Goals. Progress. Improvement. One was always a result of the other. One always came with the other. One even could be the other.
The tiny community village of Rolling Hills in the Arfajia Valley was seeing the effect. Progress was happening, and it was happening hard and fast. It was due to the goals of certain large companies in the larger cities out to the east and the west. The Arfafield freight company Outfield Freight had set a goal to reconnect the ancient defunct railroad between Arfafield and Campion Crossing via Rolling Hills where two new small freight stations were to be built, between the oil and flour mill, and by the sawmill.
There were several consequences to that goal. Both mills and the sawmill utilized trucks to transport their finished products to either the freight station in Campion Crossing, or directly to Arfafield. With the cargo railway line reinstated, that meant the trucks would become obsolete. However, all three mills were not going to lay off the truck drivers in their employment. Instead, they had promised their truck drivers would keep their jobs, but as freight loaders on the new freight stations.
That, in turn, had another consequence. The truck drivers were living in either Campion Crossing or Arfafield - both over a day's travel from Rolling Hills. With a new, stationary job at the new freight stations near Rolling Hills, it made much more sense for them to relocate themselves, and in some cases their families, to the little village of Rolling Hills. Which meant Rolling Hills needed to grow, to provide housing for its new citizens. Which in turn meant Rolling Hills also needed to grow politically, as it would need to provide services to both its old and new citizens; some services which were not yet available, which needed to be placed and built, which meant yet more people moving in, which meant yet more housing was necessary, which, ultimately, meant the tiny community village of Rolling Hills was growing into the town of Rolling Hills and was to become a municipal government, partially incorporated with the Arfajia Province.
The projected future looked impressive. Becoming a municipal government brought with it more improvements, and yet more growth. First off, Rolling Hills was going to get an actual Town Hall, with the needed staff hired. Who needed housing to live in. There was going to be a local solicitor's office, headed by the nearly black-furred, melanistic Ethiopian lioness woman Lisa Carly, and with at least one extra person hired. Who needed housing to live in. Alleviating the added workload on the elder Mr. and Mrs. Dobbart, the postman and postmistress of the village, the post office was to be upgraded and additional employees hired. Who needed housing to live in. Alleviating the added workload and space restraint of sheriff Leroy Roscoe and deputy Eleonora Seeley, the small sheriff's station was to be upgraded into the equivalent of a precinct station, with additional deputies hired. Who needed housing to live in. Alleviating the possible additional workload on the volunteer fire department, an actual fire station was to be built, with additional crew hired. Who needed housing to live in. Alleviating the added workload on priestess Kyeeru, who also was the town doctor, an improved and somewhat larger local clinic was to be built, with an additional doctor and nurses hired. Who needed housing to live in.
As it stood, the physical, infrastructural size of Rolling Hills would be effectively doubled at least. In turn, that brought about a need for improvement of the actual infrastructure; the wide dirt road serving as the village's main street, as well as the perimeter streets at the north and south end of the village, were going to be paved with clinker bricks, the dirt roads from the Ag Co-op and the BGA to town, and from town to the oil and flour mills and the sawmill were going to be leveled, graded and graveled. To not interfere with the traffic that was brought on by the construction of the new buildings and houses, the roadwork was slated for the winter months of November, December, January and February.
Other infrastructure also needed improving, but the base for that was already in place. The BGA plant still had a signal tower on the premises for cellphone and internet signals, which had been built as an experiment two decades prior but was shut down a decade after it had been built. That tower was being put back into service, significantly improving the signal strength over quite an area of the Arfajia Valley. Public infrastructure was also taken a look at, with the prospect of a passenger train service between Arfafield and Campion Crossing that would also stop at the oil and flour mill station. With all of that still very much being under construction, already a possibility of a local bus service from Rolling Hills to that train station was being proposed - however that plan would still remain in the "maybe"-realm for the immediate future.
Goals. Who knew they could bring so much work and so much affluence with them? And they didn't even need to be large goals.
At Butterfly Farm, after having been taken up by the amazingly caring fluffy purple and white vixen-taur Buddleia, the lanky freckled human woman Sasha had started setting goals to bring the neglected, run-down little farm back around from the brink of death. She had started out with very small goals, dictated by what they had available and what they could afford at the time. Get a chainsaw running and cut down some trees to sell them to the sawmill, and use that money to repair other equipment. Get at least one of the old tractors running, get some of the equipment repaired, and cut the grass that had overgrown the former crop fields, turn that grass into hay and sell it to the livestock dealer to increase their cashflow, so more equipment could be repaired.
Slowly, as those goals were being met, Sasha had started setting larger goals. In part inspired by what she saw they could do, in part inspired by the help and suggestions of the amazingly helpful populace of Rolling Hills. The sawmill crew had suggested cutting the logs to certain lengths so they could be turned into building materials, and yield more money. The livestock dealer crew had suggested turning the grass into silage rather than hay, which was less work that would yield ten times the money as hay did. The dairy crew had suggested making cheese out of the excess milk their goat was giving them, and to flavor the cheese so it would yield more money. The Ag Co-op had suggested taking on an experiment from the University for Forestry and Agriculture in the city of Enfanor with newly developed, super fast-growing trees, which would yield income for the farm and an increase of product coming from the near-desolate valley so that something might be done about the dirt roads.
As the two determined farmers met and exceeded their goals, they kept getting inspired to set further, higher goals. Sasha had mentioned one of those goals somewhat jokingly one day in the general store. But she was serious about it, and she monitored their progress very carefully and closely. With the income generated by the silage, large steps were taken, and many small steps in the form of goat cheese, fruit jam and juice, less than common grain crops and, indeed, lumber, were adding up almost unseen, but significantly. They were getting, so, close.
August burbled along quietly and calmly. Tropic's schedules still in effect, but the most intense summer heat already winding down. It always did a bit further up north in the country. During the midday four-hour breaks, Sasha did a lot of calculating. The August batch of silage, ready for selling at the start of September, was going to be a certainty in taking the final big step to her goal. But her calculations showed they might even get there quicker. With a bit of clever juggling, a bit of innocent-looking additional chores to improve the layout of their farm, they might just be able to take a number of small steps that would bring them to her goal quicker.
