen to know the diameter size of your mill?"
"Jeez, no, but gimme yet another second, Dan." Yet again Sasha looked over to the goat pen. "Dan's asking me difficult questions, babe, so I have to keep asking you. Do you know the diameter size of our mill?"
"Is size of the rotor blade thing," Buddleia nodded over Choco's back. "Is eight feet."
"Thanks again, babe. Okay, Dan? Eight feet, Leia says."
"Alright. I have those on screen right now. Full yaw brake kit, four hundred fifty bucks, and a full mechanical brake kit, five hundred thirty, or five-seventy if you want the wide element version with upgraded pneumatic release."
"I take it the wide element thing is beefier?"
"Quite, it basically is twice as thick as the regular one, meaning it has twice the surface and twice the braking power. It's a naturally-closed system with air actuation holding it open, so when that brake triggers, you have to use the air pressure to release it again."
"Right, okay. Get us that one then, please, Dan. Like I said, if I'm gonna be putting new brakes on the thing anyway, I want to put something stronger and beefier on there while I'm at it."
"Gotcha, putting the order in now, Sasha. I'll even express it so it should be here day after tomorrow."
"Thanks, Dan, I appreciate that. And now I have a rather important question for you."
"Of course, what can I do for you?"
"Well, see, since the brake on our windmill has failed, that means the thing is continually spinning now because there's still a good bunch of wind. How the hell can we stop it from doing that so that we can install the new brakes, since both the old brake systems don't work anymore?"
"Right! That's quite important to know, isn't it? Because you'd think, with both the brakes not working, you won't be able to stop the thing. But you actually can, it's just a bit involved and requires a certain lack of care."
"Don't tell me we just gotta wedge a steel pipe between the blades."
"Not quite as drastic as that, but close. See, at the bottom of the head is a spring-loaded lever, you pull that down and twist it to the side to keep it in that position. That disconnects the axle from the head. The blades will still be spinning, but it won't turn anything inside the head nor will it turn the main shaft anymore, so you can remove the old brake assemblies and put the new ones in place. Of course, for putting the new yaw brake in the head, it would be safer if the blades would not spin, so you could stop them from doing so by sticking a pipe through the spokes. But if you don't mind climbing up and down a few times, my advice would be to climb up to the head, pull and secure that lever, then climb back down, replace the mechanical brake on the main shaft, apply that brake once it's in place, climb back up and put that lever back to its original position. Because it's spring-loaded, it will snap back hard and make a rather impressive CLANK when the rotor is suddenly stopped dead, but the axle and the gears can handle that, and then you can safely replace the yaw brake assembly in the head as well. I would just lean back from the head a bit when you release that lever, if I were you."
"Hmm, yeah, I suppose that would be the lesser of two evils. Alright, we'll do it that way. But if it breaks our windmill, I'm gonna drag you over here by your tail behind our truck and you're gonna be putting up a brand new windmill for free, Daniel, because it will have been your fault in that case, haha!"
"Hahaha! That's fair, Sasha, I will accept responsibility. But I'm also pretty darn certain that it won't harm your mill, especially not since it's an older one and those tend to be a lot heavier and sturdier."
"Yeah, back then stuff was made to last, that's true. Anyway, I still have another question for you, if you don't mind."
"Of course not! What do you want to know?"
"Well, as I said, a bunch of trees toppled over in that storm. Several here on the farmgrounds, but also a whole bunch of them in those forests around us, like that long and narrow one behind our farm, that one on the hill in front of our farm, and that one on the hill way to the left of our farm, behind those dirt roads we rerouted. Of course we need to remove the fallen trees on our land, but what about those other fallen trees? Would we be in a whole heap of trouble if we would toss those on the back of our truck and cart them off to the sawmill as well?"
"The answer to that is a big no. Usually, that is cleanup that would fall under either municipality or province authority, but as this valley is practically uninhabited, the Arfajia Province council does not bother with cleanup of fallen trees out here. So if you're willing to put in your own time to remove any fallen trees, you're free to do so. If the province ever finds out about it, most they'd say would be something like, hey, good job, that saved us a bunch of work and expenses. And again, if I were you, I would leave some of the fallen trees deeper inside the forests where they are to contribute to the ecosystem."
"Awesome, that's great news. And that actually reminds me of back when I hit a deer with my car. I had to report that because it killed the deer, and I was not allowed to take it. So what if we would find a dead deer in any of those forests that might have been killed by a falling tree? I doubt we would, those deer are clever enough to get out of the damn way of a falling tree, but let's just say for argument's sake one didn't dodge in time. Would we have to report that and leave the deer where it is, or would we have to bring it to the farm for pickup, or could we just bring it to the farm and stick it in our freezer so I can make sausages and steaks out of it later?"
"Same deal. With how low the population in this entire valley is, it's basically considered uninhabited, and that would just make it a hunting ground. Only difference being the deer being taken down by a tree rather than a rifle, but the result is the same, so finders keepers."
