The worst rush was over. It had been such incredibly hard work, exacerbated by the sheer amount of it and the heat of the Minnaluna summer season, but Butterfly Farm had prevailed. The sunflowers were in the ground!
It gave the fluffy purple and white vixen-taur Buddleia and the tall freckled human woman Sasha a few months of relatively calm time again. There was of course the recurring work of monthly mowing, baling and wrapping of grass, and the daily chores of tending the livestock and processing the milk of Choco the goat, but there would again be lots of time to lounge, relax, and do lots of additional cuddling in the mandatory rest period of the country's tropic's schedule.
Once a week, that rest period was spent in the tiny village of Rolling Hills - by necessity. The long drive to town after having done their morning chores usually saw the two of them arriving in Rolling Hills by the time the midday rest period was already well underway. Fortunately, all the shops kept their doors open throughout the rest period to allow anyone to walk in and shelter from the heat, so they could still have a relaxing lazy conversation or even a nap in any of the stores or workshops. Of course, they could also only go to town after the midday rest period was over, but with how long the drive was from the farm, if they'd do that, they'd arrive right at the time when the stores were closing for the day.
They had decided to chance it. With as airy clothes selected as they could find, which for Buddleia consisted of nothing more but a strip of fabric used as a boob tube and her yellow sun hat, and for Sasha consisted of the shortest and loosest shorts she had and the shortest and loosest tank top she could find, completed with her beach sandals and her pink sun hat, the two farmers had braved the long drive to Rolling Hills the moment they had finished their morning chores. Arriving a few minutes before two o'clock in the afternoon, Buddleia drove old Emmie, the 1948 Chevrolet Fleetline, straight over to the Rolling Hillside Tavern and Bar and parked in the shade behind the building.
Inside, the black and white Norwegian Forest cat man Ralph Murray was lounging in a reclined deck chair near a large standing fan, wearing nothing but his apron. He opened one eye at the sound of the door opening, then both eyes as Sasha and Buddleia stepped inside, and smiled.
"Hey, Sasha, Budders. Did you skip your midday nap to drive all the way here?"
"We had to, our groceries are running low," Sasha nodded with a smile. "And if we would have waited until the rest period was over, we'd gotten here when everyone had closed up shop."
"Makes sense," Ralph nodded, swinging his legs upwards, then down with force so the motion more or less propelled him upwards and allowed him to get up from the very reclined chair. "Well, let me offer you a drink, ladies, and would you maybe like a comfy chair or some pillows to lounge for the last hour as well?"
"Yes please," Buddleia chirped a chortle.
"I'll take the drink, thank you, Ralph," Sasha smiled. "I'll lounge the last hour in the spinnery though, I have some business to discuss there." She let go a chortle as well. "And since those silly hamster sisters have already gotten to cuddle my naked self when they delivered that couch, I've got to give Bella and Isabella a little compensation as well."
"Haha," Ralph chuckled as he filled two glasses with deep red ice cubes and similarly red berry juice. "I guess that's fair, I remember all of them used to very happily partake in shenanigans with Budders here."
"They so funny!" Buddleia giggled in several staccato yips. "They always say they want try make clothes for my whole body, yee hee! Is not possible, I not be able to walk with clothes on lower half, yee yee hee!"
"Well, they did get a few good views and a couple of gropes in back when those fiery volunteers here hosed me down while testing their fire truck, but that was just a fluke, I gotta do better for them than that," Sasha sniggered, sipping the juice. "Hey, say, this is tasty! Is it Berry Blast?"
"Nope, that's the non-alcoholic version of my wife's Wild Sex," Ralph chuckled. "She always makes such a huge batch that she only distills half of it into a strong liqueur and we serve the rest as a refreshing fruit drink for minors and whoever doesn't drink alcohol. And we make ice cubes out of it as well so the juice doesn't get watered down."