The weather was in their favor and helped out. While August was part of the summer season and one of the hotter months of the year, which was why it was under the tropic's schedule, it still already started bringing more showers of rain. Combined with the summery warmth, and the fertility of the valley soil, it made all the vegetation grow almost explosively. Halfway through August, the two farmers had found they needed to do a mid-season cut on their grass fields due to how abundantly and enthusiastically the grass was growing. Another bit of calculating, and Sasha decided that only part of that cut of grass would be baled and wrapped to turn into silage; the majority of it would be tedded to let it dry into hay. The livestock dealer was still actively purchasing locally-produced hay, some of it could be stored on the farm for their own livestock of one goat and two dozen rabbits, some of it could be sold to the small Dutch Spaniel farmers of Cherry Blossom Farm for their little goats, and a decent amount of it could be sold to the new joint farm run by the small Williamsen family and the huge Perkat family, to feed the uncommon livestock kept by the Perkat family - as the hay produced on the neighboring Waving Grain Farm, which was much closer by, was all used to feed their own flock of sheep. Therefore, Sasha found two very strong arguments to turn a large amount of their mid-season cut of grass into hay; they could help out their neighbors and local companies, give back to the community, and it would also provide a much quicker addition to their income. In view of that, the decision was easily made to only turn the grass from the strip of land adjacent field 8, and only one-third of the grass from the enormous field 6, into silage. The other two-thirds of the field 6 grass, as well as the legume-richer grass in field 3, was turned into hay.
Wrapping and baling several swaths of grass in field 6, right along the elongated forest bordering the field along almost the entire west side, showed them how irregular the west border of field 6 was. The elongated forest waved, dipped and jutted back and forth along the side of the large field. It provided another perfectly innocent-looking chore to improve the farm layout, which subsequently would provide another step closer to the ultimate goal; the border of the forest needed to be straightened.
The next day, with some of the windrows of grass baled up and wrapped into gleaming purple blocks and the rest tedded and spread out to dry into hay, Sasha and Buddleia walked into field 6 after their morning bath in the pond and their porridge breakfast. Sasha was carrying a few long stakes and a large roll of twine, and she pointed out several of the sizable dips in the line of the forest where it bordered the field.
"See, this is just inconvenient, and a waste of space," she said. "We're weaving back and forth, sometimes we even have to back up because we can't make the corners as sharply as needed, and that's all wasting time. If we just make this line perfectly straight, that will make our work so much easier."
"So we cut trees?" Buddleia asked, tilting her head a bit while she looked back and forth along the border of the long, stretched-out forest. "Why we not make line along outside of the trees growing in the field?"
"Because if we'd do that, we'd leave all these dips open and unused, and that means we'd lose almost two acres of this field," Sasha pointed out. "Now, of course, this field is humongous, so what's two acres more or less, but it will also benefit the forest." She let go a short chortle. "Besides, you know how much of a sucker I am for geometric shapes of farm fields, so I want it good and straight. And if we cut back the trees, it will give more light, air and space to the younger trees along this side of the forest so they can grow better." Another chortle. "And hell, it may even make more blueberries and blackberries grow along this side that way, so that's more wild fruit we can forage and turn into yummy jam."
"Yes! That true, I like!" Buddleia nodded with a smile that showed her upper canine teeth and the tip of her dark pink tongue. "Jam is yum, yes!"
"Not to mention it would officially be our fruit, so we can safely sell the jam as well rather than have it fill up our shelves in the bunker," Sasha chortled. "According to that grid Dan showed me, the rectangle in which Butterfly Farm is sat has its west border running right through the middle of this strip-forest, so the east half of this forest is actually our property."
Buddleia chortled with several cheery yips, lightly pushing a paw against Sasha's shoulder.
"Is that why you not want to sell jam I make from berries I pick from forest in front of the farm? Yee hee!"
"In all seriousness; yes," Sasha nodded with a smile. "Our property line on that side only extends up to the road, so anything across from that road is not ours and I just thought it'd be wiser to practice a bit of caution with the products we make from forage we gather there."
"But you make little cheeses with mushrooms we pick in field behind forest, Sasha!" Buddleia giggled in a bunch of staccato yips. "And we sell little cheeses! Is same thing, yee yee hee!"
"That's just a minor addition to a product made from ingredients that still mainly come from our farm," Sasha grinned. "Besides, I said a 'bit' of caution, not a 'lot' of caution."
Buddleia giggled in louder and longer-drawn yips and started playfully poking Sasha's shoulders and sides with the index fingers of both her paws.
"You silly, Sasha! You just not wanna sell jam because I make it and you like it way much and wanna nom it all, yes! Yee yee hee! You admit, Sasha! You wanna keep my jam for you self! Yee yee hee!"
"I'm silly?" Sasha sniggered, batting her free hand at Buddleia's poking paws. "Look who's talking, you silly fuzzbutt you! Now, quit poking me already! We have work to do!"
Buddleia giggled another couple of yips and gave Sasha a last little poke or two - just because it was funny. But they did get to work. After a bit of walking back and forth and some rudimentary measuring with the twine, Sasha decided that the third dip from the left in the line of the forest was the deepest, so she pushed a stake into the ground about three feet away from the outermost trees and tied the end of the twine to it. Standing behind the stake, the freckled human woman looked in the direction of Sawmill Road to the south, to the left of the farm, eyeing a straight line while Buddleia slowly walked backwards in that direction, unwinding the roll of twine.
All the while, Sasha gave calm directions, every now and then accompanied by motions of one hand.
"Bit to the right, Leia... my right, your left. Yeah, like that. Little more... okay. Go... to this side of that tree right there. Okay, now further back, further back... that side of that tree behind you. Bit to the right, your right... okay. Now straight back, straight, straight... little bit back to your left. That's too much, just half a step. Okay, much better. Straight back again... are you at the end yet?"
"Almost... almost... now! Yes!"
"Good, stand right there. See that little patch of orange flowers down there by your feet? Yes, stand right to the side of that. Okay, perfect."
Sasha walked over to where Buddleia was standing and stuck another stake into the ground. Buddleia wrapped the twine around the stake and started walking back to where Sasha had planted the first stake, still unwinding the rest of the roll. Sasha also did, and stood behind the stake again to look in the other direction as Buddleia once more started walking backwards while further unwinding the roll of twine. When the vulpine taur eventually reached the other end of the long narrow forest and stood exactly where Sasha told her to stand, Sasha walked over to that side and again planted a stake in the ground, to which they tied the twine, leaving the rest of the roll attached and laying in the grass.
Using an old can of white tractor paint and a somewhat chewed-up brush, the tall human woman walked back along the twine they had stretched and poked a dot of white paint on the trunks of all the trees on the field side of the twine - except for a handful of small, young trees. Those would not be in the way, and it would make more sense to give those trees a better chance to grow, so they would actually be useful as lumber by the time they'd be cut down. The rest of the morning, they used to gather up the wrapped bales of grass from the field; 64 of them. As they were from the middle of the season, they got stacked up in the shelter behind the double silo, where the trucks were sitting, so they wouldn't get mixed up with the other August bales which had already been fermenting for two weeks.