"Okay, good." A playful grin curled Sasha's lips. "Keep your fingers crossed we'll find a deer unfortunate enough to have gotten a tree on its head, because that will mean a second batch of my granny's deer sausages, and since we still have about seventy pounds of the first batch in our freezer, that second batch will go to Jonesey in town to be sold."
"Dammit Sasha, don't give me such a conundrum, haha! I'm a very peaceful and nature-loving guy, I don't wish harm upon the fluffy-wuffy wildlife around this place, but now you got me hoping for casualties!"
"I'm sure the first bite of one of my granny's deer sausages will alleviate that guilt in a heartbeat, Dan, hahaha! Hey, tell you what, I'll cut a handful of sausages off our first roll and bring them when we come pick up those brake things day after tomorrow to appease your conscience, how 'bout that?"
"You're freaking amazing, Sasha, haha! Thanks so much, I will be so looking forward to that!"
"Of course you will, you darn glutton you, haha! Hey, don't let the anticipation interfere with all your work, okay? Because I'm sure you're dealing with some damage from that storm as well."
"Yeah, we actually got slammed pretty good. Stuff went all over the yard, several of our tarps and those two IBC tanks we use for small scrap are about halfway to Arfafield, Tim's out looking for them, and since Buddleia removed a number of the dead trees around here, there was enough room for a piece of tree to blow right up against the building and leave a big hole and about three zillion cracks in one of our big windows."
"Ouch. Any injuries?"
"No, it happened after hours, so we just got here in the morning to find a massive branch sticking through one of the windows. But those big-ass windows are tempered glass, so there wasn't even all that much glass to clean up inside."
"Oh, okay. Wow, but can you even fix a window as huge as that?"
"Those panes have to be custom-ordered from Bronto Valley, but we already did that and we have the window boarded up for the moment, inside and outside. We'll just have to look at those sheets of plywood for a while since it takes until the end of next week before the new pane will be here, so let's just hope the weather will behave until then."
"Yeah, no kidding. How'd Simon and Harry do, do you know?"
"Few broken fences and some damage to some of the pens, but nothing really serious. Fortunately they had no animals at all in stock, so no casualties there either. Hey, speaking of, how did your animals do?"
"We brought them into the underground bunker and kept them there until the storm had passed. They weren't exactly thrilled about it, but they were safe down there."
"Alright, clever thinking." A chuckle on the other end of the line. "Did any of those fish we dumped in your pond go flying?"
Sasha sniggered lightly and shook her head at her phone.
"It was just straight-line wind, Dan, not a twister nor a sharknado. So no, all those fish darn well stayed in the pond, I can assure you."
"Haha, alright then, that's good. Did your pond overflow?"
"No, but that island in it got a bit smaller, and all the steps on the side of the dock are submerged now, so the water level definitely has risen. But hey, that's just more room for the fish, right?"
"True, haha! Are you going to put even more fish in your pond?"
"You know, I've actually been thinking about that, because Marian gave me an idea. They're digging a pond for their ducks, and she said they would fish up some smaller fish from that creek that's near their farm and release them into that pond to establish a healthy ecosystem. I was wondering if we could do the same, because I would think that with just one single type of fish in there, it would be a quite one-sided and unbalanced ecosystem. Is that a very incorrect assumption of mine, or do I have a point there somewhere?"
"You are actually quite correct in thinking that, Sasha, yes. So if you ask me, it would be a good idea to spend a day at the creek to catch some fish and bring them over to your pond. Just make sure not to introduce any predatory fish."
Realizing the phonecall was going to continue for quite a bit longer than she had anticipated, Sasha sat back on the garden chair and lit a cigarette. She also propped her feet up on one of the other garden chairs, leaning back and leaving her phone on the table with the speaker function enabled so she could continue the conversation.
"Right, that makes sense. With our pond being a contained body of water, the fish have nowhere to go, so if I would drop in a pike or something, we'd end up with no more of those barbel fish and one very huge and fat pike after a while. So what kind of fish can we find in that creek? Leia mentioned her grampa sometimes took her fishing for catfish in that creek, but surely there must be more kinds of fish in there, right?"
"You are absolutely right, Sasha. In fact, there's already different types of catfish in that creek, mainly Andean shovelnose and blue catfish on the bottom and Pangasius in the water column. You may know the Pangasius under the name of Iridescent Shark, perhaps?"
"Whu... you mean those flat-headed little blue fish you can buy at the pet store for in your fish tank?"
"Exactly, and those flat-headed little blue fish should not be sold in pet or aquarium stores, because they can grow up to four feet in size and over eighty pounds in weight."
"You're kidding me!"
Having finished milking Choco, Buddleia was on her way to the underground bunker with the bucket of milk and overheard that part of the conversation as she passed Sasha, sending the freckled human woman a cheerful smile that showed the lower halves of her upper canine teeth and the upper halves of her lower canine teeth, plus the very tip of her tongue poking from between them.
"Is catfish grandfather teach me to catch, Sasha, yes! Blue shark catfish, yes! They very yum, have lots meat on them."