"Very clever. I'm assuming Winnie is having a nap at the moment, so give her my compliments when she wakes up, rather than me shouting them through that hatch," Sasha chortled. She gulped down the juice with relish and poured the remaining red ice cubes from her glass into Buddleia's glass. "Well, I'm sufficiently refreshed to undertake the grueling walk over to the spinnery. If I'm not back in an hour or so, go on and start on our grocery round without me, babe," she smiled, pressing a kiss on the side of Buddleia's slender muzzle.
"Yee hee! Okay! I get all the yum things, yee hee!" Buddleia giggled chirpily.
"Go nuts, babe," Sasha chortled, waving at the feline man. "Ralph, thanks for the drink, it was really very tasty. Have a great day now!"
Strolling calmly, Sasha stepped out of the tavern and down the narrow side street towards the main dirt road. The large front doors of the dairy and the spinnery were closed, but as Sasha crossed the road and stepped up to the spinnery, she found the doors were not locked. Inside the spinnery, she looked around and smiled; in the very back of the building, in the workshop area, the tailor's table was moved all the way up against the looms, and in its place was a thick rug with a collection of pillows on it. Cuddled up among the pillows were the three European hamster sisters and the Eastern Bettong woman, naked and asleep, or at least dozing, and the Keeshond woman Isabella Tucana was lounging in a hammock strung between two of the large cabinets holding bolts of cloth and fabric, also naked, and awake enough to lift her head a bit at the opening of the front door.
She smiled and lifted an arm to wave at Sasha and motion her over to the back of the store.
"Hey honey, that's a pleasant surprise. C'mon and join us!"
"I won't say no, but let me first get properly dressed for the occasion," Sasha said with a light grin as she walked to the back of the building.
By one of the spinning wheels she halted to strip off her super short shorts and tank top and lay them on the stool behind the spinning wheel together with her hat, and stepping out of her sandals. It was right away clear the hamster triplets and the Bettong woman had not been fully asleep, as they had all raised their heads as well and were looking at the freckled human woman, cheerily but lazily whooping. They all reached out their arms as well, crooning happily as Sasha joined them in the heap of pillows and cuddling up against her tall lanky form a bit.
"You should always visit our store this way, honey," the Bettong woman Bella Lynes chortled.
"Yeah, we know our fashionable products are wasted on you, but we'll take it if we get to see and cuddle you like this," Jasmine, the cream-haired hamster sister crooned.
"Come to that, why are you visiting us and making our day today, honey?" Mary-Jo, the black-haired hamster sister smiled.
"Want us to design you an airy toga you can easily throw off or something?" Rosemary, the blonde hamster sister chortled.
"I actually have a very specific request this time," Sasha smiled. "Which one of you is the best at making cute and silly plush animals and such?"
Isabella waved from the hammock again.
"That would be me, honey. The Kyoot Kittens are born from my hands."
She was referring to a collection of adorable little stuffed cats, ten inches large, made out of a variety of fabrics and even scraps of fabrics and with cute kitty faces embroidered on, sometimes deliberately crooked or misshapen for additional cute effect. They lined at least three shelves behind the counter, from where they were sold for change which was donated to the veterinary clinic. Sasha smiled and sent the canine woman a wink.
"In that case we have to have a good talk together in about an hour from now when the pace of life gets back into gear, honey."
"Always, I'll be all yours," Isabella smiled with a playful wink.
She actually rolled out of her hammock and walked over to a small freezer in a corner of the workshop, getting all of them a homemade popsicle. She also joined the five women in the pillow pile, cuddling up against Sasha's side after handing everyone a popsicle. With light chortles, they relaxed comfortably against each other while sucking and licking at the popsicles.
Too soon, an hour had passed. Whining and complaining playfully about having to give up their comfortable cuddling with Sasha, the hamster triplets scrambled out of the heap of pillows and took places in a row next to each other behind a workbench filled with an enormous pile of raffia strands which they started weaving into cute sun hats. Bella sat down behind one of the electric-powered spinning wheels and resumed spinning a heap of short ruddy wool into long strands of yarn. Isabella took Sasha with her to a set of comfortable armchairs in the back of the workshop, sitting down and making a prompting motion with a paw.