After the midday rest period, both farmers were right back at it. With Sasha operating one of their chainsaws and Buddleia guiding and directing the trajectory of the falling trees with her paws, her feral forepaws and her unbelievable strength, they felled all the trees Sasha had marked. It only took a couple of hours as they worked so well with each other, giving them enough time to also cut the branches off all the felled trees - even though that work took a lot longer and took them far enough into the night they had to park one of their tractors nearby to have their work illuminated by the tractor's headlights and work lights.
It was well planned out. The work melded together almost perfectly. The next day, Sasha and Buddleia spent the day cutting the felled trees into logs of a workable length, loading them onto the flat bed of the muted lavender 1953 MAZ-200 truck, driving them over to the sawmill and selling them for full building material price as the sawmill was still in need of lots of lumber to fulfill the demand from all the new building projects in the vicinity. The day after that, the tedded grass had dried into hay and was raked up into neat windrows by Buddleia on the open Hanomag tractor with the windrower, followed by Sasha in the Fiat tractor pulling the baler to collect all the hay into 124 bales.
The day after that was a day full of travel. In the morning, all the bales of hay were collected on the back of the MAZ truck. First, they drove over to Cherry Blossom Farm, selling four of the bales to their adorable canine neighbors Marian and Margot Witteveen - for only $20 apiece, a bit under the going price. Next, after a cup of tea, some home-made donuts filled with jam from their own cherries, and some naked cuddling, Sasha drove them over to the new Smoky Hills Farm, the large joint Williamsen/Perkat farm, selling twenty of the bales of hay to the Perkat family so they would have plenty in stock for when all their barns would have been built and they could retrieve their livestock from its temporary home at the livestock dealer - again selling them a bit under the going rate at just $20 apiece, to help out with the finances of a newly starting farm.
The livestock dealer was their last stop, where the remaining 100 bales of hay were sold - at a generous $30 apiece, several dollars over the going rate as Simon and Harry were in need of the extra hay, with the sizable number of large animals they were still housing for the Perkat family, and a decent number of their own stock of animals. Since it was already well past the midday resting period by that time, and a long drive back to Butterfly Farm despite the better motor and transmission in the old MAZ truck, Sasha decided to not make a stop in Rolling Hills on the way back, but drive right back to their farm after only a quick detour in town. It also was only Tuesday yet; they would be going to the village on Friday anyway for their weekly groceries and revenue run.
Over the days that followed, Sasha again did a fair amount of calculating - both behind her laptop, and in her head as she drove the Fiat tractor down the newly straightened line of the forest bordering field 6, cultivating the patches of land they had freed up with the disc harrow, in the wake of the beaver man Fred from the sawmill who was grinding down all the stumps of the trees they had felled. Behind her, Buddleia also followed, wearing a large sash around the shoulders and side of her upper torso that ended in a large bag at her hip, filled with the mixed grass seed which she tossed out across the cultivated patches of land in wide arcs. That amazingly old-fashioned manner of sowing seeds looked incredibly natural. Sasha couldn't stop looking back with a broad smile; she could just see Buddleia's forebears working the land with nothing but hand tools and sowing their fields that way, hundreds of years before.
With how amazingly abundantly the August weather made the vegetation grow, the herbs and vegetables in their gardens were also yielding them almost more than they could store. Sasha made another decision; some of that stuff needed to get used up pretty quickly. As the days were no longer unbearably hot, it allowed them to wander out into the fields and forests around the farm, looking for wildlife. By Sasha's request, Buddleia brought the 1882 Marlin rifle with her so she could hunt a deer. The forest covering the stretch of hilly land behind fields 5a and 5b only had squirrels and rabbits in and around it, but a couple of miles further to the south, in the direction of the sawmill, was an even larger forest where they had seen deer before.
As luck would have it, Buddleia spotted a male deer that somehow had injured one of its front legs. Looking on with admiration, Sasha watched the vulpine taur shouldering the rifle, cocking her head to one side just a bit with the end of her tongue poking from the very front of her slender muzzle, and downing the deer in a very clean, single-shot kill. It was a five-point buck weighing a bit over 160 pounds, but despite that, Buddleia carried it on the back of her lower quadruped body without effort and rushed it back over to the farm so quickly Sasha couldn't keep up with her. By the time the tall human woman got back to the farm, Buddleia was already well into skinning and dressing the dead deer, doing it in the underground bunker rather than in the back garden.
Again Sasha watched with admiration at how experiencedly, indeed akin to professionally, Buddleia processed the deer. The fluffy vixen-taur was sitting amidst a number of buckets, large bowls and coolers, wielding her folding hunting knife like a majorette's baton. The blood was already drained into two galvanized buckets, innards, guts, organs and connective tissues went into another galvanized bucket that also had ice in it, chunks of fatty tissue and silver skin went into yet another galvanized bucket with ice in it, bones were dropped into a box along with the intact head, the coolers were filled with large chunks of meat, with the better steak and roast cuts kept separate in another, marked cooler.
Sasha helped where she could - which was mainly with scraping clean the bones, meanwhile paying close attention to Buddleia's actions and motions to learn from. When the vulpine taur was done, they found themselves with 25 pounds of steaks and roasts, 20 and a half pounds of meat Buddleia said was very suitable for stews, and 32 and a half pounds of venison that was most suitable to be ground up. Deciding to forego on stews but to keep most of the steaks, Sasha ground up a total of 55 pounds of venison, mixed and ground it again with the pork that was still in the meats freezer, then mixed it with the special blend of seasonings she had learned from her grandmother as well as generous amounts of chopped thyme and scallion from her herb garden, and finishing up by making 75 pounds of venison sausages, which she sealed in 5-pound batches that went into the other meats freezer. And since they still had several pounds of those sausages from the previous time Buddleia had downed a deer, it was quickly decided that the fresh sausages would be going to the butchery in town - all 75 pounds of them.
The freckled human woman also coaxed her fluffy vixen-taur wife into foraging as many wild fruits as they could find from both the elongated forest behind field 6 as the forest covering the low hill in front of their farm, and the larger forest covering the hilly stretch behind fields 5a and 5b, the next day. It was amazing both how rich and how varied the forests were; even just looking only for berries, with Buddleia's help and experience, Sasha found mulberries, blackberries, thimbleberries, hawthorn berries and even wild raspberries and wild strawberries in the only partially shaded undergrowth along the edges of the forests, and rowan berries, blueberries, partridge berries, huckleberries and salal berries further into the forests. She came across even more berries, white and red ones and ones that looked almost black, but Buddleia warned her that those were red and white baneberries, dragonberries and deadly nightshade berries, which were not just inedible; they were toxic.
Still, the variety of wild edible berries was astounding. Combined with the richly fruiting berry bushes Sasha had planted in the extended garden near the small building over the trapdoor leading into the underground bunker, just one full day of foraging had them ending up with kilos and kilos of berries. And the numerous bunches of elderberries on the shrubs they had replanted in the corner of their back garden had also ripened again! It looked like way more fruit than they'd know what to do with, were it not for the fact Sasha knew exactly what to do with it.