"There you go," Daniel's voice came from Sasha's phone with a chuckle. "If you look at a map, you'll see there's two main streams coming from the Dino Mountain, and the east-most stream runs into a narrow elongated basin right at the border of the Arfajia Woods. That basin is home to a population of iridescent sharks, and they move upstream to spawn during flooding season. Basically, that's right now, from May to July, and they move back to the basin from about September on, so during these coming few months you'd have the best chance of catching them in that stream."
"Damn, for someone who's only interest in fish is how to prepare it and how it will taste, you know a lot of facts about these fish, Dan."
"Haha! C'mon Sasha, I have the Wiki open right in front of me, what did you think? My personal knowledge of those fish is that they taste very nice breaded and baked in tomato sauce like my mother used to do."
"Of course, I should have known. So how did your mother bake them? It sounds very tasty. Do you have that recipe?"
"Most certainly do I have that recipe, Sasha. You need a good pangasius fillet, about a kilo's worth, or two pounds, about sixty milliliters of oil, preferably olive oil, five or six cloves of garlic, a good size onion, eight hundred grams of peeled canned tomatoes, some black and white pepper, paprika powder, nutmeg, a bit of salt and a pinch of sugar, for which I would recommend unrefined muscovado, the raw brown sugar because it caramelizes better and tastes nicer, a teaspoon of basil, and flour or breadcrumbs to roll the fillets in. Cut the fillet into broad strips and season them with all those spices I mentioned, and let them sit a bit to absorb the flavor. In the meantime, crush the garlic and slice the onion and brown them together, then put in the canned tomatoes, put on a lid and let it simmer until the tomatoes are dissolved so you have a nice sauce with a creamy consistency. You can also put a bay leaf into the sauce while it simmers and take it back out when it's done, my mother did that too. Anyway, by that time you go back to the fillets, you roll them in the breadcrumbs or the flour, and corn flour would be the best and tastiest option if you choose flour, then fry them goldenbrown in the oil on both sides. Just to sear them, you know, then after that you put them in an oven dish, mix the rest of your spices through the tomato sauce and pour it all over and around the fillets. You should have set your oven to one-ninety C, or three-seventy F, and you set the dish in there and let it bake for about half an hour. My mother always said, 'until ready', but that's a bit vague; a half hour is usually good, but check every now and then by sticking a fork in the fillets. Once they're all soft and white on the inside, they're done. Take the dish out, let it cool for a bit, and serve with some sprigs of parsley and sliced tomatoes, and it goes really well with a nice glass of cold buttermilk. Dammit, and now I'm hungry, haha."
Sasha couldn't help shaking her head and laughing cheerfully.
"You're a glutton as well as a gourmet, Dan. But damn, that really does sound like a tasty recipe. Now I'm tempted to get an electric oven for our little kitchen here, haha." She let go a louder laugh. "But we're getting a bit off-track here, aren't we? Because I do believe you were answering my question on what kind of fish are in that stream coming from the Dino Mountain, haha!"
"Right! Hahaha! So let's get back to that, because those streams are actually quite interesting with the kinds of fish living in them."
"In what way?"
"In the way that they harbor quite an international collection of fish. There's fish in there that are native to Asia, such as those pangasius for instance, as well as quite sizeable tinfoil barbs, freshwater bream, common carp and even killifish, most notably the striped and golden panchax. But there's also fish from both the north and south Americas and Eurasia, such as some plecos and those other two catfish I mentioned, creek chubs, several types of dace, several types of sunfish including smallmouth and largemouth bass, bluegill, white crappie, yellow perch, marble trout, common rudd, mollies, minnows and shiners, and some pure predators like the common pike, the silver gar and the freshwater longtom. And that's just the fish, I haven't even gotten to any of the other underwater creatures living there like crayfish and freshwater clams and such."
"You're beginning to lose me there, Dan."
"Then let's just say it's a very varied international congregation of fish and other creatures living in those creeks. And in pretty much all other streams, creeks and rivers all over Minnaluna, come to that."
"That'll work. How did they even get here if their original habitats are so spread out all over the world?"
"Who'll say? I sure have no idea, I can tell you that much, haha. All I can do is run down the list of species that have been discovered in the streams and lakes and what have you around here to answer your question."
"Fair enough. So answer another question, if you will? Would catching some of those non-predatory fish from that creek and releasing them in our pond establish a healthy ecosystem in our pond?"
"Not quite, you will need to add other creatures as well. Even several of those non-predatory fish need to eat other creatures as part of their diet, see. Now, as your pond already has a bunch of vegetation in and around it, you will already have a bunch of snails and such in there, but you may wanna consider catching some crayfish as well. But definitely do not get any of the Asian clams that are in those streams. Those are invasive the world over, but fortunately a number of the fish living in those creeks find them very tasty and chomp up a good number of them so they don't spread too much. But in an enclosed body of water like your pond, they will mess up the ecosystem by causing algae blooms. You're better off collecting a number of the black river mussels that are also found in those streams."
"And how do I tell the difference?"
"Color and shape, and the size. Asian clams are mainly brown or gold-ish colored and more rounded, and get to about two inches in size overall. Black river mussels, as the name says, are black, much more elongated and twice as large, four to five inches in total."