For a while, the two of them sat leaned over towards one another in a mock conspiratorial manner and talked in low voices. Every now and then, Isabelle giggled or nodded at the circular motions Sasha was making with her hands to illustrate the ideas she was laying out. After a few minutes, the Keeshond woman nodded again and laughed.
"I can definitely do that, honey! And it will be adorable!"
"That's the idea," Sasha chortled. "Can you have it done today before we go back home?"
"Easy! Two hours should be all I need," Isabella nodded, getting up from her chair and beginning to rummage through a collection of fabrics on one of the long tables, eventually picking up a length of super fluffy and very yellow mohair fabric. "Perfect! Can you run nextdoor to the craft store for me and pick up a black chenille stick and a square of white felt for me, honey? Or no, make it two black chenille sticks. And some eyes if you find some you like."
"Pipe cleaners, right?" Sasha chortled, also getting up. "Sure, no problem, I'll be back in a moment."
Only picking up and putting on her pink sun hat, the freckled human woman stepped out of the spinnery still stark naked without even thinking about it. Only a moment or two later, she was greeted by another couple of cheerful whoops as she stepped into the crafts store. But she wasn't even all that underdressed. The short Caspian tiger man Jasper, the beekeeper, and the tall Mountain Hare woman Kimberly, the chandler, were not there - they were probably in the chandlery. The brush-tailed rat man Ruben, the potter, was only wearing an apron as he sat behind his potter's wheel throwing a bulbous pot, and both the Normay Lemming woman Inga, the welder and sculptor, and the cinnamon silver-spotted Ocicat woman Sonya, the basket weaver and carver, were fully naked while they were both working on some kind of sculpture; a fairly sizable one in some kind of green-colored stone with random irregular red-ish spots in it in Inga's case, and a smaller one in a rather dark wood in Sonya's case.
They were the ones whooping it up when Sasha entered - Ruben just gave a playful short whistle.
"Now that's how we love to see you come in here all the time, sweetheart!" Sonya chortled, laying down her narrow chisel.
"You should pose for us like that sometime," Inga winked.
"I might, who knows?" Sasha chortled, canting her head a bit. "What kind of stone is that? The only green stone I remember seeing is when it has moss on it."
The lemming woman leaned over to pick up a small chunk of the red-spotted green stone she had chipped off the sculpture and tossed it in Sasha's direction.
"It's called eclogite, honey. A very interesting mix of green omphacite minerals and red garnet. Keep that bit, it's actually pretty rare."
"No-o-o clue what you just said, but thanks," Sasha chortled, catching the piece of stone and looking at it. "Well, whatever it is, it's very pretty. Anyway, Isabella sent me to pick up a couple of little things."
"Of course!" Sonya nodded, getting up and walking over to the counter. "What do you need?"
"Two black chenille sticks and a square of white felt," Sasha smiled. "Do you sell those sticks loose? And what do you have in cute fake eyes?"
"We have a box of loose pipe cleaners behind the counter here," Sonya nodded, bending over to pull a box from under the counter. She rummaged through it a bit and extracted two thin, fuzzy black pliable sticks, laying them on the counter. "How large a square of felt do you need? We have them in two-inch square, five-inch square and ten-inch square."
"I'm not quite sure, Isabella didn't specify, so let's do a ten-inch square to be safe," Sasha smiled.
"Right here," Sonya smiled, stepping over to a bank of large cubbies against the side wall of the store and taking a square of thin white felt from one of the cubbies. Back behind the counter, she put the box of fuzzy sticks back under it and took a flat plastic box divided into numerous little squares from under the counter, setting it on top and opening the lid. "This is our selection of decorative eyes, have a look at which ones take your fancy."
All the tiny squares were filled with plastic eyes, from different sizes of plain googly eyes to plastic eyes on small plastic studs with a thin metal locking washer at the back, some quite cartoony, some quite realistic, even some that were kind of flirty, in all kinds of different sizes and colors. Sasha looked them all over and eventually selected a pair of clear blue ones about the size of a marble, enclosed by dark gray plastic eyelids running out into exaggerated curved, girly eyelashes at one corner.