Another full day was spent cleaning all the wild berries they had foraged. Not bothering to separate them out by sort, Sasha just dumped batches of cleaned berries into the large wide pot on the stove to let Buddleia mash and cook them into a good number of large batches of mixed wild berry jam. They went through their entire stockpile of glass jars with metal lids and sealing rings, and Sasha stayed up deep into the night to seal the numbers upon numbers of jars of jam Buddleia cooked from all the berries, and print out stacks of adhesive labels with the logo of their farm on it along with lines of text saying "Berry Jam - Ultimate Wild Mix" and "So wild you have to wrestle it onto your toast!"
The boxes they used to pack the jars into fit 25 of the 12oz jars they used in a five-by-five square, double-stacked for a total of 50 jars. Ending up, eventually, with no less than six full boxes, Sasha made another decision. One entire boxful was kept on the farm, for their own use and to share with their neighbors. Two boxes would go to the general store so Mrs. Stebbins could sell the jam for them in the village. For the last three boxes, a call was made to the Ag Co-op, where the Katanga lion Ag agent Daniel assured them he had contacts who would be glad to buy farm-fresh home-made jam, so even something like jam could indeed be sold to the Co-op as well, for the very fair price of $10 per jar, regardless of the kind of fruit used for the jam.
Again Sasha calculated. Sugar and lemon juice bought from the general store; pectin she bought in bulk online; jars with lids and sealing rings she also bought in bulk online. Berries for free from a wonderful day of naked foraging with Buddleia; that was not a cost, that was a treat. A full day spent with Buddleia, cleaning, cooking, bottling and sealing; that was not a cost either, that was a leisure day. All in all, their final cost per single jar of jam came to less than a buck-fifty. It was a very easy decision to make; harvesting all the plums from their one plum tree gave them more jars of jam they could store, even when regularly bringing a batch to the general store. The elderberry bushes were crazy and gave them way more berries than they could even cook into jam or ferment into wine; there was still a stack of plastic boxes full of elderberries in one of the freezers they hadn't gotten to yet, and the bushes were already laden with newly ripened berries again. And one day of foraging around the forests in the immediate vicinity had given them enough berries to make hundreds of jars of jam, too. All the surplus jam was definitely going to the Co-op from then on out.
Sasha was still, or rather again, calculating the next morning while they were having their bath in the pond and enjoying their breakfast of flapjacks while letting the warm sun dry them in the back garden. The sale of the hay they had made the previous week. The sale of the trees they had felled in order to straighten the line of the forest behind field 6. The sale of the jam at the Co-op later that day, and the revenue from their other jam and goat cheeses they would be picking up at the general store after that. The sale of the venison sausages to the butchery, as well as the blood and the internal parts as Jameson Jonesey had mentioned he was interested in that. The sale of the bones and fatty tissue of the deer to the crafts store. It all added up to... success.
All dry and with breakfast finished, the freckled human woman took a nice amount of time to brush Buddleia's long purple hair and fluffy purple and white fur. Buddleia in her turn snuggled Sasha up against her front side while brushing the tall human woman's long ginger hair as well, all the while laying nuzzles and affectionate little licks all along the sides and in the napes of Sasha's neck. When they were finally done, and had put on a button-down shirt each and a pair of denim shorts as well in Sasha's case, plus their cute sun hats, they packed up old Emmie. Sasha's practice guitar went into the space where the backseat used to be; the trunk of the 1948 Chevrolet Fleetline was filled with the five boxes full of jars of jam, and four boxes full of freshly aged goat cheeses, both the large Beech Butterflies with the chopped roasted beech nuts and ground pink salt, and the small Fairy Butterflies with the powdered fairy ring mushrooms in them, and a few coolers and another box holding all the products from the deer.
Their first stop was relatively quick; at the Ag Co-op to deliver three boxes full of jars of jam.
"So you're branching out, are you, Sasha?" the light tan lion man Daniel said jovially, stacking the three boxes on a hand cart to let the white and rust-colored Border Collie woman Ms. Stebbins wheel them into a walk-in cooler, while he himself credited $1500 to the Butterfly Farm account.
"For this occasion, at least," Sasha nodded with a chortle. "I'm not sure if we'll keep doing this, it'll depend a bit on how this jam will be received and what the demand for it might be. Where are you selling it to, anyway?"
"Arfafield," Daniel smiled. "There's a preserves merchant there who sells on the Arfafield farmer's market, and the farmer's markets in the surrounding villages as well. He was still in the contacts list because we used to sell him cherry jam from Cherry Blossom Farm."
"I see!" Sasha nodded again. "Yeah, from what I heard and saw, Cherry Blossom must have been producing quite a sizable amount of jam under its former owners, so that makes sense."
Daniel also nodded.
"And they're back at it, too! After you and Buddleia helped the Witteveens harvest the cherry trees that are still there, Margot's been here to drop off a few boxes of jam and a good number of bushels of fresh cherries, because she said they had already overloaded missus Stebbins' store and Arthur Greene's store with jam and cherries, haha!"
"No kidding!" Sasha laughed. "This here fuzzbutt's way of harvesting those trees was incredibly effective, and if we hadn't ducked out of the way we'd have been buried in cherries! Those trees sure do produce very generously, I'll tell you what!"
"You don't have to tell me, I've been dealing with Cherry Blossom Farm's cherries for years," Daniel chuckled. "Kinda makes you wonder how they made so much jam out of it, don't it? I mean, that must have been a lot of work."
"I don't have to wonder about that," Sasha sniggered, reaching across the counter to playfully jab Daniel in the chest with a finger. "I know how they did and do it, because we helped them harvest and store the cherries, and I've also been teaching Marian to make wine out of them. Believe it or not, but they actually have a metal bath tub in the basement that is rigged with a gas pipe and burners, and they use that to cook huge batches of jam in."
"That's amazing!" Daniel laughed. "Very clever indeed! And so you've been teaching them to make wine, too? So we'll be seeing locally made cherry wine in the general store soon?"
"I don't know how soon because I don't know how long they'll let it age, but yes," Sasha nodded with a chortle. "And it'll be there alongside my granny's sunny wine. The first batch will be next year's Valentine's special, because it'll have aged fifteen months by then. That's a bit longer than my granny let it age, but that will only make it taste even better. Or so I think anyway, because I actually never tasted it, haha!"
"Oh, that's great!" Daniel smiled. "I'll definitely be looking forward to that. It's elderberry wine, right? I remember you talking about that when you picked up those large preserve jars."
"That's right, yes, my granny used those jars to steep elderberries in, and she set them out in the sun to steep, hence why she called it sunny wine," Sasha nodded again. She playfully jabbed Daniel in the chest again. "And now for something different, Dan; will you be in town tonight?"