"Right, that should be easy enough, then. And I do know enough about this kind of thing to know we should start small, with just a few fish at a time."
"Exactly. Some of those fish are schoolers, so you should catch at least a dozen or so of them to release into your pond, but for many of them, one or two at a time would do just fine. But first get some of those mussels and let them establish themselves. And of course, make sure to not to dump any of those apex predators in there, like the pikes or the silver gar. If you catch one of those, and it's large enough, just dump it in your pan and enjoy it for lunch or dinner."
"Haha, alright, I'll definitely keep that in mind. And hey, it's not like we're gonna drop everything and go out today for a day of fishing, because there's still plenty to take care of here first."
"Like repairing your windmill and collecting the fallen trees."
"Right on the nose, Dan! I suppose I'd better get on that, because I've been sitting here blabbering away with you and let poor Leia take care of all the morning chores, haha!"
"In that case I'll let you get back to your work, Sasha, haha. I'll shoot a text your way in a day or two as soon as those brake assemblies have arrived here."
"Appreciate it a bunch, Dan. And this has certainly been an interesting and enlightening conversation, even if it was way too long, haha. Oh! And one more thing! You said that mechanical brake for the windmill uses air to hold it open, right? If you order the replacement, does it come with... hell, I dunno, a compressor or an air tank or something? Because our mill does not have that at the moment and we're gonna be needing one if that new brake system uses it."
"Any time, always happy to help. And of course, you're right! Let me check... hmmm... dubbadubbadub... no, it doesn't come with any of that, I'll have to order a small tank with attached compressor separately. Two hundred eighty-five dollars, all in all with all the hoses and connections and actuator and everything."
"Then order that too please, because as I said, our mill doesn't have that and we'll be needing it."
"I just added it to the order, Sasha."
"Thanks, I appreciate that too. We'll see you the day after tomorrow then."
"Sounds good to me. Talk to you later, Sasha."
"Laters, Dan."
Finally ringing off, Sasha tapped out her phone and stretched hard, balling her fists far above her head and squeezing her eyes shut. Good grief, farm work might be hard, but just sitting around in a chair like that for a long period of time was almost as tiring. Running her fingers through her long, light ginger hair and getting up from the chair, the tall human woman calmly walked over to the small building over the large opening in the concrete slab and went down into the underground bunker. In the main room, Buddleia was still busy with the milk, carefully pouring it through a filter into a number of glass bottles and setting the bottles in one of the stainless steel freezers. Sasha smiled at her and trailed her fingers along the side of the vixen-taur's slender muzzle as she stepped over to the large double-door stainless steel refrigerator, taking out a number of bottles of the oldest milk and setting them out on one of the stainless steel counters.
A little over an hour later, the older milk had been processed into a number of new butterfly-shaped cheeses, and the leftover whey was set back in the refrigerator so it could be further processed into ricotta at a later date. Done at last with all their morning chores, both Buddleia and Sasha took their morning bath in the pond and spent some time indoors afterwards to dry up and brush each other - and to do a good deal of cuddling, of course.
Sasha mentioned what Daniel had told her about the downed trees in the surrounding patches of forest, which prompted Buddleia to already start rising to her four feral feet, but Sasha wrapped her arms around the vulpine taur's upper torso and playfully held her down a bit.
"Not so fast, fuzzbutt, let's discuss this for a moment or two, shall we?" she chortled.
"But is simple plan, Sasha, yes?" Buddleia chortled. "We put stakes on trailer, put trailer behind truck, maybe put stakes on truck too, and drive to forests to pick up fallen trees, yes. Is easy!"
"It's not as easy as you make it out to be, fuzzbutt," Sasha shook her head with another chortle. "For one, we're gonna need machinery to pull those trees out of the forests and load them up, so we'll have to bring that little skidsteer with the log grabber on it. For another, while most of the trees that went down are spruce, there's also a number of deciduous trees that went down, and we'll have to de-limb those first before loading them. And where are we going to put all those branches to bring them back here? We'd probably need my two-CV or old Emmie with that small trailer behind it to load all those branches as well."
"Oh! Yes! You right!" Buddleia nodded with a cheery chirp. "So how we do, Sasha? Skidsteer thingie is too small to drive all over, yes."
"Yeah, we'd have to put it on that flat tilting trailer," Sasha nodded. "And we'll probably have to daisy-chain that with the small trailer, and that would mean we'd need old Emmie to pull that combination because my two-CV can't handle that much weight."
"Okay, old Emmie can do, yes! She strong old car!" Buddleia nodded cheerily.
"Right, good, we'll do that then," Sasha smiled. "That means you'll be driving old Emmie, and I'll take the MAZ truck with the bale trailer behind it, because that truck still has provisions for stakes along the sides. And we'll have to load the back of old Emmie up with the jerrycans and the chainsaws as well."
"Yes! We go do!" Buddleia chortled, again making to rise to her four feral feet.
And again, Sasha stopped her by grabbing one of her arms with both hands.
