The ambitious goal had been reached. With all the small steps, all the small bits of income from various sources, the balance on the company account had ticked over from six figures into seven figures. Butterfly Farm was officially a million dollar farm.
It didn't mean a whole lot of celebration for the fluffy purple and white vixen-taur Buddleia and her tall, freckled human wife Sasha. It didn't mean a party. It didn't mean they'd slow down their operations or the amount of work they did. On the contrary.
Becoming a million dollar farm had been a whole lot of hard and diligent work, aided by the generosity of the Rolling Hills citizens. In comparison, that had been the easy part. Staying a million dollar farm was going to be a lot harder. But with the goal reached, with their routines set and with the knowledge of how much work they could comfortably do in a day, Sasha had set further goals - which indirectly were also partially inspired by the improvements and progress happening in and around the little village of Rolling Hills which was gradually growing into the town of Rolling Hills.
Time had ticked over into September. That meant certain routines. The August batch of silage bales could be brought to the BGA and be sold for a further income of nearly $60,000. With that payment processed, a stop by the Ag Co-op was made. The light tan Katanga lion Ag agent Daniel greeted them animatedly as they stepped into the large building.
"Sasha, Buddleia, good..." He actually glanced the clock on the wall behind him for a moment. "...afternoon, just! May I say congratulations again on that amazing goal you reached! That was such wonderful news to hear; do you know that reaching that goal makes you only the fifth million dollar plus enterprise in the vicinity?"
"Heya Dan," Sasha waved with a chortle. "Sure, you may say that, we appreciate it very much. And may I ask who the other four are?"
Daniel chuckled.
"Of course, and you may already have guessed. This here Co-op and the BGA, and the Wildflour flour mill and the Slickers oil mill are the four other million dollar enterprises around here. Waving Grain Farm is close, but they keep hovering just and about the nine hundred grand mark annually, so you actually surpassed them."
"They have more cost, yes!" Buddleia nodded with a smile that displayed her upper canine teeth. "They have family to feed, and whole flock of sheep and all, yes! All things we not have so we not have to pay for!"
"And we're currently here to possibly dip back below the million dollar mark, too," Sasha said with a light grin. "It'll depend a bit, actually; we may end up lucky."
"Oh my," Daniel chuckled. "That sounds like you have another grandiose plan, Sasha. How can I help you with it?"
"By pulling out that big paper that shows that grid of rectangles you showed me before, and by telling me how large those rectangles actually are," Sasha chortled.
"Right!" With a nod, Daniel rifled through a filing cabinet and pulled out a rolled-up paper which he unrolled on the counter, running a finger along some of the lines forming a grid of rectangles. "This is the one you meant, right? The Province council grid of the land in this valley. As you can see, the grid is made up from rectangles that are a thousand meters by eight hundred fifty meters in size."
For just a moment, Sasha quirked an eyebrow.
"Why eight hundred fifty? Why not seven hundred fifty? Seems to me that would make for an easier number to calculate with."
Daniel shrugged with a light chuckle.
"Beats me, Sasha, I didn't make those sizes. I guess eight hundred fifty meter wide rectangles gave them a better division along that whole span from the mountains to the Arfajia Woods."
"I suppose that makes sense," Sasha nodded with a light shrug of her own. "So one of those rectangles, how many acres is that?"
Daniel turned to the computer to open a calculator app and enter the numbers.
"Two hundred ten point zero three nine three acres. So let's say two-ten."
"Right," Sasha nodded, tapping one of the rectangles on the paper with a finger. "So that rectangle directly adjacent the one our farm sits in, yeah? After we re-routed those weird dirt roads there and we bought the tract of land enclosed by the new roads, we now own twenty-four acres of that rectangle, meaning there'd still be a hundred eighty-six acres available, right?"
"That is indeed correct, Sasha," Daniel nodded.
"And it's one of the rectangles you were allowed to sell us for the nineteen eighteen land prices, right?" Sasha said with a light grin. "How much was that again?"
"That is also correct, Sasha," Daniel nodded again, a light grin also forming around his lips. "And that price came to three hundred and sixty-two dollars per acre."
"So that would be..." Lowering her head slightly and holding a hand over her nose and mouth while closing her eyes, Sasha did some quick math in her head. "Damn, a hair over sixty-seven thousand, three hundred thirty." She lifted her head again and grinned wider. "So we're not ending up lucky, we will in fact dip back down below the million dollar mark even with the sale of this month's silage."