"Of course, I live there," Daniel grinned.
"Duhhh," Sasha sniggered. "What I meant is, would you be able to make it to the tavern by eight tonight?"
"I reckon I'll be able to swing that," Daniel nodded. "Why?"
"Big announcement," Sasha chortled. "Will your lovely lady be there too?"
"As a matter of fact she will," Daniel nodded with a smile. "She's staying here already to oversee all those new building projects, and she'll be moving into town next month when her house is ready."
"Great, that's such wonderful news, I'm really happy to hear that," Sasha smiled, turning to the rust-and-white Border Collie woman who had in the meantime returned behind the counter. "Miss Stebbins, I would also like for you to visit the tavern at eight tonight, please." She turned back to Daniel and thumbed across her shoulder at the doors in the far right wall with a grin. "And bring those two freeloaders working for you here as well, okay?"
"Of course, I'll be glad to come, Sasha," Ms. Stebbins smiled, and Daniel nodded again with a smile as well.
"Sure, I'll let them know. An announcement from you is usually great news."
"Is big announcement, Sasha?" Buddleia said, canting her head with an expression as if she was hearing about it for the first time.
"If my calculations are correct, it's a huge announcement, babe," Sasha smiled, turning to press a smooch on the cool, damp black pad of Buddleia's nose.
Buddleia wiggled her bristly whiskers and yipped a cheery giggle.
"Now I curious! You big tease for not telling, Sasha! Yee hee!"
"You're making me curious, too," Daniel chuckled. "So you'll definitely find me front row center in the tavern tonight, Sasha!"
"Good," Sasha nodded, curling her lips into a cheerful grin. "Make sure to wine and dine your lovely lady, too, but don't spend too much." She nodded at the old Chevrolet through the glass wall. "We have two more boxes of mixed berry jam, four boxes of goat cheeses and two coolers full of deer sausages sitting in old Emmie there to stock up the town's stores with, so you'll be wanting to do some extensive grocery shopping tomorrow."
"Oh, fantastic!" Daniel said with a wide smile. "Yes, I'll definitely be stocking up, haha!"
"In that case we better get going to supply the stores," Sasha chortled. "Thanks for your help, Dan, and we'll see you tonight."
"Count on it!" Daniel chuckled. "See you tonight, Sasha, Buddleia!"
They waved cheerily at each other as Sasha and Buddleia walked back out to the old Chevrolet. A little teasingly, Sasha sank down in the passenger's seat and rolled down the window, leaning her elbow on the door's edge and her cheek in her hand to look at the scenery passing by while Buddleia drove them over to the village, and merely answering Buddleia's questions about the 'big announcement' with vague phrases like "you'll see".
Whether or not that agitated Buddleia in some way or another, but in any way the vulpine taur stepped a little harder than usual on the accelerator. It only was forty-five minutes before they arrived in Rolling Hills that way. She parked backfirst into one of the parking spots in front of the general store, and was just occupied enough with carrying the six boxes into the store all at once to ask further questions. At the tinkle of the bell over the door, both the black and white Border Collie woman Mrs. Stebbins and the chocolate-colored Labrador girl Millie looked up with a smile that was quickly replaced by an expression of surprise.
"My goodness Sasha, what is all that?"
"Let me help you with that, mom! That looks heavy!"
Millie darted through the door behind the counter, returning a moment later with the small hand cart which she wheeled over to Buddleia. The fluffy vixen-taur set the stack of boxes down on the cart, while Sasha stepped up to the counter and smiled at Mrs. Stebbins with a cheerful wink.
"Delivery! Two boxes of mixed wild berry jam, four boxes of both Beech Butterflies and Fairy Butterflies. That's one hundred jars of jam, and we even had three more boxes of it but I figured you wouldn't be able to store that much for a long time so we dropped that off at the Co-op just now."
"Goodness!" Mrs. Stebbins said again. "You've been very productive, haven't you, dears? Millie, go on ahead and put all those in the cooler, will you please?"
"On it!" Millie smiled brightly.
"I help," Buddleia smiled with the lower halves of her upper canines on display.
They both disappeared through the door behind the counter again. Sasha leaned on the counter and sent Mrs. Stebbins another smile.
"We have indeed been quite productive, Doris, yes. It's berry season, so we spent a day foraging around the forests near our farm. And goddam, you wouldn't believe just how, well, fruitful a day that was, haha!"
"I believe it!" Mrs. Stebbins nodded with a smile of her own. "This valley has always been very abundant. What kind of berries did you get?"
"All kinds," Sasha chortled. "Hell, I didn't even know there were so many kinds of berries, haha! That jam is a mix of blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, huckleberries, mulberries and like four or five more blablaberries I forgot the names of. There were so many we just figured to dump them all in the pot together rather than try and make all kinds of single-flavor batches of jam." She curled her lips into a playful grin. "And this whole village can thank Leia's experience, because if it hadn't been for her warning me, I would have also been picking a few kinds of toxic berries to add into the mix, haha! You should've heard her squeal when I reached for some very pretty gleaming black berries; not those! And I don't think that would have made for very good jam, haha."
"Ah, yes, that is something you do have to look out for indeed," Mrs. Stebbins nodded. "There are some berries you can't eat because they make you quite sick, and some are even toxic enough to be fatal."
"Yes, well, Leia is a very experienced forager, I found," Sasha smiled. "No doubt she learned that from her granny."
"Oh absolutely," Mrs. Stebbins smiled. "The Silvercreek foxtaurs could tell all those berries apart by the scent alone. My father told me some stories about them from back when he ran the store, and it were always very impressive stories."
"Your father ran this store before? That makes all the sense!" Sasha said, suddenly looking up. "I had been wondering about that, because the name didn't add up."
Mrs. Stebbins hid a light chortle behind a paw.
"What do you mean, dear?"
"Well, the sign says Stebbins General Store, and it's the first store that was established here, so it's been run by Stebbinses for ages," Sasha chortled. "But you said you were married, which would indicate that your husband was a Stebbins. Yet you also said that lovely lady working at the Co-op is your sister, and her last name is Stebbins, which means that Stebbins must be your maiden name."
"And it is indeed," Mrs. Stebbins nodded with a smile. "Yes, I did get married, but even when Joseph and I were dating and the idea of getting married came up, he already agreed I should keep my name because it's tied to this store and so much history of this town." A light giggle escaped her. "Especially since it would have caused riots of pitchforks and torches in the street here if we'd have changed the name of the store to Parker General Store after our marriage, heehee."
"I can see that!" Sasha nodded with a laugh.
"You can see what, mom?" Millie asked cheerfully as she held open the door behind the counter for Buddleia.