"Not so fast again, fuzzbutt, haha! We don't need the truck and such yet, because we first have to pick up the downed trees on our own land here!"
"Yee hee, yes, you right again!" Buddleia nodded with a chitter. "And I have idea! I use my harness, yes! You put skidsteer thingie on trailer and put truck with trailer on the driveway, and I get harness and put stakes on the trailer, yes. Then I can pull fallen trees from little hill, skidsteer thingie not can go there, is too steep, yes."
"That's a very clever idea, fuzzbutt," Sasha chortled, lightly booping the damp black pad of Buddleia's nose with a fingertip. "But before you go grab that harness, first help me put the trailer back upright, okay? And while you're putting the stakes on the trailer and the truck, I'll go restack our bales."
"Okay! We have plan, Sasha, yes!" Buddleia chortled, wiggling her nose a bit.
Sasha also chortled and leaned in to smooch Buddleia's nose before scrambling to her feet together with the fluffy vulpine taur. They walked up the path between the fields on the left side of the old farmhouse, as the bale trailer had been sitting by the shelter on the rocky shelf. It only took a moment or two for Buddleia to lift the trailer on one side and flip it back onto its wheels, and Sasha checked it over for damage but found nothing except for a small bend in one of the bars of the trailer tongue. Walking back to the open area in front of the large shed, Buddleia disappeared into the shed while Sasha stepped past it and around the double silo to the shelter they had built behind that, where the combine harvesters and the trucks were sitting under.
As the freckled human woman drove the muted lavender MAZ-200 truck out from under the shelter and up the path between the left-side fields, Buddleia followed her with a large stack of square metal tubes on her shoulder. She began to stick them into the square holders all along the sides of the bale trailer while Sasha backed the truck up to the trailer and connected them together, and began to put the toppled stacks of gleaming purple bales back upright since Buddleia was still busy with the stakes, also putting a number of them along the sides of the truck's flat bed and connecting some of them together. Once the purple and white vixen-taur was done, she walked over to the old farmhouse and disappeared inside, coming back out several moments later with the leather harness Sasha had seen her wear for pulling the wreck of her Volvo station wagon over to the house, buckling it up over the front part of her quadruped lower body, and two straps of it over the shoulders of her upper torso plus one wider strap around her waist.
Sasha had followed the purple and white vixen-taur inside to put on some clothes, and she smiled as she looked at Buddleia walking over to the double silo, pulling and tugging on the spruce tree that lay crookedly in between the silo and the workshop built onto the side of the large shed. The vulpine taur eventually disappeared behind the shed, and a moment later the fallen tree began moving forwards again in little shocks and shudders, until Buddleia reappeared from behind the shed again, pushing the tree by the thickest part of its trunk. Once she had that part moved past the silo, she wrapped a chain around it, clipped the chain from her harness to that chain and started pulling the tree away from the silo and the shed, all the way past the little old house and up the path between the left-side fields until it was near the truck and trailer.
Wiping her brow even though it had seemed as if she had hardly broken a sweat, Buddleia unclipped her harness and took the chain off the trunk of the tree, walking back to the large shed and around it on the right side. By the time Sasha had restacked all the blown-over silage bales, three more fallen trees had been pulled out of the patch of trees on the little hill behind the large shed and over to where the truck and trailer were sitting by Buddleia. The purple and white vixen-taur pulled three more of them out of the strip of trees behind the old house and the windmill, and Sasha went into the workshop to grab both the chainsaws and two of the large metal jerrycans with two-stroke fuel, putting one of the chainsaws and both jerrycans into old Emmie's trunk and using the other chainsaw to cut the branches off the trees Buddleia had moved over and cut the trunks in half, or in three pieces in case of the longer and thicker trees.
Some time was taken to hook the small trailer to old Emmie's tow hitch, and it had a hitch as well which the tilt-deck trailer they had bought from the sawmill was hooked to. Sasha also attached the log grabber to the arms of the small John Deere skidsteer they had also bought from the sawmill and drove it over to the truck so she could pick up the trees she had cut in halves or in thirds and put them on the back of the truck, then putting the skidsteer on the trailer. Buddleia had already walked over to the fence at the left side of the farmgrounds and was pulling a tree out of the thick copse of trees bordering the front and middle left-side field, and Sasha slowly drove the truck over there as well, then walked back and got behind the wheel of the old Chevrolet Fleetmaster to drive that over to the left border of the farm as well.
Several fallen trees were pulled out of the thick copse as well, de-branched, cut in half and loaded onto the back of the truck, and Dr. Barbara Westing, the blue-gray tabby cat woman of the three scientists who were checking the new super fast-growing trees for storm damage, actually took bits and pieces of the branches and bark Sasha cut off the trees as samples. Eventually, with all the fallen trees removed from the Butterfly Farm grounds, Sasha drove the old MAZ truck and trailer over to the forest on the low hill behind their new fields 5a and 5b and Buddleia drove old Emmie over there as well, still wearing the leather harness. It was a quite sizeable forest, and at least two dozen large spruce, pine and fir trees in there had buckled under the force of the hurricane and fallen over. Sasha and Buddleia left a handful of the fallen trees that were laying right in the middle of the forest, but about sixteen of them were removed by Buddleia who pulled them over to the truck and trailer, where Sasha removed all the branches, cut them in halves or thirds and used the skidsteer to load them onto the back of the truck.