"Do I understand correctly that your current aim here is to purchase the rest of that rectangle of land, Sasha?" Daniel chuckled.
"That is indeed correct, Dan," Sasha grinned with a laugh.
"Haha! That's amazing!" Daniel chuckled. He concentrated on the computer for several moments, doing a good amount of typing and clicking, then turning to a printer which buzzed out a few papers and laying those on the counter. "Well then, here you go! A new deed, a new purchase contract, so if you'll process a payment of sixty-seven thousand, three hundred and thirty-two dollars, Butterfly Farm will officially own its entire neighboring rectangle of land."
"Thank you, Dan, although I'm not processing yet because I'm not done yet," Sasha chortled. "Do you have winter canola seed available at the moment? And if yes, how much is it?"
"Plenty!" Daniel nodded. "Eleven hundred per pallet, one pallet holds fifteen bags of twenty-five kilos of seed. How much do you need?"
Again Sasha lowered her head for a moment to do some math in her head with her hand over her mouth and nose.
"Hmmm... we'll take five pallets."
"Damn! Are you gonna plant that whole rectangle with canola?" Daniel laughed, doing some typing and clicking on the computer again.
"Haha! Not quite, but close," Sasha chortled. "I mean, obviously, we're first going to cut all the grass in there and make a whole bunch more silage to bring ourselves back above the million dollar mark. And we're even gonna do that twice, because by the end of the month we can harvest our sunflowers, and then we're gonna put canola in our fields one and two as well. But that's near the end of the month, so if we leave it just long enough, we can first get a second cut of grass from all that other land as well, and only then plow up some more fields for canola in that new land."
"That's still awesome!" Daniel smiled, printing out another paper. "Alright, I have added that to the payment you'll need to process, Sasha. Was there anything else you needed or wanted?"
"Actually, there is," Sasha nodded with a smile. "Let me see that paper with the grid again?" She studied the paper as Daniel lay it out on the counter and ran a finger over a blobby shape filled with hatchmarking in the rectangle right next to the one Butterfly Farm sat in. "Right, good, I was hoping for that. There's a hill there that's covered in forest, and that whole forest is just within the borders." She looked up. "I want to name that forest, and I want the name to be the official designation for that forest in the province documentation as well, would that be possible?"
A light grin twitched back and forth at the corners of Daniel's lips.
"I'm pretty sure I can convince Lisa to put that through and make it happen. Is it very important?"
"It is for me," Sasha nodded with a smile. "See, it's a decently-sized forest; large enough to not clear-cut it but leave it right where it is and keep it as sort of a protected forest. And I want to name it Silvercreek Clan Forest, in honour of Leia's forebears who were the first folk to set up a farm in this endless empty stretch of a valley four hundred years ago, right near that forest."
Buddleia let go a loud yip, clapping her paws onto her cheeks and the sides of her slender muzzle.
"Awww, Sashaaaaa! Nyeeeee! You so sweeeeeeeet! You make me cry! Nyeeeee!"
Daniel nodded with a broad smile.
"That is indeed a fantastically sweet and beautiful and lovely sentiment, Sasha. I shall definitely convince Lisa to put that through and make it happen, you can count on that."
"Thank you, Dan, I really appreciate that," Sasha smiled, pulling her company bank card from her wallet and turning her smile into a mild amused grin again. "Well, let's get this payment processed now. We've been a million dollar farm for exactly five days, haha. But we'll be right back up to, and even well over that mark by next month again, so it's all good I guess, haha!"
Daniel laughed again and set up the payment for Sasha so she could beep her bank card and key in her PIN code to process the payment. After that he went outside through one of the doors in the rear of the building to pick up the requested pallets of canola seed and forklift them over to the front of the building and load them onto the back of the lavender 1953 MAZ-200 truck, while Sasha folded the printed-out papers and stuck them in a pocket of her shorts, then took Buddleia into a big, close hug and loving kiss.
With the pallets of seed loaded and strapped down, they both got into the truck and took the shortcut towards Rolling Hills to pick up any mail, their revenue and their groceries for the week. But they didn't hang around in the small but growing village for too long this time. All the grassland added to their acreage meant they had a lot of mowing and baling work to do, after all.