"I can see that you're a nosy little puppy, choco-snoot," Sasha sniggered. "I was just talking with your boss here, grown-up talk, nothing nosy little puppies need to know about."
"I'm not nosy, I'm just curious!" Millie giggled.
"Su-u-ure, that's just a fancy word for nosy, choco-snoot," Sasha grinned.
"Naw, mooommm!" Millie giggled, poking out her tongue. "That's mean!"
"Yes, you big big tease, Sasha, yee hee!" Buddleia giggled in several staccato yips.
"Oh just wait, I get worse," Sasha sniggered, sending another smile at Mrs. Stebbins. "I take it you close the store at seven tonight, Doris, with that tropic schedule still going on and all?"
"Yes indeed," Mrs. Stebbins nodded with a smile.
"Right, then could you please pay a visit to the tavern at eight o'clock?" Sasha smiled. "I will be making a big announcement." She grinned again. "And yes, you can come too, choco-snoot, but don't ask me what the announcement will be because I ain't telling until eight tonight."
"Nawww! Now I'm even more curious!" Millie giggled.
"I admit I'm a bit curious now as well," Mrs. Stebbins chortled softly. "We will both be at the tavern tonight to hear your announcement, Sasha, you can count on that."
"Good, I appreciate that," Sasha smiled. "And it may seem like teasing, but we do in fact have to go now, because we also have two coolers full of deer sausages in the car that need delivering to mister Jonesey, along with a bunch of offal, and a heap of fat and bones for the crafts store."
"Perishable stuff!" Mrs. Stebbins nodded. "You'd better get on with that, Sasha, indeed. Do you want your revenue?"
"Please," Sasha nodded with a smile. "And could you perhaps deposit it into our company account this time?"
"That should be no problem," Mrs. Stebbins smiled, taking the ledger from behind the counter and rapidly totting up a row of numbers. "It comes to just shy of two thousand dollars this week, Sasha."
"You must be nearly sold out of our cheeses again," Sasha chortled.
"Yes! That so much money! Full truck of wheat not even make me that much money!" Buddleia said, nodding so rapidly the blue feather dangling from her left ear waved and wiggled all over the place.
"Your cheeses are very popular because they are very tasty, Sasha," Mrs. Stebbins smiled. "And those new little ones you make, with the mushroom powder, we've had a positive run on those."
"I should make some more of those then," Sasha smiled. "But for now, we should in fact hurry and deliver our other perishables. See you both tonight in the tavern, okay?"
"You bet, mom!" Millie nodded brightly.
"Yes, we shall be there, Sasha," Mrs. Stebbins nodded. "You two have a very nice day now, alright?"
They waved, and Millie even held the front door open for them, just so she could give both Sasha and Buddleia a quick hug in turns. Back at the car, they took the coolers and two buckets covered with plastic lids from the trunk. Buddleia carried two of the coolers and one of the buckets, while Sasha carried the other bucket and the other cooler up the broad dirt road and into the butchery store.
Behind a glass display counter, both the Red squirrel man Jameson Jonesey and his gray-and-tan mottled Rock squirrel wife Harriet looked up and waved with a smile.
"Heyo Sasha! I know you had said you'd be bringing us something today, but I hadn't expected you to bring that much!" Jameson said with a chuckle. "What even is all that?"
"Seventy-five pounds of my granny's deer sausages, in five-pound packages, and fifteen pounds of deer steaks and roasts," Sasha smiled, letting go a chortle. "And you told me you also wanted the blood and all the mushy stuff we scooped out of that deer we downed, so that's all the rest here." She set the cooler and bucket she was carrying down by the side of the counter. "What do you even want that stuff for, if I may ask?"
"Ah, I see," Jameson nodded. "Well, see, all that offal, I grind that up into a fine paste and make pet food out of it, and some fishing bait. And I make liverwurst from the liver."
"Okay, that makes sense," Sasha nodded as well. "Hadn't even thought of that, actually. Maybe next time we clean an animal for dinner, I should save some of the inside bits for our farmkitty."
"You have a pet cat on your farm? That's so cute," the Rock squirrel woman Harriet smiled. "And yes, your cat will love some fresh innards every now and then, so you can definitely safely feed him or her some of it whenever you've cleaned a whole animal."
She made to lean over and pick up the cooler Sasha had set down, but Buddleia grabbed it before the squirrel woman had a chance to.
"You not bend over!" she chirped a chortle. "I carry this, you already carry baby, yes, yee hee!"
The squirrel woman was indeed very swollen in the stomach area. She chortled softly as well and stood back upright.
"You're too sweet, Buddleia," she smiled. "I'll just lead the way into the freezer then."
She opened a door behind the counter and held it open so Buddleia could step through it with the three coolers and two buckets she somehow managed to all carry by herself. Jameson also held the door while his wife stepped through it, as it had a closer at the top, before turning back to Sasha with a smile.
"Always so helpful, isn't she?"
"She is at that," Sasha agreed with a chortle. "When is your wife due?"
"October," Jameson smiled again. "Third week, so we're hoping for the eighteenth."
"Any specific reason?" Sasha chortled.
"That's my brother's birthday, October eighteenth, so our child being born on that day will make a great excuse to not have to visit him," Jameson chuckled.
"Don't you and your brother get along or something?" Sasha asked.
Jameson made a dismissive gesture with a paw and chuckled again.
"Nah, Charley's a good egg, we just like ribbing each other any time we can."
"Right," Sasha chortled again. "Well, speaking of ribs, do you have any spare that I can buy today?"
"Plenty! Spare ribs, coming right up!" Jameson chuckled, turning to the glass counter. "Do you even still need any meat, after all that stuff you brought here? I'd think you'd have a bunch of it in your own freezer too if you nabbed yourself a whole deer."
"Oh we do, ten pounds of steaks and roasts from this deer and a few dozen pounds of sausages still from the previous one," Sasha nodded with another chortle. "But we like some more variety in our dinners than just venison, you know."
"Of course, that's fair," Jameson nodded as well. "Alright, spareribs it is. How much would you like, Sasha? And is there anything else?"
Sasha nodded again as well, asking for some lamb shanks, a couple of rib-eye steaks and some pork cutlets, some sliced bacon, and she took a fine liverwurst as well. In the meantime, Harriet and Buddleia reappeared through the door behind the counter, and Buddleia left one of the coolers for Sasha to put the purchased meat in, bringing the empty buckets and other two coolers back to the car.
"Anything else, Sasha?" Jameson smiled after he had put all the requested cuts of meat on the counter, all neatly wrapped in wax paper.
"A pound of mixed mincemeat, please, and a request for both of you," Sasha chortled.
"Of course, what can we do for you, Sasha?" Harriet smiled.
"Be in the tavern at eight o'clock tonight, if you'd please," Sasha smiled. "I'm making a big announcement."