All three of the female scientists actually got distracted from their data-gathering by watching Sasha and Buddleia working in tandem like that, duly impressed by the fluffy vulpine taur pulling the fallen trees out of the forest on her own and bringing them over to the truck and trailer with the help of the harness like it was nothing. She was actually quicker than Sasha, bringing over a new tree while the tall human woman was still working on the previous one every now and then. After a while, Sasha walked back to the farm to get the old cooler, fill it with ice and bring it back over to the truck and trailer, as Buddleia also started bringing over dead squirrels and rabbits she found while moving the trees. Ewww... but at least they had been laying out for only less than a day so they should still be edible after cleaning, and it was both a form of hunting and recycling, in a way.
Before too long, the back of the old MAZ truck was filled to capacity with long logs stacked up between the metal stakes. Sasha drove it around to the front of the farm and parked it by the somewhat higher hill covered in forest in front of their farm, with Buddleia following her in old Emmie. More fallen spruce, pine and fir trees were pulled out of that forest one by one by Buddleia, along with a few birch, beech and ash trees. Those took a bit more work to de-limb, and Sasha stacked them on top of all the spruce and pine logs that went onto the bale trailer first, because especially the trunks of the beech trees were more twisted and bent and therefore more difficult to stack. Buddleia also stacked the thicker and more twisty branches of the deciduous trees in the small trailer behind old Emmie, and soon all the fallen trees they were aiming to pull out of the forest on the hill in front of their farm had been removed, de-limbed, cut up and loaded up.
Making their way along the left side of the farm again and slowly driving up the wide dirt road that led over to the sawmill, they stopped every now and then to pull more fallen trees out of the smaller and larger forests on the way, and even two trees that were laying right across the road. When they eventually no longer could possibly fit any more logs onto either the back of the truck or on the trailer safely, they strapped the large loads down as tightly as they could and drove the rest of the way over to the sawmill. It was still a bit before seven o'clock in the evening, so the crew was still present and at work, allowing Sasha to shake paws with a brown and cinnamon-colored African Clawless otter man introducing himself as Dave Kinsmore, and a pretty Samoyed dog woman with a very pretty light beige-brown Biscuit-textured fur that was very thick and fluffy, who introduced herself as Sam Miller.
"My full name's Samantha, but Sam's short an' sweet, an' it makes the two of us sound like the old soul singers," she said with a light chuckle.
"I see," Sasha nodded with a chortle. "Yeah, I'll admit that when our neighbors talked about meeting you and mentioned you were a woman, I was actually a bit surprised at first. And Miller; is there any relation with that fellow from the flour mill?"
"Nope, that's just a coincidence," the canine woman shrugged with another light chuckle, curling her lips into a cheerful grin. "An' b'fore you ask; also nope, we don't sing."
"Well, there goes my hope for a free performance," Sasha sniggered. "But well, I suppose it would be hard to project your voice over the racket of that sawmill, heh. Are we still in time to..." She gestured at the truck and trailer, "...get all this processed into building materials, and can we still wait for it so it can be loaded right back onto the truck?"
"Yeah, we'll put in a bit of overtime, that ain't a problem," the otter man Dave said, waving a paw dismissively and pointing at the trailer full of branches behind the old Chevrolet. "You want that all chipped, too?"
Buddleia shook her head with a smile that showed just the lower halves of her upper canines.
"No, we take all that home, is firewood for us and bits for ladies in town who make pretty things from."
"Alright, fair," the otter man nodded, looking at the truck and trailer with his head a bit canted. "Can you remove those stakes?"
"Uhm... if we'd do that, those logs would go all over the place, and possibly on top of us, when we release the straps," Sasha said with a chortle.
The otter man Dave let go a chuckle and shook his head.
"I didn't mean all of them, I meant like every other one or some of the middle ones so there's room for the claw to grab the logs."
"Oh! Duhh, of course, how dumb am I?" Sasha laughed. "Yes, that should be no problem. Right babe?" she smiled, turning to Buddleia.
"Yes, I can do, I did when bringing dead trees from Dan too," Buddleia nodded with a wider smile that showed the entirety of her upper canines.
"Good, well, I'll go put the truck in position then, and you can yank off some of those stakes," Sasha smiled.
She got behind the wheel of the old lavender truck and drove it over towards the large gantry crane. The otter man Dave helped Buddleia remove several of the metal stakes from both sides of both the truck and the trailer, while the Samoyed woman helped Sasha taking off the ratchet straps.
"So how would you want'em processed?" she asked when the last strap had been rolled up and stowed.
"Regular planks, four by four and six by six beams, and as many one by one and one by two slats you can get out of all the corner bits," Sasha smiled. "And fifty-fifty planks and beams will do."