"I like these, these are cute," she smiled. "How much do I owe you?" A chortle escaped her. "I should probably run back nextdoor, my wallet is in a pocket of my shorts and I left those nextdoor."
"Don't worry about it, sweetheart," Sonya smiled, rolling the two fuzzy black sticks and the two plastic blue eyes into the square of white felt. "Take'em, we'll have Isa buy us a drink at the tavern tonight."
"Thanks, then take this as a tip," Sasha chortled, leaning over the counter to press a playful kiss on Sonya's lips.
"My favorite kind of tip," Sonya giggled with a purr. "Have a great day, sweetheart, and come back soon!"
"Yeah, you should definitely pose for us sometime!" Inga called from the workshop at the back of the store.
"I'll consider it," Sasha chortled.
She waved cheerfully and returned to the spinnery to give the materials to the Keeshond woman with the cheery remark they'd cost her a drink for Sonya and Inga at the tavern that evening. For a little over two hours, she sat by the workbench to look at Isabella working with the fluffy yellow mohair she had airbrushed broad black bands onto, some swaths of black fleece fabric, the white felt, the black fuzzy chenille sticks and the blue plastic eyes. Eventually, the result of the Keeshond's handiwork was admired by all of them with several cheery giggles before Isabella put it in a small woven carrier bag which she handed to Sasha.
Picking up her shorts and tank top and stepping back into her sandals, the tall human woman hid the small bag under her clothes she held draped over an arm as she stepped out of the spinnery. She looked up and down the broad dirt road for a moment, smiled and walked over to the general store when she noticed Buddleia was in there. Another cheery giggle escaped her when she stepped into the store and behind the counter, the smile on Millie's face was almost immediately replaced by a blush at the sight of the naked human woman.
"Hi mo... mom! Yeesh! In public, seriously?!"
"Don't pretend you're shocked and as if you haven't seen everything here from very close by plenty times before, choco-snoot," Sasha grinned.
"Mooommm!" Millie whined, blushing even deeper.
"It's certainly a very airy ensemble, dear," the black and white Border Collie woman Mrs. Stebbins smiled with a light chortle. "Any specific reason you did not put the clothes you're carrying with you back on when you were done with whatever it may have been you were doing? Dare I even ask what you may have been doing that required you to take your clothes off in the first place?"
"I just joined our town's talented seamstresses in the last hour of relax time, so I had to dress appropriately," Sasha chortled. "And after that, well, it was just too much of a fuss to put all this stuff back on, especially since it's gonna come right back off when we're back home again anyway."
"Of course," Mrs. Stebbins chortled. "Well, it's not an unpleasant view, I'll be honest, and after all we do have to make compromises with this heat, even I, see?"
She pulled on one of the shoulder straps of her frilly apron a bit, showing that while it was securely tied at her back, she was not wearing anything at all underneath it.
"Indeed!" Sasha nodded with a soft laugh, closing one eye in a playful wink. "And while you look very distinguished and even quite adorable in that apron, I'm pretty darn sure you will look even better without it."
Millie whined again, and while a light blush did appear around the dark pad of Mrs. Stebbins' nose, a smile still remained on her lips.
"Why, thank you for the compliment, dear. I might leave my apron at home if I visit your farm sometime. Are things going well at your farm? Buddleia mentioned, very happily I might add, that you have planted a large amount of sunflowers."
"I'm damn sure just about the whole village already knows about that by now," Sasha chortled, playfully nudging Buddleia with a shoulder. "But indeed, we have several very busy days behind us, full of very hard work, but the result is that we now have five of our existing fields planted with sunflowers, plus a very large new field as well."
"I'm sure that will look lovely once they are in bloom," Mrs. Stebbins smiled. "Let me know when they're flowering, I will definitely want to come visit your farm and snap a few pictures at that time."