"Oooh, exciting," Harriet smiled. "We'll drop by, Sasha, but we can't stay too long. I get tired a bit quicker these days, you know."
"I'll do my best to keep it brief," Sasha promised with a chortle, putting the packets of meat in the cooler. "Thank you, and we'll see you tonight then."
"You will, Sasha," Jameson nodded with a smile.
"And I have already credited your account four hundred dollars for all that stuff you brought us, Sasha," Harriet smiled.
"Thank you again," Sasha chortled, beeping her bank card to pay for her purchases.
With a cheery wave, she took the cooler and walked out of the store, back down to where old Emmie was parked. Buddleia was already walking back up the dirt road, and Sasha playfully smooched her slender muzzle right as she stepped past the vulpine taur.
"Go on and get the rest of our groceries, babe, okay? And ask everyone to be in the tavern at eight tonight, please. I'll go put this in the car and take the fat and bones over to the crafts store, I have to be there for my guitar lesson anyway."
"Okay, is good, Sasha," Buddleia nodded with a smile showing the lower halves of her upper canines. "What I say when they ask why?"
"Just tell them I'm gonna be making a big announcement at that time," Sasha chortled.
"Okay! Yee hee! They all be curious!" Buddleia chortled. "I know, because I curious too! Yee hee!"
"Only a few more hours to burn with curiosity, babe," Sasha sniggered with a quick, playful wink.
Buddleia yipped another chortle and continued up the dirt road with a cheery sway to her bottlebrush tail. Sasha put the cooler in the trunk of the old Chevrolet, took the other cooler that was still in there, as well as the large box and the case with her practice guitar. Carrying all that into the crafts store, she was cheerfully greeted by both men and the three women, while the Ocicat woman Sonya rushed over to take the box from her arms.
"You come bearing many gifts, Sasha!" she chortled.
"And you have to pay for all of them," Sasha sniggered. "Except the gift of me being naked during the guitar lesson, I'll throw that in for free."
"Always a treat!" the agouti-and-white Mountain hare woman Kimberly giggled, taking the cooler. "So what have you for us here?"
"Several pounds of deer fat for your candles and a deer head for mounting in the cooler, all the rest of that same deer's bones in the box, and in here is a guitar," Sasha chortled.
"I figured that one, honey, hahahee!" Kimberly giggled again. "But thank you, the fat will come in handy. Is it a nice head?"
"No, he's looking all surly because we killed him and chopped him up into little bits and pieces we've been selling all over town," Sasha sniggered. "But seriously, it's a decent one, five-pointer."
"That's nice enough, it'll make a good trophy," Kimberly nodded. "Well, make yourself comfy while I go put this in our freezer, honey!"
"So, if you nabbed a deer and you're already bringing us the fat and bones, can I assume there's also a bunch of good meat?" the lemming woman Inga chortled.
"Oh yes, as a matter of fact I just got back from the butchery where I dropped off several pounds of steaks and roasts and seventy-five pounds of sausages after my granny's recipe," Sasha nodded with a smile.
"Great! I know what I'm having for dinner tonight!" Inga smiled.
"You better be quick about your dinner tonight," Sasha chortled. "Because I want all of you in the tavern tonight at eight."
"What's the occasion, Sasha?" the Brush-tailed rat man Ruben asked.
"What occasion are we talking about?" Kimberly asked as she returned with the empty cooler.
"I was just saying that I want all of you in the tavern at eight tonight," Sasha repeated with another chortle. "I'll be making quite the announcement at that time."
"Ooo, did you get Buddleia pregnant?" Sonya giggled.
"Don't be so silly, pussycat," Sasha sniggered, shaking her head.
"Did she get you pregnant?" Inga laughed.
"Will you stop it, too?" Sasha grinned. "Sheesh, you're all nuts! Just be there tonight and you'll find out what the announcement is about, alright?"
"We'll be there, Sasha," the short Caspian tiger man Jasper smiled. "How are your bees doing?"
"They're very buzzzzzy flying on and off," Sasha sniggered. "Looks like they're preparing that other box too, I've seen some going in and out of that one."
"Good, good," Jasper nodded. "By this time next year, you'll be harvesting lots of golden goodness, mark my words."
"Great! And if there's none, I'm gonna blame you," Sasha grinned.
They all laughed cheerfully, and the hare woman Kimberly took Sasha into the office of the adjoining chandlery for her guitar lesson. The freckled human woman was making good progress; Kimberly went from some finger exercises to teaching Sasha how to read guitar tabs. Of course they had both first taken off their clothes, and Kimberly insisted Sasha sat in her lap because that made the teaching of the reading of tabs much easier. Or so she claimed, anyway.
All in all, it was a very pleasant hour. Sasha stayed for a while longer afterwards, pulling Kimberly into her own lap and playfully cuddling the hare woman while they discussed a few plans for future lessons. Still naked, with her clothes draped over the cooler, Sasha eventually left the crafts store and walked back over to the old Chevrolet. She did put her clothes back on before putting the empty cooler back in the trunk, as well as the case with her practice guitar. A playful grin was on her lips as she also stuck something in a pocket of her shorts; when looking through the old cans of paint in the workshop for some used paint to mark the trees with several days earlier, they had found the harmonica that had belonged to Buddleia's grandmother. And when they had brought their hay bales over to the livestock dealer a couple of days later, while not making a stop in Rolling Hills at that time, Sasha had detoured through the village to drop the harmonica off at the crafts store to have it cleaned and polished.
It was that same harmonica she now stuck in a pocket of her shorts. Buddleia was going to be thrilled. Sauntering about calmly, the freckled human woman made a visit to the post office, the church, the garage and several of the other stores on the right side of the main dirt road, to ask all the proprietors to be at the tavern that evening. At the dairy, she met up with Buddleia who stepped out of the building just as she was about to step in, so instead Sasha just took the vulpine taur into a playful hug and smooched the damp, cool black pad of Buddleia's nose again.
Together, they made a stop at the sheriff's station and the diner to convey Sasha's request, after which they entered the tavern. With a mild pale citrus ale for Buddleia and a mixed wild berry juice for Sasha on the bar, they also let the black and white Norwegian Forest-cat bartender Ralph know he should bring his wife Winnie out of the kitchen around eight o'clock that evening. The feline man promised he would, and continued to teasingly ask probing and prodding questions as to what the 'big announcement' was all about. Sasha just as teasingly dodged and evaded all the questions with vague answers that really said nothing at all, and every now and then simply pretending she hadn't even heard Ralph ask anything.
There were still plenty of other subjects for them to have some calm smalltalk about, too. Ralph even cheerily shouted through the hatch behind the bar to inform his wife when Sasha mentioned they had delivered a load of mixed berry jam, goat cheeses and deer sausages to various stores in town that day. The time passed by calmly, with more smalltalk, and every now and then a greeting as other people occasionally entered the tavern.