"Gotcha, I'll go start this hullabaloo up then," Samantha nodded. "Dave, you take'em into the office an' give'em a cuppa coffee, 'kay?"
"I do hope you don't make it as strong as Fred does," Sasha chortled.
Dave shook his head with a grin as he led the way over to the rightmost of the three buildings at the front of the yard.
"What Fred brews ain't coffee, that's coffee-flavored liquid asphalt. But I prefer to make it past fifty and still have my heart working, thank you very much, so I make actual normal coffee."
"In that case I'll gladly accept a cup," Sasha said with another chortle.
They went into the office, having some calm smalltalk while Dave brewed a pot of coffee and filled three mugs. Conversation ranged from the hurricane and the damage it had done to the new enterprises being set up and built in the vicinity, to work at the sawmill and work at the farm, and the new freight stations that were planned. Dave talked about how he and Samantha had also gone out to collect fallen trees from the nearby forests and process them into building materials that would actually be used in the building of the freight station between the sawmill and the brickworks, and that the brickworks was certain to be successful as it would also provide bricks, mortar and concrete for the construction of both that station and the one that was planned for between the flour mill and the oil mill.
After some time, Samantha joined them and poured herself a mug of coffee as well while she mentioned the logs had all been taken off the truck and trailer and were in the rack for the conveyor, and the sawmill was all set to turn them into the requested materials, which would take a bit over three hours.
"That's gonna be a whole darn lotta materials, too; whatcha gonna be doin' with all that if I may ask?" she added.
"Use some to repair damage to our buildings or build new buildings, and we'll likely donate a good amount of it to the folks of that new farm being built and to the folks in town to do repairs as well," Sasha smiled. "Because yeah, it's waaay more than we need, so we can be a bit generous with it, and all the rest we can just stash away for later use. It's not like it will go bad after all, heh."
"That's generous indeed," Dave nodded with a smile. "Are you going to be collecting more of the fallen trees from all over the place here?"
"We still have to go through that very long and narrow strip of forest behind our field six, that'll probably give us another truckload of logs," Sasha smiled, shrugging lightly. "For the rest... I dunno, maybe we'll take a day to drive around a bit and grab the most obvious fallen trees from the edges of the forests we come across, but that's still a maybe." She curled her lips into a mild grin. "After all, we gotta leave some for the others as well, I wouldn't be surprised if our neighbors at Cherry Blossom Farm and at Waving Grain Farm have gotten the same idea to scavenge some downed trees for cheap and easy materials and firewood."
"Yeah, Ben from Waving Grain has actually been by this morning with a load of trees they had collected from all over and quite a ways around their farm," Dave nodded again. "And Dan from the Co-op called us this morning to say he and Simon and Harry and the folks from the BGA had been working together to clear fallen trees all over the place there and they'd bring them over tomorrow."
Sasha also nodded and curled her lips into a mild grin again while she sipped the last coffee from her mug.
"Did Dan also mention that he's the one who put us on to those super trees we're currently growing and that it's all part of his master plan to massively increase the output of woodchips from this valley so the province will be convinced to improve and maybe even gravel the roads around here?"
Both Dave and Samantha laughed cheerily.
"That crafty old lion, he's gonna put us to work then, is he? Damn, we may need to hire more crew if that is his plan, haha!" Dave grinned.
"An' he's gonna be so tickled with the news 'bout that freight rail line that's gonna be extended all the way out 'ere!" Samantha chortled. "If he's aimin' to increase access to this place, thassa huge step forward after all!"
"Yeah, I'm actually kinda tickled about that as well," Sasha chortled. "And I'm quite curious to see if they will be using steam trains on that line. I was quite surprised to see the grain train in Campion Crossing had a steam locomotive. That can't be very economic nor ecologic, with all the coal those burn, right?"
"The steam trains in use on the older and smaller freight lines in this country don't actually burn coal, Sasha," Dave said, refilling his coffee mug.
"No, they run on wood," Samantha nodded.
Sasha quirked an eyebrow.
"They stoke wood? But isn't that dangerous? I mean, that would create a lot of embers that would fly from the chimney, right? And that would cause major brush fires in summer, I'd wager."
"Actually, the first steam trains all ran on firewood, an' they had modified smokestacks to massively reduce the emission of embers," Samantha smiled. "But the steam trains 'ere don't run on your regular firewood, they run on heat-pressed logs made outta sawdust, woodchips or wood pellets. An' some of the smaller ones on short routes run on just pellets 'cause thems easy to shovel an' they can fit an amazin' amount of'em in the tender."
"Much like what the BGA here does, too," Dave added. "They press woodchips and chopped straw into pellets that are burned in one of their buildings to generate power. And with the way those pellets and heat-pressed logs are treated and made, they burn very cleanly, with not a lot of smoke and no flying embers."
"I remember Darla mentioning something about that when I asked her if they'd be interested in sunflower straw from our farm, yes," Sasha nodded slowly.
"Yeah, an' in Campion Crossin', there's a farm growin' exclusively poplar which they bale up an' send off to a log factory that chops it all up an' presses it into thems kinda logs," Samantha nodded with a smile.