"You can count on that, Doris," Sasha nodded with a smile. "Leia, did you get all the groceries?" Buddleia nodded cheerily, and Sasha also did. "Good, in that case, I'll just get a forty-five pack of Chesterfields, and then we'll be off to stop embarrassing your cashier, Doris," she chortled.
"Very well," Mrs. Stebbins nodded with a light chortle, taking a 45-pack of Chesterfield cigarettes from the rack behind the counter.
Sasha paid for them from the revenue cash Buddleia had already collected and slipped the pack into the small woven bag. Leaning over the counter, she pressed a playful kiss on Millie's lips, then a small smooch on Mrs. Stebbins' cheek.
"Take care with this heat now, dears," she smiled. "We'll see you next week, okay?"
Millie just mumbled something, and Mrs. Stebbins nodded with a smile.
"Have a safe drive back, dear, and enjoy your weekend. And stay hydrated now!"
"We will," Sasha smiled.
Both she and Buddleia waved and stepped out of the store. Calmly walking back up the broad dirt road and down the narrower side street to the tavern, they returned to the old Chevrolet and got in. Sasha never bothered to put any of her clothes back on, and the moment she was behind the wheel, Buddleia also untied the strip of fabric from around her upper chest and handed it to Sasha.
"What you get at spinnery, Sasha?" she smiled as she started the car and backed out of the parking spot.
"A surprise," Sasha smiled. "You'll see when we get home, babe."
"Okay! Yee! Is exciting!" Buddleia chirped.
It might have been the anticipation, or it might have been that ever since the old car had been refurbished, Buddleia was comfortable enough to drive it at a higher rate of speed than she usually did; either way, she kept the speed up a decent bit so they were back at the farm within three hours. After parking the old car under the roof on poles they had attached to the front of the large shed so it was sitting in the shade and taking a few paper bags and boxes from the trunk, the purple and white vixen-taur walked over to the small farmhouse with her bushy tail happily swaying back and forth. Sasha followed her, dropping her clothes and the strip of fabric in the small bathroom and setting the small woven bag on the towel cabinet before helping Buddleia put away all the groceries.
Once that had all been taken care of, Buddleia made a refreshing supper of pasta salad and Sasha poured them both a glass of cold goat milk. The simple supper was enjoyed in the shade of the trees in front of the old farmhouse, and with the dishes put in the plastic tub sitting in the sink, Buddleia could no longer contain herself.
"So what you get, Sasha? What you get? Something cute? I wanna see, yee hee!"
"Fine fine, I teased you long enough," Sasha chortled. She got the small bag from the bathroom and reached into it. "Because we did so much hard work and had such good success, and because you're such a sweet silly fuzzbutt of a fuzzbutt, I got you a little present. Isabella made it while we were in town, and I helped a little bit."
She pulled whatever it was that was inside the bag out and put it in one of Buddleia's paws. The vulpine taur looked at it and squealed happily with her deep golden eyes shooting wide open and her ears shooting straight up.
It was a ball of very fluffy bright yellow mohair airbrushed with broad black bands, about the size of a grapefruit and just as round but much squishier. On one side, a smaller ball of black fleece was attached, with the blue plastic eyes over a happy and slightly crooked smiling mouth stitched on and two halves of a black chenille stick poking out the top like antennae, on the bottom six small sections of black chenille stick suggested legs, and on the top a pair of rounded wings of white felt were attached.
"ISSA BUBBLEBEE!! YEEEEE!" Buddleia squealed happily, squeezing the fluffy ball against her face with both paws and singing a cheery if somewhat silly song while she danced around in a circle on her four feral feet. "Bubblebees is fuzzy! Bubblebees is round! Bubblebees is buzzy! They make funny sound! Bubble bubble bubble bubble beeeeeeees! Yeeeeeeee! I love! I love so lots! Thank so lots Sashaaaaa! Yeeeee!"
Sasha laughed so loudly at the hopping dance and the silly song she had to take off her glasses and wipe tears from her eyes.
"Ha ha ha ha haaa! Oh good god you're nuts! Ha ha ha! But you're so very welcome, you big sweet nutso fuzzbutt you."
What an adorable little present!