From about half past seven onwards, the traffic into the tavern picked up significantly. The stores had closed for the day, the proprietors had gone home to freshen up and have dinner, and one after the other they all started filing into the tavern as the time crept further and further towards eight o'clock. Both Sasha and Buddleia waved cheerfully when the Katanga lion Ag agent Daniel saw his near-black, melanistic Ethiopian lioness lady friend Lisa Carly into the tavern, followed shortly after by both ladies Stebbins, the timber wolf mechanic Jack and the tabby and white shorthair cat mechanic Tim from the Ag Co-op.
Eventually, Sasha pulled out her phone to check the time, and grinned again as she reached into her other pocket to also pull out the refurbished harmonica which she handed to Buddleia.
"Go on and draw their attention, babe."
"Oh! Is grandmother harmonica! It look like new!" Buddleia smiled broadly enough to expose her upper and lower canines. "Thank you much, Sasha! Yes, I do, yee hee!"
The fluffy purple and white vixen-taur opened her muzzle wide and drew in an audibly deep breath, which she then blasted back out through the harmonica. Sasha laughed and stuck her fingers in her ears at the very loud and very shrill, long-drawn tone Buddleia blew from the instrument. That certainly drew the attention! All the people in the very filled tavern looked up with a jolt, but then smiled as Sasha climbed onto her chair to look at everybody.
"Well, sorry about that, but that was the best and quickest way to get all y'all's attention, and it was just too funny not to do it!" she grinned. "So! Look at that, what an amazingly wonderful sight, you're all here! Beautiful! And boy oh boy must y'all have been wondering what the hell kind of big announcement I was gonna make this time!"
"We have, so don't keep us in suspense, Sasha!" Ralph chuckled, holding an arm around his wife's shoulders.
"Yeah! Speeeeech!" the wolf mechanic Jack bellowed cheerily.
"Yeah! Speech! Speech! Speech!" the Basenji dog greengrocer Arthur started chanting with a grin, followed by more and more voices doing the same until the tavern was filled with a roaring chant of "speech speech speech speech speech!"
Sasha shook her head with a grin and looked down at Buddleia, winking and giving a nod of her head. The vulpine taur yipped a chortle and drew in another very deep breath to blast another loud and shrill note from her harmonica, quieting the crowd back down.
"Good god y'all are nuts!" Sasha laughed. "You know that if y'all keep shouting like that, I can't even say anything so you won't be getting a speech, do you? Yeesh, haha!"
"We'll listen quietly this time, Sasha," Daniel promised with a grin.
"Good!" Sasha grinned. "So, as I was about to say; over a year and a half ago now, I fell into this valley with my car rolling down the side of the Dino Mountain. You all know the story of what happened next, as I told the whole story at our wedding. I was so grateful, so happy over the way all of you welcomed me into this community, and so blown away by how amazingly helpful and generous y'all are. All those crazy gifts you overwhelmed us with for our wedding was just nuts! Y'all propelled the progress we could make on that sad little run-down farm forwards by a year at least! And you just kept on helping! Dan, finding us amazing deals we could afford with our low budget. Simon, Harry, suggesting, even teaching me, to make silage from our grass so we would earn lots more money. You nutso bunbuns over there, teaching me to make cheese from the milk of our goat, so we could make more money. And even simply all of you, buying the few products we managed to make so enthusiastically!"
"But you make quality products, Sasha!" Daniel chuckled. "Your cheese and your jam is amazing!"
"Thank you, Dan," Sasha smiled. "But yes, even so, this whole community has just blown me away with just how fantastic y'all are. And y'all believed in us! I spoke of goals I aimed to reach, and every reaction I got was; you can totally do it! And if you ever need any kind of help, we're here!" Her gray eyes roved over the crowd, her lips curled into a wider smile when she found, and looked at, Mrs. Stebbins. "Doris, you commented on a very ambitious goal I mentioned one day when visiting your store. Do you remember? I spoke about the great money we were making with the silage, and the success of our goat cheese, and I said; I wanna make Butterfly Farm a million dollar farm! You called it ambitious, but you were also convinced we could do it."
"Oh my!" the black and white Border Collie woman said, clapping both her paws over her muzzle. "Oh Sasha, did you?"
Sasha looked over the crowd with a broad smile.
"The past couple of weeks, I've been doing tons of calculating. We have a batch of silage still fermenting, it will be ready at the start of next month, and that would most definitely push us over the edge. But I kept checking our finances, I kept puzzling, and I found we could make it there quicker. So we kept our spending to a minimum, while doing a bunch of extra work. We cut down a bunch of trees, which I told Leia was to straighten out the edge of our largest field, but I also wanted the income from the wood. The weather has been so good, and our grass has been so lush because of it, we could do an extra cut and make a batch of hay which we could sell immediately for extra income. We went foraging for berries to make a whole lot of extra jam, and nabbed a deer to make a bunch of extra sausages, which we sold at the Co-op and the butchery here in town for additional income. I've been calculating it all thoroughly, because we were so close. And according to my calculations, with the hay and the sausages, we would make it." She took out her phone and held it up in the air. "And it turns out, my calculations were correct! With all the small bits of income we collected in town here today, we crossed the line from six figures into seven figures! As of today, Butterfly Farm is a million dollar farm!"
Another roar filled the tavern; a roar of cheers, applause, hoots and hollers and congratulations. Still standing on the chair, Sasha looked over the noisy crowd of people with a broad, happy smile and waited calmly for the noise to die back down. It took several minutes, but a hush descended when she raised both her arms.
"Thank you all, you wonderful, amazing people! We could not have done it without you! Seriously! We put in the work, and goodness knows we worked hard, but it's been your support, your help, and your generosity that has been the biggest help in us getting to that milestone! So thank you, thank you all SO very much! And as a token of our appreciation..." She turned a bit to smile at the feline bartender Ralph. "Ralph, if you’d please, a round of drinks for everyone, on me!"
Again a roar rose up, but a somewhat quieter one than the previous one. Sasha hopped off the chair, and both Ralph and his wife Winnie bustled back and forth behind the bar to pour a large number of drinks and hand them out to everyone. Millie pushed her way through the crowd and just hugged Sasha close, nuzzling her head against the human woman's chest silently. Buddleia gently rubbed the Labrador girl's back with a paw, a bit stunned but smiling so broadly all her teeth were on display as well as a fair portion of her dark pink tongue. When everyone eventually had a drink in hand, Sasha leaned against the bar and turned to the crowd again, looking at all of them with a wide smile and raising her glass.
"To the best community in this country!"
All glasses raised, and a shout of agreement went through the tavern. That had been some speech! And what an accomplishment!