"And I'm sure that once that railway line and nearby station are completed, you two could sell your straw to them for a very good price as well, because it can then be transported from down here all the way over there mighty quick-like," Dave chuckled. "Heck, and if those super trees of yours make for good woodchips, those can be loaded here as well and sold to that factory."
"Hahaha! Well, that may be tempting, but I think I'd prefer selling our straw to the BGA so they can make pellets out of it for their burners, since the power they generate with those mainly goes to Rolling Hills and I'd rather contribute to the sustainability of this valley and especially this community," Sasha chortled.
"Yes, we all help each other!" Buddleia nodded cheerily. "But maybe those new trees very big and make much woodchips, so maybe we can sell part to BGA and part to log factory, yes!"
"Who knows?" Samantha chortled. "I'm quite interested in seein' what those trees will do an' what they'll be used for."
"From what Dan told me when he first brought it to our attention, they'll mainly be used to generate woodchips for the paper and cardboard industry," Sasha smiled while lighting a cigarette. "If the quality of the wood is good enough, they may also be used for some soft lumber, but the main objective is a sustainable source of woodchips for the paper and cardboard industry."
"Interestin', I'll have to ask those scientist ladies for some info one o' these days," Samantha smiled, getting up from her chair. "But for now, them logs should 'bout be halfway done so I better go check an' see if I need to switch the cuttin' pattern over yet."
She walked out of the office. Dave refilled their mugs with coffee and even dug up a packet of cookies from a cabinet, and they calmly talked some more about random subjects. It took a bit over two hours before Samantha returned in the office, pouring herself another mug of coffee and stuffing a cookie in her mouth while she sat down behind one of the computers and started typing and clicking.
"All done, an' I got all the materials loaded onto your truck an' trailer," she announced with her mouth full. "You're gonna wanna strap all that down good an' tight, it's stacked quite high." A printer buzzed out a paper, which the Samoyed woman handed to Sasha. "Here's your work order confirmation for the sawin' work an' the receipt for the woodchips an' sawdust it made."
"Thank you so much," Sasha smiled, folding the paper and sticking it in a back pocket of her shorts, taking her phone to check the time. "We'd better hurry with those straps, because at this rate it's gonna be tomorrow by the time we get back to the farm, and we haven't even had supper yet, haha."
"Same, so we'll help," Dave chuckled.
All of them walked out of the office this time. Under the gantry crane, the muted lavender MAZ-200 was still sitting with the bale trailer attached to it, both now stacked three-high with pallets full of planks and wooden beams. The ratchet straps came back out, and between the four of them, all the pallets were strapped down tightly and securely in a matter of minutes. Sasha and Buddleia thanked Dave and Samantha and waved cheerily while they got behind the wheels of the truck and the old Chevrolet respectively.
Even with the large and heavy load, Sasha kept up the speed a bit on their way back to the farm, blazing the headlights, the high-beams and a set of high-beam spotlights on the roof of the truck which she had taken off the cab of the wrecked Skoda tanker truck she had dismantled for its engine. It was, after all, already well past ten o'clock at night by the time they drove off the sawmill yard, and it was also still an almost two-hour drive back to Butterfly Farm. And although the old MAZ truck got up to much better speeds after Sasha had put the old engine of their Skoda grain truck in it, with the heavy load on both the back of the truck and on the long bale trailer she still had to be a bit careful with driving down the somewhat uneven dirt roads.
Sure enough, by the time they turned into the path between the left-side fields and Sasha drove the truck and trailer past the small farmhouse and the windmill to back it into the shelter behind the double silo still fully loaded and with the loaded trailer still attached, the time had ticked past midnight. Buddleia parked the old Chevrolet in front of the large shed with both trailers still loaded and attached to the car and quickly trotted into the farmhouse to prepare a quick supper of soup and simple sandwiches, while Sasha left the truck and trailer fully loaded under the shelter behind the silo, even though the truck stuck out so far it blocked the path running from the house to the dirt road behind the farm. The tall human woman did take a moment or two to grab the jerrycans and chainsaws from the trunk of the old Chevrolet and put them back in the workshop, but she left everything else as it was and joined Buddleia in the house so she could take off her clothes and pour them both a mug of cold goat milk while Buddleia filled two bowls with the soup she had heated up and handed one to Sasha along with two elderberry jam sandwiches.
What an incredibly long and busy day it had been! But a very productive day as well! They had successfully weathered the storm, and they had even come out with a double truckload of fresh building materials - so far, as there were still more to come. The following few days were still going to be very busy as well; in fact, the whole week that would follow was going to be very busy, as the time had also ticked over from May into June. That meant they had to repair the windmill once the new parts were in, more downed trees from the copses and forests around the farm had to be collected and processed, the cut-off branches all had to be chopped into firewood and stored to dry, and all the building materials had to be distributed and unloaded because they would be needing the truck and trailer to bring their May batch of silage bales to the BGA.
And who knows what else might still suddenly turn up! Despite the Arfajia Valley being so very stretched out and sparsely populated, life certainly was not dull there!
